profile pics

the room we made where no one
had a tongue. i page through 
my window as if it were a book.
give your selfhood a name. a hopscotch.
kiss the frogs you keep in your sink.
when i look at how the shape of my face
turns from a cantaloupe into 
a pomegranate over time i am frightened. 
did you know people have funerals
for themselves? gather their friends
& bury everything in the yard.
i watch a video about assisted death.
take a shovel to the wall & go at it until
you stop me. tie me up into a knot of pears. 
we are all the longest stop motion films.
pose & move & pose & move. i have 
cut off all my hair & watched
as each strand slithered away. became 
centipedes & bows. i page all the way back
until i was thirteen. my hair in front
of my face. my fat like mountains.
come & get me, is what my face says.
living inside the space where a story
used to be. do you remember when
you were on a postage stamp? 
all the rooms you traveled to? 
loose teeth. uneven black winged liner. 
measuring steps between each picture.
miles between my town & the town
where i was born & the planet 
where everyone has birds living 
in their eye sockets. don't get me wrong.
i love to turn back time. just not 
when it's me. just not when each 
little ghost is still there in a room
too small for her teeth. chewing 
on the sentence she said before 
she was a footprint & the blue mud.