Reckless

If there's pee on the seat it's my pee, battery's dead I killed it, Flat tire, I punctured it, like I punctured my body at age 13, I wanted to be pierced so badly, to feel the sharp bareness of a needle—like the syringe my aunt stabbed my buttcheeks with on nights when illness in my body ran rampant, sickly child, frail, in need of vitamins. If there's liquid on the mattress it's my bladder's. Hamster went feral, I released it. Light bulb went out, I let it. Holy water spilled, I sucked. Radio wailed, I wailed with it. Like MTV is a terrible substitute for a father, but I made do.

Why am I here three years later where your bedroom’s greasy yellow walls taunt me and the deflated birthday balloons your sister gave you hang taped above me in not your bed, not our bed, but your father’s, and if I made my way down the bedbug ridden carpet I’d find plaster peeling in the corners of the bathroom where I panicked, where you soothed while I vomited, helping my quaking body into cold showers because I thought water calmed me down like ocean—it didn’t, and that house was falling apart, we should’ve known, we did know, I told you stop talking, be quiet your voice made me nauseous in the deepest hollow of my gut, in the Park & Ride on Atlantic we shared an edible, I learned to sit with my panic, to befriend it, made it out empty- stomached, wiped my mouth on my wrist, put my clothes back on, snuck into bed where you laid half-high half-worried and said I’m okay, I’m okay,  now if only            I could st...