I remember Pauline Miller. Before she moved,

She lived in an understated, light green, box of house

on Raldoph Avenue.

She lived there for a long time.

Hair up

Tarp down

Pop

My mother uses her strength to cradle

Our liquid gold

Douses the pan with potential energy

And snaps the blade to its wand

The brush crackles and crinkles

Screams

My blood is not pure.

Siphoned through custom it puddles as an unholy poison. 

A mixture between castes that courses sin through my veins

Broken tradition seeps through my marrow

and pools black in the hardened pupils of my grandmother

As the years go by and we outgrow our old faces and our old skin and our old identities, 

I wonder to myself if we are really becoming new people at all, 

or if we are simply just accumulating more years and more selves 

Please leave a message after the tone.

I love you. I really do.

I had so much fun today.

I’m so lucky to have you in my life.

We’re just an amazing, perfect match.

Text me to plan a date for next week.

Dimensions, our world

Minds comprehend first through third

Fail at the fourth, time

Time flies.

I was in love with you.

You said “ily2”.

I treated you with respect and love.

You said you appreciated it.

That was 1 year ago, oh how time flies.

I continued to love you unconditionally.

You said “ily2 bb”.

The tabletop

Dirty

With years of paint.

A paint knife

A sponge

A cup of water

The only things that remove years of memories

A fresh palate

Orange watercolor

Pink tempura

Black acrylic

white road lines merging under

our worn out tires,

taking us away

the radio vibrates with

noise over the homeless 

man on the curb,

boombox over stereo

used to be versions of me

over what we’re left with

I love the smell of cigarette smoke 

Not because I’m a smoker, I love the smell because 

It takes me back, back to the piss stained streets 

That raised me, where the overwhelming aroma

Of freshly lit cigarettes plagued the air 

she is four years old

toddling around

on wooden floors

like a spinning top,

too short to reach the cabinets or

see above the sink,

clambering atop

countertops

to reach her

pink plastic glasses

Age is just a number

We all start out at one

But someone’s first year

Is another’s seventh

Their neighbor’s eleventh

My fifteenth

The clock glares at me,

with the steady

accusations

of her hands –

Where will you be

In an hour,

 In a day,

 In a year?

You ruffled dress.

You lip glossed, 

clean tongued, classy individual.

I am from the nail polish in my room,

From holographic glitter and high heels.

I am from the toys on the ground

(rainbow, soft, Sasha never picks them up.)

I am from cacti pricking my fingers,

From shopping and thanksgiving,

Alone to my thoughts, to my terrors,

Wishing upon days we were careless,

Remembering a time, 

Like a nursery rhyme,

Where our greatest fears were that of the fearless.

If time could be measured in words

I would handwrite novels until my knuckles bled

Analyze every single piece written by Steven King twice

Type poems so complex so that the meaning gets lost

Construct every screenplay to give you the ending you deserve

When I was a little girl,

I wanted to be a princess,

then a vet,

then a president.

I know many girls who at my age

shared those dreams.

The ones I look at now and think

What was I thinking?

Those aren’t possible!

it’s been a while

        since I found encouragement

        to rid myself of this

        writer malnourishment

        I guess I lost myself

Hours are not spent well in lethargy

nor in deep-seated exhaustion

Hours are rarely spent

more – lost

a house can feel like a whole world

when you’re lying in your bed at 4 a.m.,

too early to rise in a coup against the lingering stars,

too late for the soft black of the backs of eyelids to last long enough,

Your polaroids next to my polaroids

Yours taken with your ‘new’ polaroid camera (1960)

Mine taken with my friend’s ‘new’ polaroid camera (2017)

Yours, yellowed, colors fading,

Mine, stark white with bold colors.

I break down in the supermarket grocery aisles

because I only have five minutes to make the choice

between a variety of granola bars.

screaming letters warn

cautioning, threatening

but I lean in

revel in the reveal 

most don’t like spoilers

but I live for them

I see the pieces on the ground,

So broken, scattered, torn.

The pieces long forgotten,

Continents and oceans overworn.

prometheus — light crammed between his jaws

licking up the insides of his teeth

scratching enamels in their

his climb — ran triumphant

meek made resplendent tossing

the ember from his mouth and

I self-reflect

And I gaze deep

To try to forget the secrets that I keep

I bind myself

And hide my chest

All day long until I rest

I stay at home

And lay in bed

Trying to drown out what you said

Sometimes I go through days where I will buy a whole bag of fortune cookies from the Panda Express drive-thru 

and eat them all in one sitting, just so that someone can tell me something good. 

If I were to pluck my feathers,

I wouldn’t be able to fly.

But I want to feel the grass underneath my feet

I hop like a robin on the sidewalk

(away from flight, towards dandelions

sprouting in cracked concrete)

The moment I was conceived

And my egg was fertilized to have xx chromosomes

Instead of xy

My body was taken away from me

And placed in the hands of men

The hands of men that control dress codes