i'll do my dishes by the dim light above the kitchen sink.

are you still broken enough
to be a poet? 
i look out the window above the
sink & the lamp posts
line a runway-- 
an aisle-- 
i want to walk out
the back door--
fall off the stoop
of the porch & 
wake up with my back 
against the concrete--
count the stars like
vertebrate-- 
crunching caramel 
popcorn knuckles--
my fingers
turn into prunes in the water
to remind me of how
washing ourselves
clean is the thing that 
ages us most--
everyone likes a poem about
a dying girl-- likes
to watch fires spread 
from wrists to hair--
there is a certain spectacle 
only made when i cut myself
clean into stanzas--
here everything is a metaphor--
my mental illnesses collage
gooey warm brownie
in the tray-- take
a bite & swallow with 1% milk--
starvation was only meant for 
the writer--
i think about
killing myself
& it's not as neat as a poem--
it's washing dishes hot
in the sink--
stacking my measuring cups
inside each other like Matryoshka dolls--
lighting matches on my forearms--
bending the spine of the stars 
into an archway to walk
under when the sky
cracks into thunder--
some nights i can only write
with a fork & a spoon
washed in the scorching
water from the sink--
sometimes i turn the faucet hotter
until the steam pours from the 
spigot-- melt the skin 
from my finger bones--
sometimes you sit on the couch
with a three-pronged fork
& a paper plate &
you tell me i am a poet--
a great poem--
use the fork to line-break--
enjamb my starvation into a symbol 
for something other 
dying-- sometimes 
it's not a metaphor--
sometimes it's just 
where i chose to plant 
a period-- a comma--
a hyphen-- save a corner
piece for me if you're coming
over to eat tonight--
we'll watch the lamp
light become a runway out the window--
& i'll do the dishes--
wash the paper plates
while you eat--
have another piece--
there's enough vertebrate
to bend into the moon--
sit with me--
i'll watch you eat--
fork in hand--
rhyme your lips to
the hush of the faucet--