“I walk many days, and people I encounter
live very short lives.
They die as I place my fingers on a handle,
Their memory is severed and spurting all over me,
So I walk some more for them,
with pieces clinging to my nylon-covered legs,
They don’t mind at all, or very little.”

from Watch Her Disappear


“The man asked: Do you have children?
Then noted down: I was ordinary and childless.
Some fleshy part of myself was the culprit.
At 17, they prescribed me a lover. At 25, a baby.
In my hand, the ash of rage, sticky and sweet.
That’s it? I laughed. It hurt.”

from You’re Sick, Have a Baby

“A bubble of blood. You paper-cut
your life line. Imagine you looked
at the hurt and saw a life worth having.”

from Papercut


“I’m a love letter written thirty years ago.
That’s why I flinch when I’m looked at with love.
I expect to be ripped open.”

from Open, Save


“I know to keep my head down,
fall to the ground, stay dead. Ma’?
When you cut your hair and I held the braids,
Did I touch our root with no possible way of healing?”

from Apricity