I wish my tactile hallucinations would give me a massage,
A warm hug from my non-existent mother,
A kiss from my long distance boyfriend.

A twisted fairytale

My hallucinations
They know what I fear most
And they want me to be afraid
They feed off my terror
They get off on my sick brain
They know what torments me.
Arachnophobia’s favorite game to play
The spiders
Come out of
My skin
They’ve been waiting patiently
When I’m most vulnerable
When I’m isolated
When I’m helpless

I wish my tactile hallucinations would
**** me

All I see are the insides of my eyelids.
All I hear are muffled sounds of people
Panicked by the sight of my unruly body.
Shifting in and out of what I think to be real,
Flickering on and off,
Someone is playing with the lights.

Someone touches me  
I want to touch back

Hello?

And again.

Who is touching me?

They stop.

Desperate for touch,
I grasp for something that’s not there.
I collect nothing but air in my hands.


     Touch touch touch
Touch something!
Touch anything!

We were all born crying,
And sometimes I think that even our tiny bodies could already feel the pressure of an unfair world.
A world where women’s bodies are a prize to be won or an object to rank.
A world where people obey the sign in the museum that says “Do Not Touch”,
And those same people decide that it’s a suggestion when a woman says “Do not touch”

Hands on my body before my first period.
Not sweet hands like sweet caroline.
Before, evil was something I used to look for in Disney villains, now, it’s eyes are everywhere, glued to my 17 year old body.
It’s in my neighborhood, in my coffee shop, in my bed. It whispers me shakespearean sonnets and tells me I’m ****.
Runs its fingers up and down my spine, zig zagging over the bone. Its kisses are soft and gentle, like springtime. It makes me feel important and deserving.
Then the sonnets turn from Romeo and Juliet to Macbeth, and It tells me:

****** thou art; ****** will be thy end.

Touching hands, not sweet hands.
Hard, cold, unloving, cigarette stained hands.
Cold hands on my beautiful body, my spectacular self.
I call out to nothing, and nothing responds.
I sink deeper into the bed, wanting time to stop, fast forward, or rewind or something.
I wait for the sonnets to end, and the pain to go away.
I wait for grass to grow and paint to dry.
And then it stops

and I am not me.

Your skin of teeth never scared me.
Your taste for blood begged me to come closer,
till the tip of your nose touched mine.

Now we are both hypnotized

You Don’t Even Know My Name

I don’t remember that night,
That night you should have taken me to the hospital.
But apparently it took me blacking out to tell you
That you had been pronouncing my name wrong,
for a month.

The first time I saw you eat a burrito, I told myself,

I could never date you

3 ½ years later and I would **** to see you eat a burrito.

You are so gross.
And I want to kiss you,
So ******* bad.

You silly sloth! you said
As you kissed the tip of my nose,
Your legs clinging to mine,
Wrapped around me as if I was your favorite tree branch.
Silly sloth

Valentine's Day 2018,
We got matching keychains for our soon to be new home.
That night we shared a bottle of prosecco,
as we watched Mulan for the 3rd time that week.
Screaming out the lyrics when the Acapella part of Be a Man came on.

Since your mom’s birthday was Friday
I had sent a card from both of us,
The day before there was no us.

The day before there was no us,
was bliss.

The morning before you sent me a picture of you,
Wrapped in a scarf I had made you for christmas 3 years ago.
With a text that said:
Still love it, and you! See ya tomorrow!



10 minutes before, I was the love of your life.
And you were mine.
Until you broke the silence, saying,


                            I’m happier when I’m not with you
And now,
My body has been stripped of it’s skin.
Someone poured rubbing alcohol
All
Over
It.
                            I’m happier when I’m not with you
Without you
                            
                            I’m happier when I’m not with you
The sky is still blue

                            I’m happier when I’m not with you
But I am not me.

I Hit A Wall

6 am, and my dad drags me across the gravel driveway to wake me up.
Blood mixed with lasts night’s makeup.
I hit a wall.

My siblings and I think he killed those people in our town.
A town small enough for it to be weird that the killer was never caught.
I hit a wall.

Hidden guns in the walls,
Ropes strung up all over the garage,
And a diagnosed sociopath.
I hit a wall.

Sister has Stockholm Syndrome.
After what he did to her,
She still brings her kids to his house.
I hit a wall.

I’m bipolar
And running out of things I can blame it on.
Maybe it was the
Gun plastered to my face.
Or the **** pictures he threatened to take.
I hit a wall.

I hit a wall

I hit a wall

This time,
It breaks.

Louder than Monsters
By: Calla Fuqua

I can’t unhear your ignorance, I can’t unsee your belligerence,
The potential difference you swore you’d make, and the carnivorous path
You chose to take.
You are louder than monsters.

Heaven must scare you and your desire to dissipate,
Your chance to incriminate, the problems you exacerbate,
I can’t articulate your need to intoxicate.
Your laughter is louder than monsters.

You fabricat your pity you pretend to give, as you wait for me to forgive,
That night I have to relive when I dream, of our short lived view of how happiness seemed.
Back then how could I have known that you were louder than monsters.

Your grip on me becomes tighter, the more your desire for me expires,
The more you secretly become a liar, and the more I ask myself why her?
Her voicemails are louder than monsters.

I end up on the floor, after you hit me and you swore,
You don’t say I love you anymore, the way you used to before,
And now I’m just your little *****, you pretend to love as if it’s a chore.
Your silence is louder than monsters.

I pray for you and the guilt you must feel, screaming out our window,
frantic to appeal, for the pain you caused solely so you could heal.
Your lies are louder than monsters.

You laugh when I say no, giving me a messed up world you pretend to know,
Now it’s my turn to outgrow you and your plateau, the one you promised
To let go. While I undergo the pain you overflow.
My screams are louder than monsters.

I still tell myself you love me after you throw your fists, holding tight to my wrists,
As I keep allowing the crimes you commit, to become imprints from the pain you inflict.
This pain is louder than monsters.

Now, nobody seems sincere, every scar is like a souvenir, You leave me speechless, when you sip your beer, like you didn’t just make my whole world disappear,          
You say you are not louder than monsters.

All I can do now is reminisce, look back on moments like our first kiss,
Before you led me into this abyss, before I was unable to dismiss the thought,
“What kind of monster does this?”
Someone who doesn’t know he is louder than monsters.

I dream about the day I can throw out your ashtray, The day
I can cast away you whole, no more arms to control my body’s soul,
A day where I no longer have to be your wife,
A day where I can play a character in my own life.
A day where love is louder than monsters