promise day

i wore the ugliest dress i could find
to go out into your wilderness. 
you were on your back
& talking only to toads
for weeks. to heal is
to become not myself
& so i take a shovel & i name it
"everlasting." a timer
on the kitchen goes off but
i don't remember what
i was roasting in the oven.
a silent star? a rotten melon?
my own hand?
i didn't want the wilderness
to get a good look.
it didn't want it to say,
"here is a boy" or "here is
a girl." even though a girl is
always a boy & vice versa.
the dress was paisley print 
or else it was see through plastic
so as to avoid the metal detector man.
one flight to the old thoughts.
another, a train, into 
a valley of languishing shoes.
once, i made a promise
that i would always be your 
pineapple. your fork
in the pan. then you were
standing on the ceiling
& talking about baby deer.
the one you hit on that sunday night
when everything was already
too cinnamon. do not
promise anything to me again.
they always become pocket caramels.
get sticky. make me a less beautiful
version of myself. let's not pretend
this was dazzling. let's say what it was.
a man with a machete
hacking his way through 
a thicket. did i say 
you could call me a thicket?