stuffed with secrets.

mostly, love notes. though also, postcards.

handprints. glimpses. people who don’t belong

anymore but are. just are, still.

and i find it like i find the universe at dawn. quietly.

like it is still groggy from all the dark hours.

hungover from sleep.

i sneak up carefully and try to pick the lock.

it bites at my wrists. chews. spits in my eye.

it is a strange thing.

a fickle thing.

yet i come again. try again. bring better keys.

sometimes it opens. sometimes i stand around waiting.

sometimes i am missing fingers before breakfast.

it is a strange, strange thing.

a good thing.

vicious but mine.

in the air

i am reckless.

i go out in spaghetti straps

and pretend winter arrived

only yesterday.

or i see my breath dancing

outside my body frantically.

have a good laugh

at my own expense,

and throw my bird arms up

like wings for good measure.

i let the frost eat at my sandals,

readjust my skirt till it

sits above my knees.

and when they ask about the cold,

i will tell them, like i’ve told you,

i am gasoline.

i am, more than i am not,

fire fuel skin.

i am burning.

but i swear,

it is just

something

in the air.

obvious

what could i say? i tend to lean more toward

roses than bloodied palms, but okay. i say, okay.

(still, it seems like too much, too obvious somehow.)

i take all of the ache and hold it in my arms like sandpaper.

i smile until my bottom lip splits right open.

the skin on my hands scratch, scratches

away over time but still i hold on.

no one explains grief like this.

how you can be here in one moment.

and then crushed beneath an enveloping roar

at the back of your throat.

how it is, at first, so quiet you do not even notice it is there.

how it wakes you up in whispered (screaming) heartbeats.

how after it becomes less of a tolerable tickle

and more of a bloodthirst there is no immediate cure.

once, i spent a whole day holding my breath.

i thought it would cling to my ribs like muscle.

but it was too free to linger, and my nose let it all escape silently.

i admit, some days i must do this.

because 1.) am i still living? and 2.) how can i exist in such a way

that i never have to question this again? you know?

i don’t have the answer yet.

see, what do you say when someone gifts you agony?

i say, okay. okay.

(i do not want it. take it back. take it back.)

but, okay. i say, okay.

and somehow it still seems too obvious.

does it

i don’t know how to close a door

without the windows shattering, too.

this heart is slam and stomp and rage.

once, a lady before me in a checkout line