I know a girl
who leaves lunch early,
earbuds in one hand,
history book tucked into the other,
who gets reclusive in big groups
and would rather spend a Friday night
reading with a teacup nearby
than out at a party.
Not when she sings.
When Maddie sings,
she shines,
and all of her nerves
seem to melt away in the first verse
as she shows everyone
how amazing she is in her element.

I know a girl
with really long legs,
who still crawls up the stairs sometimes
and trips over her own feet
more often than anybody I know.
Not when she dances.
When India dances,
she's dazzling,
and her smile is the brightest onstage
and you can just tell
through her incredible grace and radiance
that this is what she's truly passionate about.

I know a girl
who loves meeting new people,
but gets really awkward
the second time you talk to her,
because after introductions
she has no idea what to talk about
and has never been skilled
at articulating what she wants to say.
Not when she writes.
When I write,
the words just spill from my pen
until before long
I've found a way to take my thoughts
and turn them into something I hope
is worth leaving behind for the world.

I know a girl
who isn't nearly as confident
as she should be.
She puts a lot of thought
into how people see her
and watches all her words
(not to mention her actions)
very carefully.
Not when she's with you.
When Sophia is with you,
her laughter is effortless.
She sets aside
everything she's worried about
and allows herself
to get lost in the moment,
eyes sparkling and focused
on nothing but you.

I know a boy
who has a lot of insecurities.
And he and I
have a ton of differences.
We don't get along
pretty much ever
and a lot of the time
he irritates me beyond belief.
He can be sorta immature
and more often than not
finds it really hard to stand up for himself.
It seems to me
like a lot of his life
he's been treated like a second choice
and started to believe that's what he is.
Not when he's with her.
When you're with Sophia,
don't ever think she doesn't care about you.
Because you're the boy
who saw her heart
as well as her beauty
and loved her for all of it
and couldn't go very long
without her in your life,
because even when you tried to ignore it,
you couldn't deny
that the connection you two had
was too strong to force apart.
So even though we've had our fights,
and even though my opinion doesn't matter at all in this,
I wanted you to know
that I absolutely support the two of you.
Because I've seen the way you look at her,
and it's the exact same way I look at him.
And when someone looks at somebody else
the way you look at her,
there is nothing in the world
that should keep them from each other
if what they want
is to be together.

you told me
you knew
we would bring each other down.
you told me the world was cold
and we would drown in frozen lakes together,
when hypothermia turns to terminal burrowing,
we could burrow within each other.
you told me i would **** you.
after that,
i spent 5 hours in the shower boiling off my skin.
you and i
will not sink in tandem, you and i will not
fall apart in unison,
clasping hands.
i am not your personal suicide pill.
i am not your romantic,
selfless partner
in helpless self-destruction,
you're talking like we'll die tomorrow but i have plans to live a while yet,
if you jump from lover's leap
then you will fall alone.
i think you think
i love you.
i think you think i value
your voice
more than the voice of my thoughts.
it is december and the sun is too bright
to look anywhere
but your feet.
it is december and you're waxing poetic
about the boy who broke his neck
falling in the forest at night.
you look me in the eyes like you're trying
to crawl through my cornea.
you make eye contact an act of violence.
[do you
dream about me?]
you ask,
you're trying to be poetic.
i don't tell you about when i dreamed
you snapped your neck
while we walked in the forest,
and i left quickly,
quietly,
lived peaceful and alone.
i don't tell you about when i dreamed you moved on,
or that reoccurring dream where you spread my legs so far,
they snap out of the sockets.
i tell you i don't dream.
i tell you i don't sleep.
i tell you
i wear boxing gloves to church
but jesus never shows, and really,
i shoulda known he'd run from this fight too.
i tell you
i wear boxing gloves to bed but i just end up
chewing on the laces,
boxer's fractures never visited me.
bar room fractures on the nightstand.
[i dream about you,]
you say,
and i take another hit.
you've been in my air for six months.
under my skin for five,
and it's been three months
since you stitched our veins together.
sometimes,
i fall asleep wearing your scarf
and dream of garrotes that smell like you,
dream of strangulation
and bruises on my throat.  
i don't love you like a motive.
you don't love me like a person.
you told me i had a clean heart,
you told me i was an innocent soul,
you told me you would corrupt me, don't
flatter yourself.
your touch doesn't have the power
to make me sick.
only i can do that to myself.
i'm not a virginal sacrificial saint
for you to build altars to.
lets see if we can cut our hearts out with our fingernails.
i bet that they'll look just the same:
****** and red.
the same size as our clenched fists,
guess it's not your fault
you never learned the difference between the two,
you keep trying to fight with aorta and arteries
while my knuckles bruise your gut.
here:
i taped my hands and i'll tape yours too.
this will be a fair fight-
don't break your wrist
when you break my nose.
i'll teach you i'm more solid than a saint.
i'll teach you i am bile and spit and ****.
i'll teach you to love me human
or not at all.

Funny the things we recall.
Images that flash through our brain.
Some most vivid for me were of an old man.
Skin like creased parchment paper,
Lined and yellowed with age.
The veins visible just below the surface,
of a thin nearly transparent veneer.
Liver spotted flecks of red,
Charted paths from the toil of many years,
Palms callused forever from a life time of labor.
Big fingers knotted and misshapen,
The two inch tip of one gone missing,
Saw taken, at age sixteen.

Looking at those old hands, one could hardly guess
That still there remained gentleness in their caress.
For an old dog, or a little grandson in need of some
Companionable affection or parental love.

Those aged hands could also make things,
Toy sailboats, and wooden trains,
complete with caboose,
And cow catcher guard.
A cool flute whistle that actually worked,
He said it was like the Indian’s made,
Out Oklahoma way.
And he would know,
He cowboyed there.

His hands taught me to tie my shoes,
Open and close my first pocket knife.
Those same hands could become birds,
rabbits, butterfly's, all sorts of things.
When projected up on the wall,
Silhouetted by a naked back light.
His hands knew magic too,
Pluck silver coins right out of my ears.

His tired face matched his hands,
visual weathered, creased and
wrinkled road maps,
Of 89 years of rugged roads traveled.

Yet, his lively pale green eyes remained
forever fraudulently youthful prisms,
Eyes and spirit of a much younger man within.

But it is his hands most of all I shall remember,
Their imposing look and their reassuring
touches of tenderness.

I shall never forget my Grandfather’s hands.

We writers are insane.
All of us.
We revel in our own sad mess
While picking green grapes
Off the wallpaper,
Smecking away like mad
At the wondrous juices
Of the imaginary, judicial
Forbidden Fruit.

We, like Hemingway,
Take our scotch in the morning
And our gin at night
And try with brutal, lashing effort
To make it through
Everything in-between.

We have put ourselves in shoes
We will never be able to walk in.
We must walk miles as
Linguists, as
Assassins, as
Outsiders, as
victims, as
AIDS sufferers, as
Brutalizers of women.
We must deal with their pain
As if it were housed in our own entity of being.

J.D. Salinger wrote that
His literary son, Holden,
Wore a “people-shooting” hat and
Made it **** clear that he suffered from wild
And erratic fits of overwhelming depression.
Writing from a bunker
Far from his wife, kids and home,
His stories sparked ****** in the hearts
Of already oppressed men
With “people-shooting” hats of their own.
We must toil with language;
Put it in the corner,
Love it, hate it,
Shift it and slave daily with it.
We must lose hours upon hours upon
Days of sleep
Before we find ourselves
Dangerously asleep at the wheel in front of us
In order to make the slightest change in our regular ways.
Even then,
Our handwriting only becomes sloppier
And our words,
Only fiercer.

Kaysen, alone in a psych ward
With women who slept around and
Tried to maul each other,
Wrote diligently
To try to release the the demon
Boiling the very blood inside her veins.
But demons do not disappear easily
And unfortunately,
Neither do the tortuous memories.

Even today,
They attempt to label me
With words of the disturbed.
Anxiety
Floods my synapses and neurons.
Depression
Happily urinates on my serotonin levels.
I bring myself to write
The effigy of the ******
Day by day
As my pen scratches paper
And the doctors expect razor to scratch skin
Though it never has
And never will.

Writers are psychos.
We all are.
We remain the mad, psychotic, literate monsters
Who worm our ways
Into your head.
We nestle beside your dreams and fantasies,
Waiting to strike
And tear them apart or,
If you’re lucky,
Build them up.
A woman writer named Sylvia
Once put her head in the oven
Because the writer-demons were driving her to madness
And they wouldn’t leave her be.

Handling us is a torture
Only the most eloquent and experienced reader
Could enjoy.

Love Always,
Salinger and
Plath and
Kesey and
Vonnegut and
Burgess and
King and
Sandburg and
Snicket and
Hemingway and
Palahniuk and
Kaysen and
Gaimen and
Green and
Trumbo and…

Holtry.

The slices I stow are on my wrist in a row,

they will turn to quiet grieving scars,

even if my heart is crying out for help.

No one can hear me, no one would care.

No one would ask me, no one would dare.

Coming off as a tough girl, they are deceived.

I am really just scared, but I am care free.

I fret the day I face my fears because it is a mystery.

You shall fret too, because one day there will be a note to read,

that thanks my friends and family,

I’ll apologize for my being and again I will thank you all so much.

At the end of the day, I’ll be dead from pills, drugs, and such.

Many will realize that this happy girl was sad,

Now they might feel like this was all of there bad.

I lied to everyone, saying “I’m fine.”

So it’s my bad, I had crossed the line.

Don’t care, don’t mourn for it was a mistake that I was even born.

You soon will find my used utensils,
such as my scissors, bands, and razorblades.

Take good care they were my treasure.

The death I chose was a mix of two.

The pills are on the dresser, and the razor is in my hand.

Please forgive me, I just wanted to be free!
Is that a lot for my family and friends to see?
Disappointment is probably on your mind,

I know how one could get confused,
when their daughter says she’s fine.

When I am purging for perfection, hoping I’ll soon die.

Hugging that cold porcelain, puking up my problems.

I step onto the scale, and I cry at what I see,
For I have an addiction, that is slowly killing me.

My friends would try to help, but I told them I didn’t need it.

I kept things to myself, so I wouldn’t cry for help.

Help was never given, because I would sit and sin in silence,

People thought I was “fake” for the way I was feeling,

That’s where they were wrong, they thought I wouldn’t do it, well look now.

I’m dead, and my life ended with Suicide.