Saying Yes to Everything

There was a year where every morning
I would force myself to walk Central Park
as fast as I could from top to bottom in an effort
to carve my body’s curves, atrophy its thighs,
bring all its ribs to the surface. I just wanted
to be honest. I thought bones were
like confession, and if I set them out all clean
on the table, someone good would come along
and know exactly what they were getting into
before they made the mistake of loving me
and in the end, though alone, I would also
be blameless, and therefore, free. Of course,
I was wrong, and all the music I listened to
on those walks sounded like it was playing in another room
and when someone good did come
the only way I knew how to tell him I loved him
was to go to his apartment and wash his dishes
and leave before he could even come home
and standing there at the sink rinsing everything
of his touch and mine I would imagine another version
of myself, pressing her ear against the door, waiting
to be let in. I know. I can explain. Before I was raped
I imagined, if it were to happen, that it would be
unmistakable, that blame would be a white plate in my hands
I would know exactly where to put down, but I forgot
no one can ever be aware of their death when it happens
and one day, punishing myself on Central Park West
I realized I had died on that subway years ago going home
carrying a burning between my legs and this feeling
that I could have done more than what I did,
which was say no. The self I couldn’t let in
was that self that once lived, and I don’t know why
I just had to keep washing dishes, the water
a river running towards the end of love and the beginning
of safety. No one will ever
hurt me again. If you have ever wanted
to know what the dead dream of,
many nights since then I have opened up my chest
like a cupboard, taken each bone one by one
and let them fall, shattering to pieces at my feet,
and still other nights I have run through the streets
screaming, over and over, my own name.