Origami – the act of leaving skidmarks on paper.
of chalking dead skin on dead wood.
of tracing creases for a new life to beseech it.
i folded my tongue / nine ways / & waited to be / saved.
dad, i counted / your creases at dinner time / to five thousand
& found a dagger / hemmed in their seams
i chewed / peanuts for my bruises / & cut bangs over / balding
spots & slept with a boy’s letterman / to round out my jutting bones
daggers / rice in my bra shattered / & the metallic ring stung
in a ten-mile radius / calling dogs / calling all the bad dogs / stop
stop don’t cry, dad / im okay. / between within my body
i hid salt / ate salt / & eroded as chloride / ions nipped
the wet pain away i thought / i could be a fish bony & slick
grease from five / unwashed / hairs if each tear was an unsolved
equation / don’t tell me to stop / thinking i cant / stop thinking
if euclid could / triangulate / a maritime course mapped with
rice paper knives / would sail eight meters
of fresh pinkness / in near-death / concentric ringlets / retraced moistened &
disinfected until / each time i drew blood / i drew closer to the bone
i thought of archimedes / reciting (π) every time / no, not pie like
key lime or rhubarb / a string of digits so vast / so much like
the ant / daedalus fixed to string / & fixed with honey / i sucked on
the ant / & counted each leg as / it dissolved
adding compulsion to the sugar floss. / wrecked because the thread
held / the body & kept pulling so / so long / it kept going
the thorax of the ant twitched / as it brushed / my liver
an eye / lolled / but i wanted out / dad, i’m scared / of infinite.
every dna strand lined up end on end would take you
& i / to the sun / & back. / a couplet in astronomical units
cant you see it? / i cut myself for a reason / ribbons like chemtrails so i
could / one day cut my irises into starlight / pins.
last night, i had a nightmare / & shivered myself awake / the sky
was my skin. / my teeth & nails ached. / blood seeped from trees
dad, it was only a dream. / a star sang me the sweetest song, the
star sang / plump & lonely / i wanted her so
bad / i wanted to tie her up / in supercoils. i felt so warm
& sacred / & her light made me a queen. / but she was so far
behind the sky,
behind my skin,
inside my skin,
inside of me,
she was within me, she
was me.
i had only a / dagger, dad, so i / traced the shape of my body / into a womb. inside,
she was a cavern / it felt gorey between / her folds i didn’t know
which side my head should go / it was so new so / pleasant. i pressed my
nose & it smelled like linens / milk chamomile & strangely charred
clementine. / it was only bad because / it was almost real but not quite i cried
like i had come home / in dermal creases so sharp / the corners
carving into the midline / i was the mark she left / half-witted on paper.
drenched & soaked like a wet sponge forced into memory.
i counted π to infinite & found its twitching mandible
in my stomach / surrounded by chalk dust & fairies / like
a lacewing in / fresh molt drags itself into life / ensconced
only yesterday / fragile in soft ways / not glass ways.
so i took your head or what remained & called it dad / wrapped in
her dying speech / steeped hot like diner coffee / & cherry pie
there was an afterthought that smelled like morning rain
& sorries. / but seting her aside for butterfly nets / & giggles.
i tore her picture summing the finite / pieces into a puzzle of
a cork-stopped girl staring back / lost / but returning
& in becoming your daughter
i was freed.
