may 14th 2024

at home the sky is grayer from pollution than black or blue at night, silhouetted by the tree outside my window. when the lights go out in my bedroom i can see plastic constellations on the ceiling. my dad and i stood on chairs and hung them with sticky tack when i was sixteen. above my bed is the dipper and on the opposite side of the room, aquarius, whom i share with my mother. i was born a day before she was thirty five. 

when the lights go out in my closet i remember when i crouched over my sock drawer as my insides curled. i’d heave like an instrument, sob chords to an audience of stuffed animals in a wicker basket. i remember my sleeves draining spit from my face like a towel, cotton pullovers absorbing the sweat from my arms and legs. i remember the tender spot on my forehead where i’d slam into the door, again, again, and in the morning the skin there would raise and i’d be grateful for my bangs. i’d shut my eyes and send pleas through ley lines in my mind to my friends far away, left unreceived. as a last resort i’d stand in the middle of the floor and pretend i was on a television screen so that someone could hear me. it is rare these days to find a place where no one can. i’ve made it that way.