It’s Hard To Find Peace In My House

after The Sundays 
I 

How do you know when your father’s 
shadow is no longer distorted? 
How do you know 
that the apparition has escaped from the alleyway? 
My father snores like he is no longer the ring leader; like the moonlight
is yawning with him. The stars sleep in a hotel room 
and swallow every ounce of selfishness 
they possess. A mother’s breast is now the candlewick
and the cage’s maw is bolted shut. 
The noise of the night is a man yelling 
“GOD BLESS AMERICA” 
to the sidewalks. Sepia-colored eyebags cover 
the entire car. It’s midnight, and 
my father has forgotten where the train tracks are. 
Strike. 

II 

1 AM. My world is dizzied and desolate. Every limb is
a damp matchstick isolated in the pockets 
of my leather jacket. 
I’m not 
happy. Eyelashes land in my palm and bite 
at the hills of skin like a mosquito in the dawn. What a tragedy
this daughter is. What a pitiful image: a half-sewn shirt
hanging off her shoulders like the satin is ready to 
leap into the adjacent river. Run baby, run. 

III 

The moon does not dictate your life. We’re
going to have a serious talk about this when 
we get home. You will be punished. I throw stones at the wall
and Emilia asks where I am. Spinning 
and spinning and spinning. Even in this darkness, 
I am a disposition of my father’s hatred. I am 
a pried contact lens left to die on a stranger’s desk. 
This night has curdled into weakness; into a beetle; 
into a rotten chrysalis. Sleep moves with the crimson cheek
on the map and finds itself in a corridor only 
my skeleton has seen. This building is a ghost town 
and I am nowhere to be found. Whatever awaits 
outside this dorm is going to neatly drizzle bleach 
over my eyes and kill me. 

IV 

The edge of the world is now 
my bed. I lay still and watch the ceiling 
burble in regret and disappointment. I 
will forever be my father’s daughter. I am the star. I have now choked out
every piece of selfishness within my body. I am 
now barren like an infertile mother. We 
are all cut-up snowflakes displayed on our parent’s fridge
waiting to ricochet after the tape dries. 
My father ebbs the bond between the moon 
and the sky; a relationship has been 
forever thinned like a fly’s wings. My father and I melt 
between the crevices of the Earth 
and we call ourselves concrete. I’m sorry I lied, 
I’ll explain in the morning.
 

V 

You’re dead to me.