keep her clenched in your fist for an hour
she'll give in
cramped places
do that to people
kick her hard
while she lies
in front of you
baring her innocence
she'll give up
and that's what you want
you want submittance
admittance
of futility
you want her to say
that she knew she couldn't win
that she couldn't fight
that she knew you'd win
you want her to admit

that she is
lesser

it's not going happen.
i won't admit anything to you
out my ****** teeth
you try so hard to hurt me
you go out of your way
you're a blowhard,
and i am not less than you
you are just hot air
i am solid
i am not
less than

when i was
thirteen
i remember whenever i went over
to a friend's house
who had a sort of get-together
with a whole ton of other kids
about once a month
i'd sit on the rug in their basement
with twenty other teenagers
looking at
socks.

there are ten kids
in my family
and two ****** parents
and we had a whole bathtub full of socks
and if you could find two that actually fit
you were golden
never mind matching
or nice and white...
and sitting
looking at all the other kids' socks
i felt like ****
they had the nicest
whitest
socks you ever saw
and mine were grey
worn
dilapidated
specimens
that i'd dug out from the very
bottom.
and somehow i decided
that this was a failure
on my mother's part
that she didn't keep our floors
clean enough
or she didn't wash my socks
right
and so i spent my thirteenth year
feeling like ****
over
socks

and today
i was folding some socks
(do you fold socks? i dunno how it works. whatever)
and i was looking at them
colorful
silly
but
grungy still
and the white ones
still grey
and i thought
well
i don't have a mother anymore
and my socks still aren't
white and
nice
i guess that's one less ****** thing
in my life
i don't have to blame her for
anymore
another nice thing
is that i don't give a ****
about socks

1 pushup
i forget your face
2 pushups
i forget your fingers
3 pushups
i forget your
lips
i forget your nose
4
for
get
your
shoulders
5
forget
the back of your
neck
6
forget your thighs
touching mine
7
remember our smells
together
spicy
vibrant
8
remember the sound of our shoes
on the pavement
9
remember the river
10
remember the symphony of our laughter
11
oh look
back to 1's
again
well
at least
i know
where i am

one year since i made the worst decision of my life
(worse than ryan ever was.)

2014, the year i was molested
the year i decorated my arms and thighs
with a knife
and a cigarette lighter.

2014, a year of ups and downs
commemorated by the first time you shoved your hand down my pants, held my face down on your ****, pushed me up against a wall with your hand up my shirt

...how does one celebrate such a year?
dinner?
a movie?
flowers?
gifts?
more *** that i don't want?

sounds about right.

excuse me if i don't feel like
celebrating,
boyfriend.

"bling" goes the dial of people who feel sorry for you
"snap" goes the rope hanging from the ceiling

i have an issue with pity-partiers

"we can't keep having these conversations."

as if it is i who lies in bed beside me and talks to those girls in your phone

Hi, Hoss,
This is a poem.
I know you’re not really familiar
With yknow…poems
But you’re going to listen
To this one.

First off, I’d like to say
That you’re pompous
That your head couldn’t fit
Through a 90 foot wide door
That I don’t give a ****
About the proper usage of “Your”…

That your beard really isn’t very cool
That I wouldn’t ever braid it
That you’re kind of…a tool...
That if I ever chopped it off
Your personality
Would be at such a loss
You’d probably shrivel into a heap...

In reality,
No one wants to marry some ****
Just because he can grow ***** hair
From his chin.

today someone told me
that they don't like my work
because it doesn't rhyme
poetry is supposed to rhyme
they said
that's what makes it
poetry
i looked at him
and said

                                                life


­doesn't


                                                               ­                                           **rhyme

lost all ambition
by 8 o'clock in the morning
my condition
is getting worse
and by condition
i mean the fact
that i've realized
that this isn't where i want to be

i am finally
truly
impossibly
entirely
exhaust-ed
i am the waste
left over
from too much
being
and everything in me
is screaming
red
let me
rest
so i lay my head
on my pillow
but it pushes me off
says
i don't know you
get off me
and it
hurts.

baby is
so sleepy
but baby cannot remember
how to sleep
even her pillow
has forgotten
how to cup her head
and comfort
her
aching
neck
pillow,
be kind
please
i am so
so
tired

...i spent too much of today missing my mother
even thought i hate
everything about her
mommy,
come help me
remember how to sleep
you used to rock me
so
gently.

Sometimes when I smell
That old familiar smell
I can still remember how it felt
To have my ears scrubbed
In our ancient bathtub....

Sometimes when it rains
I can feel the old growing pains
Shooting through my arms
As I run through our farm.

Sometimes late at night
When my body screams to turn on the light
I can still see,
Still hear
Mom and Dad fight.

Sometimes when I lose
The will to go on
I'll sit and remember
That what Mom did was wrong...
That I shouldn't die
Just because she told a lie
That I still belong
Somewhere in this song
Somewhere in these memories
Reality still breathes.

"weird.
i can't sleep either.
i just wrote two poems
about how much i hate you
for leaving.
i was starting to think god doesn't listen
to people who ***** their entire family over
but maybe i was wrong.
sorry for being blunt,
but that's who i am
at four in the morning."

i can't believe
i just sent that text
it was kind of an accident
but not really
chew on that
homewrecker
(mother)

he says
we are like those pieces of grass
that come up through cracks in the sidewalk:
just glad to have the sun shining on us.

we come from the same place
he says.

he told me tonight that he wrote about me
that it's time-stamped
that he didn't just write
because i told him i did
and i tremble
a little
a different sort of fear
(is it?)

and maybe it only feels like we're up so high
together
from the clouds of marijuana
in your shower
and maybe we know so much about the moon
because we are the moon
and you ask me
what's on my mind
like you'd like nothing more
than to understand
the chemicals in my brain
see if you could taste
the similarity -

adjacent things
are so beautiful
when you are the one
describing them

don't ever let
the hand you hold
hold you down
rip your underwear
turn a deaf ear
to your crying
to the way you say
no
over
and over
don't let your boyfriend
take it
he is not
entitled
get away from him

hurry

there are some people
that you know
you should feel sorry for
like your mother
who's cleaning out
your old room
in the house
she kicked you out of
and crying
but i can't feel sorry for you,
mom
you've made it
impossible.
what i lived through
then
was nothing
compared to what i had to live through
when you left
the worst part is
i didn't live through it
i'm a ghost
a shadow
a short lived
glinting
ray
of what i used to be
and it's all
your
fault.

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?

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.

i got a lot out of this relationship
but most of what i got
wasn't anything at all
bamboo desk plant
little caged bird and vine,
comfort me

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 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.

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.

a rare death.
a year and a half old child
smothering in the wallpaper
burning in the bright lights
wise to the curve of her frame
and another's.

a year and a half old teenager
smoking disobedience in cold bedrooms
aching fists with hearts beating in them
bloodied kneecaps
and discarded underthings.

a year and a half old adult
thighs that bled
welcoming her into womanhood
ringed fingers leading her through the commonplace gates
yanking her by her wrists forward.

a rare death.
a child,
a teenager,
an adult,
a starcrossed lover
cursed with the blood of mother
losing memories like they are guitar picks
or socks
or cherished toys.
losing them because they are important
or needed
or wanted
losing them because growing up is a loss
losing them because loss means you're no longer a loser...

losing them because the memory is too dear to hold onto.

a rare death
of a very commonplace life
guided through a very commonplace gate
by a very commonplace boy
who bestowed upon her
graciously
her un-
virginity.

i don't write
love poems.
love doesn't
make sense to me
i get tired of people
too easily.
i don't see beauty
in the curvature
of a neck
i see the muscles
of a monster
ready to flex
i don't see
a beautiful smile
i see lips
that can do too many
acrobatic
flips
i don't see soft hands
or rough calluses
i see
weapons
of mass
demands...

they are not pretty
to me.

love is a war
and not the kind about good and evil
the kind simply about
staying alive
and being whatever you have to be
to do so.
it's not about seeing
the beauty in flaws
it's about exposing them
and running away
from them
love has turned us all
into killers
who are forever out for fresh blood
forever looking
for more

...my mother always said
all is fair
in love
and
war

i'm sitting in my underwear
petting my cat
eating chocolate
and writing poetry

why?

cuz *******
that's why

brown skin
curly-haired
smile
i sit in a dark car
making a list in my mind
of things i will no longer endure:

manipulation.
intense jealously.
passive aggression.
obsession.
lying.
crocodile tears.
simpering compliments.
cheating (although
i have told myself these things
brazenly
many times
alone
and out loud).

i will only give time to:
kindness.
generosity.
understanding.
empathy.
self care.
motivation.
love for others.
humility.
honesty.
and somehow
lately
(suddenly)
those brown eyes
and that white smile.


i've been celibate since august.
or at least since the first couple weeks
when he begged me to **** him
saying it wouldn't hurt

and since then
i have never felt more barren.
but like abraham
and sarah
i suddenly teem with life

Roman,
(could he make me fall in a day?)
i want to sit in your lap
arms around your neck
watch movies
hit blunts
in bathrooms
(though i know better)
and this website
keeps deleting
the simple love poems
i write about you
almost as if
to warn me
or maybe just
a cosmic accident

but here i am
rewriting for the third time.
because there is something that you understand about me
that even Gabriel The Angel
did not
and perhaps
that is worth writing about

under the moon,
above the moon,
adjacent to it.

the american dream:
a wistful wanna-be broadway star
dancing dewy-eyed through the streets of
streets
streets of
the street of -
PLANE CRASH
a white picket fence
meatloaf
on the table
in a magazine
the magazine
of a gun
a gun
on the table
locked behind
white picket
white pick
white
picket -
PICKET LINES
how to succeed in business
without entirely lying
american dream
the americans
scream
we want our
american dream
the tv screen
sold us
to walmart
one american dream,
please
american team
all american boys
the boys and girls club of
one nation
under
shallow water
american dream
it is what it seems
americans
dream
dreams
breaking seams
that hold us together
americans dream
americans die
only americans
allowed to dream
only americans
waste it

people make mistakes.
mothers leave
and break up families
leaving them scattered like glass in kmart
parking lots
but it's ok,
people make mistakes.
mothers leave
and children pick up bent pieces
and try to save them
but sometimes they run out

people make mistakes.
mothers leave...
babies cry
on christmas eve

people make
mis
takes

my head is pounding
my eyes are sore
yesterday
still fresh on my face...
maybe even the day before
i'm starting to feel like i'm not functioning properly
like i've just become some waif
that haunts you
but only because
you make me
i'd rather just
leave.

honest to god
i'm sick of writing poetry about you
i hate all the ones before this
but you drive me to it
i can't stop.
you do things to me
that make the poetry
spill out.

stop hugging me
stop making me stay up with you
what do you want from me?
am i just a fellow insomniac
to cling to?
why do all the boys i love
make me stay up so late?
why can't i have an afternoon love?
why is it always a 4am
affair?

this puppy grew up too fast
and i hate to say it
but i don't think i like
dogs
after all.

it hurts,
skyler.
stop.

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.

There's a girl bopping her head to the music,
A boy wanderin' 'round with a guitar
Who don't know how to use it.
Traffic fills my ears and eyes,
Onions and smoke and fries.

Beat up sneakers and flip flops
Bandanna people with orange tops,
Hipsters, tricksters
Hustlers and saints
Empty, wandering, full of complaints.

Broken, discordant conversations
Elaborate, intricate exaggerations
Dusty, ugly sidewalk
Happy, ugly small talk.

Sighs and trees...
Silent pleas
From the lost
Who couldn't pay the cost
To belong:

An aria for the wrong.

and now there's a long piece of toilet paper
covered in your blood
good job,
red.
maybe that's why they nicknamed you
red
it's not the hair
it's the blood-red fingernails
the blood-red cuts
or maybe it's just
the blood.
i wish i bled a different color.
maybe then it wouldn't be
so upsetting.

******* essay
who needz ******* academic riting n e way
i kin rite
im atriculate
ur jus jelly
******* *******
least i kin spell cuss words coreectly

...**** of

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.

want to run back to the frozen frame in late may
shadow on the solid ground with a red tentative foot trying to move forward.
silent frame
quaking inside
tumultuous, skitter-scatter thoughts that always made me doubt my sanity.

want to run back and hold me
want to run back and tell me that to err is human
to doubt is to begin to see the wrong that is happening all around you
to scream is to know
that you are in it
and to know that you are in it
is the first step in getting out

want to run back to that freeze frame
hurt him
hurt him till his face is a blur
so i don't have to see it in my now quiet, late-night thoughts
any longer.

wish his face were gone.
see myself ruining it over
and over
i don't want to be a murderer
but what you did to me
placed such hatred in my heart
that the light cannot comprehend
the darkness that lies dormant.

sometimes i think about
how it would be
to be
in someone's arms
whenever i felt like it
like a kind of
lilting tune
that beckons, draws in
draws out
complications
i don't want love
and all that comes zig-zagging after it
i just want to be held.
maybe my mom didn't hold me enough as a child
i mean
she had a lot of kids to hold
i guess
maybe the funny, quirky redheaded one
didn't get a chance
maybe i'm one of those people
who will grow up deranged
because my parents let me cry at night
instead of rocking me
holding me
comforting me
i learned to
rock myself
back and forth
my arms holding
my knees
comforting
the empty valley
in my chest
badly
because i never
learned
how.

today
a girl
tried to say
that i looked
like an elephant
as if to suggest
i were quite hideously fat
i told her
that elephants
are adorable
and that at least
I'M cute
maybe to the world
i am an elephant
i don't care
i just wish
sometimes
i guess
that elephants
could
forget

you really like
labels.

you like being able to say
"i have THIS"
or "i have THAT"
now the therapist can begin a new ritual
a new rain dance
a new prance of prescription
to make me feel better about myself.

dyslexic
anxiety
adhd
PTSD

google is your doctor
informing you of all the ways you are ill
and without a formal analysis
you diagnose yourself
and then inform the world.

you like being able to articulate what is wrong with you
so people will stop accusing other outside forces
of being the cause
like maybe
mommy
problems.

this makes it all easier. because honestly
you don't know
what is wrong with you.
and you don't know
how to make your lungs feel able to breathe alright again
though you profess you do...
and that my lungs are in need of your theripistal jargon as well -
personal salvation at the hands of a 16 year old child.


i have seen more than you.
and the more that i have seen i have even understood better
and fully.

want to get wordy?
i was able to
cognitively deduce the situation
because my brain was fully developed.

tell THAT to your therapist.

You left me
like a used ******
on the sidewalk
empty
discarded
trodden on
looked at
disgusting
unwanted.

used quickly
in vain
to acquire
some small pleasure
(mostly pain)
                                                           ­                 what were you thinking?
deflated
with pieces of you
i'd rather not keep
all over me.

people keep dying around me
people that i always almost knew
the funny
outgoing
loud people
forever in the middle
of big crowds
everyone loves
a clown
but maybe not enough

why are they gone?

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

oh
small
white
oval
pill,

i send you down my throat
and i can feel the tension leave me.

i am only scared
for when you run out
what will calm me
then?

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

you don't like girls who sass back

you want a girl who'll follow you around like a sheepdog

cleaning up your scraps.

you don't like girls who talk a lot

or too loudly

you'd prefer meek with a dash of kitten sweater

and i don't have anything against kitten sweaters

they're ******* awesome

but i've got a huge problem

with meek

so you and me...

it's not gonna happen

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

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

little rock clinging to long grass.
holding each other on the couch,
seeking solace.

rain pattering outside
wet mineral air drifting through the porch screen.

how can we compensate
for the evil we both committed?
how to remedy
the craters that we have conjoined
in our chests?

searching for the truth in the ache
pondering the wonder of the gaping facade that lies ahead
crying on the couch.
holding
hoping
crying

small raindrops hitting my cheeks instead of tears
leaning against you in the spring night time...

solace.

virginity lost,
virginity found.

solace.

i will save time,
littlest brother.
i will wrap it up
and put it into a box
to mature,
like a rare cheese
only for you and me.

on the day
that you come to me
and want to know
what it was like
before mom left
because you won't remember,
i will open our box
and show you.

first i will take out
a lock of mom's blonde hair
that used to fall
down to her waist
and i will tell you
what it looked like
in the sunshine
while we made
daisy chains.
i will tell you
how it turned brown
later on
and how mom let me sit
on her bed
and twist, twist, twist
for hours,
because i didn't know how to braid.
and how me and Erika sat
in front of the space heater
and dried off
after a bath
mom crocheting
on the bed,
singing.

then i will remove from our box
a crisp, shriveled leaf
from the Big Tree
and i will let you smell it.
i will say,
this is what
home smells like...
never forget,
littlest brother.
i will sit you on my lap
and paint you pictures with my fingers
i will reveal to you little indian huts
and smoky firepits
and *****, chipped toes.

lastly
i will steal from time
and will take from our box,
what is rightfully ours
and i will give you
the last shred
that i have saved
for so long...
just for you, littlest brother.
i will give you mom and dad
together.
happy.
i will give you mom and dad
in their funky, attic-smelling bathing suits
mom's tummy protruding with another older sister for you
standing on the hot stones
dad's big, funny glasses
glinting in the sun,
a sun that shown down
on something whole
something perfect.
i will give you mom and dad
snuggled under a blanket
on the couch
watching a movie together
mom giving dad 'the look'
as he chuckles...

littlest brother,
i will do all i can
to create memories for you...
because everyone deserves to remember
something happy...
littlest brother,
i will steal from time
all i can
all for you...
until time decides to take back
what is rightfully his.

oh
would you look at
that
his true colors
bursting forth
in glorious array
just pretty enough
to be the ugliest
thing
i've ever
seen
he didn't care about you
you were a small
insignificant
distraction
attraction
comedic
act
you were a joke
he liked to
laugh at
and once a joke is told
the punch line
come and gone
the laughter faded
there is emptiness
for just a second
before it is filled
with another
you're
always
going
to be
a joke
get used to it,
red
you're only good
for a smile
every now and then
when it comes down to it
you're just another piece of dust
that departs
to float forever
until it lands somewhere else
it's not wanted