juvenile
with your harsh profanities
and gritty teeth
grabbing ahold of me
puncturing my flesh

i want to be more like God
and i’m trying so hard

i read inspirational poetry books in the mirror
and around you,
i smile in fear
do things rehearsed and pre-planned and you don’t even notice
because the main focus
is you

façade strong
happy blushing faces all day long

that’s not who i am
and you’re the one who should know me best
but you don’t.

and i don’t understand how you plan
to take me down to the pits of the earth’s core
because i want to be more
like who i adore
and that’s just not you.

no one cares what books i read
my “best” friend cries on the phone to me
she says it’s just a matter of time
before we go on vacation together
or the april child she loves will
wind up at her ivy-covered door
with lips filled in apologies
or half-hearted “i adore yous.”

she says it’s just a strange world
comparing each of my companions to her
i don’t allow myself to get worried
with her obvious emotional manipulation
her selfish need to conspire against me
constantly thinking it’s for the best.

her mother speaks so softly
tells her not to get so out of hand
tries not to let her wash her life away
in a trailer park fever dream
with cigarette smoke and boys that come
and go, but they never know
the brutal need for her to skin her victims
package them away in garage bins
and leave them to handle their mangled limbs
by themselves

one day, i think i will freak out
and rip up the bluebird-colored tablecloth
and pluck the shards of glass
from my weakened arteries
and she will meltdown in a sweaty bar
turn soggy and white in the face
and her relatives will all disown her

she says i’m one of the only friends
to chose from
to swim in a pool by the ocean
she wants the florida marsh in my hair
the cypress smile sticky on my top lip
but she doesn’t care about me
and my irregular temperature
my august windstorms
my maine hemispheric cold-spouts

her merely view through telescopic lenses
magnifying me
but she says slurs and she thinks it’s ok
and it’s not
multiple skeletons lying upright in her closet
as i try to open the doors
she slams them shut
freckles from the sun and the never-ending daytime hour she rarely sleeps and
maybe that’s her issue
all blue and purple, bruised legs
and egos falling on the floor
like dominoes
springtime wishful thinking,
but winter betrayal sinkhole in my backyard

she says it’s about time for
her to come to my house
deposits her eggs for me to chew on
or take care of or whatever
she thinks this transactional
friendship is
or how it looks from the inside
lurking along the corners of the creaky fence

she moves in muscular anomaly
she uses me like a chess piece
bent to her inconsistencies
face flat on farmland
and flannels torn to holes
from her constant urge to
crunch up all my simple pleasures
leaving them like mush
and stomach acid lingers
on their polyester remnants
smelling like old shoes worn by
some old storyteller

but i am in hibernation,
comatose on the dewy grass
my liver sits untouched inside of my belly
crabapple seeds are planted
but rarely the trees ever sprout or venture
farther than one foot
buried inside infertile ground

she waits attentively for my eyes to bat open
for the coma to subside
so when the morning wetness climbs
atop my powdered-coconut nightgown
sallow in complexion
i rest with shut pupils
so the fools don’t bolt into
the inmost part of me  

she tells herself he’ll write her a letter
stained with decaf coffee or maybe
his own sweat or spit or
passion dipped into a quill pen
and out onto the parchment
pathetic diction and apathetic vindication
she tells me one day,
he will regurgitate it back for her
onto her palms and she will recite
every word like a well-thought out poem
sprawled out upon her chest
heaving his misleading justifications

but i won’t be waiting
for her
as the florida air stains her soul
from the inside out
until her heart is black as coal
and her hands are stained from the
peeling of my brain cavity that
leaks blood she thinks
makes oddly-familiar patterns
across her guilty figure

the reflection of tangerine sunset on the rainy road and the wide expanse of kansas is the pretty i want to be.

the mystery soaking in the wound.
some sun-tanned lady with a ballgown.
a rose bush absent of the thorns.

the burial sight of an isolated victim.
an unspoken but understood shadow.
the willow tree’s branches after a nightly frost.

the strange white light before death.
the neatly tidied vanity.
a polite aftershock after a raging earthquake.

the sandals,
the beachside condominiums,
the skyline with white stripes.

my amiability
surging through the atmosphere,
singing for salvation.

same man who told me i would be his girl
ripped my heart out and slammed it onto the floor.
haunted by betrayal, it twists around my room
it sits upon my bed and it refuses to listen to you
or me.
same guilt pressed against my skin
my own friends lost so much sight of me.
i’m sorry.
he was accidental tears falling from my eyes
makeup worn to disguise
the melancholy deep within my soul.
same man who told me i would be the one to take home
told me to go.
stretched out on the beach,
nothing but the sky and sea
reaching towards a meaning you would never give to me.
somehow now it’s all my fault
i misread all your calls
i had mistaken your sudden advances for something meaningful.
you’re a narcissist, a crawling goblin,
a regretted kiss, your knife still sharpened
over my silk body, over my salty tears
over all these doubts
you couldn’t heal
carved a heart shape out of my chest
left in a dying mess
i bet you’re happy
knowing you hurt someone like me
for the hundredth time
do you ever learn?
before you hurt people like
me
who just want to be seen
by a man who tells us we’re beautiful?
does it burn you to see the fireworks sink from the sky
beside your bedside?
or do you never regret anything
never apologize when you’re mean
never have to take accountability
for your stupid actions.
you are the glass shards in my back
aching intensely
the extra teeth in my mouth just puncturing me
you are a brutish maniac, a life threatening heart attack
you are a dead man
run ahead, man.
same man who loved me for months
says he’s done
with this.
same man who betrayed me
still thinks he’s holy.
same man who broke my heart
still thinks he’s an injured part.
oh, you never knew me
but i must not have known you too well, either.

it’s so hard to stomach it
that i would feel freer without your grip
to leap from the cascade of waterfall
blood in the water
stab wound under the blouse
it’s a woman killer,
staying put.
that when it’s airplanes plummeting from the gaping sky,
or when it’s thrashing swords,
it’s better to just stay silent
or run away
but how come running away is so tricky?
to just move those little feet
and leave the ditch you lay in
for blooming gardens and sky-kissing cities
but it’s impossible.
bruises gather on satin skin
snake bites bubble
and tears slip
and
the realization hits
but doesn’t hit hard enough
and it’s just sitting in trenches
waiting for the enemy to consume
me
but it’s a slow burn
and
it burns so terribly.
i have remained unspoken
i have let the automobiles crash into my haven
i have given them a place to rest,
a place to stay in
and i
regret it.
regret meeting you
regret encouraging you
regret being anything near you.
you’ll stare at my grave in the ground
and you’ll just shrug it off,
move some dirt over it,
but it only covers the evidence
not the girl that sits
with her knees clenched
sobbing in fits
of anguish
caused by your tyrannical hunger
to give life to lonely people
and then take it away.

yet sometimes the water is calm;
there are no ripples caused by incongruity
no collapsing dams, no inundations
just peace.
and it’s safe in this place
i say
but one ever knows when rain
might be too heavy
and one never knows when their house is about to get flooded.

all i do is damage myself for you.

the sand is between my toes
all my foes have gone south for the
long winter
they are crashing beach waves
unable to reach my shore

the vibrant burning flesh
lingers harshly on our legs
entangled
between nightgowns and laugh-out-louds
the dim midnight candles flicker
bitter wind grazes past so gently
and yet so recklessly

there is a sunlit radiance
lit up on your face
a certain kind of experience
brings forward such impetuousness
effervescent and streaked with purpose
you glow with such precision
inside a hotel suite bound for secrecy
and pretending to be
who we are not, who we wish we were

i was young sun-kissed skin
incandescent
lucidly dancing
in childish daze
astray
in foreign
places
cabaret
underage
dizzy and unhinged
but somehow still so poised
in violet tenderness
with your soft lips
on mine
such subtle ties
impossible to memorize
we are fragments of misplaced puzzle pieces
deliberate looks on sweltering beaches
we are undefined
in the white
heat of summer
nights

stares that tarnish
secure fires
by the beachside
there are sudden nerves in
self-proclaimed fearlessness
awestruck teenagers
intoxicated in the
unforeseen appearance of lust, misconstrued as love

the balconies with ivy over the edge
spill over the cloudless yellow coast
wild cerulean waves bathe the air in slight showers
careful hand grabs
heat lightning
fever struck adolescence
soak in twilight sweat beads
ebullient girls with brunette bouncing curls
in the wake
your waves
crash against my figure
leaving spots touched by the sun
handprints,
and your scent remains on
me
as you alluringly
twist the shape of the universe
around
our own accords
the dawn licks our faces
as we wake up to the soothing noises
of boats rising then
tumbling upon the ocean current
like
your magnetic field pulls me
into swift contact upon auberge floors  

we become the matters we take
in our own hands
we become two shapes glistening
in the pale hush of nightfall