Rose Quartz

ROSE RED

I woke in the glass coffin of my bedroom. I watched the color go: first the fingertips, then the white traveling up my arm’s length. Both legs, thighs. The ribcage and neck. Lips the color of blood drained slow. Bone lit. No glow of rose tinted cheeks. I experimented with rouge, dyes and paint. I covered myself in rubies, but beneath the glimmer was skin as white as snow. Ice cold. Frozen over. This medication, they said, keep taking it. For the pain.

***

OBSCURIAL AND OTHER SPELLS FOR SURVIVAL

a mother and a girl a curl in the backseat

bent mountains of her knees

against the rushing of cedar trees

little fingers go from glass

to a wound beneath the belly

she is checking to see

if she is still intact

are the guts here the liver the stomach

the heart

or is she in pieces

a thing taken apart

she searches in the back of a Buick

for a lost thing

a firework turned inside out

blackening the car

in a cloud of gunpowder

and smoke

a shadow mass of soot needles

sends the car a-spin

ditchward

throws the girl ten feet

from the crumpled metal

of what used to be

the backseat

it begins with an accident

a girl wakes on the forest floor

makes her way to the road

to find her mother

taking inventory of the wreckage

shaking her head over

an upside down engine

but the look

on her mother’s face

upon that charcoal black

amassing above her little girl

and gasping not realizing

she had taken

two steps

back

so the girl learns loneliness

and how to climb trees

escape the thing

that held like a storm

to her insides

weave cedar ropes

in the hopes of holding it in

bind the self to nurse logs

for entire moon cycles

but in the dark of a gymnasium

with a boy’s hands clasped

at her waist she sways back and forth

to Boyz to Men

again

a fire that eats itself

back to blackness

blacks out the dancefloor

the boy and the bathroom stall

she falls into puking tar into the toilet

when she thought to release it

neither scissors nor seam ripper

would sever it

if Peter Pan could somehow

escape his shadow why not her

but the darkness clung harder

she learned to like the taste of it

ate it everyday back

into the bloodstream

on her wedding night

she snatched it trapped it up inside

a plastic bag and emptied it

into a bell jar

the mantle placed upon her

the new home

there they watched

the thing move and spin

caught within

glass walls

an apparition lost

without the host

it begins with dishes

with bags of peaches

from the fruit stand

paint samples and leaves raked

baked goods red velvet cakes

a hairline fracture

over time cracks

even the foundation

and when he came home

there was nothing left

save a small bit of fabric

from her dress

feathering

into ash 

***

THE LOST BOYS

Drink this and be one of us

my brother passed

his bottle of wine to me

tried to offer life eternal

he was always trying to fix things

but this highway is haunted

the coast and its ghosts remind me

that I am broken

my brother has become

something immortal

and he didn’t even

have to die first

his thirst

for a better life

turned him

into darkness

and my mother tried to grieve

but it is hard to mourn

the living

so I tell her he is dead

because gone is better than missing

gone is a ghost you can blow out

the candle for

it is my duty to take him apart

to burn the letters rip down the flyers

drive the stake through his heart

because you cannot hang posters

for lost children pretending

they will one day come home

because at some point you realize

the pictures were for you

so for her I have become

a vampire hunter

armed with garlic

and holy water

but the truth is

I can’t do it

the truth is

behind fangs I still see

the lost boy

who used to be

my brother

so when he offered the wine

that was his blood

I took a swallow

tried to follow him

in shadow

but I remembered my promise

not to become a daughter missing

had to quit the ritual halfway

and watch my brother

say hello to the night

and fight alone

in Santa Cruz

I cry into my beloved’s hands

and abandon immortality

and he knows how hard this is for me

knows my capacity

for vanishing

so I anchor myself to him

and watch the waves

return to shore

I whisper a spell

of protection

for my brother

for all the lost boys

who came before

***

HALF MOON BAY

Half Indian

an old woman laughs

I must take after

a white father

because I can          pass

they say the tribes

lived along the coast

all along San Francisco Bay

driving alongside waves

I feel alone

feel home drift away

the moon hooks the sky

and I drive trying to catch it

between my fingers

a crescent of white

a fight still present

Garbage Indians

the old woman told me

that’s what we called them

growing up in Monterey

the dump was on their reservation

because isn’t it always

and I bite my tongue until it bleeds

until I quiet the anger in me

and I’ll wait until I leave

Half Moon Bay

to scream into my fist

and say all the things

we are not supposed to say

to the people who are older than us