Today I washed

gods mouth out

of all the words

he spat

and the blood

poured down

the drain

with chrome

and fang

to corrode the

ocean depth

molecules hold madness

memories hold regret

the depth of space

holds moments

that I wish

I could forget

the widow

raven

with its

crooked claw

perched tight

on rotted wood

turned its eye

to the

sparrow

time

and dove

straight into

the moon

Mirrors are made

of liquid

these portals to

the truth

find your eyes

and tell no lies

your reflection

bends the root

I once admired

your working hands.

Hands rough and strong,

so streaked with dirt.

Hands that feed, that

fight, that teach.

Hands that prayed,

and they pray still.

Hands that

risk their life to

abandon a homeland,

to cross a border,

hands that left your

home a world away

to make this strange land

mine

Aching hands that,

of sun and sweat, and

prayers and dirt,

built my life

on American soil

Loud hands at work,

at family reunions, church,

at quinceañeras, barbecues.

Loud hands outside,

Silent at home.

Sunburnt

hands that rip

The bitter taste of

fatherhood from your

unwilling tongue.

I've always watched your

Working hands come

home to rest,

No strength for love,

no time for me,

only to eat,

and work,

and sleep.

I pray my soft

delicate hands

Be as strong and tough

as you,

My gentle American hands,

such tender hands, so

unlike yours.

My privileged hands,

they want for nothing.

Such sheltered hands

Uncalloused, young,

untraveled.

I pray that

my American hands

have room to hold

the love you never did,

Love meant for me, my

brother, sister, mother,

or kids.

My hands provide

for not a child unseen.

They work to care, to

mend their hearts,

To wipe the sweat upon

my brow only after I dry

their tears.

My hands

won't work to kiss the

sun, my hands will work

to make a home.

My working hands

will work

To love.

And there I stood silent

in a vast empty field

with the East wind

flowing steady

against my brow

And there I

swallowed memories

of past horizons

every emotion

illuminated by the sky

in teal blues

emerald greens

And there I heard

your voice

echoing gently

on the skin

of the black sea

whispering

eternity

to the lost

believer within

I promised myself

I'd get a tattoo

if I survive this winter -

a little outline of a dress

on my right shoulder.

She said, you should

probably be in-patient

and I smiled

the little grim outline

of anger and repugnance.

Winter is like that

one day you're fine

just shopping for lettuce

and toiletries, and

the next day you're in bed

contemplating the best way

to fade quietly into January.

I'm looking forward to spring,

the tattoo artist will ask me

they always do -

the inspiration for my tattoo.

I'll say I survived

that the winter didn't kill me

that I'm just fine, thank you,

the calamity of slowing suffocating

behind me like a bad dream

the kind that leaves you gasping.

I can only hope the tattoo artist

won't be horrified, but

he's probably seen worse

and that makes me even happier

to be out of the woods.

Long has it been said we were born with four legs, four arms and two heads. Split in half by an angry God- forcing us to spend eternity scrambling for our missing piece most do not find. Most pretending they have because their sharp edges have dulled to something that will -mostly- fit into the crevices of the other.

But what if you do find your other half, bleeding, exposed and needing and then lose it?

I think I must have somewhere along the line. For I was me for sixteen years, and then somewhere between then and now I lost it. Perhaps it occurred like in a video game when you hit an enemy with a poisoned arrow and it stuns all those around it. Perhaps that has occurred to me; Fate the archer and I the victim among swaths of loves. I do not know whom of my many loves I belong to only that I am missing them with an ache bone deep, so in such I feel dehibilated with every passing day.

It feels though my heart has been drained partially, my body compensating for its loss with blood and energy I do not have to spare. The half that still remains of them is only a husk that I faintly remember as a beat beneath my ear and warmth within the confines of my soul. But I could not place a name to the sensation.

The love, the adoration, the strength has been taken and left a withering leaf in its place.

It aches like ripping a piece of loose skin from your lips- pain, and then dull until it heals again.

Because I do refill it slowly with all that and more, until someone comes again to take from its wealth.

Another missing piece, jaggedly trying to fit into me.

I once cradled a phone to my ear on Christmas Eve, screen cracked and memory filled with images and videos of teenage debauchery I felt made me better then everyone else. Breakup texts and photos of horrible moments captured for posterity I felt made me more understood than anyone else ever had felt. I proudly denounced my family over the speaker to their heart aching silence. I screamed that they were not my home- that I had found it within a someone or other's decrepit little shell of a place a teenager had been able to drink, smoke, and engage in anything they wanted to. It felt like a party, not like the strict confines of a family. I deserved to wallow and hate, because hate is easier than hurt. My shadows couldn't quite reach me, so small and obscure beneath dingy bulbs and the diet of fast food and faster living.

And I woke up today, Christmas morning eighty years later in my childhood bed with my mother bringing me coffee. Her face is so weathered from the stress I've caused among many others, but she still offered me a warm smile and a kiss to my forehead. I ate breakfast with my brothers, and scuffled with them as a little sister ought to before we played our favourite childhood video games with the same level of skills (I lost, and they would tease me, and I would cry for my mom to make them stop). And then I gathered with my grandma and my aunt's family, and noticed under warm and full bulbs that my shadow had grown up, too. It sat behind me with the old ghosts that haunt each of my loved ones, and for once, I felt at home.

I am sure there have been pivotal moments that have led to this change aside age. But somewhere out there, a tree was planted the day I was born. And that tree stands still, as do I. And that must mean something. But, today, I woke up, and I felt okay. Linear as it may be, or as sudden as comparing the two moments everyone in my family remembers from that lonely and fateful night, I am okay. I am home.

I put my pants on one leg at a time like everyone else. I brush my teeth with Colgate toothpaste, twice a day. I pick between light and dark roast coffee at Starbucks. I choose what music station to listen to in the car on the way to work. I can't change a tire, but I can belt out every word to Rhianna's "Disturbia."

What I don't tell anyone, or admit to myself, is that in between all these routine moments, I am panicking. Any moment can turn into a downward spiral. All I have to do is think about my existence, my past, my pain.

It's a tic. It's a voice in my head, unconscious - I walk into rooms and look around at the ceiling, thinking about where I could hang a rope. I stare too long at sharp objects. My mind is not my friend.

I come to a personal crossroads every day. Do I choose the path where I destroy myself, or the path where I survive?

I didn't think I'd live this long. I'm stunted. I have limped along to get this far, thinking only in terms of living to the weekend. My younger sibling has since gone to graduate school at a university akin to Harvard, gotten a job that pays almost 100K, has a child with an adoring husband. I'm left wondering, what have I done with my life? I think back to therapy, where I was taught to "turn the mind" - think about positivity in the face of sadness. I have spent fifteen years turning the mind and I am tired.

The terrifying part is it's not black and white. Good brain, bad brain. Pain, happiness. The unconscious and destructive part of my brain that leads me to think negatively often bleeds into the rational, sane part of my brain. Like an addict, I have to sometimes physically remove myself from certain environments lest I be tempted by certain self-destruction. But sometimes it's not that easy.

Think of it as like a person on a diet. They aren't going to wander into an ice cream shop, say. They don't seek out what they are trying to avoid. But then they go to a birthday party - in my world, this is akin to being alone for too long, staying in bed all day. The person on a diet might cave, say, I'll just have one bite of ice cream. But one bite is all it takes. In my world, one "bad" thought and it could lead to hospitalization.

I live very carefully. I think very carefully. I think with other people - I'm going to go ahead and use the word "neurotypical" - they can trust their thoughts. They don't live moment to moment at a crossroads in their own mind. To inflict pain, to not inflict pain. I know I have a disease. I'm addicted to pain, maybe, in love with my own suffering. But that's just it - there's the "bad" part of my brain, telling me I want it.

Every day is waking up to a new crossroads, picking which path to go down. Every day I have to choose to be happy and sane, go down that particular path. Just like I put my pants on one leg at a time every morning, it's always a new day, a new battle, a new resolve to beat my own internal monologue.

Seven deadly sins

Six destroy within

With Greed’s destructive power

Our world will be devoured