she used to be
a good girl
but now she's
smoking away
all her friendships

I stop running and the nightmares find me
The mast creaks
Within the rotted core the ghouls call
Alone on the high sea
Whirlpools dip and carry me
And winds run us aground

I stop running and the helm locks
The sand swells
Leaves in heat chitter
As sun bakes through my skin
The salt boils
I become leather

I stop running and I’m buried
By the thoughts you once had
Little memories that kept me afloat
All the time in the world that we had made
If I don’t run, they begin to overflow,
And a captain must go down with her boat.

My friend asked me today what melancholy means.

I didn’t know how to respond without her getting upset that I was sad, again.
She guessed boredom. Well, a kind of.
A nostalgic boredom, longing for a when or a why. Then I reconsidered, and I told her, “I feel like Pittsburgh”. Like the snow outside when the heater was too high inside, or a cup of cocoa at cafe Rachel. Like texting a friend and writing for the paper while wearing lined leggings under my pajamas. Like being lost in love, buffeted by the storms that held me.

We sailed under spotty streetlights. Cutting through cold air, listening to an empty radio station. I thought again, and then, agreed that melancholy was my nothing. Because somehow, all the little things took my everything.

But that isn’t true either. Is it.

honey, i dont play these games
my arms are too frail for tug-of-war

you made me an entire universe
but refused to live in it with me

so now i stare at the stars
and wonder which one is your spaceship
and wonder why you havent come to visit me

in this universe you made for me
in this universe you made for us
in this universe that is my prison

she had been
stabbing herself
with her own knife
until he took it from her

and right as she believed
that he was trying to help
he handed her a larger one
and said,
"here, try this one"

Slicked in the let of blood,
Rain softly melting on her face
The earth opened up
And I had no idea, you hit the keys so well
Played me in minor C and let me believe
Kisses that sent me straight to hell, yes
(on a sofa, in the night, with a secret in our eyes)
Would save me

But you've been the death of me,
From which her grip has no release
Meadows of peonies
(and flower crowns and water lilies)
Cigarette ashes for fodder
There are flies in the teeth of all men, but then
My illusions only grow fonder
That you would come find me dancing here,
And join me in laughter again.