you eat flesh in a cleaned room
with a seaside view.
you devour the world
(or so you think)
with a single swallow.
in dreams that feel like
apparitions,
you appear.
you clutch your ego against your chest
as if it’s a blessing.
your iron lung fills my head
with black smoke.
i envy those who can say no.

recently,
i apologize on the behalf of other people.
you’re smiling with blood in your teeth
the enamel worn through,
yellow in color.
staying afloat has become impossible.
you’re the ambushing shark
in a pool of my nerves and tissues.
somehow drowning with your fangs
around my rouge shadow.

your ego has eaten you alive.
you push against the walls of your pursuer.
it chokes back your spinal cord.
completely empty,
betrayed by your own creation
you must be angry
while i sit and watch,
blood on my lips,
solid foundation.

hold me because it’s achingly difficult.
you jumped out a window
and landed face-first into the squishy grass
i would have caught you,
but it was too late.
somehow it always is.
i jumped into your arms,
but your body was so cold.
a starved mind, a clueless nomad
i sink into bathtubs
and i don’t have organs
i am an invisible skeleton.
i wear shoes
that are too
tight around my ankles
and my legs hate each other
and i hate them too—
what a disgraceful feud.
somehow when i touched you,
you melted into the background
of the stage i wasn’t aware that i consented to.
permission overlooked
forgiveness not a given.
this is the end.
perhaps not what i had envisioned—
not that it matters.
it doesn’t.
i’m picking blots in my bloodstream.
the popping forehead ventricles
the insanity so familiar
and so homely.
home-cooked meals, hearts drawn out onto my back.
it’s too late for me to me to say i’m sorry
or to pray for myself.
it’s too late to love.
i insist
but the road i walk down is dusty chemicals
and your hand is not placed precisely in mine.
it’s too late this time.
somehow it always is.

and maybe i’m not the oceanic girl with satin draped upon soaked legs and arms
who washes up on the beach and interrupts your business, but you’re totally cool with it
i’m not the gentle sprinkler girl with sweet smelling perfume and kind eyes
who sings you a song and you forget all about your other problems just to hear her
i wish i was the sapphire moon-dusted angel beaming on a shooting star
above your home with sturdy walls
but i am not
i am not headlight savage, i find meaning in otherwise meaningless things
like a sudden crinkle in the corner of your eyes
like a butterfly landing close to my nose
i am absolutely nothing
not a mermaid girl, not an album cover saver, not a flapper girl stuck in the wrong time period
i am a deeply disturbed individual
so filled with nothingness that it courses through my veins
and i bleed absolutely nothing.
i do not bleed.
i do not bleed.
i do not bleed.
i do not bleed.
i do not bleed.
i do not bleed.
and if i do, it is in sparkling lake water at one a.m and i am lonely and so ill
and the world can’t fit my sorrow in its deepest sinkholes
and so i sit alone on the dock, in the woods with nothing but nothingness inside of me
and i weep with a mason jar clasped so viciously in my hand that the glass starts to feel sharp and it cuts me but i bleed
nothing
i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.
absolutely nothing.
there is sulfur in my lungs and what a lullaby this desperation is becoming to my sore ears
almost like a siren, but the only thing i lure is unsatisfactory algae washed up upon the creaky dock and i’m holding my head in my hands like it’s about to burst, but it all feels so surreal and suddenly i start to feel nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
absolutely nothing
and suddenly, there are butterflies in my throat and they beg to be released out into the mist hovering over the water’s edge, but i can’t seem to gag or spit them out so i pound on my chest but nothing comes out.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
absolutely nothing
and the air wraps around my droopy eyes and i must have been crying till it starts to feel like i’m barely even on life support anymore and i don’t seem to find an issue with that and that scares someone like me who just wants to leap off skyscrapers and lose all inhibitions and just breathe
and
suddenly
the butterflies start flying out of my belly and the pressure is so intense that i try to scream, but i can’t because my ribs are squeezed together so tightly that i almost lose the remaining oxygen left in me yet it doesn’t bother me because i start to look unhealthy and squeamish but i look so little against the reflecting light but i still see nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
oh, something.
something.
something.
something.
something.
something.­
something.
just something
but i just can’t and i accept defeat for i am the weak-minded damsel with daisies collected in her hair, but she isn’t weak she just wants to be loved just wants to be rescued from the sadness that leaks into her pores and descends onto the carpeted floor she just wants to feel something.
something.
something.
something.
something.
something.
something.
just something
but she searches in the places inhabited by sea monsters and abrasive deciders and it doesn’t seem to have an exit or a release from
the turmoil, but the wings of the butterflies get caught in her esophagus and coughs don’t suffice it and now she’s grasping at the last fiber of being that still exists inside of her
but there’s nothing
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.

absolutel­y nothing.

one step and you’re there at my door. two steps and you’ve made your way inside. in my house. my doors were opened by a gust of wind and you stumbled in and i should have slammed you out, but i didn’t because i’m a coward. you’re a strange species. you’ve broken into my safe place, the soft place where i lay my head at night. you’re next to appear in my nightmares. a shadowy black figure standing inside my closet, lurking. being alone isn’t as lonely as i feel when i am with you. you punch my ribcage and i start to feel nauseous, but you just blame it on me. soon i will wreck your perfect life and send you crashing down the cliffside. soon i won’t give you the leniency and forgiveness i perpetually gift. soon i will lose focus and you will be blurry in my vision and i will forget you forever. soon, i will let you go.

the laundry done and hanging
the bread kneaded and baking
the smell of Levi jeans
with rips on the thighs
Pablo Neruda’s poems
rolling off my tongue
along lakeside vistas
piles of ice in soda drinks
he hums “la vie en rose”
and i get lost in the world
i envisioned.

i know you have a good heart
your eyes are set on a victim
but perhaps you are broken
a wheel spinning out of control
whiplash
i’m a forgiving pacifist
seeing good fortune in the corridors
of your darkness
is it delusional to give second chances?
you wouldn’t know how to write my eulogy
you’d be tapping the pen
and
sighing
and
giving up
i walk the downtown streets with a frown
and my cheeks get bumpy from the stress

but i know you’re good at heart
and it just tears me apart
because i want to
resent you and your fanatical calls and your abrasive nature and obsessive behavior
and i’m trying to ***** out words
but it won’t let me
i’m mourning my intuition
around you it’s like i almost have none
i’m a delicate wanderer who wants to love you
more than you’ve ever wanted to
appreciate me

it stings like listerine in my mouth
as i try to flush out
the parts of you that taint my pores.
i can’t call you anymore

i lost one ghost inside these sickly-green walls
who makes me
forget how to keep being a human
and i’m pathetic and we’re all pathetic
smiling behind disguises
misguided
and misleading truth
i don’t wanna speak
to you and i know that would hurt to find out
that i don’t love you as i say i do

i know you have a good heart
so just show me it
in the words you say to me
in the conversations we have
just please.
just please.