my body is a visitor
my body is a visitor
holding up the door frame,
never entering the space,
unsure it will be welcomed.
feet dirtying the mat, sticky with
mud & molasses.
i start a war in the foyer.
breaking shin bones for shits & giggles
& shots on goal.
there’s coal in the stocking
hanging damp from the mantle
like my heart thrumming in a hollow chest
aching for snowflakes on the tongue.
i wouldn’t go back,
never mind that i can’t — i won’t
i won’t bleed purple or zip tie my fists to the light pole.
lamp on in the daylight, it’s never bright enough.
my body is a visitor,
crippling under debt & freedom rings like
screeches from tires over flesh torn asunder
& another holds me
but it’s wrong wrong wrong
a visitor in my body when my body is a visitor in my brain
in hiccups & reese’s cups
& i’m shredded into little pieces
sprinkled in the woods to find my way back home
to a mothership left hovering over gravestones & epitaphs
made of witches & potions that drip down throats like water to the parched.
i visit a grave prematurely,
no dirt torn up under toes like spades.
i’m always getting ahead of myself.
again.
it’s tumbleweed & tullamore dew.
dew on my lips like gloss
like envelope glue
like air fresheners in sticky, moldy cars caked in grease & baja blast cups.
i’m a folder, a binder
holding onto the bits that will be collected & evaluated in due time.
my body is a visitor & you never open the door while i’m stuck on your porch with the edges dripping yesterday’s rain onto my cheeks.
i knock & i knock & i know you’re home
but it all gets left unanswered.
tomorrow is begging me to move on but yesterday has a grip like freshly poured tar down my throat.
i can’t feel it & no one hangs their welcome mats out to dry anymore.
i will see you tonight, tonight, mommy, tonight.
but tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow.
i ache like— oh oh oh
there’s forever under bushes & at bus stops & on bar stools pulled up too closely.
crash.
the waitress slipped bringing you another & another
i’m sliding again.
gliding.