seven years

no one here knew me before the blood
no one here can tell what made me do it
no one here recalls the screams
no one here even knows.

this is where i drifted, where i landed
i was alone and abandoned and thrown away
yes, this is where I landed, where I drifted
when i was thrown away and abandoned

these streets know me, we go way back
this is the corner Andy left me to go find
an ATM back on New Year's 2005
I thought he was my date
he thought I was his fail safe
and I ended up walking home alone
stillettos, short skirt, through the projects
4 am

yes these streets know me, especially over there
over on Broadway I had another life
I took another train, I fucked another man
we fought vigorously like only the young can
i'd cry and plead and kick dead horses
until i'd fall asleep in a puddle of whimpers
and he'd take pleasure in thinking he'd comforted me

but see, over here, over in this zip code
where I reside now, where I wander now
they don't know I lived in Bushwick eight years ago
they don't know I've been in more ER's
than I can name
they don't know that I tried to throw myself off a roof
I don't even know if they'd believe me

I was always the good girl
I pouted and sulked but buried my anger inside
I wish I could have been with you
Looking at your high school pictures
400 miles away, six grades ahead of me
I wonder as you turn the page
if things had been different for me
if I had ran away
or dared to say "no!"

maybe I should've been suburban
maybe I should've lost my virginity in a car at fifteen
maybe I should've written more poetry
maybe I should've learned to play the guitar

But I am here now.
And I know that they don't know.
I know that I shouldn't care
And I know that the things I've spent
a decade defining myself by
diagnoses, faded diary pages, scars on my skin
are losing their relevance

every seven years
the cells of the body are replaced
I have lived five cellular lifetimes
I shed my skin, I redefine
I bend to your touch
I surrender
I wonder what these new mitochondria
will bring, will write, will sing