Two Poems

LOSING TOUCH


The ceiling fan hums circles around the room. Cold 
coffee slick on the rim of a cracked mug. All the love you 
bombed. Planes bomb. Me too. Ash. Circle craters, 
earth becomes moon. Already sick and pale with 
grief. Sick and pale, me, the moon. Sick of me. Pale moon. Pale grief.
Sick, sick, sick. Brimming, brimmed over. Tears drop. Salt. Burns. 
Into the rising ocean, moon’s domain, my grave. Period 
blood splashes onto porcelain, dilutes down the drain. Water spirals. 
The ceiling fan spins. Blades blur. Shirt tag on my neck – my neck – m y  n e c k – 
Static. Still, still, it scrapes. Almost music. Couldn’t be literature. 
Art needs color and I am only blue, shades of gray. Fifty shades of 
bruise. Bruise-blue. Azure. Cobalt. Cyan – cyan(ide), 
take the pill, swallow it, follow it down. Mercury. Copper. Gold. God, 
once. I was God, once. Before pills choked down my throat, killed the divine. 
I forgot my medicine. Poison. Forgotten rituals are the holiest ones. 
The fan blurs, around, around – not done. I’ve been here 
before, survived to tell the tale. Knees scraped. Shattered teeth. Hands dry, too dry.
Dust where skin should be. It all dries out: hands, mouth, lake. 
The lake, parched basin. Thirst. Planet wilting. Flowers. Brittle. Bent. Begging
for fertilizer. Rot. Drowning in blood. My blood. My pain. My heart 
in your hands – not hands, your hands – feast. Blood drips down your chin. 
Your throat. Your hands wet. Wet with red. My blood, your fertilizer – 
still dying. Me too. Dirt under my nails, my nails. Nails
screech on drywall. Echoes in my neck, again. 
My neck, still. My neck, not mine. Can’t move, glass surrounds me – 
glass, walls. Beating. Buzzing. Breaking. Breath breaks, 
fishbowl vision – this has never been real. Not real. 
Humming. The ceiling fan, 
around again. Again, again.
Circling, spinning still.
Still not still.
No skin, not mine.
Around.




DRUNK ACCUSATIONS I’LL SEND ON THE NIGHT I DD



Am I really so easy to abandon? I know I am. You did it once. I’d let you do it again. You hate me more than you like love me. And fuck you. Really. I love you so much it snaps against my ribs. You 

hold the fractured glass of your past to my wrist. I submit to it. If I bleed, it’s no big thing. I take the jagged edges from your hands before you turn them on yourself. Fold them into my soft skin. I 

keep your edges safe. I keep you safe. Cut me, I’ll carry it. I don’t deserve the consequences of your pain, but you’ve suffered them long enough. I’ll take my turn. I showed you the yellowing bruises

under my collarbone and you pressed your fingers there – when I flinched you said I’m too sensitive. You projected your insecurities until they became mine. So I bought concealer, dabbed it over my 

broken skin. Camouflage. Covered every wound until you saw none. You said I felt nothing. You left. Now that you’re gone, I dig the glass back out, carve stupid girl into my palms. Stupid, for 

believing I meant something. Punishment for failing what you wouldn’t let me pass. Fuck you. I miss you. I just want your hand on my back again. Just to be wanted. Just somewhere to sleep. Just 

one more lie to believe.