baby doesn't want to sleep
baby is too busy
being awake
and
crying
baby doesn't know how to sleep
and there's no mother
to teach her
baby's mother
let's her cry
and cry
and cry
but baby's mother
has no intention
of teaching her to sleep
baby's mother
just likes to hear her
cry

i'll give you a second chance
you say.
i say
don't,
i'll just sell it
for something better
mother taught me too well
to monopolize men's hearts
find another girl
who wants you
for your money

i love it when you sing to me
straight melodies
floating two hours
to my attention-seeking limbs.

charmed lines traveling through digital thoroughfare
lighting up my bedroom
with our ALL CAPITAL LOVE AFFAIR
i'm okay with it

i'm past the point of wanting to be moral
i want to enjoy all the decadent sins that have danced on my t.v.
for decades
sampling the plump fruits and and round desserts
bubbling with juice and flavor.

all my life i've been told i would regret their taste
i would regret the moment it melted in my mouth
turning to ash
but it goes down smooth
and with rich taste
no trace
of ash or decay

morality is the illusion,
not sin.

pull yourself up
by your shoestrings
lace them
tightly
we're going out
we're going to stomp
on this town
like godzilla
shawty is
a killer
i don't need a gun
to pump you full of lead
you were already dead
before you hit the ground
the sound
of the door
clicking shut
was enough

katy perry wasn't far off track
sometimes my emotions feel like plastic bags
drifting in the african dust...
a place i put my feet
one february
years ago

and flatsound tells me to come clean
but i can't
i have nothing to contrast it with
ignorance is my final plea

and i don't even know
what holocene means,
bon iver

but i know
that poetry is just words on different lines
and they're the only ones i seem to write
these days

every time
i am too hurt to move
or say anything
to anyone
my cat comes
and lays down on my stomach
and purrs
and looks at me
and her slitted eyes
tell me
to be ok.

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

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

I'm just watching tv
Innocently engaged
But I can't watch this anymore
After seeing that woman's face
It looked too much like my mother's...

The shiny, porous skin...
The red, wet, blue eyes
The veins standing out
Her hair, damp
Frazzled
Worried.
I'm scared to remember her face.

Sometimes,
I really miss my mom.
I miss her red cheeks,
Her frizzy, fluffy brown hair
Salted with grey...
I miss the funny sweaters she used to wear so often
The clogs she wore that clunked through the house
The sound of her needles,
Clinking together.
I miss her handwriting...
Her grocery lists
Her almond-shaped nails
The rough wrinkles on her knuckles
Her pants with the funny elastic.

And although I am almost 20 years old
I can still remember how it felt
To sit on her lap
To have her arms encircle me,
Hold me
Protect me
Love me.
And though she's left me
Shamed me
Hated me
Spit at me...
I cannot forget how it felt
To love my mother
And to be loved back.

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.

put one more welt
onto the canvas my mother made for me
doesn't even bother me
i hope she feels it
somewhere
somehow
she deserves
to hurt as much as i do

wonder at the innocence of the year before
feel tired of complaining about it
feel nothing when the anniversaries of your eventual demise begin to unfold
ungently
ripping the lace and dirtying the satin

feel like this is just the way the world turns
and that you turned with it
turned from everything you learned
turned to all the horrible
disgusting **** that you knew was in you from the beginning.

just let it happen
just let it let loose
stop trying to stop it
stop crying after ***
don't you want it by now?

little holes in my shirt
little lines on my thigh
should have paid attention

never do

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

this year i would
like to take less **** from people
i would
like to feel freer to punch *******
i would
rather not have a repetition of 2011
and i would
appreciate it if you all would shut the **** up

i can never sleep the night after a party

every worst situation that didn't even happen rams through my brain
in the quiet, frightening time between sleep and awake
a never ending loop that terrifies me

i get so angry
joe tells me not to be angry
but i can't help it

today is not a day
to be alone.
when dad comes home i
run down the stairs
seek comfort in his arms
the two amigos,
standing through constant **** since 2011.
yeah, i'm almost 20
as i so frequently reiterate
mostly because i feel like a failure of a human being
but hey
i'm almost twenty...
and even though i'm near the end of my childhood
forever
my dad's deep
warm
strong comfort
after having a nightmare
cannot be compared
to anything.

we talked about mom today
remembered
old feelings
wished
prayed
for something to change
even after all this time
we haven't given up hope;
especially dad.
we dream about owning that piece of property
up on the hill
with the pond
and all the acres of farmland
the kids would love
to run through
where the dead part of my writing
that was lost with my childhood home
could be revived...

today i just want to
soak up the one
last
small piece of family
i have....

my dad.

put my heavy head
to bed
too full of thoughts.
i'll have
too many dreams
they'll wake me up
and even though my eyes
will want so much
to close
i will pry them open
because i am
afraid

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?

it is
12:21am
but it feels like
nine in the afternoon
i am perplexed by the moon
unwound by the clock
hmm.

i wonder if all my friends
can see me slowly dying
in front of them

but it seems the more despondent i get
the louder i am
in public
i am trying to drown out
the depression
but it likes to pounce
when i am alone
but i can't stand being around people
all the time
but
but
but
i am too tired
for any of this

oh god.
half an hour more
and you'll get to see the sunrise,
lil red.
paint your toenails,
wave at depression
who's sitting against your door
because he's been locked out
for about
two weeks
don't worry about him
you can let him in
tomorrow

that's right.
drink, boy.
drink like it matters
because it did.
drink like you did something wrong
because you did.
drink like i'm crazy for a reason
because i am.

just because i'm your girlfriend
does not mean it wasn't molestation
wasn't ****
you knew
i was frightened
you knew
i didn't want it (a small part did, but does that matter?)
you knew i would be too scared to say no.
because i was a little girl inside
brave face on the exterior
shivering saint interior
you plucked my bud with hard fingers against me
fingerprint bruises on my arm
bitemarks on my neck
the cut marks on my thighs were not your doing
i did those
myself...

redemption is hard to find.

you told me i am a touch of heaven
and i said everyone is a touch of heaven
you said no
i said yes,
you just have to
dig it up sometimes

you told me that i am the only good thing in this world
i say
if i am the only good thing
this world is total ****
and that's not true.
it looks like it sometimes
but we spend a lot of time
not looking at it right

you keep telling me you love me
and i keep saying
you're such a sweetheart
because those other words
won't come out of the pit in my stomach

you say
i shouldn't have waited
if god cared he would come down and school us
i say that he does
we're just a bunch of highschoolers who'd rather **** around
than listen

if i wished to embark upon you
would you
lend me
a foothold
or would you harden
to marble
and watch me
slide
away

it's funny how skin melts
and it's funny how i keep touching a hot iron to my arm
and it's funny how afraid i am of it
but it's funny how i love it
and it's funny how i feel better
and it's funny how ****** up i am

what isn't funny
is what you did to me

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

not to make your mother's day worse
little red,
but after helping your close friend
who's been kicked out of her mother's house
on ******* mother's ******* day
enjoy the police coming to your door
while you're trying to beat a speech out of your brain for your english final tomorrow
and writing you into their police report.
enjoy more texts
from another woman who was like a mother to you
spitting out more hurtful things
for helping her hurting daughter out
thank her for sending the police to your house
thank her for the pending hay day
your own mother will have
with the police report,
thank her for making your mother's day
even more wonderful.
but most of all,
little red
remember to be careful
to never become a mother
mothers were born to leave
all mothers
are homewreckers.

happy
*******
mother's day

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 know one beard stroking ******* ******* ******* ******* guy
who always says
"whatever suits you"
in his dead-beat ******* voice
that just speaks of soft, white flesh
and greasy hair

and i've found that i hate that phrase
with every fiber of my being
because my mother did
whatever the **** suited her
and it killed her entire family

like what if what suits you is kicking puppies
or pinching babies
or molesting little kids
or wiping out entire races

like what the actual ****
you ****

dear
spanish professor,
thank you for teaching me
how to use
google translate
so efficiently
also
i want to thank you
for this big
fat
C

some people have
really nice clothes
and
really nice cameras
to take pictures of themselves
in their clothes
with
and they
put them all over the internet
so they can say without saying
that they are better
than me
and i guess that's alright.
i don't have that kind of money for clothes
and even if i did
i hope i wouldn't be like them
plastering themselves on facebook
in edgy poses
painted with instagram filters
i hope i would be like i am now
a twenty year old girl
who buys new clothes twice a year
but adopts books like newborn babies
and can smile
genuinely
when the lord wills
a touch of
happiness

i guess what i'm trying to say
is
your designer jeans hurt my feelings
as does your expression
but i wouldn't want to
be you.

the fates have made their decision...
i will be late for poetry class
FOREVER.
thank you,
lexmark printer

If you find me broken by the road
Don't put me back on track.
That's what got me here in the first place
And I'm not going back.
Instead, give me an encouraging word
A pat on the shoulder,
A smile.
That'll help me get by on my own
If only for a little while.

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

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

like
***

but what about
breathing?

i can smell the rain
even inside this classroom
that i am imprisoned in
it smells very...
awake
and energetic
i wish i was out standing in it
letting its energy
drip into me

******* nothing threatening to draw me close
hold me like the *** freak in his chest did
stroking my hair and cooing in my ear
dripping words as he puts his hand between my legs

ringed fingers gripping my neck
shoving away my frightened fingers
trying to break free
on the couch
he ruined my favorite movie as a child
taking my body from my control as it played in the background
a sick contrast

jesus reminding me what i am losing
in my mistakes
as i cling to the cross they crucify me on
the man that forces himself on me
a much bigger
more tangible one
than the god that told my father
it was okay
for him to come
stay

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.

give me a tickle
trip
taste
of what it feels
to have your face
an inch from mine

i wonder if i would still like your nose
or your smile
or if you'd like
mine

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.

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 feel the hot edge of hysteria beginning to creep in behind my eyes.
i become very still
tense
poised for flight

i do not wish to go to the doctors, darling.
i do not want them to tell me what i am so afraid is true
can we just pretend
one more day?

it seems like
everyone in the world
has an eating disorder
and i'm just over here like
**** that
i'm eating a
cheeseburger

there are good, honest people
and bad, honest people
and i do not know what will make me not one of them.
we are all masochistic embodiments of the pain we endure
looking for similarities to cling to and grow out of -
i don't want to be one of them

but i do what i would not,
i am that which i despise

hi
my name is
little red
you know me
we were
bestfriends
i'm little red
maybe you don't know me
by this name
but this is me
when i don't give
a flying ****
i'd just like to thank you
for teaching me
a valuable lesson
that i should have learned
when my mother ****** me up...
that everyone
no matter how much you love them
WILL
******* up
over
down
around
and you, ANGELA
are a master
of ******* up lives.
i should have known.
enjoy your bluray player
that you gave me
it's on your porch
or something like it
is

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

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.