ODE TO THE BRAIN HOLES
Or I’ll call you scleroses. I won’t say my brain
is melting, my brain is dissolving. The Temporarily Able
-Bodied don’t like metaphorical bodies. Only sick & not-sick.
(Thank you for inhabiting me, for making me sick.) I like to think
my fingers fill you, could burrow in. & today I can feel the inside
of one leg, the outside of the other. (I suspect if I had someone
to fuck I would feel very little of it.) You brain holes, extra orifices,
wells to be filled. I have unloved you for five years next month.
So let’s have a party, the kind with streamers & drinking that you’ll
make me regret. I think we should take care to fall in love a little more.
I’m learning to see you as a life partner (like Taina’s therapist told her to
& she laughed). You make me hear songs differently, you make me
sing worse. But when my mouth closed, my brain opened up & that’s
okay. (They say when God closes a door, he’ll be sure to open a few
windows in your head.) & I am afraid. Because you are not a hole.
You are scar tissue, hardening into something unfillable.
EXCUSES
I’m peeling a scab on my ankle. I turn
to my rabbit, ask have you ever been
downstairs? She says never. What a liar.
We carried her upstairs in her cage. Gotta love
this menagerie. All bunnies a mixed bag.
You’ve been downstairs I tell her, but she blinks
back. She’s skeptical of me. Any food
today? As if I don’t feed her every single
day when I go to bed. As if I don’t go to bed
every night, and between the hours of eight
and four. Bunny should be very proud. Owner
quite consistent she’d write, if her razor-claws
didn’t fumble the pen. Owner only drunk every
so often. Owner flicks a scab off her ankle,
considers the food scoop. Are you feeling bite-y
tonight? Bunny blinking. She lunges. Blood
on my hand always manages to surprise.
I think it’s another kind of kiss goodnight.
Next time, less teeth. But no one ever told
her how. Purse your lips. The pink of her
mouth. Oh well. I name it a new sacrament.
Cade Leebron is currently earning her MFA in nonfiction at The Ohio State University, where she serves as Online & Art Editor at The Journal. She also serves as Nonfiction Editor at The Fem. Her work has appeared in publications including Brevity, Rattle, The Boiler, Electric Literature, and The Manifest-Station. She can be found online at www.mslifeisbestlife.com and on Twitter @CadeyLadey