the mug is grey.

it is short and round.

contemporary almost.

I have not used it.

it sits buried on a shelf in the kitchen

and I fear the day someone touches it

like it is going to suddenly explode.

I am here for a wardrobe.

a set of cabinets that will help

me arrange my life

organize myself and belongings

finally, be free of the clutter on my floor

my mother's voice echoing

through the empty showcases

"Why didn't you tell me? I specifically asked you if anything had happened."

you are the kettle to my black pot.

my body is slowly shaking apart

the silence of the word, "what?"

whispered into a cellphone

listening ears all around

a star collapsing into itself

a black hole forming

she has no right.

she has no right.

each step is heavy

act normal.

make a joke.

laugh. make eye contact.

there are marks on my skin that have been uncovered

can you see the flesh? the bones, the puss-filled maggots

can you smell it now?

put your hand in my side, and know the real me.

there is a future I will never get the chance to have

buried in the back of a bathroom shelf organizer

and the concept of a headboard.

and that's the worst part of it now

-the want.

I want

for the first time in over twenty years I want

and I hate the wounded animal living in my skin

it's so needy.

it is not kind.

nobody wants that.

nobody.

I am so far from okay

I am standing on top of it

in a different plane of existence

looking at it

but unable to touch it.

have you ever wanted to die?

I wonder what it's like

to not feel,

but I remind myself

I've been there before,

and if I dont stop bleeding soon

I will have to see a doctor.

and they will open me up

look at my clockwork insides

the schematic instructions

for what a human should be set up

beside me on the table

and they will say,

yes, this ones broken.

they will poke and prod

and listen with a stethoscope.

my clockwork rhythm out of tune

skipping a beat,

"I am fine" I will say

"I have always been like this"

and I don't know if that's the sad part

that I know what unfixable means

or that I got so used to it,

I just assumed that's what music sounded like.

after a line by Aleathia Drehmer

She looked on while one

cracked the eggs and

measured flour, and one tucked

candles into buttercream to light,

and then they sang for me—

daughter, daughter, wife.

I felt full without a bite.

Was 40 like this for you,

all those decades before?

Your wife and your son (my father

who fathered two in turn),

gathered about a glowing cake.

1964. Your chickens would have

given the eggs, your cows the cream.

You a farmer who had

come home from war,

married, raised my father, tilled

land many miles from here.

You are buried, now,

many miles from here.

I think of you anyway, how you always

touched the ground: feet planted or

hands in earth, solid and knowing,

certain of what you grew.

The room cools around me. The water I have soaked myself in dyes my clothes in crimson. I didn't think it would turn out this way. Maybe they'll forgive me. My arms are too weak and became too weak after I lost control. I can't believe I lost control. The sadness... The voices in my head that I fight daily finally won. They coaxed me back to the blade and directed me to play the symphony that every edgy teenager who has ever had a touch of sadness writes about.

You never know what you have until its gone is what they say. Maybe I didn't only have sadness. The saddest time in my life and my old friend is nowhere to be found. Maybe he's out celebrating his big victory while I lay on the mat reeling from the fight. I can see my breath now, watching my soul slowly slip out and go to God to explain this. What's my explanation? God, the sadness... The sadness, Lord. My man laid on a cross and died for us and I slit my wrists over losing a job and not having money to get my dreams. The lights are dimming now and I'm losing my vision.

The fight has left me breathless, sweaty, and tired. I hear the sirens in the distance and wonder if my note is good enough. Did I apologize enough? Will my family forgive me? Will my friends ever recover? Slipping like I did in the bathtub when I tried to fight again before the final blow, I lay there watching the lights flicker. I see Emily's fly buzzing, hear Hemingway's hyenas in the distance. How will they donate all my books? What will they think of me after I'm gone. The light flickers and flickers and flickers and flickers and flickers--

Hold me close while we eat popcorn

And watch Jerry Seinfeld as a bee.

Laugh with me as Samuel L Jackson

Yells about the motherfucking snakes

On this motherfucking plane.

Pinch me playfully as I feel around

For the lost Mike and Ikes after

I jump from the jarring image of the

1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I want to make Kool-aid with you

While telling you how much I loved it

Years ago before taste and grace

Were things I valued as a person.

Let me rant as we peruse the newest

FOX and CBS have to offer.

Know how much I love mediocrity,

Let me wade in it gleefully, like in a car

Driving down the street with Taylor Swift

Blasting despite our disdain for pop music.

Join me in my pursuit of the mundane,

The mediocre, the terrible, and the worst.

In fact, let's make it a date.

i want to kiss every pigment of the tattoos on your skin

i want to worship you

i want to build an altar of sweat and sun and spring flowers

and lay you on it like something precious

i want to hunt down every freckle

on the skin that haunts me every time i close my eyes

and brand it with my fingertips

i want to hold you like something breakable

i want to break you

i want to find god in the dip where your hips meet your waist. where your neck meets your shoulders.

i want to mark up your collarbones with teeth and adoration

i want to love you the way the sun loves the mountain tops at dawn

the way spring loves the cherry trees

i want to kiss you like you're made of holy water

and im going straight to hell

models and

influencers on

Instagram

the girl who

shows us

her make up

routine

every day

with her latte

we live to

please the male gaze

but at what point

does the envy

go away

Twelve princesses dipping and twirling,

Holding the edges of large hoop skirts,

Unaware of me in the invisible cloak.

I don't dance, yet I wanted to while listening

To my mother's melodic yet tired voice

As she read the book a third time.

A few weeks later, she got me another,

About twelve dancing brothers and their stepmom

Who followed and saw how happy they were

When they were out dancing instead of home.

I didn't know then that they were the same,

Just a different setting and a different time

And Nikes and Converse rather than heels.

I had had books with kids that looked like me

But not everyone did, as I learned one day,

When I snuck the book to school in first grade

And my teacher read it to everyone in class.

I'm too old for Grimm and pictures of princesses

Though I still think of them and Rumpelstiltskin

And wonder how many others I haven't read

And how many fairy tales I have without knowing it.