I think if I think anymore, I will spontaneously combust

My head pounds with the
course of one night's gin
(and a thrown-in whiskey sour)
and I realize this town isn't for me
any longer.

There are more important things than the way I was at fifteen.

That was when I cried over sweatshirts and said obnoxious things.

The days I let you take my insecurities and throw them back at me.

Back then I'd beg and plead with you to keep me in your dreams.

Now there is nothing left but for me to understand you crushed me

And I have long since sewn up the seams.

I can give my affection to someone.
He hasn't arrived yet.
It's still the blonde hair
I dream of running my hand through.
As the year's changes stop spinning
out of control, I reflect and hope
the new 365 days
will get me over you and onto
someone new.

Feel the drunk room spinning
sloshed in *****
as I stumble up the stairs
attempting to make it
to the bathroom

instead my guts empty everywhere

a text with
"you probably don't care, but
happy birthday"
with three minutes to spare

the next day consumed
by thoughts of him and
what we could have been

it began in the doorway
to a different time: where I itched
for someone whose brain worked
dissimilar to mine.

it ended on a suburban porch,
the gateway to the current day: where he
watched my taillights fade away
into an entirely separate place.

March twelfth of twenty-twelve,
when we decided to give it a try
and three years later,
it's long been left behind.

so we meet again.

you’re the long stretch

between insomniacs

and their view of the

sun rising east.

even the birds are asleep.

In a burst of new me,
I will cut my losses, like I'll cut my hair.
Watch pieces fall off
and be brushed away.
After all, my hair
reaches to my waist.
The past three years have
been filled with upkeep
I can no longer bear.
So, in 2015,
I will cut my losses and my hair.

let me raise square one over my head like a battle flag. back in the same place I was as a single *******. nothing more and nothing less. don't look at me here, forget I'm there, driven by a desire to fill the dark abyss.

I gave it up when I said, "I don't care to be used"
and you responded with "Well-What do you think this is?"

Upon the words I realized the fire we'd started was smoldering
waiting to be doused.

The intimate way you'd look at me
was replaced with something else.

You'd become a ravenous tiger waiting to pounce.
You wanted my taste on your tongue. My blood on your teeth.

I gave one last sweet, innocent
kiss on your lips before finally walking out.

I am the gaping hole in your heart
you pour your insecurities into
full-force, I am your canyon.

I am the one you want when
you don't know what it is you want,
and I am to the brim
with your own past

And I still come back with my
Addiction for affection because
I need to keep the void
filled until I can't remember
what my own baggage is for

You,
the topic of my vain poetry
Slip your way
into my ***** soaked bloodstream
With your
self-righteous arrogance

When I am moved on
I will laugh at your
selfish attitude

every touch for lust,
none for the need of love

but this is the life I've chosen,
to feel something outside

of my hollow shell,
no matter what it takes

chunks of my life
gone

like they were
never there
to begin with

sunk into quicksand
not to be
seen again

buried deep,
an alternate
version of me

the Green-Eyed Monster,
sit down with a box of popcorn
in my mind to mentally watch
the person I truly loved
nuzzle his blonde head
into a new woman's breast

yet here I lie, in reality,
outside of my own
jealous fantasies,
with my face buried
in another man's chest

I won't call it even until I know the story's rest

(Words taken and rearranged from an article off CNN.)


These neighborhoods in
St. Louis are on edge.
One bullet in the face.
Witnesses heard him say,
“Stop, stop. Don’t shoot.”
A police officer committed a crime.
The officer thought
One of them had a hand gun.
She had lost a son.
He was 18, just like Michael Brown.
He was a young black man
killed by a white police officer.

fighting against something

that may or may not be meant

to happen is a pointless endeavor.

I have always enjoyed putting

myself up for something that very,

very easily could have me totally

shot the ****

down.

Never forget
there is always a person
who remembers who you
were when you drove a
Ford Taurus
and your ****** eyes
set sight on me

She knows you only as
a shiny new car;
a house with a table:
to line up
white powder,  
a bottle of Adderal
you are willing to give her;
nightly **** hits
and going inside her.

I am the one who
knows your heart.
Let me know when
you've re-found yourself.

Do not give to those who only seem to take.
One day you will want something in exchange.
(They will be unable to provide.)
You'll be left stripped bare, to the bone
while they hoard what you want most,
whether it's the muscle in your chest
or your secrets that they kept.

fall returns to the hills with gusto;
and as the wind sweeps in
I realize I am alone,
yet I am far from lonely
for the first autumn in years

Autumn encroaches
and one year ago
you met a girl
she owned the hot glue gun
and I held the hammer
she may well be the one
and I’ve felt no love for anyone
since it was my cheek
that your lips touched
she fixed the heart I shattered
and I was left with
no pieces to hang on to
in memoriam

she can keep yours and
I will hold my own

the fear is starting from scratch
nothing from the past
eating away at me
weighing me down so
I can't be happy
I leave it behind
and close the page
what I need is
not simply a new chapter
but a whole new book
a whole new place

we're teetering at the edge of a roller coaster's hill
quietly taking each other in like it's the first time we met and then

we pummel back down to the reality of earth which is:
I left you and ever since
we put up a front to forget.
filled with men who want to penetrate me,
and your girls and their flashing poisoned teeth.

it's a reality that we will not face:
perhaps it's not simple loneliness, but fate.

Peddling backwards
up a steep hill
gets me nowhere

Instead it ends up
with me in a
heap at the bottom
gasping for air.

Shame, I think;
the weather could be nice up there.

a joyous occasion.

don't act too much like yourself,
men might not like that.
don't approach him first,
you don't want to come off too strong.
wait patiently, but don't sit around,
have the power, but not too much of it,
don't be a pushover, but don't shout too loud.
don't text him first, don't pay for your own meal,
wait and wait some more, because if he likes you,
it's all on him.
we're powerless to make a change,
get labeled 'crazy' when we initiate things;
called a '*****' when we love to ****,
wearing no makeup makes us ugly
and wearing too much makes us *****.

what a beautiful way for society to reward us
for bearing their babies--if we want--
but wouldn't you? because women are
meant to be mothers, meant to stay at home,
meant to nourish and look pretty
while husbands are at work.

find a man who loves you,
but only if he admits it first...

unsure of what to say
in a cryptic state,
the balancing beam of
appearing happy while
still being me,
the jaded queen of
uncertainty

I begged for this
and I have it now,
and already I have
saturated it in
self-doubt

I did it for once. I made my own decision. Of course, one can hope they make the right choice.

I ask him:
Nothing to fix?

When I saw you last
you walked away
without a word to say.

But I never said
I wanted you to go.

I twiddled my thumbs
while you made the decision
that split me up in two.

I gave you my body parts
in the vain hope
that you would love me the same
as I did you.  

And so I say to me:
You don't need him
to hear from you
that you've found somebody new.

He puts one ******* display like the Mona Lisa
their bed is the Louvre

For me I say, a new one every night,
every state quarter, I want them all as mine

The collection of men as my single bed
gives free admission to those who choose
to fill the holes of my coin book

My mission: collect all fifty states.

He'll want to be the last but I fear
she has the Wisconsin in her grasp

spring has sprung.
little tree buds stretch their arms
from a long, dead winter,
opening up to lap up the sun.

the walk to school becomes
less of a chore and
more of an excuse to be outdoors.

the grass turns as green
as it was before,
thick dark blades peeking through
dry brown dirt.

the world lives again,
under a roof of bright blue sky,
canopies of pink flowers
with the summer in mind.

do you not understand
how to crack my spine
and read me like a book?

do you not know
what words to say
to keep my emotions at bay?

are you unable to find
the time to learn my language,
and speak fluently to me?

or are you simply
an empty shell of a
human male?

numb from
years of antidepressants
and being told what to do.

I will no longer wait
for the phase to pass.

I take my pinky promises back.

A pair of black Converse
on a tiled green floor
represent something more:
a different age
when I'd not yet discovered
who I would be

It was he who took advantage
and swung in,
like a knight I didn't need;
I was convinced that
the Stormy Sea
was the worst kind of me.

I was persuaded by
a dark-haired boy
who told me that
I would be nothing
but a wretched flea

I stand by the dark blue
skies as they change
to black, and I condemn
this terrible November man:
I switched to blue All-Stars
and kicked my way out of
the deep abyss.

"The lonely stoner seems to free her mind at night"
the words echo through the halls of an
empty brain
A stereo plays the anthem of the ***-smoking archetype
But it's reality: Can she free her mind
if there's nothing that's tied down?

I feel it,
a pair of brown eyes,
with the perfect
music playing
and
the return of
feelings and the
spark, spark, spark
still there
after a year away

I'll be waiting
because he could be
the one I need
and ****
Father Time
for trying to take that
away from me

being done means being

done.

being done:

it is
easier said
than

done.

being done means being

done.

being done:

it is
easier said
than

done.

I am not a dog,
do not shorten my leash.

I am not a calm blue sea,  
do not sail over me.

I am not a sidewalk,
do not step with your feet.

I am a girl
waiting for no one,
hoping for someone
to understand I am free.

and in the year of the Dragon
I kissed a forehead with lips of nothing but love
the kind that hurt, shoved heat
through my mouth and down his throat,
burned our souls from the inside out

and in the year of the Horse
the flame died out

only closure I ever had
with the last I loved
happened in a dream

I wonder if
he had the same one
last night

because I woke up feeling
like it happened in real life

I feel the dizzy poetry
coming on
and the American Spirits
box brags about recycling
as if it gives a ****
that the environment is
crumbling

he quit me cold turkey
like a pack of cigarettes

and when it did not work
he found his nicotine patch

in the form of a
grade nine math teacher

easier for him than for me
and I kicked the habit

only after months spent
suppressing cravings of

his memories

the scent of summer,wafting in
(consisting of freshly mowed
grass and warmth)
tempts me to think of you:
ridiculous how we met
where we've been

but my hopes are High
(mostly)that the coming season will provide
better opportunities:for people who won't
ruin my life
(try to ruin my;life) again

it's entirely.your fault;
you put my heart away
(for no good reason)
you're one of every who
hates getting hurt
(yet never those who get hurt,
hurt others)
and the man,you,(who performed the hurt)
doesn't deserve
to have another woman's taste:
on the tip of his tongue

when you care more about
your loved one's emotions
than your own happiness
you write a cataclysm of
drunk poetry that reveals your sense of
giving too much of a ****
deep beneath the brainwaves of your
***** mind
saturate your own feelings with
their happenings
let your body leave its
chemistry and make like
you have too much Empathy
but really you're doing nothing more than
living Vicariously

time will always be
my lifelong enemy

it will never find
a friend in me

I must stop trying to
find the fatal flaw before
my cold feet freeze to the floor
and I become glued in my ways;
refusing to see past
the points that could ruin everything and
I fall into my own trap and
never find happiness
in another human being