What was he thinking / When he placed the lightbulb // In the space between his molars? / He bit down, jaw clicking…

What proof can I give that I cannot work, / that my very brain is bruised? // Shall I be unborn?

Don’t cry. You cannot cry now. Your mother can. Your sister can. You need to be their floor, their walls, and their ceiling. Don’t cry.

What was my texture, you asked, as if I’ve felt / myself up, which no one confesses / to in public. My texture was diamond. A girl’s best / friend wasn’t shiny, but Teflon.

Life might be different had you / listened to what the doctor’s said: “take your meds.”/ But you don’t listen to the ones you love most, / So why hear out the ones you can’t stand?

They declared me alive at 7:59, a minute before / policy promises another night, another shift of / nurses sweeping by, more IV and trays for you. / Instead, they said Take care, don’t let him die…

Lightning bugs are endangered / They weren’t when we were three / Or maybe they were and we / Caught them anyway…

My cousin called me / girly and I've been scared / of him since. Six plus / years my junior.

My mother swooned at my reading the backs of cereal boxes at breakfast: riboflavin, acetate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, niacinamide, calcium bicarbonate…

When I first move to Flint, my house is / sandwiched between the two other Asians in the city: / the old Thai woman and the half Japanese man.

creation as combat or else all consumed when / looking to be discovered i became invisible.

I let the bird tell me what it wants to be compared to because it is still alive, still tending toward things.

YOU. You are a stout full-stop, planted squarely in the middle of my life. Time is turning you into an ellipsis, as it lugs me onward like the proverbial sack of potatoes.

i am the one who doesn’t trust you. / the world: a thin & narrow strip / across my darkness.

My sister arrived in a dream. / I was Judith coming home after conquering Holofernes / and there was some cheese left in my basket, / only a little blood speckled the cloth.

Ron is moving to Houston but spends the day helping me move furniture that won't fit in the death closet.

…to give my voice to a woman / who takes my name & date // of birth to access the two / prescriptions waiting for me

i bleed purple but only when i try to / the sunshine, helium and hydrogen sun spots / i remember how to combust like i did as a child

sweetie, who are u to question a man / that works? pulls back the sheets, / lifts the stiff board of his body / out of bed, peels off his clothes / & dresses himself daily.

candles lit / on new years floors / in the old house where the doors / never quite shut.