dear m--

it is time to let this go.
slow and steady.


she was ten. she was ten. she was ten. i was eight.
i shudder at the sound of pants unzipping, instead i pull mine off from the shrinking of hips
metal button scraping soft stomach.

here is how i describe you.

the family i lived with --- no--- the people
they were not mine.
paper hands in an old square house. a yardstick.
both sides of a scream in the same room.

you taught me to stand still, to simon says
nothing. you'd say, you are nothing.


damage. i dare not dwell.
every night, i undo you
walk around my room
fingers pruned with
the percentage of you
that makes me up
a truth i can't finetooth comb away.


i tell the story so well.
white out from my lips that paints you clean
cold edges of someone i forget to tell.
i am careful with your picture.
in it, you are a woman with a husband and son.
in it, you are a victim, and i am a child with simple needs.

on your lap every morning,
on the floor every afternoon,
hands over my head
i held the hardest parts of me

the softest strips of body open
i let you straighten me out
knees and arms drawn in.

love, you always said
is not a feeling. it is a decision.

i can't feel anything. i decide to dress up like a woman
and then i undress, a stranger's hands around my wrists
and waist and neck.

but everything i feel
has been pressed in through my skin
and seeps away just as quickly.


you sliced me so thin
horizontal lines around my eyes and ears.
a field guide of scars around my shoulder blades.

at night
dogs and cats in wire pens roam around a painted gray floor
forget to eat, get lost on their way to the front door.
i carry them around with me, come home to them, like they are mine.