Part of me
was still on the party bus
with the estranged branch of my family.
Part of me swallowed a wavy
strand of the Niagara Falls.
It rappelled down my throat
like coloured scarves, each knot
a repentance, resentment lost,
while part of me clicked a padlock closed
on the redemption arc for luck.
Part of me was gleeful
at unsnapping the twig and reversing the tape.
Part of me knew the blood was fake
while the dark tunnel shrieked in August heat.
On my knees in the hooded canal, whites turn blue
and bare their teeth at the part of me willing
myself to heal without giving the trick away.
Under the strobe lights, sharp shivering staccato
like a crunched popsicle, part of me was promised
a celebratory pin, I made it throughScreamers House of Horrors,
even after all of this.
Part of me rolled my eyes
through the roadblock of ghosts
and skeletons like bowling pins lined
for a strike. Part of me hit the gutter
hard and came out the other side
into whoops and hollers, pats on the back,
smacked with the black, beaming flashlight
of forgiveness.
While part of me did not believe, not for
one fucking second, in all of that
terrible business.
I Pray to Stop the Blood
I went for a walk on my knees
in the woods. Spiders crunched
under the heels of my hands like
dried flowers. I fell forward
into the stinging, universal privacy
of the singed grass and wondered
whether I was on the earth’s back
or her stomach.
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