want / & then count the number of bottles like rings in a tree
to determine my age / because to make restitution is economic
here someone has to give / & another must take
so we might make commerce / or sacrifice / measured
by how many apologies I can fit in my mouth / & you
aren’t even there / because this is all fuck-off hypothetical
like screaming at god or understanding the self / which are both
ways to avoid the question of justice / if these arms were lengthy enough
they could stretch all the way to our beginnings / like an ancient tree
or that thirteen-year-old boy falling from it / who used to be me
just as drunkenness / was once me / how disappointment
was once me / & how i was every hurtful noise / how do we grow
to be able to touch where everything started / to give restitution
without worry or fear / because i am terrified of looking
into a shattered mirror / & seeing monsters wearing
my old face
Header photograph © Loretta Bloom.
Danielle Rose lives in Massachusetts with her partner and their two cats. She is the managing editor of Dovecote Magazine and used to be a boy.