my insides are spiderwebs
fresh and sticking to themselves
tangled up in restless knots
a terrible braid of fear swaying in my chest

in school i learned the word "excruciating"
and i never forgot it
i has always been kindred with that
chaos
that i have within.

that sad little rainy sky
the chill of the sheets from your sweat the night before,
and the creases it left behind.

i need you like
i need the spring
how i wish you could grow too
i want to rise with those flowers
that kiss the sun
and feel the birth of my
soul
again

but
you choose to stay in
winter
inside the
coldness
that never sleeps
the cave
with no way out

and my darling
i tried
but i cannot stay
there
with you.

once upon a time there was a beautiful princess
she wore a beautiful princess dress
and said beautiful princess things
but one day she was kidnapped by an ugly dragon
who took her to his ugly dragon cave
on the side of his ugly dragon mountain
the next day she saw the handsome knight on his handsome knight horse climbing the mountain
coming to slay the ugly dragon with his handsome knight sword
she waited for him
and waited for him
waited, and waited some more
but the knight found a flask of ale on the mountain trail
and drank it until he forgot where he was going
and the beautiful princess was torn to beautiful princess pieces and eaten by the ugly hungry dragon.

when you are young, the monsters are under your bed
they are the bogeymen, the ghoulies, the shadows on the wall
but when you grow up,
the monsters just get bigger
when awareness expands, the monsters are worse because they are real
they become people you know and people you don't know
they become black holes that could suck up the galaxy at any moment
they are brain aneurisms and heart attacks
hurricanes and earthquakes
guns and wars
the monsters are the alcohol that's killing you and the emotions that are killing me
the monsters are loneliness and sadness and fear itself
and when you're older, there's no one that will check your closet every night,
just to make sure you're okay.

i hate the way you stumble, your shoulders hunched over the floor, big heavy steps that don't always coincide with each other
i hate how you have to get up close to whatever you're looking at, your glasses acting as microscopes, twisting your mouth into amoeba like shapes
i hate when you hum single syllables, and when i ask "what" you just shrug, as if you weren't trying to get attention
i hate that when you do speak full sentences, they are coated with an undertone of criticism, as if i am becoming the unintelligible one
i hate fucking you when you're drunk, your body gliding on top of mine in slippery and confused motions
i hate how you make fun of my aspirations as a writer
i hate it when you pass out on the couch
i hate waiting for you to come back
i hate that as soon as you do it starts all over again
i hate how beautiful and sad your eyes can get
i hate that somehow i still stick around

i have nightmares of your face turning yellow
and your liver squeezing and contracting
each organ imploding in an apocalyptic symphony
and i,
not strong enough to save you,
my superhero cape wrapped aroud your shriveling body,
yelling for it all to stop, stop...

(you should have stopped)

nothing i am
starting to feel
nothing like cold
fingers in the
winter forgetting how
to bend and grasp
i am forgetting
how to
hold onto
you

do you care do you care do you really fucking care cause the way you shake your head when you say yes says otherwise otherwise otherwise

dear alcohol,

i wish you wouldn't take his mind so
and turn him into this hideous version of himself
i wish you could hold back your molecules from meeting with his mouth
because once you let them in it is over for me
there are no more rational thoughts or good night kisses
just anger and voices that get louder and louder
just the demonstration of someone in an aa pamphlet
he represents the past of a man who ends up losing everything
because he threw a fit when someone took his bottle
and stomped on his only love to get it back

dear alcohol,

please save us women of the world
whom dread your presence the most
especially after a long hard day
you infect the only thing that matters
you bring us closer to accepting that this is it
and how it always will be

i discard belief in demons or angels
or resurrection or blood spent for my sins
but i have seen evilness in human nature
i have felt the wastes of desire
the utter trash of always being unsatisfied

if i was judged i could never be forgiven
if hell existed i would be queen

i'm tired of writing poems about love
sometimes i'm tired of love
but there's no running from it
only rinsing and repeating
crying and leaving
cutting and healing
dying and living

you can say you love me
but it will pass through my heart like wind

you can stroke my flushed cheeks and say
"beautiful"

but i won't recognize my own face

and every time i don't believe you
i need you to tell me again

it doesn't stick, nothing sticks

i'm not falling apart
i've just never been put together

you're not the first that's tried
you're not the first that's failed

if you have lived with me throughout all my lives
how come you have no idea who i am
how come i don't, either

?

every night i creep in beside you
and touch the nearest skin so i can count your breaths
the airs you breathe are the sweetest sheep
and when i dream i worry when i am not there to calculate them they will cease
like how words fall away from your ears
when you're not listening close enough

if you could see with my eyes
you would wish you'd go blind.

when i think i am coming home to you, i just find a strange man
like an escaped mummy, incoherent, lost and heartless
spouting nonsense and one sided stories
not once listening to mine, just waiting for his turn to speak
convinced i don’t care while he carelessly throws his dirty bandages all over the place
and when he falls back into his tomb i have to pick up the mess
so in the morning it will look like nothing happened
just left with the cold feeling of a ghost passing through,
terrified because he will come back.

if i speak i am yelling
if i am quiet i am a bitch
if i cry i am selfish
if i care i’m a liar
if i prove a point i am wrong
if i admit i am wrong i am the victim
if i do one thing to make it better you do two things to make it worse
and i am trapped between what is right and wrong left and right black and white because whatever i say it all falls apart and when i lift myself back up
you tear me downdowndown and i
don’tknowidon’tknowhowto
p ut myse lf
bac k
t
o
get
h
er
agai
n

I love your passion, the intensity that burns in your eyes
The way you pull me to you, how you call me yours
The possessor, the sex god, the great and the powerful
The scorpion, the eagle, the phoenix
Symbols for your soul, I’ve always believed
In sun signs and ruling planets
But apparently my mind is opposite my instinct,
My beliefs conjunct with my wants
Biased of your smile squared to falling in your arms
I should have known better
Than to deny your shadow
I should have known better
Than to forget that with every positive comes a negative
What comes with loyal and lusting and loving
Comes deceit and betrayal and slithering secretiveness
I should have known better
Than to crawl into your cage unarmed
I should have known better
Than to believe you were the soaring eagle
You were still the scorpion wearing its wings
After you killed it the same way you’re killing me.

the need to escape the buried alive feeling
i have played houdini too,
with razors and drugs and empty stomachs
but the irony is that it just brings you closer to the fire inside
when you're not looking it will grab you by the neck and force you to look at it
and when you drink you think you've mastered the game of hide and seek
but instead you've just fallen into darkness's favorite trap.