Diplomacy! Wicked gift!
I want to know if Imagined Me has started being perfect yet-
Your little pet that I should really care less about, for she is not mine.
I do inform, like that’s a boundary.
Read More »they provide the ride
When you’re twelve and seek escape from family, they provide the ride,Read More »
Lessons on How to Be Okay
You, my first love with your padding to my room to draw
a mural with me, with my three-years-behind-yours fine motor skills.
Green easel- hodgepodge I never erased.
You, with your independence, hero-power, and readiness,
senior trips and friends I always joined but never made.
“How was it letting the class freak be on top?”Read More »
Rocks
I feel the cold stone beneath my toes,
and I feel I exist outside of me,
on the surface of this body they’ll label
Lydia and point to once I’m dead.
My eyes close. I stare at my eyelids,
and now I feel I’m inside of me—
Oh, help! Please, someone,
get me out!
I inside and outside of me…
Is me my body? Then who am I?
Me might be nothing, for that’s what I see
every single time I blink.Read More »
The Welcoming
Losing skin cells,
growing more-
part of daily human life.
I charge toward your heart from your outer layer,
constantly fearing
being shed,
running into nothing but
another, another
layer of skin.
I stood
finally-Read More »
Reunion
My body talks. Does yours speak the same language?
I tell mine to stay silent just in case.
I do not sit in your chair, or rest my head
on your leg, or let you stroke my hair.
I do not tip my face
onto your cheek:
Read More »
If only he’d screamed, cried, or lamented
I’m suddenly disturbed by the awareness that
everybody feels
sadness.
I’m suddenly feeling unsettled aboutRead More »
Rocking Chair
You don’t want to lie down, but it’s not time to run,
so you arch, throw yourself, scream, dive, and you hate me.
I bring you to myself and calm your body down.
You tire out then wake slightly, force some side-eye
like you trust me, and I slide you to your bed
as seamlessly as I can, deep-breathing in your ear
until you’re long-lost. You sleep long enough to little more
than recover, sit up in your bed and smile, start whining for me.
I say, “Come here,” and you wedge between my thighs,
contentedly rest your head on my leg, and you need me.
I pat your back, so you switch your face to my stomach.
You’ve forgiven me. Oh, you see your twin has the doll you like,
so you squeak, forget me. You go out to the world,
glance backwards at me, loving me, and carry on.
Daddy
Sometimes I think the funniest thing about him is that I found him normal-
Getting pulled over, breaking down, breaking back in,
my bloody hand from climbing a fence to get to school and the mysterious sock
that we used to clot, and how that was god.
Rock walls tied to the truck while directing traffic on the interstate
so that ducks could pass- It was
SMOOTH AS BUTTER! BOWL OF SUGAR! WHOO-Read More »
Intimacy
Be near,
close to me as I scrawl.Read More »
Alphabet Ravine 