free to a good home

i’ve been trying to find safe spaces in other people’s bones cause i’ve seen tradition break along with microwaves, garage doors, and back teeth

and i’m too big for the linen closet, or something.

-y’know when you get hit, he’s saying, and that corner of the staircase becomes your whole world? that little corner of whatever you can see past your knees and arms is your entire universe.

x

i grew my hair out for six years, kind of. privileges can be revoked at any time.

i got dragged around in the dirt driveway of my aunt’s house by my hair until my calves bled and i got to pick rocks out of my skin for hours and i didn’t know what to do with myself, cause there weren’t any stairs.

and then i got a haircut.

x

Adrenaline boils all my insides, holding my brother’s tiny tiny tiny wrists at midnight trying to keep from throwing up trying to keep trying to keep him from killing my sister as she laughs and laughs down on the floor while i’m losing my balance and losing, basically.

he goes to my neighbors, who don’t talk to us anymore. they hug him. i feel murderous as he did

-did they hit you? she asks

it is so hot that the windows are steaming up, and my sister traces pictures of police cars into the fog

nothing is short-term when you’re the oldest kid, the peace keeper, and unfit to lead all at once. so there’s that.

i’m looking for safe spaces