“I’m leaving,” she says.
Trips over her own welcome mat,
Flattens on the ground like a stain
Like a plate –
Rims chipped
Every piece getting bigger for every
Word that cuts her off.
As a child she proposed to the air conditioner,
Was enamored by the way it swallowed her words,
Spewed them back around her head,
Like she was a fish,
Made love with the sand
Stared at the stars after hours
On her back over this body composed of tears,
Afloat.
“I am a 94.5 million mile paper doll chain,”
she says,
Paints her eyes white,
Extends her fingers to the sun
Dries up like the petals she found next to
the doorstep was the edge of the cliff
She is too depressed to light a candle
Her brain lacks a dial
Melts like wax on the floor
Seeps in between my toes
Thick warm pools of silence,
I scream into
her breath sends earthquakes through my chest
Ten billion firefly bombs rage in my womb
Ashes settle in her secret garden
Where the trees told me to write her a letter
“I’ve been thinking about you so much …
are you okay?”
It read; every time I saw her picture it was
like walking through flames,
the wild dwelled inside her
Drowned in the rain.
She was the first one who held my hand
Cut hers when she blocked the words
dripped onto her thighs
Her syllables scream at the wind
“They cut down our tree,” she says.
Slice our names out.
Crush our ribs into baby powder
Spread on a silver platter
Origami swans burst from every particle
Curl into mints
I put them in her mouth
I hold her wrist
I tell her –
she whispers,
“I am almost touching God.”