if we were to assign emotions to colors -
passion would be where magenta and orange kiss the horizon at sunset,
joy would be the yellow of my socks every easter sunday that i can remember,
and melancholy would be just another shade of blue.

i told him,
i am not done with you yet.
three weeks post breakup,
we shouldn't feel as unfinished as we do.
like, in the ridiculously complicated narrative of he and i,
the author got up one day,
scribbled a quick ending,
and then set the novel on fire.

i read an article in an obscure magazine
about Shelley Jackson,
an artist
who got thousands of people
to tattoo a singular word
from a story onto themselves,
and then sent them back to their scattered existences.

maybe that is what this is,
another scattered story.
another vaporized narrative.

i can feel it in the air,
but not pull the phrases together.
it's like trying to hold onto smoke.
our story slips through my fingers and gets in my eyes.

if we were to assign emotions to colors -
my ribcage would look like a Jackson *******.
my head would be a paintball arena.

i am so full of indigos,
and mustards,
and crimsons,
that Van Gogh, himself, would dip into my palette
and claim to have never seen such beautiful sadness before.

i don't know if it hurts because it still matters,
or if it matters that it still hurts.

i feel the frenzied ache of creation in my gut.
i am not a painter,
but my mirror is showing me
the immaculate collection of brushstrokes
i have become.

a few weeks ago,
i was approached by an artist who offered to paint my bruises.
to collect my contusions with watercolors.

what a beautiful intention,
to immortalize the growing pains,
memorialize the bumps along the way,
to make something permanent
of these perpetual transitions.

if we were to assign emotions to colors -
my pride would be gold-plated and rusting from use, like my grandfather's watch,
courage would be the pure green of every bud that has dared to grow through concrete,
and love?
love would be prismatic,
like spilled oil on asphalt.

a rainbow one moment,
vanished the next.

Before I learned to play with fire
I stood amongst it's ashes
The smoke, it danced into the sky
And embers floated flawlessly
When the flames grew into fire
I was not afraid
When the flames grew into fire
I knew I'd be okay

When my mother asks how the world's treating me,
I reply ‘good’,
even if it’s not the truth.
It is as if the words are branded
at the back of my throat
and as much as I want them to go away,
they have become a part of me.
Forcing me to lie.
Of course,
I’ve never been good at lying
but certainly the only way to lie well, is to do it often.

I have been told
Twice
By two different men- that I am the most defensive person they’ve ever met.
My skin too thick and my tongue to sharp
(I am supposed to be easy and soft.)
But those men didn’t tend to the garden of my mind or flesh.
They never sowed the seeds I have spent years tending
Or even tried to open the gate I have built with my calloused hands.

Do not judge this mind if you aren’t willing to ******* soul.
There are roses here that don’t need any other hands to prune.
And never forget-
I am of the moon and stars.
The rivers of this body don’t need your approval.
I was never meant to be the clay molded in your hands.

1, The princess never has to do anything for herself
2, The princess isn't allowed to do anything for herself
3, The princess must do exactly as is said by everyone else

Strike the first from the list- this is the real world, no time for fantasy
The other two work out, the second especially now that

Time is splitting away! This down the rabbit hole, this through the looking glass, until
all that's left is a shame, there's no time at all for the princess

Lock your lips, breathe in, breathe out.
How do you keep choosing and choosing to do the right thing
when time and again
everyone else pushes poisoned apples and sharp spindles down your throat?

Take your orders, little marionette, dance away your nights and days
Tatter your shoes, dear princess, step by weary step in this dazzling cage
And pray that when the music stops
someone will notice that you have started to fade.

he likes to call me dollface

and i let him unravel my threads,
because i'm not quite porcelain like he seems
to think - more so a rag doll, yarn for
hair, buttons for eyes, soft and
easy.

we started as a series of stolen things:
glances, secrets, moments in a walk-in freezer,
and i keep wondering how that all led us
here, stealing time as
he lights a bowl and i
dance circles in his living room

all the while he is watching
like he is in a museum, and i am
art behind a glass to
stare at, never
touch

he reaches out and falls short,
calls me over but never follows through,
pulls my threads and
sews me up again
each time
he calls me
dollface

If I look pretty
They won't see the demons I hide

If I smile
They won't see the death in my eyes

If I laugh
They won't hear me cry out

If I act this way
They won't know I died last summer

I'll look alive
But in reality
I'm a walking, talking, corpse

I'm rotting from the inside
Im truly dying
I'm done fighting

I'm good at pretending
Pretending I'm strong
Pretending I'm happy
Pretending I'm fine
Pretending I matter

But in reality
None of its true
Because I died last summer
When my demons took over

So now I'm a corpse
Among the living
A zombie
A machine
Just going through the motions

Clinical love washed clean with gasoline
burns your skin pink
its an abc you learned in the womb
- how to argue your way out of a tight spot
with a lit match held tight in between your thumb and finger.
Its all relative where even the Sun is your brother
or sister who burns to death those caught in a desert
and the world turns with the turn of a key
while all mechanical actions take place
washed clean with gasoline burns your skin pink
and clinical love is a lit match held tight in between your thumb and finger.  
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