YOU destroyed me
you shoved a knife in my back and didn't care when I screamed
I put needles of color in my arms
I chopped my hair
Dyed it black
Because you made me feel like ****
You made me feel like death
I need someone to pull out this knife
I have to sleep on my side now
The sharp edge scrapes my spine
It's infecting my head
You left
But your scar tissue will live on
I am glad you're gone.

I wanted to numb myself.
Read the panic in my eyes
You should be pleased.
"Please speak to me"
The walls tumbling down.
I nodded goodbye.
I didn't matter.
I wasn't going to hang around.
I headed for the door.
"Wait"

Overcast
Blended sea with the sky
She wondered why her tears reminded her of the ocean.
How they would flow in waves
High tide is at night
That's when the demons come out to surf
Through her head
Through the waves
Water
Salt
Empty
Stepping into the water she blended in.
Her mind couldn't tell the difference
She was the same
That's all she ever was
Gray
Mist
Clouds
The black storm clouds drift in through her ears and settle in her mind
Rain falls down her cheeks
She is sick of trying
Trying to be blue in a world that is so gray.

for Susan O'Neill Roe

What a thrill ----
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge

Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.

Little pilgrim,
The Indian's axed your scalp.
Your turkey wattle
Carpet rolls

Straight from the heart.
I step on it,
Clutching my bottle
Of pink fizz. A celebration, this is.
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.

Whose side are they one?
O my
Homunculus, I am ill.
I have taken a pill to ****

The thin
Papery feeling.
Saboteur,
Kamikaze man ----

The stain on your
Gauze Ku Klux ****
Babushka
Darkens and tarnishes and when
The balled
Pulp of your heart
Confronts its small
Mill of silence

How you jump ----
Trepanned veteran,
***** girl,
Thumb stump.

everythings alright
but i don't want to open my eyes

my parents talked about that dark disease
which only inflicted the ungrateful
they called it depression

the sun still rises
and the moon still swings across the sky
in its many shapes
but night or day; i am wide awake

i was concerned in a pleasurable way
when my pen refused to be silent
page upon page of sweet sweet misery
but now my hand is frozen
and the page lies blank
agony to silence
agony to still

they talked about what the bug was
how it ate through you and i listened so intently because even then i knew something was wrong

inside
something was wrong

i spoke to the crow today and he told me a silly story
about how the ruffles in his feathers keep getting heavier
and how one day he fell in the pond and watched himself sink
but did not cry out for help
he did nor cry out for help
some poor soul took pity on him and pulled him out
he did not cry out for help
he did not cry out for help

maybe time is relative but the clock ticks to let you know you're alive in a world that ***** out of you the spark that makes you tick that makes you tick
tick
tick
the clock ticks
tick
tick

maybe i'm too poor
too fortunate
too loved but inside me
this
this
this
i forgot what it's called
let's call it the friend
this friend
my friend-
what was i talking about again?

the smile still frowns
and the gold is still a crown
i will wake up
again

nothing is wrong
but i cannot open my eyes

nothing is wrong
i did not open my eyes

prairie girl, home for the summer
                    steals ceramic eyes to shade
         sunrises of gasoline kisses -
                    she lies underneath and counts
                             each, whilst marveling at snow-
                             globe winds and birds that can't
                             fly.

What.

He ate out my heart and threw it up.
Poison lungs, poison veins-
****.

Viscera numbed, spined eels wriggle,
I am ******.

****** as in : a shut-in, swain of Gehenna, rocked, rolled.
He needed more rope for his net and so cut out my tendons.

What skies to worship now? What skins?

happy birthday, sylvia plath
i'm writing you a birthday letter
because nobody does it enough anymore

i studied your book once and
had a horrifying vision
that i would be rejected
and i would forget language and words and
i wouldn't write anymore
like you i suffered to breathe
i suffered to watch and i
found comfort in *****
i couldn't drink it neat like you did
i could fall asleep
but you didn't

your pain pained me
and i wondered what you'd think of
my writing
if we'd swap poems and

but we couldn't
i suffered rejection too
and for a while the words wouldn't come
i slept more and ate less
i smoked more and spoke less
but i found the words again
taught myself from reading dictionaries of loss
and though my bad habits remained
i felt ever so slightly more like me
and less like you

i got better
i wish you did too