☯ and all the wishes stuck in their throats.

(i.) when i throw quarters
i wish i knew
what the universe tasted like
in my tea; and then i wished
that i could hug my babushka
& dedushka again for the last time
before their hourglass ran out.
i wish i could still witness the way
the light dribbled like honey in
that foreign land familiar street.
Back then I was taught that love
was contagious by nature,
that love was unconditional-
---maybe that’s what the universe really
tasted like to begin with.


(ii.) when i throw dimes i-
wish that my antidepressants were more
like leftover echoes
that i’d eat for dinner.
i wish i hadn’t said that but it’s too late
‘cause this ode is too busy
tripping over it’s own shoes;
i wish my poem knew how to tie it’s own shoelaces,
and knew how to say grace.
but most of all...
i wish there was a softer metaphor
to lower me into this hurting;
just like the leftover echoes

(iii.) when i throw nickels
i wish i could erase the murals of flashbacks
behind my eyelids;
before i fall asleep.
i’m convinced that they’re to blame
for my eyesight that acts more like
a broken compass than a disability.
i wish i was blind to the way
the world spoon feeds us the dark;
like it’s a requirement for us
in order to flower into people.
i wish i could fish my name
from infinity’s belly.
please just never wish for
infinity.

(iv.) when i throw in pennies
i wish i wasn’t their daughter.
i wish i didn’t have russian strings
and american footsteps for bloodlines;
i wish i was born a moon somewhere,
orbiting or worshipping the the color of
space, which is coincidentally the color of poets
the color of ink.
i wish my forbidden fruit was poetry,
i’m glad it isn’t.

(v. ) and i think,
i will always wish
for quicker deaths.

☯
Father ate bullets
for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and
sold his soul for me.

☯
Slow dying flower,
will you sleep within eden,
or in god's belly?

☯
Eleven years since
you left, your name still hasn't
died in my arms yet.

A fixation of light
A point in the sky, frozen at will.
Steel clashing, gold splinterimg.
Dust off some humility.
Time has bent what cannot snap,
And trust me I've had my fair share
of traitors.
Injecting betrayal.
Rusted love on
Platinum shoulders.
The world is leaning because my right shoulder can't hold it up.
I will seize the planets and tuck them along my sleeve.
The waxing dawn,
And waning dusk.
I'm not worth my weight in silver.
I'm collecting my friends 'neath the willow tree.
Will it be the only one weeping when I'm gone?

☯
i believe in truths
that would rather die tonight,
than speak tomorrow.

☯
God, give me the grace
to spend my faith spilling blood
for love that's worthy.

What happened?
Has your silver tongue turned to lead?
Oh it's such a pity.
The alcohol stirred his blood in a caludron,
Now I'm as good as dead.

☯
We look back to how
we orchestrated our love
in those polaroids.

☯
the requiem dies
in the mirror this morning;
"the costs of lying"

the sun squatted just over the horizon,
a giantess,
a red bulb;
the pregnant flower––
enabling all flesh;
flora and fauna
alike.

the moon sank her fangs into the sky,
merely a anorexic sliver of a crown,
a knife, against newborn night;
a ballet dance,
eating her own heart out
as the monsters devour
her leftovers.

☯
long story short, i
glued the stars to the sky so
they could sin again.

⁠—March 24th, 2019:

I told my happiness that I wanted it home at 11pm tonight;
it stumbled in at 3am drunk;
except it wasn't happiness at all actually,
it was anxiety that ****** grief one too many times
it was the ugly truth staring me in the face
daring me to change.

I've cried over one too many skeletons in my closet
in between the winter sweaters and lingere
I can't decide what to do with myself half the time.

I have this gaping hole in my chest
and I've been trying to fill it with alcohol
like my father does
still does
will continue to do
except it isn't working so why are both of us trying.
solutions are like old dogs
you can't teach new tricks

and it's finally spring time and the rain
has dealt poker faces and smeared makeup tears
and I just want the blackjack joke to end
when will the tsunamis be here
when

and yet now for the first time in a long time I know what it's like
dealing with losing somebody that you haven't really lost
just he's having fun somewhere else
without you
and you aren't.
a tough pill to swallow
more like a harder bullet to bite

there's too much
too much too much too much
sickness bubbling inside of me and every word
that attempts to comfort me.

maybe I'm not drunk texting anyone
but maybe just ******* maybe
I'm drunk writing because honestly?
the wordsmith within has died and come back to life
and it's out of practice but not out of mind and I
haven't come to terms with that yet.

I have laid in bed all day and now I will lay in bed all night
wondering which is the best way to silence the swarm of bees that constantly produce chaos like honey in my pretty little head cause;
nothing makes sense like it used to
like it used to

asking for help these days feels like a punishment because
I have this undying thirst for constant attention or validation and
it's worse than cancer
the symptoms are raging
the doctors don't know what cure could fit into these veins
and nurses can't stomach the dark and ugly memories beneath my skin
only once centimeter down.

"to be, or not to be"
is such a silly thought strung up with fictional mourning
but somehow we make them flesh because Shakespeare seemed to get it,
he seemed to be able to wrap his head around all of the nonsense and translate it into a language we could comprehend
how does one do that
take the impossibles and make them
plausible.

cause one day the earth is going to hear me
roar, whisper,
electrecute the heavens---
I will speak for the masses
and I will speak for myself.

And this world,
will rest in perfectly in my palm
like eggs in a nest
that the universe set an alarm for.

⁠—

i.
aloe vera aftertaste;
as honey drips from the faucet.
let's leave this pile of bones
under the duvet.

ii.
been a long time
since venus asked me to write.
the butterflies murmurs beneath skin;
beneath this milky way.

iii.
**** softly;
let all nightmares bubble over––
––and over––and boil––
as your innocence walks out the front door.

iv.
blow your nose,
sign your death certificate.
tell your mother,
that it never was her fault.

v.
i leaned on the sink,
& took a long long look at the mundane.
i rinse my hands; the depression doesn't wash off,
––and the honey turns sour in the drain.

☯
oh, you fallen thing;
please just hang the world up in
the closet and heal.

I can still  
                                       see
                                              you.

From her point
                                       of
                                             view.
.

-
“You are perfect,

in my eyes,”

       Said the moon,
            in disguise.
-

You can find darkness in every cell of my body.
    "The murmur of shadow, the hum of night."
                         We build our skins when the sun isn't looking.

i.
when my father's pride lands
on my shoulder, digging it's claws
into my collarbone; demanding
blood in return for his
acknowledgement
of my
existence;
I learn to receive his broken
version of what love is
without protest.

ii.
when my mother's judgment
runs it's fingertips down the
curvature of my spine, searching
for weaknesses in my
posture, pose,
and figure;
my weight, skin
and fissures;
I learn to endure her
backhanded version of love  
without complaint.


iii.
when my younger brother's anger
comes over for dinner, makes itself
a guest in my first apartment;
and cusses out my duty
as an older sister to
even give a **** about him
in the first place?
Tells me I've failed
at loving him properly?
I learn to cry without
really crying
at all.

iv.
you think you've taught yourself how to be ice;
only to realized you're just shattered water.

1.)  you must hang up the world in the closet and heal.
2.)  submerge yourself in the mirror; make peace with what you see.
3.)  baptize yourself in the bathtub; watch the sins go down the drain.
4.)  make an offering to your body; for you are a temple.  you house a goddess within; and at all costs you must subdue her suffering.  
5.)  banish certain shadows from your body; today no one should follow you.
6.)  sow your dreams into the houseplants' pots; water them in softness; grow with them.
7.)  drink tea.  pray.  worship gentle things.  breathe; without the invasion of thought.
8.)  recycle your soul.  reincarnate into something other than yourself; become more than what you originally had in mind.
9.)  call your mother; or your father, or whoever ground you most.  remind them you love them.  allow certain heartbeats to re-align you.
10.)  and above all; forgive always.

☯
you sacrificed me
at the altar of your rage;
-the curse of friendship.

☯
And you loved me so
loudly, that chaos mistook
us for it's parents.

☯
we were the serpents
of yesterday's dark magic;
too bad I loved you.

let’s talk about it.
like the way you talk blood into jumping out of skin for the sheer fun of it;
or the way you can make someone who loves you fold in on themselves until they twist into paper cranes.
let’s talk about how you take chalk outlines of people’s soul and teach them how to walk right into your life only for them to walk right out again.
How you have this reputation of being a pitstop that breaks hearts for the sake of it.
Let’s talk about it.

How did this happen to you;
did the lonely carve you into broken hands,
did the dark burn too many nightmares into the backs of your eyelids,
how did your name collect cobwebs,

You were always a drifter,
born and raised in a blur, a lifetime of mistakes filtering through the palm of the winds;
You were desperate for the sweeter things in life and it drove you to harvest wings,
so you could glide instead of float
through the abyss into anyone’s arms.

You told me you loved me when we were young and I said:
“the moon cannot return her love,
just like the light cannot return the dark”
and so you wept but no matter where you wandered on earth I was still always right there in the sky,
an unblinking phenomenon,
a friend.

You told me love had you at world war with yourself and I stretched my limbs over the sky and told you,
“you are the wind,
you will know where to settle your soul soon enough”

And one day you wandered through the garden of eden in the flesh,
paradise unloved and decaying and you settled for the first time in your life.
I remember you telling me your feet were kissed by the soil in her garden,
that gravity spoke to you and convinced you to stay,
I remember you telling me she was beautiful in ways you never imagined possible and that her heartbeat was just too good
to be true.

The universe bloomed in her, and she tasted the concrete love you established.
Flowers learned magic tricks in the sunlight, trees bore fruit to feed even the stars, and even the snake could not convince herself she was broken when you were around.



So let’s talk about it.
Let’s talk about the way your love for her is like an echo asking a shadow to dance,
and why you ****** it up.

☯
so, who you gonna
love—when the sun ***** the moon
and replaces you?

i.
a dream of mine once
held hands with me;
he asked: "if you had a
hundred tongues and
a hundred mouths––
what wisdom would
you feed me til' I was
plenty full?"

ii.
and as i stood, waist deep
in whatever was leftover
of myself; i answered sadly:
"we often forget lesson
number one:
broken instruments
often preach broken
sounds; and it is not
always up to us to
fix them."

iii.
and that's how we stayed;
together, enjoying the meal
of my wisdom until my dream
whispered in my ear: "you know,
you could always forgive yourself."
"i know," i smiled soft, staring
beyond what the stars could offer.
"but there is simply nothing left
to forgive."