The scorned heart shies from love and care
Scattered by too lustful a lip and hand
Learns to take the menial wear and tear
With bold eyes, brass knuckles, and diamond stand.
How does the muscle learn once more to exercise and share?
When does it remember how not to feel ******?
With swift fingers and wet lips love soon loses its flair.
Quickly flows the fire, and unplanned
Swift is its destruction and biting is its snare
How lonely are they that fall prey to its tumultuous sand!
Little frightened defenses crop up to eat their share
Strangling any flowers and sweetness that lay unmanned --
Nothing protects the gentle heart from this discourse,
Men oft take what they desire ungently, and with force.

the sad part is
i saw a picture of three mugs
one for you
one for jack
one for kaytie
and i knew
exactly
which one
was yours.
because you always wanted to be
as suave as audrey hepburn
but even with all the home decorating
you could never achieve it.
and even though i hate you
for stomping on me
with the might of my mother
i still love you
somewhere.

trip
drip
crash
the hours slam by
dear
you're supposed to be writing an essay
stop telling it to *******
you're never going to be anything
ever
you're not a poet
you're some dumb kid with a pen
trip
drip
crash
you're going to be out on your ***
if you don't stop
mooning around
trip
drip
SLAM
i wonder how much it'd hurt dad
if i opened that door
started walking
and never came back
maybe he'd only feel it
for a little while
i wish i wasn't always so
guilty
about everything
trip
drip
fall
dad i wish i could tell you
i don't want to be here
at all
i wish you couldn't see me
leave
does it count as running away
if you're almost
twenty?
back
forth
the hours sweep
and recede
dad i think i miss mom
i miss our big yellow house
i hate living here
let's leave.
skip
jump
flee
where will i be
in ten years
no
five months...
tomorrow
five minutes?
trip
drip
fly
i don't even have
tears
to
cry

i will be my mother if i stay with you
i am amazed that history so perfectly repeats itself.

true
or not true
i will accuse.

boys always try to tell me
"red, you don't know how to say
i love you"
and that i don't know
how to express it...
that i don't know
how to get it out
that i'm like a rock
they have to chisel
or a small child
they have to bribe
with sweet words
and
treats.
they always tell me
i am so
difficult.

but maybe
i am difficult
because i actually don't
love you
maybe i am a rock
that cannot be chiseled
because you simply don't know how
maybe
i would come to you
and let you hold me
if you weren't so
frightening...

...maybe a lot of things would happen
if i actually
did
love you.

these boys think
we are in love
and that one-way streets
don't exist
but they will discover otherwise
when they go down one
long enough

i fall prey to men on the internet
like most every girl
(though i consider myself extraordinary).

they say things to me like
"i'd do you a million times over"
"i just want to kiss that face"
"hold that body"
"bite that neck"
and i let them say all of it
without protest
(though i consider myself immune).

through the internet they tempt me
violate me
and i let them
willingly
in this way
i am like every other girl
(i wish i wasn't).

pleasure
and guilt
go hand in hand
down the rollercoaster ride
i've belted myself into,
locked
and loaded
(i am sorry that i am a girl).

i wish instantly it never happened
when it is over
and it's not even real
(i am sorry i am pathetic).

prickly little thoughts
rudely address me
in the quiet
of the air conditioned
hidey-hole
i've spent my summer in.

thoughts like:
you're a *******
you're going to die here
they think you're joking
you should tell the truth, sometime
maybe it'd
be nice
why can't my face be
the way i want it
why can't my
stomach
be flatter
why can't
mom just
spontaneously combust
so i can have
my family back
why
why
why
you are
you are
you are

.
..
...
....
...
..
.

i talk a lot about
flying

i like the idea
of it

it doesn't even bother me
that those that fly, fall

i'll cheat the system
i'll have a rope

catch
me

monsters sleep in my house.

there's a few in the kitchen,
three in my bedroom,
countless on the living room couch...
a very ugly, menacing one on the floor
where the coffee table should be
but was pushed aside.

they stand behind me when i wash my hands in the kitchen sink
pressed against my back.

while i withdraw water from the open fridge
they push my face against the freezer door.

one monster's favorite place:
in my chair, my father doing yardwork out my bedroom window.
the monster told me later how much he wanted to throw me against a wall
how he loved the tension of those moments.

i can't even begin to fathom the monsters in winton apartments.
so many that skulk and tempt me with matchsticks and lighters and sharp nail files
while the real monster lies behind his screens.

monsters sleep in my house.

at least three years old, yes.
but even now i am not used to their presence.

i no longer look both ways before crossing the street
i have decided to let Chance
have his way with me.
i've stopped stopping at stop signs
and watching my step on steep inclines

but Chance is a petty *******
and pays no respect to Intentions
be they good, bad, or
mediocre

i'm sure Chance wants me dead
him and all his friends
are tired of me
but he only wants his way
on his own terms.

it has been decided.
i will not let this mess me up.
people do whatever the **** they want
anyway
i can't change anything about it
except how i react
and how i let it affect me
so *******,
ANGELA
*******,
JACK
*******,
MOM
and **** EVERYTHING ELSE
that is working against me.
can't keep a good (wo)man down,
*******.
i control my future,
and you can shove THAT up your ***
along with the garage sale
that's already there.

if i sit long enough
and let my mind
unwind all the
strange
coiled
menacing things
it contains
that i so often
shove into a blender
to make them easier to swallow
it'll say
*******
and i remember them perfectly
anyway.

for
instance
right now
i can hear
mom stuffing black
plastic-smelling
garbage bags
with clothes
in the hall
i can see the strip of light under my door
that bled through
at 3am
why
was it on
i never even
wondered
ever since
i have cursed
the lethargy
of 3am
if i had gone out and checked
i could have

                                                                        stopped
                                                                                                 her

oh
god
it hurts
so profoundly
to put that into words
to translate it from feeling
oh
god
i could have
stopped her
i could have
but i didn't
what if
i had
oh
god
i can't even
bear it

and then all those dead fruitflies
scatter across my mind
blown with the breath
of the dead
i was
walking into our kitchen
on the old
weird
cracked floor
and there on the
stained
blue table
were about six cups of half drunk
juice
from the kids bedtime snack
and there
in the center
were about 500
dead
fruitflies
in a perfect
circle
what the ****
were they doing there
i'll never know
i remember
asking mom
telling her how strange it was
but she wouldn't come
look
she just laid on the couch
her arm over her eyes
lying to me
without saying
anything
always.
the next morning
they were gone
i don't know what happened
but it was
strange

then suddenly
the horrible
nauseating feeling
will come again
rush in
uninvited
like an unwanted relative
sneak in
and take over
everything
it will eat me up
out of house and home
the thought
that

i

can't

remember

if she told me

that she loved me

before i went to bed

i was 18 then

but she always said it

anyway

worst of all

i cannot remember

if i said it back...

the last thing
you ever said to your mother
wouldn't you want it to be something like that
but i guess it wasn't
i probably even thought
about normal things
before i fell asleep
to the music
of my mother
leaving
i can't stop seeing
the scene
when i close my eyes

*******

memory

you know what they say
you've heard it
forever
"the separation
gets easier
as time goes
on"
yeah
that's what every
single
person
who has never
ever
come close
to your situation
says
like the concept that
people will like bread more
if it's toasted
or that
cheese
is better
when you give it time
to mould
those are the kind of people
who are trying to tell me
it's going to be ok
someday
shut the **** up
drink your expensive wine
and leave me
alone

all humans think they are the ******* ****
like we think elevated thoughts that trip across moonbeams
drift on clouds laced with estrogen and ******* sunshine
like we steer their course
when in reality
our elevation has nothing to do with the brevity of our infantile thought processes
that we believe are unique and something for others to wonder at
it's been ******* done before
someone already wrote a better poem about it, too.

don't stand on my shoulders and point out all the **** i can't see from down here
things unseen still exist
i'm not a tourist
in a poetic world you created
full of bleeding wrists and antidepressants
******* tell it how it is
don't elaborate
or don't
say anything
at  
all

a boy that i used to talk to
every night for about
two years
who lives in argentina
that i met once
sent me
a heart-shaped key chain
for my birthday
with a poem
and a card
i miss him

will you come with me
come make believe with me
come make believe that we
are happy.

paint a smile
like a clown
paint a smile
cover your frown
paint a smile
on your lips
paint smiley faces
on dead crypts.

arrange my limbs
any way you please
bend my elbows
straighten my knees
make me
happy.

you must come with me
come make me happy
you will see
you will believe
me
you'll be
better
lies make you
better
i
should
know
i put on
a great show.

i just remembered the day
you let me borrow
your R.E.M. cd
rip it onto
my ancient desktop
i think it was
thanksgiving
or something
the cd was
cold
and moisture
beaded on it
from the warmth
of our old yellow house
(love)
and i sat up there
for so long
in the office
that smelt like
burnt vacuum
thinking how much
that one boy i liked
who liked
R.E.M.
would like
the fact
that i had their cd
on my computer
i didn't really stop
and imagine
you listening to it
in your car
nightswimming
blaring
sweetly
i think i still have that
cd
somewhere...
i wish i had kept it
safe
somewhere...
if i had known
that some july
you'd be gone
forever
if i had known
that the day
you stopped us
in our car
on your
red motorcycle
and hugged me
told me
that you loved me
was the
last time
forever
i would have
lingered.

these days
i am constantly reminded
of how much i need to remember
where i came from...
where i've been.

i went back through all these old pictures of me
when my face was round
and chubby
when my hair wasn't perfectly straight
my bangs a mess...
before the idea
that i needed to be
******
entered my mind.
and i remembered my background
the importance of the foundation
that i rest on...
i sit and remember
what made me
me.

i'll look at my life like this long line
that sometimes goes haywire on me
sometimes it comes
to the edge of a cliff
plummets downward
and then climbs back up
i'll think about holding little kids
and being friends with different people
and being so
innocent
so untouched
(i didn't think so then)
by the complete horror
this world truly
is

i will sit in this room
that i have never had the heart
to call 'mine'
it is small
with one window near the floor
messy
with three white walls
and one chocolate colored
in a house
we don't own
in a town
i always wanted to live in
just not like this
and i'll picture
the girl that lived in that crazy
falling down yellow house
with the green roof
and the rusty door
and the green fields
in the brilliant,
royal purple
room
with all the funny hair things
and colorful tights
and big
big
smiles
that say nothing
that resembles
'**** me'
and i'll think....
how
the
hell
did i get here
from
there

one last hurrah
for Red The Liar.
she forgives the man that ***** her
and stays with him
how many more times,
miss Red?

social
anxiety
trying to find the fight in me
the part that doesn't say
just don't go
just stay home

the first night we've known each other
and you're already apologizing
for showing me your ****
i really actually can't tell
if you're drunk
or just some crazy *******
with a white as **** ***
...this is going to be interesting

three people i love just called me
right after i screamed for someone to help me
my tears are falling in my mouth and suffocating me
i can't take this anymore
i threw out the knife, but that nail file
will do

help.

i am a ****** up clown girl
and i **** up the nice things around me
too
i am so very good at it
i don't even notice i'm doing it
it's
reflex
muscle memory
subconscious
i do that which is done to me
thank you,
mommy

i feel that i complain too much
and i probably do
but this is a ******* website
and you're some ******* staring at a screen
thinking that you know me
i'm not trying to be dramatic
but i can do
whatever the **** i want

beautiful, long-lashed baby girl
hair black and smooth, peruvian:
steel blue eyes.

mama has too many latin ******* to beat up
to enjoy your gentle burbles and smiles
too much hair to style
too many faces to kiss in pictures
that aren't yours.
gold chains and pursed lips and popped hips
her lifestyle,
though changeable,
leaves her unwilling.

too pregnant too early
too willing too early
i remember walking down streets with her
a child
telling me that she wanted to have ***.

she did finally,
and she had you.
for a few weeks, maybe.

i hope you live with your grandmother
and not with a stranger.
i hope your mother will apologize someday
for choosing to be wild
instead of loving
to one of the most beautiful baby girls
i have ever seen...

(just like her
mother)

i read you religiously
every morning
every night
study your passages of speech
your context clues that lie in the corners of your pages
feeling the curve of your wrists,
your chest.

your shrine grows in my closet
hoodies and tshirts and basketball shorts
new additions hung up, worshiped.

i never wanted another god in my life
already have too many
one in the sky, one at home, one in the past
who frightens me more than any

but i am an addict
i have a taste for pain like no other
there is nothing like the rush of losing you violently
and then talking you back into love.

even if it takes hours of my time,
days
watching your face through a screen
writing long text messages that are as untrue as the curved eyeliner you fell in love with

the rush of being the one to win you back
the pride in my ability to manipulate you into coming home
into wanting to be with me again
despite the ugly words exchanged
returning to your family
after months
of not knowing where you were...

me
being able to convince you to come home
having the conversation end not with a dial tone
but with you relenting
giving up

that is what
i live for,
mother

today
i imagined drawing a big-*** man
on the white walls
in the hallway of my school
a big, gingerbread-like man
crying out for help

maybe
i'll make him a family
a lump of twisted, broken limbs
lying in a pile behind him
tied with a string
around his neck

today
i wanted someone to see him
acknowledge that he existed

and then forget.

today
i didn't draw
a big-*** man
on the wall.
i walked past every single one
and pretended they didn't exist
at all.

the human mind frightens me.
i wish i knew less of what was in yours

what electric letters dart across the thick white pages
hatred
and self loathing
and always,
always pity...

the sick part of you that takes pleasure in hanging the deprivation of my innocence around my neck
the albatross i shot the day your hand was rough against me.

always my fault.
forever the blame lies at my feet
like a tired, attention-seeking dog

i deserved what happened to me.

tried to write three poems before this one
trying to put down how i feel about you
right now
in this second
i can't even get it out.
to attempt to summarize:
i pretty much just hate you.
also you lie a lot.

i cannot help but ponder the magic of a smile
even just a picture of one
no one has ever been as sweet to me
as you,
moose

it will be funny
in a sick kind of way
when you finally get the *****
to tell me that you love me
you'll discover
that you waited too long
that i'm not around
to hear it
those three words
will echo around your apartment
full of scary movies
and guns
the only thing
that will have ever held me
in that room
will be your couch
your sorry-*** couch
that loved me better than you did.
that's what you get
for being a coward.

i fall in love with people when i'm bored
and can't find anything better to do.
so darling,
when i say i love you
i don't actually.
just to make sure
we're clear

it's a good thing
that someone always reminds me
to stick to what i know
otherwise
i would never try
anything

still wear your shorts to bed sometimes
******* the hole in the side.
i don't connect them with you anymore
except for the few times i catch myself in the mirror
and remember staring at myself in your sliding doors
wondering when i would be brave enough to get away from you.

the pain is dull
like all the white ridges on my arms and thighs
but the boy in shakespeare class
wears your cologne
and monday, wednesday, friday
every breath i breathe in class
is
frightened.

"oh dear
you've made yourself
all upset
you silly thing"
They say.
"don't you know
he wasn't drowning
that wasn't even
your little brother
the kid was
just messing around"
They say.
"you can breathe
just fine"
They say.

i wonder
if They know
how many times
i have seen my little brothers and sisters drowning
or falling
or crying out
for help
in a grocery cart
my mother is pushing
all crammed in
while i sleep

...well...
i guess i'll wonder
when i can
breathe again
hello,
little white pill
make me
feel
better.

there are some people
in this world
who have no right
to occupy
your every thought.
not everyone
is
entitled
to a piece of you...
remember that.
be more careful
with who you give
yourself to
some people just
take
you
and do whatever
the ****
they want;
don't let them
it's not their
right.
some people will
ask for your
heart
then take it
look through it
like a piece of nothing
toss it
aside
they have no
right.
give yourself
to no one
but yourself
change for no one
but yourself
be no one
but yourself
trust no one
not even
you
because you,
dear red
always give yourself away
to murderers
and you die
over
and
over
again

She holds the dead body of her brother
Long after it's grown cold
Like I had once held a dead kitten
In a washcloth...
Anguishing over a loss
That I couldn't have helped.

I couldn't have helped this one, either.
No matter what we have
Who we know
Who we are
Death takes us just the same.
We all leave...
Cold
Pale
Blank
Empty.

I remember,
That for a while
The kitten was just limp in my hand...
When I laid him down for a bit
And came back to check once more
Just to be sure
That he was gone
He was stiff
Stale
Like he had never been alive at all.

I asked my sister to bury him.
I could never be sure he was really dead
Even though he had no breath
Was he still there
Somewhere?
What is death...
Anyway?
What is it
People say?

He's passed
He's gone
He's deceased
In heaven
In hell
He's left
(he's not here?
are you sure?)
I'm sorry for your loss
My condolences
He's at peace
He's at rest
He's watching over us....

Where is he
Really?

A heart could be fixed
If all the broken pieces fit.
If one isn't so jagged
It doesn't recognize it's mate
Sometimes they can be forced back together
With just a little hate.

i walked down my street today
although it doesn't belong to me
i still like to pretend it does
like i grew up here
like i belong here.

oh well.

so anyway i was walking
and i saw this old woman
hobbling toward the flower shop.
this struck me as a rather romantic idea
and pretty cliche, too
but what the ****.
it wasn't really the fact that she was walking to the flower shop
that interested me
although the teenaged girl side of me
was sobbing the same tears that hadn't been shed
over The Notebook
(i wish Nicholas Sparks would die in a hole)

...i think i'm getting off track...

but in that minute or two
that i watched her walk
her hair cut to her chin,
her glasses thick
i didn't see
an old woman.
i could see quite plainly
who she had been in the 1920's.
short, unflattering dress
necklace
tight around her neck
the strut
that only a woman
in the roaring twenties
could pull off.
she quite clearly articulated
hidden love affairs
with mustached men
amber drinks
in crystal glasses
stenographers
and married bosses.
and even though she's now
wrinkly
old
stooped
her former glory
still remained
i could still see it
even now.
and really
i guess i wouldn't mind getting old
if  i could be as ******* cool
as the old lady
i saw on the street today
that doesn't belong to me.

to my mother,
i am a garbage bag of old clothes
a messy, dusty room
that was empty for two years
a vacant bed...
an echo
in a big yellow house
that she never owned
alone
until now...
to my mother
i am a memory
and that's where
she likes to keep me
a pretty little cardboard box
of old notes
that she ties a ribbon around.

mother,
this garbage bag
of clothes
that i had to replace
two years ago
when you made me and daddy leave
makes me cry
because i am not the only one
who is a bag of old clothes
no longer needed
i have learned
to no longer need you,
too
and it isn't
fair.

he manages to say things that hurt more than anything i've ever felt
and he's not even special

he said

there's something haunting about your scent

it clings to my clothes and my sheets and my neck
my hand
that rested gently on your hip...
it echoes the retreating ghost of you
and i catch a note of it
when i try to sleep at night
my eyes closed
remembering my face in your hair.

and now there's not a silence that fills enough of me to push you out
you stand in the middle and reverberate through it
no quiet moment able to dissipate your form.

you crash through the boxed up rooms in my head and rearrange
******* those sentient summer memories that i can't shake
pouring them into hourglasses that replay
replay
replay.

find your hair on the seat of my car and
your mascara on my pillow and
your shoes under my dresser and
the love you imprinted resting under my collarbone,
seared into my flesh.

and i wanted to say
although i feel nothing
i know i should feel
sorry.

I want you to know
that i didn't answer you
solely because i wanted you to feel bad.
i'm really not ashamed about it
i think you deserved it.

You can't just always expect me to be around
that's not fair.
i'll be there for a smile
maybe a laugh sometimes
but you can't have all of me
without loving me
i deserve
love.

You can't
play with me when you're bored
hold me when you're lonely
tell me that you love me...
when something better comes along
you can't forget
everything you ever said
to me.
you can't
but you did.
i'm worth more than that
and you know it
that's why you're trying to call me
but you've missed more than phone a call
you've missed out
on everything.

Stop.
it's not fair.
i'm too tired
for you to do this to me.
i can't even finish
a ******* poem
without you trying to get a hold of me...
and here i go
responding
because you just told someone you were only "ok"
just so i'd feel bad...

you win
this time.

baby is supposed to be in bed.
if baby doesn't sleep,
baby doesn't mend
daddy made me promise
to rest my aching head
but baby is too tired
baby feels too dead.

you try to say that i act like a ***** when i don't get my way
but you act like a ***** when you do.

...i'm not sure which is worse

if you knew
that without make up
clothes
earrings
and shoes
i was nothing,
you wouldn't want anything
to do with me.
if you could only see
the real me
you'd notice that i'm tired and cold
you'd see every crease, every fold
the bags under my eyes
and the real beneath my lies.

but you
don't see
because you're blind
and the barriers i've place in your mind
are in fine
working order
and prevent you from seeing
past the border
of fake
that i make
with every stroke
of mascara.

erika's coming back in two weeks.
ah, the prodigal sister
who promised me that she'd give anything to spend the summer
with me
her
bestfriend
me who's
been alone
all year already
and trying to be ok
but no, she has to stay at school during the summer
study with her voice professor
launch her career
i
*******
get it
but give her
one day
and she calls dad
says she's going to kentucky
for the summer
to have fun
on her own
...oh.

i really don't remember ever being that angry
or hurt
i remember throwing things
and kicking a chair
and my foot even bled
and i swore at dad
and sobbed
and it was ridiculous
but it was how my insides felt.

and now she is back
for two weeks
and then gone again
i'm looking for somewhere to be
for two weeks
anyone want to
adopt me

if you can smile without remembering something wrong that happened to you
i want to be with you
forever
take me where you learned how
show me the diagrams
the maps
the blueprints
the poems that got you
where you are today
if you can smile without remembering something wrong that happened to you
hold me.
you are
the only one
i want
if you can ask god to forgive you and be fine
take me
with you
i want to be
where you are