missingnumbers

we hoped it would get bad enough to break glass that one of our voices would find the note to split the window make a neighbour call the cops that the dishes would shatter into too many pieces to be picked off the floor we wanted glass in our heels a trickle of heat a flicker of colour in the sun-blank snow the pines leaned on our doorframe we waited for them to pressure in and unfurl shower our stunned faces in a rain of needles 
knock the teapot off the table in a blossom of shards but the trees stood by 
evergreen and identical the same dream of pine repeating behind yellowing plastic we painted shut the door with smi

iii. claustrophobic I punched a shuttlebus window and          a nebula darkened         across my knuckles.       you will be vindicated       to hear I still beautify             the wrong things. ii. cutting carrots as you laughed in the living room, a sitcom rereun uncanning its same sounds on repeat. the joke unfunny, your laugh unlovely, me unlovely for thinking it. (the love poems fell flat but the breakup tongued my jugular and, anticipating,  I placed myself   against the pulse) when you left for work I stayed, crackled, shedding sparks. my body foil in a microwave. the neighbours rehearsed homicide while I blasted

i. if i use imagery of glass bones present fragility as artisanship am i lying to you, or being honest about my lies to myself? if i show you my weaponry could you see me as strong, even frightening, rebelling in defence of  rather than against my own existence? could i be a protagonist you would cheer for? if i call myself joan of arc could you overlook i set the fire myself i. this is the truth: i want you to like me. this is another: i never felt so strong as the summer i barely slept. just spun in the hot socket of sundown my blood gorged on static a slow sharpening of bones a switch flicked ON, which is a body realizing

you won't recognize me, you say. but i do and you me. in each other we see who we were — stumbling cynicism, awkward with desire sharpened mean and hidden poorly. we turn from each other afraid to speak not because we've forgotten but because we can't.

stars in still water i ask the night to swallow me or make me whole

as i step off the metro into moon-drenched black the night opens its wings, blown black volcanic ash velvet my eyes, cut glass skies, and the teeth in my mind become stars, an opposite of lack whole body heartbeat clear as an anger without any red my breath falls in pearls black ice opals, an ocean underfoot that carries me forward, self pushing on skin with no need to split and i don't know if it's swing or a springback the opposite of absence pushing outward the flatness my self as a presence tonight not a burning tonight not the walls whitened into blisters, but cool air touching, my skin, now my mouth full of air, and the moon in black

i find my fingertips shaking on a keyboard, under a smudged screen where facebook friends talk about finding themselves. i find my solar plexus, press with thumb knuckle, confirm a presence. bloodhum, skin of sweat and cellophane, too tight to contain me. i shake with nothing to say. how do you define a self? how do to grasp that center, resist when your nails itch to break the boundaries of your body? i try to speak but keep crouching inside metaphors. i want contact but not to be the type who wants. someone to find the core i cannot. is desperation an illness. what if it is quiet. what if it grows alongside, knotted to

in my dream I use my brother's pocketknife to pry the tattoos off my skin. I have never had tattoos or even posters   on the walls of my room. I am afraid to sever opportunities to become someone new. the shine of a haircut before it's been washed and just becomes a part of a body