Three Poems – Rebecca Kokitus
October 31, 2018
closet skeleton
my spine feels wrong, like
someone dissected me
in my sleep and took
a single vertebra, souvenir
if I gained the 20 lbs
I starved away, a doctor
could blame the pain
on my body
the truth is that my bones
are hollowing themselves like
storm strewn trees
but I look indestructible,
the way a well-bred animal does—
watch me flay myself to prove
my own biology,
to find the textbook skeleton
in the closet of my flesh
bored
when I tell people I’m bored they take it to heart
but it’s nothing personal—I’ve been bored
my whole life
why is it that I only feel real when I’m
pushing 100 mph in my piece of shit ford
on 20 mg of ritalin or
breaking someone’s heart
real means overwhelmed
means heat lightning on my eyelids
when a hand strikes my cheek
night sky turns orange near the city
like manmade aurora borealis
stomach acid morning breath putrid
I’m racing toward it always
I don’t know why
—I don’t want to be where
I’m going, literally or
figuratively
I’d imagine that would feel like
crawling into bed alone, still
dizzy drunk
wake up and the dry heaves
echo against porcelain skull
but I won’t be able to
sick it up—the self I’d been before
that rancid sky sour girl, I
miss her
rose honey
I bandage myself up, watch
the honeycomb bloat
rose honey overflow, I
read them like a palm reader
these are my lifelines,
proof that I am alive
when he touches me, I
miss being touchstarved
when he’s in me I’m a
swordswallower, I bleed
from the mouth down
searing like shearing,
he shears me, sheepish
bald as a newborn,
he likes me helpless