excerpt:

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I sit across from the thin mirror in the corner.  I am folded up like a blanket , all my limbs arched and turned inward toward my form, shielding the delicate tips of pink from all eyes.  Even mine.  I look at my face.  I see the red lines I’ve allowed to be drawn across my forehead.  Examples of humiliation and confusion. Proofs.  It’s all mathematics now.  I stand up and walk to the dresser.  I pull out the black sweater in the top drawer.  I watch myself in the mirror.   I count the seconds it takes.  I recite my age.  I am acquainted with enough years to make sense of all the spinning.  I turn the knob and step out in to the hall.  The mirror stares after me.  I am looking out the window now.  I can count the avenues and detours.  I pull the sweater over my cold self and keep walking.  Two sleeves and a hole for my head.  I can count until I find myself outside your radius.  I can count rather than repeat your name.  I can watch the clouds.  I can count.  I can hope.  A window.  A window.  A way out.  

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excerpt:

maybe...



(we breathed at each others mouths, panted at the open wish.  

we stared at each other, point blank,  blue eye to blue eye. 

he asked me if i was an atheist.

he had such a slow southern drawl.

he is the first man i ever watched masturbate.)



at a certain moment 
a certain level of detachment becomes necessary.

maybe one day i can be the thing that you can feel safe attaching your dreams to. 

maybe one day you can look at me and not feel abandoned.

maybe one day you can look at me and not feel like abandoning me.

maybe one day we can lay down, side by side, and just look at each other and talk easily, without any expectations about tomorrow.

maybe one day it'll be okay to think about tomorrow.

maybe one day thinking about tomorrow won't be so scary.

maybe one day you'll be able to brush my hair out of my eyes and fall in love with my smile.

maybe one day you'll be able to brush my hair out of my eyes and fall in love with me.

maybe one day we'll be able to tell the truth to each other and not get upset.

maybe one day i'll open myself to you in the way you've been wanting me to.

maybe one day i'll let you watch me.

maybe one day i'll be able to sleep below your warm body and resign myself to that lovely ache of hearts beating against one another, out of time, through so many layers of skin and sweat, belly button to belly button, my tits against your chest and my hair falling in to both our gasping mouths. 

maybe one day we won't be strange shapes in each others day.

maybe one day i won't drink so much.

maybe one day i won't stay up so late.

maybe one day we won't be strangers.



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excerpt

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eventually i make my way back to my roof and four walls.  eventually i end up behind my own closed door.  beyond the lock and key, a mirror leans. i sit back and stare myself down. no one will witness the crash of these secrets.  no one has seen what i see. no one is as wise as me.  the broken blue tumbling down my cheeks is nothing new here.  Meine blaue Augen sind zerbrochen. i have the only front row seat.

i pull up my black tights and cross my legs.

i need someone to cover my eyes.

did i tell you: in my most recent dream of her she returned to that emaciated state.  such thin shoulders. they were only bone. i was afraid if i touched her i would hurt her.  i held her hand when all i wanted so badly was to lay my head on her shoulder. but her shoulders were all bones.  she was my mother.

dearest _______ , you are the only friend i have that knows the language i know.

dearest _______ , i still miss you in the middle of the night even after all these years and all this hot hate.  i still feel your hair in my mouth.  i still swim in the haunt you installed in the back of my eyes. 

i slink low into my solitude.

if only there was a way you could apologize enough.

the heart that held your image is entirely dead. i labor over my own face.  i apply the black lines.  i apply the red lines.  i decide which identity to provide. i make a mirror of my own surface.  i let them all project their wants.  i reflect back the desire and let their hate lay on me like a man.  i let their hate roam across my surface like a man's tempted hand.  some see a daughter.  some see a whore.  some days that feels like exactly same thing.

most days that feels pretty good.