I used to shower six times a day trying to follow the water down the drain
but that never worked, so I threw myself over a clothesline
clothes-pinned your picture and called it a sun shower
and that always made me smile
how much safer it was than holding your breath until you turned purple
bleeding on your blue shirt trying to make a rainbow
to say you got “stuck” in the thunderstorm
like you could get “stuck” in the middle of your first kiss
knowing everything you know now
I can’t ignore what the falling death certificate I pushed over
every professor’s desk like a glass of spilled milk
does to every other letter it touches
shaving against the grain, driving over bridges, through red lights
realizing these are the only favors I want today
like being alive was pressing my face against
elementary school glass during inclement weather
my friends wrapped themselves in little nations to stay children in
the dark sky swirling on the ceiling of the late bus stops everything
it’s where I go when I come home a little later this year, safely.
honesty contests with the reflection on the tip of this grease pencil
begin immediately. write “I will not ask for help” 50 times in cursive
envy the old diary – dog-eared, under your childhood bed
that reminds you that you have more bones than you once did.
how you barely recognize the brick behind the drywall. how brave
you were for keeping journals then.
how after a few months of air conditioning you looked like a choose your own ending novel who’d had all but four pages ripped out – every midnight
you fall into a dream at the driver’s seat. grandpa takes the wheel.
you cut off your head and hide it in a house with glass cupboards
wishing you’d seen the zipper in the back of the monster suit
you watch the chest exit the kitchen on a stilted bundle of steering columns
and set the record needle to dig the valleys out of his gums
to recreate his voice from a smile
you twist the number dial on the phone like the small of her back
the recoil under my fingertips returns as though I was never there at all
but rings and rings
I called to apologize for hiding in boats at night
for trying to escape with feather oars, for playing jacks with my life instead
of finding a way to fix it without playing a game, without trying
to do so in one flick of my wrist. without flipping the light switch
instead of bouncing a ball. for mixing up games
and carrying white chalk in case I got back up
so when I’m not looking, I pretend I’m someone else
with invincible friends and a driveway filled with 6 sunsets and 15 middle of the nights
depending on how little light is left in my rise. how little
it matters that I left promises peeled-out in my teenage bones
to never become all the people I disliked about God
that inevitable night wrapped
in an extra-small hospital gown where I was riddled
with terrible holes to fill, and fill, and fissure until I couldn’t tell
myself from each cliff under every step I took out of there
here’s a story about a lifeguard who was so gifted at saving others
he waited for them on the ocean floor. a story about a man and Jesus
on the Lusitania who fought so fervently over who provoked the torpedo
with the biggest promise of safety that they joined the war
just to keep fighting. let’s settle this.
no one ever say inevitable and means well. I forget being saved
If I could do anything, I’d cash his last social security check.
spend it on a swing set, and try launching myself onto his lap.
his jaw – notched against his skull like an airport terminal – was my escape.
his smile loosened the slack on my eyebrows like a dark kite on a sunny day.
the smiles dug sandcastles into our skin.
every loved one who grows wings
dangles a rope ladder
and begs you not to climb it.
that’s why I got taller
