i would like to love you like everyone else does
like a morning dove
awaiting morning
like a beautiful sunset
still forming
i would like to love you easily and breathlessly
count all the syllables in the words you say
watch you walk
watch you stay
watch you walk away anyway.
i’m so difficult to love:
i move in rhythms
i push away—i shove
i erode the land i pave
i can’t mend the things i break.
i can’t be in love with you—
that would mean i would have to stay.
i am disgusting, you are ravishing.
you are hourglass sand in my hands
and i have stab wounds too
you fall through
every time
through every corner of dying skin.
you would abhor me if you could just stop adoring me—
i haven’t felt useless since the day we met
but i have a selfish need to push, pull,
yawn and stretch
and move violently in indignation.
you were in the wake, you moving piece of innocence
you had no clue who you were meeting
and now i’m sure you regret
it.
i can’t be who you want me to
cause then i’d have to stay
and i’m not sure how not to move these legs.

in the end, i know that
i will watch you watch me walk away.

—i wanted you to love me
not in a selfish way
in a “i’ve never experienced love, can you dress my wounds” kind of way
i wanted your eyes to paint galaxies
over the acres of my skin
and make them shine like a constellation in the
light-polluted backyard

—i wanted you to adore me
not in a selfish way
in a “if you looked at anything else, it wouldn’t measure up, but that’s fine” kind of way

but you don’t have to love me
in a stain glass window church kind of way
you don’t have to paint over my cracks
and force me to stay
i would hold your hand no matter
even if the dam we built together suddenly came apart
i would hold you
soft—
ly

you’re so easy to love


   —i wish i was like you

i feel free
by myself
without any one else
any body that’s coarse and weak
i don’t need a body to complete me.
i don’t need your false sunlight,
your false sense of security.
i am better alone.
i am easier to manage.
i am easier to mold into something else
something cowardly
like trying to belong.
oh, why did i ever try to belong?
oh, why did i ever try?
who was i
to be so bold as to assume that i was anything more than just a dying art?
for you.
a dying art
for your cracked and callused hands
to hold and touch when the brush becomes a part of your hand
—you can’t seem to set it down.

i never loved you like that
it was just that you were
a raft to my dehydrated,
ocean-soaked body.
i never loved you.
i never loved your pores or your sweet talk,
it was just that you were the tourniquet that stopped the bleeding.
you were the peace treaty.
it was just that you were
the smiling child to my baby fever.
the edge of my doom was a little grassy field
off the cliff—
it was you.
i was never
—will never—
be in love with you
but you were a handmade quilt
constructed with a mother’s caring kiss
that laid over my body
so that the cold could not nip.
you were a constant.
and i know you know
i will never be in love with you
but i love you for what you made me,
for what you allowed me to become.
i will love you
till all time
for teaching me how to love who i am.
and hopefully,
one day,
i will be able to return the favor.

i never liked myself.
barely picking
myself
off the shower floor.
now there’s a storm
and it’s within me—
a dull buzzing
of a radiator
and a quiet alarm
singing its apocalyptic peace.

tonight i sit with a tightened noose

and a woman with tights
and jaguar plotting eyes
sits beside my body  

there’s dust and gravel
in the crevices of my sandals
and the laundry is upon the floor

tonight i sit with a bruise on my cheek

not from the pure pain i received
but from the pain that was
once masked as love

there’s a tree where i once stood
beyond the voices of doubt or condemnation
and the branches sway without hesitation

tonight i sit in the halo of the red moon

and
tonight i wish it wasn’t me,
instead that it was you

in the moonlight, i dream of being you
partially blue, but all there
unafraid and unbelievably able
if i were to be stable
perhaps i could be capable
of holding my arms outstretched
to reach a release that yearns for me
perhaps i could be capable
of moving the whole ocean around
in a tiny bottle
to lay in the riptide
consumed by the violent rise
and fall of the swells of
dwelling little white-caps
i could be more than you would ever know
i could be a you you’ve never known
never shown
never grown
up to be a “when push comes to shove” kind of
love-
r
i could be a you you’ve never heard of
never dreamt of
never conceived of
never believed of
but, of course,
the good ones never know
never show
never grow
up to be machines
always own up to be-
ing flee-
ing
i could be a me many have never heard of
i could be a me that is silent and swift like a dove
a silence warm, reached out in a hug
a soft streetlight that shines light not so bright as to blind
but as to awaken the right light in one’s eye
and in the moonlight,
i dream of being who i can fully be.

there comes a slow, soft afternoon pace and a dinner bell
i sweat, jogging, to the table,
soaked with the cherry blood red fruit of my labor.
when my meal is served,
there’s grease in the pan
and my hands are black as coal,
so it lathers my throat and turns sore.
unfixable bellyaches and frequent *****.
my hairbrush combs knots of dead hair, clumps in my fists
and the mother is a cross old women,
apathetic and unforgiving
she touches with a stonewall embrace
she tells me i am worth something,
and then she tells me i am not
as i scrub the dirt from every single step she takes
and wash my entire mouth with soap after every word that i slip up and say.

yet there is a place inside the trees
where there are fawns and fairies and peacemakers
and the meadow sings almost humanly
with a beautiful flute and a distant harp
and that is where the light is the brightest.
there are no cold, empty corners
hidden by the dusty rust of time
there are only staircases leading to the sky
and bounding rabbits and seashells nowhere near the sea,

but in this house,
the cruel and unforgiving mother
owns me
and i cannot fathom escape  
in this fit of naivety.

you are a fleet upon my shoreline
in mid-december
in the decline
of the seasons.
my impulse is to keep you captive
in an ocean net made to capture fish
i am not unforgiving so i despise this new version of me
there are shipwrecks to be uncovered
and sandy shores to be explored
there are glass shards in the hearth of my heart
they’re from shattered mirrors lying beside the bedside
that i drove a single fist in upon interpreting the impersonal reflection
i have remorse for the way my lighthouse light caused your tiny rowboat to become one with the island i inhabit
i have regrets for the way i watched your salt-licked body drag itself to shore
and let the possibility of you dying linger gently
i let the sea swallow you too quickly
if i obstruct my view, it’s just the lapping of the sea;
just the constant reminder of its immensity.

mattress stained with blood
nightgown hanging from a crooked branch
you look as if you’ve died and never got to Heaven
because your toes are stoved and purplely black
and i set my house on fire because your touch already feels like flames
it felt familiar
and although i hate your guts
somehow i escape my house unscathed in a plaid skirt in the middle of the midwest
and i assume you’ve relocated me from the scene of your crime
i scream into the smoky air
your sentences choke me—continually repulsed by the audacity you have to speak.
disappear, you vapid creature.

for the millionth number i can’t count of times you’ve made my heart want to spout out profanities and send a flood a ‘rushing your way
i hate to say
but i will with my entire chest cavity
i do not owe you.
i am not your pretty princess ready to bend to your wind or your will
i am starting these words with “i” because even that you didn’t allow
my opinions didn’t matter, my music taste didn’t matter
for the meaningless songs of yours i just smiled along to and tried to humor you about them so you wouldn’t feel slighted were awful
you can’t treat people like objects who are only supposed to serve you and expect me to love you back
and the audacity for your mind to be so clogged and to think that you will make mine too
i can forgive your crimes, i will forgive your crimes,
don’t you even dare think that i won’t.
you’re pathetic and that’s honestly incredibly sad
that your parents never loved you and all the experiences with awful people is the only love you’ve ever had.
tearing people’s skin off and expecting them to kneel at your feet,
you thief,
you merciless useless shell of a woman
what mercy do you think you will receive when you give me nothing when i have done absolutely nothing to hurt you
and trust me, i’d be the first one to know.
where’s that conscience of yours?
not in that heart of steel, nor in those dying robotic eyes
you are nothing to me
after how you play me like a toy
like a mendable device,
i will still be so nice, so smiley, so personable, so favorable to you
and my brain tells me that you don’t have an empathetic bone in your body,
and it would be a million trillion times right.
it makes sense when your parents haven’t taught you a single moral in your almost eighteen years of living, although you act like you’re three years old with a problem with sharing.
sorry, i’m using correct grammar, something you don’t know.
how many times can someone make excuses to just avoid you?
why will i haul you around this town just for you to call me the b word and act like it’s some kind of silly goofy joke.
i am not laughing.
are you?
oh, of course you are, you plotting sinister smarty
and i feel remorseful for saying those things about you when you say way worse and never move your tongue to apologize.
it’s just one word girl.
oh wait, it might be too hard for you to pronounce.
“i’m sorry” takes too much effort.
you never loved me
and i always knew that, but admitting that to myself would make me feel more alone, but now i don’t care at all
i am completely apathetic to you.
completely indifferent to you.
i never loved you.
come on, it was obvious.
it is obvious.
get a grip.
treating your friends like trash on a dirt road is not how kindhearted people act.
you are childish, childless, erratic, insane, a literal crisis in and of itself.
you are not my friend.
you are not my support system.
you are no one to me except a brutal dictator, picking and choosing what i can and can’t do with my life.
heck, i treat the ground i walk on with muddy shoes better than you treat me.
must be nice to feel so high up, but know deep down that you are just so low.
so low i can’t even see you from here;
i don’t want to.
you are utterly awful and i forgive you for that,
some people just can’t help their insufferableness
i think i just made up a new word,
but it defines you perfectly so i will devote it to you,
you slimy intolerably unempathetic (another word) angsty teenager.
get a grip and be nicer.
it really is not that hard to treat me like a human being.
i’ve been doing it to you this whole time
and you’re lucky i haven’t complained once.
so for now;
leave me alone.

what does this mean?
****** palms, downtrodden expressions?
i don’t want you to **** me
with your ****** palms and deep dagger-like fangs
pulsing veins are black
i’ve lost my home
do you think of me when the silence is all you hear?
perhaps lying there do i seem worthwhile even for a second?

you, a garden of hydrangeas and rhododendron bushes.
me, a nomadic soul too obsessed with being accepted in the natural slip of life.
my midnight moonlit sorrow
is eating me alive.
you, a sun-drop dandelion, too glorious to be planted near my seeds.
my tainted heart,
an obese beast lingering like a ghost that never passed to Heaven.
my inability to place value on that vessel.
you, a rose petal blowing in the wind.
me, lost little ladybug trying to find her way back home.

you wouldn’t love me anyway.

does this corner house have space for me?
should i be taller or smaller?
hiding or should i come out from under my bed?
cause there are children
and they’re laughing
and i’m smiling
but who’s counting?
suddenly, the light is not a pale yellow anymore;
it’s gold

beneath darkness, i fold the laundry
i pick the towels off the floor and shower
in freezing cold water
no dry skin, just instinct
cause there are raindrops
that fall like missiles
just not the violent type
suddenly, the moon is not a pale white;
it’s pearl.

plenty of phrases, soaked through the bone
eyelashes moving with eyeballs closed
it’s almost halloween
it’s almost time to party
for our souls
for our bones
for our skeletons we push inside our closets, we have a place to hide, don’t we?
but loneliness is an illness i would rather contend with
it’s familiar and frost-bite warm
i should’ve been warned
about “love” and hasty infatuation
these are my bones
creaky and unknown
they are alone
beside these muscles
that i keep so i
can convince myself i’m fine
beneath a cloak of darkness, of fear
you shouldn’t come to me
you shouldn’t dare
pack a suitcase full of your organs
don’t come to my part of this ghost town
let’s hide our skeletons away, so no one sees, so no one stays
to love us
we don’t deserve it
it’s almost halloween
and i will try to be me
behind a cave
carved makeup on my face
i will try to keep a smile
i will try to leave this denial
i will heat my body up with something besides the hesitation
this presentation, i will perform
with the skeleton in my room
that hides during storms
that is afraid of collecting friends like memories
someone take these bones from
me

through salty hazy eyelids
there is a passage of time.
high-rise buildings towering over
yet no surfaces of words appear soft
on my uneven teeth.
have there a remedy for this banal wording
or for this dread?
come to my wedding
the nonexistent death of my nonexistent cowardly heart.
there will be no groom,
just empty pews and the priest who will mourn for me.
foggy windowsills with a disillusioned soul inside.
good poetry shouldn’t have more than one metaphor
i shove them all in just for good measure
and that’s selfish.
aren’t we all just living hedonistic existences?
all bound to chains and fire breathing dragons
all firm in our decisions to remain exactly who we are
but i don’t want to be who i am
and i cannot articulate that any better.

the grass starts burning beneath callused barefoot feet
with blistered skin, bumps and bruises
shadowy figures form beside the campfire
embers and ashes
fiery and angry
the forest floor is enveloped and murdered
slowed appetite eaten by the pressure
i’m a dog at your feet
so wise but unable to communicate it
fog forms in the still dead woods
bits of my arms chewed clean off
and you’re the wolf with skin dangling from its teeth
pleased with your discovery

mind; so generous and kind
you can be.
so smart and so free-living
you can be.
i’m homesick for you
in another dimension.
held captive by the dying hands of others.
mind; so wondrous and loving
you can be.
i wasn’t sure what i had before in this garden of weeds,
but you were always there,
always there for me
and i’ve taken you for granted
made you my supposed enemy.
mind; so delicate and beautiful
you can be.
when the loneliness was the only comfort
you were right all along;
i want to be alone.
alone with you.

the swarm of flies is me
wheatgrass dry hair
regretting below the canopy
unkempt

listen, i don’t want to be your only,
your stop sign in the road
the swarm of flies is you
clouding my mind
making me confused

the rapid flight of tiny bodies
all dropping dead in front of me
unaware of their demise;
only aware of me

sweet breather,
the swarm of flies is you
panicked and anxious
erratic and angsty
i’ll never need a body to complete me
never need some hands to manhandle me into emotions i do not feel

maybe you’ll always need another skeletal system to inform you of how to exist
productively killing themselves
from within
the swarm of flies is you
a cold reaching hand outstretched to my flimsy bones
warning me to jump into the abyss with no real meaning behind it

the swarm of flies is me
my fluctuation of feelings
mixed signals and pushbacks

i’m sorry, other human,
so sorry i have retreated back into my own thoughts
pacing around a maze that’ll never be completed

the swarm of flies is me
for blaming you
for my own childish fears
for leaving you a corpse
mislead and exhausted

the swarm is me

i’m so terrified
of the dawn that creeps up behind this cabin in the woods
i’m so scared of the violent rush of seawater
pinning me to the sandy shore—slamming my body, so rough that my esophagus stops for a second
when there are people in front of me,
i push them away
so violently, so quickly
immediately losing sight of everything in front of me
and i’m so sorry.
what should i do?
watch as the things i wish for fly away into the dark atmosphere?
watch as the flame i ignited dim in front of my very eyes?
i’m decision-less
so perpetually confused
what should i do?
should i love you?

just a line
just some item to buy
to place your grubby fingers upon
when the reflexes get
too repulsive not to surrender to
then lay those surfaces upon my heart
greasy fingerprints
then disown me,
only an object of desire

let the rhythmic pause of neurons
define your sense of being
just
please
don’t infect me

pinstriped and perfectly perfected into paper towns paper heaven paper falsities paper lies paper lucid dreams paper love
placate every single soul who’s about to go overboard
play my game with ****** fingertips
take those sandpaper words and smear them on my pinafore dress
tied at the waist
too small, no, too big, too stretchy, too loose, too tight, too everything
i perform every time i step out the door
poised and prodded and paced
problematic
sickness in this perceived health
parts of me floating bloodless in the ether
pardon me, but are you scared of places that your parents haven’t gone?
particularly i don’t believe a single sentence that escapes those perfectly formed prison walls holding gums and teeth inside
on purpose, i have patience
for people with the same patterns of personhood as you
and almost painfully,
i watch this perfect place catch flames, burn into paper perception paper wishes paper puppets paper precision paper people with paper powers with paper pleasure and paper pets and paper feelings
i deny this premonition,
i have been promised love if i continue with this patience
please paint my skies golden brown in this paper town
and i will pace by the doorway
peeking through the window panes
politely waiting for the headlights to pull into the driveway

—
no pressure, any time will be fine

those deep fangs
pressing upon pale purple skin
that poison,
damp on your tongue,
hitting the roof of my mouth
violently and persistently

you patronizing pain inflicter
with that wicked soul
pursing red velvet lips
drooling at the sight
of a fresh-blooded miss

the girl with a smile carved upon her cheeks
those golden-stalactite eyes
dripping rain residue on this coarse body

that cold-blooded smirk
impermanent generosity,
one side grinning,
the other frowning

you vile human  
with hair oddly blond like blinding light
those fluids dripping from your lips
irregular breathing patterns

you’ve made this fever festering inside me
feel like happiness
you’ve made this uninhabitable cavern
into something so familiar one can’t quite place
you’ve made me bleed from these eyelids

and feed it straight to you
like i am some chess piece
in some childish game for you
but i cannot stand this
and no i will not keep humoring you
i will use this body
for something other than for you

gardening hands
sliced wings—
you make me happy
and i don’t mean to sound corny
but it’s true.
i am not in love
but time isn’t creeping behind stone walls
time isn’t slithering like a snake
in this garden
the smile cannot stop before it hits my lips
the river is smooth
and settles in my throat
naturally.
i am not in love
but happiness is clinging to my torn sleeves
all the factory floors where my cold body laid so still
are getting renovated,
new floor plan.
harsh sea waters have calmed
after waging a war of hatred.
i am not in love
but this town feels bigger than usual
this gust of wind upon my head
is slowing by the minute.
the hour does not creep,
it moves along,
no hissing nor shouting nor demanding.
i am not in love
but the night spins achingly through my ceiling
as i beg and beg and plead for the sudden heat of the morning sun
sooner, faster
restrain me
i am not in love
i am only
happy

through tsunami waves
like fortresses
pounding with such force and restlessness
lay a hand upon this chasm
fissures along this human body.
blinked two times;
a signal for help.
you, an undercover perpetrator, spilt this ****** blood
there’s no rhyme or reason
for the capture of such purity.
the eagerness of the flesh
descending upon uneasiness.
one heart unmoored
one mourned
two hearts unbreakable
by a force of nature
so undeniable,
death is willing to submit to its feet.

when you figured out i could drive
you took advantage of me real fast—
“i love you’s” and all that fake allegiance.
well, guess what—i will burn the town we found leave it in wreckage
i will be more than who i am around you;
spirit sucker
undercover.
i hate how you talk to people
all crass and aggressive.
selfish little clinger
i’ll leave these daggers in my flesh
that you placed there for me
after you got mad i didn’t give you everything.

i am homeless in this hopelessness
aimlessly bound in the instability
fragile, weak, pathetic.

there’s a string tied to my seemingly weightless ankles
brutally thrashing
splashing in inescapable fate
along the carefully constructed dock
two hands hover over the water
they do not reach in to pull me out.
they do not reach in to pull me out.

humoring the doubt that inhabits a single house above an ocean current
counting the comets in the sky
this is sincere gasping
clawing at the murk
there is a bright lighthouse lamp flashing
but there is a blindfold closed over my pupils
nearby a ship sits docked upon the shore
held by a ten-foot anchor
the captain does not try to reach my boat.
the captain does not try to reach my boat.

there is an island in an unnamed ocean in an unknown location
the organisms gnaw on my skeletal structure
and among this plight
rare will a light start to shine
there are feet that ne’er surrender
but there are lungs that must concede
there are nights upon us that will slip me in underneath the veil of false serenity
there are failures that will taunt us
with their vines
like black silhouettes that howl
in the deepest darkness.

and the fair truth is that i will never be rescued.

stillness of fear
creeping upon the backside of my neck.
wingless.
sometimes there are echoes echoing from my cynical brain
slamming the alarms, singing the warning calls.
a twinge; so sudden and immersive.
this primal fear;
a part of me that aches in the depths of a realm unheard of.
silence is feeding off my weakness
yet i am too proud to put an end to it.

how i wish to be a harp note in a russian symphony
how i wish to be a dragon, longer than six feet
how i wish to be the line that is on that narrow face
how i wish it wasn’t that easy to find someone to replace
me
how i wish the moon would stop and tell me the truth
how i wish i heard Jesus’s name from the mouth of you
how i wish that we didn’t have to lose some seeds along the way
how i wish the death would come fast and then be on its way
how i wish my hands weren’t so shaky when i speak
how i wish the words that slip from my lips didn’t puncture me
how i wish time could slow down just for me to catch a break
how i wish the sea would settle down when i am in its wake
how i wish i could be more
how i wish you could adore
me
how i wish this world was more forgiving
how i wish i could fly
how i wish i knew why
how i wish i would stop wishing for an end
to something that just began

in an unstable way and way that is incapable
to recover from
i am incapacitated
weak stringy sick
poles for legs
twisted ankles
that don’t stand up
out of their own will
but by the unruly gravity
of planet earth
the clock strikes august
intake watched,
just parsnips
upon shaky lips
hesitant to chew
with the fear of a black hole—
endless unhappiness in all manners
inside of me
is a miserable mechanic
who keeps drilling
and replacing
and hollering
for continuously
i have lowered my brow
and combusted
leaving pieces of machinery
burnt and ruined
for his sore hands to
pick them up
and work away
slaving precious days away

there is music made by the delicate
cadence of my mortal heart when your name
is spoken from this constructed abyss
absent of the means for real happiness
there is a chapter of my life that is 
undisclosed, there are seeds planted in the
soil where your heavy feet once trod by day
there is a rose bush neglected by soft
gardening hands by the landfill where your
hollow corpse lays, as ***** rainwater trickles
down my spine, in places your fingers will
ne’er reside, confiding in your shadow
dare say if the infrastructure faces a
sudden hurricane surge—friends forever.

in moonlight mist beyond my fingertips
i trace the lunar patterns and come down
with a fulfilled thrill cast fishing pole hooks
inside the wild Milky Way galaxy
starlit strips against my lips reflected
by striped curtains folded on window panes
sweet Sirius on stilts along the brink of
reaching slight nightmarish ultimatums
hosted by my own unenthused gimmicks
that sink upon sheepish fragility
imposed by God, the sole pure deity  
though one must utter to the stars thinking
they are to suffer alone, forsaken
instead awakened by the knock of morn

darling mellow sunshine,
paint your words upon my tongue
so you do not have to move your lips—
i will do the task for you.

darling hilltop basking bluejay,
dance in defiance
in the long grass—
you never have to impress
anyone, but your creator.

darling dazzling firefly,
shining in the backyard,
sit with me on the porch swing
until the afternoon strikes us groggy
and we will sleep within the overgrown weeds.

darling seaboard sandpiper,
splashing lukewarm waves
upon the body you call yours
dream until your dreams become fulfilled.

darling intimate flower field,
the cumulus clouds above
draw shade upon our upside-down faces
be free and become one with me
a cautious lover,
a dandelion spread by the wind.

adorably flimsy darling,
i love you.

the clock ticks by
foreign matter in my lungs
choking back the truth
and i don’t know why.

homeless nomad
clinging to chains
tied to the ground
clad in wormy silk.

i tried to change
myself for someone like you
someone with a
cruel mind
in place of a crueler being.

i tried to change
all for you
yet still crammed in a jail cell
with rats as friends
who scoff at my
loneliness and
feed off of my fear
take me over,
i don’t desire the person
i have become; who i have tried
not to be

i couldn’t remember your middle
name if you asked me to.
lee or mary?
i’m an island
and you’re nebraska,
surrounded by a
million proud people
positive in a combined effort.
i’m still the same girl who said we would move in together when we were older, but we were twelve and so naïve to the
idea of broken relationships.
the middle of june stings me each year
when the calendar tells me
it was the time you were born
and i can’t write you a note
because i’m too afraid to invest too
much of myself in a girl i don’t even
recognize anymore.
right in the pupils,
you didn’t smile.
i’ll be quiet for the sake of you
i’ll go under your radar
till you forget my meaning
to you.
this love is so selfish or
what would i even call it?
i don’t even think about
you or your prairies
just the childhood memories
shot in the heart of me
by one big arrow
it says “don’t let anyone
be your best friend
because it will end.”
i should have taken that advice
and ran for my unworthy life.

your muted applause
in a vacant miscalculated amphitheater.
if it makes noise,
i don’t hear it.
if it doesn’t,
i’ll pretend to.
i’ll tie your vapid words to my feet
and sing with the past fallen civilizations.
at least we’ll have something in common.
envy like ivy,
creeping up the walls
of my abandoned house in the
middle of the woods.
i’ll preach for the choirs
singing my guts out
for the fakers and
gladiators who all doubt my strength
cause’ pull away when you feel like the plot for ****** is starting to include your name.
somehow it doesn’t stain bitter snakeskin,
it only brings closure to being with who i don’t
consider to listen to
all the notes carried
so forcefully.
my stage is starless,
gotta confess that
the acoustics are awful;
forgot to smile.
you would’ve listened
if you really wanted to.
you would’ve licked the seal of the envelope
mailed it to me
to show your gratitude
and your generosity.
but instead you sit forging
your own signature
on the corpse of this friendship
while i cry over spilled milk
and birthday cake smudges
over tile floors
too repulsed to mop anymore.
too unhinged to care anymore.
too alive to be killed by your sword.
too loud, but not loud enough
for the sound to travel to your eardrums.
still, it’s not much to ask for you to just move
a little closer.

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.

and suddenly,
a burst of sunset licks the tops of the buildings
i am a young lady wearing silk
that dips down below my hips and my knees
he’s wearing black leather
tailored suit and wrinkled button-down
he leads me up to the rooftop
on spiraling staircases twisting fate inside their creaks
he drapes his suit jacket over my shoulders
as the dusky chill sweeps between our bodies
my hand clutched in his
resting my head on his powerful chest
the riviera unraveling the stealthy secrets of night
little sweat beads cling to our foreheads
the dry air enters our mouths
and we are speaking so eloquently
in different languages
swallowing our egos
as a haze splits the atmosphere
and i start to see your brown eyes fill with reminiscence
the moon caught in your eyes
like your pupils are the ocean waves
and their changing tides
and i’m smiling with my eyes
with my cheekbones
and i’m laughing at every single one of your jokes
and i don’t feel alone
and suddenly,
i’m wading in the water up to my ankles
and you’re grasping my hand
as if you’d never even think to let go
and i’m splashing around like a overgrown child
frolicking as you stare at me with such peace
and contentment
your embrace comes over me like the foamy waves
and i don’t hesitate

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.

in a yawn of disbelief
you sat beside me
you must have wondered why i never say enough.

swaying trees and
impending horror
climbed into my bones
i was frozen
with fear
and you were so sure
so perfectly intelligent
so courageous without a hint of
cockiness

i’ve never kissed anyone
except in my dreams
of a man who takes my hand
and we sit on the ledge
above the leaves
and i shiver
but it’s so warm
i can almost feel the surge
of real life, real life
taking over

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.