THE BRAKE ISN’T ON YOUR SIDE OF THE CAR

Julia Alexander

Chipped Tooth Press 2014

Falling Into The Deep End

The worst thing you can do is start kicking right when you hit the water,

even though as soon asyour head

goes under

all you want to do is figure out which wayis air and start

breathing again. This is why I don’t walk too close

to the edge

usually.

He’s Seventeen Years Too Old, and This Will Never Work

We love until we can no longer tell the differencebetween mirrors andglass. We love until we are tangled in each other’s webswith no hope of escape. We love until we bruiseeach other’s fingertips. We love until we rip each otherlimb from limb. We scream until our throats go raw. We lay in the sun untilit burns. We lay beside each other in beduntil it burns.

It burns.

Phil Me Up

i wrote a ghost story about his tongue in my mouthand his hands on my wrists. even now he still possess the majorityof the space i occupy.

my body shutting down,flicking off with the light.my brain tells me he’s hereeven when i am alone in my room.

this story is called HYPERVENTILATION AT 2 AMand it is about the way i scratch my skin openhours after someone looks at me,

the scary part isn’t that it happened. the scary partis accepting it, and you can’t hide under blanketsto escape that.

i never used to have anxiety, so i haven’t figured out what to do when it gets bad

In July I am still giving myself panic attacks just by squeezingmy own wrist too tightly. I never knew anyone could beso afraid of nothing.Even when it passes and I calm myself downmy fingers are still humming. Oneof these days I think they’ll finally makea break for it and crawl away likeinch worms who don’t realize that they’ll never turn into butterflies.From your bedroom window I can see the street, but not your driveway,so I was a nervous about the car all night,and I looked out the window a couplehundred times just to check if I would be able to catch a glimpse of it,but I never did. And when your hands were pressedto my wrists I was afraid that I would get too scared and start crying,or even worse start gnawing off my phantom limb,

but for some reason, I (for once) foundsafety pressed between your bodyand the mattress.

if i write something a hundred times will that make it come true?

i’m not sure how i feel about you anymore.this is changethis is growth this is melearning how to unzip my skinand walk around without it for a while.this is me shedding you. this is me making myselfbe happy.this is me pretendingto be ok because that’s just how it works.we pretend to be fineeven though we didn’t get what we wanted.this is me changing what i want.this is me accepting that you are moving on.this is me making myself move on.this is my life and it doesn’t have anything to do with you anymore.

In Order of Importance

In the morning when you get out of the showerand sink back into bed, I pull you back onto my chest and try to memorize the pressure of your shoulders against my ribcage.

In the afternoonin the museumI only rememberpressing your hand into mine, but I don’t remember who let go.

I leave the next day. I carry you with me like a dead language. There are a thousand words in my mouth that I forget how to pronouncewhen you aren’t around.

Back in Connecticuton my twin bedthinking aboutthe solar plexus, the hands, the thigh, the tongue. I don’t know yetif you’ll let me out of thisintact.I hope that you do, and I hope that you don’t.I hope you devour me limb from shaking limb.

“don’t be mad at me forever i miss you so much”

i keep forgetting what day of the week it is

with no reason to rememberit’s easy for things to slip the mind,

like the way his jaw was wired shut after it was shattered. i always forget that part.the recovery iseasy to disregard.

i try to not know or care who you are anymore.

most days it’s hardto forgetyour hands,the air you took from me as my eyes rolled backwards,the way i liked feeling youwrap yourself around my body,or the way i felt small and enormousat the same timewhen i was with you.

i wake up and scrub vomit out of the carpet on friday mornings

“Actually, I really just don’t think about it anymore haha”

There is a way of going about this,of being functional,of talking about the things that keep you up at night,of treading lightly.

There is a way you can let the spiders crawl across your skinwithout shivering.

There is a way to be at the back door and finally have someone let you in their home. You just have to stop scratching. You just have to stopletting them see desperation on your face.

This is how you fake it. This is how you disguise it.

REASONS YOU SHOULD(N’T) LIKE ME EVEN A LITTLE BIT

I have dirty pool waterfilling my lungs, and my feet have hit the pavement onthe street I grew up on so many times I could have walked to your house and back againby now.I know the way a bus station can feel like home,and I’ve carved a life for myself in the stomach acheI get every time I travelto wrap my tongue around a new personin a city in whichI have yet to find any comfort.

But yoursis the only lonely thattastes just like mine,that creeps into my bedat night when I have long sinceseen your face,that digs itself a burrowin my skin and hasn’t let gosince I last spoke your name.

“lol i said i’m over it”

i learned so long agothat there is no anger which falls like dead bird from sky. there is no anger

that does not stingthe mind like a wasp.

there is never an endto the buzzing especially when it radiates

through the bonesto rattle the spine

and all the things you have ever kept there.

The First Night You Missed Sleep Over Me

therewas secrecy in his mouth

and my hands in the room

at two in the morning.

on friday my bedding still smelled like his body

and I didn’t want to change my sheetsat all.

The Poem You Deserved a Long Time Ago

you kissed me in the parking garage and i forgot the names of every other person who has ever looked me in the eye. i can no longer rememberwhy i don’t spend every moment in your arms

your breath comes in waves over my skin, and i am no longer afraid of drowning.

i never liked thetaste of longing until i met youuntil i left you.

i complain of my lack of permanent fixtures,but you are here.

you are here, and that will always be enough for me.

(hey doogie this poem is about you) (you don’t care) (you aren’t reading this)

i am flowers wiltingwait, is that too cliche for you?

ok,

i am the door that slams too hard because of an open window across the room.is that an original enough way of sayingi hate the way my voice sounds? i wish that i could be quieter, take up less space,

and rot from the inside out until all that is left are the petals on my dresser next to the dried up stem.

alright?

have you ever counted the lines on my palms or the rings around my knuckles?do you know what they mean? do you know the hands i have held before yours? do you know the hearts i have cracked open before i even acknowledged yours?do my lips still taste like the blood? is my skin too rough for you?

maybe.

i pressed my head into your chest, and tried to memorize the sound waves, tried to press you into a book but i couldn’t get used to this new rhythm.i tried to root myself in your arms but you wanted to pull the weeds

probably.

i told myself that i could make youwant me opened, make you want to find the things i have been hiding for so long. i thought i could make you want to take me andput me in a vase on the windowsill,

but

i’m not really wilting flowers. i’m more of a pine tree just growing and growing and growing and nobody has been able to cut me downnot yet

at least.

One

I imagine that at some point things will be different. When I have forgotten the taste of ash,I will have learned toforce the world to turn beneath my feet. Things will get easier.

I will forget what it is like to scratch at my skin and brain until they both go raw.

I will forget the way his voice sounded with his hands around my throat.

I will look in the mirror and there will be silence. There will still be a body,but there will be no more regret.

But stillin the end I will always remember thatthese legs knew to tread waterbefore I learned to swim.