*******.

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

i wish someone would think
"we're spreading Red
too thin"

your heart failure
left me a lonely sailor
on a sea of broken dreams and wishes
where i float among a mass of lost fishes
all looking for their home
but it's gone

gone

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.

divided
we stand
wonderfully.
together
we fall
floating
like papers
in the wind
in the city
into puddles
that absorb us
turn us into mush
but not the good kind...
we are simply
a family
not meant to be
together
i guess
*******
america
for pounding that phrase into me
for decades

my cousin always gets a new puppy when the last grows up incorrectly:
misbehaving while she's gone,
wrecking home and belongings.

that is how you feel
no, not special or an isolated circumstance
don't bloat yourself on the idea that you are unique to me --
you are every other boy who thinks with his ****
every other boy who seemed playful and innocent
and grew to destroy home and belongings...

this arm belongs to me, this breast
this neck
these thighs
you wreck every one
smiling in your play

i do discard you,
but not before you damage me...
and there is always another
ahead.

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

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

...ugh

i feel like i don't have any poetry anymore. it's cool, you guys haven't been digging my recent stuff anyway. maybe i finally got it all out, maybe i'll be ok now. thanks for reading...don't know if or when i'll be back...could be tomorrow, could be never. i like unpredictable

said i love you back because
"third time's a charm"
is a black magic spell too strong for me
couldn't properly deflect it.

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

didn't eat
a single thing
all day
if being
a size 0
doesn't make you happy
what
will

i can't write poems for **** today.
seriously.
i just tried like
80 times
it's not my day
i guess

...wait...

dafuq

running away
is a good idea
finding a town
i can die in
quietly
here it would be too loud
everyone would hear
i will make up my own town
to die in
so no one
can get in

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

talk **** about me?
slides off
like butter
on a hot pan
when you tip it too far.
talk **** about my friends?
you get a brick
to the face.

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

why yes,
mother dearest
i will get the hell off your property
when you get the hell
off of MINE.

hugs and kisses
are for ten yearolds
you say
we've graduated
we're on another level
it's the same only better
come here,
you say.

i
stay.

i say i don't much like running
always been a bit fat for it to be honest
but threaten me with something beautiful
and i will run faster than i ever thought possible
in the opposite direction.

the worst part about good things is that there must be bad things to create a contrast
or there would be no good to dream about
and it is the good that i am most frightened of
i do not know how to conduct myself
after these last few years.

i know i can handle the bad.
i'll cut my arms and smash my head against walls
and cry at ceilings with the lights off, quietly
but i will survive in the end
not for me, but for the people who it would hurt too much to endure.

the good -
the inexplicable, weightless happiness
is something i cannot understand
something i cannot fathom
the unknown, the unknowable -
the most frightening thing i can think of
and it is what i run away from
treating a funny, beautiful boy who only wants me to be happy
with silence
and fear
and suspicion
becoming what i hate
despite anything i attempt otherwise

i am so fearful,
that i make myself ugly.

stomach pregnant and distended with the weight of calories consumed
sending sharp pains shooting

empty stomach acid gnawing at my intestines
feels better than this

no, mom.
you don't get to see
a single one of these
poems.
i know my little sister
has been telling you
how well i've been writing
what the english department
of my school
has been saying
but you never wanted to hear a single one
until i was gone
and i wasn't gone
until you left me
you don't deserve to see
one line
one rhyme
one smile
and no
not just for a little while
while i get through this 'phase'
no, mom.
forever.

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.

good
morning
filled with absolutely
the opposite of ambition
i've declared this week a national holiday
and skipped all my classes
dad doesn't know
oh well.

even if i feel good all ******* day
and am determined to be happy
i end up crying when everyone is gone
and i can sit and remember things that taint my mind like venom
things like separation
and apart
and family
and mommy
and daddy
and little sister
and home
and please
and cutting
and help me

and then i am crying
again
like i always do
even if i just had
the best night of my life
anything could happen
and i would still cry

this halloween
i am a clown with a tear on her cheek

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

metal hearts were my thing for while
they'd hang off my neck
bump against my chest
one time a particularly heavy one swung up
punched me in the mouth
gave me a ****** lip.

i used to have an effect on people.
i used to be bright
and loud
and awake
and people always remembered me
always wanted me around

i used to stand for something
mean something
when i thought there was something worth existing for.

i miss having that purpose
that purpose of making someone's life a little better
that purpose of tough love

brianna remembers me as i was
glitter and cat ears
and big hugs
but she also recognizes that i am gone now
that my receding back looks dull
tired
worn down

i let all the things i preached against beat me down
take my happiness

i'd take it back but i don't know how
don't know where it went
don't know exactly when
don't know how to feel things
or anything
again

those metal hearts i wore so proudly
dug their way inside of me
i am now the tin man
heartless and cold to the touch

i used to mean something.
ask anyone i used to know.

pick your lips up
arrange them into
a smile
draw ruby-red pictures
on your thighs
where no one can see them

the world blows up
once again
facebook
twitter
tv
poetry
people....
....people who gave up on prayer
decades ago
have returned
suddenly
i hope all this
didn't just happen
to teach us how to pray
again

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

i really hate it when
you tell someone that you missed them
and firstly,
they take forever to respond
and then they say
"me too."
like, what the **** does that mean?
you missed you
too?
seriously?
that doesn't mean
that you missed ME too
and if it does
we need to revisit
english 101
god
just say it
you MISSED ME
i'm ******* sick
of this cowardly
****
if you're going to keep me up
to all hours
on nights when i have class
the next day
bombard me
never let me sleep
because you want to talk to me
then have the *******
decency
to say that you
missed
me.

hey so
whoever is in control
of the universe
it'd be nice
if i could stop falling in love with people

kthanx.

i looked in the mirror today and saw a shape.
not a reflection, a shape
a shape of a body
(my body?)

if my reflection refuses to mimic the actual me
is it
still me?
are those my freckles?
my lips?
my nose?
is she frowning
without me?
can i just no longer feel the muscles in her face twist and contort?





alien

                                        

                     ­                                                image.

i get bored easily
when you are no longer advantageous

the honeymoon period
where you buy me things to love you
is fading
and you don't brush your teeth
or know my middle name
or what really
happened to me
and the first time we had ***
you took advantage
of a drunk new years
without
a second
thought

maybe i simply do not like men
in this century
or maybe all men
are disgusting
or maybe all humans
this is why
i want to break up
i'm not in it
for the love

don't cry, pretty girl.
those tears'll soak into anything
an' count for nothing.

don't leave dusty trails down your powdered cheeks -
rosy freckled bones that you held yourself
when mother left
those tears'll soak into anything
an' look like nothing
in a minute.

hungry stomachs burn fevers in our temples
and shaky hands try to bring anything green closer
and empty, sticky refrigerators taunt and sneer
but summertime ends
and those tears'll
soak into anything
an' count for nothing
in a
minute.

hello,
my name is failure
third on the left
you might remember me from last year
yeah, i think we've met.
i'm not much different from the kid
sitting next to me
i am cat that never liked to swim
thrown in a faceless sea.
you smile at me when i answer questions
but frown when i fall asleep
you file me into a box
that you like to keep
most of my poems are about failing
or at least attempting to
i am forever intent on drowning...
but that's the one thing i can't do.

everyone sings about
talks about
preaches about
having a ***** past
no one tells you what to do
with a ***** coin
of a future
that erodes in your pocket
silently
but heavily

i don't like
being sticky
because things get attached to me
too easily
and i get a sad little feeling
watching them spin down the drain...
but i think you got stuck there
you keep trying
to crawl back up
i don't know what to do with you
i'm not sticky anymore
you cannot
stay with me

i fill my hollow stomach with hateful words that i spit at you
from the swamp of self-induced numbness that i stand in
ankle deep
even my self pity
is shallow

blood will bring me back

i try not to let it hurt me
as i try with all things
but it lances through my stomach

you try to manipulate me into feeling sorry for you
a ****** predator
i will no longer.

if i had a reason for every scar on my thigh
and ones that i could remember
i would write them all down
just to see
what hurt the most
what threw me over the edge
with no regrets
just to have a clear list
of what i can't handle
so i would maybe stop
creating the same problems
over
and
over
again
step one:
stop falling
in love

i woke up unrested
and feeling like ****
and the stark contrast
of the beautiful day
bleeding in from my window
****** me off.
to make it even worse...
i can hear the cicadas buzzing.
i'm wasting my life
more importantly,
my summer
and i don't even
give a ****

master manipulator
eyes shining
my face set with a look only a monster could refuse
i know if you see me,
you'll give in.

i feel evil.
i feel like my mother.
abusing the emotions that you feel for every lie i speak with my body, my lips
but it doesn't matter
i get what i want and in the end
this is what i believe justifies me.

i long for you now like i once longed for the man who ***** me for a year and a half.
i know this feeling.
even if it's a little different.
you disgust me for other reasons.

but for the comfort of your familiar chest,
arms,
lips,
bed
for the security of your car, your smell, your stupid laugh
for all the familiarity and odd feelings that we kindled in my summer-time driveway in the middle of the night...
i would beg.

oh
so
this is you
asking me
if i give a ****
well
if i did
i would probably
separate
the lights from the darks
when i do my laundry
but
i
don't

i stole a typewriter
from the side of the road
actually
maybe it was free...
anyway,
i kind of think i saved it...
he's from the 1980's,
a little old for me
but we have this strange
romance
going on
he writes so
pretty

phonecalls on facebook ******* trigger me
transports me back to last semester
like some sort of sick boat ride
to the magic kingdom
perverts dressed as mickey mouse
asking if i want a selfie

and i get angry.
angry that i can't use those little plastic eraser guards
we used to make patterns on paper with
as children
to erase your fingerprints from my flesh.

i rub at them regardless,
smudging away at my own contour lines
losing contrast,
value,
scale
my repeating shapes are starting to look a lot
like a pattern my mother wore
reflecting off her red cheeks
as she laid on the couch late at night
her arm over her face.

and i'm terrified,
honestly.
i'm terrified of the damage i've yet to assess
once i make it outside myself
i'm on my way out
this month
and there's only a few days
of october
left

my mother spent the month of june watching fruit rot on the countertop
before she put it all in garbage bags and left
and that is how i feel
late at night
when peace evades me.