When I was a child,
I fought a boy for calling me weak.
He got into his parents’ minivan, crying
the tears of someone learning
that their words have consequences
and that a friend
could also be a threat.
I was ashamed, scared of
the capacity I had for harm
and the strength
that he was wrong about.
*
I bowed to your capacity for harm
melted myself down to the wick.
Like when I bowed to a belief
that I was only worth as much
as other people’s dreams for me.
*
Those dreams that brought me
across the country to fight for every second.
that would prove I belonged there
that would prove I belonged
where pine trees compete with stadium lights
and I stopped eating dinner.
the faces of statues
legends watching
my resistance to life grow.
*
I lay on my wooden living room floor
in the apartment that I had to show for
two years in Brooklyn. My friends
all out for the day,
a message open from my mother with
the scans the doctors gave to my father
a reason for his departure.
*
I saw your bandana across the studio
people spinning around us in circles.
No one noticed my world rattling
no one noticed my hands shaking.
I did not disappear,
but my limbs turned
into weapons
and I forgave you
for making them.
*
My dog takes my clothes
and curls up on the couch.
You took my clothes
and made souvenirs.
That museum is full of relics of
the life I would have led.
Not all of them are mine,
but they all belong to the almost
dead.
*
My dog slides her nose under
my leggings, breathing
my smell to fall asleep.
You sleep across from a closet
crowded with things you
stole from me.
The exhibit breathes slowly
under the vacuum of your
dread.
*
My dog trades a dirty shirt
for the gentle crescent of my hand.
She still barks at dust when I get scared,
I still have nightmares
even though you’re not there.
I wake up
on the precipice of a new memory.
You wake up
in the cemetery
that you made of me.