i’ve watched the same show for over two weeks
and when my favorite character was falling apart,
it put a damper on my mood.
i am that attached..
to fiction.
it wasn’t even real and i still cried in my bed
with my hair concealing my eyes.
i never like to think of myself as the most empathetic person out there,
it was a sudden jolt in my nature.
perhaps i see myself in his wild eyes,
not the wicked side,
but something in him that reflects in my heart.
i’m repulsed by my poetry.
i wouldn’t even consider it poetic in any way.
i tell my close friends that i write poetry
and i like to think that they scoff at that idea.
i told my retiring teacher that i wrote poetry
and she gave me her email.
what makes her think i’m good enough to be read throughly by an english teacher of forty years?
kinda ironic since i’m posting on a poetry website.
i’m embarrassed of my efforts,
ashamed of my achievements.
see, i’ve never been good at anything
i played basketball in middle school
and my friend would always say that i bombed a shot or i needed to do something more involving.
my past crush even said i was too short to play or something.
i tried being nice for a day because my sister and mother were telling me i was too mean,
i swear i’m not.
but i tried to be nice
and bad things still happened
and i called people rude names.
i’m not good at staying prompt to journaling
like tumblr girls at their highest.
catch my drift, i have never been good at anything,
and poetry is the only thing that makes me feel like i’m alive
who cares if it’s actually well written?
it’s self expression.
i hope everyone at least tries to write one poem once in their lifetime,
it changed my life.
step one: find a muse, trust me, if you have a good one, you might not even experience writers block
(that’s an overestimate, but sure)
step two: write about anything and everything.
write about your drive to work, how the highway signs started to feel like heartbeats because they were so repetitive.
write about your dreadful day at school and about the teacher who freaked out.
step three: find a metaphor in everything.
trust me, if you look hard enough, there’s always a metaphor.
step four: see yourself in other people. capture the conversation the bus passengers had. write from different perspectives;
you’ll learn a lot about empathy.
step five: don’t listen to my advice because i’m not qualified.
don’t listen to the writer of bad poems.
there’s no use in fearing rejection,
i get rejected by myself on the daily.
you’ll never be something to someone if you don’t just say it.
tell them you like them.
tell them they make your world glimmer
and they make bad days a little more bearable.
and if they shrug, it’s ok, souls don’t have the same meaning to everyone
and that’s beautiful.
you’ll live.
rejection is inevitable.
when i’m invested in a show or a person, it becomes my obsession.
when i lie awake at night, i’m wondering what will happen next,
what character is going to get killed off next.
i want my poems to be lengthier and
luckily i can rant like nobody’s business.
i feel less anxious when i throw my feelings onto paper,
and i think things through.
no need to have to suffer through all your chaotic thoughts alone.
write.
that’s advice to me.
write when your favorite character is stressed,
write when you feel peeping eyes on your back.
write when the world churns you out of shape like butter.
write when the music doesn’t seem to calm your inner self.
the world can be wrong,
that’s a possibility.
you are allowed to critique it,
you are allowed to believe in miracles
and you are allowed to ask God if you can’t conjure up an answer all by yourself.
that’s why they say He’s always listening.
they lie about lots of other things,
but definitely not that.
writing is not for everyone,
it picks its candidates with reasoning.
i guess i was chosen
and i won’t let my muses down.
they live inside of my heart even when i wanna tear them out.
i won’t send my poetry to my old teacher,
and i won’t live another day without the benefits of writing.
i still have two more seasons to binge watch of this show
and more and more reasons to be alive.
the world is wrong,
but i never said i was right.
i have no vendettas
and writing has infiltrated my mind.
no tickets are accepted at admission.
come another time.

you know,
it’s not easy
to be a woman
with a gunshot wound
and torn wings
on her back.
it’s not easy to
love a woman
who spins
in circles
and acts
like a maniac.
it’s not simple
to exist
in the poetic
tenebrosity
of this
era of living.
there are
hearts
shrouded with
darkness
pierced with
the tongs of their
garden rakes.
there are heads
on stakes
that never got
to stand
away from the
shadows,
shadows that were
casted upon them
for no reason
but that they
were labeled
evil, and so
they thought
they were,
they believed
they were,
they knew
they were.
it’s not easy
to be a person
with an honest
heartbeat on
the drug, littered
and pest invested
streets.
it’s easy,
(apparently),
to go about your
day without
even processing
the torture
some souls
go through just
for their eyes
to never be opened
for
their hearts to never
be warmed
with the
same blaze
you set in your home
to make it feel
all cozy and aesthetic
around the
holiday season.
it’s easy
to turn a blind
eye, to deny
the vile nature
of the bones that
outline souls of all
kinds of barbaric
creatures.
it’s easy to
look upon
it with a grimace,
with a dishonest
appeal to
strengthen the
crevices of
your heart that you
have to fulfill
to prove to some
entity of yourself
that you are a
kind person.
that you aren’t
selfish and
unsparing.
but is it working?
cause although
i see the flames
in your brownish
quite convincing eyeballs
i do see help,
i do spot the parts
of your sweet heart
in your retinas
undamaged by the
bright sun,
i do see the
endearment
lay claim on
your lips.
i see it.
i see it all.
it’s not easy
being a human
in a world where
opportunity only
comes to those
who only see
because they are
told to,
that only see what
they are told
that they can see,
and they hear
what they are
bound to hear
and so on.
it’s not easy
to crawl on
your fractured knees
and twisted ankles
in a pit of
venomous vipers.
it’s so easy
to see the crime,
the shame,
the atrocities,
and try
nothing to stop it.
it’s not easy
being a man
with gunshot wounds
in a combative
ill-conducted
circus,
navigating his
way through
the scattered
yelps of his
brothers
who got lost
in the shadows
and never returned.
you only hear
what you want
to hear.
the truth
aches more
than shoving a
rocket ship
up your runny
nose and
for valid reasons.
don’t shut out the voices of your own children, Society.
don’t separate the stories
of those
who will end
their lives being
ignited in the same
fire, in the exact
same
flame
that touched
the skin of
the silent pleading
children
who were never understood
of the people who
wrote a trillion words
and still weren’t heard
of the vagabonds
that were
casted out of
their villages and
wandered so far
that they lost
sight of who they
were.
some songs
are never
sung,
some instruments
broken and never
played,
millions of killers
never
prosecuted,
victims that
never got their
justice,
some babies never
born,
tens upon thousands
of lifetimes
forgotten.
some darknesses
are too violent.
some corruption
too manic.
it’s not easy
being a human
with bullet wounds
and
gashes
on our backs.
the shadows
of the universe
make us maniacs.
you reap
what you sow,
and you’re gonna
have to battle
millions of
justifiably
angry revolutionists…
so do you want to do this
the easy way,
or the hard way?
pick your machine guns that will always run out of bullets,

we will always have our voices.

now my veins are coursing with blood
taste it on my tongue
i can’t slow my pulse

he took my spine
and broke it in half
skipping heart inside my skin 
pounding
pounding
pounding
loud drums

the water towers i see from my bedroom window
to the storms you awaken in me
like bathing in chemicals
burning my skin
from within
why are his eyes so disjointed?
why do i sweat from my hands to my feet?
shuddering with anxiety
i’m so sick of having to give that disclaimer

do you feel my worry protrude from my speech?
the stuttering, the contemplation
i’m terrified i might say the wrong thing
so i don’t say anything
and hope the end passes
softly and—
i may have acted too hastily
shaking hands and paranoid and scared to bend my knees
cause someone might see
me
struggle
and then i’m ******* forever

and this attention, i’m not used to its hold on me
it feels threatening, can’t see the opening
at the end
of the tunnel,
vision is blinding me
what is a good moment to just say “no” out of the blue?
paralyzed with fear
maybe then you’ll know, it’s not worth it to even try with me
i hate hurting feelings, but this is hurting more than that
emails you sent me, just ask for my number
i could’ve given it,
but then i never would have texted
so you’d be
alone with yourself
and you’d have to be witty
i can’t see the future,
possibly
i might not want it to happen
so i try to push away
good things,
like they are mosquitos in the desert winds

but what are you attentive to on me?
for others have more than i do,
i’m poison ivy, i’m sticky glue
although once you have me,
i don’t want you
it’s like a burden, yet not how i treat you
is this too redundant or straight forward?
i’m sorry if this feels like torture to you
it feels much worse to me

maybe this is why i hate physics
the weird attractions
that happen
when you don’t even invite them in

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

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.

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?

i love my body
my waist that isn’t the slimmest
but it’s doing the job
my lips aren’t the fullest
but they can taste
i admit i used to hate my legs
i despised the way they fell together
no thigh gap
plump in the mirror and through my judgmental eyes
but i had body dysmorphia
and she was so cruel to me
hitting me and shaming me for every little crease and imperfection on my body
she obsessed and i listened
and i cried and i watched myself twenty four seven
but now my legs are powerful
they could take down anyone
they’ve got a mind of their own
idk when i started loving every swoop and curve and turn my body took
i still think my stomach is too fat
it’s not flat enough
and i would and still **** in to create an effect as if i didn’t eat the two burgers
that i only ate one
but i know i shouldn’t be perfect
i should be human, after all
but how am i supposed to adore the parts of my stomach that don’t look like other womens’ do?
eat less, don’t bloat, stop drinking or you’ll float
i don’t take that type of criticism anymore
my body ain’t perfect
not even a bit
but i am human
what’s wrong with it?
cause it’s a built in truth teller
i won’t let any man stick around who doesn’t beg at my feet
and touch my body as if it were blessed by God
who doesn’t dream of tracing every edge of me and doesn’t say i’m pretty
he better wanna explore every part and dive in deep
love me in my rawest form, beautifully
i will leave him if he uses me for my body
i will love him if he waits for me
you know a body is just a outer wall
for the goopiness and strength of ones heart
so i will love my body
because it is a part of me
and not obsess over it
because it doesn’t matter at all to me

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

i met Good
oh, she was a beauty
she was so perfect, everything almost felt rehearsed
she sat down beside me, and handed me a cup of tea
and complimented the shirt i was cautious about wearing in fear of seeming unprofessional
her voice was smooth like silk
and her laugh was sweet like cotton candy and jolly like Santa Claus
she only told me fabulous news
news about how much she loved the world and how many people provided her joy
how a kindhearted gentleman saved a baby deer from a rabid bear
and she spoke with such eloquence that i couldn’t help but listen attentively
and i smiled
and smiled
the whole time we held the engaging conversation
when she and i bid our goodbyes, she kissed me on both cheeks and said i had beautiful decadently smelling hair
i smiled again for good measure
then i left

i met Evil
he grimaced as soon as he saw me
he seemed alarmed that someone wanted to have a word with him
i sat down without speaking and i let him start things off
he glared at me with discontent and didn’t crack a smile once
his judgy eyes shone on me and i felt insecure and confused
his voice was raspy and it sounded like he smoked frequently
his lips would curl up in disgust if i looked at him strangely, so i just watched the water bubble and churn in my cup
his body language showed malicious intent
but his eyes had some kind of spark in them
a light, a blue/violet light that overshadowed the deep dark brown eyes he bore
underneath it all, i am pretty sure Evil is just misunderstood
he isn’t all bad sometimes
he isn’t loving the bloodbath twenty four seven
so once i got up and whispered in his ear
“you aren’t all what you are cracked out to be, so just put the beating and stabbing devices away please.”
and i left without looking back

i met Indifference
now he was a doozy
he was nervous and shaky
it was painfully obvious, but i overlooked it
he half smiled sometimes
fake smiled to make me feel validated after i told a few icebreaking jokes
but sometimes he would watch me with a scornful face
so i fixed my posture and stopped conversing for a while, then began again
he never gave me an opinion or a complete response
it would always be “maybe,” “only time can tell,” and “i don’t really know.”
the vagueness of his disdainful answers fascinated me
how can someone remain neutral about everything?
he wasn’t at all like anyone i had ever met
his face was always neutral
his reactions never negative nor positive
and he showed confusion when i said things that were too passionate or too far sided
so i asked him a quick question
“what do you think is the right way? Evil or Good?”
his eyelids quivered and he shrugged with little effort or desire
“i don’t know.
i think we are all evil and good in our own ways.
you may think a rabbit is good by eating grass, but you are bad for eating animals, another living organism.
evil cannot be defined by bad where as good cannot be defined as the only way.
we are all mixtures of both.
therefore, that is why i am Indifferent.
i choose to be everything
and after all, good comes from wanting to be loved and valued in society, whilst evil mostly comes from being misunderstood and i am none of the sort.”

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

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

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

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

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

de vez en cuando,
me siento con Esperanza
sobre una silla
en el patio.
hablamos como amigas
pero no conozco a ella.

con una voz como una brisa de la primavera
el sol palidece en comparación
a su sonrisa.
un olor hecho de cerezas.
ella se sienta a mi lado
y,
a veces,
hay un vacío que llena

ella sabe libertad
ella la tuvo
aunque se parece que
ella está atrapada
cada día
ella no es una esclava.

de vez en cuando,
ella se besa mis mejillas
entonces
deja con mi alma
y espero que
ella regresa
algún día.

violent thrash of a sword
to the fortress
that i call home.
there is always some
silver coin
or biology
that takes from me.
i have no one, but…
individuality and religion.
each destined to be stolen from me
yet i will not surrender
like the blue girl
that lurks by the docks
resembling the runny river water.
i will not lose the lens
that formed me.
the end of the tunnel
is bleak and empty.
there is nothing to hold your flaky body
if you don’t have the lens.
what do you see in your reflection
if not an extension of what you dislike the most?
the inner workings of you
are strikingly wholesome
but the lights within you
are soon to be stomped out.
when you change yourself for the unforgiving blank void of life,
what is there left but a shell of fool’s happiness?
the point in feeling whole is
lost. my hands tremble, a stormy body
on the edge of today. and what is it worth
if not living for the truth? what is it worth
if my existence goes completely unacknowledged?
who will be themselves?

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.

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

if you love my writing, i’ll love you

i wanna feel your hands
on my body
like poetry
stanzas and alliterations
upon my guilty skin

your eyes twinkle
and they sing
i’m sure you would be good at writing
we could exchange ideas
paint words vividly
but maybe you do write out of
your own accord
i don’t actually know you, forgive me

i am tired of being invisible
know me
let me know you
in a way that no one else knows you
a way that is secretive
but capable

i’ll write your wrongs
and right down the street
are my open arms
to hold you in spite of the horror
to build you sanctuary
to construct buildings out of
your bulging eyes
hold me as well

i am not a handful
whatsoever
          just kidding

but whatever
let me be your muse
that way i can live forever in
hardback books and film screens
so i don’t doze off one day and leave
no memories
that way
you’ll always have me

i can stamp you on paper and
keep you in the paragraphs
and
line breaks

i can sketch your eyes into crystal *****
fortune tell for the distant future
inside of our tightly held palms

i will love every square inch of your
olive oil skin
and every ounce
of your soulful soul

i’ll write you into metaphors
about the land, sea, and animals
scream your name at the top of my
lungs until
you magically appear
i’ll wipe your tears
and
toss em’ off your pillowcase
read you bedtime stories about
how the moon adores the tides so
much, but they change every time
  she
    moves

also how the sun stopped shining
and ruined his true love
with the earth
and ever since then, all citizens
get burned in extra passionate heat
he wanted to make it up to her.
but he can’t.

please adore the way i draw the
rhyming into poetry
fantasize about me smiling on a bridge
in Chicago
so tiny in comparison to the
skyscrapers
that cling to the clouds
almost touching Heaven
(they think so)

be my muse
if not from closeup
at least far-away
or
at least
at arms length
cause
i wanna feel your chilly
hands grace my body
like choirs in unison
looovvvvveeeeee mmmmeeeee

(or at least like my poetry)

(you don’t even have to like me)

(just read it)

it was the greatest
a fairytale in front of my very eyes
theme park joy and bubblegum
my favorite destination was you
with your arms wide open like angel wings
patient and kind, never filled with pride
as i weeped on your shoulder,
yeah, i might have seemed cold,
but i didn’t mean it

you were ruthless
cut my wings just to prove your “innocence”
you’re a flute playing hypnotic tunes
but i’m not amused
with your faking and pacing and erasing of me
at the party when you stopped talking abruptly
and left me standing on the porch by the lamppost that moths were glued to
shivering in a state of paranoia
hearing the droning sound of voices unfamiliar
from the curtained window

perfume stuck in your hair
our promises float in smoke rings around us
it’s the holidays and you look as handsome as ever
i borrowed your sweater
and it feels like a warm hug
your nervous laugh, it’s so wholesome
the candlelight bounces along the wall
what would i ever do if i lost you?

a mirage of you
i sat on the docks
december rain poured on my back
an ache never soothed
a pathetic ruse of a love you tried to convince me we had
an empty fireplace
the moon a distant creature, she reaches out to me
but it’s violence and anger and blood on my sweater
you stole it, “control,” you wept
i lay in bed so afraid of the morning’s first breath
just nightmare fuel left

trust in the palms of your hands
you told me you don’t wanna leave me
it’s summer sunglasses weather
love you forever
in hazy afternoon smiles
your forever wild child
alive on the porch in the breeze
drunk on liberty
in between a quick kiss on the cheek
what a lovely rapture
intensity, love me, your silk shorts and pillows
you make me angry sometimes, but just for a while
you’re always apologizing for your wrongs
so easily, so selfishly

the thrashing and pounding from downstairs i hear
there’s a window pane and there’s not a single speck of dust there
a hush and covers going over my head as the stairs creak from a weight under them
it’s so quiet in Heaven
so silent in my reveries
but soon covers are pulled
legend of
cruelty  
lended itself to me
voice cracks and wine bottles broken
i shouldn’t have made the point to correct you
out of turn, out of time
always tears in my eyes
holes in the drywall  
trusting you is a mistake maybe i was willing to make
was it my fault?
it must be
it’s so cold in this room, so unfathomably freezing
but it’s summer; the time for believing
the time to find reason,
but i’m just a shell of a man with no guts to fight back when the pressure attacks
like a shark in the water
a bear hungry for flesh,
a lunging beast
beneath the undergarments
there are bruises and echoes that don’t show themselves
how could they?
no one would comprehend how fires diminish with enough wind

you’re overreacting, it’s just a simple scolding
let’s go on a ferris wheel and see how you just need a bird’s eye view
you’re the reason i wake up to chirping and coffee mugs and salvation
you’re the reason the day is bearable
to someone like me, how could you leave me in the dust
on the side of the unforgiving road?
i will be a rain puddle if leaving suits you best
you’ll never be happy
without me
over and over,
find a lover,
then they disappear behind the grocery store
you’ll never find satisfaction again
doomed to wander and wander and wander
but i am right here
with my arms open wide like angel wings
i’ll give you the strength to fly, just stay or there’s no point to do anything but—

“will you just listen?” stays my internal monologue
“if guilty had a soul, it would be yours.”
a worn down heart, so low in the ocean
i still will lift the blame from your shoulders any day if you desire
if it hurts you to realize the pain you caused me
it’s a black night and it’s cold, so terribly freezing
i can’t see life through the windshield foggy with rain
what am i if not a ghost in the dark of the night, looking for others like me
who cry in secrecy
and hide their nerves in scratched up arms?
what am i if not bent like a willow to your whim?
who am i if not alone in my own sorrow, begging to be yours, even when i want to be as far away from you as possible?
so easy to forget me
in story, you would have been kind to me
living in harmony
live for me, never laying a hand on me
but anger won you over and wrecked you
are you just as lonely as—

these quiet soft bodies in the forest are suffering
there is an endless question in the mouths of the rivers
there are scoundrels dressed in foggy black smoke
making peace with themselves while killing everyone else
their canines sharp, their chilling howling winds making the spirits’ hair stand on edge

these quiet soft bodies in the woods are suffering
there is a constant pounding of war drums beyond the horizon
buried underneath silk-spinning spiders and fool’s gold
there are ghastly ghosts shrieking for eternity in their eternal vacant brains
their tepid seething souls scavenging the abandoned corpses like vultures

these quiet soft bodies in the darkness are suffering
there is a hazy fog that blinds the earth from the heathens that have been buried in vain
they have bulging eyes and stigmatic circumstances protruding through the silence
tempestuousness swirling beneath their feet as in a hurricane churns up the foamy water
they see red coals and embers in the cores of any sane soul
they will gag you with a temper, leaving anger imprinted on your skin  

these quiet soft bodies in the emptiness are suffering
their cries for help are being intercepted by the government that birthed them
leaving them to be swallowed by the jet-black monsters that lurk in the shadows
there is a mask that is worn over their heads before their sense gets scraped off of their skin
they never have to feel a thing, the gashes only give a sense of victimhood

these quiet soft bodies in the nothingness are suffering
they are getting eroded away, thrown up in flames, spewing out ****** teardrops
they are hunted down and shot, seasoned perfectly and oiled
the trees groan from the fumes exuding up beyond the sky line
their branches fall off as they look the other way, vapid in their deliberations

𝘆𝗼𝘂 wake up and 𝘆𝗼𝘂 smell the flowers and 𝘆𝗼𝘂 yawn and make coffee for 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳
𝘆𝗼𝘂 live in a demonic world and 𝘆𝗼𝘂 look through it with demonic eyes
the floor shakes under 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 weight and 𝘆𝗼𝘂 feel every single step 𝘆𝗼𝘂 take
𝘆𝗼𝘂 pose in front of the million dollar camera and 𝘆𝗼𝘂 smile at the homeless laying barefoot on the street
but do 𝘆𝗼𝘂 give them money?
they sit there in rags and they beg and 𝘆𝗼𝘂 watch them and 𝘆𝗼𝘂 reply “have a nice day”
𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 clothes are made of silk and 𝘆𝗼𝘂 go to work in fancy wear every single waking day
𝘆𝗼𝘂 sleep in linen sheets and 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 pillow is so soft that 𝘆𝗼𝘂 fall into the night so easily
𝘆𝗼𝘂 wave to passerby’s in cars and 𝘆𝗼𝘂 yell across the street to girls 𝘆𝗼𝘂 find pretty
𝘆𝗼𝘂 strut in the alley, but only the one with twenty plus people
𝘆𝗼𝘂 switch sidewalks when 𝘆𝗼𝘂 see a man with a rapid heart rate who’s walking faster than usual due to being late
𝘆𝗼𝘂 grimace at him and 𝘆𝗼𝘂 continue along 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 way
𝘆𝗼𝘂 don’t tuck 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 kids in bed at night cause 𝘆𝗼𝘂 don’t have any
𝘆𝗼𝘂 don’t cry when falling onto the comforter, 𝘆𝗼𝘂 laugh instead
𝘆𝗼𝘂 online shop during the midnight hour and 𝘆𝗼𝘂 purchase Indonesian products that were made in sweatshops
𝘆𝗼𝘂 don’t condemn those who killed for no reason, but 𝘆𝗼𝘂 don’t have such ruthless shower thoughts, i suppose
𝘆𝗼𝘂 witness the moon glimmer in the desolate night as the world remains still
𝘆𝗼𝘂 fall asleep quickly and 𝘆𝗼𝘂 repeat
𝘆𝗼𝘂 do this all when the sun hasn’t risen for some
the moon hadn’t shined in the darkest of nights
the war was fueled with gaslighting and bombs
the fog hasn’t lifted, it barricades the doors of little houses
the street wasn’t bright enough and someone got tackled
the gun hasn’t stop shooting in the courtyard
the prayer was never uttered from such posh lips
the emptiness never ceased to exist
how could 𝘆𝗼𝘂 be so selfish?

teach me how to drift in the wind
how to build homes out of charred wood
teach me how to dream
how to change stuck mindsets
teach me how to grow as wild and as old as the aged sycamore trees
how to paint stars in gloomy night skies
teach me how to capture saturn on film
how to be the best i possibly can
teach me to be unbothered like the ocean tide
how to make imaginary planets with the cellulite on my thighs
teach me how to love myself
how to love you as well
teach me all you know
the waves, the breeze, the undertow
teach me how to adore love
how to preserve nature
teach me how to be carefree like dolphins
how to roll in flower fields
and how to feel beautiful
teach me everything you know
everything

she touches me—
leaves me for extinct
while you
graze your fingers up my arms
and i am a desert revived by your touch.
i feel like if i showed you my favorite songs
you would nod along
and appreciate every sound.
her mouth is like a razor-blade
splitting the hairs on my skin
like a viper, she pounces
streaked red crimson blood
with bite marks like tattoos.
you’re a calm ripple to her tsunami waters;
i drown under her oppression,
i live for just a taste of your connection.

am i inherently evil cause of my skin color?
do these blue eyes define evil in the shadow of brown eyes?
why must i feel ashamed for my pale skin?
i didn’t chose to be in this body.
didn’t chose to look this way.
half of the time i wanna punch myself in the face and turn purple so my skin color doesn’t protrude through my clothes.
i wanna hide in my blankets, cover my head with a bucket, my legs with a floor length gown.
i hate who i am.
i hate who i am.
i hate who i am.
i hate who i am.
i hate who i am.
i hate who i am.
i hate who i am.
let me be someone else.
someone with browner eyes.
someone with black flowing hair.
someone with darker skin.
someone with more joy.
someone from a place prettier than here.
i hate who i am.
i hate who i am.
i hate who i am.
i hate who i am.
i hate who i am.
i hate it.
i hate it.
i absolutely hate it.

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

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

i don’t crave your big green eyes
but you’re using them to watch over somebody else.
i know this relationship is over
but i wish i could’ve ended it with somebody else.
and i don’t like that you’re sharing drinks with another woman
who sells her body to get money
wouldn’t you have liked to be with somebody else?
she has your favorite songs on cds and i never did
i wish you could’ve ended up loving somebody else.
somebody who’s rude to waiters, somebody who is only good for a first date or
at least somebody else.
now i have to hide my cold hands under my winter coat
cause you’re too busy holding somebody else’s.
your dog still loves me more
but he has to spend some time with somebody else.
just like you went and forgot me
cause it was more beneficial to see yourself with somebody else.
now you’re happy go lucky
since you’ve replaced me with somebody else.
lonely eating ice cream
while you’re shoving it down in the house of somebody else.
perhaps, i don’t miss your company
i’ve just been enjoying it more with somebody else.
or maybe this is hopeless
and i should let you make love to somebody else.

i don’t want your body
but i hate to think about you with somebody else.

in the critical marsh of florida
he is still on the dock of the boat
cautiously & causally counting the cattails
poking up out of the half river half sea
half possibility
i am continuously confused with what you do
you were left by the marina
accidentally
and you reek of algae and a summer fling
while i participate in pretending just like your father did
losing your future to a buck of independence
lose your future to an underdressed miss
lose your future to me.

forgetting isn’t so bad after all
me not checking my test score cause if i don’t see it then i didn’t get that bad grade
isn’t exactly crazy
if i forget those words that imbecile described me as
oh, they’ll go away
disperse into the air
fly to someplace i’m forbidden to go to
i wouldn’t let those stupid words singe my bones
dangle in the mirror, ready to puncture me with those razor-sharp teeth
let me forget
this entire year of excruciating pain and crippling anxiety
feed it to the hungry souls in the graveyard
they will enjoy my disfavor
the ghouls can haunt that imbecile with his petty attitude and ruthless words that he thinks don’t incapacitate people
teach him a lesson in being a decent human being
he’s lucky i’m not vengeful
i don’t crave revenge, i crave to forget
to forget those years that felt like below freezing ocean waves over emaciated bodies
that stripped away comfort and shoved anguish down the throats even of entitled jerks
my brain wishes it could comprehend math and chemistry like he could
if it was that simple, i wouldn’t be worried at this point of the year when i don’t even care enough to pretend to care
let me forget that i let my friends down by talking out loud or shutting my mouth or by hesitating
i don’t wanna be the new doll placed in front of the county that i don’t belong in
those days when i went to Lake Erie and saw hot air balloons lift up into the horizon and ate sausages at some pretty hotel and then went to the beach and let the waves crash into my small figure and i’d smile because life was so easy and simple
i didn’t have to worry about failing chemistry for the year
or what ***** was gonna call me ugly when i entered that ancient building
let me forget the torment
let me forget

the dance floor is crowded and the floor shines like it was freshly polished.
dresses fitted tightly and loosely, dresses purple, blue, yellow, unladylike.
hands moving like torpedoes, high kicks, deep dips, choreographed nonsense.
twirls, spinning in tent like shapes, hips gracefully swaying as the trumpets scream.
waltzing my way back into reality, into the arms of a familiar stranger.
clouded with the strawberry coated thoughts of a busted up balcony with my dance partner swinging me into a trance.
must have been love in the folds on your forehead, must have been love in the lights reflecting on the dance floor, must have been love in that gloomy air upstate, must have been love where i never saw it appear before, must have been love; nothing else has ever made me feel the same brilliant surge of energy as your touch on my back.
it must have been true love.

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


i apologize; i am only a little spiteful.

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

you say you don’t love him anymore
yet you always blush and turn pink when he’s around
you get giddy and you tell me to do things
and if i refuse, you speed walk in the other direction
you still have a bonfire buried deep inside those smoking lungs
your soul keeps gathering sticks
your heart keeps lighting matches
inflaming and heating up the blazes of the man-eating fire
you say you don’t love him anymore
but he still affects your ethereal smile
he still changes your attitude
and you will never not love him
so stop lying to yourself
and stop letting him capture your mood
and put it in a russian doll
layers upon layers
without discovering the truth
you say you don’t love him anymore
but i know you still do

Calligraphy
And my figures of speech
I’ll wait for a moment to pounce
But for now, I’ll be cooped up in my house
Nonchalantly
Engaged in pensive thought about you

And if I could see the summer sun
One more time before the waves turn black
Like a mysterious soul
Or like non renewable coal
I’ll want that

And if you could smile pleasantly up at me
Like you want to have a discussion with me
I will formally accept that offer
In the safety of my own room and the
shoulders of my country

And you’re partly stone
And half liquid
I ain’t trying to get in your business
But I can’t love from a distance
And I can’t breathe when you’re missing

Calligraphy
I’m writing pretty just to act like you didn’t wrong me
With your brand new friends and being a pain to society
That’s what being smart and needy gets you

I feel betrayed by my own tongue
By the rapid movement of my fingers when I’m writing about you
Cause I never wanted to admit anything
Not even the truth
When it comes to you

I know everyone else converses with the easy side of you
Lighting the cigarette and blinded by the reality
Of the way you use your words because you have a dang superiority complex
Or are you different?

Calligraphy
Slanting your definition so you’re not the villain in the story
I laugh in desperation and the thought that I might never see your eager face at 7:30 in the morning ever again
That is terrifying to me
I’m growing up and you are too
I feel like it’s a curse for me
A curse because of a plague of guilt and malevolence
I know she’s alive grinning, watching my life crumbling like the lost city of Pompeii
She stole you away from me
Not the pages of poetry
Or the growing apart because of vicinities
It’s the hostility, the spite, the animosity
Because I was having such a dang good year
Until she had to place her grummy hands over my happiness
And MY moments
Regurgitate them back to me
Please.

as a girl with a brain who is taught not to use it
to abuse it
to misuse it
i refused it
concluded
that i wouldn’t yelp about every single non congruent disillusionment
told to be angry
to be discontent
with the world and its faux barbed wire
but i’m not discontent.
i am quite very content.

i feel you in the dark
and i feel you in the candlelight.
i see you in the stars
and yet, i can never reach them.
you’re so close
yet so far
you dance all alone
outside the bar
by the place we first exchanged
eye contact
and i saw you in the embers of the street fires.
you gave me happiness
or even just a moment of contentment.
you gave me something tangible to feel
something genuine,
something actually real.
a figment of my imagination
you’ve become
in such short of time.
i miss the optimistic smile
that would
light up in your eyes
and i knew you felt the smoke arise
in my body
after the ravenous fire inside of me diminished.
i feel you as the curtain closes
as the locket i keep as a memorandum
shakes along with my morally stained hands.
i can’t keep a steady eye on the
realness of life.
it all fades into the blue
along with my rare smile.
i haven’t felt the wild wind pull my hair in
different directions.
are you even listening?
i haven’t seen the stars at night
only factory smoke in sight
and the dress you wore is ******
and so lonely.
i traverse through town
and always seem more bitter.
the ripped-up constitution of my
feeble institution
it just crumbles at my feet.
they can’t hear me when i breathe.
it’s as if the world is turning
into a frenzy
and i’m slowly
becoming more and more formidable.
they don’t want to knock upon my door
and they don’t want to fear me anymore.
yet i just want them to fear me more
than they ever have before.
i’m sick of finding solace in the ghost of you.
i’m sick of seeing my forcefulness multiply
into knives that stab
you from beneath your grave.
the dress you wore is ******
and so lonely.
can you teach me how to heal my wounds?
i already lost you,
i can’t lose myself.

there are brats and rats and scumbags
crowbars and cheap cars and phantom stars
in the town of denial
down by the frothy beach
in the middle of a place called insanity

there are temptresses and trespasses and messages
phony ploys and bloodthirsty boys and aimless joys
in the dust-accompanying countryside
the place that silver wolves and pistols occupy
in foreboding high midnight sighs

there is loneliness and helplessness and acid
soda cans and grunge bands and peculiar bans and queer vans
all inside my throbbing heart
in the space i refuse to stay
in the place where it’s never “ok”

down by the frothy beach
in the middle of a place called insanity

me.

happy birthday to the best friend who left me in the dust. who left me to fend for myself and my frail bones. i guess i am wishing you a happy birthday from an app whilst your new friends are probably throwing you a rager, but i am not mad. i am never mad at you.

some of the best memories and moments that came from you; they sure aren’t the same:
you told me about stranger things, that was the first i heard from it. now the fourth season has come out and i haven’t heard a peep. and don’t even think i forgot about how you told me the entire plot and how scared you were in your little bedroom in your old and memory filled house. how the horror lined your bones and made you tense. and you couldn’t forget it even as the night air twinged your skin. it stung a little as you begged to forget you ever saw the demagorgan or realized will was missing.
i still watch the dang show.

you and i trampled around in the woods with my older sister who you were super close with because i couldn’t leave her alone. you ate some snow and i told you it would be *****, but you said it’s clean.
don’t eat the yellow kind.

my teacher and you had the same birthday. as well as donald trump. but he doesn’t matter. you laughed with her and showed her your teeth. must be nice to be birthday buddies with someone. someone who desired to be.
you better wish her a happy birthday.

i was jealous back in fourth grade because you liked leah better...or so i thought. you sat on the opposite end of the table although i told you to set yourself by me. it bothered me. walls of jealousy put up just because i realized that was the first time i had low self esteem. a picture of you and i at the lunch table still made the year book.
leah was in it though.

sleepovers at your house. that same stupid house. in a different town than you live now. by the pit bulls you told me about as soon as you moved in. you better have gotten that pepper spray to ward them off. anyway, i brought my sleeping bags and threw em’ in your mother’s car. you played basketball and i had to watch from the sidelines. with your dang mom and dad. your dog ate our popcorn when we clothed it in salt cause of course God gave me allergies to everything i can see. we laughed so hard our stomachs hurt. or the time when you invited all your sporty friends from other schools and they made me uncomfortable. they were too mature and riskay for my nine year old liking. we watched the sand lot.
i am on the bench.

and it’s your birthday. another year has passed and you’re still gone. i think it’s too surreal for me to handle, so i keep writing you little notes (or long ones) hoping you’ll stumble your way back to me.
i still miss you but

happy birthday for now

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

POV-
ur best friend of five years at least (ur horrible at math) has left you for a structure and you lay there on your bed confused. Life had just started getting good. U had a phenomenal teacher, “friends,” lovers (i mean you were like eleven so more like crushes) good grades and every luxury the world could give to you. it’s halloween night and you don’t even know it’s the last time you are going to be speaking with ur best friend. and after that you start to miss her and see her in unlit candles and McDonald’s hamburgers. you read ur old text messages and you bawl into your knuckles until u are sore and you have to stop for ur greater good. u avoid eye contact with her because now you are inside the place that she left you for and you feel immeasurable to its warm embrace. you don’t tell your new friends about your cluelessness of why she stopped talking to you. u leave this all untouched and no one can collapse the property you built for your furious self. And you grow tired every day of having to hide from such a public relationship that you develop social anxiety. u start to feel eyes all over you all the time and you can’t sleep well at night because there might be a ghost under ur bed. and ur life becomes pointless because who should you be living for now? u contemplate saying something to her, but you fear rejection so much that you cower in the dusty corner and u are safe... right? oh, but ur still gonna turn red and pink and purple after dreams are torn and scraped like the crumbs on the table. u ache with every bone in your body and every cell wishes you would just say “hi” to the closest stranger ever. but ur mouth shakes and trembles and you grow tired of always having to try after SHE left U for a building that would crumble in less than four years. a building that wouldn’t even last longer than ur “friendship.” but u don’t feel angry, you just feel numb and ur phone vibrates from other people who cared enough to call you smart or say you knew more than them in spanish class and you realize that some people will never care enough to talk or never want to rekindle what you thought they would and you are ok with it. because friends are fluctuations and you are probably never gonna see the man who asked you to help him walk across the street again, so why would you care if it was anyone else? u are unstoppable and ur best friend is just an old friend and that’s how the world is. and you will not cry about it

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

when the taylor swift concert ended
and you didn’t even ask me how it was
that was the second i knew
when the only thing you commented was how
far away the stage was from my seat
your jealousy creeping up like a monster
you only talk about yourself, never ask me how i am
i might be asking for too much, but maybe you don’t ask for enough
and you didn’t ask about it once just, “how was the show?”
the most bluntly asked question ever
do you ever consider how you make me feel
when you constantly degrade and insult me?
wallowing in my own loneliness feels better than being around you
i’m sorry i don’t know who you are
wait—of course i do
you explain every detail of your life
lamenting over your “struggles” and your stupid little petty dramas
spouting out nonsense like a fountain
do you even know i have a brother
or that he beat down the walls
and the tears from the years of his constant fist fights and head banging?
do you even know about my love for taylor swift or lana del rey because it feels like they actually listen to the things i have to say
even if it’s just their lyrics that i sing to the dusty mirror by my bed?
do you even know i have anxiety festering underneath this forced porcelain skin?
do you even know how sad i get, just how unwanted and melancholy i feel when i pace around my room having nothing better to do?
do you even know how much i cry at night, just ripping myself apart and not even for anyone else’s sake?
do you even know the pain i feel knowing that even my best friend won’t ask me how i’m doing, won’t let me get the flames off my chest?
do you even know my dreams and aspirations?
do you even know that poetry twinkles in my soul and brings light into a vast void of nothingness?
do you even know how much i vouch for you in the vehement conversations i have with my parents?
do you even know my favorite songs, my favorite shows, my favorite movies, my favorite foods—the most basic facts ever?
how do you even sleep a wink at night knowing the lack of details that you know about me?
i saw my favorite artist two days ago and you didn’t even ask me how it was.
you didn’t ask me if she played my favorite song, if it was loud, if it was as fun as i expected, if it was the first time i’ve seen her, if it was a sudden realization that letting go is beautiful?
do you even care enough to ask me anything at all, or should i just keep asking about the boys who constantly blow up your phone, about the “friends” of yours who don’t want to see the best in you, of your “totally unfair” parents supposedly wronging you over and over again?
do you even care about the girl you call your best friend?
do you even care?

when all the leaves fall and change
when the sunset gets sooner everyday
in that exact pale chilly darkness
that is where my heart rests
perhaps i have dreamed once before
i dreamed i would see a dinosaur
in real life, in real form
and maybe i dreamt big things for my future
i have watched the shower nozzle water cascade down me
like some kind of wanna-be hot spring
the leaves have turned brown alike my heart
and my lungs grow heavy and wet like the morning dew that falls
i imagine that if i was a painter i would sculpt myself in autumn
in a tiny little cottage
with smoke rising from the chimney
alone, in an opening of deciduous trees,
here the leaves fall softly and slowly
and my heart sinks quietly and slowly
underneath the sobbing trees

it’s so hard to stomach it
that i would feel freer without your grip
to leap from the cascade of waterfall
blood in the water
stab wound under the blouse
it’s a woman killer,
staying put.
that when it’s airplanes plummeting from the gaping sky,
or when it’s thrashing swords,
it’s better to just stay silent
or run away
but how come running away is so tricky?
to just move those little feet
and leave the ditch you lay in
for blooming gardens and sky-kissing cities
but it’s impossible.
bruises gather on satin skin
snake bites bubble
and tears slip
and
the realization hits
but doesn’t hit hard enough
and it’s just sitting in trenches
waiting for the enemy to consume
me
but it’s a slow burn
and
it burns so terribly.
i have remained unspoken
i have let the automobiles crash into my haven
i have given them a place to rest,
a place to stay in
and i
regret it.
regret meeting you
regret encouraging you
regret being anything near you.
you’ll stare at my grave in the ground
and you’ll just shrug it off,
move some dirt over it,
but it only covers the evidence
not the girl that sits
with her knees clenched
sobbing in fits
of anguish
caused by your tyrannical hunger
to give life to lonely people
and then take it away.

yet sometimes the water is calm;
there are no ripples caused by incongruity
no collapsing dams, no inundations
just peace.
and it’s safe in this place
i say
but one ever knows when rain
might be too heavy
and one never knows when their house is about to get flooded.

all i do is damage myself for you.