whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong whats wrong
oh!lots of things (she says this real quiet, not
quite a whisper, and you wonder and think for a
while about it
is she sad? you dont think even God knows,
or whoever made the World)
when I'm Old, I will create the world anew
sweeten flowers and trees and leafy things (or,
or, or,
bury all the seeds,and wait a thousand years
for them to grow tall and big and Strong)
how dead are you how dead are you how dead are you how dead are you how dead are you how dead are you how dead are you how dead are you how dead are you how dead are you how dead are you how dead are you how dead are you how dead are you how dead are you
stamp something on it! make my death
certificate official! i'm in love i'm in love i'm in
love i'm in love!
she screams! and she thinks that finally, God, or
whoever made the World, can hear her!
i'm going to put stickers on everything!
(you believe her)
and will the trees grow strong again? and will
they breathe?
the forest is on fire, but
i think it's only in your mind
your teeth are missing your teeth are missing your teeth are missing your teeth are missing your teeth are missing your teeth are missing your teeth are missing your teeth are missing your teeth are missing your teeth are missing your teeth are missing your teeth are missing
your teeth are missing your teeth are missing
i believe you this time: she says, quiet but not
as much as before
she is painting Doors and Walls and Ceilings, all
in gold
gold on gold on gold on gold on gold
wow! are you a work of art? can i take you
home?
do you want to go home? or, i guess,
do you want to go to the mountains or the sea
or the forest or a lake or even the sky, maybe?
tell me, i'll take you there i promise! wherever
you want to go
free of charge.
- where is the boat going?
and she says, gosh! anywhere we want it to!
Jul 2, 2015
Jul 2, 2015 at 1:04 AM UTC
I’ve always had a fascination with bones. The skeletal system was taught to me in my fourth grade year. I learned the name of each bone that laid just under my thin layers of skin. I read books on how they were made, how they were broken, how they fixed themselves. I saw them as self-sufficient. I gazed at the plastic skeleton that lived in the corner of my classroom. I tried to match his bones with mine. ******* in my stomach to pinpoint each individual rib. Stretching my skin to watch the edges of my bones appear. I remember narrowing my eyes at the plastic toy in front of my face. It was like he was mocking me. He was showing me everything I wished I could see on myself. Staring at me with such contemptuousness in a sneer of his plastic teeth. I walked away in a mood that rivaled a hurricane, tears that felt foreign against my soft cheeks and a boiling pool of disgust deep inside my body that was covered in too many layers of skin.
I spent my first two years of middle school in quiet distaste. I forgot my fascination with the bones inside me. I never quite existed anywhere but in my own head. I was content. When my father pushed us away the first time, we fled to a different home on a different street. The second time, he shoved us into a different house in a different state. I started a new school with new people that inhabited new sets of bones. In my biology classroom, another plastic skeleton took up home in the corner. I went back to my new house everyday to my mother who I only saw once a day if I went to seek her out and sisters who had to take the blows silently. I trailed behind them, gathering their missing pieces and using the glue holding me whole to stick their parts back together. I scrambled to feed the zombies wandering around my house, shaving off layers of skin. I had to stand by and watch my own body turn into the skeleton I envied. I could peel back the skin I had left and finally see the sharp edges of milky bone.
We were pushed again. To another house in another state. I panicked to hide what was festering inside my chest. I tried to shield it from the eyes of my sisters, trying to keep them pure from fear of death or something just as scary. I pulled a veil down over my face, building a wall between the people I loved and myself. I watched as girls my age twisted and smiled and matured. I felt uneasiness as I tried to be like them, taking note of the way they flicked their hair back and tried to replicate it in a mirror. I painted my face with powders and rimmed my eyes in black to cover the red. I grew out my hair long enough to cover the bones trailing down my back, trying to bend in a shape that I didn’t want them going. I spent nights trying to find something that could bring my bones to life. I danced around death, grinning like a maniac when I dipped my toes into the white power I had found. I watched the blood drip from the cracks in my skin as I stared by at my own face that looked like a ghost to me now. I didn’t recognize the person in the mirror. With white around their nose, red around their eyes and with features almost parallel to the skeleton that had mocked me so long ago.
I came back from myself in the months following. I tried to rip off the veil over my eyes. I worked to carefully dismantle the wall between me and everyone else. I let my skin grow and grow until I couldn’t see the bones I used to find beautiful. I let myself dress how I knew I wanted. I let myself be who I wanted. I took the pain I had nurtured in my chest since I was a child and bundled it up, pushing it away because it was a friend I didn’t want to be around anymore. I had to learn how to hold my sisters up and climb up with them too. I started scribbling a new name on the canvases I have poured my heart into. I stopped trying to carve my own bones into the shape I wanted them to be and instead, I painted the way they grew. I molded creatures out of clay. I drew beautiful things. I made beautiful things. I began only drawing the things I saw most beautiful. I drew flowers and animals and the people I had allowed to help me. I drew architecture and waterfalls and insects. After my bones had disappeared and the smile on my face wasn’t pulled up by the thought of being non existent, I drew myself too.
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 3:09 PM UTC
pretty pretty girl
all wrapped up in pretty pretty ribbon
like a gift
an object
wrapped like an object
stuck in a pretty pretty box
a pretty pink box
dance on your tippy toes
raise higher
higher
higher, darling
break your pretty pretty pink toenails
i want to hear the snap your bones make when you bend backwards trying to please the people all roughly wrapped in blue
pretty pretty boy
all wrapped in pretty pretty ribbon
can you hear the whistles?
can you?
that high pitched squeal that shatters your ear drum
it beats like the bang of a drum
march, soldier
march
open your pretty pretty eyes
all sewn shut
shove purple paint down your own throat if it helps you
pretty pretty pretty girl
pretty pretty pretty boy
pretty pretty people don't exist
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 1:31 PM UTC
i was born with a sickness that dripped from ***** blood bag
she was born with gold ribbons tying her skin together
i wish i could have pulled a little harder
unraveled her from the outside in
she said i was small and insignificant
i told her to water me
give me incisors
sharpen them like the knives in my kitchen drawer
you won't recognize her
can you drown in the forced love of yourself?
i love me i love me i love me i love me i love me
is that why i can't dig up the old roots that she buried inside my chest?
i am filled to the brim with artificial self love
where does the love for other people fit inside?
im a broken puzzle piece that only fits inside itself
i thought i had found all my pieces but really
it was an ampersand
trying to make a bridge to cross from one life to another
smooth sailing
oh mother
oh father
you created something that looks like how scratches on a chalkboard sound
i am
so
so
sorry
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 3:05 PM UTC
***** ***** ***** dishes
scrubbing dirt off them like they have somewhere to be
why do they have to be so clean
what do they have to prove
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 1:40 PM UTC
rumpled wet cardboard
newspaper floats on gusts of wind
the smell of smoke burns the nostrils
while someone is urinating on the wall
small dogs growl as you pass by
cold bare feet show from under worn blankets
while one hand grasps the wheel of a shopping cart
making sure no one takes their life's belongings
clean clothes a faded memory
as are the faces of loved ones
dementia and paranoia settle in
as your new best friends
"spare a dollar sir, for something to eat?"
"i don't think so, you will buy a bottle"
"you are right sir, but that bottle keeps me warm"
"get a job you freak, and leave me alone"
last cardboard box on the back wall
strange smell, stranger than usual
poke joe with my left toe
joe won't be needing that blanket anymore
shared bottles, germs abound
hey, i used to be a ceo, ya know
then all the voices came around
and told me i had to end it all
hospital told me i couldn't stay
had to go home, and then i laughed
home....you mean that cardboard box?
well while i was in here, someone took it
that makes me homeless ya know
if you have no box, you have nowhere
can't use park benches or you'll be arrested
hey, free room and board, sounds good
warm cot feels so good to my aching back
peanut butter and jelly sammich filled the belly
but **** didn't know i had to watch my back
someone made me his ***** when i wasn't looking
nowhere is not the place to be
©Regina2009
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 1:37 PM UTC
i wait and wait and wait and wait
and wait
i sit with skinned knees turned up toward the fluid membrane of the sky
wait
my mouth is supposed to be a pretty pink like you drew me out to be
it's a devastating gray
waiting waiting
how may fingers do i have to count on before you come back to me
stop stop
i don't beg for anyone
except for the voice in my head to
SHUT
UP
i told myself that beauty is subjective
i want to be subjective
stopping
blood flows through the space behind my eyes
i can't see any color but a brilliant red
shut up
how high do i have to jump before the force of the landing breaks both my legs?
my heart beats to no one but the idea that I am superior
do i have the capacity to hate myself?
no
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 1:33 PM UTC
I had only tasted wine twice in my life
once it was from the bottle, stolen from my fathers fridge
it tasted like bitterness sliding down my throat
it tasted like unhappiness bottled up
stupid stupid stupid boy
i was as sweet as a candied grain of salt
who told me i was special?
a vulture sat on my bony shoulder
it's claws dug into pale flesh
i sat happily
singing
always singing
it leaned over and whispered things that made me crack a smile
we sat on the edge of the couch with blood between our legs and blisters in the shape of hand prints where he touched us
i was happy to have a piece of cloth wrapped around my mouth
the second time i tasted wine
it was the flavor of her sugar coated lips
i could smell it
i could taste it
i didn't care
she told me it was backround music to the taste of her
like it was always lingering
i was drunk off the way my heart thunked
it sent a beat of nervousness throughout my ribcage
she slid her bony fingers under the back of my shirt and told me it was supposed to be this way
she whispered that love was supposed to feel this way
i nodded and went pliant
i thought love was supposed to be like that
i ******* hate the taste of wine
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 2:53 PM UTC