thumb popping the socket
once...twice...

little green circle
heat flash

lungs of short-comings
throbbing and flushed

flashback fast forward
rewind playback

and what was it all for?...
the risk the writing the songs

oh boy...
maybe i'm not interesting anymore (?...)

whole walk
for nothing

frick.

it's not me
and should i ask another question?. . .

it's you.
so sorry for showing it

hand over heart
yep, it's still beating

a little too fast
*too much

and yet it's never enough
always hungry for more

drive safe
but hurry

time's hands
postponed

take your time!
(:

she could be
my knite

in shining diamonds
& a brand new car

swoop in
pull up

save me
from her

from leaping
from breakfast

in the same kitchen
as her

pour gas on the light
fuel the fury, arrow aflame
to stop me in my tracks

but i have learned to be faster

you never knock, just fling
the door wide open

memorized your footfall
as if i were hiding some grotesque secret

no secret, just emotions
hiding, from you

have to cover my ears
to block the shame
from funneling in

i wouldn't wish you upon anyone.

we were like seeds
from wildflowers, scattered
without intention of growing
into something beautiful, but we did
unknowingly, i left myself
like the curdled ketchup
in the cracks of the concrete, never
knowing if that's really what it was.

i couldn't possibly imagine
a life in which we do not
speak to one another.

i lied,
i have imagined it.

i just don't want to,
ever again.

it's vivid & too normal...
it isn't dim or bleak,
and that may be the worst part.

i take a photo of the food i made myself for dinner with quiet pride.

only this time, i don't send it to you.

if i come up with one more clever line for this poem i will have to pull over to the side of the highway.

just so i don't forget a single detail.

no detail is too small, with you.

i will always hope every muddy electric-blue car is you. always going somewhere, somewhere you've either never been or been to a thousand times.

i cannot look at anything without being reminded.

i should just shut my eyes.

facing the ache...one song at a time. my knuckles, probably white & cracked beneath my sweatshirt sleeves pulled down enough to conceal my whole hands as they grip the wheel.

intrusive thoughts. no...impulsive thoughts...

what would you say if i just showed up at your doorstep?...

a flock of black birds speckled across the sky, speckled like the rain drops across my windshield, like the warm ribbons of salt falling from my chin & spotting my pants.

why is it we appreciate what we had once we lose it?...

"you are part of me... (: "

visions of us, of you with your hands in my hair, the room, blue & dark, but not dark blue, flood my mind like a broken dam, like a plague of good things that hurt to remember.

i can't shut my eyes to not see these things.

nothing they say is what i want to hear...

stomach gnawing...heart writhing...head pounding...so much typed, then deleted...never sent. tears pool in my ear as i lay on the floor, a limb, missing.

why is it we suddenly want what we decided to let go of?

"you are part of me... (: "
you are part of me . . .

i never wanted there to be
a world that existed
where we didn't end up
together in the end.

what have we done?
what have we done?. . .

it gave me something to write about,
not the first thing i would have chosen...

i fear we made a mistake,
but even moreso that we didn't...

a world without you
is a world without music.

i showed you the garden,
it had been too long.

i see you in everything,
fires, scars, stars, flowers.

you loved the morning glory,
you'd never seen anything like it before.

the scarf wrung it's hands around my neck softly, & hung down my body, maroon, like blood dripping from my paper-cut finger.

the wind went to bed, leaving my hair to it's own devices, wispy & frizzing down either side of my pale face, as if summer hadn't yet touched my skin.

a fawn lept across a yard with only the
light of a streetlamp & the Super Blue Moon to illuminate it's majestic, tawny limbs.

you were my blue moon, my once in a lifetime.
how do we know we made the right decision?
you always knew how to make me laugh.
how do we know we made the right decision?. . .

things we cannot say in person

things we shouldn't say out loud

things we should have said that one time

things we could have said that day

things we're too afraid to speak

things we're not sure we should feel

things we need to say

things we want to tell

things we rehearse but will never spill off our tongues

things we're not proud to express

things we're struggling to put into words

because the words don't do it justice, still.

i thought i minded
when external forces
kept us apart...
turns out, it feels
a whole lot worse
when it is ourselves.

"it's only been six days," he says.

"well to me, it feels like an eternity". . .

"i will always love you."
i love that you mean what you say.

"i see you more as a friend."
i hate that you mean what you say.

"I don't think I ever truly felt time until I started waiting to see you. Of course when I'm with you, I don't feel time in the slightest".

the world felt like a bad dream
that would never end.

the sky, a violet so dark
it looked as black as a raven's feathers.

when the air smelled of
smoke, cinnamon & wormy, damp earth.

i went to the store & bought
a cologne that smells just like you.

you pulled me closer when
i thought you were about to let go.

i normally close my eyes,
but with you i have to keep a look-out.

i promise
to keep you safe, i promise...

the feeling of wanting to go home,
bur you're already there.

my stomach turns like the sea,
churning it's foam & shells to the shore.

in the end, the world will always be
a bad dream we can't wake up from...

a bad dream where
we cannot be together.

i thought there was a gnat on
my arm, so i smacked it.
turned out it was just black fuzz from
my sweater.
i count 3 little cuts on my hand from
who knows where.

i drove past his subdivision for no reason.
or maybe it was to feel closeness, proximity--a new old kind of intimacy.
i deny this. i accept this. i deny this.

my teeth have shifted, i am paranoid.
self-assigned 24/7 retainer again.
i feel as though my lungs are being squeezed.

the circles beneath my eyes seem darker every day.
the bruises on my legs increase in size, darkness, and number.
the scars and bumps on my cheeks have gotten redder.

i feel less and less like myself.
i feel monstrous. unlovely. holistically.
i feel that lump in my throat return as i realize this.

i think of how much i would be okay if he said goodbye.
my eyes are dry.
my stomach doesn't turn inside out anymore.

i play the same 3 songs on repeat.
the moon and i have 2 things in common:
spots. and wanting to be noticed.

i can never look at myself with the light on.
i don't allow myself to stand too close to a mirror,
afraid of the details i will find if i look too closely.

i tried writing today but probably stared at my reflection
in the laptop screen more than the words on the screen.
when will it end?

i scrapped the rest of my chipped nail polish off in the shower.
little bits of pink, lilac, and baby blue flow down the drain.
i forgot my razor under the bathroom sink.

when will this come to an end?
when will i be able to breathe again?
when will my eyes close and close for good?

i keep waiting for summer but what if summer
never feels like summer?
what will i have to wait for then, if not summer?

i forgot that it was your birthday.
i think that's a good thing.

and even now as i tell our story,
it sounds like fiction
rolling jagged off of my tongue.

so unthinkable
that i have to remind myself that
it really happened.

yesterday was two years ago.

you told me the only difference you saw was that my hair was longer.

you saw parts of me, blacker than the ink in the well.

i saw you. faced you. lungs aflame with vibrations of anger.

stood, bags packed, one palm on the glass door, one extended to keep you at arms length.

and i still loved you.

more than i loved myself.

our love is like bruised fruit--
irreversibly-damaged,
sickeningly sweet,
& difficult to throw away for fear of wasting something that may still taste good.

2,429 miles couldn't make me
love you less, even if it tried.

no amount of states or streets
or the dozens of times i've cried.

you always make me smile
& comfort you never lack.

i love you more than words can say,
across the seas and back.

google search:
"what counts as physical assault?"

                                ~ as if my experience is less than valid to count.

i accidentally typed "ana" instead of my full, real name
into the blank document.

and for a brief moment, i felt like a different person,
like i assumed the persona, the qualities, the life of whoever "Ana" would be.

and in that brief moment,
i felt real, counterfeit, foreign, familiar, and birthed anew. . .

he's a soft place to land,
where the black doesn't turn white
but gray at the very least.

he is the comma in a sentence,
the moment amidst the story
and every time after.

he uses our friendship
to end debates,
his bathroom soap smells sweet like sticky dates.

the world moves south but we go north,
against the current
and we're heading straight for the storm.

a gut-wrench. stomach tumbling like an olympic gymnast. butterflies (not the good kind). feeling the wind being squeezed out of my lungs by hurt like a go-gurt tube in a toddler's merciless grip. the sweet taste of cinnamon coffee cake turns sour in my mouth like month-old freshly churned butter. speechless (not the good kind). my eyes become kaleidoscopes. i knead the ball of socks in my hands that i was in the middle of putting away. "hello?" he said on the other end of the line. but i cannot move. i cannot speak. i cannot breathe. i can only feel. feel the panic. the way it moves...creeps and seeps into every crack and crevice of my bones, blood-filled veins from limb to limb. the panic that i may not be enough. i can only think. think too much. think too much. think too much.

and i miss you 'fore we ever say goodbye
goodbye
and we never had a clue
goodbye
i was never enough for you
goodbye
was there ever something i could do?
goodbye
further apart, apart we grew
goodbye
and i would cry myself askew
goodbye
but now i see myself anew
goodbye
goodbye
goodbye. . .

to feel unloved so he can tell me how much i am loved.
pancakes stacked to my nose, dripping with maple syrup and sprinkled with junk.
a retirement party before i have even graduated.
a wall of blue china plates, the ones with the pictures of snowy
                                                                ­  barns, cows, and bridges.
a whiff of him--plastic ziplock bags, overripe banana, and cologne.
a short-lived sin, intentions so pure it doesn't count.
yellowing pages and broken spines floor-to-ceiling.
a love for my mother, one without fear, fire, or fury.
a sun so generous, that i forget what november ever felt like.

cherry-vanilla soda instead of strawberry vanilla

i drew a heart next to my belly button in navy ink

he never asked me how my day was.

i heard the geese fly by at midnight, peculiar but lovely

the air smelled of october

october: hay, orchard, football games that ended a week or two ago, bittersweetness, and fine droplets suspended in the atmosphere

desserts taunt and temp me but i stay away for now.

easter is not on april fool's day this year

but it's still His best trick yet.

my fingertips dry and raw from flipping through so many pages

she licks my hands until they're clean

"death, he is not mean."

i rearranged my vanity, displayed my new perfume

bought myself flowers to lighten up my sanity

i couldn't see the moon tonight, is that why there's been no gravity?

no gravity for the thoughts

i wish i could say they come & go as they please but they never really go.

i'm thinking about those little white pills again.

sleeping dust: lavender, chamomile, tonka, benzoin...soft like dandelion, smooth like milk slipping down silk

the childhood bird coos and suddenly, i feel better

spring is still cold but warm.

i want to be the sun, i want to be the breeze...

i want the monarchs & swallowtails, the lawn mowers & never-ending birdsongs...

today we laughed as hard as we could, "mission impossible style"

a love letter lost, laying on the ground

anonymous but sacred.

i wish it would feel like it did all the time.

i don't know what happened.

the ambulance screams.

i lay blinking in the moon-less dark.

my thighs warm against my stomach.

but for the first time, i know the only one who can free me, is me.

my head was pounding with nothing, nothing but everything and nothing but everything all
at once, all at once the revolving door revolves again, no revolver to my head, no escape and no
soft bed, i thought my head was in the clear i thought everything had turned to nothing but is
nothing ever in the clear? i know, now i know there is no trigger to pull but the one that’s
already inside my head, inside my head the monsters wake, they taunt they pull they push they
prowl, preying on the “mind-killer”, fear, fear is what i fear, it eats it gnaws it rips it digs
a hole, a spiral hole, a hole with ridges to craft illusion that i’m burning bridges, when i am
actually building it stronger, solidified, worried, i make a frenzied dash out of the brief opening, the
opening that teases a sweet escape a sweet brain a sweet artery a sweet lung a sweet forever
that goes on forever until everything becomes nothing, there is no escape no escape from this
revolution this mind-killer this past this pattern this pool, pool of blood, pool of the same old
stab same old loud eyes same old breathlessness same old heart-race same old panic same
old irrational-rational darkness same old thought-spaghetti same old doubts same old destruction
same old replay of dagger-words same old over and over same old everything same old nothing

i bite the skin hanging off of my thumb with ladybugs in my hair.

last year, my mom made a wreathe of green and pink hydrangeas that she grew on the side of the house. they're dried up now.

i promise i'll make up for all the years i was supposed to be kissing you instead of them.

my eyes glaze over with euphoria from knowing i will soon douse my whole self in childhood.

ten years ago my father's day gift to my father was moving 2,429 miles away...

the sea turned into lakes, and lost it's salt and starfish.

i sigh heavily as i weave through the cars, another seven hours ahead of myself, and hold my breath as i walk through his cloud of cigarette smoke as he says, "you just coming in?"...

california hasn't forgotten about me...it waits patiently for me knowing i would always return
|
return to it's dusty air and beige dry grass, shriveled in my palms after i picked them out from the cracked ant-infested dirt as i sat "criss-cross-applesauce".

it waits patiently...i wait impatiently...

the mountains watched over me through every black-top-scraped knee and monterey sticky-fingered ice cream cone.

the seals slept soundly on the sun-heated rock beneath the obnoxious seagulls, unbothered by the tide-splash.

SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK
|
KINGS CANYON
|
DINKY CREEK
|
YOSEMITE

the redwoods and i are related by blood, but they never believe me when i tell them. i can scream it until i am black and blue.

my hair looks like night in the evening, chocolate in the day, and becomes fire in the sun.

dopamine limbs, serotonin mind, and oxytocin heart.

i was never impressed by blue eyes until mine met yours.

eye-contact is a language in and of itself. but few are fluent.

i arrive at you fully made up and exactly how i want to be...
|
wisp and bisk rub off onto your clothes and skin as you love me whole.
|
i leave as more myself, seen raw and authentically bashful.
and to my surprise, i leave feeling more beautiful than before...

this morning i had to look up the definition of "LONELY" because i forgot what it meant.

(a week later) this morning i remember what being lonely feels like.

medical supplies is becoming my unfortunate attributed aesthetic, i fear.

i have never been particularly athletic but i would swim across all fifty seas for you if you needed me.

walking with purpose but mindlessly, all others only blurs i didn't bother to distinguish, daydreaming of your black shirt scrunched into my fist-

i notice she was asking me a question ! begged to know what smelled of indulgence and unidentified nostalgia...
|
: vanilla, salted caramel, saigon cinnamon, heavy cream, sandalwood, orgeat, ice cream shop.
|
she told me it fits me perfectly...sweet but subtle...niche but noticed.

eleven minutes left and feeling very corporate as i look out the third-floor window. neighboring building's & office windows.

the sky was cobalt but my skin was pale.

and you don't say much in reciprocal anymore...are you tired, my love?...

i cried when you told me you loved me.

much-anticipated days of strawberry milk mustaches, laughing until our stomachs ache, and sun-slapped cheeks.

eye watery, pigeon-toed in ***** shoes on the pale checkered floor. she's a summer baby.

i tell him i have known him for four years now, in asl from across the market (in my head, over and over and over again)

i only half listen as she tells a story of a woman who was obsessed with saffron-colored fabric. the other woman argued that the thread wasn't saffron, but red. in which she then stood corrected as the other explained how the water turns orange when the thread was dipped into it.

i miss her and her purple hair. i only pay her a visit when my bangs poke my eyes every morning before i curl them.

a box of chapbooks sat upon his desk touching a ripped manila envelope full of printing press letters.
|
"S"

between debates about jam v. jelly and strawberry v. grape jam/jelly, we dance as friends and friends only this time..

i recall, last summer tasted of cookies too-sweet, but this time it'll be just right.

our star beams & casts shadows onto your sheets. your eyes ablaze and your hair afire. i won't kiss you gently when you look that beautiful.

they told me they'd teach me how to swim, then left me drowning in their pretentiousness.

you held me down but i was set free . . .
|
you're more gentle than i thought you were.
|
it actually hurts thinking of you kissing someone else.

"she used to wear that shirt a lot." my mother told me. she deserved a life full of joy.

BRUISE COUNT: 15

BRUISE ORIGINS: WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK, SLEEPING, SLEEPING, ??, ??, ??, ??

_ _ _ _    _ _ _ _ COUNT: 5

_ _ _ _    _ _ _ _ COUNT ORIGINS: LOVE

they don't know the valley the way i do. but i hope they will.

i take up as much space as i possibly can to feel more comfortable.
i only end up feeling more vulnerable. retreat or proceed

tears of fear when eyes should be closed.

i watch her weeping with poor statues of woeful beautiful women
with nameless faces and bare ******* not-quite covered by chiseled cloth. modesty.

my cheeks are flushed as glitter mixes with salty tears, making my skin itchy, raw, bare...

i lean over the vintage sink, peering deeply into the mirror in a dimly lit bathroom of someone i only met once before...

when i was younger i always thought that it was impossible to die in a church. i thought that being inside of it made us
INVINSIBLE . . .

when i was younger, i never really thought about how
birthday cakes don't only have to be "birthday cake" flavored
|
meyer lemon-raspberry, chocolate-cinnamon, quadruple-chocolate, key lime-blueberry-strawberry, carrot, german chocolate, red velvet !

the cars in the review mirror made a total eclipse.

you are the softest color i have ever touched.
and...
you still know me better than most, even if you don't know my favorite ice cream flavor.

logopoeia of ellipses.

i will know the touch of the rays, the slimy backs of 𓆏 after the rain,
and the sting from stepping on chipped shells in the wading water . . . . .