I take my family photo albums
And pin those ghosts down to the walls
I keep running to my past trying my best to bring it back to life
always thinking “there’s a real life haunting.”
when I see myself any younger than 19
I take my family photo albums
And try to pin down your love
as if I’ll be able to see the warning signs
if it’s been written on the walls
I keep running back to my past like an old wives tale  
half told truths slipping through hands
and passing from mouth to mouth
Landing on my dinner plate filling it all the way up
I take my family photo albums
and wonder “why is it?”
I do not recognize who is staring back
I keep running back to my past
trying to find out everything about who I am

- I've been trying to find clues about who hid me away

My star,
Your white studded boots are to young to be walking this path
Street lamps highlighting
Copper glitter dusted on cheekbones
and butterflies pinned down to blonde curls
You look as if you know-
delicate like the back of your hand
As if you know how innocent can become like a practised thing
My darling,
This isn’t the way-
you want your name on the lips of people you’ve never met
Caught between teeth and never said in the daylight
To be stashed below mattresses
In-between web folders saved as something else
Only to be brought out when alone
My sun,
Being adored is only as gold as the girl and you lost your midis touch
Dawn breaks ago /Heartbreaks ago
Now theres nothing but an inexcusable ache
your trying to rid your self of by illuminating all those your with
My truth,
White picket fence you are not
But those boots are not made to walk this walk
You’ve found yourself on


- Baby its time to run run run

I will ask you again about holy
How do you become?
I'll wait patiently for the tales of faith
You love so much
Hoping to find virtue just like you
I’ll argue with you about the devotion you have
( slow, sweet, and full like the beat of your heart)
Moon lit and radiant
How can I become haunted like you?
I’ve been on my knees before
(never for the right reasons)
I've talked at god more times then I can count
I have never felt anything other than the empty echo of silence after
I want to know what it feels like to have faith in something else
Of someone else
When those nights are dark, cold, and endless
I’ll ask you one last time
How do I become holy and haunted

- You tell me -They are the same thing.

When surgeons open my body
They’ll find
         E v e r g r e e n
Snow capped mountains with endless expanses of ice

They will find a certain
              s t i  l l n e s s
No whispering between the trees
No flowers singing in the sun

I’ll be dreaming of the heat
I’ve been missing in my fingertips for so long
I have frost bite
on e v e r y s i n g l e o n e

When surgeons open my body
looking for my heart
they’ll find S t a t i c
A silence that e c h o s  
A kind of silence you only know after tragedy

I have
An  e   m   p   t     y  space
where my lungs once were
Holding  N o t h i n g
but a vigil witnessed only by one small girl with t i n y t i n y hope
All fading away
in the abandoned town
I have resting
between each breath


- When the surgeons open my body
- They will find many many secrets inside

I have seen friends tie themselves up to the bedposts of lovers
who would never give them a second thought
If all their pretty untouched skin wasn’t right there
To bruise and taste at their convenience
we have been told there is no other way for us
to hold any value as a person unless someone wants us
I have seen friends cry so hard they puked
as they untied themselves from those bedposts
their wrists had been rubbed raw
and they still left their heart behind in hopes
he would return it with his own in tow
I have seen friends make themselves
names in a little black book
A faceless body  
They will let you treat anyway
you want because it’s better than alone
I have seen friends
Break themselves for this twisted messed up version
of love that’s being sold to us


- Who taught us how to do that to ourselves
- Everyone, everyone, everyone

Creep inside her body.
Start by pulling out hearts and souls.
Carve up and out room for yourself-
in what you recognize as a graveyard.
Unearth every other decaying thing buried deep within
make them sing-
bring them kicking and screaming.
Let em have enough sun they relearn how to miss it.
Never allow them close enough to keep the warmth.
You know better than anyone dead things shouldn’t have feelings.  

Crawl out of my resting place.
Dead things don’t stay dead.
When finally remembered sunshine
Stretches and curls.
Stays long enough to taste-
I revive in myself.
You’ve lived inside me
As long as this body needed a grounds-keeper.
To sweep away the moss and ivy climbing up all the tombstones.
You float through the aisles night after night
picking up unearthed ghosts to follow us home.
Your finger tips scratching against the tops
of all the dead-end versions of me.
I’m tired of hearing the wailing that follows.  
Cadaver girl,
I want my body back now.
Won’t you please put yourself to rest for me.


- I dig this grave barehanded and open sorrow
- Planting the garden to over run the cemetery
please cadaver girl
- know you are the last version of me I ever plan to bury.

Forgive this Father
I hear those angels speaking of providence
A weight on my shoulders reminding me I could be holy
This is all my mothers ever wanted for me
Bear witness Father
They whisper fire is the only way to cleanse
Ashes to ashes/ dust to dust
The trail of bodies left in the flames wake
Belong to no-one other then me
Hear this now Father
These sunset red lips are paradise to anyone
Who wishes to kiss them
The angels tell me I can use that to ease a sick soul
Trust in this father
I’m told I am only doing Gods work

He builds you a cage
making the walls out of honey and dew to lure you inside  
Putting in windows only to then glue them shut
He shouts “you can leave whenever you **** well please.”
Relishes in punishing you with black magic-
that leaves you dizzy for days whenever you try
Wilts the flowers you grow for company
Convincing you it’s your fault they always die to begin with
“If you would just be good maybe I wouldn’t have to do this.”
laces you up with ribbons and spider silk
Reworks you until you are docile just in his image
He’s a dead ***** necromancer and you're the best of both his worlds
always on the cusp of being half alive
He takes to gathering bouquets of your dead flowers
placing them on the windowsill
His voice renaming and whispering spells to them
every time he visits you
until they are gleaming once again
eventually you see this act for the warning it is
Sitting pretty and doe eyed
You now only shimmer and shine if it means he will let you stay

- You’ll learn one day that this is not  happiness

My Love
Your dreams are all made of war-
forged straight from your heart
You claim iron does not bend-
Only darling
I see you choking on the sulphur
Why do you give yourself to something so hateful?


My shining light
My dreams are all made of war-
forged straight from my soul
And it’s far easier to swing swords
never second guessing-
whose on the other end of the blade
If everyone is the enemy
then who do you have to mourn-
When you're standing alone on a killing field of your own making  
Dear heart
How could I not give it everything I have?

Talk to me about
praying to god in the shower
Tell me how
you turn the bathtub into a confessional
Were you
praying to god because you believed
or because you had no options left

Talk to me about
coming to a new city
Tell me how
you’ve never been more hollow
Were you
surprised with the lengths you went to fill yourself up
or did you always know
Even filled to the brim everything about you
leaves every-one wanting  


- Do you want more or less of me
- You can never seem to decide

You’re haunting me
Rattling my bones with such a sweet song
The melody is setting my spine in a way
that causes my teeth to ache  
It’s the first taste of devastating paired with final notes of irreparable

I have your memory
Buried underneath my bed
slipped between folded up t-***** and double knotted
into the laces of my doc martins
hidden yet taken with me everywhere I go
It’s gonna end up driving me mad if I let it  

You’re haunting me
Yet here I am trying to exorcize my past
sinking my memories of you
right back into your dusted bones
I have you rolling over in your grave
Assured in your afterlife
this secret and I would go quietly into the night
Only I came back screaming

(my knuckles are skinned to the bone)
(but I will keep fighting. I will keep fighting)

I hear you singing in victory
Can you hear me
Answering back

- A secret for the night

I will learn vengeance
with the same grace
I learned how to be
soft and quiet

It will start in the middle of the night
When dead things rise
( like all dead things eventually do)
When the memories I left to the
( deep, dark, and 6 feet under)
Rise up awakening me within them
Ushering me
right into the real world
Where opinions brand like handprints and I bite the head
off my anger
every time someone tells me
(your better off)
Better for learning
how to taste fire and enjoy it
Better for watching
all my dreams fall out of my mouth like ash
Better for knowing pain
more intimately than someones love

I will learn vengeance
with the same grace
I learned how to be
Tamed and quiet

-- not gently and never in a way that left me the same as before

Remember
when you weren’t given enough sunshine
so you
s t r e t c h e d
as far as you could to reach it
Remember
when you woke up
to flames
licking at your lungs &
half remembered people  
screaming your name
Remember
the apology
you kept behind your teeth
for the person in the mirror
(I am sorry I can’t be enough)
I am sorry this apology
feels so brittle you hope
it doesn’t shatter and make you choke
Remember
when you got up
the next day and the next night
and every single time after that



- Do you remember when you kept going

The first place you call yourself-
a monster
where you admit 
that you- are a liar
Home is
where you learn becoming human 
Tethered inside stitched up skin 
you have enough emotions to- 
spill out 
But home is-
wanting for many things and getting none of them 
Half-feral and doing everything to not bite the hands that feed
You fold and fold and fold
until you are smaller- 
until you are not even really there at all 


- Home is where you go to disappear

I take my skin
unstitching it from my body
ringing it out to dry in my bathroom tub
It’s weary and needs a moment to be laid to rest
All of it is covered in dirt-
After taking responsibility for its mother
apologizing for its brother and for its own feelings
Shame coats it-
only I couldn’t tell you who the shame belongs to
I’m only exposed heart and bone right now
please do not mind the blood I leave at your feet
This is all I have left over as an apology

- when do we stop letting other peoples mistakes become our own
-  I am still trying to figure it out

I strip myself of everything that makes me
Myself
And then ask  
Who am I?

This is my body
I think
You see some days I am not sure
Because it's covered in opinions and handprints
That do not belong to me
And they are dripping all over this better life I am trying to build

- Was this supposed to be winning?

-
you relearn coming home

-

You find out how it tastes different
From when you were a little girl
(It’s far less rust tinged these days)

You name everything inside of you
anger or shame
So you never have to look to closely at the hurt
(It's mostly pretending you are something other than empty)

You relearn steady in chaos
you can still patch up
****** gaping holes with shaking hands
Lies leave your mouth faster
Than anyone has time to get the safety off

You relearn two faced
that one you never really let go of
it feels the same as it always did
Like a party trick you could never stop preforming
because it isn’t one
You know liar
The game is you are almost always
Telling a truth



-  What does learning to come home mean; why is it the first place you learn to run from

**** the heart
(or was it the hurt)
I need to borrow your spine
Mine is buried in my closet
I have fracture patterns etched into my skin
In the shape of your knuckles
the blue carpet in the living room is worn down
Two spots where my knees fit perfectly
Because praying to god felt a lot like having control back
**** the hurt
(or was it my heart)
The first time I wrote out your name
My hands shook so badly
Because I was always told
names have power
I wasn’t sure if I would survive you having anymore over me
I need to borrow your spine
mine is buried 6 feet deep
I have the taste of ash on my tongue
as you lit everything on fire
And watched it burn and burn
when I woke up in the burnt out shell of house and body
I knew I only had three things left to do
**** the heart, **** the hurt, and bury the spine
Survive
Survive
Survive

What would you do to get back their love?

I would destroy cities
I would collapse mountains
Let rivers run dry
Give them everything that they didn’t already have of me
(which is nothing)
( I gave it all)
It still wasn’t enough
They wanted to take my hurt
( It’s the only thing I have left)
( It’s a broken bone I won’t ever let heal)
Tell me it wasn’t that bad
To think about the people who have hurt me
(Won’t this hurt them?)
Would they say that
if they knew about everything
(About all the things to ***** to see sunlight)
(I love them .I must love them . I love them )
It doesn’t erase the things
that need to be said so I can be better
What would you do to get back their love?
Everything but give up the love I have for myself.

- Sometimes there is no easy words for the hurt

Your secrets know their place
(next to mine. hers. ours)
Beneath floorboards
you can hear them at night
Haunting this house
Palms pressed against wood
late in the night
With your ear against the cool floor
You listen to them speak to you
Begging to be let out
(they are always begging)
They want to breathe the same air as you again
But all you can do
is feel like you are choking
(God i'm gasping for air)
These words getting stuck in your throat
Sink to the bottom of this foundation
And regrow into a home where these secrets have no place to ruin.

-Secrets will rot this foundation and you will spend a very long time digging your way out

I think maybe I would have liked
To have been loved gently
But I sunk
With broken knees at your alter
Pledged Allegiance to a false god
Who spoke the Old Testament like it was truth
And the hands that were wrapped around my throat
were dipped in holy water
so even in death I was blessed
He will preach
To all the women he has turned into sin
Say -with a soft caress across my check
That echos and vibrates off the walls
Like the silence after a gun shot
“If you love me you’ll do this.”
manipulation comes easy to him
Hand to God
he is your salvation
And no one will ever love you like he does.


- He can’t be your salvation
- Because you already saved yourself

I am seventeen years old
And I’m sitting at the bottom of my tub.
I’ve cracked my wrists open like the windows in my room-
I’m trying to let some light in
I need to breathe fresh air into my body.
this is the only way I know how
I have closed the curtains,
boarded up the doors.
you had a key
And you trekked in mud and pine needles from the giant spruce tree outside.
I pick them out of my hair
And line them up on the side of the stained porcelain tub.
I am thinking of putting out a foreclosure sign in my front yard-
Abandoning these halls and leaving everything but this stained tub behind.
Seventeen is hard and rough,
It had calloused hands and it took things from me I wasn’t ready to give.

- I am twenty now
- And I’ve redone my home and tore out the stained tub

I have miles and miles of skin.
Untouched
I have miles and miles of skin.
Begging to be loved,
Some of it
has been marred
With hungry hands and bruising grips.
Some has been stitched together
With a cool demeanour and practised fingers.
Parts bare scars of a desperate girl-
Looking for a way to feel something
All of it is wholly mine

- this body is my home and I have let many people decorate it because I thought they would stay.

I died for you once
And I told myself-
I would never again
Make a graveyard out of a garden

- why do I always cut away the flowers to make room for tombstones

You will say thank you,
for loving me like a prayer.
Because you think the only way-
someone could love you was through divine intervention.
You, a girl who is not quite yet a women.
You still think you can make men out of monsters-
That you only must show love to get it in return.
You have not yet learned
That some monsters
Have given their souls a long time ago.
That the blood that they taste on their tongue
no longer tastes like rust,
It’s what keeps them alive.
And he keeps you because
You liken him to godly-
And he hasn’t felt that kind of reverence in a long time.


- he will will take the innocent you wear like a shield and break it down until there is nothing left, not even him.

I can no longer let your sins
Drag me down
I am so tired of trying to learn
how to breathe at the bottom of your secretes
Truth has never been our family currency
But I can no longer pay in blood
I will try truth and see how it feels on my tongue
(your actions have consequences and you never cared who paid them)
It took me my entire childhood to understand this lesson
(I convinced myself I could love you enough that you would start to love yourself)
I was wrong
(every time that you had to choose between yourself and me
I always lost)
Trying to understand that you would always choose yourself over me was a very hard thing to swallow.
(you will tell yourself in the darkness of the night that you both did the best you could)
I am a church of scars and I have one for every time you let me drown alone.
- you will not love me when I tell you the truth

I want to be
Alive.
Alive.
Alive.
I want to feel my heartbeat thrumming
all the way down to my very finger tips
I want the golden sunshine to warm
My body
My soul
I want it to reach inside me
and make the wild flowers grow
in the darkest parts of me
So I can be vibrant
So I can now have a reason to tend to me
I have spent to long not loving those dark parts of me
but now I can become a garden full of honey
And safe place for bees
A safe place for me
My body will be my own again
I will have no place for what you did to me.

- I have spent to long not loving myself

I thought I understood grief.
But I didn’t until-
I was standing alone in a room.
Missing so many parts of myself,
because I kept giving them away
So the people I love
could keep on living.
-
- they are scavengers and they will pick you clean until it is only your bones that shine in the sun.

When everything is said and done
I will collect the pieces of yourself you left behind on our living room floor
I will place them in a box and I will put them on my shelf
for a time-
They will cry for you to come back and claim them again
Like me-
they will tell themselves
You would never decide you could live without them
But eventually-
they will grow dust
and become tired of longing for someone
who will never come back
And so will I

- We are more than the love they did not give

Daughter,
You were born on a battle field.
Forged from years of hunger for more
From the dream of women who couldn't stay contained-
You have wildfire eyes.
100 years of insult and mockery as armour
Do not let them down.
Scream so loud
That it can be heard across the killing field-
Scream until you can hear it echoed back by your sisters.
Together,
Proud and ready
You could lead us into victory.

- they tell us we are weak
- We use their bones to clean out our teeth