wretchedly unabashed

s.b | endure, dear heart; for you have endured worse 

[inkedknuckles]

It’s hard to write  about being happy.  Or maybe I am just  a bad poet. Unlike you,  who wrote the best poem  in the entire world  with my fridge magnets:  We will run through life together.

[inkedknuckles]

Home is a place you can be quiet if you want to be, loud if you want to be, a place you want to be. 

I have never known  what it is to have a home until you. 

There will be no shouting  in our house. The only loudness  will be our laughter.

[inkedknuckles]

The April sky is endless.  The noose around my neck is a familiar and comforting leash. My mother says better the devil  you know. The devil says better to burn out fast than to fade away. Everyone is beautiful if you look at them long enough. Well, sure. You still need  someone to look at you.

[inkedknuckles]

I’m no daddy’s girl  but I am my father’s daughter.  I cry in every grocery store and I can only tell the truth when I can’t see your eyes.  In my head, I am a good person. In my bones, I know there is an emptiness that will swallow  you whole. I cannot help my nature  any more than I can help my nurture. I cannot help stinging you  even when I’m on your back. Even when it’ll kill us both. 

[inkedknuckles]

in movies, i saw high pitched girls yelling when men grabbed their wrists, "your hurting me!" and i would always think, so? that’s what he wants. why would he stop. and why are you telling him? now he’s just going to do it more. now he knows exactly what to do. maybe that's why i don't cry in front of you anymore. maybe that's why i laugh on roller coasters, instead of screaming.

[inkedknuckles]

We don’t want much, really. A warm hand to slip ours into. A shoulder to lean on.

We are all just stumbling around in the dark trying to figure out how to love people but it’s hard. Because it’s dark. And we don’t know how they want to be loved.

It’s hard not to be cruel. Still, we must clean each other’s feet. Feed each other from banana leaves. What else do we have  but our hands.

[inkedknuckles]

My mother said men cannot bear their hunger. They are like children in that way. Does that mean we have to bear it for them? Will I spend my whole life bearing you? I think you are a good person. Or at least, you are trying to be, which is really the same thing. I try not to be overbearing. You are not my child, only my baby. It's selfish, I know. What meaning can love have other than bearing each other?

[inkedknuckles]

Unfortunately for everyone else, it is eighty degrees in October. We eat too expensive ice cream on the pier, and take cover from sea gulls.

On the Promenade, the long belly of California rumbles beneath us as we swerve around rollerbladers on our Lime bikes.

Later,  I shampoo your head and you smile soapy ear to soapy ear. I don’t think we are saving water like this. 

I don’t know how to save the world.  Maybe we can save each other, just a little bit. 

[inkedknuckles]

The first apartment I ever got by myself was small and dinky and the only window looked out onto a gray wall and the kitchen cabinets were ugly as sin but it was the first home I’ve ever had. Sure, the place had rats and I went to sleep every night scared I'd get murdered because there was no way to lock the patio door but. Are you really living if you’re not afraid of dying? I’ve spent a lot of my life not being afraid to die and let me tell you, that one’s worse.

[inkedknuckles]

Men will hate us if we are pretty and men will hate us if we are ugly. But some ways of being hated are better than others. A boy grinds against a girl in a dirty bar as I watch from the corner. His breath fogs her neck. She laughs and pulls away. I know what happens to pretty girls. A man calls me pretty as he holds the door open for me. A man calls me pretty and doesn't let me split the check. A man calls me pretty as he holds me down and splits me open with his hand over my mouth. I know what happens to pretty girls. And still, I want it. To be ugly is to be, at best, invisible. At worst, it is to be seen as worthless. Sub-human. Is it better to be wanted violently, or to be unwanted, utterly?

A boy holds me tight and grinds against me in a dirty bar. I try to pull away.

[inkedknuckles]

One flowering branch amongst all the brown. The white house with the pink door & paper hearts strung up in its windows. A warm hat on a cold day.

There are places where the world is soft. I must be too, in order to receive it.

[inkedknuckles]

went to goodwill and found a bucket hat. thank you lord. she's perfect. went to goodwill and found god at the checkout register, wearing rainbow overalls and a handlebar mustache. he said that's a great bucket hat. thank you lord. went to get ice cream. went to war before walking into the ice cream shop. went into the ice cream shop. thank you lord.

walked down main street with my blueberry pie ice cream and everything was sunsoaked.  a car blaring music and a baby wiggledancing in the backseat. a lost cat poster with a picture of the best cat in the whole world (gigantic fluffy white with the smallest, grouchiest mouth, responds to Horchata). lord, i pray that you would show this cat her way home, but  before that, show her this poster— proof that someone, somewhere, loves her.

[inkedknuckles]

[inkedknuckles]

[inkedknuckles]

my freshman year i had two professors for an intro math class. a married couple, in their sixties. they met at a college party, they tell us. elaine was the only one who won an argument against me, alan says, mostly because i couldn't stop staring at her  long enough to think of something to say back.

then they teach us all the ways to prove the answer to any question in the universe.

i look at the back of your head and take my notes on contradictions: you are two rows in front of me when just a month ago you were beside me.

i look up at my professors and take my notes on induction: let the number of times i get up be one more than the number of times i fall.

[inkedknuckles]

under the wheeling spring blue,

i run up the slide and don't quite

make it. you don't quite manage

to not laugh, sticky sweet

mango lassi on the corners of your

mouth like gold leaf.

we stare up at the sun together

and put our hands over it to see

the golden red inside us.

i don't mean to turn towards you but

my body always knows love

before i do.

[inkedknuckles]

my mamma tells me she knew i was all grown up

when she walked past my door at night and didn't see

the light from the closet spilling out.

spring tells me she's here with the neighbor kids

yelling outside my window.

my father tells me i haven't seen the sun in seven days.

my boss tells me he needs me for one more thing

before i go, just one more thing won't you stay a bit?

no mamma, i know

we're all gonna have to get used to darkness.