whatyouareafraidtotake

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

I have a broken heart, like lead plugging an entryway. Your fingers slip into the fabric of it’s erratic beating. 

I remember the first time my body felt birds fly into windows. My chest was sweating, it was summer, my eyes were still heavy with sleep. Molasses as I tried to lift myself from the bed. Heavy tides of sheets around my shaking limbs. And the birds laid down below the glass like fallen dancers. They melted in the snow and by spring their bones ground to dirt. 

The rotten smell it festered away. 

Hot ears on my chest so he could hear what I felt, those angry flutters pounding the pane. He laughed and told me there was no reason to be nervous, he was not the top of a roller coaster. I did not know how to tell him. I have a broken heart but it was not his. 

Years later I was dreaming I was a statue in a garden. And vines began to take over me. I became the soul of a botanical machine. This parasitic algae fed on my blood and the worms drank at it’s roots. And then the birds with their shrieking flew out from the sun. My eyes opened slowly as I felt the glass shatter. 

And then I heard the rain it burned like acid The dark lark bounded Beating its wing to ash. Blue doctors poured over the diagnosis that would stop this bloody molting. Anemia queen, anxiety that caused breathlessness, or overheating. The cold metal stethoscope was a slow creature.

My mother laid down on a table washed by fluorescent ceilings. I imagined all of the ways I had separated myself from her. I never smoked a cigarette and refused to get tan. I read a mountain of books and never practiced sewing. I never gambled and avoided bad men. I quickly scratched away at the genes like Scarlett fever. Those spiny feet how they scarred.

“Has your heart ever rattled oak trees?”

As I looked into the mirror I saw the same hair and eyes and mouth and nose. Fixed on a body cold laid still so young. This evil reflection was a pessimistic oracle. My future laid out blue and ragged. The crows devoured her body and flew out from the flames.

I know. I have a broken heart and it was hers.

My secret origins sang as I came home again. A cacophony of wings beating against cold glass. The sudden rush of death shattered soft bones that beat against pavement. This matriarchy bares a Scarlett letter carved into the chest.

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

I’ve got a bad brain again. I wish I were not so sick.

Slushy lips my speech it skips a beat and 

I just want to feel better. I would do anything for someone just to 

hold me. 

You see an open door but I see a cellar so 

empty cold and lonely. Where are my friends now? 

They are right by me watching

my ego parade what a tirant. 

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

You want the sick 

you want the broken 

the broken parts of mine that are willing

endlessly yours and forgiving 

And I want a man 

or woman who reads

about the weight the world has placed on me. 

I want a body with a shovel 

and wrists made out of iron

who can lift my heavy body from 

the grave he put me in

those years were rotten

apples heaved on top 

of hay the horses made beds 

while they wasted away 

in her brain of forgot. 

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

I’ll wait here in the long hallways

of your fingertips,

as they run across my ribcage.

Oh the hours, my flower, they reach out to days.

Can you wait, can you wait, can you wait?

Sweet convulsions, my darling,

there are explosions in my brain.

My body pressed on you

is eager perfumed clay.

You can make, you can make, you can make. 

I came shivering in your arms

wrapped tight around my waist.

Your mouth, hot breath

on my shoulder blade.

You can take, you can take, you can take. 

Visions of ceilings erupting,

above your skin there is a vacant lampshade.

And the dark it hides us perfectly,

in this happy shallow grave.

Here we lay, here we lay, here we lay.

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

Coming Up

Stupid serendipities I feel all shallow, greedy for that familiar dosing. My heart rings so loud. I wall it up, four solid structures that contain the shouting desperate echoes of climax. The mystery I am forced to maintain, while stylish, are my chrome prison. Who’s bricks are lain stacked the hours I’ve sweated with uncertainty. But that feeling. The one I beat myself to dull. It’s you.

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

People keep dying

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

I’m the tower you climbed to get to 

the sweet meat

succulent bone

of some hallow 

bride you thought would 

save you. 

Refusing to look at 

the blood on your hands

so you can wash them 

you pluck away years 

from precious solemn. 

Your lies are bricks you pick up 

to throw into a river 

that you refuse to care for 

you watch as it withers in your drought. 

And I'm just left with tears and echoes 

of your voice unmentioned 

while walking through a crowd 

it slithers right through the fucking 

and thriving 

I’m brought down

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

The Pear Tree

Four limbs but amputated

at the waist. 

I waited 13 years

I held on

hoping. 

Flesh games, I was warned

by you

would ruin our makers. 

And you made me. 

I wonder how I felt

 so ripened 

on the pear tree you cut down. 

It was hallowed on the inside

 rot but

I stood time waiting in the clouds. 

Calloused fingers they 

dug rituals in my skin 

the words written by 

your aching lips.

Gasps and

harmonious sighs. 

How small you had gotten 

in time

the maggots

dissolve you. 

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

The only story I have ever written in french

She looked around her bedroom. It was still dark but using the map in her head she saw her dresser, rug, and prints hung in the hallway. Her coffee drip was loud as ever and the light above her vanity mirror cast shadows down her cheekbones. She lived for that stark, cold image pressed against the glass, always watching her as if she knew a way out.

Standing there she wondered how to reconcile with the past. Her friends told her that they saw the same pattern over and over again, and she couldn’t disagree:

A light on the nightstand and an empty bed both burned into oblivion. She hated it so much she made it a point to never be in it. But today she woke up to those white walls and it was so stark that it frightened her. She was never there long enough to make it her space so boxes sat in the hallway unpacked. She could do without the effort.

She wondered if everybody’s memories smelt like cardboard.

For some reason she was thinking about that day at the coffee shop. She went hoping someone would ask her if everything was okay. She knew it was bad but it’s just what she needed. Sitting in that cafe, looking through a glass of wine she whispered “notice me, notice me, notice me” as a tear slid softly down her face. She didn’t understand how she got this this point, she knew it was pathetic and felt it drip right off of her into a puddle forming on the floor. She had to find comfort in strangers and secret 10 minute conversations because he didn’t like when she talked to her friends.

“This isn’t the first time this has happened, don’t you worry about stuff like this?”

She knew that her friends meant well but it was obvious she tried everything in her power to address the situation.

“How can you love someone that you don’t trust”

There was never a how, it just happened. Besides, it never starts out that way. And then you feel it like a force of a wave and every unanswered phone call knocks you off your toes.

When people tried to relate to her it was always about a end and not a beginning. It made her feel like she was moving backwards in time. No one ever had the right words so it made her feel more alone.

Her alarm rang for the tenth time and it was annoying enough to make her rise from the bed. It would take five steps to make it out of the door and feel useful for 8 hours. 

All of her routines were rituals and if any of them fell out of place she was doomed for weeks, for months, for years until she could put herself together again. It was boring going through the same tasks day and day again.

Still, this life she led that was full of routines was better than watching someone’s love for her slowly die like a candle. The more she cared about another human, the less they did. Her old routines were toxic.

Always early and then leaving late, the office lights buzz with their florescent shadows. She ends every day in a stall just sitting. She counts the minutes she can stay there until he notices. This is meditation. She starts to count the ceiling tile when. 

DING 

She fumbles her purse around and goes down the elevator. It get dark so early now. 

Brad is waiting for her. When she walks up she is always intimidated by the way he stares. He’s two hours late. She gets in the car and he kisses her, says there was traffic and asks how her day was. He tells her about the pizza shop and some new video game he’s playing. 

It’s all drown out by her own thoughts. Every day he looks more like a stranger. “I’m catching on” she thinks to herself as she nods along to his sentences.

Now she’s spent 258 days agonizing over last fall. It was one week before the biggest day in her life when his phone lit up. He laughed in a really obvious way and declared an unknown number was calling him. “Hm that’s weird.” 

Her heart was beating so hard she could barely get it out.

“Well answer it then” 

It was a split second between him answering the call and being in the other room. She already knew what was happening. She had known since the start. But he had made her feel crazy between finding someone else’s clothes and notes left on the counter. He was just bold enough to convince her she was paranoid and stupid. 

In that moment her reality was split open, his mask on fire in the best performance of his life. 

She was his captive prize. What a fool to fall in love again. 

7 days later she’s looking at three thousand people, cameras flashing and all she can think about are two bodies that are not her in a dark room. Everyone wanted to be her, but she longed for escape. You could see a sadness in her eyes when the press coverage was released. Her proudest moment held her hardest memories. It’s the price she payed for being so stupid.

Her apartment held everything that was close to her. She had so many trinkets she arranged them in a curio box. There were small figurines and notes, a few polaroids. It had been 15 months since she left Brad without speaking a word, packing her things into a Uhaul while he was at work. She changed her number and removed him from her life completely. The first week was hard, and then it got better. She forgot what it felt like to be completely alone, and without worry of someone else’s actions. And then a few months later she went on a date. In a month she was out every night and then in October when the moon was fat like a tangerine she couldn’t even remember any of his favorite things. She smiled and when her date asked what she was so happy about, she told him she finally felt free.

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

A Day in the Life Of Another Person Eternal

The day in the life of another person eternal - this is what living is like for me now. Every day the face of my 25 year old self ages rapidly, good riddance. I am still shook awake at night from the memories: an empty bed mourning, love letters signed “interested, not ready”, and the strangers who ravaged my body leaving me with only a glimmer of what they felt. I was convinced happiness was a privilege not earned but born into. I was everybody’s baby, a sweet coo-ing pet name breathed into my ear. 

Every day I wake up in the arms of my lover unconvinced of reality. I scroll through my social feeds - three months of smiling - and then pinch myself just to be sure. The ability to care about someone the way I do about Tony is phenomenal. And this feeling of closeness is something i’ve rarely experienced and absolutely never this much. I feel like i’m watching a movie meant to tempt me with desires except I feel absolutely everything. Before I was standing still and now i’m moving through life like a cloud, unburdened by loneliness or abandon. 

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

The Door Was Heavy

I watched the hard lines of his forehead wrinkle. I imaged the skin rolled back like a tongue batting it’s lashes amorously in my direction. Such a funny alien my mind was all wrapped up in his arms. My limbs become so heavy and I pour down like the sap I am. 

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

A rock blanketed in snow. I know this metaphor is elementary but this will be how I describe the thirty thousand breaths we pass between the two of us any given night. It was not always this easy. I was incredibly aware of the way she would roll over and make me hold her. I could smell our sweat and even feel dew drops form between our thighs, all while my heart beats too fast for my breath to catch up with. It was just last night when I could feel her body turn into something sustainable: a warm jungle gym of limps, so happy and exhausted. Now I will watch on as my own bed collects dust between the moments her weight does not envelope my sheets, our sheets. Dog breath, whispering “goodnight” and always “thank you.” Morning light does not disturb this womb of comfort, the silence is stopped only with her fingertips pressed against my collarbone, palms firmly resting on my back, accompanied by happy groans that escape my lips. I am relieved to have felt fully safe.

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

2012

Dimly lit sitting,

booming starts in front of me,

a musician screams into a microphone.

I am pacing in my seat,

sipping sweet courage and trying to believe things about myself

I will never think are true.

They call me broken:

like the chair that sways beneath me,

nearly missing one leg

and creaking

like the floorboard in lays on.

But still,

I am she-woman,

wolf in the woods,

resurrected once again,

bleeding from the ashes of my now empty grave.

I’m glorified in lace

and bright pink shadowing,

big lips & eyes,

tall shoes,

I wonder if this is what it takes....

to want another person.

Sin appears in black,

long eyes reflect the stage lights,

it feels like the beginning of a long goodbye.

Still, I drink your sweat from my skin,

we've held hands three times since we have met.

And in the sweat I taste a fear that is so sweet,

It is a fear we both share.

                 I wonder where the roots crest.

I wonder how you lay at night.

And the scars you have, I want to touch them,

I want to twist my fingers through out the wounds

just to console your cries.

This vicious nervous cycle,I need it,

none the less,

I need a love that piles of bodies can not satisfy.

Do you need that too?

Do you feel the a longing that is often hopeful

but never lasting?

I know the capabilities of these hands:

both the destruction and the apogees.

I can project the blood and murder or the tears and sweat,

which stem from my own fingertips.

The bed sits tousled,

it drinks the light

being filtered through by the blinds.

The whole room is out of words.

I lay inside of those hungry lips.

I feel a glow but only see darkness.

I am so cold,

sitting stiff and unmoved.

It appears out of air,

the fire that begins to spread.

My legs ablaze and face burning

hot

hot

heat,

he bends and breaks me.

This body of wax,

it melts like ice atop the stone that has been laid.

Black blue and beautiful promise:

the wind whips me down the highway,

the burns look like movie shows,

the screams reduced to a soft ku-ing

(all while I am resting on these legs that bend miraculous)

for you.

Ah,

the bold future that has laid its tracks,

which wrap round corners without anticipating the slightest change in route

or utterance of departure,

it is pining for a body that pacifies the chaos it grows atop of.

Words that sting,

then sit sweetly chirping

skin,

those beating breaths.

The hunger will surely dissipate

but the longing will remain unfettered

( but if only to grow and pile and explode!).  

This is the body made you, it will break you too.

This is the mouth that had named you, it can kill you.

It was you, it was always you,

your golden hair,

glinting, tilting slightly to the heavens.

the sunlight reaps you.

Your lips taste like

sweet,

dripping

mandarins,

heaped upon a pile of sweating leaves.

and the hay stacks high that binds your body,

in the hot heat of a summer wrath,

and I watch merciless,

As the livestock rips you apart.

I can see the liquid,

black lead,

traveling through your veins.

It breeds to form

a shell,

it spills over and covers me tight.

The rot licks

the marrow from beneath your beautiful skin.

How hollow are your bones now?

I thumb through the memories

like volumes and canyons

of red scribbled ink

they wet the pillow that I sleep on

and starve the body that I move in.

I wonder the steps it will take to

engineer a vehicle that can:

travel to the past

or make you love me more.

I remember the love I felt

while tangled in the light

falling from under trees.

I walked along riddled with some excitement

that followed me down riverbeds

and untrimmed hills.

I also remember the hotel rooms we stayed in

and how you dripped my body

into piles of sheets.

Torture is loving a person who has a unquenched thirst,

yours is one I cannot measure up to,

it is a monster with sharp white teeth,

two straight lines for legs,

and doors that I am forced to exit through.

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

I'm so tricky now. I fold over and around and under just so I'm invisible enough to make my way around you. I hide in the compliments given to me by friends and hobbies that make me feel like I am enough. I keep countless lovers so that you may look on in dismay, at the happiness only 7 consecutive orgasms can bring me. I hope you are watching while he plays with my hair and tells me he has never looked at someone so perfect before. There are over five thousand selfies on my phone just to reassure me that I am out of your grasp and onto the next big thing. You terrify me and I can't say that about anything else. You are the village that caught on fire inside my head, sending all of my accomplishments running and scattered into a void. You are dense fog blocking my vision to see nothing but a fuzzy outline of what could be but isn't. You are crippling and chronic pain stemming from areas of my body that haven't been touched for weeks. You are a monster. I am your creator. I feed you with pre-selected memories from times in my life that other people designated me unworthy. Your tribute are the sheets and blankets that lay heavy over my entire body, until the sun comes up over and over again. Your blood is simply my tears and the makeup that has stained countless pillows and t-shirts. Your voice is "I'm doing great" played from a record that goes silent at the end. Your eyes are the hollow, sharpening bones that I armor. When did I last eat. I don't remember, why does it matter. When you find me I shiver. I feel it right away now like the top of a roller coaster. My stomach drops and suddenly I'm exhausted and restless at the same time. I know all of the motions, this dance is so tired. I only live for the good days.

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

The slowest twine, It wraps rounds the looms, So that wind and dust escapes and Travels It’s interior. It never quivers but only Justly moves when pressured. The slowest twine never skips The opportunity to bite down on Fabric,soft lilies The anticipation makes the biting divine.

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

It’s only natural

It’s important to understand how sturdy I am. You can sit on me, even curl up And my knees will not buckle, No, not for you Not for anybody. It’s important to understand I’m Like a book, so heavy Full of words and line breaks And you are just an acronym That I let sleep in my bed. And even if you try to smoke me out, My borrow only blooms, Tacky bits of fiber, That reach out and around a fat earth.

[whatyouareafraidtotake]

Untitled

A string delicately plucked is hunger-panged and ransom.

My sweet shadow you draw back beautifully and I feel you fully luck.

A gross cacophony of lights dim sporadically and ever-highlights leave placement on your face.