Sometimes,
I fear
there will come a day
when he will use my
secrets
against me.

But then I remember:

I know all of his
secrets,
too.

{Try me, Darlin'}

⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm, suicide, and voluntary psychiatric hospitalization⚠️
~

This is not my first heartbreak.

I've had many,
and I've certainly had worse.

Although,
at the time,
my heart would have plead
irreparable.

(If only I knew
what was to come
two years later--

but there's a poem
for another day.

In fact,
I believe
you've read it.)

This is the first heartbreak
I feel everywhere--
a cataclysmic aching
that I am certain  
will reduce my pulse to  
flatlines.  

This is my first anxiety attack.

My fingernails scrape violently
at my collarbone
as if they are looking to fulfill
some distant, unadulterated urge
to tear myself apart.

(They are digging
for what whispers beneath--

a dying thing.)

But I cannot
escape
this Incarceration;

I cannot
escape
the shuddering confines
of my own body.

So
I tear away
my clothes
until I am left
in just my underwear.
rocking myself back and forth
like the mad girls
do in the movies.

(Is it true?

Have I gone mad?)


I run the shower
even though I don't have
any intention of showering.

I do this only so my mum
doesn't hear me sobbing,
the sounds of which
are concealed by
the water's blaze.

The room fogs over--

and all the world
is a mist.

and suddenly,
I don't know
what to do with myself.

and suddenly,
I don't give
an absolute ****
about what happens to me
anymore.

For this simple reason, I decide to go to the hospital.

Take away my  
dignity.

Take away my
independence.

Just promise-
******* promise me--
you'll take away the
pain too.

You don't
(of course).

"Please don't tell me you're here because of a boy."

This is one of the first things--
perhaps even the first thing--
the doctor says to me.

"What? Did you think the two of you would ride off into the sunset and live out the rest of your days on some faraway island?"

(Something to this extent,
yet still not an exaggeration.)

See,
to doctors,
broken hearts
are a ridiculous waste of time.

They prefer to deal
in broken things
they can easily
cast and bandage
in fluorescent colours
upon which all the people
you know can then sign,

"Get well soon."

But there is no one to sign
get well soon
across the
war-torn
latitude of my chest.

Because no one truly believes
there is anything for me
to recover from--

they can't see it,
so it mustn't be real

(right?)

Thanks
for cutting a girl down
when she's already bleeding,

(literally,
and I've got the scars
to prove it.)

Doc,
don't ya know
it was never about
just a boy?

It was about
yet another instance of
rejection
I was forced to add
to my repertoire
of not-good-enoughs,
yet another loss
magnified
by my ailing brain.

(what came first--
the plague,
or the boy?

Do I even have to
provide a ******* answer
to such an obvious question?)


Doc--
I know what
type of person you are:

an egotistical *** hat
who thinks mental illness
is inferior
to Physical Illness

cuz

it's all in my head
it's all in my head
it's all in my head

right?

Doc,
what if I told ya
"It"
is always trying to **** me?

What if I told you
"It"
wants nothing more
than to reduce my pulse--
my broken heart--
to flatlines?

Would you take back what you said?

(probably not).

⚠Trigger Warning: the following poem contains religious allusions that some might find offensive⚠

Memories belittled by dust,
preserved, taxidermal fashion
inside an anthology
of vintage photographs.

Though,
I am aware that  
"vintage"
is only a euphemism  
for a possession
that was once beautiful.  

Your treason
has turned all the photographs
ugly,  
their corners curling up  
like the spiral of a chameleon's tail.  

Vivacious colours devolve
into lacklustre,  
sepia tones,
blending in with  
the palette of my
surrounding melancholy.  

Ensnared in a dilemma:  


Do I miss you?  


or  


Do I hate you?  


(perhaps a bit of both,

but never

I love you--


not anymore.)  


Apertures mewl,
bruising the gallery walls
with tears.  

I frame your
betrayals
with gold and
garlands of daisies
in an attempt to soften  
our past  


(it never works).  


These
vacant
hallways
trap your phantom footprints
beneath the cobblestone.  

Was it really  
such a guiltless task  
to walk away from me?

Embedded  
across the rungs of my spine
are the scuff marks  
from where you wiped the dirt  
off your boots only after
wrenching the welcome mat
from underneath me.  

I have accepted that
our friendship was
merely transactional
to you;  

I served up  
all the love I had to  
give
like John the Baptist's head
was served up upon a silver platter.  


You feasted  


while


I starved.  


Yet,
full is this menagerie
of lost things.  

I know
I should burn  
the polaroids
in the name of closure.  

Perhaps
I am just afraid there will be no art--
no poetry--
left to sculpt
from the cinders that
remain.

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm⚠

~

I can't remember
whether or not
I was getting my
eyebrows waxed or
my ****** waxed that day,
just that the esthetician
noticed the scars peeking out
from beneath the hem of my shorts.

"What are those from?"
she asked me.

"Oh,"
came my reply,
"They're just from a long time ago."--

A line I had rehearsed
in anticipation of moments like this.

Despite the brutal awkwardness
of the conversation,
I've gotta say
she really is great
at waxing eyebrows
(and vaginas).

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to graphic language, substance abuse, suicidal ideation and opinions on religion that some might find offensive⚠

~

I do not
deserve
the name I was given--

Jade,
after the (semi) precious gemstone.

Girls named Jade
are not supposed to
give strangers the finger
more often than
they hug their mothers
or
say the word
f  u  c  k
more often than
they tell their fathers
that they love them--

are not supposed
to say
(or write)
the word
*******

at all.

And here I am,
having banged out
the word
*******

t̶w̶i̶c̶e̶

thrice
upon my typewriter.

Real charmer,
aren't I?

******* in front
of open windows
just for the ******* i n g sake of it.

(four times.)

Pounding tequila shots
as I grind against the moonlight,
Lana Del Rey's lyrics
throbbing from the speakers:

"My *******tastes like Pepsi Cola..."


Girls named Jade
are not supposed to
get plastered on school nights
(and tipsy before class)
or listen to music

(and the music is
always
too loud.)

about p u s s y.

They don't say
(or write)
the word
*******br>
either.

I've always had a ***** mouth--
this is what a man from church
had told me at eight years old
when I said "****" in front of him.

Girls named Jade
are supposed to go
to church every Sunday--
are supposed to believe in god.

Instead,
I outgrow religion
by the time I am sixteen
(perhaps even before then),

only ever consulting the bible
when I need inspiration
for some tragic poem
narrating the pangs of betrayal.


(It was not Womankind
who betrayed god,
but god who betrayed Womankind

just like I have betrayed
my own name.)


The only thing
I have ever truly believed in is
poetry.


Girls named Jade
are not supposed to
write poetry the way
I write poetry--

all *** & drugs & rock n' roll
tundras & hurricanes
infernos & molten lava
blood & violent minds
suicide & broken hearts

& broken hearts
& broken hearts
& broken hearts

& purple souls--

Girls named Jade
are supposed to
wear their souls
in the colour green.

They romp on hour glass beaches,
Tee-up North and down South;
Pack ****-straps in bleacher bags,
And gutters in ten pin alleys.

They're raging at the crosswalks,
Flail arms at intersections,
Like scarecrows on the Yellow Brick Road;
They foment insurrection.

The thick won't mitigate.
The thicker congregate.
The thickest dissipate.