self-harm recovery methods 

i found a neon orange bandaide
stuck to the sidewalk. there are bandaides
everywhere if you're looking for them.
i stopped to look at it too long. bright
& blaring color. i thought maybe
if i pulled the bandaide up
a spout of blood would spring up 
from the hot cement. 
the world is full of managable wounds.
i didn't pick up the bandaide. 
i kept walking & felt the presence of
my skin as a veil or maybe an truly an organ. 
when i was little i fashioned my own bandaides
from toilet paper & scotch tape.
i scratched scabs open at night
to watch the blood make the cut or scrape
an entrances again. i was 
so full of blood. i can't live here
much longer. there are too many
details. it depends on who you're talking to
what is or isn't a controllable lesion.
skin is everywhere & not just 
in the city. cows' skin dies & becomes 
pairs of shoes. the city is full of
pairs of shoes. no blood with that skin
just the blood of feet.
stuck here on the sidewalk. a remnant.
was the scrape on their hand or 
on their knee or on 
the back of their neck? have we 
been severed in the same places?
i prefer to let my cuts dry 
in the open air. i like to watch 
them becoming maroon seams. me, a great 
table clothe or maybe a bedsheet.
how do you imagine your skin?
i want it tidal. i want the texture
of apricots. whoever was held together
my the neon orange bandaide
might be totally disappeared.
people come & go in this city.
people evaporate into their wanting.
there, a cloud of bandaides & next
a whole skyscraper & then i sleep
underneath one. healing presses 
downward but has never rid me
of blood. it is summer in manhattan 
& i believe in swallowing.

i couldn't pick up the snake while you were watching

garter snakes have 
one long yellow line 
down their backs like a seam of light.
the snake stares at us, uncoiled &
unblinking. the length of my arm.
basks in a slat of warm sun 
projected on the creek rocks.
we crouched under the little stone bridge
by your house. cool grey stone 
& our flip-flopped feet. i recalled
a moment where my dad taught me
to grab a snake right behind the head
so it cannot turn to bite you.
you always grabbed me 
by the throat. you had thin but long fingers.
only to myself i called them
"snake fingers." when my hands were smaller
i would not hesitate before 
plucking snakes from the water & the grass.
one in each hand, i once walked to show them
to my dad for him to determine their species.
the snakes would gaze dark 
& fearfully before i'd let them go.
this snake, the one under the bridge
stared cold & void. i could see
my relfection warped & miniature in the animal's 
black glossy eyes. the sun would soon set & 
we'd lay in your bed talking to each other's bodies.
your tongue a ripe snake. my face a pile
of rocks. my tongue a ripe snake
your face a pile of rocks. you wanted me
to grasp. to grab the garter snake
right around the neck. what did you want
to witness in me? fear? 
you had seen fear. you had seen all kinds 
of my movements. why this one. 
you begged. you said you couldn't do it 
not without me. now we were talking
about something else & not the snake
though still the snake. a promise ring
is a kind of snake as is 
a window & a day running out of itself.
i talked loudly to scare the creature off.
i wanted to say 
go & be free. get away from us.
instead i told you 
i think it's scare. look how scared. 
the snake slipped away & all night
to made me promise to go back again
in search of another.

house of franks

last summer the apartment swam
with house centipedes. their feathery legs
carrying them like bird fragments 
across the ceiling & walls.
we named all of them "frank" for 
a reason i can't remember. there are
a few people who have called me "frank."
it is exciting to tell someone your name
& have them use it. i was trying out
names. i was asking 
how do i trust myself to know
what i should be called?
benny tells me i don't seem
like a "frank" & i wonder if there are
inherent qualities to names.
no-- more like if there's something 
a name gives you.
what did we give the centipedes? 
i'm sad to report i killed a few of them.
some out of fear & others more shamefully
out of anger. this was my rooms 
what right did they have scouring them?
i would tell benny i killed
a frank or there's another dead frank
on the bathroom wall & she & i
would gather together to stare 
at it's mangled shape. it's crooked thin legs
& distorted body. i'd take a lysol wipe
to remove the body & i'd feel guilty 
for hours. did the frank have baby franks
who were waiting for his return?
the last time people called me "frank"
was a barrista job. i had a nametag.
i'd sit on my breaks & stare at the tag 
clipped to my green apron. it's job 
was to make me into a frank. am i still
a frank? could i be one again? autumn came
& it tookthe franks with it. winter came
to harvest their ghosts. now it is april
& the bugs are coming alive. i am still
a frank in some corner of my body
& there will be more centipedes soon.
i tell myself i will become 
a more peaceful person this year & that 
i will try not to kill them when they arrive
with their speedy legs & near translucent forms.
picture me, holding one up by its leg
& looking right through it like a blurry 
pane of glass before releasing it
to the cool stone alley.

sarah's cooking show

on the television i watch as my younger self
instructs me on how to cook an invisible soup.
she chops onions with 
a flat hand. she minces garlic 
by rolling it in her palms. i had never known
all my childhood was being recorded
& broadcast each week. i had 
an audience then or maybe no one watched
& i danced in the dark quiet 
of the television box. she is a bright girl
wearing a flower print apron. i know
when she is holding a wooden spoon 
by the way she grasps. i make the same gesture 
to hold one as well. the smell of the soup
fills my apartment. it has fresh ginger 
& hints of indistinct spice. 
there are no ingredients to invisible food
so they come out different each time.
this was all supposed to be a poem 
about my mom. she is in the shot too.
she is making real food in the background
of every recording. she is stirring
silver pots on the stove. steam or fog.
heat or oven. the clang of metal
on metal. i used to believe her bones
were made of utensils. i learned my motions
from hers. immitation is often
a form of self-making. so, tonight
i immitate my younger self who is
just mirroring our mother so in a way
i am stil mirroring my mother
to make myself an empty dinner.
the soup has butternut squash &
invisible chicken which is 
vegetarian. the soup has a remote control 
& a pencil & a lock of hair. i was 
so small i had to pull a chair up 
to reach the counter. i look
into the camera. the camera is rolling
like a boil. i have nothing 
in common with my self at six year old,
not even gender. not ever teeth. 
nothing other than maybe
the creases of our hands & our need
to make nothing out of nothing.
somedays i feel like
a poem is delicious wild nothing.
she is finish now, pouring the soup 
for all of us to eat. my mom tastes it
& tells me it's delicious. i taste
my own soup & it is too bitter
or maybe too sweet. all over my house
are mounds of invisible sugar
so you never know when some might
snow into whatever you're making.
i don't have a video player. i don't have
a tv. so the show ends & my little self
marches back under the sink
cradling the tv with her. 
i tell her she should sleep now
for a few years-- that she should become
a soft memory. one of the memories 
that only registers in texture 
& sadness. i am sad about past 
as a whole. all the salt we taste
is from a time we cried. there is only
so much salt for each of us.
i try to save mine so i don't
waste it on the soup. i finish it
even though it is bitter 
& syrupy & really about how 
i love my mom & how loving her
makes me weak with yesterdays
& years & years agos.

sundae

at the end of each middle school year
i remember a tradition where students got to
make sundaes of chosen teachers.
writing this poem, i discovered 
there's a difference in spelling between 
sundae & sunday. etmologists think
"sundae" used to refer to ice cream left over
from sunday. all of my life
is left over from the week before
or the year before or the decade before.
i can still smell the middle school gym.
tarps on the floor.
a man kneels while three 7th graders
pour chocolate sauce all over his head.
the sauce drips slow across his shirt.
in my memory, all the teachers 
are dressed in their everday clothes 
though i know this isn't true. 
there's no way they just let their 
short sleeve button-ups & patterned ties
be ruined, or maybe there is &
everyone was un-worried about 
streaks of chocolate & globs of 
strawberry topping. i know i sat
on the bleachers. other students
stomped their feet to cheer 
as our teachers were covered. i am a ghost
even in my own memroy. what were we
trying to do? was it about power?
what kind of display? how should i make sense
of the scene now that i am older & 
have forgotten more than i thought i would
when i was thirteen & picked dandelions 
from the backyard? 
i imagined the sundae textures.
the caramel in between fingers. sweet residue
on lips. standing in a bathtube once
i poured a can of diet coke
across the tops of my feet & it felt
cool & bubbly. chosen students scooped 
mounds of vanilla ice cream & piled them
on our teachers' heads. one had four scoops
balanced there before they slopped down
onto the blue tarp below. grimaced faces
of teachers. clenched frists.
math teachers & social studies teachers
& teachers who were cruel & teachers who were 
forgettable. years after these displays
doing dishes at the restaurant
i made a point to grab handfuls
of uneaten ice cream, trying to search for
this sensation-- the one those teachers felt.
i think about waste & hungry people & america
& the nights at the end of the week 
when our cabinets where haunted with only teeth. 
do i want to be made into a sundae?
no, not in the same way though. i wouldn't want
to be seen. i would want it to be private.
by myself on a cool night in june
right when school would be ending.
dripping with syrups & sprinkles 
struck to my skin. the sweet creamy melt
of skin. the moon an empty bowl
through the window.

travel guide for midnight streets

here is where i watched the moon
stretch her legs & where 
the street lamp went dark above my head
& made my feel loud & alive.
my whole body becomes a piece
of cutlery, a wandering fork.
i think of this street as a series
of dining room tables. reaching out,
i try to feel for a table clothe.
everything is tulle.
dresses come back to life & stand
in the hollow of each alley.
i put up a hand to let them know
i am not interested in wearing tonight. 
each gust of wind flickers me.
everyone is a candle light. some houses
want to burn & other truly do.
a car is a carridge is a pile 
of horses. the birds sleep 
in mid air, hovering. trees full
of climbing. i try 
to keep myself inside at night.
it is best for me to head in early 
& dwindle in my own corner of things.
outside my sadness gets wide.
grows legs & wants to be walked.
i walk my sadness as far as the world goes 
but it is never enough especially not
on a clear night like this 
where the moon is comfortable
& the stars are also candles are also
a sea of eyes. blinking becomes impossible.
a whole lot of staring. i stare so hard
the images all turn photograph.
i have albums of my midnights.
a bat is traveling without beating 
its wings. moves like a love letter
between buildings. the road becomes 
a creek. i take my shoes off & set them afloat 
like little funeral rafts. i watch them 
rush away towards the ocean.
in the ocean it is always midnight
& in the ocean it is always a street.
i write too much about cool colors 
but trust me it is so blue outside
you might mistake a daffodil 
for a telephone. how does anyone
get home so late. another body 
strides with purpose towards 
his own quiet. i take that as a sign
i should go too. my legs carry me,
a heavy arch of bones, 
away from the spiraling street.
i lay awake all night lusting after 
the shadow drenched sidewalk. 

land of thread & tangle

i search myself for threads to pull.
a finger across a hip
around a wrist. the ridge of my shoulder.
the seam where my neck 
meets my head. 
my skin is made from a bolt of fabric
that changes patterns each day.
this poem is not about 
unraveling though it could be.
i pull out stray strings all the time 
from clothing & from my body.
once i pulled one out of my hat 
slow, as if i were extracting a tooth.
still, the whole hate peeled apart.
a severed heart. i keep both halves
in the closet in case they 
return to each other. but really
most of the time nothing happens.
i want to know where the threads
come from & what their purpose is
if not to hold a body together.
i'm picturing a realm of only loose threads.
all different colors serpent in piles.
the sun is loose golden yarn. 
sometimes i think about how
without muscle we would just lay like 
unassembled tents. i pulled 
one fiber from my ankle this morning.
i held my breath. green cord
from my body. i thought
haha maybe i'm a trap door.
i saw all my lovers falling into me 
& towards the world of thread.
who else is there? 
maybe my grandfather with his rickey cane 
& maybe mounds of trinkets:
horse shoes & book ends &
plastic spider rings. the cable
exited my skin easily. no blood.
just release. i checked my body 
for more but found none.
i inspect each day. i guess 
in a way i kind of hope one string
will sunder me apart. me: reduced to
swatches of clothe. neatly folded
i would like to be a quilt maybe
in my next life.

color contact lenses & transformation 

eyelid peeled back
i sat on the floor of my bedroom
trying to place the color contact 
onto the surface of my eye.
a holy blue. electric blue.
it wasn't that i wanted
blue eyes-- it was that i wanted 
unnaturally blue eyes. junior year of high school
was a year of transformations.
i wore cosplay outfits 
in my bedroom while doing mundane tasks
like answering emails or 
organizing my bookshelf. 
it was a unique task to take a picture 
of myself with my phone;
no forward facing camera i had
to contort, hold the phone above me.
sometimes i'd imagine being two people:
a photographer & a model. their conversations
unspooled from my head. is anyone
not lonely in high school? i let 
whole animes play out between
a few nights. i dreamed of new ways 
to have a body. i saved images 
of cosplayers on my desktop
like a photo album or a destination.
is anyone not lonely now? this poem
is maybe not for them. sometimes i
dressed up as boy characters.
sometimes as girl ones. i used to think
it was about gender but now i think
the practice was about going
elsewhere. becoming anything but 
this body. i brushed my wigs 
carefully: the red one, the blue one,
the yellow onw, & the white one.
i tucked my hair under wig caps
& touched my rounded head 
in my full length mirror. i wanted
the contacts to fit so badly.
my eyes watered, dripping down my face
& leaving little trails in my foundation.
i couldn't get them in no matter
how many times i pushed & pleaded with 
my skin. the contact was thick &
would not stick to the surface correctly.
never before or after have 
considered so closely the texture 
of my eyes. two marbles 
in my face. when i gave up 
i put on my person clothes 
& took a walk up the street. it was 
humid june by then & all the grass
was dry & dead. i told myself
when i got back to my room
we would try again, yes & this time
they would fit right into place
& i would see myself in the mirror
changed.

my life in advertisements

recently, i've found my life
in several commercials. i'm in the background
of a crowd or there's stock photage of that one
birthday at mcdonalds or those are surely
my hands. mom used to make us mute 
the television during commercials.
i would watch the silent bodies
with their mouths flapping like tunnels.
a train is always at the back of everyone's throat.
being born is a checkbox that says 
i have read the terms & conditions.
everyone is selling something 
whether they know it or not. i walked around
all day with a jingle about roasted chicken
fluttering through my heart. i want to 
be on an ad in one of those subway posters:
my body made large & important. i saw 
a poster with a huge whale on it but i forget
what it was telling me to buy. the image
made me want to plunge into the ocean
& see how large i could swell. 
my father was on a flashing billboard
promoting metal bottle caps. 
the caps were placed over his eyes.
i didn't call him but i took a picture
with my phone. everyone is a camera lately.
this is not a sponsorship. video of me kissing
my first boyfriend on a swingset 
in the park is on a condom commercial
which is ironic because we never used one.
i have been a very precarious person
in need of extra products. my feet
are not suited to beauty, they have
little hairs on each toe & i used to 
trim them. i buy a pink razor even though
i'm a boy because i like the smell it leaves
on my legs. watch as 
a projection of a man unwrapping a candy bar
glows across my face. my uncle was
in several reese peanut butter cup ads.
the floor of his car, a sea of discarded wrappers.
stepping inside, the faint scent of
chocolate & peanut butter. who doesn't want
be unwrapped? i miss my quiet bed room
before my computer perched like a bird 
asking questions. i tell the screen
that yes i would like to buy all items 
& all services if i could. 
i contemplate whether or not to but
new body wash. i sometimes scrub my body 
with conditioner to feel smooth.
no, no i don't actually do that
i just want to. the distance between
want & can & should oscillates.
i want to be a worse person but who knows
what is being recorded. before a youtube video 
i watch my mother baking a funfetti cake
for my tenth birthday. she's selling
pillsbury. maybe we did nothing 
out of love. i learned how to love
from a series of images, some of them 
ads muted on the tv. a boy kissing 
a girl. a girl i imaged 
was a boy. diamonds on their hands.
a sunset. a car ride in an endless
wilderness.

cycle of salmon 

i wonder if salmon are aware 
of their orange pink flesh inside them.
i looked at the cuts at whole foods yesterday
& they sat beside a little pile of grey shrimp.
a woman was ordering crab legs by the pounds
& i thought of all the legs skittering
across the smooth grocery store floor.
somewhere in the world there are salmon
fluttering around. swimming up stream.
laying eggs in their home waters.
completing a cycle. we are all completing 
a cycle. right now i am participating in spring
& resisting the urge to pick daffodils.
summer is a future yellow.
i have eaten salmon maybe twice & never 
on purpose. i'm a vegetarian now 
which means i have lost touch with 
the textures of sinew. i have not
picked a bone out of my mouth in years.
i always thought vegetarianism would 
make me more mystical-- that i might
close my eyes & feel the salmon rushing.
i only feel my own blood & smell grocery carts
as they wince at the scene. no one has any right
going to a whole foods to find food.
i cradle three green bananas. i am 
a salmon here. i picture the folds 
of my meat. the white lines in the flesh.
sometimes i think meat looks like
fabric. a pattern. a seamstress sewing
the insides of salmon. i have thought
fish were dumb for awhile now. it's something about
their eyes. when i had goldfish 
i worshipped their gaze & the open-close
of their mouths. i have become less wise
& less trustworthy either that or 
i have never been. completing a cycle.
this summer i will hopefully become someone
who doesn't go to grocery stores for comfort.
my father does this too. someone might say 
why did you wait so long to meantion
this poem is about your father?
because a father lurks just beneath 
the surface of a river full 
of salmon.