=I Tear Myself to Shreds & It Feels Good But Just for a Little While=

You said the anger would come back just as the love did.

--Anne Sexton

I feel under tremendous pressure to be human

Some days, like every day, it seems impossible

I look at my face on the table

My face a 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of a photograph in the dark

My face a 14-letter word for I’ll never be me

How do I make an appropriate expression?

I hold up a piece—what is it—part of a nose?

I hold up a piece—what is it—corner of an eye?

I want to bury myself in the backyard

I want to lay patio stones over my corpse

I want to listen to a family bar-b-cue from across the country

I was born far outside of any family

I was born from an egg left by nothing in the bestiary

I hatched at the bottom of the closet

My father a flat suit on a hanger

My mother a pair of shoes with one loose heel

My brother a golf club

He once sunk a hole-in-one

What raised me were hushed voices in the kitchen

What raised me was a stuffed parrot on a pole

What raised me was the fear of dogs

What raised me was a voice on the phone or was it in my head?

I’ll never be anything but faux normal

Did I tell you I bashed my skull against the bathroom tiles

This so I could regain a modicum of sanity

This so I didn’t have to see that smug churchgoing face again

But I see it again goddammit

I see it everywhere

I do

I do

I do