Issue #20 (2011) PDF - myweb - Long Island University

where everything wakes and dies
sun opens mouth on split legs,
slowly illuminating paintings of blood
across inner thighs. this is where
everything wakes and dies.
my head is hung back
over the edge of the tub,
heavy with thoughts of how beautiful
her palms were
against the ugliness of mine.
my hands, my ugly ugly hands,
now caught red in murder
of my own womb.
molding over my egg, something grows
more relentlessly than cancer.
i am not big enough to hold it in,
but it stays. it clings to membranes,
like a babe's skull in mother's hip bone.
my birth canal faces the mouth
of a broken faucet which leaks a dirty color
gathering in a small flood to where
my blood travels, ever so precariously,
as this monster in my body erupts,
pushing life out.
silently, i watch the reflection of a fused ceiling fixture
where my present unfolds in slow motion;
remains of me lingering towards the open wound
of an inanimate object, ready to absolve their existence
because they cannot stand the decay
that is me.
incapable god
here lies the silhouette of a stranger
crawled up on a park bench across from me.
his breath is searching within,
deep within that shriveled body
to fill something he cannot reach.
i am god,
unable to touch his forehead to tell him
it's going to be okay.
it is not going to be okay.
the sky is a black hole.
the ground is a war zone.
there isn't a place to escape.
frigid. he, i, and this night
are frigid.
he will wake before the sun rises
and prepare to waste another day
pretending to be whole.
and i will return another night
as an incapable god.
afraid to be woman
at the age of five she stands
like a man
bare chested and strong
in the river flowing
between undeveloped breasts
over the body of mother
sand runs through those tiny fingers
curved toward god- mercy-hungry for life
as pupils look into void
of what was once mother's eyes
it runs like blood
from a sparrow's skull
like man
her chest must grow
not with breasts to feed
or above womb for home
but with muscles
like stone
so that she will cease to be
mother's daughter
she will shave head
burn dress
and never return to
woman's demise
preferences of a wallflower
i prefer to be depressed.
and alone.
to live with the blinds turned down on my face.
i like the conversations of the radiator
with the lights dim.
the crackling of a news reporter's loneliness
on the radio.
the gloom that rain brings.
the gray of heavy clouds.
the fragility of my wrists.
the splitting soles of my sneakers.
the frizz limping on my head.
i like to think i'm almost dead.
and float above everyone,
watching a bud open,
the breath before a first kiss,
the tears of a proud mother,
the holiness of an intact home.
all the things i don't have.
i like to take it in
and die willfully.
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