I think I killed the mundane,
growing up wishing to be saved.
I think I killed gentle gestures,
through teenage years, craving someone who cared.

I think I killed connection,
living through my twenties, not knowing who to trust.
I think I killed the mundane,
now I’m nearly thirty,
no closer to my fairytale than I was at fifteen

The sin of having a child--

You are the wound
By which they were burned into the world
Burning into themselves
You have to find a way to absolve yourself

There, set yourself above me!
Cut out my tongue and stitch up my lips
Because everything you gave me, oh! I was so ungrateful.
"Just shut up, you insolent brat!"
You don't know what I went through to give that to you!
You don't know what you had,
You are too weak and small to understand!

You're right, you are so inherently good and pure
I should just accept it was what I did with the gift you gave me
I, the recipient of the positive power of choice
Which is not a debate!
I should accept that I have made mistakes!

It was what I did with that gift that was abhorrent
Now, you may have made some mistakes as well...
But I should understand, they were not nearly so severe
As the infractions committed by my selfish heart!

After all, I hold on to the past,
And you, as you say, you just move on.

So i should understand.

You pretend to be above me.
But this universe just trades places.
One day you will get over yourself
And I don't know if that counts as understanding
But I don't care.

And I don't care if you think I'm a leaf arguing with the trunk of its own tree
It makes sense that I would
Self hatred makes sense
Our hemispheres argue until they resolve
And may the pride you have destroy itself
And I know it will and right now that makes me laugh

Because I experience pride but it comes and goes
I don't hold on to things like you.

CENTAUR

Hiding in the hay
me a terrified little boy
& my uncle like a terrified little boy

the voices in his head telling him to be afraid
of all strangers...changes.

He’s been like this
since the day his Dad(my unknown grandfather)
died.

My Aunt’s voice
searching for us...searching us out.

Her shouts like bloodhounds
hunting us down

her words angry & cruel.

Her angry voice slurring us into:
“DonallSeanie! ”

as if we had fused into one being
a metamorphosis of us.

The hay cooks us
and we swelter in our hidey hole

A chicken sits on top
of my uncle’s cap

as if his mind had
materialised into this shape.

He rocks himself
and rocks me.

“Shhhh...boy...shhhh! ”
comforting both him & me.

“Don’t leave me! ”
he clucks

the words scattered around him
like newly laid eggs.

I settle into his silence.

My Aunt’s threats freezing us
in this terrible heat.

His chest hair
tickles my nose.

The cut on my left big toe
throbs through the open sandal.

My uncle cries in fear.

I wipe away the tear
with the ***** edge of my sleeve.

We escape to
the West field

me riding his shoulders

transformed into
a legendary creature

that only exists in myths
fleeing from the realness

...of reality.

I saw you in the rearview of my mom’s Santa Fe,
your shirt half-buttoned, a half-burnt cigarette,
the sun catching the gold in your teeth.
I was fifteen, which meant I was fluent in making it worse,
and you were the kind of boy who could skin a rabbit
but never learned to say sorry without spitting.

I told you a lie once-
said I didn’t care if we kissed in the parking lot,
in front of God, or the devil, or the Home Depot sign.
That was the first time you looked at me like
I was glass and you were bored.

I was sixteen, which meant I was fluent in leaving,
and you were the kind of boy who could gut a fish
but couldn’t spell the word bruise if it was on your own skin.

You played me songs you didn’t finish writing,
the kind where the girl always runs,
and the boy always watches her taillights
until the guitar string snaps.
You told me I’d ruin your life if I stayed,
so I stayed.
That was the first time you looked at me like
I was glass you could see through
but wouldn’t bother breaking.

The night you didn’t say goodbye,
I wore the amber oil so heavy it felt like drowning,
stood in the mirror until I blurred into a girl
you might have wanted
if you weren’t so scared of the wanting.

I was seventeen, which meant I was fluent in staying.
I’m the girl who learned that wanting
is just another way of setting yourself on fire
and hoping someone else smells the smoke.

I bought stamps for a letter I’d never mail you,
I saved your voicemails on a phone
I kept at the bottom of my drawer,
next to the earrings I stole from my neighbor’s sister,
the ones that looked like a promise you never made.

You’ll tell your friends it wasn’t that serious.
I’ll tell mine you never learned the chords.
But we’ll both think about it:
when the air smells like wet asphalt,
and the radio plays that one song
we never sang together.

We both know the words.
We just never sang them at the same time.

A coffee swells in waxy skin
The city squints through windowed glare
She’s creased inside a wrinkled dress
Her shape hangs limp in laundered air

A payphone rang, one ghost, one ring.
No one moved. We all just knew.
A siren dragged its echo past,
delivering a distant queue.

Fluorescent hums a migraned god.
My coat spins slow behind the glass,
zipper beats like trapped bird wing.
A sock grins dumb from wire racks.

This street is lined with yellow stain,
lights too bright for folks this small.
I sipped, I burned, I thought her name,
it drifted in suburban sprawl.

She’s someone else’s Sunday now
in fresh-washed light, her hair tucked neat.
Vanilla steam and honeyed bread
laughing soft in kitchen's heat.

The dryer stops. A broken chime.
Just silence, stretching like a neck.
I crack, not loud. Just wide enough
to feel the break beneath my breath.

Here my soles are worn too thin
A half-full cup, a sleepless eye,
no grace, no hand to lift away,
this curb, this ache, this grayer sky.