SNARE
I leave knots in my hair
as a snare
for the men who run
their fingers through it
expecting me to be
silken and behaved.
One good girl
and their hand
is mine
like a Venus flytrap
that’s captured Mars.
WRITTEN
You would’ve liked me better
five years ago. I didn’t like
myself much. I was an
outline, colored in by boys
who couldn’t keep between
the lines—a piece of paper
with a rough sketch, drawn
by an unsteady hand that
knew nothing about art,
even less of the power I had
inside me to be an artist. I
only knew survival. I only
knew how to fold up small.
And so I folded. I became a
paper plane, when I
should’ve been a swan, one
that would fly right out of
here, only to return at
moonlight crumpled into a
ball, small enough to sleep
inside a man’s palm, if one
was open for me—his legs
crossed over mine like
scissors; rocks in my head.
Always choosing men who
wanted to make something
out of me. Because there was
no writing on my wall yet,
only loud graffiti painted
by territorial men wanting
to claim me.
You would’ve liked me better
five years ago. You would’ve
been exactly my type. But
now I am written. Clearly. In
bold. I cry in italics. I am
love, underlined. My words
lean in so closely to hear
what I’ve got to say next,
there is not enough space
to slip yours between them.
The years have unfolded me.
I have been told.
INTOLERANCE
Boy,
you can certainly
hold your liquor
but love
that is one intoxicant
you don’t seem to have
the stomach for.
SPOTLIGHT
It doesn’t excite me
to be desired
in a sneaky sideways
glance.
Not when I know
how it feels
to have a man
unable to take
his eyes off of me.
PUDDLES
He tells me
my eyes look
like oceans
and I tell him
they are just puddles
that too many dirty feet
have splashed in.
REBELLIOUS
He says
I’m easy on the eyes
but hard to swallow.
Simple lips
but tough talk
like meat stuck in molars
and maybe
that will keep
the sheep at bay
while the wolves can play
howling at the moon
in honor of her
rebellious cycles—
him, still flirting
with the stars
and all of her
pretty likenesses.
DIGNITY
I can try to convince you of many things
but loving me will not be one of them.
PORTRAIT OF A LADY
You thought I would always be there
hanging
like a portrait
on your wall
wearing
a cracked smile
with eyes
that never leave you
but I was never
the kind of girl
to sit idly on a couch
waiting for a man to be done
despite your insistence
for me to be painted
in that way.
CLOTH
Wife material. I’ve heard this
term since I reached
puberty. Since boys started
taking an interest in me
and my mother noticed.
And I’ve always wondered—
what kind of texture is wife
material? Is it papery like
the ancient texts that
celebrate it? Is it crispy
like the carrots and
Sunday roast? Silky like the
negligees she wears in bed
to seduce her husband?
I’ve always known that I
wasn’t cut from the same
cloth. Mine is made from
the thorn of dandelion.
Crusty and tough like the
misbehaving moon. Coarse
and sinewy like meat that
gets stuck between your
teeth. I am not a soft
landing. I will leave a scar.
But you will have a story to
tell around the campfire.
DIFFICULT
They tell me I’m difficult
as though I am only
making it harder
for myself.
But I’m not.
Being difficult
has always
come easily to me.
MOTHER
A strange thing happens
when a woman tells a man off
for his bad behavior.
He shuts up. He apologizes.
She becomes his mother.
COMPLICATED
You’re only complicated to a man
who simply wants to fuck you.
DREAMCATCHER
They tell me
to live my dreams
as though it is simple
to a woman
who wakes each morning
tangled and half-strangled
in her dreamcatcher.
I’m just trying not to be my worst nightmare.
CHOSEN
I’m not impressed
when a man tells me he wants me
when he asks me out on a date
when he tells me
I’m pretty—
the sun shines on me
every damn day I wake
each moment I hear life
breathing in and out of me
I know that I was chosen.
JACQUELINE IN A BOX
With my passions quelled
I fell into my mold
like a Girl Scout cookie
to be sold to the mothers of sons
with eyes like the devil.
Crumbling to the world
and its demands to behave
like some pretty,
ready-made doll thing
out of a box
winding me up in ways
that told them I was beyond
saving
but no one puts
Jacqueline in a box
without getting a little scared.
SPICE
I take men with a pinch of salt these days;
it is women who have the sugar.
VALIDATED
The moment you were born,
your presence was validated.
You don’t need a second opinion.
ASS–ONISTS
I am not responsible
for putting out the fires
kindled by men who can’t
control their matchsticks.
DEVOUR
I don’t take small bites.
I either devour you
or I push the plate away.
SETTLED
Every time I think
I’ve settled the score,
I r
ecount the tally
and I am always
just a little behind.
I am always
one man away
from being settled.
NINE LIVES
SHADOW
My mother always warned me
about the tall, dark stranger.
She never told me
she was talking about
my shadow.
GHOST
They tell me I am cold
and I beg them,
please be patient.
I am a haunted house
trying so very hard
to be a home.
LANTERNS
I wake up angry,
each day
cut out for me
into shreds,
and I make lanterns—
paper lanterns
to hang
before the moon
pulls me back
into her shadows,
dawn searching for me
like a flashlight,
and I have to begin
all over again.
TERMINAL
He said,
Tell me how I can help.
I said,
Just make me comfortable.
This pain is terminal.
MISTRESS
Sadness was always
the mistress between us.
I’m sorry I could never get her to leave.
BREATHE
That hardness
that coldness
lodged
in the center of me
is a thousand tears
I could not cry
and one day
I will cry every
single one of them
and I will learn
to breathe again.
PERSPECTIVE
Life is short,
they say.
Life is short
like a quick burst of light
and maybe so
for the ones
who have not lived days
as long and dark
as shadows.
NUMB
Nobody ever told me
that feeling nothing
would be the most
exhausting feeling of all.
EVERYTHING
I said,
I’ve been hurt in ways
your mind doesn’t want
to think about,
and your heart—
I’m afraid what I tell you
will blow it out like a candle
and you will find out just what
real darkness feels like.
So stand there in the doorway
with that slow, sleepy smile
and tell me again
that you want to know
everything about me.
PARAPHRASES
I am learning to tell
my tragic tales
like comedies
by changing just
a few short words.
Sometimes survival is that simple.
NURSE ON CALL
I’ve come back from the dead
so many times that I don’t struggle
with the pain.
I put myself to bed.
I gather flowers.
I stroke my own head.
SOFT SPOTS
I am the strongest person I know.
I know all
my soft spots
yet still
don’t have
the power
to break me.
HEXAGONS
When I flash
this sweet-as-honey
smile at you
please know
the work I’ve had to put in
to ordering this mess
of my heart
into hexagons.
RUNNING
We run
into arms
to countries
to vices
telling ourselves
we are searching
for ourselves
when really, we’re just running
running as fast as we can
before our sadness catches up.
DEAF
It was the love
they all spoke about
and I had gone deaf.
WORN
Love knocked on my door to play today
and I gave her an apology.
I didn’t make an excuse.
I didn’t say
I had other plans
or that I simply
couldn’t.
I told her the truth:
I’m tired.
THE YOUNGEST TIRED PEOPLE
We were the youngest
tired people
you could ever meet
secret lives hidden under our fingernails
hurts welded into scars
living through enough pain
to be almost dead
in love with people
who’d barely felt enough
to be alive.
BOULDER
I want you to know—
this heavy thing I am carrying—
not to carry it
just
know it.
TIDY
You wouldn’t believe the things
I’ve forgiven people for
but don’t think I’m kind—
the way I help sweep up their mess.
I just prefer to live in a tidy home.
CANYON
I had mistaken him
for all the things I aspired to
peace
paradise
oneness
but he was simply love
and I had become so empty
that love was no longer enough
to fill me.
NO CASUALTIES
We talk about love
not ruining us anymore
and our mouths are sad
our voices whisper
when we say it.
Love does not ruin me anymore
because indeed
it was rather romantic
to think about—
love being the death of us.
But she is merely an injury
and we will succumb
to illness and age
like the rest of them.
WATER
I don’t seek the fire anymore
but I’ll still
sit by it some nights
under moonlight
with a boy whose eyes
glow amber like a wolf’s.
But it is water now
that calls me
the frothing river mouth
the bitter sea
the quiet bay of my soul
I bathe in.
ORIGIN
Let the heat of your tears remind you
that they’ve come from a warm place.
KINDNESS
Just as a bee dies
after it stings
so does a part of us
each time we choose
hurt over honey.
ENDINGS
Forevers are for princesses
and endings
for goddesses.
They know it’s where
they begin.
APOCALYPSE
Tell me
as the world is ending
that there is someone
worth saving before yourself
and I will tell you,
you’re a fool.
You could’ve saved
the whole damn world
when it was alive
if you had only loved
yourself that much.
EVOLUTION
Anything that doesn’t evolve—
people
love
dreams—
anything
that tries to keep still
while the earth revolves
gets fl
attened
next time
it comes around.
THE KINDEST THING
I wouldn’t say
I am overtly kind
but inwardly
I am doing
the kindest thing
I can do for this world,
and that is heal.
We don’t need any more broken bodies.
CONFESSIONS
I confess
I loved you more
than I let on
but you weren’t
ready for it
and I wasn’t going
to pour myself
into hands
that couldn’t
hold me.
SURRENDER
Let go.
Fruit that clings
to the tree
rots.
You taste sweetest when you fall.
BELIEF
I’ve lost count
of how many times
I’ve looked in the mirror
and told myself
it was all going to be okay.
But I can only count
on one hand
how many times
I have believed it.
ALONE
Sometimes the best thing
that can ever happen to us
is to feel alone in this world
because when you make it
through to the other side
you will love yourself for it
in ways
you only ever gave
to someone else.
THE MIDDLE
I’d only ever left love when it
ended. But with you, I left
in the middle. Still in love
with you. So ever in love
with you. Packing up my
things while my heart clung
to your chest, wailing like
a child.
And I don’t know what kind of
strength the world blessed
me with in that moment. I’m
convinced it would’ve been