when I was a child 
I used to pick the scabs
on my knees
at night
when I couldn't fall asleep

scabs I earned on bike rides
down hills so steep and long
I closed my eyes
and took my feet off the pedals

I always crashed
this was my freedom

I never went home crying
I blew on the sting
and searched for wild blueberries
 I ate them
without wiping the blood from
my hands

I didn't know then
that life would just be
this series of forgetting
who I was
then remembering 

I used to just close my eyes
and trust 
that the ride would be worth it

your body is a straight jacket
and maybe your mind is too
if you are one of those people
that lives in the land of shoulds

you should face the truth
that each day you walk 
with the unseen around you
the demons whisper in your ear
when your mind is empty

the dead
walk among us
and they pull your puppet strings
while you daze out on your phone

all the ghosts
the demons
your ancestors
are always with you
they want appreciation
they want the worship
you give those instagram posts

remember when you made dinner
and no one liked it?
maybe that happened a 1,000 times
now you know what it is like
to live in another dimension
and give all the answers
while someone else takes credit for it

your dead grandma told you how
to soothe your baby to sleep
but you took the credit
at some mommy's group
where all the women wore clown smiles
while they cried on the inside
from feeling so alone

we live in a world where nothing is ever said
just selfies and memes as plastic as a
barbie doll's smooth vaginal mound

tonight while you are eating dinner
try to remember there are at least three
ghost children at your table
a few demons in the corner 
being ignored 
like your children
who don't know how to feel
except in minutes
of videos where they are told how to feel

this world we live in 
is just pretend
anyone who knows how to live
is already dead
and they watch you at night

so keep pretending
everything is all right
as you feast on chemicals
and try to protect your children
from feeling the world's woes
remember you did this to them

remember when they were born
and you thought
I can't protect them
you were right

teach them to notice
what has gone before them
teach them to make friends with
their demons
before they get as 
destroyed as you did

when I was a child 
my parents were fighting
over their different realities
and my stepdad threw his car keys
at my mom
but they hit me instead
I was hiding under the table

I got a cut under my eye 
when I started bleeding
there was this silence
no one said sorry
I had to wear that cut to school
and no one cared

I had to carry the shame of others
in my heart and on my face
and no one one noticed

this planet we are handing our children
is just our collective shame

we watch them laughing
at stranger's vapid gospels
in three minute intervals

and we wonder why
we couldn't have escaped the
same way

then we get sad
because today this
is all there is
all we have given them
are reasons to escape

before I was supposed to remember
I remembered
we stayed in different places
rode on buses at night

I knew her smell
and her sadness
I watched her count pennies
for a pastrami sandwich

we slept on couches

my first memory
is my mother screaming
picking me up
we slept on a kitchen table
that was someone else's

as the rats scurried
beneath us 
I felt safe curled in her
arms

she probably didn't know
my home was her
she was probably scared
that she couldn't take care of me
that we would starve
homeless

she found a man that housed her
he called her sugar tits
and cunt 
threw the dinners she made
against the wall
my stepfather 
the man that raised me
the man that abused me
believed that women were
an afterthought

when I listened to them fight
I missed those bus rides at night
searching for a home
her arms around me 
while the world whirred past

whenever she had a man
she became a ghost
the homes she inhabited
she haunted
I waited in the background
for her to see me

it never happened
now that I am a mother
and I have lost the closeness to my
own daughter because of some man
that didn't turn out to be home

those
greyhound bus rides
falling asleep
in my mother's arms
don't seem so bad

the men in this story
didn't have these memories
they went on to abuse more
they didn't think about
daughters or wives
they just bulldozed on
until they were dead
or alone 
or in prison
​
the last time my mother held me
was on a greyhound bus
we sat in a mint grey green seat
with only each other for comfort

I fell asleep looking out the window
wondering where the next stop
would lead