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You tell me. If I use my inside voice
this time around, will I stop wanting
to crawl out of my skin?

If I chew before I swallow, swallow before
I speak, will I feel satisfied with
protein bars and Cup Ramen?

If I make sure to shut the window
when it snows, will it keep me from
drowning beneath forty-second street again?

They say “mother knows best” but you haven’t seen
what’s happened since you let me go. I reach
for the handlebars but find burnt-out cigarette,
calloused hands, half-dead vape. I taste burnt
metal. When I get started I can pick my scabs
forever. Two more missed calls.

I’m tearing a hole
in the fabric between my-
self and my mother, I’m
starving for summer fruit
in the dead of winter.

I yell relentless
beneath flickering streetlamp, waiting, waiting,
waiting, for the one February snowstorm
that will swallow me whole.

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