Exit Wounds

Exit Wounds was written while my life was coming apart. Some of these poems were written in motel rooms. Some were written in treatment. Some were written sitting in parked cars trying to decide what to do next. A lot of this book was written before I had enough distance to explain any of it correctly. The poems still carry confusion, exhaustion, attachment, denial, relief, shame, hope, and all the other contradictions I was living inside at the time. Nothing here was written with the benefit of hindsight. That would have been a different book.

For a deeper look at the thinking behind the work, see the accompanying post.

Excerpt

You called it a bond.

I call it a house made of mirrors,
every room shaped like your absence.

A devotion with a detonator
tucked inside a kiss.

The worst thing you ever did
was make me apologize
for drowning in water
you swore wasn’t there,
from a well you never meant to fill.

From “Exit Wounds”