⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm and suicide ⚠
____________________
­The envelope
(delivered just this morning)
splits in his attempt
to tear away its wax seal
where her very breath still wanders.

Inside,
he finds a razor blade--
upon being removed
from its paper hostel,
it glints prismatically
in the Autumn sun--
and a neatly-pressed letter
accompanied by an overwhelming
medley of scents--
parchment;
mint lip balm;
*****;
it still smelled like her.

With butterflies rising like bile
up his throat,
he unfolds the letter,
reading over her
spidery handwriting
several times before
her words fully percolate:

"Do not return to sender--
she's already dead."

But, oh, how I will revel
in their piteous expressions
of shocked envy
when they see my name--
the name of the

attention-seeking
******-****-tease-*****
sloppy-drunk
future-homeless-druggie
strung-out-overdramtic
emotionally-unstable
possessive-sad girl

in lights.
___________________
S­ound familiar?

Palms sweating, baby doll?

Feelin' guilty, sweet cheeks?

Well.

If you suspect this poem
is about you,
then it probably is.
___________________­
Moral of the story:

Never ******* a poet,
for she will surely destroy
you with her poetry.

And remember, darling--
poetry is immortal.

VI. I, Ophelia
___________________

­{The Drowning}

It was her--
Flower Child.
Weeping Woman.
Crazed Ophelia--
who taught me that the
drowning is in the letting go
and not in the doing.

Ophelia did not flee to the riverside
with the intention of
drowning herself, no--
it was merely a promise of bouquets--
daisies, violet, rosemary,  rue--
of wild, velveteen petals nestled softly
against tear-stained cheekbones;
pine needles--
ticklish--
beneath raw feet
(do you recall how The Little Mermaid
danced upon knives
in the name of true love?);
and the train of her nightgown
a focal point for dewy leaves
and frayed bird feathers.

For it was flying she thought of
as she climbed the scarred willow
and cradled herself atop its highest bough,
severed blossoms in hand,
legs dangling precariously over
blustering currents.

But
when the bough
b r o k e ,
the cradle did   f
                              a
                               ­   l
                                      l,
and down came
mad girl
cradle and all.

But you must understand--
the dismemberment of the
willow's flailing limbs
was not her doing;
when the rapids dragged her down
to the belly of the murky river bed,
she merely gave no struggle
as death lapped at her ribs--
she merely submitted,
allowed the snivelling maw of the river
to swallow her whole.

Now,
I think it suiting
that I ponder the demise of the
Flower Child
(wilted in her ruin);
Weeping Woman
(tears reunited
with the eye of
the water lily);
Crazed Ophelia
(forgotten)
and all she has taught me
of drowning
as I let myself
fall asleep in the bathtub
at three o clock in the morning,
all the while a little drunk
and so very sad.
(You'd might have even thought
I wanted to drown myself. )
__________________
{Th­e Resurrection}

Doused in the pallid wash
of blue stage light,
and the clamour
of imaginary tides
growling in my ears,
I metamorphosize into
Hamlet's Ophelia
and all the other Ophelias
who came before me--
mad.
broken.
lost.
women.

Women who were never
capable of quieting
the sea trembling
in their veins;
the barbaric deluge festering
within their souls;
the siren songs
musing to the cavernous twists
of their hearts,
piercing through artery
with stalagmite precision.

These women succumbed,  
not to the water,
but to the burden of their own
desire.
love.
heartbreak.

None of them survived.

Except for me,
of course.

And, I must admit,
it took my
writing this poem
to finally understand
why that is--
why--
how--
I have managed
to stay alive,
despite dreaming of that
same siren song
that lured my foremothers
to their destructions.

See,
alone,
Ophelia could not weather  
the tempest seething over her.

But I different--
I am not alone.

Because I carry with me the spirits
of all the Ophelias
who came before me,
the fragments of their beings
melding together to create
a brilliant gossamer of hope.

And that is why,
together,
we can breathe underwater.
____________________
{­Blackout}

Ophelia Bows,
her performance immortalized
through the remembrance
of a standing ovation.

V. Ethereal

Maybe being drunk
is the closest I will
ever get to zero gravity--
to walking on the moon.

My fingers curled
around the neck of a liquor bottle,  
I wander to my bedroom window,
as a tipsy weightlessness settles
amongst my limbs
(and my thoughts).

Swaying slightly,
I part the curtains and,
in my intoxicated stupor,
search for Polaris in the night sky,
point to it,
press a clumsy hand to the glass,
convince myself that
I have captured the star,
and all the omniscient power
it possesses,
beneath my finger tips.

Star light,

{lips pant--
inebriated,
heavy}

star bright,

{my breath appears a catalyst
as the window pane glazes over
in an impenetrable paroxysm of fog}

first star I see tonight,

{I take a swig,
raise the bottle--
a toast
to the cosmos}

I wish I may,

{Lashes meet in
silent matrimony}

I wish I might,

{Behind closed, desperate eyes,
ribbons of colour dance
towards me in a disoriented jig}

have this wish I wish tonight--

to be
obliterated by the very galaxy
that birthed
these grieving bones
and this tumultuous heart.

Because only then--
as the Gods paint the Night
with the innards of my soul,
acrylic purples
churning against the blackness--
will I become what I
have always dreamed
of becoming:

Lovely.

Ethereal.

IV. Crimson

It's not about the way it hurts--
it's about the way I bleed,
the way my skin
splits and geysers.

A deluge of red
leaches from pale, marred arms,
adheres to cotton sleeves
like a seething tentacle
affixed to the stern of a ship
(when I get home from school and undress,
my skin will peel away
with the rest of my clothes.)

But at the first sign of healing,
I will take my razor blade from
wherever I've hidden it
(Under my bra strap,
pressed between the
mattress and the box spring,
tucked inside the alcove
of a hollowed-out book)
and tear myself anew,
watch with morbid tranquillity
as tidal waves of crimson
surge from my veins
as they threaten to destroy
the very body from
which they were birthed.

(And this is how the drowning begins.)

At thirteen years old,
I learn that
not all mermaids are like Ariel--
some mermaids are sirens,
femme fatales of the seven sea
who lure sailors to their drownings
with sweet, nectared voices.

Still, I wish to don the life of a siren,  
whose danger appears
dizzyingly seductive to me.
I have become fascinated
with the dark and the peculiar,
you know,
and, as a result, I too
have undergone a dark, peculiar
evolution--
and, as literature has dictated,
such a character as myself
is to be scrutinized
under an omniscient perspective:

She wears thick, purple eyeliner
and dresses only in
heavy blacks and deep blues,
an abrupt transition
from her previous adoration for
pastels and ruffled sleeves.
But it is not only her countenance
that is indicative of this disturbed youth--
there are the books she reads,
tales of death, gore, and
other macabre eccentricities.
Her favourite titles
are those by Edgar Allan Poe.

How suiting then,
that she should be an
Anabel Lee in the making--
"her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away...
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.-- "
she just doesn't realize it  yet--
that she is a drowning girl impending,
that she was never to be the siren, after all,
but the poor fool
who succumbed to the siren's
dreadful tides.

The night
breathes down the back of my neck
in tendrils of air that reek
of Mexican cigars
and something like copper
(something like blood).

Cold bedsheets cling to
the perspiration on my body,
stick to me like a band-aid.
Come morning,
it will hurt
to peel them off--
it will hurt to get out of bed
(perpetual exhaustion
will do that
to a girl).

A clock prowls in the
corner of the room,
pondering the hours
of sleep that have evaded me
with every hopeless tick
of its gnarled hands.

Lost time adheres to
the skin beneath my eyes–
black as the darkness
that threatens to devour me.

From somewhere
within the abysmal black
she glares at me menacingly,
her red eyes smouldering
in the opaqueness,
yellow fangs bearing down on me
like the bars of a prison cell.
for I am her captive–
I am a slave of The Night.