Rewind 1 week: a sharpie in the boys’ bathroom screams hollow point prophecies.

It goes unnoticed. You go unnoticed in the hallways, stepped over like broken glass.

You count how many people make eye contact and don’t make it

to your second hand.

Rewind 1 week: The whole world is sleeping.

You are wrapped in a straight jacket of alarm clocks and school bells;

the only one conscious in a city built of zombies.

Rewind 1 week: the guidance counselor asks if there is trouble at home.

“You never speak in class, you eat lunch alone” but how

could he possibly relate to this Armageddon in your head,

to the static collecting between your knuckles.

You stare at the picture of his perfect framed family,

imagine each of them crying. You tell him and his photograph

to go to hell.

Fast-forward 4 weeks:

this is hell.

3 bodies down,

6, 7.

Rewind 8 days: you wonder if heaven exists

or if it’s just a Santa Claus lie to make you sleep at night

and be nice to others.

Fast-forward 7 days: she catches you staring.

Calls you a freak. You forget what is like to feel anything but fire.

The hallways laugh. The lockers punch back.

Fast-forward 1 day: you drag the weapon from your belt.

The hallways stop laughing. Their wax smiles start melting.

The sound of gunshots does not scare you, the satisfaction does.

You count shells in your head, fallen bodies out loud.

This is their alarm clock.

This is natural selection.

This is survival.

You rewind. The trigger pushes your finger forward.

The bullet comes spiraling back into the mouth of its barrel.

A single red flower wilts in the center of her shirt.

She finally looks at you.

Five Years After

You wonder why I don’t

answer your 3 a.m. phone calls.

When you say “I miss you,”

I begin to undress myself out of habit.

Masquerade

Her skin glows

with impeccable craft

like genetically

altered fruit.

Ten blank canvases of acrylic

stuck awkwardly

to the tips of her fingers.

So much concealer

blankets her face

it is impossible to remember

the color of her eyes,

the natural curl of her brow.

I will never be so

well set, like a dining room table

beautifully disguised

as a feast.

Ode to Carbonation

you taste like what I imagine

swallowing radio wires

feels like: all sparks and pop

music in my throat.

All That Blinds Us

1

You take off your shirt

and all of a sudden,

I have never seen a naked body before.

I stare as if you could be eclipsed

at any moment. I look away,

everything becomes white.

2

You can’t bring yourself to look at me.

My shoulders burn like a shadow

is trying to peel itself off.

I am the sidewalk crack,

a black cat, the superstition

of a good woman.

Talking to God

It’s hard these days not to listen,

not to crack eggshells and wait for symphonies,

snap tree branches into splintering answers.