My Year of Celery and Carrots and Onions

For Christmas, my brother-in-law gave me 
a set of twelve stainless steel pots and 
pans because I told him I didn’t have any 
large enough to scream into.

Some days I cannot leave my apartment,
and most days I cannot stop screaming, 
but if I can just make it to the kitchen, 
some days I can make soup.

My sister emailed me a recipe for a salad 
to make when your angry, the first step 
is smashing cucumbers with a rolling pin
the subject line was “thought of you…”

Sometimes it feels like there is an ocean 
of sadness just behind my bellybutton,
and there is almost always spinach 
wilting in the bottom drawer of my fridge,

on Saturdays, I like to make Cream of
Vegetable, an attempt to remedy both. 
Carla Lalli Music says you only need four 
ingredients to make a meal, olive oil, 

lemon, salt and pepper. I only really need 
a bad day, or two, or a week. Lately, I cannot
write poetry, but I can chop onions and garlic, 
let them sweat in the bottom of a brand new pot. 

Today, the world is not ending.

I don’t mind the mosquito bites 
on my ankles, at least I made it 
outside. Left my headphones home

almost-on-purpose this time,
deciding to listen to the birds
instead, finding not birds 

but 12-year-olds with lacrosse sticks— 
running, ruddy-cheeked and happy 
to be just where they are,

and I am just across the street, 
ankle-deep in grass surely filled 
with mosquitos and they 

are eating orange slices. 
Flashing smiles full of rinds 
at their Mothers, making music 

with screeching voices, and high-fiving 
with sticky hands and I watch them 
not worrying, if the bites

will leave scars this time, not worrying
how long it will be until the sun sets,
just waiting to watch it happen.  

I Keep Dreaming About Car Crashes

Getting T-boned at a four way intersection 
because someone ran a light. I keep 
having dreams about how I’ll die, 

and if I die in the backseat of Quin’s car
music blaring through the speakers
threatening to blow, I keep thinking 
about how my last thought will be 

a happy one, and about how my mom 
won’t know. No one can tell my mother 
that her sad girl died happy, died singing 
ABBA at the top of her lungs, because 

in the backseat of Quin’s hatchback
I am not afraid to die, to break 
my neck flying through the windshield, 
or wrapping around a telephone pole. 

I am barely afraid to live, and I don’t 
close my eyes at intersections anymore, 
I want to see all of it. 

sweaty, stinking, dirty girl

You forgot to take your birth control
three times this week so you get
your period in English class.
How have you not gotten better at this?

The same way you fall asleep before
brushing your teeth, or your phone
dies before you even leave the house—

You can feel your brain cells 
falling out of your ears 
when you flip your hair upside 
down to dry it with a damp towel.

And you can see the mold growing 
in the tea cup on your dresser but
still you remain unmoving on the sofa

watching your roommate put together 
a puzzle with a missing piece, the deck
of 50 cards held together with an elastic band—
where are the jokers hiding? 

For Anna

Anna bursts through the front door—
yelling. She is dripping wet with rage 
having forgotten her umbrella. But,
not so much forgotten, more misplaced, 
and now her socks are sopping.

When Anna comes home she takes off
her emotions as easily as she hangs
her coat in the front hall closet, letting 
the metal hanger take a turn holding 
the burden. She turns the kettle on and
yells to tell me incase I want a cup of tea,

Anna yells because she is bursting at the seams 
with every feeling, she yells at the kettle, at the 
world, at the goddamnweather and she gives me 
a hug when I come into the kitchen. She says 

because she needed it, and I want to ask 
for a second but instead I get her favorite
mug out of the cabinet. I want to live 
the way Anna loves, loudly and dripping in it.

You’ll never know if you don’t try.

I spent summer watching 
the weather make up it’s mind,
sleeping when I shouldn’t have 

and going for walks when I should 
have been sleeping. I spent summer
waiting for phone calls that didn’t

come, and when they didn’t come 
I didn’t call. I watched mosquitos 
land on my thighs, my wrists, 

my shoulders, and I did not slap 
them away. I spent summer googling 
what you can and cannot say 

on the Suicide Hotline but never 
trying, I spent months waiting, 
sometimes for nothing, summer 
is for wasting.

Say a Prayer to St. Anthony

This week my horoscope told me to Shine 
so I put Vaseline on both my shoulders.

I tried my best to remember to keep
them back as I walked, the way
my Mother taught me to:
squeezing my right hand three times.

But I can’t stop my feet from sinking 
into pavement, because I keep forgetting 
to pick them up and now I’m making 
cement shoes out of every parking lot, 

and my greasy shoulders 
keep curling in, because 
this body is a burden 
to drag around, 

right hand, three squeezes, 
right hand, three persons: 
Father, 
Son, 
Holy Spirit— 

Catholic Guilt

Cara burns incense in our bedroom
on Sunday's and it smells like the church
I grew up going to on vacation.
The one with wooden pews
and a second collection for central air.

At home, our church never had incense
or a bell that rang before the Consecration,
Mass was in a gymnasium
with basketball nets overhead.
With nothing to kneel on, we'd rest our elbows on
our knees when we prayed, hands clasped.

There's no use in counting the Sundays since
I said The Our Father, or since we've
been to the beach. I still haven't decided if
anyone's listening.

While mostly everyone's asleep

Tonight the rain feels like rebirth,
like your Life is just about to start.

and maybe it’s the third cup of English Breakfast
or the lack of sleep you’ve gotten this week,
but the walk home from work feels like Opportunity.

Maybe it’s okay that things have been messy lately,
maybe the mud is what brings the flowers.

And you are choking on the wildflower love
blooming in your throat, rooted in longing
finally finding a home beyond your body.

Tonight you are a garden, in love with
the world and no one in particular.

Eight minutes before class begins

The clock on the wall ticks by reminding you
to stay in motion. The watch on your wrist
hasn’t worked in three weeks, yet you still wear it
because even fully clothed, you feel naked without.
The girl with the red rimmed glasses taps her pen
on an empty page, as the boy beside her taps
an imaginary kick pedal to the tune of the song
that’s been stuck in his head just as long
as you’ve worn a watch that doesn’t work.
Everyone is doing their best
not to fall behind.

From your Pepto-Bismol colored couch

Uneasily beside a stranger
among the crowd at your last party:

They smile at you
like giddy children
at their distant fathers.

As they drink pink, bubbly drinks
and throw their heads
back when they laugh.

Somebody takes a picture
but their thumb covers
up the lens— 
none of them seems to notice.

You danced with all
and after collapsing tipsily—

I didn’t see
You.