I am a pretzel

knotted hunch in my back

one salty *******

Reaching out towards
delicately rouged areola
(dusty pink,
supple
like rose petals)
his fingertips blush madly
upon their first caress.

He nestles himself
against her blooming *****,
against this garden of a women
where only lovely things--
Star Dust.
Laugher.
Poetry--
may grow.

I cut off my feet
at the ankles


so as to ensure
they never set foot
in my mouth again.

TW: Abortion

If you are anti-abortion,
then you are a misogynist.

It’s quite simple,
really.

Perched on bloodied haunches,

she stands beneath the

swirling blackness of

the night sky,

singing to the

bayonet moon

and gun-powdered stars

a song of heartbreak.



--Love is war

I swallowed
the sound of your name
like it was a star--
five points,  
the type they
teach you to draw
in kindergarten.

It hurt
on its way down,
stalagmites of constellation
catching on my uvula,
hanging on with
astronomical strength.

But this is no cliffhanger.

Do you know what happens next?

I stopped breathing.

You've never deserved
your name,
you know.
"Light giving,"
it means.

Oh,
and how I gave into
the sublime
fallacy
of it.

Because
all you ever did was steal
the moons from my irises.

You treated me like
I was the dirt beneath
your fingernails
(you forsake
the dust on your windowsill--
but don't you know
all dust comes from
the wondrous galaxy that
dwells before us?)

I reached out to you
only to get
c u t
          o f f
at the hands

Still,
I couldn't let you
go,
didn't know how to.
Even when my flame
was reduced
to these weeping cinders,
even when the idealization
I held between my palms
found itself exiled
to this mausoleum
of severed trust,
hatred blossoming
in rosettes against
crumbling tombstones.

The epitaph reads,
"At a loss for words."

Tell me this:
what sort of
"light giver"
doesn't believe in
in the possibility of magic--
in the pinnacle of light itself?

You always thought me
a foolish girl
for dreaming--
naive girl,
silly girl,
wrists blooming
in paper cuts,
always one fairytale
away from insanity.

Until
one day,
I stopped believing
altogether.

And all it took
was a single glance
from those eyes--
glacial sapphires,
your grandest seduction.

Hell itself would have
hardened itself to tundra
at the sight of them.

You always had a way
of contaminating
the things I loved
with a frostbite so lethal,
I would have
gladly dismembered
every hypothermic part
of myself
(every fragment of soul
you ever touched).

Like a shooting star,
I fell for you--
hopelessly.

Catastrophically.

And then the heavens went
dark.

The green light has frozen over.

See that haunted house,
how its windows
flicker desperately
in their attempt at survival,
how every lampshade droops
under the sublime gravity
of its glassy tears,
how each blackened bulb
crystallizes then shatters
like the constellation-mottled
pupils of the starry-eyed--
of any
optimist
dreamer
lover
bright-young-thing.

Nomadic phantoms float along
the pin-***** stalagmites
of the ceiling in ringlets of
emerald shadow.

Surely,
dawn will break,
(unconventionally.
tragically.)
The sun itself shall bow to ruin;
and, in a remarkably quiet gesture,
it will fizzle out
like a can of cherry cola
that's gone stale,
like humanity's own taste
for the light
(and its growing appetite
for the darkness).

Still,
we drink on--
in wait of the rush,
indulging in the hope
that somewhere
in this dying
expanse of universe,
there is someone
who will love us
for the tipsy,
poetic souls we are.

The girl wreathes
the perimeter of her mattress  
in salt
that has
fallen
like meteors from her stormy eyes.

Surely,
this ritual
will keep the nightmares away.

But her tears
lack resilience.
lack the necessary sting
of healing
as brine enters wound;

instead,
her tears
are broken compositions
of fragility and sugar--

a spoonful
helps the medicine go down
but cannot antidote
the parasitic demons
hosted by the traumas of her past.

⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to substance abuse⚠️
~


Dear Billie Eilish,


I wish I could make you proud


it's just


I DO


need a


Xanny


to feel better

From the moment
the tale of her ruin
made itself known,
mankind has
coveted proof
of her existence.

Many a curious hand
has stalked across
the glossy veins of maps
and the cracked vertebrae of books
enclosing information
most pivotal to
her secret whereabouts
and the tragic evanescence
that initiated her exile.

Many a
sailor
explorer
scientist
poet
have perished among
the gnashing jaws of the sea
in their pursuit of
the glory
her exploitation
would surely bring.  

In response to such
grievances--
the reality
of losing oneself
in the midst of
searching for what
has already been lost--
imagination--
the belief in magic,
in the seemingly
unbelievable--
was outlawed
within the
human psyche;

now,
they say she is merely
a madman's legend,
a myth concocted by Plato
so as to warn against
the perils of greed.

But never did they consider
that perhaps she did not
want to be found to begin with,
that her seclusion
has always been a necessity
so as not to repeat
the monstrosities of the past--
so she should not resurface
to satiate their earthly desires
only so she can be drowned anew.

{Atlantic}

Atlantis shall rise again.

She will spear through the currents,
until the helms of her cityscapes
cleave the tides
that have entombed her.

In the beginning,
it hurts
as she guillotines
the barnacles
and bottom feeders
congealed upon her brow.

In the beginning,
she bleeds--

she bleeds--

but

she heals.

Shrugs the brine
from her rooftops
and hails over
the men and women
who sunk her Queendom
all those millennia ago.

As the moonlight
crescendos through
the stained glass,
timeworn prophecies
written in the jagged contours
of greek lettering
reveal themselves upon the pillars:

Atlantis shall rise again.

Ophelia's throne reclaimed
only by the one
who has treaded
The Great Deluge
and survived it

only by the one
who is fluent in
the language of drowning
but has not bowed
to the hurricanes

by the one
with hair like raven feathers
and dark eyes spun to gold
when they look into the sunset

by the one
who is named
after a gemstone,
the most precious
of them all--

Atlantis shall rise again

and

I shall rise with Her.

No matter how
you sugarcoat it,
there is never
a nice way
of calling someone
fat.

I.E.

“You would have been beautiful
in the Renaissance era
[because in the Renaissance era
they painted portraits
of chubby girls like you—
back then,
fat was artistry.]


I still don’t know what
I was more upset about:
The backhanded compliment--
"would have"
being synonymous for
"no longer"--
or the fact that
I was conditioned
to believe the
Mona Lisa
was anything short of  
sublime.

No boy will ever
want to **** me

if I forget
to put on makeup
in the mornings
lips red as Eve's forbidden fruit
succulent enough to
bite
tongue
devour
go down
cuz my nose don't
look so My-Big-Fat-Greek-Wedding
mountainous-side-profile
when it's caked in highlighter

if I have short hair
because short hair means
I'll look too masculine
in the ninth grade I
had a pixie cut
faith
trust
pixie dust
I could feel
my light burning out

(I never did believe in myself)

if I'm not thin
starve
binge
purge
two finger diet
VSCO diet
have you seen
the lovely girls
on the internet
in their
tight bodysuits
Coke Zero
figures
MVP
VIP
they'll get first access
to his ****


if I'm a *****
cuz how will anyone know
what you've really
got to flaunt
when you have to wear
a uniform to school
frumpy plaid kilt
white polo shirt
every button a barrier
like the notches
on his belt
tie coiled
a noose
around your neck
every casual day
I wear fishnet stockings
***** necklines
with push up bras
even though
I'm already a D
cuz I gotta get that D
gotta compensate
for being a ****** somehow




if I don't shave my
legs
stomach
*****
three days before high school graduation
I bought a thong
and got my first Brazilian wax
even though I didn't have
still don't have
a boyfriend
but I wanted him
to be my boyfriend
thought I should be prepared
thought maybe when he saw me
clad in
cleavage
periwinkle
floor-length gown
blue Converse peeking out
from underneath the tulle
I'd be his
Belle of the Ball
that he'd
take me
**** me

love me

but how could any boy
ever love me
in all of my
warped-perspective
grief-possessive
passive-aggressive
self-ob­sessive
manic-depressive
glory


how could any boy
ever love me
after reading
this poem?

I have never been one
to eat my words,
no—

I regurgitate
and spit them
back into your eye.

The fire in my soul
has started to die.

It shrinks down
the trellis of my ribs
like sun-burned flower petals;

wanes itself
to but a simmer

until it is
blue in the flames

Fire needs oxygen
to burn

but

My lungs thin
into icicles

frost congeals
around my chapped
lips

veins freeze over

(and so does this inferno)

Without the navigation
of a bookmark
a dog eared corner
or a memory of where I left off,

I turn to the correct page
on the first try--

these words know
my fingerprints well.

⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to suicidal ideation⚠️
~

When one cat is dying
the other cats in the household
will sometimes keep their distance
from the dying cat

because they cannot bear
the smell of
death.


I wonder if that’s
why
so many of you
had abandoned me at my
most terminal.


Could you smell the murmur of
death
I wore above my collar bone
like Eau de Parfum?

Could you smell
the impending suicide?

You couldn’t wait to
put me down—

not for the sake of my
suffering

but

for the sake of yours.

{bad luck}

For the longest time,
I would wonder
why,
on the mere cusp of 17,
I began to drink.

I'd always assumed it
was because I was so
sad.

But now,
while I'm sure that
sadness was most certainly
a contributing force,
I don't think
it was the true perpetrator.

See,
all the other girls
in my grade were always off
******* or getting high
or embarking on whatever
risque adventures
they'd broadcast on Snapchat
the next morning.

I think all I ever wanted
was a scandal to call my own.

I wanted to prove
something to myself--
that,
no matter what
people said about me,
I could be bad too.

~

This one time,
I bought a squirt gun
from the dollar store.

I wanted to get drunk
the way I'd watched
Cassie from Skins
get drunk
in this one episode.

So,
I filled up my gun
with *****
before holstering it
against my tongue.

Then,
I pulled the trigger.

There's always been something
so Hollywood about her--
and I don't mean
21st Century *******.

I'm talkin'
Judy Garland,
you're the bee's knees
type of Hollywood.

Now, listen'--
this girl--
I'm talkin'
Bombshell-Cutie
(she'll blow your
******'socks off).

I'm talkin'
Cinematic Beauty Queen;
skin freckled with film grain
the same way the night sky
is freckled with constellation,
mouth parted like velvet curtains,
only to reveal the sweetest prose.

She is Mystique-Fatale,
blazon in colour
among dull, sepia tones--
an Oz among all
the dreary Kansases.

She is allure and poeticism,
hair curled grand,
dressed to the nines
in lace and satin
(they wonder
what lies beyond the
half moons of her *******
and the slit in her gown,
if the butterflies
run rampant
between her knees
like everyone says).

Do not underestimate her--
she is both
Shirley-Temple-Sweetheart
(her kindness
does not falter)
and Pinup-Girl-Honey
(one would not think
to challenge--
to break--
a woman
so prolifically brazen,
but they try anyway).

In a world filled
with actresses--
please, darlings,
save the acting for
the stage,
******* it--
she is so ineffably herself.

She does not reserve
her emotion for
the theatre alone;
she is not afraid
to cry, and--
Jesus--
when she cries
the earth shakes
with the very profusions
of an opera singer's vibrato.

And, God,
you should hear
her poetry,
brimmed with images
picturesque and tragic,
straight outta the movies
it would seem.
Yet, her words
ring with something
so inconceivably real.

And that's what
you've always loved
best about her--
she is the truest person
you've ever met.

It's a shame, then,
that you wouldn't stay
for the grand finale.

But,
with or without you,
this show must go on.

(and it has).

The countenance of her throne
epitomizes the state of her soul,
and this countenance I shall describe
but only to who may tolerate the details
of its most uncanny existence.

A clique of stallions
gallop about in a nauseating blur,
their red eyes glowering under
the amber light descending from
an ominous sliver of moon,
its mere presence prompting on
the inversion of the stars
and the curled screeches of
the morbid beasts
whose fur hangs darker than
the trembling eye of Hell.

Atop one lacerated saddle
rides Her Majesty--
The Queen of the Circus,
deranged like the specimen
she keeps in her company.
And,
with every cacophonic rise
of the carousel,
she howls,
her ******* cries as primal as
the stallions' untamed whinnies.

She bites her lip until
she can taste blood
(and ***),
throws her hands to her temples
in ****** wistfulness--
pale limbs encompass teased hair
where decomposing acorns
(rotten kisses)
and bouquets of Nightshade
reside amongst the tangle
of Medusa-Esque curls,
amongst large, brown eyes
that sparkle gold under
the cursed heavens
which have been simultaneously
pleasured and scandalized
by the sight of her bare *******
clinging to sheer leotard,
by the sight of her body swaying
round the rusted poles that
have sunk themselves into the horses' skulls
like a ring sinks round
a glass bottle
or a lover's finger.  

Of course, Her Royal Darkness
is more than just a Circus Queen.
She, indeed, entertains
a grand variety of morbid hobbies;

She is a Fire Eater
{spitters are quitters};

Grave Digger
{she dances the Charleston atop
treasure chests of bones and
bones with carnival mobsters};

Crystal Ball Prodigy
{reading palm | l|i|n|e|s | like
p
o
e
t
r
y};

Ring Mistress
{**** or ****,
purr or bite--
what shall it be?};

Acrobat
{knees perched above shoulders,
a man's mouth between her legs};

Ventriloquist
{"I'll steal your breath away, darling."}


Why yes!

She is a Jaqueline of all trades.

"Pick a card! Any Card! ..."

"Is this your card? ..."

A heart is drawn,
cleaved between her teeth,
each pulse of vein
a magnificent drum beat
against her tongue.
With the blood of her prey--
juices as thickly sweet
as candy floss--
she marks her territory,
parades her ****--
a pink handprint
smeared across the hide
of each stallion.

"What dizzying artistry...
how lovely--
how...insane,"
she laughs,
each high pitched giggle
a homage to the maddening  musings
of her soul
(and her throne.)

Come one,

come all

and

join me

for a night of

unadulterated madness.
--------------------------------------------------------­-------------------------------------
“I see a dreadful fright in your future.”

–Madame Tarot
-----------------------------------------------------------­----------------------------------
Poor, dizzy fools.

Watch how they

go round and round

until their eyes pop

from their sockets,

until they *****

pink streaks of cotton candy

onto the sweet

horses with golden hooves

and blazing eyes.

–Cursed Carousel
--------------------------------------------------------­-------------------------------------
My lovely Lady Tightrope

I do believe that skirt is

far too short and

that leotard far too snug.



When you said you wished

to put on a show for us,

I did not realize this is

what you had implied.

–Getting Freaky
----------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------
They say these grounds are haunted

by little girls in feathered bonnets

and little boys in blue trousers.


And, if you listen carefully,

mingled in with the pervasive

notes of carnival music

are the morbid wails of these children–

children whose balloons have burst,

and whose ice cream cones have been dropped.
--------------------------------------------------------­-------------------------------------
“But Mr. Clown, mama says I’m not supposed to take candy from strangers.”
-----------------------------------------------------­----------------------------------------
How ironic that the ringmaster

is missing his own ring finger.

–She purred like a kitty but knew how to pounce
----------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------
“Why, what terribly big teeth you have.”

“The better to eat you with, my dear.”
----------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------
I present to you

The Great Dr. Whim.



Watch how he saws his

assistant in half.



Relish in the piercing

serenade of her screams,

and how they ricochet off the

tapestried walls.



Grin wildly as her blood–

thick with candy floss

and other disgustingly sweet

delicacies–

drips down into the

cracks of the floorboards,

slowly inching its way

towards the audience.

–Magician’s Corner
----------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------
See there?


Hidden among the

silhouette of the trees

is a man with

blistered lips and

charred teeth.


If you look carefully,

from a distance,

you will notice

a gray fog curling above the

pines–

it is the smoke billowing from his

nostrils,

threatening to wrap

its angry hands

around any guest

who dare venture too far

from the carnival grounds.

–Fire Eater
-----------------------------------------------------------­----------------------------------
More often than not

his daggers do not hit the target,

but instead find themselves

embedded in

the backs of our

lovely attendees.

–Knife Thrower
---------------------------------------------------------­------------------------------------
And to end the evening,

we have something spectacular

in store for you–

our human cannonball.


He is to fly,

but to never come down,

cut from his tether

to this earth

like a balloon that has been cut

from its string.


And at the most climactic moment

of his soaring escapade,

his flesh is to ignite,

leaving for his viewers

something resembling a firework show,

as a mesh of burning cartilage and

scorched bone set the night

sky ablaze with horror.
---------------------------------------------------------­------------------------------------
Oh?


You say you are afraid?


But I am simply fulfilling

the promise I made to you

upon your initial arrival–

it was madness I promised,

and it is madness you have received.

Lotus petals woven into her hair and

wrists bound with reeds,

she descends into the murky

warmth of the river bed,

where the minnows and tadpoles

nestle against her

***** affectionately–

“Sister,

at last you

have returned

to us.”

I’ve tried to bury my friends
the way you‘ve buried yours.

But their skeleton limbs
unearth my amygdala

shoot through my catacomb skull
in a morbid hail of
bone and grey matter.

Beneath this demented firework display,
the ghouls jitterbug in their demon florals--

if only their hauntings
were as beautiful as their gowns.


Billie Eilish,
I’ve tried to bury my friends

but their remains
could not remain
buried.

My brain
bubbles and blisters
like witch’s brew

as I succumb to the hellfire
of regurgitated memory.


Billie Eilish,
I’ve tried to bury my friends

but they’ve stolen away my oxygen
to resurrect themselves.

I guess I am only what they
feed to me—
dirt.

Billie Eilish,
this trauma is a tomb
I cannot worm my way out of.

Billie Eilish,
my head has turned to stone.

Billie Eilish,
I’ve tried to bury my friends
but

they ended up
burying me instead.

Every step I take
is catatonic,
an acute contrast to
the way my thoughts
bolt about the
convoluted labyrinth
of my psyche.

I couldn't stop crying this morning,  
so I took an extra Cipralex*
in the hopes that
my mind would slow down,
even though it has
only been twelve hours
since I last took one,
even though it is
a once-a-day type of thing.  

When I go to brush my teeth,
I stare, bemused,
at the bristles,
how it appears as though
they have been passed under
a fisheye lens.

I feel like I am framed
in a Margaret Keane painting.
Every object or face
I happen to fixate on
seems so comically magnified
that it's actually quite sad.

For I simply haven't the room
in this heart of mine
to house something so
colossal.

I am a broken home.

I try to cover up
the blemishes
the thumbtacks have
left in the walls with
glow-in-the-dark stickers
and photographs of
Audrey Hepburn.
But the stickers have begun
to bubble and peel,
the photographs never
resting flat against the surface.

Your typical bandaid solution--
but bandaids don't heal scars,
they only cover them.

When it is dark out,
the scars look like tree branches,
the type that scritch-tap
against the window pane
only to startle you awake
as the world approaches
the pinnacle of night.

I've strung up
fairy lights round
the perimeter of each room,
in the hopes that the scars
won't appear so ghastly
amongst the shadows.

Sometimes,
I plug too many
lights in at once,
the circuits overload,
and then--
blackout.

This dollhouse has shattered;
up until now,
the other girls and boys
loved to play with me,
though they never did play nice.

They pried my doors
from their hinges,
stole away the secrets
nailed beneath the floorboards
only to shun me
when it came to
their own indiscretions.

Atop the satin bedsheets
their tear stains,
some clear dollops,
some mascara-winged streaks
across the pillowcases.

But when I would cry?

The corridors would
ring with silence--
with the echoes of
nobody.

Empty.

Forgotten.

In my mutilated aftermath,
the little boys and girls
no longer had any use for me--
rarely does anyone wish
to entertain the broken.
A cruelly ironic situation
considering they were the ones
who tore me apart in the first place
(but god forbid
they ever take responsibility
for their transgressions).

So they hid me away
in their attics.
at the back of their closets.
underneath their beds
amongst the lost socks;
the dust bunnies;
the monsters.

This is what it looks
like to be continuously
taken advantage of
without ever quite
mustering the courage
to stand up for yourself.

I am the marionette girl.

Eyes a porcelain glaze,
I watch you leave.
I try to look away,
but the strings
protruding from my scalp
pull me upright.

There is no liberation
for the betrayed.

There is only sadness
for the betrayal,
only pills to stymie
the sadness.

But like these strings,
this sadness remains
tethered-to-me

(always).

~

"Why do you want to **** yourself, Jade? So people will miss you? Is that it?"

"I want to **** myself because I know they wouldn't."

⚠️Trigger Warning: the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to suicide and death⚠️

When a person dies
of a physical illness,
you mourn them.

When a person commits suicide,
you assassinate their character
and call them
selfish

because their death is a result
of a self-inflicted action.

Because they chose to die,
right?

Because they not only chose  
to destroy themselves,
but the lives of their family and friends,
right?

But
just as a physical illness
turns the cells against the body,

a mental illness
turns the mind against
itself,
convinces it that
death
is the only option.

What you don't understand
is that the person isn't our
killer--

depression is.

I imagine you throbbing
inside of me like
a heaving serpent,
your venom
seductively lethal.

{detach}


I say your name;
scream your name;
howl your name;
let it linger on my tongue
in stale dewdrops of desire,
in bitter muscle memory
I've never managed
to drink away.
{wash my mouth out with soap}

I write about you.
haphazard,
illegible lacerations
on unsuspecting parchment.

{They ask if I am afraid
he will read this poem

"No,"
I profess--
he's never cared
for any words
but his own}

Most days,
she feels so lost,
that you would think
there was once a time
when she belonged to someone,
that she had accidentally
been misplaced somehow.

But you must first have something--
want something--
before you can lose it.

(And no one has ever wanted her.)

She is a translucent thing,
you see.

She must walk through walls,
for no one--
neither friend nor foe--
seems to notice her
when she enters a room.
(or when she leaves one.)

She’ll slip away
from a crowd so easily,
it was almost as if she was
never even there at all.
It only takes a second–
a breath,
a bat of an eyelash;
by the time you’ve turned around,
she’s gone.

(she's always been good at disappearing,
or maybe you're just bad at paying attention.)

But it’s no matter;
her presence does not faze you,
so what makes her
absence
any different?

No one would care
to love a girl like her,
anyway.
A girl so
o u t
                o f
p l a c e.

The Spring
detests the girl
with the ivory complexion,
dollops of rosy flesh
sunk against her face
like discarded peach pits
(and discarded
is she.
forgotten
is she).

Mother Nature's
Alabaster *******,
they've dubbed her.

And tried Mother Nature
to preach tranquillity
to her daughter,
a reminder to always keep
still
amidst any tempest
****** into her path.  

But mother,
I am the tempest.

Come tomorrow morning,
the spring snow
will have melted,
but frigid I shall remain.

Dissonant and
storm-wrenched
I shall remain.

All the world begins to thaw
as I loll about in
the tundra of this loneliness.

When dawn arrives,
I will draw the curtains
before the rising sun
shoots me that beam
of apocalyptic grin.

The world is not ending,
you will tell me
(but mine is).

I have always existed
separately
from the rest,
you see.

The bright evenings and the even brighter mornings.

The unmistakably poignant scent of freshly-cut grass.

Marmalade sunsets that descend effortlessly into their celestial counterparts.

Flowers blossoming to profound vibrancy.

I wish I could tell the flowers
it is only a matter of time
before some wandering child
will rip apart their petals
in a ruthless game of
“He Loves Me
He Loves Me Not.”

(Child,
I Know this game
all too well—
the perils of picking
an even number
of petals).

And it is only a matter of time
before autumn dolls out
its wiltings.

I am also well accustomed
to the art of wilting,
you know.

The only difference
between me
and the sunflowers
is that the spring
belongs to them.

It is the epoch
of renewal,
of second chances
in spite of their inevitable
witherings,
both past and future.

But the present--
the spring--
it will always belong to them.

I know not
how it feels
to heal alongside
the sunflowers.

I know not
what it means
to shed the prospect of
death
even if it is only
temporary.

My heart is caught
in an impenetrable limbo.

Tell me
Mother Nature,
how do I move on?

For letting go
seems a foreign enigma
to me.

So,
really,
what else am I to do
but draw the curtains
each sunrise?

As I am left to weather
the deluge
while all the world blooms,
as I am left to
pour,
I desperately
await the
rain.

For it is only
in the rain
that I shall return home.

Tears percolate from
round, fishbowl eyes,
cheeks a sting
with salt
and loneliness.

I barter with the deluge,
hold my breath
for as long as my lungs
will permit
until a motley of colour
bruises over my vision.

And I can't help but think:
perhaps fainting is
the next best thing to dying,
especially when you are too afraid
to commit to the permanence
of killing yourself.

My only dilemma?

What am I to do with myself--
with the tears--
once I regain consciousness?

I had my first kiss at the cinema, the contour of our silhouettes illuminated by the glow of the rolling credits. He tasted like Altoids and cigarettes, an ambivalent concoction of ice and fire. At one point, I'd bitten him by accident. Whether this was a manifestation of inexperience or (seductively, with heat in her eyes) hunger,  I'm not sure. But, sitting there in the thrill of My Something New, I was certain of one thing: this was a red carpet moment, the stuff of silver screens and glimmering Hollywood starlets and rows of type writer ribbon waiting to be transposed into something theatrical.

After the film, we sat outside a cafe a block over, the fever of summer adhering to the back of our necks like (giggling) misplaced hickeys. Smoke corkscrewing from the end of his parliament, he told me how John F. Kennedy was addicted to opioids. I couldn't help but think back to earlier that afternoon when he first admitted to being a smoker. How he'd asked me, "Is this going to be a problem for you?" hesitation rising up his throat like bile.

I smiled because 'Everyone's got their poison," I replied.  

And poison? Well, there's something so strikingly poetic about it, don't you agree?

(beat.)

JFK must have been Marilyn Monroe's poison, I think.

"So," I offered, "What do you really think happened to Marilyn Monroe?"

"How do you mean?" he said between drags of his cigarette.

"I mean was it really an overdose or--"

"Was it an assassination?" he interjected.

"Mhmmm."

Another drag of his cigarette.

"As they say, the simplest answer is often the correct one."

"Maybe. (beat.) But what makes for the better story?"

After two weeks of courtship, he took his leave. My mother's obvious, unwarranted disapproval was, perhaps, a source of anxiety for him. Me being freshly eighteen, he was also concerned about that (sarcastically) whoppin' three year age gap. (beat.) Not fully buying it, are ya?

Well, neither did I.

Here's my theory: his feelings (or lack thereof) were the reason he called it quits. And instead of being a man--instead of being honest, instead of owning up to the true nature of his intentions--he spun some relatively believable excuse. A coward's way of removing himself from a situation he doesn't want to be in. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't as disappointed as I would have anticipated, had I foreseen the end of our fleeting romance.

I was (beat.) fine.

It does make for a great story, after all. (wryly) But you knew that already.

Because for every Norma Jean, there's always a Marilyn Monroe.

Tell me then--who are you?

(beat.)

Girl curtsies, transitioning into a tableau of Marilyn Monroe's iconic pose wherein she attempts to hold down her dress as the air from a nearby subway grate threatens to expose her undergarments.

Lights fade out.

{Fin}

You,
my Darling,
have a bite
strong enough
to cut through
sea glass--
do not forget this.

How I'd love
to spray paint the words
"*******!"
upon your white picket fence.

I will destroy
your every
perception
of
p̶e̶r̶f̶e̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶.

Oh,
pardon me.

I retract my statement--

we don't rhyme
where I'm from.

"I believe in you,"

whispered the moon

to the tide.

Inspired by Judy Blume,  inside Jokes with Liz and the poetry of Alissa Grams (https://alissagrams.wordpress.com/2017/03/06/an-open-letter-to-god-from-an-eighteen-year-old-girl/)

~

God,
it's me--
jade.

I must admit,
I've never read
Judy Blume
or the Bible,
for that matter
(I could never make it
past Genesis).

I am not well-versed
when it comes to scripture--
I am fluent in tragedy
and tragedy alone;
then again,
is there really any difference
between scripture and tragedy?

I was never one
to pay attention in church,
unless the hymns
were of a minor key,
the sermons imbued
with woe and melancholia.

Coincidentally,
as I write this,
it has only just occurred to me
that Lot's Wife
was never given a name
of her own--
it was destroyed with *****,
forgotten amongst the
flames and the ash.


God,
you were wrong
to punish her
the way you did.

Have you never felt the
sting of salt
against an open wound?

Have you never watched
as all the familiar intimacies
you once knew
dissolved to cinder?

(I know you have).

Do you not see that,
if home is where the heart is,
then the heart
must surely perish with it?

God,
has anyone ever broken your heart?

(I think you know heartbreak
as well as I do;
it is the very matter
of our existence).

So I guess my real question is
why?
(and, no, this time, it is not rhetorical).

Truly,
I'd like to know why
you would ever think
to hurt your people
the same way
the archangel hurt you.

You say I sin
against you,
but did you not
create me in your image?

(Like father,
like daughter,
I suppose).

god,
I do not think
I believe in you.

At least,
I do not believe in you
like I believe in other things.

I do not
believe in you
the way I believe in
the beauty of
Van Gogh's sunflowers
(his starry nights, too);
or in dog-earing the pages
of my favourite books.

I do not believe in you
the way I believe in magic;
or in the integrity of
polaroids photographs
and listening to vinyl.

I do not believe in you
the way I believed in my love
during the final moments
before his betrayal;
or in the lingering sensation
of my past lives--
Ophelia.
Mary Queen of Scots.
Frida Kahlo.
Sylvia Plath--
and now,
dare I feel it,
dare I say it--
Lot's Wife.

(With her,
I shall share a name).

I do not believe
you are my saviour
because I do not
believe in you
the way I believe
in Poetry.

god,
it's me--
Jade;
this poem is
my hallelujah,
but it does not
belong to you
(not anymore).

Come hither, Dear Hallows Eve
and covet these sickly sweets  
till porcelain heaves
poor uvula cleaved,
by Sir Grim Reaper’s teeth—

till eyes do burst
like pop rocks cursed
upon the ghost’s white sheets.


Come hither, Dear Hallows Eve.


Come forth, This Villain’s Night,
fair ghouls, you need not hide
and spectres: don’t be shy!
deliver your joyous frights
the witches do abide—

unearth your tombs;
prepare the brooms

and sweep across the sky


on this Villain’s Night.


Come now, Halloween!
hear October’s screams;
the heart’s curdled beat
against my haunted dreams
from which the darkness seeps.

You call me sick
you cry out “trick”

but still I stick to treat—

Yes!

Come now, Halloween!

I always look
my most beautiful
when I cry;

the bags under my eyes
burn as poignantly
as waning crescents,
lips plump as they quiver
with the same multitudes
of Artemis' bowstring,
chest heave-hoeing
against the tempered
vessel of my soul.

I wear sadness
remarkably well,
you know.

Like black lipstick.
or short hair.
or poetry.

(Cleopatra's got nothing on me, baby)

My reflection tessellates
against the swell of my tears,
evolves into
kaleidoscopic fractals
of smouldering thrones
and howling queens--
into images most
strange and terrible.

(But, oh, how I welcome them.)

A delicate curtsy of words
respires from my mouth,
forms upon my tongue
its homage--
hail thy shattered kingdom
hail thy shattered kingdom
hail thy shattered kingdom.

I. The Fireflies



There was once

a time when the fireflies

had made a home out of me.



One evening,

long after the sun

had surrendered itself

to the hazed horizon

and the pregnant moon,

they had come to my window,

golden freckles of light

twinkling playfully

in the dimness.



What exactly

prompted their gravitation

towards me,

I will never be entirely certain of,

though I have my theories.



Maybe it was the

warm glass of milk

sitting on my bedside table.

Or maybe

they had simply mistaken

the peppers of stardust

laced atop my eyelashes

for their own kin.



Or perhaps–

and most likely–

it had been

the murmur of poetry

on my lips:



…watch how they dart about the trees

in whimsical harmony,

how they rise up towards the dark sky

in the hopes that, someday,

they too will become one with

the constellations that blink

so brilliantly in the blackness.



Yes,

Perhaps this what had captivated them so–

a homage to the fireflies themselves.

Perhaps this is

why they had drifted towards me,

as if in some fanciful trance,

weightless as paper lanterns.



And how sweet they were

as they twirled about the ringlets

in my hair and

nuzzled their small frames

against my cheek

and fingertips.



How sweet they were–

that is,

until the bees came.



II. The Bees



They made lightning bugs

of my fireflies,

whose soft luminescence was replaced

with a violent stream of sparks,

one resembling something close

to the bursting of a fluorescent bulb



And so came the lightning,

the firefly’s only defence against

the approaching swarm,

their only ammunition

in the impending battle:

fireflies versus

bees,

both in want

of my nectared

marrow.



But the lightning

was no reasonable match

for the bees,

with their

large, gelatinous figures

and the persistence

of their stabbings;

annihilated were the fireflies,

carcasses crumbling to soot,

their innards,

still glowing,

smeared across my collarbone

like war paint.



Victorious and

humming menacingly,

the bees then crawled

into my ears

and my mouth

where they proceeded

to feast on their spoils and plunders:

the honey,

that they so cruelly

stole from me.



And once the honey was gone,

so were the bees,

bellies full,

antennae sticky,

their use for me

fulfilled and therefore

discarded.



III. The Spiders



The final hosts

were drawn to

what the bees had left behind:

the inconsolable emptiness

of my being,



They marked their territory

with cobwebs–

spun carelessly

into my arteries

and windpipe.



Breath dwindling and

heartbeat diminishing

I tried to remember the fireflies–

the light–

as the arachnophobia

threatened to devour me.

Dear Reader,

I give you permission.

I give you permission
to scar the spine
of this book
from the countless
times you will
crack it open.  

I give you permission
to highlight
and underline
and doodle
and annotate
these pages
until they have
no room to breathe.

I give you permission
to accidentally
drop
wet
spill on-
backpack-shove
the cover.

I give you permission
to dog-ear the corners
when you've lost
your bookmark
(and your way).

I give you permission
to break in these words
with the same
calamitous,
neurotic,
frenzied
passion with which
I wrote them.

I give you permission
to make this
Poetry your home.

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm ⚠
___________________
­
In memory of
him?
her?

I do not know.

___________________
­In the hushed moments
before sleep,
you summon the
loveliest memories of him--
memories now
resigned to heartache and destitution,
to some far off, phantasmic realm
(wherever that may be);

you come to school ill
one winter's morning,
flesh cadaverous,
pale cheeks embellished
by bloodshot eyes
wreathed in dark circles.

He rests his hand atop
your forehead affectionately,
his eyes shaded with concern
as he comes to the realization that
"You're burning up."

(But, eventually, his affections
begin to ebb away,
and with them, so does your fire--
the stuff of magic);

Mouth frothing with rage,
you haul off and
punch the living ****
out of a bathroom stall.
This escapade of fury
leaves your left hand
inflamed
bruised
splintered.

When you tell him
what you've done,
he meets you outside
of the girl's washroom
and takes your hand in his,
runs his fingers over the
inflammation
bruises
splinters
softly and asks you,
"Does it hurt?"

(These days, it hurts everywhere--
and all for him, darling);

He pulls you--
fretful and teary-eyed--
to his chest,
his palm cradling
the back of your neck.

For a moment
you forget about
the cuts on your thighs;
the blood seeping
from your nylons;
the sorrow gnawing
at your bones.
For a moment,
you can't help but wonder
if this boy
is to be your
Gideon--
your Holy Grail.

(And, to think,
one abrupt gesticulation
of his wrist
and your neck snaps--
and you're a goner).

When someone calls me
beautiful

I never know how to
believe them.

The first--
and only--
man I ever spread
my legs for is my
prehistoric-old urologist.

Before he takes his leave,
he instructs me to
take off my shorts and my *******,
lie down on the examination table,
then cover up beneath the white, papery sheet.

How every many minutes later,
he knocks on the door
to signal his re-entry.
A nurse accompanies him
back into the room.

Rubber gloves snap into place--
I flinch.

The doctor begins his examination,
presses down on my abdomen, which,
due to a late-night carb binge,
is hard, stomach flab unyielding.

Next,
I am told to place my feet
up on the stirrups.

"You can keep your shoes on,"
he reassures me.

As if a pair of flip flops are relevant
as he pulls apart the intimate folds of my flesh,
his latexed fingers sinking inside of me.

I close my eyes and
pretend I am not here at all.

And even though
I realize he is only
doing his job,
I can't help but muse--

I wish God was a woman
I wish God was a woman
I wish God was a woman.

I wish God was a woman.

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.)

I. The Mermaid

I am six years old,
and I am obsessed with Ariel
from The Little Mermaid--
she is, by far,
my favourite Disney Princess.

I want to be exactly like her--
hair billowing in red swirls
around a heart-shaped face
and eyes so blue they put the very
ocean to shame
(my sister has blue eyes too, you know,
and, to this day, I still envy her,
for her eyes are the loveliest
characteristic of her Beauty--
and believe me, there are many);
purple clam shells vibrant
against porcelain-doll skin
and fully blossomed *******
(in three years from now,
I will begin
to grow *****--
elementary-school style,
over-ripe.
B Cups going on C cups
fated to become D Cups,
plum-sized
in comparison to the
budding mosquito bites of
my fellow classmates.
Barely a child,
womanhood threatens
to sexualize my girlish body
before I truly know
what sexualization is);
fins cutting through the water
gracefully in all their
green, iridescent glory
(little did I know that,
as I grew older,
"cutting" would adopt
a far more sinister meaning
in the context of my life).

But,
despite my admiration for Ariel,
I fail to understand her desire
to abandon her
under-sea rendezvous,
sunken treasures,
oceanic melodies to
"be where the people are."

This lack of approval I foster
exists due to the fact that I am
a firm believer of the magic
the aquatic realm (and Disney)
has to offer.

To this day,
I continue to maintain my stance--
that Ariel had been terribly wrong
in the choices she made--
but I have become cognizant of
different (and better) reasons
to argue my position;
after all,
and as a cartoon crab
had so wisely declared once,
"The human world--
it's a mess."

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.

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.

II. Mysophobia

Sure,
now,
when I look to the right
of my bedroom door,
I see the light-switch for what it is--
a light-switch,
inanimate,
with absolutely no potential
to cause me harm.

But, at eleven years old,
a light-switch
is a breeding ground
for plethoras of
girl-hungry microorganisms
waiting to infect me
with some vile, incurable illness.

In the sixth grade,
I wash my hands the
same way I would
eventually come to write poetry--
obsessively,
with reckless abandon
and, most importantly,
with the insatiable desire to escape.

I flick on the light-switch and
I wash my hands

I touch the door handle and
I wash my hands

I just come out of the shower and
I wash my hands

I learn what a ******* is at school one day and
I wash my hands

I think of *** for the first time
(I enjoy it)
and
I wash my hands
(I regret it)

I believe God must be angry with me so
I wash my hands

I wash my hands.
with tedious precaution
so as not to miss
a single palm line
or fingernail.

I wash my hands
until my skin
splits like volcanic rock,
until dew drops of lava
clot across my knuckles,
until I've sacrificed every last
bit of my flesh
in my attempt at purification.

I wash my hands
until it hurts to
eat.
write.
pray.

(But in four years,
I will have stopped
praying altogether,
anyway.)

When I say
I wish I was beautiful,
I mean I wish I could
sculpt myself into the same loveliness
borne in the eyes of Marble Goddesses
In Ancient Greece,
I know I would have been pretty
you know;
curls a liberated wreath atop my head,
a nose as grand as Mount Olympus,
body as curvaceous as the summits
of Mediterranean waves.

I mean I wish I could
steal Orion's Belt  from the sky
and wear it around my waist
to cinch away all the extra room
I know I take up,
cuz there's no gravity
in outer space--
it's impossible to feel fat
in outer space.

I mean I wish I could
be as cliche as a rose,
because,
despite being starkly unoriginal,
everyone loves roses the same way
everyone loves photoshop sleekness
and Tumblr physique.

I mean I wish I was
lucid dreams / leather journals / dewdrops on leaves / fairy lights / eyelashes on pillowcases / moon-gazing /  listenin' to Bohemian Rhapsody for the first time / standing ovations / the butterflies in your fingertips / frost congealed on tree branches / lightning storms / Disneyland fireworks / soft bed sheets / champagne kisses / polaroid photographs /  whales howling at sea / midnight inspirations / double rainbows / bed time stories / the skyline at golden hour / foggy 7 AM’s / snow under streetlights / the colour purple / when I say I wish I was beautiful I mean I wish I was
a poem.

I will not forgive

I will not let bygones be bygones

I will not bury the hatchet

(how can I bury a weapon
when it is still embedded in my spine?)

no--

I will write poetry instead.

There goes Lady Fate,
donned in solar sparks
and her lace corset
whose  overt promiscuity
catches the attention of
one unsuspecting astronaut–
his helm fogs as he exhales,
his breath crude and lascivious.
Even Neptune’s eyes themselves
glitter wetly with passion
as she struts towards Polaris in
her pinprick stilettos.

She adjusts her stance accordingly:

I. Purse lips into a smoulder
(might as well look
pretty while ya get the job done.)

II. Aim for the desired target
(that there’s the bull’s eye.)

III. Wreak havoc
just as any Fate is meant to do.
(But, of course.)

She picks up her staff and fires.

The universe tremors
in an unbridled spiral
of colour and chaos
as the planets
d    a    r    t
about like billiards,                                    
                          colliding/|\with/|\ the/|\ stars

who,  in the midst of the madness,
d i v e r g e and c r* o* s s
for fear of being vanquished.

A cluster of mismatched constellations
and forsaken cosmic particles
settle into a state of
mutual negligence and destruction.
And, together, they liquefy into
a festering pool of molten silver.

Lady Fate grins–
yes, she has the stars right
where she wants them now–
and, in a final act of defiance,
she strikes against the earth
and watches with satisfaction as
it hurtles towards the silver
and sinks down into the molten
like an eight ball.
(And everyone knows it’s
Game Over
once you’ve sunk the eight ball).

From where she stands–
bent over Polaris
in seductive pretentiousness —
she relishes
in the screams
of some wretched lover–
the first to ever be
betrayed by the stars.