From a Page Found in My Brother’s Journal
I don’t feel loved, though Mom keeps stroking my hair
and saying, You are so loved, you are so loved.
She also says if I have another outburst we are going
to have a problem. I want to tell her about the sticker
Patrick Fletcher put on my chair, how it read
“Date me, I’m desperate,” and stayed on the back
of my jeans until fourth period, when Sara Howell
took me aside and told me. I want to tell her
this is why I broke the doorknob off the door,
why I put my fist through the window.
Catherine sits on top of the counter eating goldfish.
She won’t look at me, says under her breath,
You are actually insane. In my room I draw
the same tractor over and over on a piece of paper
until the green lines merge, until they become
one giant, oozing blob. I feel like that sometimes,
like an explosion, like the collapsed asteroids
we learned about in class, spiraling out in deepest space.
Interlude: Summer House
For years I let no one touch me. I had myself to preserve.
Not to mention the poems, which, like rocks, refused penetration.
It was a surprise to discover my body, collapsed like a bridge,
but still beautiful, still wet with snow.
Leaves swirled out across the water, glittering
like some ghostly path. I ached, knowing it would end,
first the moonlight, then the clearing it had made,
that empty mattress where, laughing,
I had locked myself between your legs.
____________
Image by Catherine Pond.
