the way he says "i love you" makes me weak
his gravelly, city-boy accent trickling through a phone i've dropped more times than i can count.

it survived two heartbreaks and lived just long enough to have the most beautiful words
the most beautiful voice
pour out of it
whiting out the ugly sentences that i allowed it to harbor
for years.

chipped and scratched and kind of slow but now full of some of the most wonderful memories i will ever experience
despite it being given by a boy who ***** so much more than my body
in this boy it is redeemed - i am redeemed.

is something good going to happen now?

so simple, so delicate, so quiet a thought
it makes me cry, because i never thought it would.

Hey you!
I remember you...
You remembered me
Our smiles know each other.
Our eyes remember the days
So long ago
When we liked one another.

I can still see the hidden
Words
Around your mouth
I remember
That you hide them
Only because you're scared
Of how they  might come out.

Do you remember how you used to tease me?
And how I'd laugh right back?
Do you remember how it used to be
To not worry
About things like love?

I remember.

i guess you have to learn to be content.
content with the boy you have
the clothes you own
the place you're in
the lot you've been dealt.

though i am not sure how you learn it.
i suspect that your mother teaches you
but i wouldn't know
would i

i'm getting real tired
of your ****
not even kidding.
i really think
i just need a break
from every single little piece of you.
i can already feel
how hard it's going to be
when you inevitably leave
so maybe i'll leave you
instead.
you can't ****
those who are already dead.

i'm tired of the feedback in my ears
and the low, settled silt in my abdomen.
i'm tired of staring at the little box on the screen that you try to communicate with
and i am so ******* tired of hearing you cry.

i scream at you
you scream at me
trying to make some sense
of this triviality
i don't even
want to be here
so what's the point
of arguing
what's the point of
being
if i'm not going
to stay,
dad

If we think hard enough
We'll turn into a fire
One lone whisper
In a field of desire.
We'll imagine our way out of this
We're not scared at all
There's nothing to be afraid of,
We'll think down that wall.
Nothing exists if we don't want it to
We can close our eyes
We don't see the hurting
We don't see the lies.
We're neck high in refuse
An inch deep in love
We're not scared of the consequences
If there's nothing up above.

Love,
Can't you understand
That poems don't mean anything?
When you stretch out your hand
You can't hold them.
Can't you see
That all I am is a tangle
Of words?
Of things people have told me
To be?
I'm paper thin
Reluctance;
sin.

You don't KNOW ME
I don't
Know you
I'd rather have you spit at me
Than just look through
My heart
Like it's nothing.

see,
i know
i will hate myself
if i go back on my word
almost as much
as i hated myself
for saying them
but not quite
hence the part where i said it anyway.
i always know
when i stumble
accidentally
in love
that i will eventually
find my way out
of the maze
and often times
very quickly.
i'll wake myself up
brush myself off
wipe the love
from my eyes
like cheap mascara
tie my loose laces
and be on my way
with enough backward glances
to draw me back in
sometimes....
but tonight
honestly
darling,
you can suffer.
it's really hard for me
to do this to someone
it has been done to me
too many times
but i think it's
your turn
tonight

this

(is)                                     ­          was

your

last

(poem)                              ­          **chance

when we pray
we pray with folded hands
bended knees  
trying to fit our bodies into a posture that is plea(d)sing.

bitten fingernails that had blood underneath them but minutes before
red ribbons of seeping blood billowing out quiet red veins...
so quiet.
such a quiet
death
it would be.

i pray on knees that i've spent a lot of time on lately.
by choice or by fate
only days before
doing things that i never dreamed i would do.
tears trickle down the side of my face and i dream
of other times
on my knees
in His presence
crying for mercy
that i would soon not deserve.

do i hate the god that resurrects my morality
or the man that abolishes it?

never forget
that people aren't your friends
he wasn't your friend
she wasn't your friend
even you aren't your friend.
you can't trust people,
you can't trust him
you can't even trust yourself.
you must learn
to live without
everything
because everything
will ******* up
over
down
around

i can't make decisions
i sit and wish someone else would make them.
eventually they do and i just follow along
playing a part i was gently dropped into.

no more.

no matter how gentle the drop i'm still doing something i don't want
no means no
your will frightens me
you think what you do to me is worth it because you are satisfied
forgetting the living person that you perform your acts on.

*******, devin.
i'm sorry you feel sad
i'm sorry you don't do well in school
i'm sorry you spend your entire day playing a game that gets you no where
but when it comes to the question of my lips
my waist
my neck
my hipbones...
you are not permitted a say in the matter
no matter how "worth it" you think it is
they are mine to command
mine to keep if i so choose
*******,
****
you.

it's no use hiding yourself
hiding your stomach or your hands or your thighs
because you are afraid they're too fat
it's no use
he will like you if he likes you
it doesn't matter how long he holds you
he holds everyone that long
don't be afraid
he's got other girls he talks to.
be what you are
or be nothing
let your stomach hang out
and the wrong side of your face show
don't care if he leaves after he hugs you
be what you are
or be nothing

eyes shining
with casualty numbers
and flashes of
bombs exploding
i can't stop watching them
replay it over and over
i'm waiting to
feel something
i am so
numb
to loss...
it's frightening

i know why the caged bird sings
back arched
clenched teeth
clawed hands in hair,
screaming
inhumane moans
and howls
ripping from her throat

wires like fists
squeeze
lovingly
too close
to breathe

i know why she sings
i know why she cries
i see that trembling horror, too

blank eyes
strange convulsions
tear through me
quiet screams on my breath
i can't control them
i've controlled it for so long
i stopped even noticing

why is it open now
why do i see the too familiar spots on my eyelids
taste the fear my mother drank at night
on the couch in my childhood home
so tangible
the fruit flies fell from the cloying summer air?

it wasn't that bad i tell myself
holding the back of my neck, the sides of my head
it wasn't that bad
= why does my fist
clench so? =
it's okay it's okay
it was so long ago now
years, even
and it wasn't even as bad
as i must make it sound
why does my body
scream so
and without
my permission
so suddenly
why
tonight
do i finally
sing?

A one-worded answer
flies to me, through pixels and buildings and trees,
across six states
and to my phone.

and I still wonder

why I'm alone????

the first night of summer
and i am
trying to figure out
how to make my brain stop working
how to stop thinking
about all the things that have happened to me
that i can't control
i finally understand
people who get ****-faced
to feel better

i define myself in my head quite deftly
by the very things i am not.
i am not
in love
i am not strong
i am not loud.

i am not all the things that i show people
like some childhood trinket i took a fancy to
passing it around the circle
waiting for other people to take delight in something that i relish
for a reason that is too simple for me to puzzle through.

i astound myself by how well i play it up
by how convincing my funny stories and shrugging shoulders are.
i am amazed at my ability to *******
(i get it from my mother)
but at the same time appreciative,
because i would be something altogether waif-like and diluted without it.

i depend on being something that i'm not
something that i'm still trying to decipher
something that maybe once was a part of me but got cut away
the year i started slicing my own flesh to drain out the sadness.

i guess what i'm trying to say is...
to the part of me that is loud:
to the part of me that drowns out the silent, open mouth screams and discolored arm-marks and the aching womb:

thank you.

i have black makeup smeared around my eyelids
adding a nice value contrast
to the already present bags
and i know i look insane
and my sweatshirt sleeves are covered in teardrops
and my head ******* hurts

and coffee doesn't replace bloodcells
like i wish it would
coursing through my veins
perpetually awake
hiding from the nightmares
that have set up shop
behind my eyelids

and the moments leading up to success is pure torture
it's a lot of waiting
and quiet, violent, personal burning
effigies that i didn't even know existed
being sacrificed
coming to the slow realization
that i cannot exist as a cartoon character forever -

i must jump the page.

i should stop looking at your pictures
because they ******* depress me
your girlfriend is one of the ugliest people i've ever seen in my life
but you guys look so
happy
i want to be
happy

don't let it get you.
stop thinking about it.

i can't.
i can't.
i can't.

i'm so tired of talking about it to myself
thinking about it
laying my head on a pillow soaked with the frightening moments -
i want to be at peace.

he never loved me
i excused the abuse because i believed he loved me.

he never loved me.
i let it happen to me for no reason.

the phantom facebook message blip
pervades beneath picture atlantic
while i sit in my room.

open a problem i can solve on my computer screen
bury myself in the pixels:
a comforting ignorance
comforting silence
in the dark, humming room;
mouses clicking quietly.

i'm not destroyed.
i'm a little sad to lose my pivotal focus
but glad that i was able to be distracted
from a two week old heartbreak
by a smiling, goofy boy.

i will be quiet,
and i will learn
and everyone
will get shut off
for a little while
while i sleep
between these textured layers

gently

Clean once again...
Stale beer
Stale frustration
Washed off of me.
I guess I still hadn't learned
To wash my hands
After playing in the dirt
Love is one of those *****, messy things
Picks you up,
Throws you down
Swings.

i get stuck on ideas and things that happen to me
i write about them over and over
trying to understand them
i am sorry for the repetition,
and grateful for the few that have stuck around.
thank you for staying with me.

decide if you are afraid of all the things a person has done.

decide if the reminder of these things is too much for you to handle
even though you are just as guilty.

little poisonous thoughts creep in.
little doubts, little frantic feelings.

little glimpses of the depraved.
am i too
depraved?
was i just pretending all along
was there another path for me
or has the voice of fate
crackled over the stereo
dictating the sway of my hips?

i don't know why people call it making love.
it doesn't feel like love
it feels like fear
it feels like something i swore i wouldn't do
it feels shameful.

i could never tell you.
i could never tell you how much i hate you.


strange ache below my stomach.

who are we to create life?

i focus so much on the fact that i almost died in this house
no matter how i strain against those memories
no matter how i shake
convulsively
completely out of control
the trauma
making my muscles
tremble
and i scream in my little,
beautiful,
warm,
snow encrusted cottage
by the stream
that i am so thankful for
trying to put a positive spin
on the fact that i lost the battle between a fresh start
and deadly memories
in this innocent house
that is undeserving
of the anguish
i brought with me
in boxes
that i never fully unpacked

and though my mind is diseased with the thought
when i am alone in the afternoons
that i almost died here
in this little shoebox room,
that some of the most horrific memories of my life
are here

i also
stayed
alive
here.
in this little cottage
by the stream
that i am so thankful for.

and every place i almost left
eternally
i somehow found the resolve to stay in.
and though through each house
may still slink reminders
that make me shake,
i must focus
and remember
my determination
to spread kindness
like this little house
with the warm floors
the quiet windows,
the gentle stream.

Hey you
Look at you
Do you want to be my friend?
I like the way you smile
And the way you wend
Your way to me.

I like the curve of your neck
The way you turn all the way around
To check
If I'm looking...
Most of all,
I like the way
Your eyes talk to me

                 Quietly.

I like the way you hold your pen
The way you write
How you laugh,
And when.
The way you walk
Towards me
Is concerned
And a bit bouncy
Your heels
Seem to chuckle
And your eyes
Talk to me...

            Quietly.

i am
giving up
i'm tired of sharpie butterflies
over the cuts
i'm tired of eating
i'm tired of
being
let's drop out of school
***** all those golden rules
gold is ******
anyway

who can i call
to drop out of life?
can i call the dean of admissions
for that one?

if you don't live the dream
you live some ******
substitute
full of these cracked smiles
and paper dollars
that we trade
for happiness
only we don't get
that it doesn't come all packaged up and pretty
happiness is ugly
happiness is bitter
you have to give up
too much
to be happy
these days

when you finally reach
the glittering end
of the tunnel
it's just some light
and what the **** am i gonna do
with a handful of ******* light

i've started to resent people with two parents
i mean
what do you got
that i don't got
what did you do
sacrifice a ******
or something?
god.

in all reality...
i know i make it out like a joke
but i'm actually ******* tired of writing about this
about being abandoned
and not knowing what the **** i'm doing with my life
i'm tired of feeling like **** every time
i see a mother
on tv
every time
i wish i had one
I DON'T WANT ONE
i'm better without one
i'm fine
i really am
i am
fine.

why do the words
"he lost the home
he grew up in
forever
and could not
cope"
jump off the page
and smack me in the face
...maybe because
all that sentence is missing
is an s
or two

you know,
i really don't need much to be happy
i don't get what the big deal is
give me a big tree
dirt
sunshine
a blanket
to lie on
a family
and i'd be set
why are the hardest things to get
also the easiest
and if they're so easy to get
why can't i have them
oh
frustration.

a lot of things i choose not to write
a lot of thoughts i choose to keep to myself
a lot of fears that i let settle like silt in the back of my mind
i will not write about them
you will not hear about them
you will not know me

people frighten me

today i asked my dad
what the point of me being in college
was.
he
thought for a minute
as i waited with bated breath
for the answer that should
i thought,
be some sort of revelation
he looked at me
seriously
my eyes widened
my chest constricted
and he said...

"So you can buy
toilet
paper."

i should really try to eat something
but dad is gone for the day
and when that happens
i lose myself
all over again

i'm still debating
whether or not
to give my mother
all these poems.
i guess because
i know
how much it hurts
to be told
exactly how someone hates you
in verse

pain sparks up my spine
into my scalp
pushes all the little
hair follicles out
can't touch my head
without a handful
coming away
i'm waiting
for it all to be gone
someday

i'm thinking about
how long
i need
to be gone
measure
analyze
depart

lips still red from the hungry mouth of another boy,
examine your face and wonder what they see.
taste of another boy on your breath
his scent in your hair -
makes me feel like i'm watching what's happening from somewhere else.

it was pretty fast.
but not fast like the last time
there's a new sheriff in town that can't be bought for ear kisses
or rough hands down the back of her pants
this time i said no
and he
stopped.
and that is what i deserve.
not what you did to me.

separating the sheep from the goats with a religious eye,
i protect me now.
not your fragile ego.

someone else in the world thinks i am wonderful enough to kiss.

the critics tell me to be more poetic.

i admit that it is hard to smell the roses and stare up at blue skies
while cradling the hollow, echoing black hole that boy left me with;
it is hard to walk through meadows and think convoluted thoughts.
it is really just hard
to enjoy anything
these days.

instead of telling you what happened to me
i guess i could make it a metaphor
use nature
and frightening, twisting black words
to paint a landscape.
so you truly blessed, poetic ones
would respect me and what happened.

this is for you shakespeares
who need metaphor
to truly understand horror.

my life is a perfect confusion of pure, childlike, listless happiness
big smiling cheeks and full hearts that break because they are too happy
and a howling, screaming, heaving, ugly beast that hides in my shadow
that no one can know
towering over my small frame
wrapping his spindly arms around my torso
ripping into my stomach
voice dripping in my ear
that's a good girl
drooling on my shoulder
the monster trevor constructed for me
out of all his horror films
and naked women
and rough, rough fingers.

i hug everyone too tightly
my ghost body trembling to cling to something
someone
but too thin
not real enough to stay near anything too long.
it drifts away and stops replying to messages
lies in the corner of the green room that once frightened it
and waits for more wrong to be committed.
begs for every word
every wound
every scrap
waif-dog, waif-girl, gouge that cannot dissipate.

how much must i say
to get this terror out of me
to make this heaving monster leave my chest
how many poems must i write about a ****** that i loved
how many times must i doubt
how many times must i apologize
how many times must i cry
till it all comes out
till he leaves me alone at night
till i am able to not be frightened anymore?

how much must i say
and in what manner
for you to understand me
respect me
love me?

this beast cracks his way into my bones
and i will not be a daisy-chain rough-footed child much longer
i need you to find me
i need you to help me
i need you
to hide
me
in a secret place.

amass large army
***** your finger
on a spindle
fall asleep
have said army
fight off
all princes
that possess lips
or die.

sometimes
you just need to stick your face in a cat
and scream
cats are fuzzy
and warm
and soft
and they make you feel better
screaming makes you feel better,
too

your teeth left scars that ate away my peace of mind
pieces of my sanity crumbling under your molars
you consumed the little bits that could stand to sit in a room alone

and

think

they are gone now

school is good
not because i do not think
but because i spend so much time thinking about communications concepts and shakespeare and the romans and all the drama that crashes through my dorm room and shakes down the curtains these things keep me focused  
on everything
except the fact
that you
ruined me

back to blank eyes
slouched shoulders
ringing in my ears
numbness in my limbs
my frankenstinian moment of animation over
pushed down once more
dead on that cold slab of table
sedated, uncaring
dull ache in my womb

i used to sleep in class

rest my head on my hands
try to stretch my tired back -
exhausted soldier of education
too many 50 minute battles
and borrowed pencils

calves sore from trudging up stairs
pale from the white-lit classrooms
chronic dry mouth from the limp sleep
that we all knew too well

do i want to go back?
do i have the endurance
to stay this time
will i know unless i try?

albatross shot,
dressed,
hung around my neck:
you placed it
tenderly.

palms toward heaven, nailed down
your lips kiss like the metal bites.

crown of thorns -
falsely placed
driven into my flesh
where a laurel
once bloomed
golden,
trembling,
sacred.

i carry you with me
in the scars along my forearms
and the thighs you once worshiped
i bring you to every hill
feel your weight at every incline,
the albatross
you brought me:
dead weight
beating against my chest.

my second coming is half-through,
and i'm beginning to emerge
i stay up late,
sew my ***** back together.
let the nightmares pry my eyelids open
i soak in the fear
i draw wisdom from the grief -
while my laurel
regrows.

I sit
And I look through my planner
At all these days that I am expected
To live through.
Part of me
Doesn't care about what is expected,
And longs to do the UNexpected
Just to regain some small respect
For myself.
This small part of me
Wants to tell all these little, boxed in days
To go to hell
That a day
In a week
Can't confine me...
But then the rest of me remembers
That a GPA
does define me...

The active part of me
Reminds the inactive
That you are what you do
That it is simply not acceptable
To just be
you.

seriously though
if those last two poems
weren't enough of a hint...
i'm going to ******* **** you.
just so you know
'n ****.

lost the sacred part of life in my twenties
because knowing that i participated in a normal act comforts the crater in my chest
where i was ripped from normalcy by my mother the month i was supposed to graduate highschool.

society has a real effect on people.
like rocks and minerals deep under pressure and intense heat i formed
in the magma pocket of this culture
pressured into fusing what was born inside of me
with what i was made into.

all these silent rules that drop and fall like dinner plates my mother threw
hot food splashing our arms
spittle flying from her lips as she screamed
just things that were put in place before i existed
just rules that i can hear crash
and feel burn
but just watch
silently
as they rage
by me

i wonder what it would be like to not know the rules.
to not understand what wasn't "ok"
or expected of me.
i wonder if i would still like the things i like
or let myself sit in prison dorm rooms and cry over a relationship i deeply don't care about.

i can feel the fringe of society
the frayed edge that begs for someone to cut away the loose strands
i see it
i feel it
i know it
but i do not wish to sever it.