fail to admit
you were getting sick
stains on your teeth
from cherry red lipstick
dirt in your nails
picking up sticks
to build a house from the ground
you buried your past self in
marks on your skin
purple and blue
bleed from within
so you look vibrant in hue
your insides burn
like cherry red lipstick
but don't get the same
looks or snippets
your insides are ugly
no matter their coat
please fix them first
before you start to gloat

Putting cigarettes in snowbanks, who would have thought something so pure would cause chest pains

I put myself in debt
taking classes to learn how to
fix the world's problems
and when I got tired
I tried fixing smaller ones
like broken tables and
broken homes
I paid off loans
to take more lessons
on how to make the world
hurt less
but I did not learn
how to clean up my mess
I tried to learn my pain away
and put all my energy into
saving populations in far places
but never mended my own heart
there isn't a class for that

my friend told me once
the hardest thing to fix
was a broken heart
and he was right
i have 6 degrees
in subjects i loathe
but the thing i loved
i know not where to start

Cut my hair off
dead ends on the floor
peel my skin off
begging you for more
make me feel new and clean again
though I will bleed, that soon will end

Shave my body hair
make me as fresh as the day we first met
bleach my stained skin fair
beg you to finish what you haven't yet
make me feel new and clean again
the process might burn, that soon will end

Golden communion,
Grace of God,
Patience of the devil.


You begged me to forgive you,
I never learned how.
I knew clinging to hate was a sin,
I never sat down to listen to the ways you were sorry, I don’t think you had many.
I pray now from the street, make a temple out of gravel, swallowed asphalt to be here, asleep where you left me,
Why did you hurt me then leave?
Why did you come back after I’d already grieved?

I got sick of comparing you to drugs
that did no justice to the high I felt each time you held me
and juxtaposing ,
you to a sunset was *******
I feared I could not capture all your colors in words
what the **** do I compare you to?
You swallowed me whole and let me crumble in front of you,
you digested me until you were sick and spit me out like dip,
I got sick of comparing you to songs,
I didn't want you stuck in my head anymore
and juxtaposing you to shattered glass didn't pick up the pieces on the floor from when I could not articulate the hurt in my heart and
threw all the ******* picture frames against the plaster wall,
I got sick of comparing you to a missed phone call,
because at least then you'd give me enough attention to ignore it,
juxtaposing you to the sunset was ******* because you never stuck around long enough to really sink in
,****

rejoice in wine
that you sweat out
while singing songs
out of tune with best friends
on unusually warm February nights
rejoice in the feeling of feeling alright
for once in a while
rejoice in laughter
that hurts after an hour
but you're finally smiling
about how much you love your friends
rejoice in solace
that you find in the strangest places
like the floor of your old dorm room
or the bottom of a bottle of moscato
you don't remember finishing but have videos of
rejoice in love
because you don't need a single other person
in bed, that way, to feel the same glow in your soul
rejoice in knowing that you're okay
rejoice in that concert hall when you lost it all
in your favorite song
you realized there you hadn't quite lost everything yet
rejoice in knowing what you've got left,
and love it

loneliness consumed you
while you were busy finding distractions
your eyes sunk deeper, your nights darker
you found a marker and wrote it out in black ink, you left half a cup of tea by the sink,
one final reminder that you could never clean up right, your scars were not quite healing
men came and went like hopscotch manic feelings, daily warfare, gentle as a tide though
you would let them in just to let them go
crafted a plan to **** yourself
because you didn't know anything else
but the bottom of a bottle you swore you didn't drink you spent 11 months sleeping on the brink of death
loneliness consumed you
you took the bad parts, shaped them into something you could swallow and fell in love with the high from your insides eating you alive now you're full of sculptures you gave up on years ago and maps of places, far away, where you'll never get to go
because you're bed ridden and tired, you're only 20 and you did it, you have carved yourself entirely empty

Courage came in sunshowers
She flew me over skyscrapers
And nourished all my gardens
When courage came, so did rain
So I never knew her strength
Hidden under lakes of wonder,
Didn't know I could swim through waves
Courage came in sunshowers
And changed the shape of lands
Courage was strong enough to let go
Of my hand

And I made my first step alone

Notice how when you crush a flower,
it crumbles to the ground,
withers at the roots,
and loses its hue to the bottom of a boot,

but there it goes,
to learn to grow new,
gathers nutrients from the Earth,
to rise and try again,

just like me

Next week would have been our anniversary.
Tomorrow marks 3 weeks since you’ve smiled at me, and 2 since we’ve laughed together.
But next week would have been our anniversary,
And just a month ago we were so happy.
Isn’t it crazy?

Logically, I’m over you
I understand the way
We added up was not what
I needed to survive,
I needed to not need you,
Need to not need anyone,
To survive,
Logically.

My emotion takes over
And I miss your mouth on mine,
You could call me anything you want
And I’d still fawn over your eyes,
Emotionally, I’ll never stop loving you

Keep me where the warmth is,
Guide me toward the sun
Today I felt my soul break free
While the last 6 months'as imprisoned
Walk with me down meadows
Swim with me upstream,
Anywhere the current takes me's where I
Wanna be
I grew sick of climbing mountains designed to sit and pray on,
Grew old with trimming grass meant to hide underdogs from lions,
I'm letting go so take me home,
Where ever the sun is, is where I wanna go

Days like today where I wake up and my astral eyes are not tired, I go outside. I spent most of my summer this year drowning in blankets, sleeping away what days I was not at work. The heat hurt my heart for it reminded me, every day of the summer I was happy. You know, though, I've been happier than that one, and I know I will again so I regret laying in bed when I could have realized that happiness is not a memory just as much as it is not a destination. It's not a cardinal direction, a left then right with an ending. I don't know what happiness is, honestly. I still spend a lot of my time sleeping, pretending to know what's going on and it bothers me. Deeply. Someday I expect my life to fall into place because I was taught that it will with time, but the strides that build the pathway there are all still shaky and I wonder if I can live a life without crutches someday or if I will still be using stilts to convince the world I'm okay. I have it under control. Today was one of those days where I breathed in air that smelled like my 14th year and normally the memories would surge into my veins and I would go insane trying to rewatch clips in my brain from the times I was laughing, in love. I am not watching my life through rose colored lenses anymore, though. I'm living it through green doors. I miss the conquest. I miss the adventure, control. I used to wake up early just to watch the sunrise and now I'm lucky if I see a sunset. All it took was an extra push and suddenly, for 6 months at least, I was someone else. I was floating in time and I could dictacte every feeling I experienced because I ******* tried to. I just need a redo. Today was that. I will try. I always forget that it was not one big mess with a beautiful ending that created the universe, but instead one big bang with millions of years of evolution, that which still included decay- to build what I stand on now. The Earth was not built in a day, nor was I the summer I'm convinced I was my happiest. So I know that it's one step at a time. And I'm ready.

How do you beat
the feeling of being defeated?

I've got taxi cabs where my feet once were
and left my cash on 39th in my purse

even if I had the money
I still have riptides in my chest
I know how to swim
but can't catch my breath

*I feel alone
I feel defeated

I've found the strongest poems to be the product of
a purge of emotions that reign so ******* the heart that they
pull at the fingers, draining energy from the tips
as every word falls onto the paper,
relentlessly.

I've felt the hollow shatter of a thousand nights of heartbreak,
the kind that only poetry can seem to glue back together
even if temporarily.
The words on the page, unfiltered
broadcast thoughts of late summer days and first loves,
first losses,
our wrists ache with rememberence as our hearts empty out.

We lose what we thought we still held to our souls
as the sentences unfold and we are finally able to articulate
what it means to be without,
what it means to be empty.
Those lines are but udnerstanding, full of compassion that we have still, hidden away in our hearts for the day they start beating again.


Why are the richest of poems products of the poorest of days,
and why can I write nothing anymore
as my heart feels full, for once, again?

You were never a cure
Only a distraction
When I felt the need
To fracture my January skin
To see if I was still living
You lit my smokes
And talked about my laugh
How it stopped time and moved glaciers
Even God himself couldn't budge
You weren't what I needed
Late nights, Vicodin off the streets
White sheets and pillow talk
You were only the in between
Never the start or the end
You were not my cure
I don't have one,
Terminal battles
Cut into pieces by the fun
You gave me

Do it out of love
or do it not at all
for the power in your heart
should not pull on the strings of mine
it should dance with them, tangle them
in a web that catches fallen pieces
when my paper skin loses integrity
it should color them
when the grey has covered everything

Do it out of love
or do it not at all
the force that drives your lips to mine
should not derive from the same place
that drives you to work in the morning
or to bed at night
for these are chores
and I have been there before
so I ask you to do it out of love
not habit, nor chore
do it out of love
I've never had that before

I have had dreams for 3 nights in a row where I am strong like ocean currents, I am amber rose sunsets, I am graceful, I am outspoken drunk girl in bar but I have not had a drink; I have swallowed everything else until now, in these dreams where I am strong. In these dreams that I have had for 3 nights in a row, you are wrong and Justice is my sneaker on your throat, it is your apology dripping venom off your tongue, it is you asking for my mercy instead of me asking you to stop over and over. In these dreams, I am telling you what you did to me in front of a  room of people that you love, instead of a room full of people that I love asking me how I even got into this situation. In these dreams, I am crushing your words in my hand and planting flowers with the dirt and dust I took out of my throat. I give them as an apology to my partner for the year we spent trying to put me back together and it only kind of working.  In these dreams I am already healed, as a past participle and as a present state, I am not fearful that I will not ever change the way I walk in the street, I can go on my old campus without forgetting how to breathe, I can do anything, really. In these dreams, for 3 nights I have been the kind of strong that other women who have had this happen to them look to for strength, I have rooted my forgiveness deep in my chest where resentment used to lay. In these dreams I am a woman I love who does not blame herself. In these dreams I am hurting you and you cannot speak. I swallow the irony. I am outspoken and loudly tell the world our story- and every time you beg or plead or say “no” I tell it again so they can hear me. In my dreams people finally hear me. I have been sleeping in.

I keep having dreams
Like I used to but
In black and white
I still had butterflies
In this one we got married
We were still nineteen
But when the time came
For you to kiss me
I fell sick with agony
Your kiss was laced with venom
I walked the aisle to the blues
The trumpet numbed my ears
I fell out of love with you
But you're still in my sleep
Why do you still make me weak?

Partial to a past that explained my experiences in a causal tone. Like a story that had to unfold, I made sure it made sense because I felt myself losing control. I had to have control of it. Apologies for every mistake I’d ever made because amending my wrongs was praying for one night without terrors. Tug of war with God. Cause and effect. I earned my hurt. I earned my hurt.


People that believe in karma drive me ******* nuts. Plagued with guilt from my childhood because I got ***** at 21 and I thought maybe if I had been nicer to Cassandra B on the playground at 9 maybe I could have kept my dignity that night in my dorm room. But it doesn’t work like that.

I have survivor’s hands. *****, calloused, jealous hands. I am not innocent, I am vindictive and manipulative and when I argue with the person I love I get mean. When I talk to myself in the mirror, I am cruel. I am not innocent. I was a bully as a child. I thought all of these things were a part of the reason why someone took my body from me when I was 21.

how many men
do i have to fill myself up with
before i am able
to get the feeling of you
out of my chest

Let go
Of my exit strategy
The day I met you
There was nothing to run from
Only a home to come to

I fell apart 127 times before I stopped trying to put myself back together. What kind of force were you to steal my foundation and my willpower too? What kind of God would make our paths cross for long enough to build an empire, and watch us as we took that time and set everything on fire? There is nothing left of what we built, ashes cover anything green. The proof of our conquests lies under rubble too heavy to remove. Water fizzles off rocks that waited too long in the sun for enough energy to create life, and then we are nothing but steam. I stopped being able to reconcile with your energies last fall when we were apart because everything you sent my way dug a hole in my spine and I finally collapsed on December 9th. I fell to my knees at 6:33 at night and the pit in my stomach is still there even though you are not.

I haven't stopped trying to put myself back together since you left.
At least I can say I have that going for me. You took a lot but you didn't take everything.

Over sweetened
Fall decay
Covered up in caramel
Flannel sheets line freezing beds
That rot from the inside out
I, too unwind this way
And walk on red, yellow leaves the same day
In black boots I bought to repel the rain
I chew on candy apples
My teeth are weak where they start at the roots
They glisten on the surface
Someday they grow too fragile
To stay in place
Fall decay
Covered up in caramel
I miss the feeling of holding hands
The empty half of my bed looks quite a lot like hell
Fall decay
Covered up in caramel
I have a feeling in my gut
From swallowing my pride and ignoring your call
Fall decay
Over sweetened
I wish I'd taken care of these cavities

I ran out of cliches to use in my writing last year when you ran out of patience for my problems,
It was around the same time that we ran out of gas in the car because I got sidetracked again and instead of stopping I just kept driving because the song on the radio made me feel like I could breathe for once, and I planned our whole future when I went out to get milk but you were angry that I forgot the reason I left home, I came back empty handed and I still wonder now why you left me. It doesn’t feel right knowing that a year has passed and nothing that I have planted has grown or even budded, I starved some because I got distracted and others I smothered and they got overwhelmed and crumbled. I watched my lilacs collapse last Spring the same week you abandoned me and I’m sure I should have healed by now but it hit me only last week that I don’t know how. I don’t know if I’ve ever healed, or what it looks like outside of bandages and scars that I could watch turn white so I started reading about these homeopathic remedies for diseases I don’t have and I remember feeling like my body was going to give out every time I saw you in the summer and I blamed it on the heat but I spent most days inside in the AC. I wonder what the remedy is for that feeling because instead I tried to **** it and just felt weak. I would throw up and blame the alcohol and when my doctor asked me if I drank recreationally I told her no because there was nothing fun about blacking out to forget you and me. Last Valentine's day we had a bottle of wine and it only took me a cup to start crying and I remember you telling me you were disappointed when I didn't want to have *** which should have made me upset but I think what actually did was the fact that three months later I could drink an entire handle of ***** before throwing up and another half before I gave up on trying to kick this feeling that you might come back some day or the thought that I would take you back instantly when you never deserved me.  I know that and still wonder why I feel so empty when I see old pictures of us in our teens.

Whatever it was, I felt it in my gut. Organically. Euphorically. Even when it came back up, I did not mind the taste. You made me feel like I could stomach anything though I always hated sour food, I spent my afternoons kissing you when I should have been at school. My grades started to drop and you told me college was a waste because the world did not need my help, you did. So I started learning how to fix broken things. There isn't much literature about broken people. They say you aren't there to fix them, but to love them instead but you drilled it in my head that those two were the same and that if I didn't do it I was useless so I ran myself thin trying to piece you back together. You never even told me what broke you in the first place. I spent months trying to get into your headspace to figure it out and you boarded the windows on our apartment so the heat could not get out, or that's what you told me anyway. I guess I never told you how I felt about all of this and I'll never get the chance, but you made me feel something I still can't. I look for it, believe me. I tried everything. Nothing matches the rush I got when you would knock me down then pick me back up. Nothing struck quite like your words even when they were used to step on the path I was planting for myself, but I never asked for help because I didn't know it was wrong. And now I don't know how to fix it, or me. I should have looked harder for those books on how to fix people, I guess.

Preoccupied with filling
holes in the souls of everyone else
Forgot how to nourish my own
for myself, I am hungry
You spoon fed me and I spit it out
I was adamant about not needing your help
But I lost the laughter too,
It was never just force feeding
It's summer and I am freezing

Preoccupied with filling
holes in the souls of everyone else
Forgot how to wake myself up
I can't remember how it feels to not love
I know what it feels like to be empty

and know that it is all your own fault

I forgot how to fill my own holes

I keep trying to replace
the feeling you gave me.
Words don't do the same things,
The ones I used to swear I hated.

Lines and lines of rhythmic blood,
nothing sounds the way it should.
I try and fill up with poetry
I try and pretend I'm not bleeding.

Words carve my sunburned skin,
I tried too long to let light in,
I hurt myself and begged for help,
poetry won't heal these welts.

Letters may convey a thought,
but bring you back, they will not.

Blue cheese chunks
Peanut butter chest pains
Name a food right now
I'll promise to ruin it for you
6 cups of coffee past your limit
Your heart ripped itself out of your
Ribcage an hour ago and is running
Sloppy joe laps around the park trying to ground itself
Angel hair pasta before you break it
Into boiling water but it still has chills
Spoiled milk in lucky charms,
Sugar sticking to the side of the bowl
Pulling at your skin like Colby jack strings
Picking at derma like an orange
But you aren't sweet or refreshing
You're wilting like that salad you bought
And let rot for a month
Because THIS was the last time
You'd start over your lifestyle
Almond bark emotions
And candy cane apologies
Name a food and I promise
Anxiety will ruin it for you

I forced myself to stop loving you
Because holding on was suffocating
Urban ivy, forgiving fists
I forced myself to stop loving you
Until it worked,
until I hated you in every way I never wanted to

What does it mean to be happy?
Do sunsets fall slower then?
will I know the exact second
I am happy again?
Was I ever?
closest I have been
when you said "forever"

I take in your love like fossil fuels

The guilt will **** me faster than
The illness
I wonder what it’d be like to be free
From all of this
Where would you put the sun
If you did not have to hold it up
For me
Every day
Would you rest?

****** in the back of
my friend's dad's car
on a february night
after three **** packs
A dozen fake laughs
Mild smiles that seemed convincing
and I still don't feel a thing
except for your words
from years ago cutting into my spine


I'm tired

I tried to turn this anger into art
oh, god did I pray for one stroke of beauty
I was blinded by fog and the nausea consumed me
I fell to my knees looking for a single way to make sense of this hate
I don't remember how to channel my energy, the kind that just drains me
Into something healthy, something beautiful, something colorful
I just know that I'm struggling to stay above water
The tide comes in aggresively, and I am looking for a fight
I start arguments with the mirror to distract myself long enough not to collapse
Because I remember you're not coming back,
You're never coming back


*******.

****** you
for being the only thing
that hurts me enough to write about
for not being a part of my heart anymore
but loitering in my brain
inhibiting anything else I try and create,
*******
I want to write about anything else
but I have not felt that much since

*******,
so angry I could collapse on the floor
but I swore this year I would stop
passing out when I feel like lashing out
so *******
for nailing my feet to the tile floor
and turning on the sink on your way out the door,
I am drowning in your mess
and have to swim with wounds on my feet
so *******
for doing this while telling me you love me
and pouring salt on open cuts
and making sure you had enough air to breathe
while I struggle to make ends meet
so *******
for doing this to me and
for draining me of the energy that it takes
to collect myself and hold it in and not scream
*******

How can I feel so full of love
as the sun rises every morning
sunshine fills me up,
unthaws my tired bones

but as it softens,
the sun sinks into the lake by my home
I feel it return, that chill in my spine,
reminding me you are not mine anymore,
and I am hollow again,
missing you, again

when will this end?

I withdraw
As you cast yourself out
Forgetful, gentle, galvanized mind
Spend all my time mourning you
Shaky chest, rotting hands
Begging for another chance
Former lover, forbidden friend
I would have loved you until the very end
But you didn’t let me
And now I love another
Not in the same way,
And that guilt will eat me alive
Until the day I die

Why is giving up so sweet to taste
like cold cream in strong brewed coffee,
I wish that same strength for me,
but instead the way the milk,
though bad for me I know,
mixes in like December's first snow,
leaves me in a trance,
I am frozen in the road,
the way ahead I will not go,
because I have never tasted happiness
and giving up is just too sweet

I'm giving up on myself today
I'm jaded and sleepless and need a break
I'm giving up on my goals today
I'm sorry and hope you can forgive me
I'm giving up on myself today
I'm sick of this fog surrounding me
I'm giving up on everything today
I'm empty and can't fill up again
I'm giving up today,
and will try again tomorrow.

I wanted a globe tattoo
to prove to the world I had ambition
to ditch the small town I was raised in
and make myself something huge

I wanted a globe tattoo
to portray adventure and fun
to leave on foot and not stop running
and make myself something new

I wanted a globe tattoo
to tell the world I was speical and kind
that wanderlust floods my mind
and not the constant fear of being stuck in the town where I met you

I wanted a globe tattoo
just to convince myself I would ever be able to make it out of this town