an arsonist’s empathy is often displayed as hideous, i’d know

“Cause the devil I know

Is the devil I want.” - Ethel Cain

—

Thought I might’ve tricked myself into dying by now,

but all I’ve done is become a better liar.

I paved myself in a glossary,

full of sticky definitions

seductive, like chewing gum laced with arsenic

on the tongue.

I called my father.

Longer than ten seconds.

He still didn’t answer like a man

with anything worth hearing.

I hung up feeling like I’d just told him

I was on fire, and he asked me

to call someone else.

At seventeen, I pronounced you dead

a sweet little ritual,

a performance in three acts:

Tear, flush, clog.

The sink. My chest.

(I wanted an apology.

I got plumbing instead.)

One of my licenses expired—

not the one that lets me drive,

But the one that promised

I’d be gone by twenty.

I woke up inside a gaze

that saw me

really saw me

but still had the urge to complain.

And now I’m still the same.

Well, that’s what the fates say

I slashed my finger on accident,

trying to cut something sweet to eat

and in a way,

I did.

Magic hit me at thirteen

not the glitter kind.

The hospital kind

The “I think I saw God in a fluorescent light kind.”

Bloodstream lit up like Broadway.

Breathless.

A lost cause, but euphoric .

I was invited back home

After an exit so casual

It felt like a shrug

but only

If I cut the part of me

that rolled its eyes

like a prayer

to the back of my skull.

He was as healthy as could be.

And they said out loud

Did he even pick the right person?

As if love was a product

and I was the receipt.

I think they’re still waiting

for the return window

to close.

I sat on a park bench

chewing on buildings,

watching gum harden like bone.

I saw fear in the alley’s teeth

and I never saw those eyes again.

I swung like a tired limb

under the moon’s surface,

chanting:

Not yet, not yet, not yet.

And maybe this is bragging,

but I still walk.

I still run.

Both feet down.

While others

the ones I miss,

or envy,

or forgot

stay flat.

So maybe I am bragging.

But what else can I do

when I’m still here

sick,

tarnished,

mossy,

but

satisfied

—

“It’s such a fuckin’ old pain that, you know, there’s nothing poetic about it.” - Fiona Apple