i went to the trampoline park yesterday
and let me tell you- i have never felt more free
bounding and jumping into the air
i felt my soul condense and release
and turn into flames and dragons and mythical creatures
i felt the pressure leave me
it escaped from my gaping mouth
i stopped caring for a few hours
and it felt as if time was going super slow
it’s funny how today
the next day
i feel sore
as if it hurts me to be free
as if it is detrimental for me to get ideas about escaping
like i should be trapped in this crammed atmosphere
sore and beaten, nothing more than a menace
i can’t be free
i can’t be free
i will never be free

i’m sorry
that i crumbled walls that we built standing up in a time of depression
an immediate regression
of faults and “i’m so terribly sorry”
you could’ve held me
i could’ve been your girl
if i didn’t take the sharp end of the sword
and push it in your back
as you let out a yelp
i’m sorry i wish i would’ve asked someone for help

to help bandage you up
those broken twisted bones
i was selfish
and opaque
i couldn’t let you stay
in a haven built just for my oppressive skeleton
build you some magic
then take it and grab it
and force it away
now i’m stuck in the same
pattern of anger
and “i knew you better”
no one can fix this
not bandages nor warm weather

i’m so sorry i’m selfish
i turned us to dust
no, i never loved you
i just wanted to be loved
someone to touch my back
and reassure me
make sure that i am the one in their favorite dreams
about becoming the hero
and being superior
you scraped your knees on my concrete
my hard rock consistency
you shattered my pattern of irregularity
but i never made it over the wall we built
with our sweaty fingers and our puffy cheeks
till it crumbled at my feet
and i slowly stepped over it
just for me to see you
stuck in the rubble.
you reached your hand out,
but i completely ignored it
i’m sorry, my darling, i hope you don’t hold it
against me forever
cause i would’ve loved you better.

i could’ve loved you better.


i should’ve loved you better.

i am trapped.
glued to the floor.
quicksand around my ankles.
enveloping my lungs.
can’t breathe.
can’t stop.
dragging me down to the depths.
the depths of inescapable nightmares.
tumbling.
sinking.
begging.
screaming ****** ******.
sand filling my throat.
scratching my esophagus so roughly.
clawing at my sensitive skin.
scraping my neck.
open wounds.
hourglass specks falling on top of me.
quicksand pulling me under.
can’t think.
can’t breathe.
arms reaching for anything.
branches, safety—more sand.
bubbling stomach with layers of salty sand.
pleading.
suffocated by the dust.
head underneath.
engulfed by the vicious sand.
gone.

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.

your lover wears silk and paints her nails.
her hair is blond.
meanwhile i was blind to your longing.
you laugh at my jokes
while she dances in restaurants with her model-like accomplices.
she’s spring,
i’m a winter chill climbing over those limbs of yours i long to lay beside.
does she make you laugh
even when the jokes aren’t funny
even when your nose is runny
and even if you spill out too much of you
would she adore you just the same?

killer, i have your blood on my hands
and a pool around me.
no intentions of losing you today
but still i let the gray of sadness
devour me
until it convinces me there’s no one else.
and you were something of a stand-up guy
and i’m a woman who sits down quiet
and makes problems out of her tender relationships.
killer, i have nothing to say to you
after everything. i wished i used you instead
then you could hate me
and bruise my heart
instead of me bruising yours.
i have all these dreams where it goes right
and the ringtone reaches your little line
and the laughter flows like honey from the earth.
killer, i am such a danger to your vibrant fuse, your dance moves.
we are glowing stars blind to each other’s light.
i lie down in a pool of your blood,
ashamed that i had to take the knife
and force an ending upon you.
killer, how did i ever expect to be loved if i
i didn’t even welcome such a thing in?

would it be easier if i was prettier?

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.

i could’ve lived in your irises
now, instead,
all my regrets waltz with their arms tangled
on a whim.
i’m too red in the face to reach out for yours
to dance till the morning sun shines
we’d then have to hide
from the brightness
the lights on our faces.
i’m too ashamed to love you without the dark veil of nighttime that swallows me whole
and i occasionally let it convince me of how this will go.
i’m too embarrassed to love without borders,
even after your friend called us something to consider
and i consider
until i start lying
and pulling on my collar to avoid the subject:
i love you and i do not regret that.
i’ve locked myself up in a castle of my fears
trying to adore you through dungeons and tears
though i can’t seem to tell you
you’re all i want here
besides the night chill in autumn
when you touched me softly
with words, “i am worth it,” and
“i’m so deserving.”
let’s dance till our teeth fall out
rot on the floor
and bury our bodies
to create something more
a whole garden, a lilac, a whispering willow tree,
anything to solidify us into eternity.
i’m so scared i’ll forget the steps to our favorite dances
and accidentally step on your brand new shoes
maybe you’d scream and holler
at me the pure bother
or maybe you’d take them off
and say you never needed them in the first place.
pathetic, i’m scouting for little spaces to hide
i’m so wary of you in this light
but we’ll sing all the songs
the way they were made
and i’ve constructed a million classic cliches
for you to involve yourself in.
the music becomes us, we become the music.
i’m sorry i had to disappear for a moment;
had to get some fresh air, the corridors were buzzing,
i see fireflies, they remind me of you
how they never care who
is watching or witnessing
their perfect glory
even when they are caught in a jar or a hand
they fly away because they don’t understand.

let’s watch these bugs till the morning comes
and the light might creep up, slowly descending on our smiling faces.
i won’t forget,
i’ll never regret you
even when the morning reveals our intentions;
i always meant to tell you anyway.

i trudged through frozen rivers
passed through red oceans
i bottled up my feelings and tossed them into the wrathful sea
fishing ships skimming through the vibrant bay
caught wind of my hopeless message floating meters away from where they cast their nets
tiny thoughts floating through levels of salty sea foam, devoured by the vicious waves
breaking, scattering and tossing seaweed into the briny air
“land **!” they bellowed, tying a thin rope to the side of the vessel
wonder if that truly makes a difference or that the boats just don’t really desire to depart
with unwashed fingers and hands, they ripped the bottle from the ocean’s greedy grasp
observing it with curiosity, they tapped on the glass of the object
the bottle cap popped open, revealing the suspicious contents
pouring it out onto the dock, they whispered when they saw the small yellowish letter lying flat; my letter
the captain read it to himself quietly and deemed it unnecessary to repeat to the rest of the crewmen
“perhaps, it is time to rest. the moon is almost at her peak.”
the captain uttered a couple words, for he was astonished such a hopeless thing could float ironically in the most teeming ecosystem to ever exist
my feelings were daggers, and not knowing where they originated from worried the captain

but everyone rises and falls
everyone lives and dies
everyone hopes and becomes hopeless
water carries secrets,
and in that, it holds stories

  -happy ever afters don’t exist in the ocean

i’ll once believe we have something, some kind of ember
some kind of fire that doesn’t scare itself
some kind of blaze that never escapes
that keeps growing and forming and whistles all day.
there’s some kind of weather
that makes me colder
and you, warmer.
some kind of change blowing through the summer air
some kind of new wind unheard of from here.
there’s some kind of vigor i wish i had
that you do  
and it’s so easy to get swept up in the current of you.
no matter where i swim, the tide carries me down the wet sullen stream.
i’m back in the heart of things,
something is grabbing my pant leg;
it can’t be shaken.  
i float down the river,
weaving our love into baskets to send off to the water.
i’ll once believe we have something
when you pull my shaking body out from the water,
wrap me in a towel
and place me by the fire.

near some kind of ember
floating till its death.

your existence is a knife in the back;
i can’t complain,
i let you in with your murderous crime-plotting hands.
i stayed put and watched the blood drip
down each leg.
i didn’t try to plug the wounds.
i wanted you to hold me till my breath stopped and the time slowed to a lull,
till i laid limp in your arms,
still and hushed.
i wanted to be touched undecidedly
not knowing where to place the mess you left behind.
i wanted to haunt the memories in the front of your mind,
swiftly slithering about,
till all you knew was what you had done,
but it was passion
and yet i love you still.

he was crying in his hands. the tears were dripping like little gum drops. i stuck those tiny suckers into my mouth. they dispersed. it tasted like adversity or my beach house in Virginia. i miss Joanne. oh, no. these small little candies are reminding me of her. of her radiant smiles. but right now, he’s the only thing in my view. i can’t feel fear when we are locked together. locked together in the gates of a presumptuous heaven. he spoke to Michael. i spoke to Raphael. because i saw my cerulean clothes move. that’s the color of Raphael’s dreams. and Raphael told me that i shouldn’t worry my mind thinking about what could be. he said that u, Joanne, are a lost one. he also said i shouldn’t miss anyone that doesn’t miss me. what Michael told- let’s call him Jesse- he told Jesse that sobbing on the street across from an abandoned building is disappointing. he said that Jesse should cry with someone who will lick up the candy from his watery eyes. i overheard that part. and i grinned wisely. ‘he can cry with me. he can dance in the strawberry lighting of my doorway. he can shrivel up like an onion and then grow a tree the next day. he can catapult like a rocket or become a successful astronaut for n.a.s.a.
i will remember to delegate my legacy and make him squeeze it in between his loyal fingers and spitefully hug him goodbye when i know i will see him later. yes, Michael the archangel, i will make sure to sweep up his salty inquires and not let him climb over the fence to strangle the neighbor’s cat. i will moisten his dry edges and put him beside the wallpaper of my living angels.’
Michael smiled ressurantly and took my hands. I smelt the grape wine snug below his tapestry tongue; i knew God wasn’t too far away. but i didn’t want to be a bother. and both archangels flew us back to muffin earth where both Jesse and i sat in silence cause we had just been talking for hours and coming up with fantastical stories about the archangels. oh, find you a person who will be delusional with ur illusions and drink cranberry cider combined with vinegar and say that it tastes “nutritional.”

breakfast in bed and perfume lingering in the stuffy air
stiff bones, the smell of bacon traveling into my bedroom
the hoarse lungs of his gagging and coughing in the other room
slamming bottles down in the kitchen, mumbling to himself
tears might be trapped inside his eyeballs, but he flicks them off before they spill down his regretful face
i lay in the half made/half messy bedsheets, almost motionless, sunken into the duvet
piles of vintage clothes laid all over the carpet, distraught and in a panic
my breathing slowed by the adrenaline rush of last night, heart beat skipping
he stumbles and grips the doorframe tightly, observing if i am asleep or not
my eyes pulled shut, tight as an opening to a safe, trying to calm my breathing in fits of trepidation
his hands—cold and clammy—graze my arms and he sets the tray down roughly
“eat,” he demands
i leap out of my pretend slumber, panting in worry, but too exhausted to fight it

so i eat.

the beat of drums pounded into her heart
releasing signals in her brain to jolt her head up and down to the rhythms.
she sang and screeched and carried on long into the night as she kissed the cheeks of some man who called her cute.
she returned home with his tattooed arm in her coat, clutching onto her for dear life; the way he should have treated his phone on the dance floor.
he flopped on the sofa, slurring his words like a sorority girl; hammered.
he blacked out belligerently drunk on her couch and at one in the afternoon he arose, coughing, residue on his fingers.
his face covered in drool from sleeping dramatically like a madman.
she handed him an advil, a glass of purified water, and her phone to call someone he had had any contact with before.
his face was pale and sickly; she could tell he felt crushed by the weight of his bewilderment.
his eyes, though strung out, were jet blue with a glimmer of teenage angst and a spark of the hopeful nature of a child in a field of dandelions.
he uttered few words and collapsed into the firm motherly hold of the couch, struck from exhaustion.
he gazed up at her, who was half naked since she had only been awake for three hours and had nowhere to go because she was too embarrassed to bare the bruises in the creases of her neck to the public.
but instead of speaking to her, he started gulping down the water after taking 3 pills of advil to make the pain disintegrate.
carefully, he set the chilly cup down and stood up slowly and steadily.
he gasped feebly, but managed to prop himself up on his two wobbly legs.
“you alright there?” she asked as casually as possible, to make him perceive her as less of a threat.
“where am i?” he inquired to this woman he faintly recalled.
“oh,” she giggled, “my house. you blacked out on my couch yesterday and i didn’t want to move you, you looked so peaceful, so i just left you there. hope you’re ok with that.”
“okay with that?” he asked gently.
“well yeah, i’d feel pretty worried if i ended up at a random strangers house on a saturday morning.”
he chuckled.
“well, to answer your question, yes i am quite confused, but i am a free spirit. so this is basically just a new experience i can add to my repertoire.”
she raised an eyebrow. “repertoire?” she pondered.
“well, i write music for a living.” he smiled sumptuously.
“you do?” her cheek bones got visibly higher and her eyes didn’t have the same troubled look to them as they did a few minutes ago.
“yes. i am not a very good musician, but my band and i get by. we play gigs at places. oh right, like last night. we were playing for fun and then...oh! a girl was kissing me. now i remember!” he was quite proud of himself for that.
“well, that’s the funny thing,” she started, “i was the one who was kissing you.” she laughed briskly.
“you were?” he asked, totally perplexed.
“of course. i didn’t know you were playing for that place last night, i thought you were a waiter or a pedestrian or something. ooh, or an alcoholic!”
“ouch.” he grinned delicately.
“no, no offense though.”
“too late, i already took it to my cast iron heart,” he joked.
she laughed.
“well, you were one cute waiter at that,” she stated seductively.
he smiled with his lips pushing into his mouth a little bit.

“thanks for everything. the couch, the advil, the talk. maybe you should see me another time. i play at bars all around the city. i’d love to see more pretty girls come around and hype me up once in a while.” his grin turned into a beam.
“no problem, i suppose i would like to spend some time around people who are rich and aren’t fun sponges,” she joked effortlessly.
“i can be sometimes.” her little giggles poured out of her mouth.
“well, i’ll see you around. hit those drums!” she called out to him as his uber arrived.
“sure thing!” he waved as he entered the car.
and for the first time in forever, his heart caused him to feel more emotions than his wicked hangover.

in the unrestrained tornado
i heard the scream of a little girl
she screeched and screeched and got louder with every breath she took
i heaved deeply
so deep i felt my ribs crack a bit
but it didn’t impair me
because i was too locked in to her helpless and terrified yet determined screaming
so locked in
that i didn’t take a moment to breathe

     and that’s when the winds died down
     the roaring halted
     stopped
     the shouting of the young girl was all gone
     the uncomfortableness that i felt, dissipated
     into the shadow of the night
     no damage had been done
     everything is all good now
     i didn’t know natural disasters could be
     created inside the mind of a poser

i harbored the monster inside of me
fed it juice and the best parts of me.
now honestly,
i just wish he would go away.

everything we ever did is now collapsing in front of my feet
barefoot and dragging over glass shards, fire sparks, and your skull.
i feed the monster
my insecurities
and it lays them in its teeth.
takes you from my liquid hands
leaving me empty handed
every
time.

everything you are is everything i am not
….will never be
radically selfish, i am, causing you pain.
the monster screams and screeches and i have to give in
every
time.

my teeth are glass and they puncture your perfect skin.
the monster laughs at my attempts
he tells me you don’t want me here, don’t love me.
he feeds me lies;
i believe them
and i am ashamed
for i let him get away with it
every
time.

i am ashamed that i have let you burn
every
single
time.

everything you ever did for me
is wasted and washed away.
i want to forgive myself,
but he will not let me.
he will not let me be free.

One of the first things I learned
Was that caterpillars break out of their cocoons
And become beautiful butterflies.
      So I tried.
I tried
Tried and tried.
I wanted to break out of my shell
But I never could.
Or maybe I’m not brave enough
Maybe I just entered my cocoon
And I’m about to break out of it
I just need the right amount of courage.

i am a dying wish—yours to be specific.
the wish dying in your arms every time the sun makes its rotation around the Earth.

there’s no life in me; i am a carcass strewn over the highway,
crushed and mangled and torn to shreds.

what if, if after every pound i lost,
i lost more of myself?
a skinny figure who changed herself to please a piece of glass.

when you said my name, i felt like you would leave me in a cornfield unconsciously anonymous,
yet you streaked my sky.
i’m shedding tears like skin, like burdened rain
seeping from the clouds on a day the world decides to die a little.

when the night is still, my muscles tense up.
i’ve been waiting for the memory of you to remember me,
dancing shameless on the ledge,
unafraid to look childish, knowing you were the first to make the empty void cease.

wide-eyed at the ceiling, losing two strands of hair in the shower, mailing you my address, begging you to stay.
you won’t—i won’t let you.

i am a foggy backroad, you cannot see through me.
all you’d see is a figure, clutching her stomach,
pinching herself for eating two meals,
for not resisting the temptation to feed the pressing hunger.

in your mind, the quietness i exude is only when my brain is confined.
there are shapeless memories and words that float until my arms are strong enough to grab them.

what if after every pound i lost, i lost more of myself,
drifting away into an unwelcoming atmosphere, unfit for someone as bewildered as me?

what if i love you and i don’t know what to do with that
so i write on a night with no moon visible from my bedroom window
and i lie awake wondering whether you are dreaming of me or whether you love me too
or whether we are nothing
but two memories floating,
remembering the other as their favorite one?

a friend to me is like a bullet,
a little sting entering my body.
a friend to me is a swarm of flies,
an unmanageable mess.
a friend to me is someone broken and ruined on the inside.
i love elusively and leave a forest fire in my trail.
you try to call the firefighters to calm my erratic flames,
but you cannot stop me from sabotaging.
you cannot stop me from being alone.
but i love you with every inch of my soul,
hurting when i see your letters slowly disappear from the mailbox.
the fire is violent and you are not fireproof;
though sometimes i dream you are.
i dream i swallow my worries and hurl them in a suitcase down a cliffside.
i dream i don’t burn down the house we built,
instead i reconstruct it when it starts to shake.
you cannot love me from a distance—
i completely understand,
that you wouldn’t char your fingers;
you wouldn’t have any left to touch me with,
sweetly and so compassionately.  
i cause the deaths of so many beautiful things because i fear they will fall apart anyway.
i feared you would run away,
leave me dusty and frail,
but you loved me until you couldn’t anymore
until my fire singed your skin
and your soul just couldn’t bear one more second of torture.
i understand fully why you had to let me go.

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.

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.

jupiter, dear
i love you for not letting the hormones in your body control your every move
the raging ocean and cascading waterfalls
dripping from your supposed emotionless hands.
you have different chromosomes than me
and you dance and i sit and you prance and i try to live
freely.
jupiter, dear
i don’t hate you for your chemical reactions
or the way you are so stupidly attractive
to me.
i will never know what it’s like to be exactly like you
strung on bodies and sunlit shapes
feeling around your out of body experience.
drunk on hazel eyes and i am tipsy off sweet conversation
ripping and passionate in the nighttime
and i am teasing and tumbling with somebody as pastel as the moonlight.
but i can’t plague you for the corruption of humankind
you aren’t a silk butterfly but at least you can fly
jupiter, dear
just because you have a different chromosome than i
doesn’t mean anything about who you are inside

the house i grew up in
festered with a body—a garden perpetually filled with weeds
the rainwater refused to fall
the roof caved in
stricken with a sense of unending
discouragement

i miss the poor girl i used to be
who smiled after she tasted her salty tears.
she tried to seek the positive out of situations.
the chains in the train yard wouldn’t dare shackle to her.
she stayed locked—unwillingly—in a strangulation cage meant for wild animals.
she couldn’t scream or thrash
for the danger she faced was inside her own home
grappling with the concept of his nature
bound into his fibers of being
chasing a reason for such cruelty that was instilled on me

when these songbirds are trying to explain to me
the own reality that confronts me.
like a shark to its ****,
eating so slowly, so monstrously
without a care.
anger is a ghostly emotion—apparently—and i was told that my entire life.
you can’t make mistakes for things you can’t help
or you can’t hurt someone because you didn’t mean to.
you didn’t mean to hurt me, so the stain on my mind doesn’t exist, right?
the pain i have endured, it doesn’t mean a thing.

nights staying up
praying for a difference
praying for deliverance
scared to wake up the next morning
scared the beast would crawl in between the walls
and plant itself into a vase inside my room.
woke up to crashing, banging, screaming, flailing, falling, yelping, sobbing, screeching.
living in an intricate world faced with devastation.

left me alone in empty bedrooms
arms around my kneecaps
clambering about for stability
for refuge
devoid in a void
clumps of hair collapse onto the floor
with a sore scalp and arms
spit on weeds to stir growth in them
no seeds, no roots, no living things
sprouted from the rouge colored fluid

police sirens would go off, thinking they would finally take you away
instead it was brutal beating and
no one came to save me.
the world i felt was icy cold, with icicles plopping down from trees onto the crystallized ground where my tiny feet stood.

the beast would shred the tapestries,
drown the happiness,
banish goodness.
claws as sharp as razor blades—attached to my skin and it wouldn’t free me.

came upon purgatory with tears blamed on allergies,
weariness blamed on tiredness,
fear twisted into nervousness.
do you think the inhabitants believed me when i watched the garden soak up with water?
no, they didn’t.
and i didn’t want to believe either.
the neurons inside my brain painted as façades, shapeless and blurry
for i could not worry if i left my mind in an alleyway
bound to be found one day
by a friend; not isolation, not consternation
but something that could bring forgiveness.

but violence—it’s red and unavoidable—
haunting every cell
like a tornado whooshing along a path
paved with fresh cement and bright bloomed roses
ripping up piles of dirt
flinging it around every corner.
it knew i looked up every night to find Heaven,
gleaming in the blanket of night.
from the gold gates to the strikes of my enemies.

the mind i knew grew cold
the situation was dense, kidnapped in the notion that suffering was forever—in certain circumstances it can be—finding fault in my own soul
instead of in the soil in the battlegrounds of a labyrinth

a corpse unlike any other.
shell of an aging body
built on the foundation of red violent tendencies.
flesh of an unidentifiable creature
alone in its reality
doomed to linger.
for forever.

who said this would ever be fun?
i am a gaping wound
just passed back in forth between my mind and my heart.
i don’t know how to breathe without an oxygen tank
pumping filtered air into my body.
i’d much rather be dead than have some machine breathe for me.
i am a gaping wound
at every party, i wasn’t invited.
i just stand in the background
and watch everyone else
live till they puke
love till they collapse.
special: why did i ever feel so?
every place hurts
because i smell your scent here
i see traces of your sweat on every chair.
everywhere i look, you had been there before.
dancing with your heart on your sleeve,
you learned how to live at such a young age,
can you teach me how to breathe by myself?
show me the ropes, i can repeat it,
even if you only do it once, i’ll break my ankles and shatter my lungs piecing together any little part i remember.
teach me how to breathe without apologizing,
how to lucid dream,
how to be someone you would never ever forget
even if you get dementia and your brain doesn’t remember how to function anymore.
i am a gaping wound,
but please wipe the blood and bandage me up.
never mind; i don’t wanna damage you too.

there used to be a terrifying place i had to go
but you came in with your skyscraper touch, now i have vertigo.
not sick to my stomach, just a little bit distressed
how you would want to see me loved limitlessly and dressed.
these wounds are boils
little coils round my throat
and you look at me long enough for me to almost explode.
never been a volcano, always an accidental surge
now i guess you mean it this time, i will surely self-implode.
never dying alone,
saw you in your overcoat,
we drove twenty miles south to a sweet girl’s house
then, when you saw me falling asleep you said it was time to go.
oh, i’ve never been so carefully watched over,
always straddled the line of being a complete soulless loner.
you are not my owner, when we get much older
do you think we’d be happy with our heads on the other’s shoulders?

was she just a friend when you kissed her chapped lips?
was she just a friend before we called it quits?
did friends ever equate to the same definition of mine?
you could’ve told me so i didn’t have to waste my time.

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

that hour is black
it is the hour to singe clothes, arsonists
the hour to burn houses and towns

that hour for children
to bolt from their swing sets for cover
the hour to board up windows

girls with guns
pistols in sweaty palms
deliberately weaponizing silence

that hour is red
a baleful war fought with ****** fists
sanguine faces flushed

that hour for isolation to prevail
to spread and slither into the crevices
the hour to bathe in ***** waters

cleanliness is seen as abrasiveness  
shadows of girls with guns
vile offspring with foul mouths

that hour is emerald green
months fly past like moths
roots sprout with intensity

that hour for desperation
the hour for skeletons to roam
piles of revengeful bones

the flies are swarming
on corpses

the hour is black in shadows
red in ****** waters
emerald green in dying beginnings

waiting for months to pass
and then, i’m blue
and am labeled ungrateful.
waiting for months to turn to dust
in my rusty palms
to set straight my wonky emotions
to soothe my ferocious oceans.
counting days till my cage is opened
reciting rhymes until i come back to life.
waiting for months to disappear
become marks on the calendar
can’t wait for this year to be over.
waiting for these months to stop dragging
my laden feet
upon the creaky floorboards
resisting the torture.
waiting for the months to surrender
to the year’s higher rule
succumb to the power.
waiting for these months to blow by
to relocate out of my eye view
to package up and leave.

i can’t endure these months anymore

good thing it’s not tomorrow till tomorrow. so i will sit on the edge of an eclipse, chasing moonlight specks from the balcony. i look up and it’s always you. there is always a someone i seem to feel the need to chase in the stars instead of just sitting incapsulated and quiet. letting the wind whistle between my cheeks, allowing my hair to flow and move in whatever way it deems worthwhile. so many things have convinced me i was not worthwhile, that i was more a currency than human being. i let the weak tell me i was weak, i let the strong arms go for a more lonely route. i let myself be defined by the amount of words that slip my tongue, i let my name be uttered remorselessly from lips that only wished the worst in me. silence allows thought, empathy, love. i am silent and content. sometimes it feels almost too easy to remain at peace with every single attack and blow i receive, but next time i will be more ferocious. i will growl and fuss and scream for my sake. i will take your words and aim them at you with fiery eyes. seemingly a coward, i am just so brazenly tired of feeling not enough. for speaking, for lack there of, for being the one who stares at stars instead of laughing at unfunny things and associating loudness with eagerness and loudness for being simpler to love. i am a silent shooting star, begging to be watched by passersby’s too busy staring at their screens to see.