seams and stitching ♡ published

TELL ME

tell me what it means
when a man
marries you, kneeling,
when he doesn't smile
but he's crying
and afterwards when you
ask him to kiss you,
he shakes his head no.
tell me what it means that
i write poems
about wanting to taste
like flowers soaked in honey
and yet i am still
so harsh and cruel
against the tongue.
tell me why there is always
the bottle of pills,
show me who is still gasping
at the bottom of the lake,
take me to the sewer grate and
lower me in so
i can fish out all the pennies
and give them to
the prostitute on the corner
so she can go home for
one godforsaken night.
teach me how to swallow
the pills like mother does.
teach me to
love like a ripped bed sheet,
tell me there's more to this
than the porcelain sink
all bloody
by the end of the day
and father crying in the kitchen.
unravel the mystery
of how my father managed
to knock my mother
in the back of the knees
with the bumper of a car,
grab me
by the throat and drag
me back in time,
teach me how to suck the
death from
my memory of Catherine,
tell me there's more to
the girl with the fearsome voice
than where her
body's been, erase my
father, erase him,
scribble all over my mother
with a yellow highlighter,
tear the fabric, stain the laughter,
tell me there's more
to all of this than the gunshots
and the thunderclaps,
tell me there's more
to all of this than the
sun falling to its knees
at the horizon
by the end of the day,
and the prostitute twitching
in the bloody light,
waiting to climb into
the next godforsaken car.