the secret

when should i tell him that i’m only slightly human?
i tried sending him a photograph but he mistook me for a shed.

i walk around, feeling human.

maybe more miserable than most--cars are always trying to hit me.
is there a human under that pile? certainly not!

but look, i have arms. i am like a human that has arms.
i am like a human that has arms but with a face torn off by a dog

and buried under a pile of dirty laundry and litter.
but look, my heart beats outside my chest, it beats like a heart.

i have tried taking out my eyes to examine them and failed.
i have been a quiet ball of hair and teeth since before birth, i was born.

has there been a human born with no bones, or with a shovel for a face?

i am this human.

like a human i have memory and blankness.

when there is enough light in my eye i sleep and in my sleep
i am only slightly human and i give up.

postcards from new life

bestie megan martin has writings and speakings up at word riot. look at it, she's cool.

here's my favorite postcard:

After Many Seasons at the Asylum, She Climbed Into the Arms of The Universe

This is the last you will hear of my adventures in this new world, dear. As I write I am climbing into the blossomy tree in the courtyard, against the Good Doctor’s instructions. The Good Doctor is calling:come down this instant but I am climbing higher, leaping branch to branch, breaking more teeth than I have. I dangle! I perch! I feed myself bloated on the plumpest leaves, blackest berries, most delicate petals, paperskin stained with fruitblood. I scrape back bark from limb, branch, twig, with barehanded grace. Sunbleached words dry and curl, flake underpen like snow as seasons change around me (did I mention it is the tallest tree known to woman?), but I shall continue until I’ve whittled myself back to earth. Once my nails have unbloodied and resurrected themselves, once these sentences have turned to soil, I will finally understand: I am here.