This Evening

I can feel the ache of my lungs,
the collapse of my bones
as I start to fall inwards
from the weight
of this evening.
I need you to pull my ribs forward,
kiss the dry whites of my eyes,
smother me down, bite
the blue of this bruise
slowly starting to bloom
upwards along my chest.
I know this will take time
to heal.

Red Sunflower Desire

I can remember
the first time I split
this earth open,
locked within the blooming
garden of sunflowers that
formed the upstairs bathroom.
I told you first,
almost begging, asking about
how I should tell our parents.
You dragged me downstairs
and pushed me forward,
spilling forth with the news,
as we all sat there awkwardly,
my small frame I was already beginning
to hate; buried beneath the blue folds
of my bathrobe,
underwear pressing tightly to my skin
as if to brand me
with the red secrets of shame that
I would carry throughout
the years.
I checked off day one immediately,
beginning a regular cycle
of forgetfulness and inconvenience, for
I can no longer count
between the lines in my memories,
a stack of pads sitting
on the polished wood of the
kitchen table as I rush out the door,
breaking apart once more
as my cells and priorities
rearrange themselves again.
I carry no quarters
and spend my days hunting for
toilet paper, stealing pads from under
the sink at other people's houses,
cursing this body
with its ugliness and the blood
it oozes.
Cursing the unjust actions of the
unaware public
as I stand there ready to cry,
staring at the shelves
of a Chinese supermarket, every time subtitled,
debating and counting my money
because I need to have enough
to last me for meal money
till I make it back home.
As I stand there,
yet again no change, no machine either,
only my trusty friend toilet paper,
crinkled and uncooperative,
as it bunches up when I try to go
back to enjoying the movie,
As I lay there,
surrounded in the filth of my own
making, staining my bed,
my safe zone turned into battle grounds
with the blood trailing
down my thighs, out across the sheets
and deep into the mattress.
There's nothing left of that
fateful October day
as all my fears and desires
were confronted by the flowers
blooming across the walls
to match the red blossom
on my panties,
and I know,
this feeling of self-hatred
needs to stop.

beat of this blood

i follow the beat of this blood
curved 'round the corners of this page,
my pen on the line,
poised to fall just before the bullet
is fired.
there's a thick trail of mud
along the backside of my legs,
the dark imprints of my footsteps
a yawning smile behind me,
ready to open and swallow me whole
into the crevasses of this poem,
stretched thin between the moment,
those colours abloom across the
back of my eyelids, bruises forming
against the underside of my teeth
as i bite down again and again
until i'm bleeding along the inseam
of my tongue,
your voice forever a whisper
painted on my lips,
only parted open to gasp
as i start to fall.

Island Blooming

This holds a different type
of greenery, pooled limped between
the scrapes of the pen and
arched between the branches
of my childhood,
as I lay back, caterpillers crawling
down the brittle sides of my ribs,
the mud sliding past my lips,
falling forward into the expectations
I formed on the fields, singing
while skirting the memories of previous days rain.
Yet when I close my eyes,
or run my fingers across the veins
in the bark of the tree in what
is now my city, choking back the mist off the lake,
I'm overcome to write the colours free,
spill the green forward and
spread it across the flesh of the page,
streak my tongue through the dirt
and subjugate myself
beneath the twisting,
pulsing, sadistic love
of the island in full bloom.