An incomplete list of everything I’ve ever been afraid of: 

–my parents leaving my sight (thanks to a lack of object permanence)

–tornado sirens

–bears

–the tunnel scene from willy wonka when Gene Wilder keeps rhyming stuff

–Robbie from Lazy Town

–loosing my parents in Walmart

–the spider carriage thing from beauty and the beast

–also real spiders

–bugs

–fuzzy house centipedes

–sharks

–peeing my pants at school

–my first grade teacher

–warts

–skin infections

–getting kidnapped

–being told im dumb by a teacher

–bears (again)

–the organ player at our church 

–my parents deciding they don’t want me anymore

–that all of life is a dream

–photos of hair follicles up close

–birds of prey

–all social interaction

– awkward situations

–embarrassing myself

–getting my period in school

–getting my period in the woods

–bears (again)

–getting my period while swimming

–sharks (again)

–that I smell bad and no one will tell me

–bugs under my skin

–bullfrogs that carry their eggs on their back

–walking home at night

–not being able to control what i eat

–mold taking over my house

–over eating 

–outgrowing my clothes

–friends talking about me behind my back

–the state fair

–the cheesecake factory

–germs and bugs in my food and under my teeth and under my skin

–not being a biologist

–being a biologist

–disappointing others

–break ups

–making the wrong choices

–letting go

–(object) permanence

–not finding a career

–loosing my parents

Vicious cycle 

branch of perfection 

have you completed your piece? 

‘complete’ died on the

5 Feet Apart (ode to vines)

Lo! Two brethren resting in a bath of warm,

Though kinship doth lay deep inside their heart.

But Cupid not with love to them adorn,

Lest such be thought, they sit five feet apart

Fre sha va ca do (ode to vines)

Hark! Though must journey to a restaurant,

With fine cuisine like nachos but anew 

While famine in thy belly give you taunt

Such hunger met with fre sha va ca do

Today 

I think

That I think 

If I grieve all of it now, then I won’t have to feel it later

I think

That I think

If I let my tears soak into my marrow until my bones are heavy, then I’ll be safe from any storms to come. Because it’s impossible to dampen a towel that’s just been submerged underwater; that’s why I won’t be at the mercy of a terrible grief if I choose to steep in it today. 

And because fear is just calcified love, and because I’m sick of dousing myself with the anxious thoughts that won’t change a sobering reality

Today I’ll just cross my fingers, in both hope and self-soothing dishonesty, 

That parents last forever

What I Weigh

I weigh hundreds of stories 

And thousands of sorries

I weigh all the patience in the world, and none of it’s time

And every wrong to which I was blind

I weigh all of my father’s gentleness, both my mothers eyes 

And every ounce of their joy and pride

I weigh hours of maternal stress and generations of fishermen

I weigh the wingspan of a stretching collar bone under my skin

I weigh the ‘neither gay nor somber hybrid creatures’ in my throat cocooned

I weigh my sphenoid’s blossomed wings of ‘solemn bird and this fair moon’

I weigh adam’s rib-caged thing with feathers in my chest

Yet why she sings i can only guess

I weigh my abandoned house of grief

its dripping faucets and broken windows gaping, missing teeth

I weigh the both hollowing losses and the hallowing baptism of dawn

Howling car ballads with callow family – the last night gone

I weigh every fingernail sized life I’ve spared between cup and newspaper 

I weigh every hair traded for wrinkle on my parents’ heads

I weigh the memory of a smile that I’d thought gone

I weigh as much as the coo of mourning doves and smell of dirty crayons

I weigh a festering fear of unclean skin and germs, a

Pestering ancestral instinct that modern logic won’t affirm

I weigh the death of my first dog, and the news at six o’clock

And i guess every constellation that my dad to me had taught

I weigh all the grief-struck and love sick flowers I’ve received

The things i can’t forget, and every promise i believed 

I weigh every birthday card I’ve got 

The things I did forget, and believe me that’s a lot

Though I don’t know what in gold I’m worth

I’ll ask the worms I brought to safety after rain

they’ll say “you’re equiponderant to auburn earth

Cause even if we cannot feel it, you tried to spare us pain”

What i weigh is all the pride i had to swallow 

In place of everything for which my mouth had cried

i weigh the nights that i felt hollow 

And the thoughts from which i hide

What i weigh is 

An inherited creature

Who at the root of this

Is to whom I turn my cheek. Her 

Scream is 

what i weigh is 

every word i drowned under 

so i dare you to   

tell me again it’s just a number