i wanted be your accomplice, your right handed woman.
the fiery blaze to your cool gentle waters.
i wanted to be the woman on your mind, late night,
when you realize nobody gets you like i do.
i wanted to be the woman who made you feel alive
when we jumped over fences and hid behind trees
and you had to turn on the heat to ninety degrees
so you could warm me up
because i was shaking like a fragile fly in water
bobbing up and down
loose legs, aching head,
i wanted to be the woman you picked instead of the noose.
i wanted to be the woman who was your getaway driver
after some kids chased you down a grocery store aisle
and out into the parking lot
where your friend showed me his toy gun
and he started shooting it
i wanted to drive around and just listen to you move your tongue
up and down
and back around
and hear your speech become louder and louder
while you laugh at my jokes and i drive with no lights on because i lost track of my mind when i saw you
sweating at eleven p.m. with your hands raised up in surrender
and you told me i could be better at following you.
i think i completely blacked out when we played hide and seek
and my feet were sore and quiet as i hid behind the displays
i wanted to be the woman who wasn’t it, but she tagged you anyway.
i didn’t want the night to end
i didn’t want to lose my head
i wanted us so dearly to just be best friends
i didn’t want the night to end
i wanted you to invite me inside
but instead we talked cereal and tv shows and nothing
and i wished that you would’ve realized something
that you were the eclipse in my sky to shake me awake
the beginning to my ending
the hello to my goodbye
i would’ve been the woman
i would’ve been your man
i would’ve been the accomplice to your stupid crimes
i love you desperate and pathetic and sweet
and i don’t do love
but you brought out something in me
i never thought i would be
and that is one word and that word is complete.
we’ll keep jumping fences and loving so reckless
and maybe one day i’ll be everything you wanted
i occasionally reminisce on my real life experiences that feel like pipe dreams
running and running like dogs in the countryside
one day i won’t be terrified to hide the fact that i love you
i won’t be dying to be someone i’m not
and i will just run with the wind
and not run from my worry
or my fear to connect with humans so vulnerably
one day i’ll get it, my dear accomplice
but for now i’ll sit here with my stream of conscious
remembering and forgetting
and loving every second
and being the woman you hand all the credit
i’ll be the one you cross towns to find
avidly searching for some kind of person
who makes you smile even when you’re done hoping
i’ll be that girl for you, i won’t be a traitor
i’ll pick you up screaming on a saturday night
and i’ll save you from all the juvenile fights
i won’t leave you stranded,
i’ll reach my right hand out and never let go.
i was alive in a moment of time
and you were the kind to my uneasy mind
and now as i write this, i think of us fondly
oh darling, do we sparkle in your point of view?

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.

i used to know all your best friends,
just so you know
we used to giggle together in intimate classrooms

     but forget that, right?

i forgot the richness of politeness
the sweat dripped off my body
and your eyes dazzled like crystals.
a rose grew from the slight smile on your lips.
you awakened a fight or stay response in me

you reached out and touched my palms
and yours were not hot coals as i expected them to
be
they were violet and soft and smooth and moisturized
you didn’t have the crocodile disposition i dreamt you would

i felt like an animal that accidentally broke the glass of its confinement
and didn’t know what to do
with the scattering crowds and screaming children
so it just ran.

in your arms,
you caught me.
not too harshly,
but so i felt safety.

i owe you some serious debt for giving me
the simplest little smile along with
the tiniest little gestures

the claws of the lion dug into my spine,
razor-sharp and cruel

i didn’t deserve the kindness you showed me
i was scared you would hate me if i talked to you,
i didn’t know what to do.
the roses wilted inside my palms
as they stayed clumped from under the weight of my hands.

i pray that you blossom in your future
and i aspire to give the same kindness
as you have gifted to me.

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

before i go to college, i want to live. i was living in a moment of time, paused to wait along for me. i want to hang out with friends and stay out until early morning and sleep the whole day and meet up again and again. i want to climb the monkey bars and slide and swing on swings and run till my head aches. i want to dive headfirst into a pool, not worrying about how deep the bottom is. i hate to be alone, but it’s all i know. it’s all fear. i live by fear. i let it spoon feed me only soft foods and i can only swallow when it lets me. i let it live pacing in my stomach, letting its claws dig at my intestines. i let it tell me what to do and what not to do even if i don’t want to. even if i want to run away from the suffocating arms of liars who say they care about me. i will remain at their heels, wining like a lost puppy, waiting for my owner to lift me up and pet me and reassure me. i don’t wish to be alone, but sometimes the ache is so immense the only thing i can do is slam the door. shut everyone out. i can only injure myself if i am alone. i do not wish to hurt anyone. i want to dab at pulsing wounds. i want to wash hair in a sink and wrap the towel around a cold body. i want to tuck someone in. i want to love, i have so much love to give. so much love to foster inside of me. i have so much life to live, but i’m stuck walking back and forth in a vicious nightmare. i want to be in your dreams, a warm hand to hold, a fire that’ll warm the bones that you hide away. i will not judge, i will only stroke your hair and love you. i have so much love to give, i don’t want to be alone anymore. i want to spend my entire sweltering summer days lying on picnic blankets and staring at the clouds saying ‘this one looks like a heart, this one looks like singapore, this one looks like a train, this one looks like you.’ i want to live and cry and sing with friends on an open road with the windows down and laughter ringing in my ears. i want my abs to burn and i want to dance in flower fields unafraid to be alone. i was not made to be alone. i was made to be a friend, a lover, a trier, a doer, an example of what wondrous things can do. i was made to belong, even if i try to deny myself of it. i was made to love and live and be happy just as much as the next person. i was made to be myself. i was made to be the person i am now and i should not deny myself the entirety. i was made to exist, to live and love and live and love until i’m dead and gone. i deserve to be loved, i deserve the feeling of belonging, i deserve to live.

by the time i get to college, i want to be able to love you and live.
selflessly, beautifully, and endlessly.

i don’t care what she did
i don’t care what she does
she’s my friend, after all

my sister told me she’s full of red flags
she hasn’t texted me in over a month
she’s grounded, i’m guessing
(i’m low key glad we haven’t texted much)
(she can be kinda overwhelming)
i feel like a horrible friend for saying that

my brain hurts because she was always
so kind to me
she accepted me for doing nothing
i never had to prove myself when
she was around
yes, she may be problematic, but aren’t we all?

my sister told me to stop hanging out with her
and being friends with her
why would i break off a good friendship?
we’ve never done anything bad together

she tried running away with her boyfriend
his name is andrew and he’s much
older than her
in june, she told me he was good for her
and i was happy that she was happy
was i wrong for that?

now she’s reckless and crazy
(not that she was never before)
she’s only friends with ****
addicts and skateboarders
i’m the only exception
i’m the only normal stable (kinda) one

i hate getting confronted about my friends
i’m a good girl and i’m not a doormat
i know when things get sketchy
and when you should run away

i’m starting to rant, but i don’t
think it’s unhealthy  
who knows what will happen next
at least i get writing material out of this

(it’s just an innocent friendship)

dynamite with purple eye
bags
sweating through the steamy night
glad
you came here with your raspberry lies
mad
in stuck suburban side
tad
bit on the fiery side
like
dynamite
kryptonite
tnt
confide in me
lucid dreams
paranoid screaming through tiny teeth
sad
you didn’t want to plummet
back
into purple eye
bags
dynamite
drags
on cigarettes
and chloroform eye-
lids
bad
luck and stuck with dynamite
kryptonite
explosive nights
raspberry lies
hazardous tries
and over the top
mad
ness
and the fear of being a reject
with eruptive tendencies
toxic needs
and a little bit of tnt
lack
of relatability
and dynamite
mad
this world is too
sad
to be blowing stuff up right now
but
glad
there isn’t a frenzy of deadbeats
only purple eye
bags
and would
haves
and tnt

the moon—she knows of who she is;
i have no idea who i am.

perhaps a jellyfish
who stings when she’s provoked
not always under duress, sometimes
just because she feels threatened by the enormous depths of the sea.
perhaps a lover,
a silly little heart
that glows when it’s full
that beats when nerves flood in.
perhaps a sailor,
wandering and contemplating a world
where one could be free
and devoid of responsibilities,
chasing the stars and seas
yet somehow sees them as omens
she must avoid.
perhaps a daughter
with harp string fingertips
with legs that waltz with no regrets,
who breaks her back to measure up
and sings the craving to bed at night.
perhaps a flame,
one swallowing all the elements
destroying every path,
begging that they’ll stay.
perhaps a girl
who loves unashamedly
and naked and like an ember
like a forest fire
like a jellyfish
like a navigator of the seas
like a throbbing heart
like a delicate daughter,
perhaps everything all at once
everything and everyone that ever breathed in my vicinity
perhaps an amalgamation of all the creatures leaping in my chest,
scraping at my rib cage—thoughts dying to be uttered
said
muttered.

perhaps no one.

your fists are like cannonballs
hard, closed
you trap me in the palm of your sweaty hands
crushing me
but the warmth is the only temperature i feel
so i stick by your disheartening side

hands are black.
eyes are red from disappointment.
one young naive heart
pursed against a window frame,
breathing misty white circles
on the glassy pane.
waiting for the rusty red car to pull up
in the drive
and she would tug on his satin shirt and plead with her satin eyes.
he would brush his sleeve over soon-expired tears
and hold her clumsy hand
by the rocking chair.
her pupils dilating, flesh smiling.
the years slip by with quick waving hands
forcing me to question my circumstance.
believing still, yet whispers are unsure.  
the blood is young, the doubt fresh,
the driveway empty, the crabapples dead.
he saunters with a limp
and can’t lift me up as far as before.
shoulders weighed heavy from guilt,
cold floors, socks with holes.
his hands are yellow, his chair all creaky.
i read the books, they inform me of wars
and i shut their dark pages with a forcefulness.
i haven’t read the letters from friends; they wouldn’t understand.
they pick blossomed fruits from singing trees
and insert their souls into eternity.
the dirt roads are quiet, the music dull and haunting,
my prized smile is a fraud, the new winter frost a sworn enemy.
by the time the day retires, the aching has only set one foot inside the house,
leaving a bare-bones home
and a shiver hovering around every corner.
i notice no deer, no sparrows, no foxes.
no signs of hope, no signs of rebirth.
i see you beside me with limbs as cold as ice
and the love we had to bury will not suffice.
there are no flowers at our graves,
only frozen branches
lingering
in a place they had not decided themselves
to lay.

what did it give to learn and unlearn and learn it again just to unlearn it on purpose?
what did it give to make friends strangers to make strangers friends and then turn them inside out again?
what did it give to live within a dying house without ever exposing yourself to the outside world?
what did it give to push and punch and **** the love inside you just for simply existing?
what did it give to jail the one person who gave you wings and labeled silly old you a friend?
what did it give to dig only one hole in the backyard when you knew there would be too many bodies to hide and bury?
what did it give to sing and sing and giggle and smile when it was all for nothing?
what did it give to kick the benevolent for just being there
to hold your sore arms
and hold you till the damage almost disappeared?
it lingers still without a halo hanging like a poster over the bed.
what did it give to end up being alone in the end?
what did it give to end up exactly like you had always planned?

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.

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

las cortinas cierran
el escenario está vacía
yo miro la luna en el fondo
estoy hablando tontería
estoy llorando en el piso
es un acto de un solo hombre
así que el lugar está sombrío
y nadie está haciendo nada

i am continually alone in a crowded room
an immovable mass.
the time creeps
slow with a soft begging—a hard press.
it hurts my bones to sit still
and the time won’t move
won’t move
won’t move.
it doesn’t move ever
and i’m sick, bland, and alone
i don’t need sound to fill the space,
but this pains me in a way i cannot describe.
i have sat in crowded rooms with the pain pounding on my stomach
and i look like a strange life form that doesn’t belong
and everyone else does
and that’s why it is astronomically harder.
the silence is permanent; it will seldom leave my side
it’ll leave me in its wake and i’ll be a body
lost to the immense unknown of the ocean
wash up on your shore
and you can hold me
and you can tell me the quiet doesn’t make me who i am?
you said, “it’s not in your bones—the need to speak everything you feel”
and i just told that to myself because i have myself to hold.
my loneliness is everlasting and violent
i belonged and i ruined that image for myself.
my slow ability to start feeling like myself around people i adore
but i mess it up every single time.
i continually hold my tongue for fear of faux judgement.
THEY AREN’T GOING TO HURT YOU
THEY INVITED YOU PLACES
THEY CALLED YOU SWEET AND FUNNY
AND YOU MATTERED TO THEM
AND YET YOUR TSUNAMI WAYS DROWNED EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.
YOU DESTROYED THEM.
YOU DEMOLISHED THEIR VILLAGES
AND DEVASTATED THEIR LAND.
YOU ARE EVIL.

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.

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.

my skin has red blotches of scaly patches all over my arms and my legs and my face and my neck and everywhere
they dwell as if they own my body and i put a do not disturb sign on my door and i locked the windows and i bolted the door to the moist ground in hopes they would never return
i thought i evicted their jaws out of my property, but they return like an unfinished disease
these skin problems linger and travel like rockets around my disgusting body
multiplying, in deadly divisions, making me claw against my skin, feeling like the human kind of razor blades

and here i am, red and angry and beyond eager to get this over with

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.

i’m more human than you are
more human than your wickedly
accentuated cheekbones
the hair that falls in clumps above
your eyebrows
has more life in each strand
than you have in your entire body
your charcoal colored locks
that get lightened in the sunshine
gather more oxygen
than your own lungs can inhale

i’m more human than you are
when i laugh, i can’t breathe
when i’m anxious, i feel inches away
from death
it lingers in the pockets of the heat
it traps inside my airways
yet, i can breathe finer air than you

even though the haze upon the horizon
blocks traffic, makes people stop for a second
it is more alive than you’ll ever be
it winds and dips and turns
flowing through the atmosphere
creeping down the downtown streets
yet, it’s more awake than your resting body

and i understand this might be
a touchy
subject for you
but you need to let the air stay in your lungs
for more than a millisecond
let it sizzle inside your skin
feel your vessels and veins shrink and grow
let the blood flow reach your panicked head
let it expand inside your brain
and feel the cells chatter and goop
like water

you’re more human than you think
yourself to be
more raw and real and vigorous
you have a soul buried in your eyes
unlike the caterpillars chewing on
plants who only do it to keep their
species thriving
you’re a human who can extend their limbs
to reach the furthest lengths
your heart can think to be
bursting with life

i’m still more human than you are
this pen i was locked in
stuffed my self esteem
but i’m still breathing, aren’t i?
i can chase the wonky walking warbler
i can lie
between blades of grass
letting the earth sink into the linings
of my skin
even though an itch might bust through
i still find a way to absorb the
outside weather
the humidity and the direction the
wind is blowing, or choosing to travel

you’re more human than you think
can retreat from out of you
breathe, and maybe the cricket chirps
will make you resort back to
rolling down hilltops or
jumping off rugged cliffs
next time when you jump
internalize it
and maybe next time
imagine you’re a sparrow for a second
tasting the air, as the water embraces you
and calls your name
so,

                          answer back

every morning, i lose a little hope that you will love me.
there are weapons in my hands,
pointed straight at your heart.
will you love me if my temporary winter chooses to subside?
will you love me with my spring eyes and hopeful glances?

there are weapons in my arms,
pointed straight at your heart.
the night calls my name with her quiet lips,
her silent voice gliding through the busy streets,
straight into my soul.
will you love me if the distance only makes you guiltier?
will you love me as an extension of the adoration for yourself?

there are weapons in my heart,
pointed straight at your heart.
the morning kills me with her hands as i almost do to you;
unmistakably, regrettably, and embarrassed.
will you love me as i am, a summer child, with hopes as fleeting as the humidity?
will you love me if i cannot hide my fragility anymore?

i’m so ashamed to admit i’m too weak to love you.
but will you love me, without arms, without hands, without weapons aimed at mistakes, without window panes, without cold shoulders, without dying streetlights illuminating the bones of every fault, without shame, without killing me by accident, without drowning out the truth, without starving all the bad news as if it’ll just disappear, without eyes that burn through confessions, without flimsy notions, without sickness?
will you love me if the words refuse to escape from my prideful lips,
that i love you just the same?
will you love me even if the morning never comes, even if the winter keeps pushing its frosty thumb against the glass, even if the world around us keeps us knee deep in quicksand, slaves to our own habits of ‘run away’?
will you love me no matter the weapons i try to attack you with?—
i have no bullets, no sharp knives, no desire to harm you.
my inability of loving is violent in and of itself
so
every morning, i think less of who i am,
knowing i do not deserve to be loved
by you.

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.

knife marks on my deadbeat frame.
lingering emotions
but they aren’t as excruciating anymore.
wasteful injustice, crawling up my veins.
digging holes in my white blood cells.
𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘢 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘯 𝘰𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦.
𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘵.
jokes on me, sunrise isn’t rebirth.
it’s rubbing it in your face
that the world doesn’t stop turning
for you, it never stops.
you never get help,
no matter how many buttons you press
or how many hand waves you give.
𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠.

he thinks my expressions translate to admiration
he’s so stuck in his oblivion
the accidental glances must be for a reason
he’s so obsessed with himself
he’s thinks i’ll fall to my knees in front of him
jokes on you, i’ve only ever thought about you for less than a minute
i don’t adore you
the coincidences that align
are made up in your mind
i’m just trying to exist
i need to plant a garden within the constraints of the palisades
i don’t even know your name, nor am i enthralled with you
how come when i moved, you moved too?
it’s never ever about you
i need to build a garden in the middle of the woods
can i be trapped forever?
a vanished little girl
on the cliffs of doom

the ocean swallows me.
this midnight is a still midnight,
where the birds don’t coo and the waves don’t move.

the emptiness is not the ruler of all.
the tides continue to wash over the beach.
each wash of water awakening its earthly daughter.

each blush in my cheek i was taught to be ashamed of,
every desire deserved to be stomped on, twisted at the bottom of a shoe.
each nightfall i am forced to be tamed.

a seafaring sailor, drunk on each lifeless wave,
carving through sea walls.
i once believed in magic, but i have grown up and i know

that every sickness is a truth revealed
that every doubt can drown you, child.
that every word i’ve interwoven in your story has kept you reading,

candle-lit and curious.
that every reason i once had goes out with the tides,
that every blessing has six bullets and a sharp knife.

that the sea can feel like home,
an immense calling that never ceases.
that the world alone is meant to burn

each finger, each word
that i could ever sing, speak, or whisper.
that every human is incapable of loving you.

that every human is a desert
when all i need is an ocean,
a constant, a still midnight.

the woman.
she’s soft and young and impressionable.
the woman.
she’s kind and compassionate and beautiful.
the air she breathes
curtsies at her feet.
the happiness she bears
makes her complete.
the feathers in her long hair.
the eyelashes on her innocent face.
the fire blazing
inside of her heart.
the pathways inhabiting
her brain.
the woman hides
from the storm.
the rain falls on her back
and never apologizes.
the moon carefully watching
her smile form.
the woman runs from danger.
the danger dissipates into the atmosphere.
the pinecones shivering at the close call.
the woman dances in soggy puddles.
bathes her body in a stream
that touches her skin rhythmically.
the woman takes flight with the birds.
swooping above forest lines.
the woman rests when it comes a time.
she lets her rapid heart slow.
she tames her impulses
and lets her truth grow.
the woman shoots arrows as the sun rises.
she begs for warmth.
she feels her heart fill
with love and with caution.
the woman often strays beyond the path.
she explores the rocks, the twigs, the earth.
she breathes sweetly.
her arms flap freely.
the woman finds a crystal in the woods.
she shelters it from the beastly wolves.
holds it in her palms.
allows its full form to sprout.
encourages its struggles
repeats sweet phrases.
the woman lays down
with the body she tends to.
she lets the world
fill her with whatever it may.
no matter the consequence.
the woman sings as the river rushes.
she watches the moon sink beneath
the horizon.
she’s the kind of woman i wish to be.

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 want to see me stripped on the floor
a motor of a girl gasping for breath
crawling with her blistered knuckles
her wounds harsh and fresh
can’t you just breathe in deeply?
exhale, then inhale me
oh, for your sake baby
push it in then leave me diseased
you only see a body
you only see a body
you only see a body
you only see my body


—i wish so hard that you would just see me

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.

¿has olvidado la causa de tu existencia?
no es fácil; ¿con qué quieres con esto?

¿te olvidaste el brillo de la luz de la luna mientras mirando al vacío?
¿te olvidaste la luz del amanecer que tocaba la parte de tu espalda más vulnerable?

el pasado es fuerte
más fuerte que los tigres
y tu ambición.
no puedes alcanzar mis manos en tus secretos profundos
así que
dime todas tus luchas
debajo de la luz de la luna.
no me quejaré.

¿te olvidaste el sonido de la lluvia mientras me te abrazaría?
¿te olvidaste cómo se escurría por tu columna vertebral
y te reirías?

te olvidarás los mejores momentos de la vida
si gastas todo el tiempo
estado atascado en tu mente.

ya me olvidé tu cara a pesar de verte anoche
pero no olvidé la manera que me hiciste que me sentí.
la memoria que durará una vida.

no me olvides.

i collect the fireflies in my hand
gazing at the pink sky
as the sun sinks below the atmosphere.
i feel them buzz around my fingers
chaotically and rhythmically.
i’m the background singer
in my stage show
i’m a fraud
i’m sapphire stones
bleeding blue on my own.
the wasps are moving
the trees are eerily still.
i’m never letting these fireflies go.
the only release i’ve had in a while.
i’m tired of having a rehearsed smile
in the back of my throat.

the fireflies have died inside my hands.
i suffocated them
with my sweaty palms
and scrunched fingers.
my first mistake was believing in miracles.

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.

should i be overcome with possibility or with a weak frame of mind? what do you have in mind, wise one? are your cheek bones usually this sunken in? does the setting horizon usually mirror your image? does the pain you feel define you? how shall it not? i slept for years in a bed that wasn’t mine, scared of my shadow, scared of the phantoms in the closet. i performed for myself. is that why i never felt belonging or a longing to my own self, as my own entity? i forgot what life meant in my rampant race for closure. i found out your mind can lie. it can scheme. it can puncture a lung. it can violate you and you won’t even pay mind to it. it will feel like kindness and maybe it is because you are weak. the flood can creep in when you are sleeping. it can suffocate you when you are unaware. my compassion gets mistaken, i know. the storm can brew right upon your doorstep, leaving you no time to stop it. does the dismantling of others make you a deity? i’d like to know if the pillow you sleep on at night is too firm or too perfect. cause when i sleep, i hear a distant rumbling, and no, it doesn’t send me to sleep. it drives me to the brink of insanity. it doesn’t hurt to be alone, it hurts to be seen yet ignored, it hurts to be invisible. yet sometimes, i want to hide from the impending doom. there is a spirit inside of my head, but i think it is myself because i don’t believe in such things. sometimes i speak to the ghosts of the people that have left me. through my writing, i see rhymes where they weren’t before and i see meaning where i only saw words. i have forgotten the meaning of happiness. i have forgotten the feeling of belonging. i have forgotten the meaning of bliss. there are some days i forget the void in my stomach exists, but it still constantly persists. i feel like i’ve watched my life unfold like a film reel. it’s going by so fast, but i’m like a zombie with this internal pace. i can’t find meaning in things. yet, as i watched the stars in the deep night sky, i felt so tiny compared to them. they have been around forever. every person that has suffered a disaster looked up to the stars to find a helping hand. and they found it. for me, i’m afraid to expose myself to the world. even to the stars in my backyard. they are floating ***** of light and what am i? something of such lower significance. what am i and why does life feel like a switchblade in my neck? my faint revolution will be peace and anger and blurted words i kept inside so long. i don’t belong, and i’m just so sorry God. i will try. i have tied my wings back. shall i fly or will i break and come crashing back into this negligible dead land? will i be the daughter that even strangers are proud of or will i be the lump in your throat, the unwashed laundry, the burnt toast? i can’t feel who i am, the numbness has set over me. i failed you, but i will still try. make no mistake. yet if the mountains descend over my body, i will be taken and there will be not much left of me. when the birds have pecked at my skin and my eyes have lost their irises, how will i see myself? as the flesh decomposes, what will remain?

if you shatter into a million fragments fallen like a disco ball,
i will lift them with both my hands and put you back again.
sweating brow and unhappiness
i’ll take this weight from off your chest.
to live with the regret of losing you
would be the worst kind of eternal punishment.
it’s a vulnerable hour
coarse tongues and sharpened claws.
i awake to the shameless sound of your howling
bouncing off the walls
torn apart.
nightfall is brutal but i have the pieces of your heart
to wrap around my cold malnourished frame,
swallowing me whole involuntarily.
it’s all gonna be ok for me.

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

my innocence floated away in fourth grade
when all my classmates grew up and it petrified me.
the world has ruined my bones, has ruined the soil where i planted my first milkweed for the monarch butterflies
we have all been destroyed
we just don't realize
or maybe we do, we just shower and bask in it.  
every soul is so uncouth and the world now stings more than the crack of the whip.
termites are crawling inside our mouths
moths are being inhaled through our nostrils.
when i was nine, everything had a clear answer and i was always happy
but now that my innocence has been scraped from the bark of a crabapple tree
i am so bewildered and i can’t find any sanctuary and life is so unendurable.
restore my patient calm and timid mind
i loathe this planet and this wicked institutionalized harbor where i now have to spend my days
all because i lost my innocence in fourth grade

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.

you were whisked away on a ship, bound for the treasure of the hidden world

i traveled to a desert
sweltering heat and cracking blisters
called your name as dry sand filled my esophagus
an oasis sprouted in the middle of the sandcastle civilization
running water, blue and hopeful
sprinting like a madman, i trekked towards my salvation
but when i came across its beckoning entrance
the mirage collapsed
the betrayal
my eyes had deceived me
in my consuming exhaustion, i had forgotten the illusions, smoke and mirrors the desert plays on you
and in being so crushed beyond belief
sandstorms came from under my feet
and, you know, the mirage became some
solidified reality
and
i
ache for it
with all my bones.

if only i were a crew member
aboard your ship to the galaxy
i was seconds away from boarding
five steps away
so close i could smell the saltwater as it caressed my cheek
waving goodbye to your face, decorated with sunlight
sun-kissed and golden.

the navigator of the seas
traveler with a sense of abandonment, on a sailboat gliding over waves,
glowing, evolving, flying
the sunset disappearing beyond the horizon,
where you chase the possibility of its various immensities
a rhythmic beauty, hung up in galleries, watching the waves lap against the shore
hands on her chin as she sits cross legged,
feeling the sand swirl around her  
she cups up the sand, as it vanishes slowly underneath her palms
sobbing into a pile of grief, so confined in a state of helplessness
she tumbles on the sand, silky hair falling to her sides under crescent moon design
and
she
aches for refuge
with all her bones.

i’ve known you more years than you’ve ignored me

the clock ticks into the lonesome hours
hung up on a single midnight prayer
lingering on the lips of a bandit
the strange humanoid breeze stirring the silky curtains
swear i can hear harsh whispers underneath the sheets

elusive, like time
you racing along cemetery roads
rainy fog splashing quickly upon your rosy face
i see a lighthouse glow coming from the depths of your soul
it blinks twice, for help, but when i come closer
the sea turns jet black, with only the moon as a fickle witness
unreliable narrator, strung on the words i’m convinced are true

i remember the phone ringing and my feet sprinting to pick it up
now you hanging up on me instead of the line
the cord snapped off, a strategic static
six different rings and betting that it is you
on the other end,
but instead it’s just ghostly noises and faint memories hung out in the yard like wet laundry

i’m crying the bullets you shot into me
they come out of my pores, into my shaky hands,
and i lose every sense of my existence
it feels rare to belong, so impossible to fit into the correct puzzle piece

the floodwater so murky and enigmatic
the clock ticks and i start to hear your laugh
from the sky
it dives into the walls of this crumbling house,
singing as in amusement or sheer fear

devote my life to migration
moving to places where your feet have stood,
but it’s never permanent
the fire is almost so inviting,
gifting a warmth that no human being ever could
hot coals and embers, but it doesn’t burn
it feels like belonging.

i thought i broke my ribs laughing,
young and dying to be seen
i have no better place to be at 12 a.m, but beside you.
i wanna love you
so unapologetically.
you’re the cure to my illnesses.
we ran like little kids and the playground was blue, illuminated by the lights of little houses.
we ran and bolted and had no regrets;
i have no regrets.
i want to love you
like that playground loved school children
its only purpose to love the laughter till it disappears along with the breeze.
i had to disappear too.
i am older now,
and lost and you grabbed my hand and took me with you
and you are so wonderful,
allowing me to become a little kid again
chasing in the street
laughing till our ribs are soft and shattering.
what are we now?
swim with me.
let’s leap from the dock and become one.
i am a kid and you are who i look up to with wide eyes
and a tender soul
hold me in your lap
let me sleep and hold me
hold me
hold me.
so softly
so my ribs do not shatter.