existential crisis- i am alone
sinking, then floating
in mute and pine green tones
the forest of secrets
screaming in pillows
and losing grip on the moving platform
desert crying
sidewalk skipping
falling
and bleeding
internal deprecation
hitting my own fingers with text books
to make them stop admitting my mistakes
stop misusing the “right” words
the break of dawn over the woods
using the moon as a defense mechanism
losing a helper
a security system
and i think it’s time i run back to you
unless you don’t want me there with you
i will just be numb until you call out my name
in the tortured heat
i will be there if you need me

i imagine falling in love is like watching the rain fall onto the porch, dampening the surface
i imagine it is sweet, like drinking soda and downing smarties in the embrace of a summer day
it must feel tingly, like your whole body is on fire
it must be stone cold yet hot as blazes
it must ache and churn and screech and beg you to quit, like a silly addiction

i imagine falling in love is like tumbling headfirst from the sky, diving into a world of the unknown, but you know that’s where freedom lies
i imagine it is fluffy, marshmallow, cotton candy type
it must be fabulous, must be scary
it must feel like the world is crashing down, but you are saved by your parachute
it must tear your insides open and make you scream for mercy

i imagine falling in love is like dancing alone in a rose garden, holding hands with the perfectly positioned statues
i imagine it is heavy, like a weight you almost cannot lift, but you manage
it must be fairytale like, almost as if you are captured in a screenplay, so you act in a Hollywood way
it must be light, like floating on top of clouds or touching silk that softens your skin and removes your scars
it must be troubling, having something so momentous happen to you without any sort of control

i imagine falling in love is like staring into someone’s eyes and finding their soul and reaching inside of their eye sockets to pull it out
i imagine it is fruitful, one nudge and it is a cherry blossom tree, evergreen and forever spring
it must be quick witted, it must happen so fast you don’t even notice the difference
it must be rapid, like heart beating in the middle of the night when life creeps up on you
it must be filling, like eating mounds of bread and filling up before the main course arrives
it must be everlasting, the feeling, the rush of a glance shooting straight to the gut, to the heart, to the veins
it must be enveloping, dragging every part of you into its embrace

i imagine falling in love is like smiling in pure silence, feeling your reflexes calm because this is what your body is supposed to do
i imagine it is perfect, perfect in a way that isn’t entirely godlike, but it feels like perfection to such joyful eyes
it must be like leaping and bounding in fresh magnolia fields, erasing the anxiety and the pressure of society, just so you can be free and flap your hummingbird wings
it must be like finding home and never feeling lost ever again
no matter the circumstance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

fear,
an emotion i feel
on a daily basis
looking such a human
in the emerald eyes—
terrifying

they like my hair
the curls, the waves
the volume, the aliveness
but i can’t help but
tiptoe over the thought
that
the fondness of it
is disguised hatred…
fear

melancholy, but alone
oxymorons to me
being melancholy and
alone do not exist together
but somehow
when they all leave
my side like blurry ghosts
the sadness creeps up
slowly, painfully, brutally…
fear

the anxiety inside of me
fueled by gasoline
fires on my tongue
buildings dilapidated
lava flows softly
in a thunder city…
fear

children and their
dreams vigorous with
marzipan and cherries
their fake hair
and fake bodies
and overestimated “sorrow”
their heels snap on the floor
like cinderella i sweep
the dirt off the tiles
as they whisper delightfully
about the ball in
a nearby castle…
fear

oh, to be a swan
to swim in streams
that invite me
to glide in waters
that embrace me—
hunters!
they must have seen
our pure white glossy
feathers from afar
do you hear that noise?
heaven sakes, he’s
been shot…
fear

oh, to have a swan funeral
wearing our hearts
on our wings
fly away friend,
go join the sparrows
and doves
and peacocks in
Heaven
i wish i could join you
i’m alone and melancholy
down here where the hunters
roam
where the apple trees
are seasonal
and not forevermore
meet me,
but i doubt you will
given your circumstance
compared to mine…
fear

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

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

there’s this boy who looks like my first celebrity crush
he’s taken by a beautiful girl
with cherry painted lips and a golden smile
oh, what i would give
to get lost in the labyrinth of blossoming love
to hear the accordion singing its recycled cheesy song
but it dives and curls and the wind is blowing in a strange manner
exhausted feelings catch up to me

there’s this boy who makes me scared for my soul because i like him so, but i’ve never met him
that’s how all my love songs go
nobody ever realizes
nobody ever knows
they always slip through my sweaty fingers
and their deep voices just become shallow echoes

there’s this boy who is the star in every show

there’s always the side character who pines
and never gets loved
it hurts to be so empty

picture the luminescence  
cheekbones flexed
a flare of light
a bit of strength

you always inhabit the areas that reek with filthy phrases
ecstasy bleeding out of your weak bones
cause you follow the crowd that drowns in submarines
and coughs out their black lungs

picture the seaside town
its cliffs beside sandy beaches
the rapture  
illuminated by the irises of the world

fire escapes and lurid streetlights
the buzz of electricity

don’t forget the beauty amidst the demolition


but
you tell me this is fog, although i’m inhaling smoke

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

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

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

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

i don’t believe in who you are anymore
now that my shoes have holes the size of dimes
and the drunk is still wearing off
and coming back from time to time.
wonder if the pressure ever ceases.
wonder if your heart feels empty
on a rainy night
or when i write,
wonder if your mind keeps spinning dreams
where i’m on the fence and the dogs are in the yard
and love isn’t scary when you’ve stared down the barrel of it for so long.
you ever wonder if your heart might stop one day,
ever wonder why the shame builds walls around us
and yet we keep dancing around it with our old shoes?
i don’t wonder anymore
about your whereabouts or where your emotions sit,
cross legged and anxious.
i don’t wonder anymore about our small town
and its stipulations.
i don’t wonder about you that often
and it makes me wonder what we had that made me love every second like it was my own offspring
like it breathed me alive until i died again and again
just so you would revive me.
i don’t wonder about you,
that often, anymore,
maybe the shame ate away at my bones
and provoked me for too long.
never knew the wound would heal itself and soon it would be apt time to forget.
does one forget?
does one forget those late nights,
fever-less after a sickness?
does one forget each purpose they’ve gathered
when they were not searching?
does one forget you?
does one simply stop believing in you?
stop thinking of you?
until the dust settles and the doors slam shut
and the empty hallway is just a hallway again
and not filled with your absence?
stop waking up wishing for you?
stop dreaming of the world without bloodshed, without fear, without shame?
just suddenly forget every emotion
that rests inside the mind?
just suddenly forget you?
stop believing in the falsehood?
just stop believing in you?

maybe we are punished
by those we miss most
with dark eyes
and heavy bags that
linger on a sad face.
maybe we are hurting
by ourselves and
we think it might get better
to wish for a lover,
i don’t want a lover,
i wanted to be loved.
now that that’s over,
i can’t remember
how tender you were
how life was a story
that i would’ve
fabricated to my mother
if it hadn’t happened
like it had.
maybe we are punished
by the thoughts we hold
that we think can stay forever,
a lingering cold.
maybe we are losing
our minds just a little
every second.
the neurons are gone—
what does it take to remember?
what does it take to remember?
make it much more,
bring it all back,
i haven’t thought of you—
it’s driving me mad.
how i can forget
what means the most?
am i being punished
by you, i hope
so.

they told you to book it in the opposite direction
with your back turned
never glance behind.
but you didn’t run
your feet stayed stationed, loyal soldiers
digging into the never-yet conquered land.
i made myself smaller,
a beautiful thoughtless daydream for your sharp obtuse thinking
but you weren’t even vicious like i made it up plainly in my mind.
i exaggerated your feelings
now i’m the only one left reeling
with my brain a foreigner in my own skull.
they told you to run,
but you stayed and hoped i would change.
forgive me for loving you in a psychotic way
where i locked up my affection in a jail cell
and never let it see the light of day
for your crystal-shining eyes
to see my true stance on you and us.
forget me
for your life could blossom if you free yourself from my shade
that prevents your soil from bringing up flowers
construct me a tower where i can hide
and you’ll never have to see my revolting face ever again.
they had told you to book it,
to blast down the road
and never look back
but you turned around
and smiled,
showing pristine white teeth,
and said you wouldn’t be leaving
because you had realized you loved me.
you were too naive to assume that i would accept that kind of adoration for myself
so i left you under the flickering street light
and when i looked back,
i could just see you crying

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

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.

four pumps of pulsating madness
i feel the summer in your veins
nooses hanging on our necks in the fields of dandelions
we swing
lifeless
from the sycamores
audaciously

three beheaded scoundrels
gather round with fiends
make friends with the dying oceans
from the mezzanine
our bodies look like melted statues
wilted to the breeze

two lovers guiltily isolated
barefoot on the gallows
holding each other’s hands
making entreating expressions
ostensibly grieving their fates
through crooked teeth

one stubborn rope
incense spewing from our tongues
as we breathe our last words
and stomach our last breaths
pertinaciously we dissociate with the
stern world built around us

zero souls standing
above the sycamores

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

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

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

i lost my ticket to get on your train
and i witnessed you wave from the caboose; you didn’t even try to get off.

i don’t believe in love or maintaining childhood friendships
i believe in falling short and purposeful abandonment.

you talk to my sister, but not me
what am i supposed to do about that?
it’s my fault i know;
i didn’t acknowledge your presence
i’m so pitiful.

i could throw you a million apologies
i wouldn’t be angry if you wouldn’t forgive me
maybe sometimes in the hallway, you get a bittersweet taste in your mouth when we lock eyes
and you regret the missed time we could’ve spent together
at football games, in history class, in health class
and i regret that too;
in this particular universe.

you drive and i’m terrified to get my permit
i don’t wanna accidentally ****** someone or myself in a car crash
you had a boy best friend in the front seat
and now i’m entirely numb and empty
what have i come to?

yes, i came home and wallowed in a puddle of my own forlorn tears
i can’t do anything else but sob

it’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s my fault
i am to blame, you could’ve told me “hi”
but i am not gonna blame this tumbling storyline on you
you like this school environment better than me
and i completely understand your reasons
again, it’s my fault and i stripped away my own dignity.

i am more numb than morphine could ever make me

i plagued this earth until it became a wasteland
and now i am cursing the vultures that only want to pick up scraps they can’t find here

why oh why does it have to be me destined to shoo them away?

i wish this was the last thing i would ever write for you. i just wanna move on, but i watched you walk across the dewy lawn and i felt empty inside. ghost town vibes. it hurts seeing you be the life of the party, the happy one, the “gets out of situations so easily cause she’s so pretty.” being friends with you was so amazing and i wish i didn’t take it for granite (granted apparently) back then.
cause now i’m the loser and ashamed that i didn’t say hi to you. now i ignore your every move as if i don’t even know who you are and nobody even knows that we knew each other or were, oh my gosh—friends. oh wait, forgot one word, or two. best friends forever. bffs. we drew in notebooks together, went to the book fair and found little friendship books and wrote in them. we were attached at the hip, so incredibly close. why did we lose that connection? you have so many **** friends and i have nothing against them, i just wish they would help bring back our friendship. and i am sick and tired (exhausted) of seeing you in the halls and looking the other way or up at the ceiling. i am embarrassed that it’s come to this. avoiding eye contact because i fear you hate me, cause God forbid, you send me a single message saying, “you know, i hate to admit it, but i miss you and i wanna start over.” but no. and perhaps i’m coming to full terms with that. i guess the contract is over and the summer sun has sunken into the fortress of the creepy night. i’m fine. it’s just- you had your car and i wished to ride in the front seat jamming out to music before school and having study halls together and making friends together and being friends forever. but it’s ok. i realized true friendship doesn’t exist. it’s all an in the moment thing. they’ll say they wanna be friends forever, but once you move from the ground to the sea, you’ll never wanna be dry again. and i get it. my lungs are drowning in the water, but i still don’t wanna climb out before it’s too late. i’m so sorry

i’m wearing shades of lavender
shades of misery
despair, impaired

you aren’t mine
because i took your smile
packed it inside the trunk of my moving vehicle
that i can’t even maneuver
if our paths became photographs instead
i think i would miss you the best

i know intentions fade
and spirits degrade
hope in a vacuum
****** out of reach
the stars are calling
and the seas are swallowing
a dog with a bone
in love with the hand that feeds it

i need you
my piece of evidence
that all this happened
and you didn’t hate me
i know my friend is crazy
why can’t this hate around envelop me
and spit me out because i don’t want to doubt i don’t want to hate anyone anymore i’m not an unforgiving soul
send me away, for the palace in the hills
contagion in its clearest form
don’t take over

you aren’t mine
she isn’t kind
the rainwater is intricate and doesn’t mean any harm
rushing towards a form of civility
follow me

i lie
so others can like me
there’s this tendency
that i can’t tell her that she’s wrong
i don’t want to hate anymore i don’t want to foam at the mouth with greed with repulsion at anything
for you to be a fly on the wall, at that sick carnival
humans always fail to forget the remnants of such a barbarous past

i don’t have you
you aren’t mine
possession of you
must be some kind of fantasy
rambling
such a lurking fear

but i don’t want to hate anymore go to a gravesite pray for their souls i don’t wanna pump hate into this world i don’t hate anyone i just want to be alone

i need to put an end to it
disconnect the waters to your faucet
make you start crying because of all you did
a dog with a bone
castigating the hand that won’t feed it


it’ll be such a glorious execution

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

i talk like a blinding light
  i shoot my opinions out like rockets
not asking, “do you want to hear it?”
   and i hate my voice as much as myself
            and i hate my opinions
hate my face
hate my bones
hate the way i’m obsessed with you
hate the way i’m clueless around clusters of stable fairies
hate the silence when i want to speak
hate my tongue
hate my clothes
hate my beliefs
hate my friendships
hate that i hate my friendships
hate the way i crave laughter
hate the way i ruin moments
hate the rawness of emotions
hate when i run into doorways
hate awkwardness when i can’t hear a word
hate waiting
hate the way the sun shines like a bullet
hate the social interaction
hate everything
          but i don’t hate the boldness
  the flavor that you bring me
         cause before i ate warheads
    and called them sweet like the only word in my dictionary
    but now i’m indulging in candy
  it tastes so bittersweet
             because i didn’t know anyone could love me like i wasn’t a disease
    like i wasn’t an ant to step on
    or a watermelon seed to spit out
                           and i thank you
      because it’s almost been a year
     and you make me hate myself a little less.

when i skipped in the street
and you blinked your flashlight fifteen times at me
my high beams bursting through the windows of the neighbors,
i started to feel like she wrote those songs for us
and for our teenage recklessness.
can you teach me how to stay,
how to sit still and just love
with no shame and no repercussions?
because how are you so close in my rearview mirror
and then so much farther than you appear?
i would’ve cranked the heater, the same for you
the same simple cares
that you bestowed on
someone as wretched as me.
i would’ve called you my favorite person,
denying your insecurities and making them seem insignificant,
just as you had.
i would’ve laid in your lap retrieving my phone
as we laugh with our entire stomachs
and your friend says there must be something between us;
how does that make you feel?
i would’ve said it was finally time to go if i saw you sleeping,
almost too tired to drive home.
i would’ve asked you to drive safely for fear of deer around,
the same as you had.
i would’ve invited you to my cracking house,
just as you did,
answering the doorbell and smiling,
“you can take your shoes off”

“i love you as you are”

hopeless romantic here.
hi.
i know you probably tell your parents that love doesn’t feel like it does in the movies
it’s overrated
i am guessing that’s what you say
but i
ok, maybe i am naive
but i
i don’t think love will feel like it does in the movies either
it will be better
and i hold that hope in my heart
that one day i will walk out of a restaurant
and i will see a familiar face
because soulmates are real
(the ones who don’t have them, or so they say, their partner died or couldn’t cross the layer between love and selfishness)
they are real
i think so at least
call me stupid
hopeless romantic
yes,
that’s me
i don’t get offended by that name
i swear it gets better than this
it gets better
love makes it better
it might be hard
but what have you ever done that was worth your time that wasn’t hard?
huh?
i want another person to be my safety, my rock, my eternity
bathe me in their river
cause it gets better
it does get better
and love makes it better

please
take all the time you need with me
i have been waiting for forever
what’s a couple more weeks?

my father hasn’t been himself,
i’m piling clothes on each shelf
while the cold is attaching its lifeless embrace around my thighs that are too big
and a stomach too normally abnormal.
i write about living,
i try to live for writing;
always end up living for nothing.
maybe the ache seems like a home,
or a house
i just passed on the open road.
constantly familiar since a younger version of me
opened the vault
and it slipped out.
my eyes haven’t watered the flowers underneath my bed
since the summer came and went.
love came knocking at the front door;
the latch wouldn’t open up.
now every car makes it look as if it’s him behind every wheel.
i pass that house with a sore throat—
a lump in the back;
something’s unraveling inside of me.
i am neither tall nor strong,
every sadness almost takes the breath out of me
and i haven’t been like myself,
but when have i ever?

they tore down the pool in my hometown
the place i went during the summer to cool off
my old stomping ground to go for fun
my childhood is slipping further and further away
every single day

i met you in the flesh of an early morning
swinging on rainforest vines
sparkling san francisco golden gate haven
sun, so radiant yet so tranquil

i met you, hazy with some byproduct of devotion
i was standing in rapture
an echo of aspiration
and restoration
an outline of a happiness that somehow seemed like closure

i met you, a symbolic glimmer
drunk in your joyousness
meeting as the morning dew barely dries from the damp grass
blue eyes like sapphires, like rubies, like gold

i was struck with akrasia
i forgot how to shake hands
i mumbled between my teeth
i met you, so shimmery, so wonderful
so full of mirth
     and
      i
      lost
      yet
      another
      thing
      to
      my
      greed
      and
      selfishness

do you go by some pseudonym at this moment in time?
i can’t find you in the rainforest trees, rains, or vines
you can’t be lost
forever

i am daft and i am dominoes crumbling
and i am
debris
from a rotted sea

and you are faithful and cheerful and jolly and dopamine rushes
and how dare i quell the moonlight inside you

if you have broken hands, i promise i will fix them
if you have died and went to Heaven
i dare you to send me
a safe haven of angels who all know my name
a safe haven of ballerinas loose on a stage
a safe haven of happiness where songbirds dance and dancers sing
a safe haven where violets bloom after the gloom
i hope your absence doesn’t contribute to the atrophy of my being

but if it does,
i least i met you for a little while
in the carcass of a morning apparition

scared of the dark and of fire swallowing me in the middle of the stubborn night
setting my closet ablaze
shirts turning to embers as i slept beneath the smoke
and we would have to stand by the mailbox
but someone was always left behind.
it usually ended there.

but my restlessness soon turned into a snowflake, falling from the chilled sky
onto the mailbox outside my house
and melting.

my writing is a gigantic forest fire of clichés
slowly charring in my eye view.
unlike the snowflakes that flew from
my brain.

and i’m still kind of scared of the looming darkness
and the creatures inside of my closet
still kind of worried about my house catching fire
and losing all my belongings
but what’s to that?
what do i actually own or belong to?

blue is blinded rage

fear lasts and i can’t breathe in this smoke…in this chemical kingdom…that they all love…smog and smoke and strangulation….and no one cares…?

cause elvis still kept singing jailhouse rock
even though he never went to jail
and the seas are still operating in the exact same way they always have been
celebrities still think they’re all that cause us feeble people put them on pedestals
the moon is still a refuge to lost stars spread upon the frivolous lands
fire still burns, even at night
even in your closest
even if you think you’re safe by your mailbox
even if people tell you that you’re worth
it

the smoke will envelop you
the smog will catch up to you
the ashes will become you


….
i’m afraid it will take away what i don’t have

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

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

you eat flesh in a cleaned room
with a seaside view.
you devour the world
(or so you think)
with a single swallow.
in dreams that feel like
apparitions,
you appear.
you clutch your ego against your chest
as if it’s a blessing.
your iron lung fills my head
with black smoke.
i envy those who can say no.

recently,
i apologize on the behalf of other people.
you’re smiling with blood in your teeth
the enamel worn through,
yellow in color.
staying afloat has become impossible.
you’re the ambushing shark
in a pool of my nerves and tissues.
somehow drowning with your fangs
around my rouge shadow.

your ego has eaten you alive.
you push against the walls of your pursuer.
it chokes back your spinal cord.
completely empty,
betrayed by your own creation
you must be angry
while i sit and watch,
blood on my lips,
solid foundation.

i need to get some stuff off my chest
my cousin doesn’t like me anymore
i’m at a family gathering right now;
a birthday party
i love talking to my aunts and my grandma
they include me in conversations and
make me feel worth their while
maybe it’s a me problem
that i changed and i’m average
and painful to be around
it could most definitely be that
and i wish i could stop
obsessing over speaking
but quarantine ******* me over
and left me with repulsive social anxiety
someone’s laughing
and the shaven dog is barking
my ears can’t handle this
the dog hates me, she doesn’t
let me pet her and i just wish i had a
dog as a companion, but
my parents don’t want that responsibility
even though it would be all mine
i need a dog, i need a friend
who’s always present,
there for me
no one ever is
no one knows what gathers inside
my brain throughout the day
that forces me to write
or i would literally burst.
now my cousin said goodbye to her
favorite aunt and uncle
and her young cousins who
are perfectly skinny and basic
and **** perfect
i’m miserable now
it’s not like it used to be
her cousin looks like a model
where’s my glow up?
i just look so terribly ugly
that it hurts me so badly
even twelve year olds look like models
and they make me
so terrifically insecure
it’s infuriating
how unfair some things are
especially genetics and body dysmorphia
i need some boy who’ll soothe
this mental state i have
been swallowed up in
without my consent
my incompetent brain has never heard
the word ‘no’ before, apparently
i’m sick to my stomach
thinking about everything
and how everything used to be
and how everyone is changing
and how much i want to die
killing me would be doing me
a huge favor at this point
why do people always have
to make me insecure with their
toned bodies and gorgeous faces?
i am convinced that something
is eternally wrong with me
but i’ll stop making you
mad by saying i hate myself
cause now it’s basically redundant
but one last time 
for good measures
i hate myself
and i’ll never be an asset
to society
goodbye, the only thing that loves me for who i am is my writing

i am not your dog; do not pet me once, then expect my loyalty.
i am not the woman in your dreams
completing your r.e.m sleep.
i am not your dog, do not train me once, then expect me to behave.
i am not a slave
to your blaze
to the fire on your tongue.
i am love personified.
i am a pain unresolved,
but free.