Alone {In Progress}

6/22/24, 7/31/24

Shaving all the little hairs on your head
Kissing me into bedsheets with your truth
Talking for hours about girls and their husbands
Debriefing the day, posthaste, on the field trip

I held a snake fed Doritos and Psghetti, the big man called it abuse, no different / dead, from me to you.
Smoking away the dopamine I mal-octed
Trying to get closer to you
Cleaning the dishes, for once, to gain approval
Changing my opinion for the public’s seal
Pinning the privilege on the honky / on the Cam cardboard cutout from Modern Family / I spun in a circle ten times then took three / shots, from my chest, to your head / I confess: I’m wasting away into comfort / Reflecting– not living– confused, 21– the genders and all that– love, holes, fillings– physically, metaphorically, academically, what the fuck is that?
Echolocation to the undergarments / that’s a name, not a label. / A strawberry, dad’s credit card, those Erlenmeyer tests they concoct / witch shit then drink it at thirteen / so their dick can grow and head can shrink.
How many wishes I wish you knew.
My brothers were so kind to me.
I only wish you could see, how
daddy grew so gentle in your wake.
I only wish you could know
I’m so happy this is my fate.

All your shows have gone away,
but I still watch them with you.
I remember the day we shaved
the hair on your scalp gone down the drain.
You touched my cheek and smelt like Clinque.
We laughed with guilt at people across the street.
For a day, a single day, I got out of my head,
but there’s this thought, in the back of my brain,
even if I’m happy this is my fate,
I’d rather be with own, alone,
or dead.

Sunscreen and chlorine,
the hot car and leather sheen.
Capri-sun straws and sea-side stars.
Brady Bunch re-runs and talky-british royalty.
The drama of our love is the only reason I’m alive.
A reminder of my heart in place of the knife
I held to my chest in jest when I was five.
You laughed and I cried and you said,
“You don’t want to die.” Joke’s on you,
you were right.
I’d rather be on my own, alone,
or in my own head.

I only wish you could see me now.
Open-mic martyr, unafraid of the dark.
Addict to a pagan poet in place of a farce.
Multi-world, splitting words like Carly Rae
I hold in place next to my Virginia Woolf!

…But, can’t you see?
What I want isn’t what I need.
What I want is
no more hair in the sink!
not one knife to my chest!
no more thoughts in my head!
Yes, yes,
I’m finally

Alone!