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The manic pixie dream girl wouldn't fall for you
So you fell for the poisonous girl in the red dress instead,
Thinking they were the same.
And they're quite similar, really, all mad and free.
But the difference between pixie dream girl and me
Is that she is sweet.
She'll do what she wants: She might love you, she might leave you.
Gently. Softly.
I am not so sweet, not so gentle, not so soft.
I will leave you, I won't love you, and you will come crawling back.
I want you to love me until you cry
And I want you to cry for me like a dying man for breath,
A starving man for a meal,
A soaked man for the sun,
And a deserted man for rain and
Even then
I'll leave you again, crawling through the sand.
All that, just because I can.
Lying on my back in the sand
Dead fish flop desperately underneath my spine
Cold
Whispering
Corners of my vision
Taxidermied owl
Taxidermied swallow
Pinned Cicada
Etched with defeat.

Roar of the ocean
Flopping fish
You wave its fins in my face and
Run away when I wave back.
I'm so upset with the world,
I've decided there's nothing right left to sea.
The Eiffel Tower can go **** itself,
The Leaning Tower of Pizza too.

I have torn myself to pieces on the fence that is bureaucracy
I get out the car, on the ledge, and plunge into the blue;
Look out God! I'm coming back to you!

Tell me you still think I'm funny,
Because you don't know it's breaking me in three.
Roughly inspired by Andrew Jackson Jihad's "Normalization Blues"
Honey, I hope
You never know
How I long to love you
Back.
Lowlife
I crept out from under your ventricles
Cut out
From your glucosamine thoughts
Dripping with mucus, dripping with sap
Sugary sweet
Let me ease your pain
Let me rinse off your feet
It's finally started to snow
You are the diseased soil in which these doomed seeds were sown,

You are the poison tree from which these evil apples dropped,

And you are the acid rain that raises the earthworms from their
underground abodes
and eats

eats

eats away.
Today I turn 18.
You never did manage to see
The final nail on the casket nor
The 9 years it has taken me
To unweave it from my crown of thorns

You say you shout you scream
You could not have foretold
The bullet I held clenched between my teeth
Heavy to the touch, heavy and unbearably cold
Not as I my mouth became a steal barrel,
Not as it came racing out
Not as it came to meet your creased forehead's third fold

I shake with loss
I shiver with relief
My silver armor melts away and evaporates into flesh
The life you had left ahead of you was anyway brief
Unlike the fruits you stole from my long life that once lay ahead of me
An ugly, loud, rampant, hobbling thief

I leave my pills to you
For all the times I failed
Trying bleed your blood out from my wrists
Bullet blown, skeletons thrown, casket nailed
I walk back up the stairs light as a feather
A crested crow, my wings unfurled, a crested crow unveiled
You can probably catch me
f
          a
                    l
             l
     i
          n
            
                g  
                     for another

                     one of your lies.
But you won't, you never do.
"I'LL BE IN HIGH SCHOOL FOREVER"
I scream
My friends have moved on from my early death
At the age of seventeen
My graduation dress was a dream;
Never sewn, only glimpsed,
never seen.

Buy me a cassette,
Buy me a carousel
-Hold me close ma, hold me closer-
Buy me some time and a jet and I'll leave.
I won't pretend to be so mean.
I wouldn't pretend
to be so mean.
It's been a while. Here's something that made me think to think of you. It's a little wonky, things have been a little disjointed for me, but how have you been? We should hang out sometime. We should really reconnect.
You aren't as good of a person as you think
And I am not as bad of a person
as you have made me think
The realizations smarts me in the chest
The horrifying transparency falls out from under my teeth
Without the clash, I am lifeless
Left crippled
Watching it crawl away
Untouched
Through blackened eyes
Grizzly and ugly and growling
I have never been beautiful enough to be art
I have never been gifted enough
To make an art of it,
My circumstance
Curled up in my work clothes on soundproof sheets
Preparing for The Slumber
I hate college and I don't know what I'm doing!!
I just think
You might have not
Gotten
What I meant to say
In the way I said it
Written very late at night
Sharp teeth like shimmering diamonds in the dark
Dead of night
Pronged in a mouth as soft as satin
Unforgiving underground
Unforgiving as God's gated hell

I sprinkle a ring of forget-me-not flowers around our feet
I watched your eyes as they fell
Not-On-Me
But onto the petals that fly into the air as I dropped to my knees
Flocks of small sky-blue planes
Far far away
Much too far past where the eye can see
Feeling bad
Getting worse
I shrivel up under the sun
A prolonged fit of pain
Easily
Mistaken for
An erratic dance
What did you want me to do with your empty casket after I clawed through the cold cemetery dirt in search of you?
A mad rabbit on its hind legs. I was a rabbit gone mad with inanity;

In the dark, I am massive; a crouched heap.

Twitch twitch twitch,
Shudder shudder shudder.

I scrape the weeds out from under my fingernails with my teeth.
Sweet chloroform tainted by a sick, chemical sheen.
The hole looms between my shadow and me. The hole sticks out from underneath.

Will you whisper to me while I weep?
Your words carried by sheets of sleet,
Bite the tip of my nose, caress the apples of my cheeks.
Cradle me in your barren arms, lull me to sleep.

Burrow burrow burrow,
Reap reap reap.
Intended to be recited in thick, deep, desperate, and guttural whispers.
I
Cannot cry on my own.
Sadness will pour through my pores but
My eyes stay dry which is why
I keep a list of songs,
3 pages long,
To which I pretend to relate,
To which I scream and let dry sobs ricochet
In my chest.
It's much like permission, because I've told myself--
I have been told
--That I am not sad.
That I do not cry, there is nothing to cry about.
Not the empty wounds in my soul, not the hole in my heart.
Compared to the rest, I don't have it too bad.
See I cannot cry on my own.
So I weep through another, and I know it hurts
The both of us
But without the outlet, I feel I might die so, so horribly.
And I've got to survive
To tell a story, my empty story, that will awe the rest.
Take me out
onto the roller rink,
where, under the neon disco ball, everything turns
pink and hazy

Make me out
to be your in-line princess,
your ribbon-bred baby

Spin me 'round and 'round
drivin' me crazy crazy crazy

Bring me to my knees
sorry, you whispered to me
"oopsie-daisy"

Drop me to the floor
my crustacean legs
fold crooked underneath me like a crab
i skip back onto the tips of my toes
i cover up quick like a lady

Still, I wait patiently for more
Still, spinning under these hazy neon lights
looking for someone new again,
looking for somewhere else to score.
Former lover of my mother:
Father,
You are free
to leave.
Lock the doors,
Don't take
the key.
Sure, drown in debt we may, but
They won't stay
sinking in sadness,
I will stop
Rising only in rage.
It all started in my second-story room.
A quiet summer night, not a single sound,
And then a loud boom.

I looked out the window for a better view
And rushed down to the kitchen, out the patio door, and onto the deck
Because what I saw in the sky reminded me of you
A small chill nipped at my neck, and I wondered,
Could you be remembering me too?

Because with every reverberation a star shot through the sky.
A shimmering burst, like a fiery blossom, every one of its blooms.
But it lingers for just a moment, and then it disappears.

Remember when we believed that if we swung high enough we might be able to fly?
Remember when we thought we could be artists and authors by just the age of sixteen?
Now all we do is sit and sigh, waiting on the Wifi,
Telling ourselves that the dreams we had were just unachievable little schemes.

They say you moved to Spain.
Three years ago, I heard.
Tell me, did that rid you of your pain?
And don’t lie, because I know, behind closed doors for your mother you cry, because Cancer had her killed.

And I might have found a lover.
And you’ve probably found another.
And we might feel fine as of now, but someday,
Just like the pyrokinetic flowers that bombard the night sky,
My memories of you will fade away.
I just wanted to say goodbye.
Momma what’s a life in shadows?
She asks the moon, because momma’s long gone.
Are they pretty, all faceless and shifting?
Or are they h a z y ?
Does the running woman in the rain believe herself a bird?
Where’s her flock momma?
Is she l o n e l y ?
Lost about the stone’s pure grain and glory?
I’m sorry you’ve got
To share yours with the sun.
Does he know, momma?
Does the sun know
About the shadows?
Maybe if he’d come down
He could keep them c o m p a n y.
I would
If I could.
Momma what’s a life in shadows?
step once
sit down
stand up
spin around

blink twice
tap thrice
turn that frown upside down!

cross your fingers
cross your legs
curl up
shut down

look left
                                                                                                    look right
run fast faster fast as your little legs will fly you
through the night

throw up
break down
blow up
find it fright it flight it fight it fist it twist it pop it smash it burn it **** it
stomp it out

scream

now go to sleep
Legs blown off
Your reflection stands in the corner
Growing heavy
Growing tired
Bursting out of your ratty car
Running through that barren field with bombs dropping out of your mouth
Cheeks swollen
Inspired by my politics professor's late friend, a veteran. My politics professor is very old and he is beginning to show signs of entering the early stages of dementia
I wake up without you
Lying away from me won't solve your problems
Not even on your cold asphalt bed
Your mechanical graveyard covers twisted tight around you

Rain rinses your wounds
The blood is washed away
A river flowing into my room
I don't recognize you, sitting in the corner

Watch my chest heave with silent sobs
Picturing your gnarled face
I don't sleep
I go to bed with you still gone
There’s an angel you know,
He used to say.
An angel in my mind,
And in my heart.
And though its colors have been
Stripped away by Time,

It likes to sing,
He used to say.
And play the harp
Without any rhythm,
Without any flow.

And the world, it was so cruel
To tell him
The rhythm his angel played was a pain
And slowly that song,
The song of the harp, of the angel;
It began to fade.

And I asked him, though I knew he would not respond,
Was there anything I could have done?
Done to keep his angel,
His broken, beautiful angel.
The one that he had preserved in between the Sunday paper.

The Sunday paper, so very grim.
No one would care to look behind the print,
No one would ever find him.

But those fools!
Those terrible, horrible fools!
They came and tore off each and every one of the sheets,
Tore all the skin from his bones!
They took his angel and they broke him.
They took his heart.
They took my home.

And I know he won’t respond
For his eyes are closed,
He breathes
No more.

I know. I know
There was an angel once.
Right there, where there was once a pulse.
It used to sing,
And play the harp.
Without any rhythm
And without any flow.
This was originally an Ekphrastic poem but I can't upload images here. Sorry it's so long
The eternally dry patch of skin
Right above your elbow

The creased duvet
A sea of olive silk

The toughest pill to swallow
Better taken by mouth
DO NOT BREAK
DO NOT GRIND
DO NOT TAKE MORE THAN ONCE IN THE SPAN OF 4-6 HOURS
God sinned when he gave me nerve endings at 9 years old
I've got a mind full of mold and lips that
when kissed
turn into solid gold
Don't listen to a word I say:
I'm okay I am alright I'm fine
Instead act on my ever-extending un-exiting untold
Do not pretend to know me
Just know
You're mine
Procrastinating final exam preparations
Tonight I'm in for a loop
Today I'm on a roll
She smacks my head against the counter and says:
"Don't hurt yourself"
Mouth full of knives,
She embeds her glittering lips all over my body
I scream and I thrash and I bleed all over the bathroom tile
And I smile
Today I'm in for a loop
Tonight I'm on a roll
I remember
The sun shining through the trees
Gold flakes dancing over the green of the leaves
A book propped up between scabby knees

I remember
The song of a violin
The smell of paint
The small soldier made of tin
The resin free of taint
Euphoria induced by the greatest win

I remember
Hours of contemplation
Curses thrown around
A moment of hesitation
A purpose, lost and never found
The glare of the blade

I remember
The light of the full moon
The fireworks that seemed to grow by the bloom
Your hand in mine
Listening to the sky’s every wail and whine
The slightest drizzle of rain
And we were insane
Oh, but we were fine.
We were fine.

I remember
Traces of tears
Victory over fears
Youth thrown away only to be redeemed
A thousand realities
So wild even I could have never dreamed.
Six children and a suburban home
Don't it hurt you to see me like this?
One of yours, and still so alone?

First daughter assigned third wife
I've done it all wrong again,
Haven't I?

Sprawled all across this spiky green turf
Drinking up the merciless sunshine
Trying to keep it down

Weeping about my friend's father
Watching for a hint of remorse in your stern frown
I wait for you to ask for my forgiveness
Go on, ask
Let me for once be the one to deny
I drive the screwdriver through my own heart and
Stuff the open wound with my fist and
Swaddle myself in threadbare cloth and
Get to work,
Gathering up the pins to
Try and stitch my skin back together again.
worse, each time
She says,
"You should know, dear
"The world doesn't stutter when it walks,
"Not the way you
"Stumble through your thoughts." And
I wish I could untie
The spool of my mind
But I
Keep feeding it thread,
Hoping it will spill out my mouth in
A rainbow scarf
Written in place of the 26-page history project due Monday
She says her lover's died in the plague
She buried him already,
Before you came
Last night, stars bright,
Glinting off her metal *****.

It'd be a disrespect, to uncover the body,
They shrug and say,
Poor widow, lover died of the plague,
And at such a young age.

But check her closet now, don't be afraid,
See the kitchen knife there?
Love's red on its blade.
She said it was the plague
If this infinite cage
Means your undying love
Then give me the key.

Sure, I'm pretty on the eyes
But don't shade mine,
I need to see.

I've told you before
To let go,
to set me free

You say I don't understand.
But if I want to know
I've got to flee.

I don't want your love,
I want wings.
Don't clip them, let me be.

I'll be home by high tea.
Anyone can lie.
I'm not coming home.
I've seen mine, now accept your reality.
High on acid with steam-filled lungs;
I call my poor mother and tell her I'm fine,
I fetch my good brother and tell him to bring me the gun.
My Dearest Molly Anne,
I hope you are now satisfied
With the sinking bags under my eyes and
The empty gap between my thighs, I hope
You know I can no longer sleep
Without you to rock me through the slow-rolling lake,
And sing your song of a thousand sheep.
You've started throwing
Thick red waves into my sink and
Messed with my ability to think and
Darling, you pull me
Under miles and miles of freezing sea
And you take and you take,
Never satisfied.
My Dearest Molly Anne,
I hope you are now satisfied
With the sinking bags under my eyes and
The empty gap between my thighs, I hope
You know I can no longer sleep
Without you to rock me through the slow-rolling lake,
And sing your song of a thousand sheep.
You've started throwing
Thick red waves into my sink and
Messed with my ability to think and
Darling, you pull me
Under miles and miles of freezing sea
And you take and you take,
Never satisfied.
Screaming baby on your end of the line
My static is your lullaby
The telephone is cradled against my chin
The cord is wrapped taut around my neck
I wait to rest my head against your phantom shoulder
Press my lips against the mouthpiece
Begging you to pull the trigger

Rocking myself to sleep slumped on the sticky linoleum floor,
The plug pulls off its socket with a pop
My vision grows dark
My song bellows through the air, it
Swallows the walls that keep us apart
We were watched, making love last night
By her walls, painted plain and white.
I want to tell her,
If you love me, love me better,
You're doing it all wrong.
You just strung a dozen words together,
I wouldn't call it a song.
She says she's afraid to be alone
Fine, I guess I'll lead her along.
I'm not that cruel and
You're not very strong.
Four white, watching walls, night after night...
I don't think we can go on.
6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms
Ants, in all of them

New sofa, new perfume
Still, I see the holes in the walls

Tall ceilings, silver spoon
Mildewy, a faucet that only runs warm

A carton of milk in the fridge,
Spilt over,
drip drip dripping into a sour puddle
it soaks through the floorboards
pungent, cutting through the air
I hear it as you hold the door open

Come again
But please,
Leave soon
Somebody get me out of here
It's funny, they say
Can't you take a joke?
It's funny until
You realize that the most powerful man in the country can admit to ****** assault on live television, and people will wave it off, calling it locker room talk,
Because locker room talk is okay, they'll say
It's funny until
You're still 16 and walking back home from school, only to be howled at the way savage dogs bark and wave their tongues at the sight of fresh meat.
Well you're ugly anyway, they'll say
It's funny until
You're a liar for standing up for yourself and calling for a change
What do you mean? There is no gap in pay,
That's what they'll say.
It's funny until
Your own father **** shames you for wearing shorts in the summertime because the boys won't be able to take your eyes off of you.
It's not that warm, you can deal with it for a day, they'll say.
What about the men? I ask
What about them? With their bare chests and shorts and their jeans that hang oh so low,
Low,
Low on their hips?
Tell me why a man who sleeps with 6 women is throned by society where a woman who trusts the wrong man with nothing but an image is a *****.
Tell me, why did our teachers ask for 3 strong boys to lift the table while we were being taught that harassment was nothing but an expression of endearment when it was issued by men, fueling thousands of abusive relationships?
And tell me why showing skin is taken as a plea for ****** advances on a woman.
Did the words escape my mouth?
Did you not understand me when I did speak? When my lips formed the word "stop" and traced them over and over a thousand times the way a spiral drawing is formed?
The downward spiral that would soon become my life, and somehow you'd hit me with a line about how you
"Banged three drunk ******* at the party last night"
And laugh when I don't, because it's "just a joke"
Sure, it's funny
Until you live like a woman
Because when you're a woman, you start to realize the harsh reality behind **** jokes and locker talk and compliments from strangers on the streets
It's funny until it's not
Until you realize where your country is headed, and what it means for you as a still 16-year-old girl
It's funny until it's terrifying.
I watched you turn young again
Lost in the supermarket
Searching for a place to be
Searching for my hand to hold

I watched my skin turn old and pale against the steering wheel
The way back home is long and
quiet and
all dirt road

Wise girl turned wiser
Wise girl turned free
Perhaps too gone to be my girl
Still, she returns to me
Why is the music industry showered in riches while
Doctors and nurses are left in ditches though
They save lives and music, you--
Well, I suppose music saves lives too but
Oh, not mine.
No, no, no, see I
'm
On a stage but they've all got their eyes shut and
Their heads are swaying side to side but Oh!
Oh, oh oh no I see a
Nother gay man hanging by the church's steeple and I
Don't think I've ever seen this many angry white people
And I'm not sure why no one's being called,
Maybe it's as it always is, the rich are bored and
The poor are just another board game to them but I yell:
"People! Look over there there's a
Man in need, look close and you can see they've even killed
The crown of flowers in his hair" But
No one looks, no one gives a single care.
Not when they're all dying, no,
Not when there's no cure, only distraction
Dialing the speed back on a train destined to tumble off a cliff see
Nothing matters
When everyone's dying.
WHERE ARE YOU OFF TO? she asks me.
T o   watch the   s t a r s ,
I tell her.
U n t i l   they burn over and the Earth flares to an uncontrollable
i n f e r n o .
WHAT? she sneers.
I
sigh:
N o t h i n g,   I just thought it was   p o e t i c...
Just by
A bit.
She gives her eyes a roll.
Or I imagine she would
if she knew how to roll her eyes.
" I T    DIDN'T EVEN   R H Y M E."
She lives in a world
Where the rich stay rich,
Get richer.
The poor stay poor,
Get shot.

She is in the middle,
Knocking door to door.
Take me in, take me home
Make me your home.
Get lost.

She wants to ink her life out, in dramatics.
Wants it made on screen,
Because no one reads ink, anymore.
An impossible dream.
For without ink reading, there will be no screen.

In the middle
No one knows
Who they are
No one knows
Who you are.
Now get lost.
MAKE YOURSELF by Traveler has been trending for more than a month now.
Born a girl and bred a monster
Bringer of despair
Bringer of demise
Bite the twisted hand that feeds
Glaring straight into the beast's eyes
Flailing fists, handfuls of coarse hair
A good-for-nothing, two-timing taker
A Self Portrait
You glare into the lens with smoldering eyes
Your ghost
A fiery whisp of your soul
Hungry and straining to yank itself out from under your clenched jaw
Bite down hard
Watch the blood spill from your stone tongue
Into my plastic solo cup
Your tooth floats to the top
Quickly swarmed by genial bubbles
Mocking our leaden embrace
Pop pop pop
We fall to the floor
Breaking our bones in a fit of giggles
Happy New Year
Haven't seen him smile right in
Quite the while but I know
He's a smart boy, so he must know
How to escape his little slump.

Peter does not know
The true size of his slump.
Only that She's got
A soft, pooling belly under
Plumes of purple smoke
Floating over her wax *******;
Perfect for forgetting.

He's trying to breathe through cold drizzle
Photosynthesize through linen tarp
I say he chooses not to leave the rain
And he nods.
You planted and preened the seed you destroyed.
Your midday whispers running up my legs;
You left behind a trail of innocent tickles that,
In the empty evening air,
Curdled into a sinister, aching itch.
You left my ankles and the insides of my knees abandoned to snap down on a mosquito
In one swift, final bark.

My thighs still sting.
Trees bleed crimson in protest
Before the wind drowns out their last, dying breath.
I walk through the barren orchard,
Marveling at their grand, glimmering display of defeat;
Their bodies torn apart by the sky's frosty breath.
I am but a lone red blade dancing out
stamping out
my frail stem.
A fiery ballerina on ecstasy.
I wrote this back around October while reading the story of a woman driven into vegetarianism and eventually madness by a dream. Still, I figured I should publish it here before the season ends, although it's already snowed a few times here in Wisconsin.
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