BrokenTolerance

I must descend         upon myself, below the ripples,         shock waves of foreign tongues - to the deepest I can         sink until my breath         gives out - bubbles ascend like balloons on a windy day in spring. And I am five again.

I couldn't allow the words to speak themselves from my mouth so I handed her some wilted flowers that I picked along the road while I walked to her house they seemed to die along the way but I gifted them, they were all I could offer as a sort of answer to the things she had confided at five o'clock that morning her mother answered the door confused at the offering, at why I had to run away in tears to start the trek back home Does she regret what she said to me? The mousey girl with brown hair, who could walk on her knees and navigate the wildflowers like a child dropped from a thunderstorm, belonging to the woods. I can only know so m

The unresolved, the bad tooth that throbs over your pulse makes your eye twitch with pricks of memory the frenetic snake-dance of a boxer striking at anything that moves, I am not entranced by the swaying of your crest because I can see the glint of fangs, which yellow more each day. If you could pull your innards out and pile them on the floor to examine for the signs of deep infliction I think you would, with gloves, and stethoscope searching for a swelling of your liver or a puncture in your heart,   a physical sign of where it all began. Your eyes bulge again and you hunch, over to tell me more about the pins that wont stop tingling

I can smell the silver on my wrist, a band of moon scraps, that wraps around my skin, tarnished and oxidized, my symbol of security

Three against one. Before science class she had the two cutest boys flanking her like guards as she shot her hip out to the side, and placed her fist upon it, like she was something hot. She was. Who was I to say what I wanted to say, though I hadn't known what it was at the time. So I stood there and listened. I paid attention. It didn't matter what I wore, it didn't matter what I answered, between my two braids, too long, too long.

A cherry bomb in my lap undisclosed now in the open and my napkin cannot cover it she plopped it there a hot thing with no gloves to use while at the dinner table conversations dwindle - although they never were - fill glasses with the silence