I wasn’t meant to get this far but did
I skated by
I cheated death
I have slipped through cracks in promises
And taken 34.6 million last breaths
And I’m still breathing
Didn’t bleed enough, the times that I was bleeding
An alternate reality of many narrowly avoided
fatal wrecks

I have died, now,
At least 4 to 5 to maybe 7 times
And when I think of all my parallel-selves I often find myself in envy of their eyes
And how they’re closed
How they can’t see- just how bizarre the story gets
But I’m the strongest one
I am the Lauren who has not died yet

I’m grateful to her
The way I’m grateful to friends
When they save my seat

trauma drifts down through the branches of my family tree
like summer pollen

I always said the world was too small. Grain of sand on an infinite beach, as they say. So small, so insignificant, that you could get a reasonable understanding of its history and diversity in just one human lifetime. Know the world in 80 years- And people do.

It’s limiting- to be one person on one planet in a constantly expanding universe that’s full of planets.

It feels big now, thanks to you.

Too big.

Too big for the two people who matter.

I’m overwhelmed by the distance between you and I, I think about it and I get woozy, nauseous. Two little fish (but you’re a bigger fish- are you a shark?) on opposite sides of a big pond. The biggest pond. It’s salty- oh.

  Is this the ocean? It’s one I’ve never been in.

  I wish I could shrink it all down and make it small enough that you and I were next door neighbors or one town over or states over or at least, in this lifetime, the same continent. I want to step across the ocean like a puddle, when I’m tall enough, and then trip and you can catch me, once you’re strong enough.

You’re a world apart, so far that your sun rises and sets on a different schedule.

Is it the same sun?

Are you the same you?

When you’re there, I mean. Or on my schedule, my land, are you something else, the creature I met when I approached you on my knees, the thing that I thought was a god?

You are a man, and I was full of myself to think I could conquer you then- as a god- or to think I can do it better since I’ve realized you’re something more like an alien. Full of myself-

What am I full of, now? Now that I’ve swallowed your flesh and blood? Now that the god has trembled at my touch and licked the dew from my native thighs with his foreign tongue..

I worry if I see you again it won’t be enough. Did I do it for you then, lost and sad and untethered, unbothered, undaughtered? Dangerous? Did I do it for you with my ratty hair, the glitter in my sinuses and the torn up band shirt (memento of my last victim) draped across my skin like hearse curtains?

Do I do it for you now?

Will I do it for you then, alien, when I step onto the earth of your planet and bask in your different sun?

Or will I be a different creature? Will you take me from my pedestal and realize I’m not a god- will you be happy, when it’s my turn to be the alien?

I never liked blue eyes until yours, you know. How odd that they’re the same color as the thing that separates us

It’s not the cage or the perch but the feeling of being a thing that’s so smart and so social, surrounded by - ironically- an infinite misunderstanding
From beings who think that they know you
It’s novel to speak but not to be heard,
to have wings but not fly,
to be smart but not think,
to have the beak and the claws
but only if they’ve been dulled to a reasonable human comfort-
the saddest thing about being a parrot is to be loved only when you’re restrained, and desired/admired only until you are had.


God forbid she ever bites

I always said the world was too small. Grain of sand on an infinite beach type ****. So small that you could get a reasonable understanding of its history and diversity in just one human lifetime. It’s limiting, right? Like ****. We’re just one planet in a constantly expanding universe that’s full of planets.

It feels big now, thanks to you.

Too big. I’m overwhelmed by the distance between you and I, I think about it and I get woozy, nauseous. Two little fish on opposite sides of a big pond. The biggest pond. The ocean. I wish I could shrink it down and make it small enough that you and I were next door neighbors or one town over or **** it lll settle with driving distance. But this? It’s too ******* much. You’re a world apart, so far that your sun rises and sets on a different schedule.

I worry if I see you again it won’t be enough. The distance have driven me mad, I’d long to be closer even when our skin was stuck together. I fantasize about curling up inside the confines of your ribcage and resting my head on your still beating heart. It’s not enough to be close to you, ****, I want to be part of you.

The way you’re a part of me.

I never liked blue eyes until yours, you know. How odd that they’re the same color as the thing that separates us.

I was
different when you met me,
I had locked the other me away inside her cage
And I know you’d never met her but I’m sure you heard all of the noise she makes
Well, love, she’s out now
And I’m sorry, but she’s broken from her leash
I’ll try to tame her- but please realize
She’s still a part of me

Pools of honey swim in skin pale
like fresh milk
Framed by tresses the color of bark
Bubblegum lips contrast chewed fingertips,
and legs that are hopelessly scarred
What is her name? Crowned with laurel and thorns
Ruby droplets that run down her cheeks
Beautiful suffering- pointless, it seems,
when the coke bag is empty and torn

I fall into the arms of my old lover, again, and her arms- they are burning, they’re burning, they’re burning
I sink into bed with my lover again- her flesh, it is burning, it’s burning
And yet somehow, I allow
Her to catch me aflame
Like a cigarette steadily burning
And it’s pleasurable, wonderful, until it ends just the same
A **** on the ground, cold and yearning

I tried to plant a garden
I toiled and tilled til my nails were nothing but blackened nubs
Like small pieces of charcoal
And I spent my last coins on seeds- because the granddaughter of a florist must have flowers
But my blooms wilted
My leaves shriveled
And locusts chewed on my darlings til they were nothing but the frailest stems
Like my legs looked, when I was fifteen

For days I mourned. Years it seemed. More coins spent on seeds, more work in the sun
But I kept ending up with bare roots and dry buds
Until finally, one day, I looked down at my barren garden and asked it, how do I make you beautiful?
To which my garden replied

cow ****.

Because the lotus can’t grow without the blackest of mud. The roses can’t bloom without meal made of blood.
my garden had died... because I hadn’t gone through enough cow ****.

1, 2, 3 go and run with me
Youthful girl full of misery
4, 5, 6 and I’ll **** your ****
Bat eyelashes, blow kisses til it makes you sick

Numbers, numbers won’t you tell me what I am,
Am I another number? Another notch on your belt band?
I remember how much I loved meeting all your friends
but now you’ve got me hidden like it’s something that I said

1, 2, 3 open up and see
Nothing but the bedsheets and calculus theory
4, 5, 6 can’t pick it up that quick-
You talk to me for hours but it doesn’t stick

10 years, I’m 20, you’re 30 years old
I was warm as tea but on the shelf I’ve grown cold
You’re so loud and proud- you don’t seem very proud of me
I’m sorry I’m not older
Maybe one day I could be

Brunette monster at 5'8", my dreams are haunted by your pretty
face
Trace lines upon my neck with teeth so sharp I can't think straight
I remember how you looked with those dark dead eyes and your trembling skin
You forced apart my legs; I had no choice but to accept you in
You rearranged my insides through the space between my pale white thighs and
now i have to realize that the game you played I couldn't win
I screamed for you to stop but my cries fell on ears- not deaf, just didn't care
And I remember how my neck cracked when you reached to grab ahold of my blonde hair
What'd I do to you? Why hurt a girl who loved you like I did?
I was your everything before you made me nothing in my bed
I wish I'd listened to the warning signs that I first saw in you
You've left a mark upon me- it's the ugliest, invisible tattoo

Step right up and buy some dreams
He's got tattooed arms and he'll propose to you with cubic zirconia rings, promises of hearts warmed and shiny things
Beware of what the future brings, he'll spread your broken wings and let you fall
Right into a pit of tar and feathers
You'll think you belong together
But he's a trainwreck clad in ink and leather
And he'll sever the tethers and let you go it alone, ignore your pleas for affection but his spell is like an infection- it won't go away unless treated with equal aggression
What's his motive? Why break all these hearts, why ***** out girls like spent candles
I don't think he even knows how to handle himself
But one things for sure- this boy sells dreams, don't you buy them.

the things you did, said, thought were flea bites compared to the pain of what you did not

I wanna be beautiful
But really I'm not suitable
For kissing, talking, walking, *******
Or whatever humans do
I wish I could remember how to be
But I never really knew
And now I'm tearing at the edges
Leaking sand and salt and dust from all my seams
What's this dream? It isn't sweet
Who's this stranger inside me?
I was gutted like a home and they've replaced all of my bones
Hello- my name is jade
I wear white and hate the shade
My eyes are brown, my hands are pink
And I just poured $50 down the sink

*** and THC and way too many eyes on me
I'm smoking dust the blades will rust and I'm left with one too many ways I trust
What's good, Jessica? I'm caught in this distress, I'm a
Deadly insane hurricane who wears a backless dress

I like to think I'm mysterious dark leave you delirious like a dream but I'm just a ****** up girl, not a French girl, just a girl with wide eyes on SSRIs who wishes she could do pills again so that she could fly and people tell me I look like a model- a model of what? Of what not to do in life? Of ******* yourself? Of how to
crumble like a $5 forever 21 highlighter in the sun and
play with guns and
have too much fun until
the crash hits and the cigarette's lit and the mania wears off and it's just me myself and I all alone at home thinking of the next girl or guy,
        I'm not a French girl- I'm a throw a wrench in it girl, I smell like stress sweat and unpaid rent and guerlain perfume that I can't afford and all I want is to drown because I'm so ******* bored with FEELING! LIKE! ****! take another hit in the self esteem, an indica dream and cry in the shower where they can't hear you scream, no brother no father just a deadbeat daughter with eyeliner that slaughters and way too many people who've been beating up on her

You wait for me behind the closed door of my eyelids and
As I fall asleep I can't escape the dark and what you did
That summer
Can't run or hide because it's inside of me and i feel ruined, tainted, filthy
Innocence and paradise lost between your ***** fingernails and olive palms
And in my dreams I replay the pain I felt
Even though it was you who was in the wrong

Oh, I'm a blackbird singing in the dead of night but my voice is shot
I'm a river-stone that's all alone and skipped over more often than not
I'm a bird flying off of a bridge and a pendulum swinging from my ceiling
Because only bidding everything farewell can help the way I'm feeling

I weigh and deliberate every word that shatters from my lips
But I still say all the wrong things
Who can I trust? Who can I trust?
I talk to no one of my heart unless I must, and yet
This bird, this feathered cold-weathered thing in my chest
Flutters on and ***** along; I bet
If I were to wring its neck
There would be less tears shed than if another ended up to be dead in my stead

I'm a pigeon who was left broken in grief after finding she wasn't a swan as he'd had her believe
but then you came along,
and while he'd been wrong,
reminded me that doves and pigeons both sing the same song,
And it's beautiful, lovely, and though I be plain of the face
I sing better than swans with their pureness and grace.

I can't believe I used to see you bare and fear what I saw there

I go home and I let my hair down, dark brown and I wish I had energy to wash it
Wet eyes quiet fingers quiet
Phone silent, I let it die and
put on a movie just to feel less alone when I watch it
Solitary confinement and feeling trapped. lost at home
I'm on stilts, but I sink?
In blankets stagnant
every fragment of stained glass that falls from my eyes is sharper than the razors
I press play
And the soundtrack drowns out anything I could have to say.

I never thought the saddest ones smiled the widest until that turned out to be me,

There's still that small part
of me that whispers "I know
you'll hurt me, too."

The sun is three planets away,
But you and I still burn like we live on it

I like to take care of things, despite the fact that I never could
care for myself
I tend to flower seedlings, little green silent things thriving on the bathroom shelves
They reach upward to the light while my own soul reaches down to...
My spirit withers while I
Sow seeds of zinnia and ox-eye
Poppies spring from fertile ground while I feel like I could die
Cut sprigs of Rosemary and on the same day
put furrows in my skin, I need to
Prioritize, rationalize or soon I'll share the ground they're in

I want to touch lava but I can't

There's a time to test
The waters, and there's a time
To jump in head first

To choose a life
Whose life? The life of me, or the life of my child? There can only be one
A child who would not be born, but from his dead mother's defective womb untimely ripped
Or a Mother - a woman who would be broken and bleeding long before she had any choice to make
This is no temple for life
I was made with loose screws, wrong pieces, were I an appliance, I would be sent back but I have no warranty to fulfill
And maybe God used a faulty chisel when carving my form, maybe he used the wrong clay when shaping me, making me
Faulty.

Him drowning in drink
Her trying again
Them relapsing
Going back
Coming back
Most of all, them leaving me

What does it say about me, then, that to make life would take mine away?

I want you to beg for me to take you back so I can be
as cruel as you were to me
and say in dulcet tones
A whisper:
"No."

I tried to drown the thoughts of him in the strongest drink, but they are unaffected
and have learned to swim.

My old great-aunt Elaine with her withered hands gave me $200 and beaded handbag
"This your mad money," she told me, as we sat on that nursing home couch, "And it ain't for your purse. This goes in your shirt, where only you know you got it."
The assisted-living nurse chuckled to herself. They got along, my great-aunt and her.
"Why?"
"Cuz if you get angry," she said, in that Marlboro-raspy voice of hers, "And you gotta go, you walk out on your date and you leave 'is ***. And then you got your money for a strong drink. And your cab."
The nurse laughed
My aunt re-situated herself on the nursing home couch. Elaine Dauterive. Her mind was going, and so was her health, but she was as regal as a queen on her throne in that moment
her fire-red hair, ungrayed, was her crown
No cape as royal as that sleeping gown.
"Don't you think for once second I can't take care of you, honey," she said in that creole drawl, and I knew what she meant
Because even after she'd gone I would have that mad money
All stuffed in my bra for when I needed it
Because she was older than time, for me, seeing things like
The Great Depression, World War II
What I read in history books
I'd be ****** if I took what she said with even one grain of salt because Auntie-Lane, I'll be ****** if I don't love you
And I know you're on your way out and
I'll buy you whiskey in the afterlife with some of that $200 cash that you busted your *** scrounging up for me
Southern hospitality at its finest
And those liver spots redder than wine adorn you like badges of honor for all of the years you've endured
My elder - creole woman, with a soul as fire-red as her hair, breathing more smoke than air
My old dragon
On a pile of gold: her mad money

I keep thinking about this beautiful girl from the mental hospital. Her name was Carion, and she didn't exist.
She had lived her entire life without a social security number, no blood type or birth certificate to define her
and the walls of Calhoun couldn't confine her because she would
Carry On - that's how I spelled it in my head.
I know her name was only one 'r' from being the word for dead animals, but it never registered for me.
She was no corpse for vultures or hounds, but they stalked her anyway,
her demons were hyenas lurking in shadows but her
round eyes were bright and she told me I was pretty and that, later, she'd flirt with me if it weren't against the rules.
I wanted to flirt with her, too. Make that brown bark flesh all flushed with a blush from the way we whispered sweet nothings with voices all hushed.
Oh, Carry-On.
Those blue hospital gowns wrapped around you, on that dark skin like the way a robins-egg hue clashed with the branches of a nest.
I remember how we sat with the same pain in our chests.  
I hope she's ok.
I hope she's still carrying on in the same way she did in that horrible place.

I think I hate myself more than you could ever love me

I have broken every rule with you
For we have not kept our hands (or our hearts) to ourselves

Kick the bucket
Let your pretty soul come spilling from the
Sides
Seawater pouring from the
Edges of your eyes, let butterflies

Drink
from the red drops of your wrist
With metal lips
Is there any vice to make me feel
The way I do with this?