4 Poems

Purge #1

The rain wrote
rhythms on your
bathroom window,
begged, let
me in, but
it could never
cleanse you
like the sound
of the toilet
flushing
your 550 calorie
dinner.

Purge #2

Your neck nearly snapped
when you whipped your head back
toward me, fingers
still pressed
against the toilet.

Crumb

If I eat less they’ll love me If I eat less they’ll think I’m beautiful If I eat less they’ll stop staring at my plate My stomach My sausage-link fingers And maple syrup-sweat stained armpits Stop staring at me like split-pea soup spills out of my mouth each and every time I try to talk Expecting me to cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and thank them as they tell me they’re worried about me Eating my food Their food Everybody’s God damn food If I eat less they’ll love me If I eat less they’ll think I’m beautiful If I eat less they’ll win then I’ll look like them I don’t want to look like them I want to look like me If I eat less they’ll flick flick flick me off the table I’ll eat less until I’m nothing but a crumb

Ukulele

Luke gave me his mom’s Newports.
She hid them in the bathroom, buried
beneath body towels because
she lied—told her family she quit
after surviving Breast Cancer.

I took them to school with me,
zipped up in the front pocket
of my backpack.

I sold them to the alley kids
for a dollar a smoke because
they needed something
to look forward to, and
I needed money
to buy a ukulele.