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.

nicknames

it was cold. they had wandered out the lane slowly, but careful of the time. they couldn't miss the bus.. not after the last time.
she fingered the dents lining the low part of her back.
it was a monday, and she had thought the weekend would never end. chores upon chores plus special saturday cleaning.
and the extra cleaning in the kennel. their fingers still reeked of bleach mixed with dish detergent, and dog hair.
she scuffed her shoes against the pavement, walking quickly, her sister, elyssa, was only two steps behind, but they weren't speaking.
they were having one of those days.
elyssa thought she had it worse.

maybe she did. she'd go quiet for days or weeks. which wouldn't have seemed strange to everyone else.
elyssa never opened her mouth much to others, she doubted teachers or cousins or friends at church had ever heard her utter a complete sentence.
but she always talked to her little sister. often the words were angry, sometimes they were strung in a song,
but most of the time, the opening of her mouth was a clear plastic knob that turned on her tears, full blast.

it was cold, she blew smoke rings that were actually steam, and guessed the temperature out loud
32, i betcha its 32 degrees. freezing.
silence. her sister didn't even look up between the long black bangs that covered her forehead down to her nose.

they drove the mother crazy, deliberate disobedience! she'd shriek, reaching for the nearest wooden spoon or scissors or clenched fist.
what good is a person, if you can't see their eyes, she'd advise
elyssa lying fetal and trembling at her feet.

i learned in mr marino's science class that 32 degrees is the freezing point, and i think this airs frozen .look. look!

but she didn't. instead, she raised her head just a centimeter on the left side, as if she'd heard something,
and sure enough, the yellow bus, E1, pulled up and stopped in front of the pothole at the bottom of their farm lane.

they single filed as always, the oldest first. she was jealous for a minute, wanting to have rock paper sicissorsed for the right to climb up first.
instantly, she regretted her jealousy.

hey eggggroll. fortune cookie.

tiny snowballs of paper and spit flew towards them as they turned left at the drivers seat and scanned the bus for empty seats.
it was the big boys, the flunkers. spit wads and tiny corners of math and english homework pelted her sister and ricocheted off into her face.
the little one reached up to protect the northern hemisphere of her face, magnifying glasses framed in plastic tortoise shell.

hey eggroll! fortune cookie! you ugly chinkeyes! go back to japan.

it didn't make sense , and she wanted to say it, to slam their faces into the the metal frame of the window and shriek it,
but there was nothing to be done. she shot them a glare. their snaggle teeth and home made mullets, more humiliating
than anything they could manufacture from their mouths.
the sisters single filed into a green seat on the right side of the bus. elyssa was sobbing, of course, but this time not talking. a silent retreat.
the younger one was quiet as well, picking at the green duct tape on the seat back in front of her, with her peeling fingernails.
a small, red seething had begun growing warm inside of her, jaw set, she sat clicking out comebacks on the typewriter roll in her mind.

the only story i know

they married in the winter, between valentines day, and her 21st birthday.
this is how it was.
she was the basketball star. blonde hair to her waist, one of three beautiful sisters,
narrowing the halls of the mennonite high school with her brightly colored flannel mini skirts. she was a dream.

he was one of six, a twin. the hair started to thin at the age of 16. in the front, and soon whole handfuls from the top of his head disappeared.
he was quiet, she said, handsome but not noticeable. he followed at a close distance, watching but never extending his hand. he pulled on his unlettered jacket in the afternoons, rode in the passenger's seat of his sisters car. when they were seven, after another dinner of blueberry soup, he and his twin sister jan, packed a feed sack of apples and dinner rolls and ran away.
a search party of 2 neighboring amish families, numbering in the 20s, scoured the summer corn with utility flashlights and and an approaching fire siren.
the pair spent the evening, howling their regret from the dairy barn.

when she was 19 she lived in upstate new york. an orphanage. rooms of children on single beds under green blankets. they wanted mothers. they wanted fathers.

in 1981, she gave birth to her second perfect child. a blonde halo of hair, blue eyes like her father, a sharp chin like her mother. her whole hand around her brother's little finger.
she, was the plan.

in the don't touch anything room of our house, the brother and sister's picture hung in a gold frame on the south wall. "where are you in this picture?" i asked the blonde brother, slouching in a striped sweater at the kitchen table.
"i was in heaven" he replied. "i was in heaven with sister. you've never been?"

i put myself to bed early. gathered my knees and hands close, for prayer.
they only let children with halos in to a place llke heaven.
and i , had been born
under a dark, black, cloud.

telling

there's something i have
palm readers on post street call it an aura
purple, green
maybe
the angle i tilt my chin.
my hair smells of mint listerine.
my mouth tastes like unwrapped butter waffles.

i met her on the standing side of a dinner out
she was with her husband.

instantly
trusting her, i put down my tray
spread out her map
finger pointed
them to their new life.

her eyes
shining with something
i see in my sleep.

i've always been like this,
open.
how, i am completely unsure.
i separate my issues into small piles
hang them up with clear plastic pushpins before bed.

on the far side of a glass pitcher of ice and orange slices
we watched the sun find us.
we ate vegan sandwiches and seasoned potatoes.
she told me about dying.

the telling was so natural
laughter and the breaking of her neck at intervals.
i gathered it in, her story
asleep for months in a hospital bed
pictured it
awake in an upstairs of white light
like she was reminding me
golden bodies and the absence of night.

i packed her light into a blue backpack
climbed on a plane,
floated it across the ocean with me
to this place.

i walk around without fear.
breaking my neck at intervals
move forward, back, forth
into formations of girl, into sitting in a corner or floating next to a chair.
the front compartment of myself
open and light.

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.