everything thats wrong with me

1.

i held fire in my hands once.

it was in a test tube,

sodium and water

burning together

bright red and

leaping and

angry.

i held the fire

like i would a child

gently

and it did not hurt me

because i was fire too.

2.

what i wish my teachers knew

is that when i study

i study

so i dont have time to drown

i raise my hand in class

because the words i recite

leave no room for me to

scream

and when i trace the letters

to languages i cant understand

i have to erase the demons

that haunt me in the margins.

3.

the whine of bullets

ricochets inside my head

melting into leaden pools

that slip through bone and flesh

to trap my heart in steel.

4.

my parents wanted a girl.

women are lambs

as much as

men are wolves.

a lamb

can be tamed

a lamb

needs a shepherd.

i came out

with the cord around my neck

like a noose.

i was born

a wolf in a collar.

5.

the seat belt digs

into my collarbone

and opens a bloody ditch

in the soft sand of my skin.

cobwebs race

across the windshield

to an orchestra

of break and shatter.

i sigh.

6.

sing to me softly

i will not be afraid

if you do not yell.

let the chords float

on what is left of my breaths

and thaw the appoggiatura

before you drop it on the lines.

sing to me softly

so that this body

can feel the whisper

of wind on skin

even though they have not run in a lifetime.

hum whatever you remember

of a lullaby

over the sound of the rain

that drums against the glass

and threatens

to dissolve me.

7.

i am no poet

but i am made

of fragile objects

that were never meant to be together

and that is poetry.