I prayed to wish you away once -

hands so tight,

words just right

the way my tears fall after the fights.

You don't mind that I dream of your hands

squeezing my face in

(palms the size of baseballs) ready to break

the bone -

And as I stand here, a

barely there shadow

waiting for the heating pad to warm up in the microwave

I listen

to a car

roll by with it's music blasting, and my body fasting

from my time here

(I have a vague recollection

while standing here in this too clean kitchen

of him sitting next to my

Lexapro numbed shadow in my mothers

Japanese influenced living room,

and saying

nothing.) "Anything else?" I ask

the skeleton, it's no new news that I don't want to be here

but when he moves I can see the way his skin

hangs and his bones jut;

his face just a maze of folds (browning) from a lifetime

of sun tanning in our backyard. I can see

myself as a baby (barely three or four) sitting on the end of an

air mattress floating with him in the middle of Lake Desire

and curling my toes into the folds of my feet

from the sight of the seaweed, murky and swaying underneath

us. I've always had a fear of seaweed sense then.

I wipe down the counters, blue flip-flops stick to the hardwood

and sputter like fake chirping birds and he sits in his chair

with his knee covered. He yells that I'm doing it wrong

and I comply (rely on the idea that I won't lose it in front of him.)

Again and again

over

and

once again.

(I had a dream a long time ago where I woke up with my head

on silky white pillows but they were stained peach from

my blush - my curls ever perfect from the rain that fell from my

fingertips at the thought of the wishes that I prayed for once.)

Once, I think as I stand in the bathroom and take my

hair down; he's cursing, getting up,

standing on sore muscles to prove his point to me and slide his

bony finger along the counter and catch anything that I've missed.

I'm naked in all of these clothes, a little girl

stuck on an air mattress again afraid to claim her fears -

"It will never be perfect Bob!" He doesn't even flinch

when I call him that anymore, acceptance is like regret (it fluctuates.)

His shaky hands tear at his hairline (a line of hairs almost gone)

he's childish, like he always is, when no one cares to listen to him

scream. I beam, bit my nail and wait it out: "You're going to have a

heart attack!" I'm all calm now, a bomb waiting to tick time toward

it's completion.

Later, when the sky turns black I drive away; wait at a red light and watch

a white plane sore through the darkness. Overhead the rumble of

thousands of tons plowing through the clouds like racecars with wings.

My tires

ride

across a dead highway -

freeway when it's just me to make my way (freely)

but the road is still buzzing from some McDonalds truck that passed here

hours ago - some show I put on.

I prayed to wish him away once,

to make it all stop,

to save me from the maniac poison inbreed inside of me,

flowing like rivers, floating like the seaweed that I fear -

I prayed for truth

but all I got was reality.