your energy is intoxicating
if this is addiction
i don't ever want to be sober

Confidence
Is my second language.
I try to speak in the tongues of the greats:
World leaders, activists, rebels.
I attempt to curl my tongue around the foreign syllables of Self-assurance,
Too heavy to dictate with the proper connotations.
You see, I am still learning this language.
I conjugate with firm handshakes,
Pronounce with eye contact,
Communicate with poise...
Some of the time.
You see, I am not yet fluent in this vocabulary,
Cannot articulate with precision my identity.
I hear the echoes of voices rolling consonants and vowels off their lips like a hymn:
Some people have spoken it since birth,
Have merely acquired it.
Others, like me, have had to work for it,
Have had to force our mouths into alien configurations,
Into abstract lingual shapes, learning how to speak the way a fawn learns to walk:
Gawkily and with a resigned unfamiliarity.
My native tongue cannot enunciate all of the curves and straight edges of Fearlessness,
But ******* does it try.
My voice’s inflection is heavily accented with uncertainty;
Anyone who hears me knows that confidence is not my first language.
But that does not mean that my voice will break on the bones of my past mistakes.
It does not mean I cannot speak the words without my chin up, eyes unblinking, voice unwavering, as un-fluent as it may be.
It does not mean that my accented second language is any less correct than your first.
I am training my mouth to say “no” in a different language,
To say “no” with my mouth closed.
Letters drip off of my tongue like honey but not half as sweet.
But who dictates verbalization?
Who decides that my speech is too broken to accommodate coherent oration
I ask you:
is this soapbox sermon any less fluent than our history textbooks?
Is my broken English any less multifaceted than yours?
I will tell you
My lack of coherent eloquence is no less worthy of my lungs than of yours.

I am alive by luck at this point.
I wonder if the gun that will eventually take me has been made.
Whose trigger will bury me.
How many bullets, like a flock of sparrows, will come carry my life to its final bed.
Today, I am alive but there is no law to thank.
If not me, then someone else.
Born into a game of chance we never asked for. Traded diplomas for obituaries. Traded graduation speeches for eulogies. Traded futures for an early grave. Forced to cash in their chips. We don’t want to play anymore.
And this too is eulogy. And this too is prayer. And this too can resurrect the coffin wood back to a tree. Can sing back alive whatever parts of you died with them. Whatever leapt in your throat at yet another headline.
Mourning until you, too, are a thing to mourn.
But we will no longer be martyrs.
We are the rude awakening to politicians who pawned out our safety, who bartered our lives for bribes.
You say “gun reform is not the answer” but all I can see is a bullet rattling like a pinball in an innocent student’s jaw.
You smell like gun smoke and
I can see the AR15 you're holding behind your back and
I guess it's easy to crack jokes about dodging bullets when you're the one firing them.
Give teachers books not bullets:
Kafka isn’t kevlar.
Bronte isn’t bulletproof.
And how sick is it that we must add school shootings to your list of proud american traditions.
Throwing opinions like punches.
How many more have to die before you decide your ego isn’t as important as you think it is?
And I, too, am buried alive
My soggy grave parting its greedy lips.
To you, my bones, when ground into gunpowder and mixed into water, taste like champagne.
My pulse, as thin as an obituary panting beneath sweaty palms, and sure
We are “just kids,”
But you are forgetting we are the next generation
And you autopsy your fists.
Call it reclamatory.
Lately, when asked “how are you?” I respond with a name no longer living.
And who knows if mine will be next

Dear misogynists,

Let’s be very clear here.
Boys are not ******* by nature. It’s not in their genetic makeup to automatically be mean-spirited or cruel. Being born with a ***** does not predispose anyone to being the kind of person whose hands make a welcome mat of my hipbones, who licks his lips as if looking at an appetizer, whose breath laced with tequila, privilege, and desperation slurs "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth, baby?" from the other side of the street.
Genetics does not do that. Society does.

Dear misogynists,

It is the reason I know Title IX better than my own social security number. It is the reason I have to clench my keys in white-knuckled fists when I walk home from school. It is the reason I avoid eye contact at all costs because that "counts as permission." It is the reason I am told my mouth is useless unless he's the one putting something in it. It is the reason women all over this ******* planet get asked "Well... What were you wearing?" because apparently my outfit speaks louder than my voice, but you must not have met me because I can be pretty **** loud.

Dear misogynists,

It is the reason I am told "You know boys won't like you if you don't stop with that feminist crap." Who the **** asked you? If you think that passionately wanting equality and not being afraid to voice that is "crap," I don't want you to like me anyway; in fact, I want you as far away from me as ******* possible. I don't give a **** about your disapproval and I never will.

Dear misogynists,

Maybe you're right - "locker room talk" is as American as baseball, or apple pie, or roofies. "How could he possibly help himself? If he saw you in that dress, what was he supposed to do? NOT assume you wanted him??"
YES. That's exactly what he was supposed to do: NOT assume I wanted him, or anyone else in the room for that matter. Stop excusing ****** harassment because "boys will be boys;" my skirt is not an invitation, nor is anything but the sober word "yes" - and I include the word "sober" because yes, it does make a difference.

Dear misogynists,

So no. I don't give a ****.
And no. I won't stop with "that feminist crap."
And no. Boys will not be boys. Boys will be held accountable for their actions, just like everybody else.
And yes. I do kiss my mother with this mouth, but you can keep dreaming.

Signed, a Feminist

i'm sorry, since when was my shoulder an invitation?
since when were my shorts a request?
since when did anything but my mouth spell out the word "yes"?
since when did "no" mean "yes"?
since when did wearing shorts make me desperate,
but isn't that what you were begging for?
you say i'm a **** for showing my shoulders,
but isn't that what you wanted in the first place?
it's when the guidance counselor says,
"well, what were you wearing?"
that you should know there is a problem.

my bones are hollow
like those of a mother bird's
but when i force myself to throw up,
the only child i am feeding
is the madness
that lives in the nest
of my own mind

i swallow my pride like maggots
in cocoons of silence,
and when they turn into butterflies
fluttering in my stomach
i want to *****
but he steals them from my throat
and tacks their wings to his wall

hearts are wild creatures
that's why our ribs are cages
but maybe that's why
they sing so often

And I wonder how many calories are in the flesh of the inside of my cheeks

i miss make-believe raindrop races on window panes down the highway.
i miss puddle jumping in dirt roads.
i miss muddy sunflower boots.
i miss hiding giggles behind daisy patches during hide-and-seek.
i miss scraped knees and climbing trees.
i miss forest picnics by the river.
i miss jumping from porches, believing i was invincible, even after breaking my wrist.
i miss feeling magical and powerful and important.

i don't want to look there anymore for fear of the clockwork ****** that i make of my own memory every time i pass that house on Sheridan Circle. it is filled with the ghosts of childhoods well spent but long past and i can't help but think how the rope by which the old swing used to hang looks like a noose, which it may as well be. maybe one day i will swing from it for the last time.

instead of dragging
a knife across my wrist,
i grab a pen,
hoping that
maybe the ink
will seep into my skin
and **** me anyway

if depression = darkness
i'm no longer afraid of the dark,
but perhaps that's part of the problem

why does everyone say
that we must try to love each other
by overcoming our differences?
we should love each other,
not in spite of our differences,
but because of them

demons rarely come dressed
in a red cape and horns.
no.
they come dressed as
everything you've ever wanted.

someone once told me
pain is like water;
you need a little
to know you're alive,
but too much
will drown you.
and now I think
isn't it funny
how the things we do
to feel alive
are the things
that can **** us?
i suppose
it's because
we just want to feel
**something

He will not come dressed in a red cape and horns, no, it is so much more than that. He will masquerade as everything you’ve ever wanted. Deception is the name of the game and he knows exactly what he is doing.
Little girls who play with fire get their fingers burned and I’m still picking the soot out from underneath my fingernails.
You see, it is easy to mistake the flames for light when you don’t know any better.
Things that promise light seldom go unheard, and he isn’t any different. It sounds a little less like a fire alarm, a little more like a siren song.
And though he sets your heart ablaze, he will fill your lungs with smoke, I promise you. That is not what they mean when they say he takes your breath away.
Boys like him will only starve all of the oxygen from the room and leave you choking.
He will lick the kerosene from your palms and tell you it will quell the flames.
And he will make you believe that this is what it feels like to finally be warm.
But there is no safety in the tongues of burnished flame.
Don’t let your dignity go up in smoke.
They say fire and gunpowder do not sleep together…
Darling, be the gunpowder.
Where there is smoke, there is always fire.
Darling, he is the fire.
So follow it back to him.
After all, he is the one who started it
Darling, finish it.
Rise from the ashes of the one who thought he was fireproof all along.

If I sit on my roof
and block out the light from my house,
I can forget that I exist.
I can swim among the constellations
and lose myself in the bittersweet triviality
of our existence.
I can break free from the intoxication
of my life wasted on autopilot.
I can pretend that I am merely thoughts,
free of the weight of a life
and of society
and of reality.
I can question things
and depersonalize
and forget this anchor of a body
and all its bitter consequences.
But,
for now,
all I can do
is lay beneath the stars
and forget.

Forsaken
stars
Exposed
to the death
of
corruption

i spend my time
reading ghost stories
and seeing myself in them.
my every footstep becomes a graveyard,
my every word a tombstone,
and I am now the ghost who haunts them.
it's fun to visit a haunted house
once, maybe twice
but no one wants to live there.
if ringing my doorbell is a joke,
then my love is only the punch line

I am told I must be loved as if it is dangerous to drop me, but I cannot decide if I am glass or a grenade.
Maybe both.

You must clip your dead ends if you want to grow
And honey I ain’t just talking about hair

I don't believe in heaven
But sleeping in your arms is the closest I'll ever come

emotional stakes
are changed
when a young girl,
tasked to bring hellfire,
lays off the trigger

poetry drips off of your tongue like honey
I wonder if you kiss me will I be able to taste it
maybe then i’ll have some honey too

in the end it never matters
*it all hurts the same

i wonder.
if i stand in the rain
for long enough,
will it wash away
my identity?

dear little girls,

who taught you to open your legs before opening your mouth?
who taught you that the only use for a woman's lips is anything other than speaking her mind?
who taught you that women who say "leave me alone" are worth less than those who say "yes, daddy"?
who taught you that the fire behind your eyes should be snuffed out?

Those people are the worst teachers who little girls like you are learning the most from.
I say, look those people in the face and say "*******."

That flame behind those fierce eyes of yours?
If it will set the world ablaze, I say let it.
I say let gasoline fall like rain.
I say dance in the ashes of the world that thought it was fireproof.
I say
Let.
It.
Burn.

sewing the open wounds shut
hurts just as much
as the wounds themselves

i just want to cry,
scream,
throw something,
anything but this ****** numbness