Look at me and tell me what you see. Look at me and tell me if you see anything. I want this body to be an archive, her joints moaning dirges for the girlhood I think I remember, bruises like emblems tied to my wrists and dangling under my eyes. I want my heart to be a movie screen for you to watch lips grazing air softly then paused in a voiceless scream, round and open, always open. Please be my witness. Stand in the dark hallway in my mind and echo my heartbeat, run your fingers across my forehead and along my hairline, a white mouse weaving in and out of a wheat field. Tell me you see me. Tell me you know the weight of these notebooks in my hands, the way they smell like 3 a.m. at my dad’s house when I’m scared I’m not the only one awake, the heater cranking her patchwork lullaby, ticks and groans with a hum underneath that never stops, vibrates through my teeth and skull while I dream. Hold me like I hold this humming in my bones, numbing me still so my memories are milkweed seeds spilled out, small and brown and hard under cotton, blowing into the sky before you reach them. Catch everything, please. Catch the seeds in all the white, pluck them from the sky, plant them with me and we’ll feed them these stories until they’re strong. I want to grow something strong.
jenny did it 