Bad House

We were packing bowls out
by your cousin’s garage;
blowing rings around
the raspberry bushes
when you asked me what it was like
to want to die.

This isn’t something
I talk about.

No one asks me,
even when they’re curious,
to let the ghosts out.
The first night I ever stayed
in a hospital, there was a hurricane
and a full moon hitting the
New Jersey shoreline,
and I rattled at the gated windows,
like an ape in its cage.

It is a messy thing to unravel.
You stand so naked at the world,
you’re not worrying about what your ass looks like,
or how you’ll regret this when you come back down.
Instead, you worry you’re not screaming loud enough.
You wait for something to shatter.
You throw everything you can.

We are sitting on a wet mud road
in my white summer dress, and I
am all swinging arms and rocks
that don’t do enough damage.
We are all just trying to tear this house down.

By Schuyler Peck

Biography:

After the better days of tie-dye and moon shoes, Schuyler Peck came into writing; scribbling crooked words on crooked paper. While an ashamed native of the New Jersey coast, Schuyler now studies English in Idaho, hoping her publishing pipe-dream is enough to cover the cab fare. Her work has been featured in JuxtaProse Magazine, Literary Sexts Vol 2, Words Dance Magazine, and Persephone’s Daughters Magazine. She loves you. daisylongmile.com /SchuylerPeck.tumblr.com