rhythm

I am counting
the articles of clothing gone

holding services

for the underwear lost

the favorite yellow lemon stripes ruined

by new born rust

the socks 

forcibly divorced

I am counting beds

ive been in

stacking them on top 

of one another

and by god

the tower is starting to lean

(when will it crush me?)

I am counting the disappointment

by the number of silent mornings

i drive home to the ruby clouds

by the negative degrees

by the greedy minnesota winter

nights swallowed

and the number of prayers

in my car

that it will start

i pray to fucking god

it’ll start

because 

i don’t want to go back

to beg for anything

don’t want to

face myself

I am counting the celebrations

when it does

finally start

and when the engine moans

it has mostly sounded better 

to my ears

than anything did 

the night before

I’m counting the times

ive stayed 

silent

the times I’ve thought

I really should nail down

the definition of rape

I hold court in my head

i use the steady motion 

as meditation

I put him on trial first

then myself

I run from the judges bench to the jury

i end up on the stand

until i am jolted awake

mostly by stabbing

sometimes pleasure

I am not counting the poems

I try to write about my fucking body

or fucking

or consent 

anymore 

i am swallowed

when the weather turned
you left me

i didn't blame you

but on the day after

i envied the sunflowers ability to turn away

to look towards the sun

towards growth 

i sank into the car [again]

let it swallow me like a whale

watched the coffee steam 

and the oil separate

from the bitter liquid

i chewed on this metaphor a thousand times

wondering if i was the bitter

or the oil

bit my lip wondering

i could only look at the car stereo

and pretend to decide which song to send you

Bishop Briggs or Danny Brown

could only pretend to decide how

i would talk to you again

i am stalling time

by writing [you] this poem

i look in my coin purse

to see how many words i have

how much time can i buy

before i break

and when that thought knocks

when it sweeps into my brain 

not thinking if it would interrupt progress

i compare myself to her

i am another moon

orbiting

why am i pulled

I cannot unmake this pendulum

cannot stop swinging

half of me longs to flip over like a fish

but when i met you halfway

i could see how hard it was for you

to get there

how you wore her watch for a reason

The truth is hard to listen to

The truth is

I was anxious about rape

way before my mom pressed her lips to the air

and told me about Grandpa Larry

Sometimes a person must die 

before part of their life

becomes a story

The truth is

hard to listen to

and hard to tell

My body is hyper-aware of contact

The truth is

the definition of rape is an ocean

that many tread water in 

I was excited about becoming a woman way before

my mother showed me how 

to shave my calves

the razor in contact with ankles 

scraping knee caps

never thighs or higher

I filled the tub with blush and excitement

with my girlhood

gone

I learned how to remove parts of me for others

I learned how to relish 

splatters of blood on porcelain

I learned how to grit teeth into a master piece

I learned that my blood is almost

a masterpiece

almost always 

a masterpiece

let it be 

genius and indescribable

when others want it to be

Rape is an ocean

that many tread water in

I was the last one on my basketball team

to remove the hair from my legs

in 7th grade

last to begin a cycle 

illuminated by moons 

and hushed like black skies

My body is an empty boat

sitting in those black waves

afraid of rocking 

I learned how to remove parts of me for others

My body was a naked empty boat

afraid of rocking

speaking to lonely

you are both
cutting like ice
and breathing hot air all around me

not there
for me

but today
after feeling myself
i dripped my naked body
into the mirror
and i didnt rip
my ice eyes away
didnt drop the curtains

theres a first for everything i guess

you suddenly turned your ly
into nothing
you were not there
and i was alone

i noticed the extra

it oddly reminded me
of when i would slap
clay on to the sculptures
i breathed over in college
a little here
a little there
and it made sense

i felt sculpted
not that corepower
yoga sculpt shit
not shitty greek statues sculpted
but touched by something else

i was a creation
made
into sense
and beauty

you were gone
and i was alone
no l-y here
no lonely here
no lies here

i was still thick
and gorgeous

i was still framed by space
but the space was for breathing
was for taking up
and i loved
alone

When I try to
i feel okay

When I imagine
her waking up to someone
new
waves of covers
jarring angles

When I imagine
her anxiety
tightness of throat
number on her collar
rubbed away and ripped off

When I imagine
new scents
no familiar kisses
of heat from my body
no known thing meant
from a rap on the head

When I imagine the -8
of last night
the not full moon
the blurred vision of hospital
like lights

When I imagine
the high un-coaxing voice of
put her in there when you are ready
she wouldn't look at me
and I couldn't look at the room
in case her eyes asked questions
through the window

When I imagine the empty bed
of last night
I feel cut
salt of blurry oceans
a friendship snuffed
never enough sand
in an hour glass

New Moon

There are three reasons why I have not given up today.

1. De la soul

2. The half moon that stretched itself across the woman's face, her blood red hijab giving life as she ran across the street in front of my car.

3. In school, my first grader grabbed my knee as we sat banging our backs against the lockers.
Ms. Love, tell me about the day of the dead again?

I knew his father was there with us. Angels, souls, spirits, whatever the fuck you want to call them; they look the same everywhere I tell you.

We went back to my room and he cut a heart out. I swear it was still pumping. It had his fathers name on it and he said he would be extra careful with it on the bus so that it would still pump when he gave it to his mother. This was the second time he had sat still in my classroom.

The water is never still. It moves and allows us to move. Yesterday, I heard that people were caged in kennels like dogs at Standing Rock. It is 2016. It is almost 2017 and we haven't stopped taking from the native people of this land. White people still take like addiction; like there is no other way. When will we realize, we wake up alone?

Tomorrow is halloween and I am seeing too many skeletons.  I cannot tell which one's have crawled out of my own storage space, and which ones are plastic and hammered into lawns.

Last night I faded in the car as a friend told me about his time in solitary confinement. I drove home out of body. There was one sliver of moon left in the dish. He had told me to take it but I couldn't. I wasn't hungry.

I have started binge eating again. If I had to pinpoint the cause, I would say the brevity of human life. And how some moments seem to be slipping. They haven't quite been anxiety attacks and I haven't cried in months, until yesterday when I knew I had to give my dog away. Panic was my skeleton yesterday.

But today is only today. And there is nothing dead here. I have at least three reasons not to give up.

4. Today is a new moon.

I still can't read this one out loud

Through grit and ground down teeth

I told myself I was proud

it took speaking it to the wind

for me to believe it

it took meditation 

for me to understand it was rape

it took the drip of his gaze

for me to realize it wasn’t me feeling sorry for myself

it took unlearning

for me to hurl this accusation back into the world

it took the sweat on my body

the exhaustion

it took the tears melting

and the way my sweatpants hugged my ass

it took my body

curling up in that same fetal position

it took me being drowsy

for him to feel empowered

it took his cockiness

which is synonymous with cock

it took me

by surprise

it took my resistance

and my quiet

it has taken me 

quitting the mirror

and oatmeal every morning

to steady

my lungs 

shake a lot these days

and there is a cloud 

too high in my throat

it hangs there 

while acid rain drips down my esophagus

it has taken lots of deep breaths

and acid rap, and lots of affirmation, and quitting to overthrow everything

it took my mom

looking at me over dinner

she told me in the purest syrup

and i waded through it to hear

she told me i was worthy

out of nowhere

it took it being out of nowhere

for me to believe it

it took the wet of my eyes

for me to realize she was right

i tried to hide my gurgle 

as I coughed, is this an intervention

my mom asked me

do you need it to be

and it took my silence afterwards

to breathe again