when the mountains
come crashing down upon
the crops
and smother us
like a mother
maybe that’ll feel like
love
or wanting.
cause you fed the fire
in me
but now i’m burnt out
you planted the truth in me
but now only lies slip out
of my mouth.
come to think of it
the mountain
peaks are lower
than your
self esteem
can’t believe
i trusted you with
my blood
my tears
my values
you trampled them
like an avalanche.
liquid pours out of
my ears
my eyes fizzing
in them,
carbonation
is making an appearance.
sometimes i don’t know
what to do
i have no clue
what i am writing
right now
let alone
why my mind won’t
stop flooding with
images of your ivory skin.
this prison sentence
is on the brink
of ending.
thank Heaven.
and
i write to fill space
and that’s what
i did
with this.

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?

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.

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

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

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

you’re so easy to love


   —i wish i was like you

don’t waste your time trying to impress someone with higher status or nicer clothes or a prettier face.
they won’t acknowledge you anyway.

stop wasting your time, hung up on love that you crave.
being in high school and never having a boyfriend is totally ok.
you aren’t unlikeable just because you’re single, i can promise you that.
  
crush culture will make you wanna spill your guts out.

don’t make people your villains just because you envy them and their skeletal structure.

i know it feels as if you’re bathing in a hot spring filled with inexorable anxiety
and i know you wanna escape more than anything else in the entire universe.
this is just a moment.
you have the entire rest of a lifetime for yourself.
just stay strong.

don’t worry about what others think about you.
the only approval you should be seeking is your own; everyone else’s is irrelevant.
who cares if they judge you for such a trivial matter?
they don’t know the real you and if they did, they wouldn’t even look at you funny ever again.

i know you think that you’re not worth it for some reason
but you are worth every laugh shared and every contagious smile,
you are worth the space you occupy in other peoples’ minds.
you might not be brightest star, but you can keep shining.
you don’t have to be a prodigy at everything.
you’re good at things,
you’re talented,
you’re able.

you don’t need to be spotted in crowds.
if you want to remain invisible to the naked eye, go right ahead.
i promise no one is stopping you from keeping your distance.

you don’t have to be loud and crave to be seen to matter in this world.

times can feel like asteroids hitting your planet (and a war threatening it)
summer goes and winter comes and flowers bloom and then go dull.
people are just like seasons;
you don’t need to be happy all the time.

but who knows?
you’ll grow into a fine young lady/man
and no one will know what struggles taunted you when you were in eleventh grade.
besides,
no one thought that neptune had rings when they were there all along;
they were just invisible.


—see, even invisible things can be seen if you capture them with the right camera

i pray i will be able to love those who i am afraid of loving
for fear of seeming too sensitive.
i pray i will be able to pick up the phone for someone who really appreciates my time
because he will not hurt you.
i pray i will be able to confess my emotions
not cowering behind a facade.
i pray i will be able to love you
and i pray that i will not push you away.


—he will not hurt you. you will only hurt him.

never thought i was worth it until somebody told me so
he told me never to doubt myself or feel any insecurity
and now my hands are ****** and the rope is tight around my neck
and now i wonder if i ever love again must i have to forget?
every shattered promise clinging to my sleeve
but i am freezing now, can i come home?
or at least observe you watching television
with a coffee mug and imagine it was me you never stopped dreaming of.
outside the snow is creating blankets i must wrap myself around
cause the cold is my muse and i must never let her down.
unless you want to keep me warm,
keep me safe in someone’s locket
doesn’t have to be your own
the loners never let you know
until it’s too late.
i never want to be your burden—love me for your sake.
love me so the cold does not preserve me in her arms
and leave me someone you must deal with when you inevitably shovel the driveway.
can you walk me home in time for the dinner bell to ring?
will you stay if no one’s home
or will you leave me to my own devices,
watching every human that i have ever loved disintegrate in my cold ****** hands?
i’ll wipe the prints on every item,
never leave no evidence.
i will crawl until my knees bust open and the floor is wet
from my tears that i feared would always seal my fate.
can you take me home, hand in hand, coats on shoulders, giggly negative self-talk?
but maybe make a stop
and i’ll make a home in your bed
just enough room for me to remember to forget
that this love will never ever happen again
and no amount of begging
will produce the results the same.
you must lay me in the corner,
tell me “stay where you are made,
don’t cause a scene, don’t make me regret bringing you like some kind of dead
weight.”
i will listen; that’s the best thing that i could ever do,
let me think high of myself for one minute or a few.
i won’t chew the food you give me
i just want to be forgiven
want to live without a knife lodged deep into my rib cage
i’ve learned nothings fair in love and war
there is nothing poetic about it
you’ll be left by your best friends,
your enemies will never mourn you.
and if you win there’s no virtue
to uncover
you’ve taken something in your hands that wasn’t even yours to begin with.
let me stay until i’m warm again
until their fingernails don’t puncture skin,
their violence becomes normalcy,
so i will know when to hide from the cold that slowly creeps
and calls me its daughter like i ever belonged to it
i believe you, i believe it,
just didn’t want to believe
that you’d leave
me on the porch for some yellow tv screen.
i’ll be as quiet as you want, you know i should never reveal my presence
once i do, the men deem me too much of something—something that they must rid of.
and i’ll forget the torture, long as you forget the power
instilled into your bones as far as any time must go.
i have tried in vain to get you to love me,
or at least see my skeleton
as i was made,
i’m just a body,
just something you can’t offend.
i have defended all my reasons as they lie flat on the floor,
sat in grass outside your house and waited for
the door
to open
much to my surprise,
no one loves you when you’re dying
when the love you once thought could happen
starts crumbling like a sandcastle
and wind chill makes you contemplate the reason why you keep going.
you’ve never been worthwhile
you’re just a silhouette,
of someone stronger who sleeps in comforters
and the cold is not their hollow mother.
can you walk me home at midnight
but if i ever stop trying
what’s the point in telling anyone i feel like i’m dying?
will you lift my wobbly legs, walking drunk back from the station?
i’m so sick of being cold;
i just want to go to sleep.
never thought i was worth it until someone told me so;
he must have lied through his teeth the entire time.
how could someone love me when i’m giving into weather,
when my pulse feels more like a broken clock
rather than a living thing?
how could someone love me
when every house i’ve built has no heater,
no place to lull the wind to just a sound
that can never enter?
how could someone love me,
cold and broken,
alone, with nothing left?
outside your porch beckoning for the warm light through the window
will you carry me home?
i’m sorry,
i’ll forget i ever asked you in the morning.

I like a man with charm
As he rests his arm about the hand railing
And says, “You go first.”
                            One who summersaults
           Or dreams of a big wide ocean
   Right in between my notice
                          Want someone who walks like a boss  
          Not a little boy who’s lost
                    I like a man with contempt
     One who wants to trap me beneath his robes
                    His swords
And his guilty words
                             One who touches me like I’m
          The icing on a cake
Like I’m his future wife and we just had
                      Fifteen kids
                                      One who stands over me
       Like a statue
                        I lick the marrow from his bones
         He doesn’t hate
He only acts like he doesn’t care  
                         He knows that gets me high
     Higher than a skyscraper
                            But we still have to eat dinner
      I want someone who thinks I’m sweet
But then flips me over
        And I’m floating in the Dead Sea
                           One who towers over me
    Like a doorframe
             Who softly grazes by my hips
                                                 I wanna kiss his
        Lips cause they taste like independence
And loyalty
                              One who remains cool
Even when the awkward
                Pause is deadly
   He doesn’t have a
                                             Fatality
                     But what I really want is
     Someone who wants to be with me no matter    
                             What  
                                            Someone who’ll
   Cuddle right on my front lawn
                        Cause he doesn’t give a crap about
                                 Judgement
          

                              I love him

i’ve never known romantic love
but i know it doesn’t belong in backseats
with short skirts thrown onto the ***** floor.
it doesn’t belong in lips that only ever persuade.

it belongs somewhere ethereal
beyond the meadows and the maples and the marshes
across the solar system
in shiny stars glittering up above
in the shaded parts of your aching heart

that’s where true love rests

candle wax dripping down your hands
a tablecloth tied around your waist
dawn feels like the apocalypse
cause it’s so still
and endless
we’re both helpless in this realm
but you are gripping me so tight
i’m going numb
how come you can ease this pain
with your bruised arms
hidden underneath the tablecloth?
immortal love
is a concept i only heard of in the
highest heavens
speaking of that, where are we?
gravity seems too difficult of a subject
matter to explore
i’ve only ever been on one planet
but you can be my next
although the dark seems like
a cloaked monster with
bear claws
and candle wax
seeping from every vessel
it can’t envelop us
it can only change our ambience
nothing can capture us
through the tight grasp
of our arms together

where did you come from?
cause i lit every candle in this room
now they’re all blown out
and the darkness doesn’t exist
science can’t explain this
neither can my lips
so i dance in the burning kitchen
with your hands on my waist
and mine on the tablecloth
you wrapped around yours

“forever?”

                             “forever.”

you crumbled in my hands like flimsy bricks on lazy made housing developments
tumbling like rocks on sides of cliffs
dull guilty eyes stared back at me
black circles gazing presumptuously
at my porcelain skin
we were not bad people
we were just victims to cruel assumption
you took the brunt of the dazed collusion
and they stole me from you
as the spaceships coughed up fumes
capable of killing a single man
in under five seconds
we all cry the same tears when we hear the world is coming to a close
we travel to tiny towns where our families are stationed
and we weep in each other’s arms
because all our tears are made up of saltwater
none are fresher than another  
none are clearer
none are holier
i danced with you as the world was bombed to ashes
and minimized to dust particles
but you broke out of my embrace
and shot me in the head instead
the darkness poured out of your grim eyelids
and into my soul
i choked on my own rotten blood
feeling fire slither up next to my paralyzed body

you lit all the corners of the rooms
with candles
now they’re burning
burning the wax all the way down to the bottom
this time,
i’m not dancing,
i’m burning alive

forever is a crueler way of saying never

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

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

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

i could’ve loved you better.


i should’ve loved you better.

swallow me up in the flames of the fire
betrayal’s cold, but it feels so warm
around the embers
valley submersion
no ask for coercion
i stared at the midnight sky hoping it would burn bright
and ache my bones
to rid of this contempt
to rid of this distaste in my mouth
from your cruel intentions

the devil’s in the silence
in the rush of an arsonist
the devil has a surefire way
of making it gray
of bringing the ire

the bitter lick of the wind
a butterfly flees from the milkweed
a woman is crying,
a man’s bad at deciding
upon that hilltop, as it slowly burns
he turns in his grave
stupid mistake
to singe the small oak trees i grew from my labor
i’ll do you a favor whether you’re a skeleton or a ghost
no one knows

back then we were fighters
hands held instead of lighters
gleaming eyes and joking goodbyes
the house by the water
the transient sorrow
waltzed like a ghost under my bed
calm and collected
now brazenly fearless
relentless ruin in ash crumbling kingdoms in my hand
you left me dead
in the garden
a mysterious labyrinth
blood rushed in faces
scalding heat in the churchyard
i burnt every remnant of you
in hopes of forgetting you

it’s in the burnt wood left behind
the trace of evidence in my mind
the spirit of you lingers

never meant to break you like you broke me
with eyes full of hatred, ferocious fire
i believed in the magic we had
the lasting fever of love
embedded into our veins
you must not have gotten the memo
to be doves above the flood
i can’t blame you for an escape plan
racked of pain  
you were treachery in disguise

masked as a partner, now a liar
with the blame carried on my shoulders  
a dormant volcano made active
with the intent of annihilation
flattening lands with lush beauty
hope has four letters, but it’s impossible to believe in
always on the tip of my tongue
i have pushed beyond repair
almost clinging to the idea of you
still alive, real and believable
why do i fail at keeping—the things that matter most to me?
almost like i’m on the slow road to redemption
but my resurrection continuously forsakes me

it feels like freedom, almost cathartic
there’s fire in me
a phoenix, a bird of rebirth sits deep in my stomach
waiting to fly away

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

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.

the days won’t slow
the nights won’t drag
they move too quickly
it’s all too fast

i’ve always hated august
her grip
on my arm
her drinks
in my bar
her laughs
so far
away
but i hear them
echoing off the walls
of the barn
in this particular
part
of the season.
it’s starting to
feel like treason.
i give so much love
lying in
summer’s arms
i hold her like
a three million
dollar diamond ring
and i give her everything.
she leaves me broken
and shattered
likewise the mad hatter
and i collect her
fragments like a good
little child.
a good little
disciplined child.
she discards the wild
in me,
although i
keep
her summer breeze
alive.

i’ve always hated august
the anticipation that
comes along with her
heated embrace
her clammy hands
on my face
she wants to be
a motherly figure
to take my mother’s
place, but she’s
just too forceful
not merciful
enough.
i want a refund
for all the
money i spent for
her
to keep loving
me,
but she lets me go
like i’m some
contagious cold
that only wants to
keep you close
so
it can give you
the most sniffles.

i’ve always hated august
her savage remarks
how she gets so dark
when i just want to
feel her presence
at eight o’clock.
she’s always busy
getting wasted,
her neglecting
so shameless,
she shoos me away
like a poor peasant
begging
at her feet.
the actions she
never apologizes
for,
she adores seeing
her
tanning children
suffer,
cry their brains open
since they have
no hope
and
no happiness.

i’ve always hated august
cause it always
seems
like she hates
me.
i wish we had
a better relationship
but she’s always made
my life a living
shipwreck,
again, i am beached.

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

I haven’t liked anyone in a really long time
   I mean, in person, in real life
I’m afraid of chasing ignorance
Or waiting for the traffic light to turn green
       So I can run so fast that my legs wish they
    Were broken
              You probably don’t even know
    That when I see someone I’ve seen for a
         Minute
    I get those old crush, soda can moments
               I don’t even like them
It’s as if the spring wind impresses
      Me now
               When before I was astonished by how
       The snow glistened when the sun shined
     Or how I fell into your arms
          Begging for a lifetime
  But I would only get a measly line.

i’m not a lover,
i’m a mover.
a pusher,
a puller,
a secret keeper.
a violent hurricane
that leaves palm trees overturned
and businesses distraught.
an afterthought,
a delicate reminder of joy
for only a moment.
a hazy daydreamer,
a ‘try my best.’
a solo traveler,
who braves the windy waves alone.
though the water tumbles over
ships and i feel like surrendering.

i am a lover,
i just don’t understand the patterns of skin touching,
of how to awaken the lullabies buried inside of me.
i don’t understand how to stop the madness
from escaping my palms
and dripping onto your back.
i wipe the ink from your body.
it stains my fingertips.
i am a lover,
i just don’t understand how to love you,
to surrender to the thought that maybe i cannot control everything in my wake
and that is not a curse.
i am a lover who was raised in flames,
but i can be tame.

in the ballroom
your eyes like comets
mine like phosphorescent lights
in the humid july sky

our arms moving like seaward ships
caught you stranded amidst the violence
eyelashes that swayed in the wind
you saw me, you asked me to dance

i don’t believe everything is as it should be
it was just a kiss, i don’t think i actually miss you
or maybe i’m slowly getting addicted
to the cadence of your voice
every night, it’s back to that july or was it november weather?

you touched my hand with a fiery blaze that pranced inside that stuffy room
you gave me a glance, i gave you a chance
you could’ve tumbled from the balcony
would my reaction time have been as swift as when you had caught me by surprise?

why am i such a fool?
if it had started with you
we could have fled together like panicked soldiers
from the esteemed battlegrounds their forefathers fought for so their successors could lose their next battles
and get captured and chained against walls

and i wanted you, i was only a husband away from kissing you,
touching you,
impaling you

you were moments away from calling my bluff
it’s enough, i’m in handcuffs
while you stand in the ballroom
your eyes on me like you’re the spotlight and i’m your stage device

we danced like we meant it
would you have given me up for a fairer maiden?
one with less personality issues and without a right hand man?
would you have stopped if i told you that dancing is for ghosts in empty hotels?

i would have died trying in a slashed wedding dress
if the force i called my lover didn’t snag my clothes on his irregular branches

i can’t see beyond these singing cliffs
please kiss me
on the dock of my yacht
i’ll adore you until you ***** me over
or until i ***** you over
and we become ashes on the riverbed
that was the location where my lips touched yours
on the grass
not on the ballroom steps
not with a cigarette in your mouth

you were slipping through the gloves i wore?
i don’t recall, did the background start to get blurry
when you swept me off my feet?
did i panic?
did you love it?
did you notice the electricity escaping from my palms?

i spotted your pupils become lucid
the lights didn’t even change colors
and you danced with some kind of suitor
but i don’t know who you are
or what your motives are
just know that the mirror can only hold evil if it’s as marvelous as you

the patterns of your footsteps in my nightmares or perhaps
in the trances my exhilaration transports me to

are

lurking in the shadows
in the doorframes
the hallways of trains i haven’t stepped toes in
complaints flooding the mailboxes i happen to own

i loaned you my heart as a temporary ornament
you could dangle like candy
in front of adored damsels looking to be courted
i’m becoming the focal point in your daily
struggle to gain power over the situation that sadly owns me

waltz inside of my irises instead of on the floating platform
that is about to crumble beneath the soles of our dress shoes

my conscience buried in the thawing soil

did you lose sight of the plans you foiled?

whistle to the carriage you paid for
open the door for the feeble woman in the backseat
it would have boiled your blood,
and so i would’ve kissed your lips

but ghosts don’t dance in ballrooms;
they just sit
and watch everyone else become brides and grooms
and they feel the tug every single time
the room erupts in sudden laughter
they wait like stubborn angels  
at the noisy soirée
anticipating the collapse of young souls
like me and you

and therefore; the downfall we have will be a spectacle
your disintegration in the mirror will be a quotidian one
as i watch your bones dance in your body like little puppets in a silly drama

catch me when i fall for
the doors i have entered
before haven’t
restored my soul
and i would have kissed you
or even said i missed you
if he wasn’t the person he was
if you weren’t the person you are
and if i was completely unaware of the consequences of mistakenly false coincidences
perhaps i would have put my lips to yours
outdoors
as the creek entertained our obscene selves
and heard our dramatic moans
and groaned
“good riddance”

“good riddance indeed”

our tempers fizzled and the skeletons were evicted from our closets
good causes, it’s my fault—it’s
just that i said all those cheery things to impress you
as if you were Socrates or someone of such high standing;
undoubtedly, you are

but the cliff i leaped off of slowly became you—the ghost in the castle walls
who waltzes with gorgeous girls
just to dream of what it would be like to
kiss them,
touch them,
impale them

i wonder how it felt to be in control
to hold me like i would puncture your skin
like some breed of lovesick vampire

i was only a girl in love with a future
she could not let unfold
because she had a husband waiting at home

waiting for her to slip up
feeling less and less in control

but with your gaze like lightning
ignoring is such a demanding reality
and
i want to kiss you,
i miss you,
this isn’t a petty joke
join me in the meadow
hands in mine
and touch me,
kiss me,
impale me

what a bed to inhabit in
when the illness strikes the body
there’s no caring mother to nurse the health back.
what a bed i set up
a sunken-in *****
a ***** to sink in until the seasoned chill sickens the soul.
there’s a body next to me, but he lays still, rarely speaks a word
and when he does,
the answer does not find him.
i lay in wonder all night long until the moonlight dwindles
and the sun starts singing its choruses.
the body beside me, he listens,
until my swimming legs cast him aside,
the noise drowns out in this swimming pool cage.
every sorrow that has laid claim on my terrain
every dagger pointed and aimed at my skull
is digging itself into the mattress.
i just sit and wallow
on the sinking bed
and the boredom teems until the man beside me
starts sweating.
i have to throw the sheets off and sob and carry on until the morning comes.
again and again

chomping on crunchy bones- my frail bones
how hard is it to just be a skeleton
unbothered, just straight-up dead
under the grave, just a small feeble corpse
let me rest in peace, you deadly humans,
let me be
i can’t stand the silence let alone the laughter
of the ****** bodies with crooked souls
let me rest in peace
it’s like an inferno down below
why can’t it be just like before?
when i was just a skeleton in the grave
before they sawed my bones
before i lost my own
head
in these weeds
in these plunging depths
let me rest in peace, you foul idiots

sweaty hands, take me to dance
i swung my arm around
you told me i was doing it wrong
so you grabbed my waist
and swayed
to the beat of the drums
to the beat of my overwhelmed heart
the neon lights shone on your heavenly face
i stared deeply into your glowing eyes
my sister was jealous
that i could land you
so easily
from that glittering stage with neon lights
into your arms only tonight

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

I’ve always dreamed of textbook conversations
Words that flow like a river or stream
Paper thin small talk
With little to no casualties
My tongue would welcome the soul
Not spit fire
Flames
That catch on pale skin
Ignite into a billion warships
The devil himself admires the disappointment
Because I can’t whisper a single word
That wouldn’t **** an innocent soul
He’s just always there
Ripping my throat open
Demanding war
Even though the peace deep in my heart
Wants to scream
He puts me on sale while my face turns
sea green
And oh, a blessed child
Wants to ask me about my day
Although my mind is profoundly shredded
My thoughts screeching
Insisting I reply
But he stops me halfway
Spits in my face
Oh, and I’m speaking like a half dead horse
Whinnying as its back is beaten
By the whip of the beholder
Still remaining submissive.

i became skinny, but i still hated myself
i worked my **** off trying to “lose weight”
i was always skinny
what was i on?
i watched my slim figure in the mirror
and
cried
i was never good enough
i still don’t think i am
no—
i will never be enough
cause i think i’m ugly despite one or two people calling me pretty
my clothes don’t fit and i panic
i told my friend i needed to lose weight
and she said i was super skinny
i don’t know why
it shocked me
cause the body dysmorphia is vicious
and she is my biggest bully
my legs are muscular
i walk all day, run at night
i swear
i’m not lying about that
yes
i pace around my room
cause apparently that’ll shed pounds
heck, i’m one hundred and twenty pounds
yes—
i said it
it’s mostly muscle
but i think i’m fat
perhaps, i haven’t thought about my weight or my legs for a long while
but yesterday i saw my stomach in the mirror
and i can’t stop thinking about that
i’m gonna start doing ab exercises
so i can be toned
and i know i’ll be happy
by those results
i’m still ugly though
i am so sorry for the self deprivation
but it’s come the time when i accept that i will never be beautiful
and i don’t know
perhaps that’s perfectly valid

how am i still hopeful?
dreaming up plots that are impossible
who do i wanna be?
can you laugh at my jokes?
call me invincible?
pull me in your arms so it doesn’t get cold?

make me your Heaven in human form
cause you’re an angel, i hope you know
as long as one day you can laugh at my jokes
maybe i’ll be invincible

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

so i eat.

the laundry done and hanging
the bread kneaded and baking
the smell of Levi jeans
with rips on the thighs
Pablo Neruda’s poems
rolling off my tongue
along lakeside vistas
piles of ice in soda drinks
he hums “la vie en rose”
and i get lost in the world
i envisioned.

and maybe i’m not the oceanic girl with satin draped upon soaked legs and arms
who washes up on the beach and interrupts your business, but you’re totally cool with it
i’m not the gentle sprinkler girl with sweet smelling perfume and kind eyes
who sings you a song and you forget all about your other problems just to hear her
i wish i was the sapphire moon-dusted angel beaming on a shooting star
above your home with sturdy walls
but i am not
i am not headlight savage, i find meaning in otherwise meaningless things
like a sudden crinkle in the corner of your eyes
like a butterfly landing close to my nose
i am absolutely nothing
not a mermaid girl, not an album cover saver, not a flapper girl stuck in the wrong time period
i am a deeply disturbed individual
so filled with nothingness that it courses through my veins
and i bleed absolutely nothing.
i do not bleed.
i do not bleed.
i do not bleed.
i do not bleed.
i do not bleed.
i do not bleed.
and if i do, it is in sparkling lake water at one a.m and i am lonely and so ill
and the world can’t fit my sorrow in its deepest sinkholes
and so i sit alone on the dock, in the woods with nothing but nothingness inside of me
and i weep with a mason jar clasped so viciously in my hand that the glass starts to feel sharp and it cuts me but i bleed
nothing
i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.
absolutely nothing.
there is sulfur in my lungs and what a lullaby this desperation is becoming to my sore ears
almost like a siren, but the only thing i lure is unsatisfactory algae washed up upon the creaky dock and i’m holding my head in my hands like it’s about to burst, but it all feels so surreal and suddenly i start to feel nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
absolutely nothing
and suddenly, there are butterflies in my throat and they beg to be released out into the mist hovering over the water’s edge, but i can’t seem to gag or spit them out so i pound on my chest but nothing comes out.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
absolutely nothing
and the air wraps around my droopy eyes and i must have been crying till it starts to feel like i’m barely even on life support anymore and i don’t seem to find an issue with that and that scares someone like me who just wants to leap off skyscrapers and lose all inhibitions and just breathe
and
suddenly
the butterflies start flying out of my belly and the pressure is so intense that i try to scream, but i can’t because my ribs are squeezed together so tightly that i almost lose the remaining oxygen left in me yet it doesn’t bother me because i start to look unhealthy and squeamish but i look so little against the reflecting light but i still see nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
oh, something.
something.
something.
something.
something.
something.­
something.
just something
but i just can’t and i accept defeat for i am the weak-minded damsel with daisies collected in her hair, but she isn’t weak she just wants to be loved just wants to be rescued from the sadness that leaks into her pores and descends onto the carpeted floor she just wants to feel something.
something.
something.
something.
something.
something.
something.
just something
but she searches in the places inhabited by sea monsters and abrasive deciders and it doesn’t seem to have an exit or a release from
the turmoil, but the wings of the butterflies get caught in her esophagus and coughs don’t suffice it and now she’s grasping at the last fiber of being that still exists inside of her
but there’s nothing
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.

absolutel­y nothing.

by the time i’ve woken up,
with my wooly socks pressed underneath blankets,
you’re already gone.
i don’t believe in myself
when the people i love leave cause they can’t contend with my
dagger defenses
and my ugly weapons.
i wish so, i wasn’t so dangerous with the ones
who give me a warm bed to sleep on
a warm mug of tea,
soft little socks so my feet don’t freeze
and they call me the things i want to hear
but not because i forced it out of their mouths,
but because they really want to.

and by the time you leave, i’ve already understood why you had to exit the house,
pack all your belongings into your flimsy *******,
and escape from the scene.
i’ve already made sense of your decision and the vicious cycle i let you tumble through;
it’s not fair.
the way i keep you a distance you wish was much closer,
or how i convince myself that this could conclude with no closure.
your lungs cannot bear my unhealthy air.
the room is all dusty,
filled corners with my despair.
i’m laying here still,
as still as one can when they’re losing their mind.

and by the time i’ve woken up, you’re already gone without a trace
and i will not chase you;
i can’t.
i’ll lay here in waist deep shame.

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.

i understand that you don’t want to be a human
causing problems or making the news
or just trying to exist without lighting a fuse
with some thickheaded scoundrel
but
lay low
don’t mind the throbbing hearts
the fire breathing sweat machines
who slice heads off just for fun or for selfish reasons
slip into your burrow
the hyenas and lions don’t dig
(i think so)
if you drown out the noise, the noise will sound like a murmur
of distant chatter
it won’t matter
only emerge to get some food for thought
so on that note,
you won’t see me in a couple of years
at least until the fire swallows up the earth
and manages to seep into the dirt
that’s when i’ll emerge