I never appreciate the sun when it’s here.
I am so focused on getting what I want,
things slip out my pockets
without my noticing.

anyways
that’s an old mailing address now
like the gash becomes a scar.
something happened here.
a plate dropped on the floor
and everyone clapping
for the trail of glass.
what happened here?
tell the story
without saying anything.

I am jealous of how
men get to be contradictions.
not me, no prodigal son here.
I don’t know what I am
but paper cuts and cuticle skin
peeled back by nervous fingers.
there’s something out there
that I’m supposed to be
but I feel I’m drifter further and further.

mom,
where’s the medicine?
mom,
why does dad do that?
mom,
how many questions can I ask you in a day?
mom,
how do you get to sleep?
mom,
do you remember how I used to be?
or how you used to be?
starting as girls
is like starting with a fire in you,
a fire everyone has different ideas about.
mom,
if we had been children at the same time, do you think we would have been friends?
mom,

I get sick,
like actually sick
and I wish I knew how to say sorry to my body.
I don’t, I never have.
I’ve always been awful to it.
selfish, naive, and abusive.
unappreciative at best.
if I’m lucky I’ll get old someday
and regret that even more than I regret it now.

maybe you liked me cause I’m easy,
cause I don’t care about myself all that much
and have a hard time saying no.
I liked you because you had no problem
taking me by the throat. I liked how after
we were done rutting against each other
I was tired like I had been fighting.
I like fighting. I liked playing at it with you.
I like how hard you’d breathe trying desperately
to get one up on me. I liked when I could make
your desperation come out to play. it made me
feel like a magician
or a surgeon.
or a therapist.
someone you can’t hide from.

as for the rest
I can’t tell if I’ve really forgotten
or if I’m hit trying not to remember.
there is bad in me, I know
but I want to make it small
and ineffective
at every opportunity.