Ideas for a List Poem

Things parents should never have to tell their children You can’t mix the chemicals from under the sink to make a potion What happened on July 20th? It wasn’t your fault.

How to know what love really feels like Buy a Colleen Hoover novel Hint: you don’t find the answer on the bathroom floor. Or in your childhood home.

How to say I love you Move tongue to teeth, enunciate, exhale Jump from the lip of a building. This and this alone can prepare you.

Your sister’s wishlist (for her birthday or christmas) A cake with pink decorative bows on the frosting, and a picture of Nicholas Alexander Chavez in a wife beater (apparently this is someone very hot) To stop finding reasons to burn herself.

The ways in which you can politely tell the mom you babysit for that you are not comfortable with her snorting ketamine in the kitchen You do need the money and You do love her kid after all.

Recovery protocol for when you almost overdose on accident Call yourself an uber from the hospital, hold your own hair back Whatever you do, don’t call your mother.

How to get rid of your PTSD Take MDMA or psilocybin Learn to live with the animal inside of you.

How to admit to yourself it was Rape But he was a friend. It was complicated Let it happen twice.

How to delineate between self harm and self preservation Stop Dissociating This will require many more coffee table conversations with the friends you tell nothing to.

All the reasons to stop asking people what they’re afraid of

There aren’t any.

What you are A size 8 ½ in shoes The worst accident that ever happened to your parents.

Colors you learned how to wear very well Purple. Blue. Mottled with green and yellow Flesh, the color of a finger ringlet choker sitting pretty on collar bones. (alternative title: my choice of jewelry)

Everything I can never seem to find the courage to write about