as a girl with a brain who is taught not to use it
to abuse it
to misuse it
i refused it
concluded
that i wouldn’t yelp about every single non congruent disillusionment
told to be angry
to be discontent
with the world and its faux barbed wire
but i’m not discontent.
i am quite very content.

in a floating metal box in the air,
i put things into perspective.
like our friendship.
a fading crisis murdered by a mistake.
sharp blades twisted against allies.
like words, exhausted and spoken with the threat of misinterpretation.
without your perfect band t-shirts and childlike bickering,
it was an empty place.
you only knew two AC/DC songs,
when i asked you to name three,
but that’s totally ok,
i wouldn’t have known or cared either.
friendly waves and funny conversations;
miss them most when there’s no one to talk to.
we starved the host and shattered slowly, but brutally.
against the ocean’s mighty waves, we were washed with white sea foam onto different beaches
on different coasts,
on different inhabited islands.
we lied hazily on tanned sand until the sun burnt holes in our dresses and melted us.
i search for you on the humid land mass,
calling your name into the neptune blue sky.
it’s always hope a new day, fire lit and burning, but nothing to come and rescue me.
scurrying in the hot sand praying for even just a mirage of you.
but we were swept away
to different islands,
unaware of the current,
unaware of the consequences of simple mistakes.
i’m sorry we had to burn out this way.
so slow and heavy.
so sorry, emery.

sometimes the pain sits lightly atop my hair
never flowing past my shoulders
never dipping down below my collarbones
but sometimes the pain envelops me, knee deep
it buries itself in my shabby shoes
touching each toe and its nail, not leaving a part of me out

sometimes the pain leaks into my mouth and becomes a weapon wielded with regret
stains form on my clothes from ****** bullets ricocheting
sometimes the pain becomes my voice, hijacking my speech and blending it into violence

my flesh the proof that pain once owned me

but it doesn’t
it doesn’t own me
i let it think that it owns me as it terrorizes
each and every salty tear i let tumble bears witness,
but they know it’s just a way to get me to stray from the stability i deserve

the pain isn’t who i am
it doesn’t define me at all
it doesn’t make me any less strong or brave or fearless
it gives me reason to believe
that although pain does not own me
neither does happiness
a state of limbo, sometimes suffering
i own my pain, giving it power ever so often
giving it the chance to destroy me, yet it never does
it never comes with blades or doubt or anger

no matter how brutal the battle,
the pain will always crumble beneath my feet
and i will not let it crawl up my spine
and rest atop my hair from now on
i can be free from the pain that confines me
from the false happiness that life begs you to accept
i can be free in the choice to believe
to believe
to believe

i am content with being away from you
lost on my own continent
stranded on an island
your words seep through my skin
hurting like knives and shards of china glass

i am content with being away from you—from this, from us
i am content to hide inside a seashell and never come out
melted bones into hermit crab forms
fate accepted

i am content with being away from you—from the way you treat me
it is halloween in my nightmares
always dressed up as a princess or a queen when really all i feel inside is that i should be a
vampire or a zombie
meandering along the path of self-destruction

i am content with being away from you—from your fangs, from your grimy hands
i am content with staying put on an ocean raft just rising and falling as the waves swallow me up and spit me back up
selflessly free as a turtle riding the inevitable current

i am content with being a person far far away from you
making my own decisions with a smile gleaming on my face
waking up and walking outside on my own accord
listening to the sound of morning doves instead of the chaotic sound of sirens

i am content with myself—content with the life that doesn’t have you in it
gritty sandy harsh words grating against my smooth and vibrant skin
you will not give me heatstroke from the flames you breathe from the fire congested city
the tides will carry you, sandstorms will bury you, and tornadoes will whisk you away
far far from the whereabouts where i call home

i am content to be away from you.
i am content to be alone.

when the taylor swift concert ended
and you didn’t even ask me how it was
that was the second i knew
when the only thing you commented was how
far away the stage was from my seat
your jealousy creeping up like a monster
you only talk about yourself, never ask me how i am
i might be asking for too much, but maybe you don’t ask for enough
and you didn’t ask about it once just, “how was the show?”
the most bluntly asked question ever
do you ever consider how you make me feel
when you constantly degrade and insult me?
wallowing in my own loneliness feels better than being around you
i’m sorry i don’t know who you are
wait—of course i do
you explain every detail of your life
lamenting over your “struggles” and your stupid little petty dramas
spouting out nonsense like a fountain
do you even know i have a brother
or that he beat down the walls
and the tears from the years of his constant fist fights and head banging?
do you even know about my love for taylor swift or lana del rey because it feels like they actually listen to the things i have to say
even if it’s just their lyrics that i sing to the dusty mirror by my bed?
do you even know i have anxiety festering underneath this forced porcelain skin?
do you even know how sad i get, just how unwanted and melancholy i feel when i pace around my room having nothing better to do?
do you even know how much i cry at night, just ripping myself apart and not even for anyone else’s sake?
do you even know the pain i feel knowing that even my best friend won’t ask me how i’m doing, won’t let me get the flames off my chest?
do you even know my dreams and aspirations?
do you even know that poetry twinkles in my soul and brings light into a vast void of nothingness?
do you even know how much i vouch for you in the vehement conversations i have with my parents?
do you even know my favorite songs, my favorite shows, my favorite movies, my favorite foods—the most basic facts ever?
how do you even sleep a wink at night knowing the lack of details that you know about me?
i saw my favorite artist two days ago and you didn’t even ask me how it was.
you didn’t ask me if she played my favorite song, if it was loud, if it was as fun as i expected, if it was the first time i’ve seen her, if it was a sudden realization that letting go is beautiful?
do you even care enough to ask me anything at all, or should i just keep asking about the boys who constantly blow up your phone, about the “friends” of yours who don’t want to see the best in you, of your “totally unfair” parents supposedly wronging you over and over again?
do you even care about the girl you call your best friend?
do you even care?

if you shatter into a million fragments fallen like a disco ball,
i will lift them with both my hands and put you back again.
sweating brow and unhappiness
i’ll take this weight from off your chest.
to live with the regret of losing you
would be the worst kind of eternal punishment.
it’s a vulnerable hour
coarse tongues and sharpened claws.
i awake to the shameless sound of your howling
bouncing off the walls
torn apart.
nightfall is brutal but i have the pieces of your heart
to wrap around my cold malnourished frame,
swallowing me whole involuntarily.
it’s all gonna be ok for me.