I drink it down, and I feel happy
I sway on my feet, and the music makes me dance
My mouth tastes of fire and ice, the air around me of sweat and heat
I stumble over words and slur when I introduce myself
But, God, I feel so good
I sip away my anger, my sadness
And it makes me feel so much better than I did before
Some say that you can pick your poison
I have to disagree
My poison picked me
It picked me up and threw me around
Made me feel emotions on an entirely different level
Muted me and made me loud all at the same time
And oh, how I loved that sweet abuse
My poison made me feel special
Made me think about how I couldn't hear my thoughts
Made them loud and quiet at the same time
Made me realize that you actually can't change the volume of your thoughts
I smiled, and people looked at me like a gem, because I was taking off my shirt
And dancing on a table
And when I tripped over my own feet, my poison made me escape the shame
I laughed along with everyone else, because my poison told me it was fine
My kind of Poison made me wake up early and puke all my good feelings into a porcelain bowl
My kind of Poison gave me headaches that you could hear for miles
My kind of Poison left me smelling like sweat and stomach acid
But, God, did it feel good

Grass grew through concrete edges
of the parking lot
like the hard edges forming around my heart -
calcium deposits of emotional damage
that build up over time -
Corrosive and self-destructive.

Convergient boundaries
force rock and long forgotten heat
to the surface
just as babes are forced from
the idle disarray of thoughts
of which form the womb
and into the
alert, calculated and controlled thoughts
of which form their lives
Daily we tread on what we love and hold dear
All of what keeps us whole and healthy and alive
stomped out and replaced with plastic
and bad news
We mold ourselves into disfigured amalgamates
to conform to an image that we did not make
We are unnatural

my                                                 heart?                           mind
    

                                           mind
    is
                               P L E A S E                                           never
      
              silent

                                                 please                               D O N ' T
help
                             me                    
                                                               I
        am                                                                 lost

                                  gone
where                                                                       G O


                                            have
you
                                                                         gone

gone                          gone
                                                                                                   gone
                                                      P L E A S E
try
                                                    to

                   find                                                                me


I                                                          can't

                 see                                                                    it

                                     is
dark                                                    D O N ' T        


help                                           help                                     help


                       my                                         thoughts


are                                                      too
                    G O



              scattered                                                      to
                    

          
                                       understand


I'm                                                                 t i r e d

                     can't  
                                                           sleep
  

               please                                
                                              don't


                              go                                               go  



don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't

                                                  don't

P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E  D O N ' T GO P L E A S E D O N ' T G O P L E A S E D O N 'T GO P L E A S E D O N 'T G O P L E A S E D O N ' T G O

Today, I am invincible
No one and nothing can harm me
I am looked upon in awe and desire
Why? Why is today my invincibility?
Because today, I am naked, in the sense
that every scrap on my body
reveals just a little more than the last

Today, I am sensual
Everyone sees me
Everyone wants me
Why? Why is today my sensuality?
Because today, I am naked, in the sense
that every inch of my body
sways in a way that turns you on

Today, I am touchable
Everyone reaches for me
grabbing for anyplace left uncovered
Why? Why is today the day I am touchable?
Because today, I am naked, in the sense
that every part of my body
leaves imagination a thing of the past

Today, I am invisible
Nobody sees me
Nobody reaches for my skin
Nobody longs to touch my body
Nobody grabs and gropes or yells demeaning things
Why? Why is today my invisibility?
Because today, I am naked, in the sense
that I am not naked at all
I am raw in who I am
I've given away the other me, who is groped and touched and told how absolutely sensual she is
Today, I am me.

I tell you that I love you
A thousand times a day
Because you're a really special lady
and I'm really really gay

Every day I fall
and flail
I stumble and stutter
and slur my words together
I do so well some days
Those days I am proud
but on those awful
otherdays
I fall even further than the last
You lure me in like
the perfect predator
as I am the perfect prey
topping off my glass
the moment that it empties
You, who tell me I need not ever use a cup
that I might touch my mouth
to the top of you
and it would be fine
so long as I drunk you all
to myself
and when your poison is in my veins
and I am thoroughly gone
you teach me how to walk
and how to talk
and how to scream aloud my every thought
in ways I would never imagine without
your harmful presence
but I need you
it is as though the very thought of you
makes me yearn for your bitter taste

I raise the glass of my eyes
and upon this action I drink swiftly your expectations
until I am full of you
Your heartbeat is my own
Your love is my love
Your darkness my deepest sorrow
Sleep Peacefully

There were not birds
or flies
or trees
or dirt
No people, nor comfort
or fear
or hurt
No love, no tears, no breaks or spills
no light
or dark
or homecooked meals
No hunger, or need
Desire, or ***
When the stars went out, I assure you:
There was Nothing Left.

Life did not always feel this way;
like death with expanding lungs
The girl could remember brighter things
as sunlight on burned skin
and laughter
and contentment, if not happiness
Such things that roosted in the loft
of hair and skin and bone -
like quiet
and hatred
and sadness;
winged creatures that refused to fly
and left footprints
like scars on her brain
She lived; her skin itched with it
This girl made of paper
with a heart made of water
who faced a truth that was subjective -
and on this night as light as sun
she held the stars in her palms
and wished for dark
She asked herself why words,
like glass
needed to be concise and clear
when feelings are never such
and faces never so stark
Could the ink of her thoughts
be destroyed by the water of her love
that spoke in tongues
and waged one-sided war with her face?
Where was the self she sought to keep,
the riches she was taught to reap?
The garden meant to be her life;
instead grew up a barren sky
She asked these questions no one heard
to the shadow of a bird
who took flight at once
and sang her grief to the trees,
taking credit for her spoken pain.

Liquid burns
as does smoke
and both share the same portal
both the same host
this liquid that burns
does not wash away the ash
that also burns
their host, how she croaks
and liquid burns as much
going down
as she does
coming back up
but not ash, who sticks
soundly to her host
loyal only to the tender pink flesh
of both lungs
and whiskey, she coats her masters
insides
as a freshly painted wall
And sometimes they converse
a friendship of
cotton-tasting tobacco,
and bittersweet alcohol
the best kind of pain
self inflicted
unwilling
regretful
but oh, how these twice-given agonies
go together so well
with their host, their slave
who is also their master
but never completely
for control between these three
must be separated by four
ash, whiskey, the host, and the choice

They all say that you've changed
I know for sure that you haven't
As you always do, you complain
about the smallest things
You choose to argue with her
instead of admitting that you might
actually be wrong
You stare at me from the corner of your eyes
knowing that what you do is wrong,
and that I see it
but you continue to do it anyways
Because you are old,
and you are set in your ways
that is no excuse
being older than me
does not give you the right
to think that I am always wrong
just as being younger than you
does not give me the privelage
to always be correct
You pray to your God,
this God I don't believe in
and you tell me I will burn in Hell,
a place I am also unsure of
I am not entirely disbelieving
only to the point
that I would not dare hope
that someone I have never met
will save me at a words beckoning
You still taunt me, wishing I was the obedient
little girl
that you first met
The girl who was scared of everything, unsure
and now that I am confident,
you cast a disdainful eye upon me
For I no longer accept you treating me as a little girl
I am almost eighteen
almost an adult
and while it is normal for adults to wish
a child to remain a child
It is unnatural to simply refuse to accept that I grow
and that I have grown
I'm proud of who I am today
because before, I was afraid, self-conscious,
and now I am more confident, and the fear has been pushed away
I never thought I could, or would, hate you, when I was younger
Now, hating you is all I know
How could I not hate you, for squashing my ideas
Telling me that women with voices are women best unseen
Telling me that as I am now, confident in my belief
that all are equal,
no man would ever marry me?
Telling me, that I would never succeed, if I didn't know how
to cook and clean
But I don't want to cook, or to clean
I don't desire to be a slave for man to use up at their hearts desire
I want to exist as an independent being
with a job
I want to be a nurse, a doctor
Help people willingly, instead of against my heart
Why is it so hard to believe
that I, a girl, a women,
am also a person?
With hopes, and aspirations, dreams?
So, no
I don't think you've changed at all
You have yet to prove it
I doubt that you ever will
for while you are demeaning
You are also a coward

There exists in my mind the image of
a playground near my childhood home.
This playground is *****.
The swing sets are rusted
(they shriek when they are put to use).
There are shards of glass in my feet
that have never come out
or healed over.
These broken pieces came from
somewhere,
but when I try to remember where
the swing sets begin to shriek
(so loud that I can't think).
I am afraid I will never know myself.

You dug your claws into my skin
Your teeth glinted with blood
and I couldn't help the fear that crept from my belly
in a shockwave
and strung its way into my heart
You lean over my shivering, bleeding body, and you smile
isn't it a beautiful sight, the broken pieces of someone else?
And like the fear, I can't help but feel weak
beneath your hulking figure
your wide smile
your laugh
even your eyes
You are the perfect predator
and everything about you draws me in
and spits me out
You rip through my skin like a woodchipper
I scream at the top of my lungs
until the pain is drowned out by my cries
agony is often described as unbearably painful
I think it is just a little more than that
and it would sum up perfectly fine
if you only described it as torture
if you only described it as something in multitude
for agony as one is agony as for many
and it is always different
and this, this is different
My agony, piercing through me in sharp pinpoints, numbing me at the edges
that is my agony
and you are the criminal
inflicting it upon me

The bitter tasting nightmare floods through my memory
Creeping up the stairs to the attic
You, faceless, close the door behind me as the lock clicks in place
And I, frightened, hear a noise behind the walls of coats
and dusty picture frames
I reach out, I lay a hand upon the wall, and I glimpse
the stairs, twisting and turning
A hand, blackened and purpled and shadowed with horror,
clamps it's icy fingers around my wrists
and I pull, hard, a child with the weakest limbs
I feel my lips pulling together, and though no thread bound them,
I find that I am speechless
I try to call for you, faceless ******,
you do not come
The creature drags me towards the wall, even as the nails of my other hand bleed, scraping against the splintered floorboards
Thirst for my blood drives this place
Hunger for my fears moves me closer to the inevitable
and I glimpse eyes behind the mirrors
before I finally speak the words that were stuck for so long
H E L P M E

Hell's teeth, biting and nipping at my ankles in a teasing,
sensual way
They tickle the sensitive skin around my neck,
leaving bruises in the shape of bite marks
Oh, God, how they make me squirm

Hell's tongue, swirling passionately with my own,
a sweet taste just on the edge of bliss
It darts forward, like a predator,
before moving back and to the side, in a soft, heated dance
Oh, God, how it makes me groan

Hell's hands, holding me up before I have a chance
to melt under their pleasure-bringing caresses
Touching me and rearranging me in ways too sinfully delicious
to say aloud
Oh, God, how they make me scream

Hell's eyes, drawing me in
and drowning me in a heated pool of desire
Roaming up and down my body as though I was the most
beautiful, sensual thing on Earth, above, and below
Oh, God, how they make me feel

In school they tell us stories
written by people we must strive to understand:
Emily Dickinson, Poe, Shakespeare
Teachers pleading 'pay attention'
always reading
no retention
Still we scrape together
all the pieces of a grade
and some of us walk away knowing
what it's like to be lonely, and hopelessly underpaid.