body work

xxviii: pocket memories

**tw's: anxiety, trauma, religion, grief**

i rinse out my heart each new day,
wring, & pull out red veins over the ivory / sink—
& today it is unbearable,
the quickness of the breath, i
feel a chastised child again. the difference between the inhale
& the gasp is

the greediness—& what is left in the aftermath. the giver & the gone. i

call these pocket memories—put them away for safekeeping & forget they exist —

until you fall out, spilling all over my breakfast, my book, my hands &

my hands. i see him in the sunlight, i see you in the lakes—

& then the sun hits the water & i lose myself again, this remains

an unholy prayer. it's nearly that time of year, the sure-fire place to lose your mind. watch

me crawl into my burrow made of shame & wrapped in guilt & see how

i call it a loving thing. there is sweat & drool leaking out of the past, i

scribble over it every morning, but a liquid is a hard mistress to tame, it spreads naturally & i, weaker than water, cannot make it the same—

call me a loving thing, i too am
pocket-sized. that must be why you
forget how to love me. let me fall

out, spill into & over your heart—a wave capsizing the float of the body. or let

me just fall, oh god just forget me. let me stay with jonah in the whale. let me be the one devoured, & we'll call that a goodbye.

what do you call the insides when you split the day open like a wet fruit? the sticky innards—

is that the love? is that the reason to keep going? — no, for me, it is a blood-stain caught & dried under the sun, ants crawling all over it—attracted to the scent. it's all loud & obvious that something important broke

for good, all that's left is someone to rinse out the stain—oh how a bruise will always stay, pale but grief nonetheless.

i am the giver, & you're the one gone—this is the tune & melody of all the songs

that i can bear to listen to.

i don't listen to much that i don't call a brother's lament, my mother always thinking i mean her, or you instead—

& who's to say that i don't? i am tired of scrubbing at stains & yet, that is the mourning

ritual, to be spilling or to be cleaning. i talk to the ghosts as i serve them, keeping house—

mother, if only she could see me now—i wouldn't want to know what she would say, i can barely stomach the look on her face—i am not okay

with her asking about you—like i still know you, like you still care

about me. the grieving deep down is knowing i no longer care for you,

but i cannot stop pretending to—it's all i did for so long—the caring or the pretending?

i'll let you decide—you have the time enough to keep spilling over my thursdays, my dinner, my eyes

& my eyes. why won't you just fall—you've already been crucifying yourself for years & calling it

a sacrifice. like your namesake, you never really did much, oh daughter

of job, even sinners know a sacrifice is only worth something you love, i wish you could have warned me—the way

i never warned you. how could i have said you weren't my first blood-stain, knowing i was yours? it wasn't

right for me to grow up like that, & take you with me. you said you wanted to come, but i don't think you meant like this, all bound up into poems, all seeping out into my hands & from my eyes—

sinners especially know to keep a house clean—i rinse out my heart each morning. i'm giving you a way out, to be gone

for good. don't worry, i learnt well how to hide a bruise—it doesn't matter if it's the shape of you.