can't won't

i tried to crack an egg today
but there was a baby chicken inside.
heavy and plum colored
i dropped it into the sink and now
i can't be near a kitchen.


thirteen time zones behind me
and she still shows up on cue
in my sleep.


when she was my mother
a woman in a t shirt that read
god is love in russian or, backwards numbers and letters
red spandex bike shorts in the basement,
she nicknamed me stupid brat
and stood me in the corner for hours
until my knees separated into accordion players
against the bluebell wallpaper.

i spent my first eighteen years on all fours on that farm

collecting hardened dog shit into my cupped brown palms
shop-vac-ing tufts of hair from rough, white linoleum corners
combining dish detergent and clorox in a blue gallon bucket.

but i didn't get fat and eaten
and i didn't live caged and get drowned when my magic was gone
and even though i was pure bred and picked out from a picture because i was cute and pathetic looking
i wasn't sold for four hundred and twenty five dollars
in a pet store window
up and down the eastern sea board.




so
i called tonight
seventeen synonyms for fine after the beep
i remembered to breathe
and hung up the phone seated
in the first row desk
facing the door.

bare

across the table, i passed evidence of self in a spiral notebook
cringing with every turned page.

it felt like an interview, and all i wanted
was to hold his hand or maybe take my clothes off
in a motel we paid for together
with singles and crumpled up green pieces of paper.

i let his friend write on my under arm skin
in black marker, permanent.
his eyes would wander towards me from directly across the table
i'd remember to slouch in my straight backed chair, beaming indifference.

there was something between us
a broad oak table
half empty glasses of whiskey i'd bought us.

self destruction. no, self construction.

twice.

the first was a mistake, because i was a girl.

the second time, his motto for life was "make destroy". he drew bubbles that were horses, or the air between us when he painted me dark against his upturned nose. he stacked books on a blue shelf over a yellow bedsheet we fucked on every night. so loudly, his roommate downstairs mentioned it once over communal dinner and again while unscrewing gallon jars of lentils in the pantry.