rock candy diary

dear gravel in my soul. dear 
pinnacle we climbed with tentacles.
dear mouth full of cave fish.
i want to tell you how i have been
finding myself purple 
more than usual. how i have been
walking away from my life
carrying only a backpack 
full of radium dishes.
glowing in the creases of the earth.
i ask the light where & how 
i will survive. when i was a girl-boy child
we would go to the hardware store
to answer all our questions.
i followed my father down aisles 
of bolts & screws. smell of cut wood
& rusting knuckles. sometimes
we would take my hands to the table saw 
& make a colony of them. here are
all your pieces. dear rock candy 
how we found you near check out.
a jar of your catacombs. dear sweet
& dear blue sounds. chewing
in the back seat on our way to try
& make a house. the drywall of 
my father's heart. he primers 
on his knees. i eat rocks. not candy
this time. dear broken window.
deer green bottles & brown bottles.
dear driveway. dear wild spearmint.
dear wanting more. oh how i wanted more.
how i tried to dream of a basement where
rock candy grew on the walls. where
my hand was in one piece. 
where my father heard 
the chick-a-dees in the walls 
& kneeled to fish them out.