i’ve got a wound i wish you would nurse.
i know, it’s a selfish request
to ask for closure.
but i have a mouth that doesn’t forget,
feet that struggle to move on.
i have an exit wound to offer you
and my brain remembers even if i hate that it does.
i somehow don’t hate you for what you’ve done to me
nor do i foster resentment towards my recklessness
i understand why it feels heavy in my chest,
but it must hurt now
so that it does not **** me later.

the skulls of what may
the ghastly figures
the ghosts of hesitant musings
the salvation that never needed me
the illuminations filling
the distant ring of dying bells
the lover asleep in wheat fields
the apparitions of the what-ifs
suddenly the world is all but what it is
a ghostlike vision enfolding as an illusion
believe so harshly it destroys to change
believe in me so harshly you cannot stand
amidst the glory.
the heavy locks are being changed,
we are the ghosts of what may.

**** me

like you know how
like how you did a few weeks ago
like i’m a meaningless ant

**** me

like how you do every time i dedicate words to you
like how you drown yourself in your own convictions
like how you’ve seen others do before

**** me

like you would if we were not friends
like i know you want to
like i know you have before

**** me

like i wish you would
like i wish you would jab the knife in my heart to stop the pain
like i wish you were actually honest in your beliefs
like i wish you touched me with bloodied hands instead of careful ones
like i wish you would get sick of everyone else and their bodies
like i wish you would just be like everyone else so this wouldn’t eat me up inside
like i wish you were proud of the things you discard
like i wish i still appeared on your mind like how you do on mine
like i wish you killed me instead of reviving me.

there’s only so much more dirt
i can pile over this tomb.
there are only so many doubts
i can bury
until i’m swallowing my tongue.
there are only so many times you can claim
you’re a man
before you start to sound like a child.
there are only so many times i can lie
before you see right through me.

i’m not dying to the sound of a lonely armageddon in this cycle of seasons.
just slightly absentminded in nightmares that i refuse to end.
once you stop trying to please
the shadow of another human,
you start to awaken without screaming.
but i’ll always awaken with clenched fists
a quiet, bubbling temper
simmering on the surface.
i won’t point them eye level to you this time,
i’ve learned to shift blame,
i’ve learned to understand your accidents.
and if one of them was me,
i forgive her.

it'll always be impossible
to forget
you.
in some kind of metaphorical way,
you'll always be standing rain-soaked
on my doormat.
the moon might sparkle,
your name floating inside its craters,
and i'll see every shape you indented into me.
i might lose the sound of your voice
echoing in an empty room,
my ears pressed against the walls
sobbing, pleading for myself to remember it.
if i ever get stuck on the interstate,
would i just stare at your phone number,
but refuse to call it?
i remember may, i remember march;
i was alive then.
i remember you with your hands that moved
up and down the seat,
i was always afraid
to attach some kind of meaning to you;
thought i betrayed myself when i did.
wrote so many poems you were the outline of,
almost forgot you entirely.

i'm living now with scars,
an absence of your space,
a loss of appetite,
a stained mouth,
a stomach filled with butterflies,
an esophagus polluted with their dusty wings.
i'm living now
with pages of writing dedicated to how it felt,
how i started to believe
i should've been someone else,
un-phased by your mercy.
i wonder if pennsylvania left you
in its clutches,
i wonder if ohio ever feels too foreign.
i wonder if i ever died on those
back roads,
i wonder if you were ever actually scared like me.

i drove past your street two times this week
but you’re in a different state
and i’ll never step out of the car.
i want you now as you are,
i feel you believe in me in a selfless way.

two times this week
and i already want to give in,
but what if you have a lover and
she’s soft and patient and so much less afraid than i am?
i’ll make your nights an inescapable daydream,
i’ll never make you worry.

why am i just figuring this out,
that you’re all i needed?
i went to a million parties that i wished i could’ve found you in
but you were in a different state.
i keep thinking i’ll see your face
where you are not
and isn’t that a sign?

if i admit this, will you cower?
will you have not felt every single moment as i did?
i don’t want to misinterpret this.
instead i’ll drive by your street two times
and remember how it felt to be loved,
not wasted.

our bodies touch, but what did it mean?
is selfishness all that you’re seeking?
are my highs and lows getting you off?
do you see my attachment rubbing off?
if i cry any more tears,
i’ll be a river, a stream,
a valley beneath your holy mountainside.
our lives touch but what did it mean?
nothing to me when before i was less naive.
i’m watching others finding new lovers
turn them inside out
but they stay.
i’m contemplating whether it’s a me thing
or if i can’t find what i’m searching for.
our bodies touch, but was it more than
what we had on our lips?
i’m lacking inhibitions, so grossly optimistic
and i end up collapsed on the floor.
the floor of your heart,
is there any room left,
were there ever any guests?
i’m not even angry at you,
only mad at myself for believing
there was any room left
for you, your ego and i.

why am i hurt by the fact that she sings in tune to your melodies?
you might not love me, i do not love you,
but why is it that i am hurt by you
dancing hand in hand with some woman or man?
there is no allegiance
yet my heart coils and burns
when i see you with her
and for that,
i wish i could punish myself.
i have no strength to bear,
no commitment to show,
but i am paralyzed by everything you do.
i don’t wish to sing in tune,
i don’t pine to harmonize
with your wavering melodies
hanging on my lips like a jungle vine.
i don’t wish to love you
for the image that you represent,
i don’t wish to love you with the power i have left in me.
why am i so powerless now when all that shot through my veins before
was strength?
why do i allow myself to submit to
an idea that isn’t even alive,
cannot come to fruition?
why must i try to align myself for a man who’ll never attempt to know me
for more than just what lies outside?
but i am hollow, and he must know,
can sense it from a mile away.  
why do i let the chance strangle me,
tame me, multiply until it is unable to be fought?
i have fists the size of my anger;
watch me be more than just my humanistic desires.
watch me burn this entire village down
just so the music cannot be heard.
watch me discover that the fire is warmer than your touch and so
i will shake in indignation
and swallow myself up in the flames of my rage.
i do not love you,
i love the way your ashes look on the ground: lifeless and shriveled.

lying here broken; fix me up.

summer of melancholy
stuck between my teeth.
sunburnt legs, unrequited emotions.
your grip like a hot furnace,
my skin melting into a glassy form.

(why ‘your’, it’s my poem isn’t it? my words frozen solid on the page—how dare you haunt me?)

shake my body dry
after swimming in a pool of your nothingness
i understand the word love
makes you quiver,
you make me want to shake all of you out like a wet dog.

(and it’s back to ‘you’ and only ‘i’ when it pertains to you. i live on the horizon of your greatness; i miss my own sunsets to watch yours.)

as they sit in a room
and turn into one,
i wonder if you hear my voice
bouncing off the walls.
i wonder if you’ve ever loved
something that did not touch you,
that could not offer a part of
themselves up for you,
but only came as it did.

shake my body free of you,
lean into the ‘me.’
come as i am,
leave with empty hands.
i am vacant
but i am unburdened.

BUT I’M DYING BECAUSE MY ARMS CAN’T HOLD THE CORPSES AND MY EYES ARE WELLING UP WHEN I KNEW IT WAS BOUND TO MAIM ME.
I KNEW IT WAS BOUND TO **** ME
WITHOUT CARING WITHOUT REMORSE
I KNEW THE TEARS WOULD SINK INTO MY CHEEKS AND MAKE THEM SOGGY
BUT I’M DYING IN MY OWN ARMS, MY OWN HANDS THE ONLY WITNESS TO THIS WRECKAGE
YOU’D THINK I’D LEARN BY NOW;
I HAD LEARNED, BUT I REVERTED BACK
TO WHO I WAS WHEN I BELIEVED IN LOVE AND I DO NOT ANYMORE.
I AM JADED NOW
BUT WHO AM I TO TOUCH THE WOUND
AND FEEL NOTHING?
AND I AM DYING FOR A CAUSE I CANNOT MEND
TEARING OPEN MY STITCHES,
WHO WAS I BEFORE THE TORNADO,
BEFORE THE GUNFIRE?
YOU’D THINK I’D LEARN BY NOW,
YOU’D THINK I’D STOP DYING
FOR THE SAKE OF SOMEONE ELSE.

and what if you’re the one that got away?
what if i wasted all those months hopelessly in denial,
swimming in my passivity?
those records play
my head spins
favorite friend;
you’re sick of me, i have a sneaking suspicion.
what if i’m still hanging onto your diction,
every party waiting for the way you crinkle your face when you laugh?
don’t be bitter, i didn’t understand the feelings when they were all that was floating around.
forgive my cluelessness.
i’ve been chasing immovable objects,
bodies that dance like fireflies,
bodies that fail to understand why everything has significance.
i cannot prove this to you;
i’ve run out of all my blood
and now the mosquitos have nothing to take from me.

i’ll find you one day,
dripping peach juice from your chewing mouth.
perhaps you’ll learn to resent me,
learn to forget the mark i left on your spine.
suddenly,
i’m searching for your approval.
i’m finding ways to wind up in your bedroom.
i’m looking for circumstances where we run into each other
and lock eyes in a way only we know how.
i’ll find you one day.
if we cannot have everything,
i’ll at least capture the summer sun in a jar
and give it to you as a symbol of my heart.
suddenly,
i’m creating stories where we see each other on a desert highway
and recall the nights that we danced with forever,
but somehow that wasn’t long enough.
i’ll write poetry that sticks to the back of your throat,
coat my sheets with your memories.
i’ll find you one day,
not searching for me,
content in a lifetime where our lives fail to align.
i’ll find you one day with someone,
and i’ll remember how close i came to being someone to you.
i wonder if she means anything
or if she just represents what you feel you lack.
i’ll find you one day,
at the edge of a bridge,
pretending to fly as you cannonball into the river.
i wish you had loved me with all you were capable of.

i wish you would love me with all you are capable of.

need to stop replaying the memory
why does it live under my skin?
at the bus station,
i’m watching these moments
pass by my head
i’m starting to wish i was her
but i don’t want his body nor his recklessness.
i’ll never be a girl you need
but then why did you tell me
all those falsities?
for me to keep them still
in the cavities of my chest,
to not dare release them
from their ribcage prisons?
there i go,
back to the memory,
back to the arms that weren’t ashamed to hold me
back to the rhythm of what seemed to matter
but now it just fades
and i’m expected to let it dissipate.
can you blame me for wanting to resuscitate it?

you shrink yourself down to someone else
create an image that might only work for a couple months
i hope you and him hate each other after all this
i hope you split his heart in half
i hope his knuckles get soft and his eyeballs rot
i hope you freak out when he’s beside you
i hope i echo like a freight train
in your brain
i hope the lies that you told attempt to sing you lullabies on your sleepless nights, but only conjure up nightmares
i hope you grip them hard in your palms and make him sob.
i hope your remembrance of me strikes you guilty,
i hope the circumstances make you wither,
but then i hope you don’t have to live with yourself any longer
and i hope you change
and stop worshipping yourself.
i hope this charade ends with you,
ashamed and sunken,
realizing that your ego will always crack
leaving only you and its remnants.
i hope you want it all back
but as you can see,
it is dead and buried.
i hope your body abandons your mind
 and finds a new host.
i hope you never go back to your scheming,
i hope you change
and never revert back to who you were.


i apologize; i am only a little spiteful.

when my breath fogs up the inside of this glass jar
that you keep me confined in,
my body pulses with the familiar letdown:
that you’d leave me on the side of the highway
if further instructed, pushed.
i am but a daughter trapped in her expectations
of love never comprehended.
below the knife,
i’m being watched
so i listen,
clip my own wings,
cut off my own tongue.

and what did i become in a moment—
not an entity i ever wanted to be.
and don’t you understand
i just don’t
have it in myself anymore
to mean nothing
to those that mean everything to me.
i became someone i hate
i wait outside, on your porch,
trying to trap light through my fingers.
i wish no one had to love,
had to tiptoe around themselves,
had to transform into what they never wanted.
i wish i never desired
to be meaningful to others.
the world would be much easier.
i don’t feel understood,
i just feel empty—
like everyone else is living but
i cannot
fit the oxygen mask
around my mouth in time.
in a cruel world,
i made myself the cruelest
and how do i reconcile with that?

what else can i give,
offer up until there is just a
shadow left?
i don’t know who to be anymore
and i just need to be guided,
hand in hand.
i’m young and the world
has left me lost
and i am nothing of
what i’ve always
wanted to be.
i am nothing;
i lose that feeling until it is
back on my porch,
trying to trap light through its fingers
and i always let it in.

the blue start of the night
stares into my bones.
i’m torn at the seams;
the company i keep does not wish to keep me
and, if it does,
solely like a secret, something to be
hidden, unable to be uncovered.
if i share all of me, what will be
left to say
and who says you won’t leave, let
me disintegrate?
there’s nothing to keep;
the depths of what i love
is unreachable,
unattainable. the
lives of all bodies that traversed
into and completely out of my mind,
left behind a trace of emptiness
that i once interpreted
as love—
a beast that denies itself to those
who ache to touch it.
i’ll lay blank upon the grass,
counting the ghosts of those
who have left.
watching the footsteps of them
get lost in
the passage of time,
sand covering up the heels,
chasing away the memories
that once lived in the dents.

you left footsteps in me;
the funny thing is i’ve tried to
preserve them, in vain but,
i cannot love what is destined
to be left behind,
what is bound to be lost to time.

and when you touch someone
do you want to conquer them,
take them over, make them submit?
when you lay to sleep at night
knowing you are in your body,
do you ache to be someone else;
i wish you were someone else.
and when you choose your ego,
does it feel soft and sweet?
are you proud of yourself
when the darkness lingers slowly,
leaning over your bed frame?
when you lay still,
still as the city at night,
do you love who you’ve become?
i hate who you’ve become.

i feel wasted by hands that graced my body
that have handled me how no one else has touched me.
i live in guilt, ever pressing guilt
that i was used
in ways i did not understand
in ways that only a man can.
to feel discarded, like a body,
just a body, just a vessel,
of skin tied to skin
and when you looked within,
the dive left you weak,
you hesitated to swim.
now i’ve been wasted,
thrown upon the bed
of the truck that you once drove
that drove me off the edge.
when i contemplate too long,
i dream that i didn’t jump,
didn’t wash my body in the foamy sea spray.
i bathe in the guilt that splashes over my head,
ache for a lover that doesn’t regret me
like only a man can.

when you found me,
strung out,
vibrant, completely free,
dancing on the roadside,
did it appear to you
that i was chaotically caught up in a moment’s breath?
unsure of the next minute,
if i would trip over my own heels,
stumbling over my own inability to be still,
dancing for distraction, faking love to seem important?
when you found me,
were you stranded too?
unaware of who you were
when you took a part of me
that was never even mine
but was never supposed to be yours?
who am i after losing myself,
for a moment, an hour’s clock hand touching me,
carving the reminder into my skin?
should i be loving more wholly,
dancing all alone—how it always was,
sacrificing who i am just to satisfy who i think i am?
and maybe this does not define me—
a minute’s telling, the time in which i was most free,
a vagabond pacing back and forth
on a machine-less road,
perhaps it was solely a destination
that beckoned
and begged
and i landed straight into its arms. there is
no further cause for meaningless regret
no further reasons to turn back time to reveal
the exoskeleton of something that has always been.
for once, the freedom should not shackle me
to an idea that not even i truly believe.
when you found me,
i was someone else entirely;
and you,
you were just a moment in time,
a moving thing of matter,
clinging to anything that would hold you down.

there is
no beggar that isn’t starving for a feast
of the heart, of substance.
i beg at your doorstep, count the minutes i wait with bulging eyes.
your mother is by the television,
your sister gathers newspaper clippings,
and you, are you even home?
is your light on?
i can’t tell.
and if i beg for the love you give,
will it feel just as i’ve dreamed
or will it feel like complacency?
there’s dinner being cooked
and the steam rises to the ceiling.
my stomach growls,
but the door remains closed
and you do not come down the stairs.
i watch through the window,
are you even home?
do you even notice my shivering,
my eagerness?
would you even love the person i’ve become,
the beggar pleading at your door
to just give her substance, love?

i’ll never be enough
though i wish i could be
for you—for gentleness is all
that is necessary.
and to love you means death
and it means loneliness
and being deserted,
condemned to the ground.  
the hunters are stalking,
the vultures are surrounding,
but they cannot recognize me.
left behind with the wreckage,
grasping onto the fleeting gentle
moments that pass by like bullets,
like gunfire.
i’ll never be enough for you,
never be loud or seen enough for you.
i’ll surrender to the gentleness,
forever she will understand me.

and now i’m
chasing lovers that other people want,
crying over my hideousness,
drowning my skin in
liquid thinner than blood,
testing my limits of pushing too far.
you see,
i saw him once across the room
and his eyes burnt holes through mine.
i know such a thing cannot be done
and cannot be mine.
i spoke to him as long as i could
when you were not looking,
i’m so selfish,
i think he steals glances my way,
but his heart is without a doubt empty
and unlike a haven,
but i cannot stop smiling when he laughs at me
and it’s a sickness that plagues me.
his shadow i try to chase
will vanish when i touch it,
and i want to love you longer
and stronger;
no lover could do such a thing as you.

on the corner, there’s a woman.
and she’s a mother to the small things,
a soldier on the battlefield of life.
she loses herself in the flames that
engulf her and
she wishes she was a real poet
who knew how to summon words.
she wishes she was chosen,
just once, but the world
she loves does not love her back
and she cannot convince it to.
someone else’s bones seem stronger,
less brittle, unkempt but beautiful.
the curls on her head move like
the waves
but the words on the page
do not speak back to her
and the candle blows out
the evening closes in
with its unbridled attachment
and she’s alone with the darkness,
making a home in its skin.

feel that one morning, i’ll forget your light,
wake up dead in a dying world
stop stomaching the night
that spins its ballerina feet
upside down on the ceiling
and with its mouth it mutters
words that i cannot speak
i’ll wake up without feeling
with tears staining the pillowcase,
lose the melody of hymns once given,
know to every ceremony i’ll be late
when the soft footsteps lull
dispersing into the dark,
i’ll forget the gentleness
that once lived inside my heart
a heart that became a wasteland
an exile for evils never committed
a world where once someone forgets you,
it cannot be remitted.
when that morning comes,
when the morning dove will mourn
something unborn that is already dying
i’ll bury my lungs in the grave you dug
i’ll destroy what we built
until i’m forever wounded in love.

you know i’ve exhausted the idea of not being your friend.
remember when we were close and little girls
who thought they would cohabit when they were older
and weren’t we a mess with our sleepovers and jokes?

you know i’ve grown tired of being bitter and ashamed.
the blame game can only keep me untamed for so long.
remember when the growing pains struck, at least i did,
and our horizons were broadening on opposite sides of town?

you know i’ve gotten sick of the want to ignore.
remember how our mothers and fathers used to speak
and they didn’t stop out of anger or disdain,
so nor should we.

you know i’ve grown out of the resentment.
remember how it used to fall to the floor until i used it as a weapon
to inflict upon you the same hurt you caused me?

you know i’ve exhausted the idea of dying on this hill.
remember when we used to run down yours
or wish to sled instead,
and how the snow was streaked with brown sticks,
as we found little trinkets left behind and kept them as our own?

you know i’ve forgiven every minor error.
remember how we said we’d know each other until we were old,
forgetting kids and just spending our time together,
how we’d never be separated by the roughs of changes?

you know i’ve tired the idea of writing poems for you that you’ll never read,
knowing i’d dedicate myself to you again in a second
but being unsure if you would ever do the same.

does it take all of me
all of me
me out of all people
to realize the nakedness? that i’m
bearing my soul for the heck
of it? for some “asylum”
built for the pleasure of others?
should i stand straight up,
laugh like i’m confident,
own the naked
parts of myself,
dance for the sake
of it, blow the horn?
live like i’m sick, live like
a parasite, going from
door to door, searching for cracks
and crevices to slip under,
sniff with the nose i forget
about all the time,
live like there’s more?

i’m alone on new year’s eve,
starved of life,
been living off of fleeing thrills.
i’ve been hungry,
lacking the flavor that lingers
on my tongue.
completely distraught,
all up in my head like i owe myself a debt.
the new year’s eve moon is absent,
but i need her;
she understands the length of my despair,
and she places hope in my palm.
nothing along the horizon,
just the vague glow of the Christmas lights from the passive neighbors.
unsure of what new year dawns,
if this one
will knock me off my feet,
waltz with me until daybreak
touches my cheek,
or leave me astray on a bustling city street
where the largest emptiness isn’t even in my own twisted heart.
and perhaps this year
will taint me,
paint me multicolored,
until my own shade of individuality cannot be seen.
fragile or elusive,
a patient lover,
a reckless ******,
a kiss that stays for longer than thought.
bigger shoes to fill,
new attitudes to convey,
new deals to follow through on,
old ones that have never been finished,
losing the fears of the past ages
that burned
down towns, left them flat.
if the new year unfolds like a film reel
with an unreliable narrator,
i’ll likely fail to look up at the moon,
lose my direction,
start believing the superstitions
with all my soul.
don’t leave me stuck on a bench
at the kitchen table,
writing instead of letting the world handle the anxieties for a while.
leave me alone on the edge of
a new platform
that makes feet sink past their comforts,
ankle deep in something i cannot control or hold with both hands or penetrate.
there may be new avenues to walk down
just to turn back around again in,
kinds of sabotage that
only i know how to bring upon the only thing control can control.
and new year,
don’t leave me alone no more,
i never wanted to be afraid,
watching the moon disappear like
all good friends do,
and have a stapled tongue
so that i cannot speak for those
who wish to
be heard
by someone,
anyone.

i’ve known war-less times
or the war didn’t leave its red mark of dried blood behind,
cleaned up the evidence nice.  
i’ve known wars that only hold weight in my mind,
imaginary bullets hitting imaginary soldiers,
the war leaves the skeleton of my body
in a ditch.
the forests are chopped down,
the memories are lost entities of ourselves.
i once knew how to love,
or the quiet meaning of it,
but all i know now
is barbed wire, machines without souls
moving on their own.
how do i find peace in the silence,
in the icy wintertime of gloom?
how can i remember the shoes of the dead,
the life they never knew?
i recall something,
that stings just like a memory,
the lost joy of a child,
the ending to the bitter tragedy.
knowing the war is too much to handle
for one simple child of peace.

it’s as if
isn’t it poetic
that i keep reminding myself
of nights with you
as if they keep the pulse
jumping and skipping?
minutes go by,
regretting the way i’ve handled such careful things
with such careless hands,
bruised and uncertain.
i’ve always been friendless,
straying into homes where the welcome is hesitant and worried
the connection we had
is hanging on the clotheslines outside
letting the air feast on it
and if you offer me a world
where the status doesn’t define my existence
or linger in the ether,
i will be satisfied.
the things we give in to define us
unless we prove otherwise.
and isn’t it poetic
how i write like you’re dead
or washed upon some shoreline,
sinking into the sand, feeling the pulse of your hands
for one last time?
isn’t it pathetic
that i think you can hear this,
this desperate plea,
begging to reach you,
but getting caught up in the
much more fashionable moment?
i’d never dreamed i’d have a husband
knitting in boredom, loving in spite of the
curses and the lack of courage.
isn’t it pathetic that i think about marrying
even at a time like this,
where you are staring at a moon
i can’t seem to fathom?
and sometimes,
i lose myself in my own weaknesses
and let them define me,
would you deny me,
if i offered you my earn?
isn’t it poetic that even in the depths of despair,
i still remember who you were
and i was confused
why such lovely things
could happen to the feeble?
i might never define what it felt like,
just that it was alright,
and i feel invincible:
guess love does that after all.

i was certain i wouldn’t become someone that i didn’t recognize.
but now a new year is dawning
and i still have nightmares about exiting my own body
leaving for a discovery
yearning for a change.
there is fog in the front yard,
persistently questioning my virtues
how i stay alive in cold decembers
frozen on the window panes
i have worn out the hearts of many a person
but it’s a new year
and this, i will choose to keep them clean
to follow the hearts that beat in the nighttime hour;
follow my own.

i murdered you twice but you didn’t know
i need cities and flat screens and muses and crowds
i need death on my lips,
crime worth committing
people worth talking to
love meant confessing
i hated everyone that i thought i knew
loved those who promised things but didn’t follow through
there’s women who struck my cheek with their words
and men that made me feel unworthy of the world
and i’ve lost who i was
and found who i am
no one can tell me what i stand
for. i carve my initials in every bathroom stall,
and i ache and the pain sometimes goes away
i knock on doors, hoping for miracles
you ever hoped so much
and it came true?
well, maybe with you,
i’ll continue to do
so
i’ll light the candles, turn off the lights,
dream of the person i’ll love tonight
and if it’s you, don’t fret, don’t worry
i’ll love you like i know how to which is right.

maybe it’s true, maybe it’s true,
maybe it’s something to do with you
maybe it’s true, maybe it’s true,
that i’ll spend this year loving you
maybe i’ll laugh, maybe i’ll cry,
maybe i’ll spend a lifetime asking why
why, why, why, why?
why, why, why, why?
why not, why not?
why not i?

and there is an ache
and there is a name
never confessed,
never admitted
the world was a bit softer when held with your gaze
there is a name
it sounds awfully like yours
like a poem, like a song,
like a new earth unfolding
from hearing it spoken.
and there is a time,
there is a warning,
love me one day,
choose the yearning.  
no space or time
could make me thinner
smaller or lighter
when your love is dawning.

why is love hard when it’s all i lived off of?
the backs of the weary men,
the hands of the mothers
that don’t know the time, neither the weather
so if you wanna stay,
the longer, the better.

and now is just the end of something i cannot begin again
my jaws clenched,
suitcase packed and anxious to leave
leave behind the stories
that made you whole,
made you your present self,
leave behind the promises made in may,
the goodbyes frozen in august.
and now the ending is so clear
denial seems impossible of an option,
build up the walls again,
the walls built from fear
hide your body
if you lose it, never was it worth it
lose the weight of progression
start a new world you cannot dismantle
dismantle love, make it unrecognizable
unable to be recognized through a shoulder brush
just another universe, unable to be kept
keep the words to yourself,
swallow the sting of loss
trample the persistent pangs of hunger for the things memory cannot reach
hide until the hiding spot becomes a home
soft and harmless
abandon the idea of forgiveness for yourself,
yourself the one past forgiving.
disappear into the smog,
suitcase in hand,
barely lifted off the ground.
this is the end of something i just cannot bring to begin again.

no man is an island, but all that i see is salt water for miles. its taste as bitter as a slap; i must consume it. get drunk off of it. get lost off of it. die off of it.
there are dangerous things i have loved before. there are dangerous things i can sing lullabies to bed. dangerous things with beautiful faces and symmetrical smiles, bodies buried underneath acres of sandy beaches. for an instant, the harm solely seems to be self-inflicted, a wound the size of an almond, just big enough to recall. but i have swam entire ocean lengths to be someone you’d love, someone you’d capsize a ship for, someone you’d sing lullabies to. i know now i am a hazard, built to strand you until the uncertainty devours you too. the only feeling i’ve ever truly known is to be devoured, by everything / almost as if everything i may love is meant to destroy me, leave me stranded, dehydrated and muffled. sometimes i feel as if it’s just a part of being human—something so human; so deeply human that i am not immune.

not an evergreen,
staying alive has never had simplicity.
i’m angry that i made myself like this,
trimmed my branches,
thought things were not meant to stick to me.
i am angry that i thought
my savior is some wanderlust women
unfit for the journey,
jealous of the destination.

not an evergreen,
i cannot live without water.
the cold pursues me,
prancing in the unbearable wind.
there’s salvation on the edge of the horizon,
some soft meadow to lay my head upon.
along the line of trees, finding is impossible.
somehow not small enough
to be cut down and taken home and,
without a doubt,
i am not tall enough to see.

i don’t want to be a well,
that you only lower water down to
once a day,
or less if it storms.
when it rains,
i imagine i’m swimming in your tears,
soaked to the bone
in your dna.
i don’t want to be a well,
a stone foundation only standing
cause it’s expected to.
don’t wanna hold your secrets
and keep them;
i’m terrified of echoing stone walls.
i don’t want to be a well,
that’s only necessary if you’re thirsty.
when it rains,
you have other methods of drinking.
i don’t want to be a well,
far away from your home,
not part of your warm family.
i don’t want to be a well,
a cavern so deep
you can’t see
the bottom.
i need to be known entirely,
researched and studied,
so carefully,
that they’d cry if they spilled
liquid on me.
i don’t want to be a well,
that dries up in a drought,
so easily forgettable,
if it’s not needed around.
i don’t want to be a well,
i want to be well,
i want dinners inside, keep me alive,
not outside with the rainy season,
the growls and howls of wild beasts
untamed for such a quiet thing
as me.
i don’t want to be a well,
but i’m well over my head,
tripping over my own feet,
clunked with buckets constantly.
i want to be warm,
kept in from the cold,
the snow doesn’t know me;
i don’t know its fury.
would you get to know me,
if i wasn’t providing you energy
and love and my own sanity?
would you consider banishing
me?

could i love you more?
i have bandages, garments, hair ties—
things to contain me.
i’ll overdose on your medicine
yet i’m not completely sure how
to be swallowed whole by something
and not desire to be spat out.
i don’t understand my heart,
no one has ever tried to touch it
without my hand slapping them
out of the way.
i couldn’t love you less.
i’m beaten down and clawing
at my insides from the inside
out;
do not know how to undue the erratic.  
hands that could aid me
would only shape me
into such an apathetic shell
that couldn’t understand love
even if she tried.
and in trying,
i have hurt and abused
the very medicine intended to cure me
of such a sick and twisted nature.

i could not love you any less.

there is still time
to remember myself,
the happiest hours, the blooming trees.
there is still time to be someone.
there is still time to share my heart.
there is still time to remember who i was
before the isolation like a vine,
tied me up and kept me stranded.
there is no more of a reason to keep distress in my bed,
the villain disguised as an ally.
there is still time to believe and believe
as if the world never left me naked
and spiteful.
there is still time to give myself chances.
there is still time left to live even amidst the pressure.
there is still time to forgive,
there is still time to believe in myself
of all things.

i've been let down
countless times.
i've lost who i was while not knowing who i've ever been
but it doesn't matter anymore. i've
sketched the ideas of people who have failed me over and over again,
or perhaps i have failed them.
offered myself to some kind of world that casts me out,
that calls me a stranger, a liar, a dancer with no stage.
i've lost the need to love--it never needed me,
how should i desire its harsh arms? for the sake
of fear, fear of existing alone, living for myself?
and what is being alone--
the loneliest i ever felt was in a crowd, a crowd that does not
look deep into itself
to realize its austerity, to realize its small mindedness.
but to be alone is when the phone never rings, the welcome is slow and uneasy, the whole world is singing to a melody you cannot understand.
when all you want to do is love,
but nothing wants to love you, not even yourself
and you don't even blame anyone anymore.
how could you?

i'll drink it down:
the unmanageable pain
and lose my worth in the process.
the strength i’ve tried to pretend to have
since i was a little child
who discovered not having love
defines me.
i was always undeserving,
just once someone told me i wasn’t
that i could be happy
and foolish me believed them.
i’ll drink it down:
get wasted to forget
to change myself so that i am unrecognizable.
i believed in miracles,
but perhaps that was naïve.
i’ll drink it down:
the sorrow until it is one with my skin
until it is buried,
until it is unrecognizable.
until that is all i am.

the hands i hold collapse, i'm left tilted, obstructed,
a building built by careless hands
who know not the sturdiness it takes to keep the structure standing.
all i am is something worth tearing down,
demolishing to make way for bigger cities and richer people and taller things
and
empty promises of salvation.
the hands i hold are tired from a cruel days work,
they cannot make room for my vacant premises.
every world has no reason to keep me standing,
arms to my sides,
steel tiles tumbling to the ground slowly.
the hands i hold collapse, i'm left tilted, obstructed.

love is something you taught me
now i do believe it roams this earth, slowly,
perhaps too slowly, is taunting
me with its childish games
that someone like me doesn't understand.
i have been selfish with love: wanting too much,
touching it with greasy hands, disregarding it.
but, somehow, still,
there's always a bed with love waiting at the door
after tucking me in.
perhaps love does care, desires to bandage
my aching wounds, scraped knees, watery eyes.
love isn't some boy at a party i wasn't invited to,
it's the familiar smell of pumpkin pie, the conversations
had at the dinner table that
bring the laughter
and prevent the hunger,
the warm apple cider steaming in a mug,
the fresh laundry done and folded.
love has hidden for so long,
i almost didn't know it still existed
and sang.
in the morning when i wake up
and hear the quiet chatter of my parents in the kitchen,
for some reason, it never feels as if love is absent.

it’s november
time is slower than i remember
but it’s faster and faster.
your body isn’t next to mine anymore,
there are new pains unfamiliar.
somehow i get even sicker
and ache for december or
warmer weather.

everything is nothing new
lose myself in the thought of you.
some rabid cliche in my palms,
awakening the mind that stands on guard.
there is something almost dead
crawling in your neighborhood,
trying to find the most unwelcoming house of all.
and in those walls, you stand tall,
i cower at your sight.

in shallow tides
in open waters
the water slips through every crevice in my hand
nothing is
and do you think the lovers have everything they ever dreamed?
do the lovers themselves lose the meaning of love?
turn it into
something transactional
something found because of loneliness.
sick of being a lover in a loveless world
where the love i reach for is
just beyond
my physical ability to touch.

by nightfall, i am just a creature.
of habit one could say or
of countless wild misgivings.
a creature with her hands clutched at her stomach
that moves up and down
when the breath begins—
she is human
much to her dismay.
she claws at the human form she was
blessed—no, cursed—with.
the pale moon stares with fluttering open eyes.
i wish i could just hide
in the bushes and wait for
some other creature
to lessen the ache
that prances in my bones
like leaping frogs that never tire.
much to my dismay,
there are many nightfalls where
others do not question their positions,
do not wonder why or
pine for
another
body, a warmer climate to indulge themselves in.
i am but a creature
whose body is battered and sick,
where illness spreads throughout.
i regurgitate any satisfaction
that lingers
a bit too long for comfort.
this mouth shuts slowly
but opens again
and all the creatures of habit slip out again
from its opening

and the rest flood from the stomach walls
and i am not human anymore—
rather something purging itself of the danger
of its own grip
from the inside
out.

my sweet girl, you have broken me
in two, in three,
in a thousand shattered pieces
blowing in the wild winds.
i would like to love the impossibility of you
shamelessly diving into the body of water
that is you.

my sweet girl,
there will be no one left out there to
doubt you.
you'll be understood by those you
respect the most,
loved completely by the world that tossed
and turned you
like a bobbing ship on the open seas.

my sweet girl,
you'll be singing up tempo songs,
dreaming broadway dreams.
you'll be happy and without liver disease.
the panic will fall off your bones,
leaking into the clear shallow streams.

why, sweet girl, must you waste such a
beautiful existence hating yourself?
why must you deny yourself the love
you truly deserve?
why worry your mother to death?
oh, sweet girl,
why must you contain yourself for those
you have never met?
oh, sweet girl, when i saw you crawl out
of your cocoon, i wept,
for the change that would only make a greater world,
was finally appearing.

when the wind whistles through,
poking, prodding,
doesn't even see
every minor infraction, even after plentiful inspection
in that it has touched me more than anyone,
has known which direction it would blow my hair
in that in no time has it made assumptions
nor presumed
only moved
about with a firm motion.
that just the other day, anger had gotten the best of me,
wishing the wind would stop reminding me of my existence
in that the bitter cold reminded me of every thought
that had been digging at the surface of my skin
and the wind did not know that i had not wanted
to be understood
in that moment.

i desired to be misunderstood,
a presence as unkempt,
as thoughtless, yet tender,
yet warm,
yet violent,
yet soft,
being able to know
the depth of someone's skin—their hair that stands on edge,
each scar and all its painful attachment,
each memory they've kept hidden,
that for some reason stay dancing on top;
and i stayed dancing
as the wind whistled
and
told me of my reasons
and didn't laugh
at a single one.

the weak have never been strong
or maybe they’ve been strong too long,
holding on
to something that makes them quiver.
being loved,
does it feel impossible when the night swallows you whole and spits you up?

has it been love this entire time,
this entire period of sulking in haziness?
there are saviors on each corner
singing pretty lies
but they’ll never save me as you had.
there’s been apprehension
since the dawn of time
but this time,
i just wanted you to be sure of something.

the weak have never been strong;
never have i been able to lift myself off the edge of the cliff.
i’m extending both arms to you
as if you’ll save me once and once again
a masterpiece strewn on ***** carpet,  
a death rattle heard from the backyard.

my lungs do not know love,
but they understand fear.
nothing is meant to be.
i turn to dust.
i hear sirens in my ear,
has it been love this entire time?
some creature that was eating away at my heart
that i had to **** in order to stay alive.

that some creature always looked suspiciously like you.