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 have a dream
that one day i'll have one
one day i'll decide
that this world is worth it
maybe it will be revealed to me
that everything hasn't really gone to hell
maybe one day
all this poetry
will mean something
there's this ancient book
that everyone hates
and this guy named jesus
who reassures us
like dr. king
that we will have trouble in this world
but not to give up
kick the bucket
run off
slice our wrists
because he overcame it
i miss that
radical freedom fighter
bleeding on a torture device
i'm sick and tired of his people
like i'm tired of justin beiber's fans
which is really saying a lot
if you think about it
i have a dream
that someday
i won't be so worthless
i have a dream
that someday
i'll get out of this family mess
i have a dream
that someday
i'll be allowed to dream
again

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

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.

in january he was gentle.
rested a soft hand on my neck -
it felt strange
but he said it was natural
and so i believed him.

and now in june it's a chokehold
a strange escalation that took months to notice
my body slowly being deprived of oxygen
turning blue
and lifeless
his strong fingers
leaving bruises on my pale skin
veins stand out
as i
scream on the couch
my back arched
like electrodes placed on my temples
shocking me back to life
i feel that strange,
wild,
raring,
open pain
course through me
for the first time in a year

all i hear when i look in the mirror is the frivolous, ignorant sentence you uttered in bed one morning
after making love to me (should i call it that?)
"i wish your **** was a little bigger."

it echos in my head when you hold me
when you kiss me, your hand down my pants
when you're on top of me, biting my neck
when you hug my abdomen from your chair.

it's like it's written in my skin now
in the pathways of my neuro-system
after everything i have done to be beautiful in one ******* morning
one ******* night
23 ******* years of standing on the curved backs of billions of other women
struggling to have better anything, better everything
so that you can have more fun while ******* them
after all that
you voice your dissatisfaction with the fact that i am not photoshopped
or surgically altered
as i lay naked in your bed
after you've
"made love to me."

is this a sickness that is nature made?
were you born to be dissatisfied with perfection?
never satiated?
i believed that at least my *** was perfect,
despite chubby arms and a fat stomach.
the one thing i believed desirable
you destroyed
with one sentence.

i hope it is not natural.
i hope the internet
****
reddit
instagram
video games
whatever the ******* look at that makes you treat me like a consumable, customizatable option
taught you this
because i pray that my future son
will never even think to do
what you have done.

i watch as
worry
fear
the promise of
incarceration
skips across me
and then settles
into dad's wrinkly
face.

thirteen
thousand
dollars

a
sixty-two year old
man
who's worked
his whole life
for a family
stuck with a bill
by a cup of coffee
with yellow teeth
and diamond earrings
on a leather couch

thirteen  
thousand
dollars

people are always asking
how much am i worth to you
how much money
would you give
to be with
me

thirteen
thousand
dollars

is the cost of
one whole year
that threw your entire life
into shadow
doubt
complete and utter
chaos
fear
despair

thirteen
thousand -

- pieces of paper
that we have put worth upon
now decide
your fate
you will lose your
house
your family
everything
you own
if you do not pay
but let's be real
you've lost it all
before
can once more
hurt
any less

thirteen
thousand
*******
dollars

in arrear
fees
this is how much
one year
of complete horror
is worth
and no,
no one pays the ones who suffered
we pay
those that won...

thirteen
thousand
dollars.

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

It is vitally important
That you find somewhere to hide.
If you can't manage it in private,
You must at least try in public.
Find all the round, yellow little cubbies you can
Pray they are unoccupied.
If, in fact, they aren't...
Wander, pointedly examining the floor,
A wall,
Your phone
Until you find a cracked
Worn
Red one.
Slink unnoticed into it,
Keep your head low
And let the grody,
Curved
White wall
Protect you.

swallowing
my first straight shot
of jack
letting the bitter taste
converge with the bitter
inside of me
but all it does
is make me cry...
god,
what a pathetic
drunk you are,
red

expect that you won't know what to do with yourself for a while.

expect that you'll be timid and untrusting and reluctant.
expect that people will want an explanation
and that you won't want to give them one.

expect that weekends will make you gnash your teeth and rip your clothes
expect that maybe you'll feel sorry
that maybe you'll want to break the sacred silence that fell like a blanket over your heads
comforting to you
stifling to him...

expect to be afraid of the future.
expect to miss the good parts of him...


expect to someday feel alright again
and realize that this is the first step.

i think i should let you know
that you wouldn't just make an ugly girl
you'd make an ugly anything
because your mind
is ugly
and that every time i hear your voice
your drawling,
depressing,
slur
i want to throw my brain
out a window
into a vat of lava
i know this is all so sudden
but you **** me off
an' ****

i'm really
******* myself majorly
by not writing this essay
it's actually kind of disturbing
how many ***** i don't give
for that fact
what happened
to
me

educational
suicide bomber
took an in-class essay
to the jugular
pen to the heart
inkstained
fingers
fell apart
all the things
brain-washed into me
suddenly
dissipate
and float like ash
in the wake
of my explosion
or lack
thereof
ugh

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.

"calm down" they say.
like it's some kind of ******* incantation
that will soothe the beast
like those words make things happen

i know words that make things happen.
they lie on either end of the spectrum:
"i love you"
and
"i hate you"

the words "calm down"
don't change anything
they just show that you're doing something someone doesn't like

what if i don't care?

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

it's so amazing how easily i can determine
that i was not insane for a year and a half
now that you no longer block out the sun.

yeah, maybe i still can't look at your face
because i am so afraid to see you and have you trick me back into sympathy and compassion.

me, the girl who loved a ******.

maybe jesus taught me too well to love those that persecute me
he made me to fall in love with the man who grabbed me by the wrists and held me down.
would my father
would my pastor
would anyone
honor me for the sacrificial love i displayed for a year and a half
holding him
giving myself to him
loving him
would they pat me on the back
and say that i truly understand the love of god
letting a man ravage my life
for a year
and a
half

i don't even know the months anymore.
i've stopped counting
because i've stopped torturing myself
because i no longer can say
"here is the day he took it away from me
and here i am, still letting him over and over again."
the months past do not matter now.

i will start counting for a different reason:

1 month since i told him enough is ******* enough
2 months since i cut my arms open, writing my sins in my flesh
3 months since i decided that jesus was wrong
that loving my enemies will **** me
make my insides rot
that not loving this enemy
is simply
self preservation
4 months since i got my voice back.
5 months since i started to feel a heart beating in my chest again instead of a hollow socket
6 months since i laid in bed my head and tongue bursting with hate at the mere thought of his hands rough against me, mouth against my ear
7 months since i stopped lying to everyone around me about what really happened that first night
8 months since my body revolted as my mind toiled on in utter confusion, darting from one frightened thought to the next
9 months since i had to worry about carrying a child that he conceived alone
10 months since i beat my head against a cement wall, trying to smash the memories
of what he did to me
11 months since i hugged his mother and met his family wanting to tell them they had a ****** predator for a son
1 YEAR SINCE I LET A BOY CONSUME THE ESSENCE AND JOY AND PURITY OF WHO I AM AND WHAT I WISH I COULD BOLDLY STAND FOR.

i will count the future months
on the gritty pockmarked sidewalk to recovery
until i find again my way
to a sound mind
a sound body
and a sound heart
victimize me no longer,
you who removed from me my innocence
and hung it around my neck
like an albatross that i shot
and not you...

to love again, will be an awfully big adventure.

i hope you find my redhair in the backseat of your car
on your clothes
on your pillow when you lie down to sleep
and i hope that these remnants of me
remind you
that you
******
up

cement box of aching torture
housing another worst year of my life

airtight vacuum seal my pain
so i never forget

ground into the glossy walls
built on the bones of other pulsating, tired freaks.

honestly,
i'm sick of faking it with you.
i deserve
reality
and i'm getting everything but
every night
i spend with you
i've always been so suspicious
of being used
people use me
all the time
because i'm good
for a laugh
i can keep things going
i make parties
fun
but that's the only reason
anyone wants me around
they use me
to keep things interesting...
i
am
worth
more
than
that.

so honestly
let's be honest
(something never are)
if you wanted me back
you should have said something
fifteen minutes ago
and not fifteen seconds
ago
because fifteen minutes
is long enough
to put fifteen thousand miles
between me and you...

to be honest:
i'm tired of being used
i'm
leaving

drunken night with a stranger,
oddly tender.
soft touches
cupping my face
kissing me
for hours
entangled in a bed
with other drunk ghosts.

hi,
my name is
littleredwritinghood
and i got
a C in psychology
this semester
and i am here
to try and
get over it.
i feel like
i have a big red
YOU FAILED
sticker
a big red C
on my forehead
and that my dad
will eventually
notice it
i had a nightmare
that i couldn't get it off
no matter how hard i scrubbed
i am expecting
four more C's
to join it
on my cheeks
it's not that i'm not smart
i just didn't go to class
because i wanted to slice my wrists
not get out of
bed
daddy,
i wish you
understood

side by side boxes
with little bleeding words
my blood smeared on one
the other yet to be graced
tonight is a good night
for him to be
baptized
i wish it wasn't in my
blood
with this
knife

discarded.
empty stomach.
the word mother carved into my arm.
finally proven insane.

chasm carefully constructed with the carcass of our love
lying in the bottom of the shallow swamp water i am grounded in.

alone.
so, so alone.
this white washed prison soaks up the bad thoughts and the blood seeping from the cuts and reflects them back at me
the mirror through which i see our relationship.

you will never
ever
understand the torment i have endured
i would give anything to have simply been a bullied, privileged fat kid.

your apologies will never satisfy the aching block hole that is my abdomen
mostly because you never apologize.

today i wished i could tell your mother that you are a ******.
today i spared you, and cut open my arms instead.

angel's mouths
drip blood
as they look up from my wrists
pale-faced
halos
their kindness
frightens me
the most

i can feel the point of my life
slipping out my fingers
not really
slowly....
boy
i'm in trouble
but i can't help it
i just don't give a ****
what's the point of anything
anyway
go to school
get a job
at mcdonald's
get pregnant
get someone else pregnant
make fun of pregnant people
treat everyone unequal
never get married
live with a load of ****-heads
fall asleep
die
i can work at mcdonald's
without a college degree
so why won't you
let
me

ma'am,
your weekly quota
of teeth gnashing
is up.
no, no...
you may not have more time
your slot is full
move along
the line
ma'am, i told you
we don't have any more mercy in stock
we're sold out
move along
ma'am...please move along
security...
ma'am,
you're out of time
stop gnashing your teeth
MA'AM...
SECURITY
GET THIS WOMAN OUT OF HERE
we don't have room for her.

facebook messages
blinking at me
angrily
read me
they say
say something back
they scream
but i don't want to talk to
any of you
mostly because
i don't know
what to do
about anything
anymore
stop asking
me

there will always be people
who think better than you
who sing better
write better poems
why does this make me want to erase everything
and not simply
get better
or why not even
just be satisfied
and appreciate
that which i don't have
i am
selfish

upon the witching hour,
the delirious stroke of noon...
i promptly
lost
my
mind.

i rambled up and down the library isles
trying to find
somewhere to hide.
all my precious yellow cubbies
were full of degenerates
texting on their phones
talking too loudly
for a library
unknowing of the fact
that if i didn't have my yellow cubby
i didn't have an anchor.

i guess i'm ok now
some odd, flightly demon
tried me on for a bit
made it hard to breathe
hard to think
hard to
be
but once i looked in the mirror
saw my freckles
my speckled eyes
my friendly nose
i knew
what i was once more.
it wasn't the one girl standing next to me, washing her chapped hands
talking to me about english class
that brought me back
it was me
all me.
i raised myself
from the dead
all i did

was lift my head.

first he kisses them
then he causes them
we cannot win
or maybe just him
or maybe just me

i don't want to
get up this morning
dad
i'm sorry
but i have everything
that is the opposite
of ambition
sitting on my
chest
keeping me
from getting up
i love you
but leave me
alone

watch the happiness drain from the tip of my head
to my eyes
to my toes
watch it pool around the bottoms of my calloused barefeet
on the cold, ugly brown tile of the dorm bathroom.

the problem with validity is that in order to be of value there must be something below you that is worthless
and many times the skulls of wide-eyed quiet girls will do
to rest your high-heeled tennis shoes on
baton in hand
leading the slaughter ever forward.

inadequacy is a monster that plants itself in the stomach
and grows out of the mouth at an alarming rate
strangling the trembling buds around you...

i would feel better if you knew me before you perpetuated your indelible lack of self-love
i would feel better if there were a reason to crush my bones and knead them into the whitewashed cement of these dorm room walls
built upon the bodies of other quiet girls
seeking solace from the raging personalities
that make up for their raging
inadequacies -

yes,
i play video games.
and i have a decorative knife
that i was not able to hang up
because sticky tac only goes so far.
yes, i am quiet
no, i do not partake in your gossip
or your hate speech
but do not pin me to the wall like the latest bug collection conquest
like you have defeated me

i have a flower growing on my desk that could defeat all of you
if it stooped to your level
beauty is the sharpest sword.

i have more split ends
than i have thoughts

****

*******.

i woke up this morning
rejoicing
in the strength with which
i slammed the door
in your face
and i was entirely fine
i even almost slept
ok
last night
didn't have to puzzle
over all the useless words
you ever said to me
(...maybe they weren't useless...)
and of course
i ***** myself once again
i managed to forget
to remove all the songs
we sang together
from my playlist
and as i stand here,
a hair-straightener tangled
in my hair
'smile' comes on
**** you
uncle
kracker

i
smiled

if i could see
what is hurting me
i'd tell it to stop
for the love of
god

big sister thinks she knows how boys work
big sister hasn't been with a boy like i have.
first he's kissing you
then he's got his hand up your shirt
and no matter how much you promise me
that your christian ideals will stay in tact
watch how quickly those lines blur and degrade
the hand that holds you will hold you down soon enough
i know how it goes
i'm not a *****

big sister,
i wish i could tell you
what he did to me
maybe then you would be more careful.

when you have to take pills
to sleep
and your dad wonders
if you think too deep
at night
and your friends wonder
if you're talking to a creep
sometimes
in secret
and your mother doesn't wonder anything
because your mother too
doesn't sleep
littlered,
sleep
so you won't
be her

if you do anything
four thousand times over
it will start to get
boring

like
***

but what about
breathing?

the feeling that no one is listening
because there are no likes on my latest status
no retweets
no hearts on the face of my instagram
the cement words of the internet do me no good
because no one
is listening
no one hears me
when i speak with floating words or lead-like typography

my self-assurance falters
am i not popular
is this highschool
is all of humanity one big highschool class that doesn't want to sit with me at lunch  
is it the internet that taught me this?

is the internet bad because it is the internet
or is it bad because i am exposed to more humans than i ever would be
normally
is that what
makes it
bad

it's nights like these
that i try to figure out
if i love you
but i've never been good
at puzzles
i always give up
on them

see around
oh,
forty thousand people
you know
talk to none of them
because
well,
talking...

...ugh

scrape all the ****
out from under your bed
try to find
your knife
try to feel
better
four cuts
later

ARE YOU
ANY BETTER
THAN HIM

ARE YOU NOT GUILTY
OF SIMILAR SINS

why does he now repulse me so?
we are the same.

hey.
the birds turn on
at 4:35am here.
i wonder if the chinese man
with the swirling eyes
turns them on
like in cannery row
as he walks down to the seaside
maybe he just flips
a switch

to the first boy
who broke my first heart
don't worry
i found another one.

to the first bestfriend
who broke my second heart
don't worry
i bought another one.

to my mother
who broke my third heart
don't worry
i didn't bother with making another.

to my future
which i am sure will be just like the past
(we repeat ourselves
into eternity
our collective unconscious
hellbent on being heroes) -
don't worry.
there is nothing to break.
you will have no guilt
and i will have no pain.

little brother,
you could have the pink in my cheeks
if it made you happy.
you could have the spring in my step
(although it has been quite small
these last two years)
to play with.
you could have my rise
and my
shine
although i haven't seen them
for so long
i hardly remember what they look like
...i'll find them for you.
you could have
the golden apple
of my eye
a pretty play thing
to make you smile
you could have
all the sunshine
green grass
and cool water
that has ever befriended me.

i'd let you have it all
if i were only allowed to give it to you
if i could only
see you
without the crater in my chest
trying to eat me from the inside
if i could only
bear the sight of our mother
if i could only
stop cutting
if i could only
pretend better
if i could only
let you snuggle up against me
without crying
and making you wonder why
if i could only
be better for you
if i could only
do a lot of things
that i owe you...
little brother
i wish i was
stronger.

that burning moment of anger
before exhaustion sinks me into the pillow
my breathing measured, gentle, slow
is worth it
for the feeling of you slipping into that empty space
behind me
the slight regained consciousness
the animal knowledge
the impression: vague, sleepy, far away as it is
of your body, your bones
your muscles
falling into rest
beside me
is so base
so normal, run of the mill, instinctual
that something in my chest purrs
half awake
as you bury your face
into my hair, kissing along my neck,
my shoulder
wrap your arms around me
tightly
like you have been lusting
for the moment you could indulge
quietly
in the curvature of my hip, the smell of my sleeping
frame
like there is nothing in the world
you'd rather taste
than my skin beneath your tongue

take sips of immorality like it's a fine wine
that you've missed out on
for centuries
while it
cured

hold the throbbing handfuls
turn them in your palm
marvel at their warmth and wetness and excitement.

sample the platters brought before you
golden, rich, budding
pluck them before they waste away
and regret flowers in your closing irises.

dance rhythmically against him
the lingering taste still in your mouth
his sweat against your neck
hands gripping your back
savor the moments
that your laurel crown
makes your red cheeks glow.