We are critical.

We find flaws in
everything we see
because nobody
wants to write
about perfection,
even though sometimes
we wish we could just stay
staring into that
unblemished surface.

2. We are never satisfied.

We live our lives upon
mountains of
scrunched up
bits of refill and
ideas we gave up
trying to
express.

3. We never forget.

We write words about
eye contact made
three months ago
that we replay over
and over in our minds
even though it
stopped
being relevant.

4. We are fickle.**

Our emotions flash
from one
to the other
like strobe lighting that
disorientates us
until we feel as if
the world
will never be still.

5. We are exposed.

We don't know how
to keep our feelings
to ourselves so
we'll write them
down for
you to find
'accidentally'.

6. We are vulnerable.

We wear our
hearts on our sleeves
and won't lift a
muscle to fight back
if somebody tries
to break it
because we thrive
from the pain.

7. We will never stop.

We will never stop
feeling and
we will never stop
hurting,
we will never stop
breaking and
bleeding and
loving
even though the cycle
is endless
and we know what's
coming next.


We are addicted
to agony,
but we agonise
for the art.

I hope you don't understand me,
hope I remain something mysterious to you,
hope you romanticize me into something complex rather than a body and a series of chemical reactions,
I hope I can fool you into believing that I mean more than what I say,
hope you write about me and analyze it to find some sort of answer,
hope you look for symbolism in the way I do my makeup,
hope you think me into a work of art and spill it from your veins,
I hope I burn on the way back out,
hope you have scars on your fingers from trying to dissect me,
hope I make you nervous,
hope you think about how to phrase things before you say them around me,
hope you ask every question strategically,
hope you think I know exactly what you're up to,
I hope you play word games with me to see how my mind works,
hope you still can't grasp it,
hope I'm always close enough to touch but not to get a firm grip on,
hope you dig yourself into a hole walking in circles to get a better view of me,
hope you never say my name for fear of manifesting the sound incorrectly,
hope you have no ******* clue what any of this means,
I hope you never understand me

You like it, don't you? You hate yourself and you love that about you, you love your brooding pain, the way you can't say your own name without choking. You love to see how close to the bottom you can get before you start gasping for air, you want to swallow salt water, let it fill your lungs like tar, you want them to miss you, want them to feel guilty, want him to love your pain as much as you do, want him to appreciate how well you can destroy things, want his vision to be distorted by the scars on your wrists, want him to kiss them, want him to feed your pain. You want troubled girl meets nice boy, want him to try to save her, want her to die anyways, want him to be troubled boy to meet nice girl, want her to try to save him, want him to die anyways, want to start a cycle, want the world to resonate with the aching hollowness of your last words, want everyone to know how much you're hurting, how strong you are for still being here, for still fighting, but you're not fighting, are you? You gave up a long time ago and aside from the adrenaline attacks of optimism you are weak, but they will never know this, they cannot know this, they have to believe that you're an inspiration, that you fought as hard as you could but it wasn't enough, that you never gave in, that your dying breath was a whisper of purity, that you are a godsend, an idol to be worshipped, you are the messiah. You are so brave.

Here she lies still
Breaking the box spring
Twisting words around
Her father's wedding ring

"Dying," she whispers
Her hand on her chest
Prepares for the evening
Of eternal unrest

There's a creak from the closet
There's a crash from outside
A boneyard war being waged
A corpse trying to hide

"It's never enough,"
That's what we'll assume
The dead go on living
And their dreams are exhumed

Bust through the coffin lid
Break your own heart
The dead and the dying
Are only six feet apart

this is for the dangerous nights when you are scared to be called beautiful:

darling aphrodite,
I am sorry for all the times you have been called out as an object of another's amusement
and the countless times you will be treated like one
I know, I know, it isn't fair
and if I could, I would stand by your side forever to protect you from the monsters with cruel human faces

but right now, all I can do is remind you that you are worth ten thousand times more than ignoring catcalls in darkened alleys
planning escape routes on the way to the car
gripping pepper spray because your life depends on it
fearing for your safety every time you walk out the door

because my dear, you are the buck that will impale him if he dares to make a wrong move
sweet thing, you are the poison in his veins that will take him down from the inside out
hot stuff, you are the inferno that will consume his rotten soul and dance on the ashes
**** lady, you are the epitome of what it means to be the female ***: strong and clever and indestructible


but baby, I also know how hard it is keep smiling
especially when rest won't come and everything feels wrong and you are surrounded by people but feel completely
utterly
alone

so this is also for the lonely mornings when you wish you could call yourself beautiful:*

darling aphrodite,
who convinced you that your worth was only as deep as the fragile shell that traps your soul?
who taught you to focus on the color of your eyes rather than the quiet determination inside,
the glow of your hair rather than incomparable mind underneath,
the curve of your lips rather than the powerful voice behind,
the smoothness of your skin rather than the goddess within?
who decided that, despite the sturdiness of your fist and the unquenchable fire in your chest, the only thing you'd be useful for was to look pretty?

my love,
although I know you can sometimes feel pretty scared of failing,
pretty sad at night when you can't fall asleep at 2am,
pretty disappointed by the ones who left without looking back,

you are also pretty strong
pretty intelligent
pretty important
pretty loved
pretty incredible

and if there is one thing you take from this, I hope it is that
you were made for many reasons: to dance and paint galaxies and wish on shooting stars and love more deeply than anyone ever thought possible
but the one thing you have never been and were never meant to be is *just pretty

What kind of warning signs were you expecting?
     Would she pour her mistakes
         into a crystal dish
            and set them before you?
Would she hang makeup stained
    pillow cases out of her window
        each morning?
Would she break skin
     below the hem lines
        with the hope
            that you would notice?
We don't often get
    the warning signs
       that our eyes are trained to see.
We don't get warning signs at all.
     we get wake up calls
we get fists full of cold pills
seen from under the bathroom stall.
We get to make phone calls
with seconds to spare.
We get to shake so violently
that our hands forget they are hands.
We get to answer seemingly
unimportant questions
to dispatchers who hear this
       all the time.
We get to wonder
if survival instincts are real.

We get to wonder
why anyone  anywhere
would ever name their daughter
                 Rosemary.

I know that I'm no good for you
You are the sun, moon, stars, sky
All the wonderful things in this universe
While I'm just a breathing human being
Who merely craves for your existence
more and more each day

"oh, there you are", and i’m not sure
where i’m supposed to have been
here we are again angelflower
tying stones to our chests and waiting to drown (this is okay,
i swear to god, or something like that
isnt that what i’m supposed to say?)
i want to set the world on fire, gaslit galaxy
isnt it so fitting? isnt it just perfect?
i wonder how many astronomy problems you havent solved
and you say, "god
this isn't important right now
how can you be a god when you're not immortal"
sometimes i think you can feel me bleeding from 1643 miles away
this isn’t neverland anymore--
what are you afraid of?
something about cornfields and misery heartbeats and
almost like you said something you shouldn’t have,isn’t it? you’re always
so proud,
you’re always so hungry.
by god, you old man, you weathered, withered, beast
grab a shovel, grab whatever you can
this isn’t neverland anymore--
this isn’t andromeda,no galaxy here,
no stars or planetary confinement,
and you were never icarus.