dead sister poem

don't look at her
she'll eat your future.
i go to her with a handful
of pomegranate blood.
do you remember how
to turn your fists inside out?
holding her hand & 
making a nursery in 
the catacomb. my gender
used to have antlering pigtails.
would go unseen for days 
& then emerge ravenous.
my biggest secret is
that she is still alive
but only to me. i feed her flies.
i feed her fingernails. i cough up
city lights & ask her 
if she still has the flip phone
full of all the pictures of him.
she clutches it to her chest
tells me i can never look at it
again. how do you protect your pain?
how do you make a shrine to it?
name the fracture. bring it 
licorice & snow cones. 
the phone turns into a clam.
she is a whale. she is a cruise ship. 
i travel alone to another planet.
one where genders are like socks.
darned & knotted. eighteen feet
i use to walk from one side of
the coin to the other. 
she asks, "can i come
to the elevator?" i tell her 
she is not real. she is just 
a place i go.