6.

there was no ill-intent toward the bee/my foot swelled for half a day congealed inside baking soda mask/we have to move again/the fixed blocks of apartments hold friend potential/thrift store roller skates never fit right/mama is the only one at home now/papa is working on the road/i get a reading light for my headboard/the twins line their dresser drawers with he-man dolls/when he’s home all they do is yell into darkness/later i learn honey extracts a stinger from young skin/from the trampoline across the street we hear tasha’s crying her stepdad is naked scream/fledgling tenuous i know what happens/it will never be dark in my room ever again

9.

on the bus i tell talia god is a gerbil and she cries/mary has a pet skunk/we listen to michael jackson records scour mama’s anatomy books/the full world is friends/kristen lives at the top of the hill/we play kickball in adam’s yard even though he has diabetes/books are growing i’ve now read millions/mama’s sewing machine pulses with the kitchen lights/for halloween i am a homemade bird of paradise/dressing up for “bare book night” in the cafeteria and the bird returns/kids don’t always know when they are being mocked/tension like wire cuts still hot

11.

the documentary said nightmares are suppressed fears surfacing like bodies you tried to drown/in science we get $20 to pick a pet/i convince my group we need a tarantula/before i sleep i read the list of things i hate so they do not perform in my dreams/dehydrated spider skin is scratchy and sad/the whole world has a boyfriend but me/mrs. bullock makes us say where we go to church/i didn’t expect social studies to be about my atheism/four kids bring pamphlets from churches next class/my divergent existence is not safe in the classroom/the walls are talking about me/in homes i’ll never enter my ears decant blood thicker than cold honeycake/i just want a boy to like me/too shyly defective every thumping second/maybe a god could help me believe if i could try enough 

14.

uprooted again i am the worst tree/southern friends warn colorado will turn me into a skater/sometimes the worst possible thing means nothing at all/we change sheets to stay in town/my brother catches me flushing my breakfast/when she forgets to pick us up the walk is only a few miles/elk wander the golf course/the letters from back home become my blood/i offered stephen king corn nuts the night of my first kiss/this is not a euphemism/debauchery is friendlier than complacency/courting peril flatters/he buys us coors light to drink under honey june bridge/when the river behind the cabin freezes we skate to the hockey rink/where they all wait/joel high sticks my face/gives me kfc and punk rock as apologies but my soul is now saved