and what of the chase for blue lips? what of the ask for a tourniquet? what of the fear rising in absence? so i woke today. so i met the sun, kissed it from behind blue clouds so my lips wouldn't burn. so the day rose to meet me and i was met. so the hands were dirty. so the trash overflowed. so the coffee took care not to spill and i did not express gratitude. so the bugs. so the dirt and the cinnamon sprinkled to cover. so the drought made by my own hands. so the misery. so the misery. so the misery. so my hairs coiling on the couch, on the table, all over every floor. so the image of a yellow snake curling round my brother's arm. so the reality of a plastic yellow tube feeding poison. so the reality that i do not know the reality. so i crave the poison. so i wish for powder. so i wish for eight months ago not now. so i wish for the power of ctrl+z in my hand. so i wish for a rewind. so i wish for an undo. so i wish for an hourglass to turn on its side, suspend us in time long enough to mend our soiled wounds. so i wish. so i wish. so i wish.

the dirtbike ramming the neighbor's mailbox and my four year old body's blow. the arrow loosed from its bow and into billy's trailer. staying up under the blue light of the tv left on only for my aunt to catch me and yell. the goldfish killed by my mother's caring hand. the atlantic in january and our chapped blue faces. the letter sebastian wrote asking if i was coming back for my crayola twistables that i never did respond to. the little scrawls in my quarter-filled address book, lost somewhere in a landfill. the broken toys. broken figurines. broken dishes. broken doors. the dent in the top of my tiny tv and the way i begged my mom to keep it long after i left. the beveled glass dresser from art van my father abandoned when he went to florida with someone else's wife. the phone i threw against the wall when my mom said she didn't go back for it because she didn't know i'd want it. the way i'd always thought it was obvious, it was the nicest thing i've ever owned, the only thing i'd picked for myself. sure it was in the discount section, but it was new. all the postcards i tore up and left on the floor. the half-regret i sometimes still feel. those paper shards like colorless confetti. the carpet littered like the end of a bad party, attended only by absence, and me.