LAST POEM

Because I want you to see me as I take myself apart. 

-R. Froude, Your Love Alone is Not Enough

LAST POEM 

for dave

here is the root of it

[_____pulled up

it took me over 5 years

to be able to shape the sound 

of it _____]

i gave you the best parts of me

we gave the world the best parts of us

we made together the best parts of us

we gave to one another the best parts

pulled 3x from my body

i gave you the best parts of me

portal of my body, between us we made sacred

outside any poem we wrote, we made beauty 

beyond telling, the heart of it

nothing existed before we poured 

into one another all we took for granted

& all of the light & what we thought of 

was love               was love

& you hated me

words collected like knives

we destroyed all of it 

you wanted me to die

that body that pooled life 

you wanted it to not exist

to douse, to eradicate, to allow 

to slip away, you hated each part 

as if it is possible 

to be both the best...

it is possible 

to be the best & the worst

collision of my life 

closed circle: i gave you the best parts of me 

that is what islands us (me) 

where no one can reach

& i could not open to feel ever 

again in the not safe 

cave of plenty, you rolled a rock in front

of the entrance 

&

the wilderness 

of things 

she sings inside the darkness

    i hear her even now 

                                   i whisper to her: escape, rescue, abandon

she mirrors back to me:   

                                    all of your wor(l)ds hold no meaning 

Suicidal Ideation Scale

once upon a time...    prior to language

i flew the skies, shed skins, i was walk of two worlds 

label bottle bone: "sick"          i swallow it under my tongue 

lifetime shatter: the myth of you will not want to die one day...

one day, you will not want to die 

            //it might be a collection of hours but grasp//

let us ask you about harm: here a scale of reduction &
the trespass of truth is i will turn you over to policing
tick... tock... you be glued into time better, girl 

- Mental illness (suicide reflects mental illness);

- Cry for help (suicide threats are not real, they represent a cry for help);

-Right to die (people have the right to take their own lives);

-Religion (lack of religion has a role in suicide);

-Impulsivity (deliberate self-harm and suicide are impulsive acts) ;

-Normality (everyone is potentially capable of suicide);

-Aggression (suicide is an aggressive act), and Moral evil (suicide is a morally bad action)

what will it say of poetry

a failure to give.... but consider it led me further out 

than i ever anticipated. 

in the first year after my brother suicided, i thought 

this wave, this calm, my heart, this blown through i have touched

with my blood, what a feeding, what a strapped down to knowing
cart me  i surrender. 

        but they find you anyway.       oh that song, inside your cells

  couldn't hide that shine.      that kind of burning calls        

    the ferocity of what cores            no one can see 

The CCCS-18 consists of items that measure respondents’ beliefs about legitimacy of suicide (as a rationally acceptable act), acceptability of suicide in terminal patients, morality of suicide from a social perspective and suicide itself as a solution to exit from a given situation

(everyone is potentially capable of suicide (can you hold it like a love( 

(a solution to exit from a given situation    (can you hold it( 

(suicide are impulsive acts (love itself(coming here itself(every time i jumped 

This scale consists of hypothetical scenarios in which the scheme’s main character experiences a problem and attempts suicide. The scale wants respondents to determine the extent to which they have sympathy or empathy with the character and agree with his/her decision in attempting suicide.

do you agree with my decision to attempt suicide(what is acceptance 

do you agree with my decision to ideate suicide (what is surrender

do you agree to put down your fear (there is nothing to be afraid of 

          death is ending a story

& all story tellers

hold the light 

This questionnaire asks about attitude and opinions toward self-destructive behavior, including thoughts about circumstances under which someone might attempt or commit suicide. 

a poem is anatomy, to say i anatomize the self

have taxidermied the constructs you apply to situations

and i am asking you to undo all attachment.                   

       

                               that is all.    i am asking, 

     can you give up the idea of life   

 what is the act of continuation

but a type of destruction of allowing an end

to occur spontaneously

ADDICT

"maybe the people who come to you can handle your darkness"

said someone to me this week. a friend. i say to myself things like

"only broken people come to you, you attract damage"  forget perception

forget we paint the moment we are in with the brush of the past

and it colors everything with what was, not what is

i went to a presentation on healing from sexual trauma

and listened to a room full of women, are you surprised it was

a room full of women but of course we are

my brother was sexually abused and now he is dead

i cry in the bathtub because last week i was having sex

with someone who loves me and who i love but

we can't be together so now i am alone again

it hurts: i go online and in ten minutes find a stranger

to fill that emptiness, fix it: My deepest wound is invisibility

no one can see me and that is how abuse gets in

no one can see me and so too i think of ways to be seen

no matter the cost: i listen to a radio interview with a therapist

on sex addiction and she talks about volition, about whether one

in the moment dissociates and can even make a conscious choice

so tell me how consent works when all i know is other people's bodies

are a way to danger, cloaking what i am worth i seduce abuse b/c i

am in love with the way it consistently wants me back

i don't have to wonder: you love me like you want me dead, you love

me like i'm not real, you love me like i don't exist at all

and yes, i say yes and yes and yes: it's all bloomed inside me

first kiss to fist