Does my body change
Or my view of it

Sometimes panic
Other times disinterest
Confidence
Rejection

Rejection of change
Rejection of the present

Thinking back to a past
Skinnier and dying
Thinking to ideal future
Slimmer and healthy

I weight lift every day
But I don't feel stronger

I want to be strong
Muscles and focus
I want change
Where I am in control

I wake up and the day begins

The sun rises
The cup empties

I go back to bed

The shadows change
The clock ticks

I get up and try again

Marie Antoinette historian
Squeezed into a never too tiny house
Up next in my watch queue
Out of touch, but still at my fingertips

Bored, distracted, lonely, overwhelmed
I'm thinking about cutting it all down
Still watching a Met fashion commentary
Man dismissing neckline of dignitary

A girl at a screen staring
Scratching and picking
Mind blank but running
Remembering nothing

Just upload me already

I don't drink
I don't smoke
I just pick my face 'clean'

I hate how I look
How I cope
How I think

It's distracting with sensation
But I'm learning new things

I'm learning about breathing
Soothing kinks
With harmless stings

I hope this time I make it
I hope the habit's choked

I'll keep going through new motions
Taking the reign's what makes a king

I hear you like a poem about love
About grief
About joy

What happened to poems about lizards?
Coffee makers?
Toys?

Our minds focus on relationships
Emotions
Things that annoy

I wish my mind was expansive
Collected facts on clean energy,
Plants, alloys

Instead it's still rerunning
Dumb thoughts about
Past lover boys

Perhaps my new productivity method
Should be to have an urgently pressing
Other thing needing to be done

Academic paper deadline?
****!
Seven poems
Two photoshoots
One singing practice
And a gourmet dinner

Oh god she hates me
Wait she JUST made you tea
That's not hate
Don't take the bait

There you go again
Going from zero to ten
Try some reality testing
I'm just suggesting!

Like the Matrix or Inception?!?
No no different direction
This isn't a movie
It's about brains being goofy

So what's that biz?
Assess a situation for what it is
Rather than from our emotions
Get rid of anxious notions

See other perspectives
Try being objective
Start doing the logistics
Keep your thought life realistic

#Therapy

Whatever is the matter?
Pitter patter

Go away

I'm only getting fatter
More dreams shatterd

Every day

Nope, your stomach's gettin flatter
No more chatter

Come out and play

.
.
.

Okay

Kitty cat kitty cat
Stole his place this evening
Kitty cat kitty cat
No more competing

Kitty cat kitty cat
I won't mind you stay
Kitty cat kitty cat
I'll leave as well today

Kitty cat kitty cat
Do you care if we go?
Kitty cat kitty cat
To me you felt like home

Kitty cat kitty cat
You don't feel my dread
Kitty cat kitty cat
Sleeping on my bed

"No one cares"
Is a lie

"I forgot"
Is ok, most of the time

"I'm not like I was"
Is true for better as well as worse

"It's getting worse"
Is only a perspective

If you want something to happen
You have to care
You have to put the work in
You've got this, and they've got your back

Binging 'content' because depression
Watching videos on losing weight
Making notes to begin a journey?
Realizing I haven't walked 500 steps today

Slipping on shoes
Smiling at the swaying bridge
Soaring skateboards pass me
Sand pressed on the shore

Discovering a new overgrown place
Dusting off my legs for deer ticks
Daring myself to sing and daydream
Dusk settling down

Coming back tired
Refusing to eat or socialize
Hiding in my room
Wanting to tear myself apart again

I walked towards a new place
Where I could climb, and yet had never been before
At once, I was gone

I was in a loose line of souls
Waiting for the devil, Hades
He had taken me here early

He had gone to the human world
Where he fell for me
And he had no care to wait for me to join him

I begged him to take me back, angry to lose my life and my climb
He ignored me, but his helper hinted
If I failed his test, I could leave

I didn't know how to fail without angering him or seeming fake
A test of probability, I passed 9 out of 10
Why couldn't I be a better actor? The right kind of failure?

He made me stay with him as he went back to the human world
To spend time with my grieving family as his human persona
As they cried, it dawned that I was losing them too

I was unable to touch them, comfort them
No one comforted me
He ignored me, **** him

He remarked, humanly, that he had made some money to build a bird house
Sharing a small goal achieved with his houswife, his captive
As he took my life, my love, my climb

I woke up crying, choking from the hold of my devil

The voice in my head
Called my phone
I picked up because the number said "Mom"

The voice in my head
Asked me what I was thinking
Un-friending a man who made me uncomfortable

The voice in my head
Wouldn't let up
When I said I didn't want to talk about it

The voice in my head
Got upset
When I hung up on it

She threw away my gift to her, and left me with hers.
She says I don't treat her like I do my father.
My father was the one who fished my gift to her out of the trash.
He tries to save us, quiet us.
Me and the voice in my head.

I'm thankful for ...
The squash handed to me by my nice TA
The apple cider offered at the meal plan cafeteria
The window display that shocked me with its Halloween decorations

Because otherwise, how can I find fall?
It seems these objects are how I can tell time without hay rides, fall foliage hikes, pumpkin spiced drinks in cafes visited with friends.
So much has been taken away from us, I'm afraid to lose time itself.

Out in the wild world
I felt the wind whirling around me
I enjoyed sunlight dancing on my skin
I craned my body to absorb as many of its footsteps

Back at the house
I hide in a bathrobe
I clean dishes carefully
I pray I do not wake a beast hidden within

Out with my friends
I laugh and sip at good coffee
I play violin and her piano accompanies me
I steal touches and photographs to preserve her love

Back at the house
I am in bed again before noon
I hide behind doors and to-do chores
I hope I appease the beast hidden within

I wish the house was a home filled with the warm happiness outside it, so I open the windows and doors to let it in.

Once again
I’m the *****
For not being
Your Barbie doll

Last weekend, I climbed Yosemite.
Last night, I went to a bar for the first time.
Today, my boss reminded me to send a presentation draft.
This morning.
.
This morning.
.
This morning, the boy who nearly ***** me months ago.
.
Apologized.
.
He sent me an email, so I wouldn't have to see him.
I've left it marked unread, despite reading it twice.
.
I don't know what or whether to respond to him.
I don't know what I'm supposed to feel.
.
This was months ago, and I haven't thought about him in at least a month.
.
He writes that he didn't apologize earlier partly for fear of making things worse.
Is this "things made worse," this panic and reminder?
?
Dear boy,
I know how you felt then, and I don't know what I feel now.
.
Sorrow.
.
Thank you for the apology.
I don't know if I can forgive you.
.
I hope you are well.
.
Best wishes.
Emily.

When my brother
Slams me
BAM
On the cabinet
His arms on my neck
GASP

It is the fault of our cultures
The years we’ve spent chipping at each other
***** *****
He with curses and volume
Me with ivy vined words
rustle

When I come back from the Ivy tower I’ve gardenened
Shoom!
When he come back from his wall of sound
Crash!

My words are more poisonous
His anger is more violent
Together
We tear each other apart.

RIP

The man invites me to his midnight walk
He’s having a rough night.

We walk through freezing cold
To a destination never right.

The circles our feet pace
Mirror his spinning mind.

And I am kept heart running
As I match his pace in kind.

I’ve walked too many of these walks
To think yours is benign.

For I can say, that none have ever
Left us healthy fine.

Don’t lead me on another chase
After the shadows of men.

I’m putting my foot down firm.
I will not walk again.

The aliens who had teleported into my room asked me a question.

        When had I last seen the stars?

I answered truthfully that I’ve stayed up late many nights, when the stars come out.

“But when had you last seen them?” They insisted.

It wasn’t for stargazing that I was up late, I admitted to them. Besides, there’s too much light in the city for the stars to shine here.

It must have been several years ago, when I was a little girl and my father showed me Orion’s belt, the last time we were camping in the middle of nowhere.

         They teleported me to space.

The stars were gone. And I hadn’t noticed.

       They teleported me back to my room, because there was nothing to see. I went back to my studies. It was still night.

Three tears dripped out of my eyes. I finally stared out of the window as they fell.

Orion’s belt shone brightly back at me.

Forget houses or apartments
I call three cities home.
Drop me in one of these
Disparate points on a map
And I know I belong.

Just as I can’t commit to one life project
Too in love with everything I do
You can’t receive a straight answer
When you ask me to choose.
Where do you call home?

Why not call everything on this planet home?
Why not call my loved ones my home?
Why not call the slivers of neighborhoods
Forests, mountains, deserts familar to me home?
Why not call it a state of mind, not of place.

Though the three cities are thousands of miles apart,
They form one map for me
My home.

Leaving them never gets easier
Friends and family, teachers and babysat kids.
When you live apart from them
You live in two different worlds

Constantly:
The world
                                  where you are
and
                                                      The world
where your heart is

When you love people and things in both worlds
Remember you'll visit the other
Forget that their lives will have changed
You have to keep your mind here                for now.

I've wanted to write something for days now.
But what?
What's worth putting to pen?
What matters to me now and here?
What matters at all?

A paper that will never be published.
A song that will disappear into the abyss of music memory.
A website for a startup that could never take off?
Countless countless research papers to read for a research project that I'm not supposed to work on yet.

How should I be spending my free time?
Is there something inherently wrong in asking that?
But really, I need to know. Is it correct that I'm spending my vacation finishing projects?

Perform a song. Move on to practice a different song. What song? Except I need to practice something an hour a day.
Meet a friend for coffee. We go to a museum we've both been to too many times . Why are we here? Except that we want to be together.

What does it mean to want to spend the day with someone but have no idea what to do?
What does it mean to have so many long meaningful conversations that you can't remember the subject of?

Is it the people that matter?
The common agreement to keep a bond?

Is it the exploration of creativity that matters?
The continuous honing of skills into activities I enjoy and take pride in?

Am I perfecting my projects? Am I perfecting myself? Is that what is correct to do on vacation?

Perhaps this poem was just another item to check off an arbitrary to-do list.

There are warnings
You are always warned
Don't eat the candy
Stay in at night
Lock the door.
There are always warnings
Always warning you
But for the second
You are tempted
You remember vaguely
The constant background warning
But you were never given
The stories behind them.
You are tempted
You forget
You fall, and end changed.
Now you are a story.
Now you warn.
There are always warnings.

I put my hair up today
Standing with grocery bags tucked under my arms,
Pearl earrings nestled just so out of the whisps of hair,
I stared hard at the mirror
I looked like...
Like an adult.
Prepared, studied, not so pale and flitterfly
I took down my hair
And then fastened the pin again.
I closed the mirror I realized I longer looked in for hours.
It was time to buy groceries.

I am day
And you are night?
If we lived in a life of dusk,
Then, perhaps we could stay together.

Don't give me all your kissing treaties
Don't pry my heart open.
Maybe I was better off
Sipping waters from my dreams.
Now ****** shores are all explored
Looted, torn and left to burn.

This land left an isolate isle again.

For a time I thought my soil had healed.
Then I saw rain for seven days.
My eyes are leaking again
And the ground proves still unsteady.
Floods return in an instant
At a whisper of Celtic ballads in the wind.

I have layers, sediments.
The undergrounds bump unevenly, uncomfortably
Uncovered in areas of sunken swamps and ponds
Sometimes discovered, but mostly revealed
To strangers who are not kin
To kin who should not find them.

Do I dare be found again?
Do I want to be conquered?
Laid claim to, or too much my own?
Shall I remain alone?
Perhaps, it would be better
To sink quietly beneath these waters.

                                                        ­                 Goodnight.

In real life
No boy (or girl)
Falls for
The crazy girl.

In real life
She goes to therapy
Works on herself
Heals to whole.

In real life
She sees an old friend
Browsing records
At a book store

In real life
They get married
An apartment and dog
A divorce soon.

In real life
She learns even more
Buys self-help books
At the same store.

In real life
She starts yoga
Laughs more
Makes peace more.

Once in life,
A girl in her yoga class
Congratulates her for
A successful peacock pose,
Introduces herself.

One time,
The two go for tea
At the cafe downstairs
They start to talk about themselves
And laugh a lot more.

Once upon a time,
Their hands
Warm with tea
Touch and hold
Together strong.

Once upon a time,
In a dynamic relationship
After a long time
They find a place
A cat and child.

Once upon a time,
They grow old
The cat is buried
The child moves out
The girl lives on.

Once upon a time,
She dies of course
But she faces death
After she's lived
Whole and loved.

Would it be wrong
To confess that
I want to take humanity
To church?
Including the churches?

I don't go to hell-fire and damnation speeches
But could we all see
The beauty of love and goodness?
Could I quietly
Take your hand and pray?

I was shocked
When my feet refused to move to communion
It's been so long since
I forced myself into any human religion.
Forgive me, but I can't.

Would it be wrong for me to just sit in the beauty?

Tell me,
If I'm not gay
Why
Does my
Heart break
Knowing that
She's gone?

Listen to me,
When I say
Who I love is
No consideration of yours
And raising me
Did not give you
The right to
Constrict my heart.

I wish you would
Stop complaining
That you can't
Talk freely to me.
It's your thoughts
That need to change
When you hurt me like this.

Sincerely,
The daughter of
The woman raised
By a gay brother.
Sincerely,
Your daughter.

Now that my dreams have come true
I have to decipher what I need to do
To be my dream person, but no longer a shrew.

Old pictures look picturesque
Back when I was in perpetual arabesque
I was fighting for my place at a desk

I'm free in my paradise
I'm feeling like I don't deserve a slice
The perfect fit, but I'm still imperfect ice.

ungrateful. born broken. made broken.
it's all my fault, mom's fault, dad's fault, can't be spoken
it's all his fault, hospital's fault, when I run
it's all my fault after all, I'm undone.

I have the chance to fix my faults.
I'm ******* it up, going back to default
While I'm calling the doctors, showing friends secret vaults,
Finding how I can be my full person and dance a new waltz.

Why am I scared of myself for myself?
Why do I have such conflicted desires to be desirable, be desired
and destroy myself,
see the ugly, hide from the eyes who would see me?
Perhaps it would make more sense if you witnessed:

the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner
the brush of his hand on my knee
the same hand guiding my back around
the good food and home
the message thanking me for coming
and commenting that his girlfriend thinks I'm hot

Or rewind to every spring break
as a child
receiving lessons from the best musicians
"They're ***** old men who like a beautiful young girl next to them,
don't worry they know your father will keep you safe,
treasure the education you are given."

Let me giggle cutely as you leer
Let me cry quietly in my room
Let me wear my pretty frilly bouncy dress for you
Let me rip my face to shreds when I stare too close in the mirror.
Let me count my blessings for you my saviour
Let me count my calories for a slim figure

I've never felt pretty enough
I've never felt skinny enough
I've never felt good enough
I've never felt clever or proud or smart enough
Except to be used
By me using you using me again.

I give you my trust
So that you will not abuse it.

I give you my heart
So you can keep it safe.

I give you my fragile hope
So you can build it.

Please God,
Let the Devil be wrong.

But

You make me smile and laugh
I think of you when I am in a mood
I know seeing you would make it better.

You peel away my shields,
I spill my heart
And you listen intently

I listen too, to your stories
Neither of us conquering the conversation.
We are too two distinct characters.

You are a type I know will not work
I've said this to you,
As we go to the gym, walk, eat together.

In one of our talks, you asked my stance on friends with benefits
Just in general, not propositioning explicitly
I explained no, that's not who I am.

But here we are two planets captured in elliptical orbits.
I brush past your back as I walk away
You hold me from behind to show me a video on your phone

In my head, I think:
You are too young to understand this
This is me being lonely
This is you being a fair option
This is a stupid idea
This is destined to fail
This is destined to happen
This is waiting waiting sweet aching anticipation.

I thought this loneliness was over.
I thought a year ago I learned some incredible lesson.
I remember it feeling so wonderful.


I.
I.
I.

I wish I would stop talking about myself.
I wish I could communicate without bragging.
I'd say this is a list of resolutions but

I.
I.
I.

I can't smile without a motive
I can't hear someone talk without thinking of theirs
I feel like they're usually motivated by hatred, lust, disinterest.

I.
I.
I.

I know nothing about these people.
I should stop making assumptions, but
I keep thinking how last year's 'epiphany' hurt me.

I.
I.
I.

I was so vulnerable, so gentle and sweet, someone had to shatter me.
I tried again and again more feebly to learn the lesson
I was crushed each time more easily by hatred, lust, disinterest.

I.
I.
I.

I have another chance here, the best chance anyone could have.
I can't believe someone would give it to me.
I wonder how good an actress I must be for them to have believed.

I.
I.
I.

I want a cram session of reviewing that lesson.
I want to be shaken back into that vulnerable, feeling self.
I have a new life I could give that self, a fitting gift.

I.
I.
I.

I met a beautiful boy, a vegetarian rock climber violinist environmental engineer.
I'm going through the motions because he is an incredible match, only
I can't put the spark back in my eyes, let alone light his beautiful

eyes.

I.
I.
I.
I'm done with I.

We want to preserve the nature that is beautiful to us.
We travel an hour to leave the congestion,
A day to sleep under skies slightly less polluted
A month to feel we’ve migrated like geese
And left the world of men, us men out there.

We bring flashlights to see in the dark sky
We leave cigarettes and Clif bar wrappers on the soil
I read recently of a group of mountaineers
Who traveled a month to touch a mountain
(rumored) to never have been climbed.
They brought a TV for the local people

You see, we yearn for some untouched place
And only bless that as “Nature”
We forget to save the wildflower we crush underfoot
We ignore squirrels and crows and anoles
Find pleasure in killing spiders and hacking mushrooms

Can we find some way to love the world we have?
Utopias don’t exist unless you believe in heaven.
This is not a case for despair, there is no case.
Despair allows you to give up on the world we do have.

This is a case for overwhelming beauty
Everywhere, at every scale.
Look at the eight eyes of the spider, count them.
Stare at your hands as they become unrecognizable beasts.

This is a case for hope, if we can see it.
Stop crushing, stop climbing, stop escaping.
This is a time to stand up for beauty
That you join and do not destroy.

It is when I intently idly
Walk in the woods,
By the stream,
On the grass,
Over high mountains,
That I find a peaceful place.

A place where I look down at
Sunflowers, rising
Butterfly wings, fallen
Earthworms, crawling in
The soil.

The soil.

The soil I plant my feet in,
A part of a huge whole.
It greets me heartily.
This soil of my soul.

Just let me be invisible
The too-beautiful wraith
Will put a bag over her head
So you won't stop to stare

Let me not change
This imperfect world still
So precious to me
So wondrous to me.

I will live on heels of bread,
Come at the end of the day
To steal food seconds from
Becoming ******* in a bin

I have an affinity for
the smallest red cherry tomatoes,
but I can carefully rearrange the pile,
hide the absence of a few.

I will ride my bike into town
When town is closed on holiday.
No (carbon) footprint left
I'll only slip indoors behind someone's feet.

A stranger. A fading memory. No trace.

You might be dead tomorrow.
The weapon might be your own.
I wish you'd stay to see though
That it will be okay.

"No it won't!" you cry,
But I need you to realize
There'll be another beautiful day:
Trees and books and stars and hugs will be here still.

One day you will die.
Another day I will too.
There'll come a day when Earth will sigh.
The planet will end shriveled and weathered.

I love this world with all my heart,
and I love you with another.
But when the galaxy falls apart
something will keep walking.

Somewhere out there will be mind-shattering beauty, and
It will be more than okay.

I dig deep and find
so much gold among
the clutter of man.

But all too often
passion wells up, spills.
I don't ask for love.

I just wanted to be friends.

Shouting into nothing,
We tell strangers secrets
We'd never tell a friend.
Therapy isn't cheap.
We leave ourselves empty.

Packing my life into little boxes
Did I forget something?
I caress parts I can't take with me.
People, cats, bed are staying.

It's 2,000 miles away
What I wanted but also not.
They'll be there for a phone call,
but still far out of eye shot.

And I know that it's time.
I've done all I needed here.
Time to go, so why cry
When it's time to disappear?

The suitcases are full.
Soon to go out the door.
I'm left feeling hollow.
I've left my fears on the floor.

Don’t think too much
About forbidden touch
Or legal abuse of such
Little creatures like dairy cows and fabric workers.

Don’t feel too much.
The homeless man with his crutch
Can disappear, hush.
Turn your head dear, eat McDonald’s chicken fingers.

Don’t love too much.
Why on real people crush?
People slip through your clutch.
As flashing lights reanimate Rihanna, both your eyes close the shutters.

Our world distracts us from seeing,
Persuades us we need a break.
Deserving one after a day going nowhere.
Turn the TV on to the latest ‘Bachelor’.

So loud. So loud. So loud. Too loud!
I shut my eyes from the too-bright lights.
I need to escape the escape, to find solace.
I put pen to paper and hear its whisper.

Poetry softly roars while TV screams shrill.
You’ll remember the written words for time
Degrees of magnitude than you’ll remember
(consciously) that singing cat meme.

Real love takes more effort
Than a heart reaction on Facebook.
Writing truth takes longer than re-posting.
Yet I want to share myself, not another gif lol.

Mute the volume for a second.
Can deaf ears hear again
the music of
the pen?

Think too much.

On a scale of 1-10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest:
1. How cute did my **** look as I walked home from school?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2. How old must a girl be before you catcall her?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
3. How many miles is a girl allowed to travel from her home before she is a target?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4. In this deadly hot summer, how many layers must a girl wear to protect herself from your cries?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
5. How many times has this method of courtship ever been effective?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
6. How many boys does a girl need in order to protect her from you?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
7. How many times has someone catcalled your mother, your sister, your daughter?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
8. If unable to answer Question 7, how many times have they come home crying, holding their clothes tight to shield themselves?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
9. How many letters are in my name?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I'm sorry. That last question was unfair.
You would never know my name because,
despite all the curses and jeering,
you never once asked for it.

My name is @@@@@@.
I am not your "baby."
I am not your "**."
I am not your "****."
I am me, and I belong to no one.

10. How likely are you to allow me to not be anything else?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I have a hard time
linking words to emotions
and emotions to actions
and all this to meaning.

I'll slowly build up
my library of feeling.
But I wonder exactly
what I was missing.

When I scrutinized us,
I did so without seeing.
I thought I knew all.
I saw my own meaning.

Life doesn't have meaning;
what it does have is people.
Now I say what I mean,
and I listen to feeling.

I've struggled with friends,
with parents, and with brothers.
I knew motivations
without knowing them.

Now I start to see people.
We're closer together.
Done connecting the dots,
we connect to each other.

Hear my voice.
Listen. Is my tone
mysterious, exhilirated,
ironic?

Find my asyndetons and epithets.
Analyze and synthesize my words;
Words I am just spewing out
I promise.

No tricks.
I just wanted to talk.

Lay me down to rest:
A puddle of mucus
covered in the softest white blanket
of tissues and paper napkins