But I’m genuinely curious.

If I’m just a poet.

Or if I’m just sad.

****.

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to suicide and self-harm ⚠
----------------------
May 30th, 2018

These wayward breaths
lead me to
the Dead Sea.

"This is where you belong;"
whisper the spirits
of The Deep--
"this is where all
broken things
come to die."

The Dead Sea
is my bathtub-
ramshackle tiles,
contorted shower rod
bowing under the weight
of the fraying curtain.

The water sprints
in a scalding race
from the tap,
its gurgling clamour
veiling the sound
of Billie Eilish
playing on the speaker
(isn't it lovely all alone?)

I stare at the Exacto Knife
clutched between my
water-pruned fingertips.

And
the moment you pick
up a knife instead of a
shoddy razor blade
from a dollar store
pencil sharpener,
you know you've
hit rock bottom
(did you know
the Dead Sea is
the lowest
point on earth?;
have you ever experienced
the remarkable plummet
of that kind of low?)

I trace the patterns
of invisible
constellations
on the terrain of
my flesh;
at first,
I am too afraid  
to press down
but when I do--
my god,
when I do--
I draw blood
with the same artistry
borne from a
painter's hand,
each laceration
a brush stroke closer
to someplace beyond this
sadness.

⚠️Trigger Warning: the Following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm and suicide. ⚠️
~
This piece is an emulation of Aesop's fable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". Any similarities, as a result, are purely intentional, and I am thus giving credit where credit is due.
~
There once was a girl
who cut herself,
a plan by which she could get
a little company
and
some excitement.

(Or so it was presumed)

She rushed out from the
school washroom
after tearing herself open
and called out,
"suicide, suicide!”

And her teachers and classmates
came out to meet her,
and some of them stopped
with her for a considerable time.

This pleased the girl
so much,
that a few days afterwards,
she tried the same trick,
and again her
teachers and classmates
came to help.


This pleased the girl
so much,
that a few days afterwards,
she tried the same trick,
and again her
teachers and classmates
came to help.



This pleased the girl
so much,
that a few days afterwards,
she tried the same trick,
and again her
teachers and classmates
came to help—

But instead of
trying to understand
the chronic illness
that plagued her,

they resorted to an archaic stigma
to inform their judgments
on the subject of mental illness.

They believed
that she only bled
to receive attention,
and was therefore named
The Girl Who Cried Suicide
after The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Eventually,
she wasn't allowed
to use the school washroom
at all anymore

even if she had to
take a ******* ****

cuz
it would only encourage

"maladaptive
attention
seeking
behaviours.”

Despite them never
saying this to her face,
the girl was not
stupid

and

discovered

the defamations
that had fallen from the
tongues of these
black sheep.

The Girl was so
profoundly hurt
by this betrayal

that a few years
afterwards,
as she attempted
to bleed herself dry
in the bathtub
at 3 Am
on a stormy
May 30th,

she dared not
tell a soul

for she knew
they would think
this to be an act
of deceit

a freak show
she put on just
for the ******
hell of it—

crowned

liar

in some sick,
crimson pageant.

But this was not
a game of
make-believe


no—

the wolves
had always been
there

rabid

&

howling

to the blood moon
of her mind's eye

every beautiful thought

disembowelled

the fabric of her sanity
torn from her skull

(And the veins torn from her flesh)

the wolves’ cry
a siren song

leading the lamb
to her slaughter.

~
Don’t you understand?

I am not playing dress-up

I am not the wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing
I am not the wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing
I am not the wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing

I  am

the lamb to this slaughter
~
Tell me

If it was all just for

*******

attention,

then why did I feel the need

to hide my cuts
with long-sleeved shirts

during gym class

in the summer?

Why did I start
cutting in places
Where no one would ever
think
of looking?

Why did I tell everyone I
stopped
when I hadn’t?

~
Did you really care about me?

Or did you care about
What would happen to
You
if the liability killed herself?
~
You cut me in ways
a razor
never could.
~
How could you
How could you
How could you
~
Honestly?

Go **** yourselves,
You uneducated
*****

Purple.



The colour

of bruised knees

(pain)

and lips begging

for oxygen

(breathlessness).



A hue

caught somewhere

between blue and red

(two extremes).



Blue for misery,

brokenness

(frigid, the tundra),

blue like the ocean

(drowning, an ode

to Ophelia).



Red for anger,

passion

(burning, the inferno),

red like flame

(gasoline for blood,

playing hide and seek

with embers).



Ultraviolet radiance

(blinding, turn your eyes away

the Purple).

Vibrant

(well, not so vibrant)

yet dark

(sometimes, too dark).



Soft

(just as the lilac

blossom is)

but harsh

(the bee that devours

the blossom's nectar).



China Doll complexion

(rosy cheeks,

skin the colour of moon dust)

paralleled against whirling eyes,

surging pools of burst blood vessels

and flared veins

(dear god, the Madness!)



Poetry personified--

counting syllables

instead of counting sheep

(a spoonful of codeine

to wash down the tears).

Words engraved into flesh

(wearing sadness like it's

crushed velvet--lovely);

these ink-stained wrists

(or is that blood?)



Empty band-aid boxes

(the scars still ache

whenever it rains)

and empty liquor bottles

(enamel eroding,

mouth swimming in froth).



Fearful of the night,

for the night will 

surely bring the mourning

(A seer-- forever dreading

"tomorrow").

Self-medicating with

Antihistamines and Tequilla

(Witch Doctor,

burned at the stake

in another life).



Dreaming in pastels

(when the insomnia

permits it)

but existing in a

grey-scale reality

(inhaling this pain

like it's cigarette smoke).



"A penny for your thoughts?"

(Haven't you forgotten?

They've stopped making pennies

because this world no longer

has any use for them).



A reflection in the mirror

(glass shatters,

pupils collapse in on themselves).

 ̶B̶e̶a̶u̶t̶i̶f̶u̶l̶

(Please,

take away this body!)



"I love you..."

(unrequited,

not pretty enough

to be touched).

A serenade for him(s)

(rejected letters,

"maybe we should 

just be friends").



Eternal

p

l

u

m

m

e

t

t

(wind knocked from lungs,

soul plucked from body).

Lips shatter as 

the kiss the cement

(step on a crack

break your mother's 

back).



Mother,

who named her child

jade

for the gemstone

nephrite

( ̶p̶r̶e̶c̶i̶o̶u̶s̶),

for the green,

Mother Nature's

chromatic blush

(wilting dandelions,

forsaken wishes).



Green.



(green?)



It's a colour that

never quite suited

a girl like me--

a girl with a purple soul.

Was she actually clingy?

Or was she reasonable in her response
when you neglected her?

Was she really needy?

Or were you just incapable
of meeting her needs?

Trial i: Crimson


By: The Mad Poetess


Purpose:

I shall birth
a new colour.

Sprung from the womb
of passion & rage--

cacophonous.

The name of the labour:
The Crimsoning

after the spawn:

Crimson.

Hypothesis:

from the quill
baptized in crimson ink

to the torn parchment

poetry shall hail down

like a meteor shower.

Materials:

- Sewing needle
- Blood
- Berries harvested from the Belladonna plant (devil's cherry)
- Teardrops
- Artist's palette
- Inkwell
- Bunsen burner
- Quill pen
- Parchment


Procedure:

1. With the needle, ***** finger; remove needle at the first dewdrop of blood
2.  Crush and mix devil's cherries with teardrops upon artist's palette
3. Add dewdrop and rest of concoction on to palette and mix using whatever is convenient (fingers, paint brush, hair, etc)
4. Transfer Crimson to inkwell
5. Place in well above bunsen burner
6. Burn for 40 days and 40 nights until Crimson is matured
7. Dip quill into ink
5. Press quill to parchment
6. Write poetry


Observations:

The parchment kindles
beneath the ink

pages curl up
at the corners
like Medusa’s hissing serpents

every gawking
letter
a petrification of
what could have been

every lowercase t
crucified

every serif
a burning branch.

Is this the context
of a self-fulfilling prophecy?

To write poems about forest fires
and then

burn?

~

My poems and I:

on the cusp of extinction.

I throw my head back
at a ghastly angle

like the ancient
Ornithomimus.

I pin the anemic bodies
of poems
to the bed of palm
like they are cadavers
waiting to be
d  i  s  s  e  c  t  e  d.

This is the
only
way
I know to
make sense of things,
each enjambed line
a heartbeat closer
to understanding this
sadness
(or letting
go
         of
it).

I gawk at the contents
of the shelves
that live amongst the
curdling strips of wallpaper.
Yellowing mason jars,
each containing some
tragic specimen swimming in  
formaldehyde tears--
Plath's last breaths;
Sexton's paper cut fingertips;
Van Gogh's severed flesh.

The sight of this
ghastly collection
sends the scars on my wrists
into a spiralling ache.

I once made the mistake
of assuming poetry
would instantaneously
exorcize the aching--
it only brought me closer.

But I must remember
that bleeding is the last stop
on the route to mending;
it's gotta hurt
before it can heal.

So I write,
bear the sting
of these words
as they stitch together
the tattered patchwork
of my heart;
until the scars meet
at the pinnacle
of my anatomy,
crisscross,
bright constellations
flowering from the darkness,
starlit tulips
that shake the
sorrowed dew drops
from their rain-torn petals,
celestial hieroglyphs
waiting to be read--
This is your history;
not your future.

⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to ****** harassment ⚠️

~
Wearing mirrored sunglasses
is not a fashion statement
but a statement of
*******.

Did you think
they would bury
your sinful leer?

That I would not
catch you staring at me
as I walked
through the parking lot?

That I would happen upon
my own fearfully contorted
reflection
instead of your
girl-hungry glare?

That I would be silent?

For silence is a language
I discarded long ago.

Later,
after blowing me
an array of kisses
through yellowing teeth,
you yell from
your car window
and accuse me of
staring first

when we both know
I just stared back,
my eyes arranged into dog fights.

Lick your lips
at me
like I am prey
and you will
unveil both the She-Beast
and her bite.

I will not be stalked--

Instead,
I stalk away,
spitting the word
"creep"
over my shoulder.

Behind me,
comes the snicker
of a hyena--

but I know
that hyenas
snicker even when they
have been wounded.

I ensnare you
in these words
like the animal
you are.

Remember--

my poetry cuts deeper
than the teeth
of any carnivore.

The poem is
Mightier than the

pervert.

⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm ⚠️
~

The inconquerable crusade
of the razor

plucking at my nerves
like they are violin strings.

My fingers go numb.

I promise myself
this is a song
I will never sing again

(but, oh, how I love the music).

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

~

I am sitting in
ninth grade English class
(or maybe it was Social Studies?)

My fingers creep
beneath the desk,
past a mausoleum
of stale chewing gum
until they grasp at
something frigid and metal.

Kilt pin unhooked,
plaid parted,
I reach for mid-thigh.

Pulse hammering in my veins,
and my countenance an
exhibition of nonchalance,
I probe-gouge-drag
it across my skin.

From my mouth,
a quiet yelp.

The girl next to me asks,
"are you okay?"

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

~

Even when we have Phys Ed outside,
and it is 30 degrees,
I wear a long-sleeved shirt
to class to
bury
the truth of my flesh.

I wonder if this is
what it means to hide
something
in plain sight.

⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm⚠️

~


In the beginning,

I used Bic pen caps
safety pins
jagged remnants of plastic
salvaged from a broken mechanical pencil
the serrated edge
of a paper towel dispenser--

gateways to razors
and Exacto knives.

Objects that were too dull
to split skin
but were still sharp enough
to leave their mark--
puffy, red scratches
accompanied by the
occasional pearl of blood,
dark rarities
that blossomed in rosy drops
upon the dominion of my flesh.

At the time,
I deemed my attempts
at self-harming
pathetic substitutions,
euphemisms in lieu of
the real thing:

deep lacerations from which
reservoirs of Crismon
were birthed.

Sometimes,
I still believe this,
even though it is
terribly unkind
to abbreviate my experience.

If my ninth grade
guidance counsellor
were to read this,
she would tell me that
it's not about the
depth of the wound,
or the means by which
the wound was acquired, but
rather
the existence of the wound

(the existence of the
hurting).

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

~

One afternoon
in the tenth grade,
I am sent home from school for
cutting myself.

When I walk through the front door,
I crouch down to pet my dog.
She burrows her nose
against my thighs,
sniffs at them
in gentle bursts of air.

I know she can smell the blood
that has so
stubbornly
fused my nylons
to the lacerations on my flesh.

She stares up at me
with her spacious brown eyes.

In this moment,
she is the only one
who comprehends my sadness
without judgment--

there is only
love.

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to suicidal ideation and self-harm ⚠
~
A note to any friends who read this post: while this poem is written in the present tense, please be aware that it is merely a memory I write of--not a present circumstance.

~
They say

cut

d
o
w
n

the

road

if

you

wanna

off

yourself

not across the street

but
  

         I
                          
                      j walk,  slashing
                                                 ­    d
                                                        i
     ­                                                     a
          ­                                                  g
             ­                                                 o
              ­                                                  n        
     ­                                                              a
                                                                ­      l
                                                         ­             

onto thighs like lightning bolts

                     caught in the storm
                                   of this limbo
                                                           ­     cuz
                                                        ­              i don't wanna live
                     but
                            i don't wanna die


either.

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

I would make tally marks
on my wrists
in ballpoint pen
every time something
unfortunate happened.

Got a bad grade?

|

Said the wrong thing?

||

Mistreated by a friend?

|||

Loved someone too hard
(but not be loved back)?

||||

And It was only
under the cover of
privacy
in a washroom stall during class
or under the scalding pour of the shower
or after midnight atop white bed sheets

that I would trace the ink
with a razor blade.

卌

**
"What are those marks," he asked her.

"Oh," she whispered, "Just reminders for something I need to do later."

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

"These violent delights have violent ends."
~William Shakespeare

~

When the crevices
on my wrists
solder themselves together
and the rich, crimson stanzas
become illegible,
I unsheathe my quill--

melancholy's scribe.

The ink clots,
driblets of red
bleeding through these pages

but I keep writing

until
this parchment lies
sweetly torn

and

I smile.

Now,
that's what I call

poetry.

**
How violently delightful.

Dancin' with the devil,

(always stepping on his toes)

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

Over the duration of high school,
there is one fear that eclipses
the daily rumination of my thoughts.

Behind sepulchred eyelids,
burn the imaginings

of wasp-needled syringes

straitjackets curling around bodies
with noose-like exactness

a padded room
absorbing brain-curdling screams
into its pink insulation.

At the time,
I was petrified that my newly-discovered
flirtation with self-harm
would land me a permanent stay in an asylum.

The rational part of me knew
that they don't call them
asylums anymore.

The rational part of me knew
there would be no syringes
or straitjackets
or pink, padded rooms.

It was the principle

If it was decided that I was
"an immediate risk to myself"--
a decision that would
incorporate the voices
of the people who barely knew me
but deny me my own voice--
I would be admitted
to a psychiatric ward,
and it would be against my will.

It wouldn't matter
if it was at the Children's Hospital or not--
It wouldn't matter if the walls
were coated with those
sickeningly bright colours
or if there was an Xbox
in the common area.

You can dress up a prison cell
as vibrant as you'd like.
But, by principle,
it's still a prison cell.

When they strip you
of your clothes,
and force you into
their bleak hospital gowns,
they also strip you
of your independence.

(You aren't even allowed
to wear your school cardigan,
the one whose soft, green fabric
you nestle against your fingertips
when you need comforting.

What makes you think
you can leave when you want to?)

See,
doc keeps ya locked up
until he's snuffed the
crazy outta you.

They don't like using
the word
crazy
anymore, either.

So,
like the prison cell,
they play dress up
with your "crazy",
draping it in euphemisms like

unstable.

erratic.

incapacitated.

suicidal--

Once this word is used to label you,
you are never quite able to
abandon its connotation of
madness--
a reputation of inferiority.

And everyone believes
that they are only doing what's best for you,
that hospitalization is the only thing
that will save you from yourself,
when, in fact, it's the ultimatums
and the countless visits to the ER
and the way you are treated--
like a poor ***** lying in wait
to be put down--
that destroys you.

The memories still
bleed fresh most nights.

I seethe at
the mistreatment and
the betrayal and
the destruction
like an army of bees
whose hive has been kicked in,
a snow-globe convulsing
between careless hands.

I was kinder
before they stole away
the last moon-slivers of hope
I held between heart and ribs,
between lips and flower petals.

The nectar has been
exorcised from my soul,
leaving only infestation behind.


(and there is no escaping this swarm)

⚠️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 subject matter pertaining to self-harm, suicide, and involuntary psychiatric hospitalization⚠️
______________­____

Tenth grade:

I am standing in the foyer
with my friends
before the bell rings.

From my sailor's mouth:
a bluster of salt and curse words.

My friends are so used
to hearing me swear,
that I believe they have become
desensitized to the variations of "****"
that whistle through my teeth.

Today, I use a
word
I have never said in front of them before.

Their eyes flash
with holier-than-thou
disapproval.

I understand how my language
may be construed as being offensive.

And, truly, I mean no harm.

But truly,
does that make me less than?

(Maybe it does.)

I've never been like them.

I am not pristine.

I am all edge.

Cut from sea glass,
composed of atoms having split
and drowned in their
self-perpetuated monsoons.  

My voice is not a siren song.

It is the stuff
of brine and hurricane.

I ask:
are you mad at me?

"I mean--I don't like hearing it..."

(Yes.)

"It's just sort of disrespectful."

(So you are mad at me.)

This type of shame
can only be alleviated
through means of punishment.

During English class,
I go to the bathroom.

Into my left forearm,
I carve the word
*****,
its lines written
in barbed-wire cursive.
Like a trigger-happy Etch A Sketch,
I create haphazardly.

When I get home that evening,
my parents, having received a phone call
from the school that afternoon,
tell me we are going to the hospital.

(Clarification:
I am going to the hospital,
they are only taking me there.)

Post phone call,
my father had contacted
Alberta Health Services.
The representative he had spoken to
told him that it was necessary
that I go to the hospital
and that if I didn't comply,
he should call 911,
wherein the paramedics
would take me by force.

I am in awe that
this stranger has the power
to tell me where I must go
before I am even aware
of their existence.

After screaming
and sobbing
and swearing--
one of the words being
the cuss that initiated
this series of events
in the first place--
I finally surrender.

On the ride to the hospital,
I listen to "A Car, a Torch, a Death"
by Twenty One Pilots.

"The air begins to feel a little thin
As I start the car, and then I begin
To add the miles piled up behind me
I barely feel a smile deep inside me
And I begin to envy the headlights driving south
I want to crack the door so I can just fall out"


I cinch the vinyl of the seatbelt
between my fingers the entire way there.
Because, in this instance,
the seatbelt is my enemy
so I keep her closer
to me than my own skin.

(But I am not sure
if I really did this
or if my emotion
exploits my memory.)

We arrive.

Still hysterical,
I grab a fistful of snow
before we pass through the doors.

A guffaw verging on maniacal
escapes from my chapped lips:

What if this is my
last chance
to touch snow,
to inhale the crispness of November
before I am locked up?

(What if they lock me up?)

I step out of the queue
and into the nurse's station.
My parents explain
what I've done to myself
and the nurse asks me how I feel.

"Angry,"
I say.

"Why are you angry?"

"Because I've been brought here against my will."

When the ER doctor
has finished her interrogation,
she says that a psychologist
will be with me shortly.

"I'm going to do homework while I wait,"
I tell her, defiance tugging at my vocal cords,
"Because I AM going to school tomorrow."

I ******* my way through
the rest of my assessment
with the psychologist,
try to sound the least suicidal as possible
while also making it exponentially clear
that admitting me involuntarily--
isolating me from the rest of society--
would only intensify my depression.

They let me go.

One of the doctors--
or maybe it was a nurse--
makes a comment
that I can't fully remember.

All I know is that I reply:
"No, I'm still pretty ******,"
to which the doctor (nurse?)
tells me that my parents did the right thing
and that my anger is unwarranted.

And I am just so ******* exhausted
with these people who treat me
like I'm some backward,
music box ballerina.

I figure eight in the direction
opposite of the world
spinning on its axis.

They do not like
this backward girl--
this warped record
whose lyrics seem unfathomable.

So they close
the top of the music box
and I no longer play
the leading role of my own life--
I am just some small, porcelain thing
collecting dust in the fissures of her
silence.

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

I don't recall a whole lot
about my first hospital visit.

I know only the
fleeting
keynotes of the experience.

And I'm not just referring to my first...
psychiatric (?) visit.

(I'm not sure if psychiatric is
the right word,
but I find that I often struggle
to find the right words
when I attempt to describe hospitals
and the time I've spent in them.


I'll do my best.)


See,
I had never been to the
Emergency Room for anything before.

(Well,
except for that one time
I tumbled off the changing table as a baby.
But I'm not sure that really counts,
my only knowledge of the event
having come from second-hand stories.)

Surprisingly enough,
being the clumsy child I was,
I had never sustained
any significant injuries
while growing up,
especially in comparison to my sister
who had a daunting repertoire.

When she was a toddler,
she executed a daredevil jump
from the top of the staircase,
breaking her arm as she crash-landed
onto the basement carpet.

While we were waiting
for her to be fitted with a cast,
I remember her doctor told me
to stop misbehaving.

While I can't remember
exactly how I was misbehaving,
I'm sure it had something to do
with the chaos of my temperament,
a chaos that has churned inside me
for as long as I have known.

Over the course
of my high school years,
when I would make several
appearances at the hospital
due to my own brokenness--
the very brokenness that persuaded
the lacerations on my wrists
and my lust for death--
the doctors would,
in their clinical, roundabout ways,
tell me the same thing:

to stop misbehaving.

In the ninth grade--
this here. this is the first visit--
my guidance counsellor and English teacher
had driven me to the Children's Hospital,
which was only up the road from my high school.

Oddly enough,
I had been relatively compliant.

I had gone quietly,
devoid of the defiant uproar
that seethed under my skin.

Perhaps I acted as I did to prove that,
despite, my darkness,
isolating me from the world I knew
would be a grand disservice to me.

Or perhaps I feared
what would happen
if I was to purposely disobey,
that, upon arriving at the hospital,
I would be treated like the rebel I was,
promptly disrobed of my independence.

The remaining details of the visit
have been resolved to vagueness
as time has passed.

I only know my father  
came straight from work to pick me up.
Before we left,
the doctor gave us pamphlets--
crisis hotlines,
accessing resources
within my quadrant of the city,
alternatives to self-harm.

The doctor dwelled on this last subject;

if I felt like cutting myself,
I could still satisfy the urge
without actually drawing blood.

I could press ice to my skin
or write on myself with markers--
markers not pens--
or snap a rubber band against my wrist,
which was the method
he had particularly fixated on.

He explained he wasn't too keen
on me snapping myself
all the time, either,
but that it was a preferable
alternative until I improved.

"Doc,"
I wish I'd said,
"If only you knew
how lovely it is to bleed."

volume i
A Portrait of My Sixth-Grade Self
___________________­

Eleven-year-old fingers
swollen with baby fat
dig into the gaudy shimmer
of turquoise eyeshadow
encased in its shattered compact.

I apply the pigment,
erratic smudges extending
from my lash line
to just below my untamed brows.

The blue powder accentuates the swirls
of my fingerprints in dizzy figure eights.

But you can't quit your own skin
like you can quit ice skating lessons.

I am in the sixth grade
when the Popular Girls
in my class tell me that,
if I want to get a boy to like me,
I have to change the way I look.

I abide by the rules of the
Unofficial Mean Girl Doctrine:

{no. 1}

I mustn't wear sweat pants,
these sloppy Old Navy rags
that I have owned for three years.

See,
denim is superior to cotton
even though it leaves
cavernous indentations
on my stomach.

Sweat pants forgive
the extra swell of your waist line.

Denim punishes you
for what you don't have,
more specifically
for what you have too much of.

I ask my mom for skinny jeans
because perhaps if I can
shrink all that I am
into this blue, unyielding fabric
I will feel thinner than I actually am.

We buy the skinny jeans from Old Navy.

{no. 2}

My signature high pony tail is
unacceptable.

I should wear my hair down,
they profess.

I am not sure if this is
because of the tufts of frizz
that loom over my scalp
like wasted dandelion seeds

(I wish... I wish... I wish...)

or if this is just a necessary ritual
in the abandonment of my girlhood.  

After I unsheathe my curls
from their rubber-band Bastille,
their trial commences.

My ringlets slither
in hostile circulations,
executing frequent detours away
from anyone who might scoff
at their animalistic bedlam.

If only I could will
my spectators to stone.

Cuz no one ever dared
**** with Medusa
and her curls.

Instead,
I settle for a flat iron.

{no. 3}

Do everything in your power to be
Beautiful
including, but not limited to,
the laws indicated above.

Yet,
despite my grandest efforts,
it is never enough.

I am never enough.

I am the Walmart Edition
of what the Popular Girls
want me to be.

With my gaudy eyeshadow and the
cheap Dollar Store bracelets
that I wear around my wrists,
plastic flowers blooming
upon threaded stems
that nip at the hair on my arms.

One day on the bus ride home,
a boy from my class tells me
I am too hairy.

"Huh?" I ask,
pretending I haven't heard him.

"Nothing," he mumbles back to me.

See,
little girls are supposed to play with
jump ropes and Barbie Dolls.

They are not supposed to
play with razors as they strip away
every misplaced hair on their body
or consult Teen Vogue
for the latest beauty hacks
like they are Gospel.

This year of 2011/2012
has been engraved  into
the historical road map
of my every insecurity.
The legend of this map,
depicted in smeared globules
of sugar cookie lipgloss,
deliver me to my destination:

self hatred.

Mascara stains the
topography of my flesh
in inky, dotted lines

I follow.

I plummet
like the eternal run
in my stockings.

One way plane ride
non-stop
never to return
from this perception of ugliness
and then--

flight


down.

To be a women is to choose between
being a thot or having thoughts.

I’m confident that if all the King’s Men
were women, Humpty Dumpty
would have survived.

**** shaming women
is a form of ****** harassment.

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

A benzo
A day keeps the
nerves
at bay

Sometimes,
I imagine I'm some
mourning starlet
who sings Lana Del Rey
at the club
every Saturday night.

A honeyed halo of stage light
tangles itself about
the curled labyrinth
of my hair,
sparkles gold against
my tearing irises.

My mouth parts
and the war cries begin.

In the moments that
the melody offers
my voice repose,
I pound shots to the beat
of the drummer's ramblings.

The crowd applauds
my tipsiness,
their hoots of praise
shaking at the depths
of my eardrums
like an intoxicated tambourine.

My neuroticism
fascinates these people,
I think.

Not in an
exploitive,
let's-glamourize-depression
kind of way,
but in an
it is a truth universally acknowledged
kind of way--in a
"*******, cuz I've been there too"
kind of way.

See,
within my little,
concocted fantasy
of stage light
and music
and *****,
the people don't judge me
the way they do
on the outside.

Here,
I am not
melodramatic or
overly sensitive or
disposable.

Here,
my war cries sound
a little less
like death and
a little more
like poetry.

Here,
they love me
in spite of the sadness.

Here,
we share a song--
here,
they sing with me.

The ****
is mightier than the
sword

My ****** writes a poem:

.

What do ya say, Kid?

Do you have another poem in you?

I’m not done hating you yet,
Darling.

Really, there’s no need to put the word
“alleged” before the words “****** Assault.”

wicked draining selfish twisted ***** disgusting pathetic shameful lazy ungrateful
manipulative selfish ***** you’re mind is twisted evil no one wants you here delusional you’re so bipolar pig you need help man clingy afraid to be alone in a room with her sadness ******* ******* irresponsible you’re so borderline you’re so so I’m sorry I have to cancel [again] inconvenient I “care” about you wicked we “love” you imposition I don’t want to see you hurting selfish ***** it breaks my heart to see you so sad just another body that takes up space space space

I think perhaps I will write
a poem once the pain has subsided.

And the matriarch
jumped
over his tomb

“Take me down.”

—your pin up girl

(I suppose I am so fond of parathesis,
because I, too, only exist as an afterthought)

January 1st, 2022,
12:23 AM:

empty

P  o  e  t  r  y

                ↓

                religion

Fool me once--
shame on you.

Fool me twice--
shame on you.

Fool me three times--
STILL shame on you.

{gaslight}

“Do you ever think about dying?”

“All the time, Barbie.
and I think I’m starting
to get bad again.”

Do you see my sadness, too?

Can beauty exist in the aftermath of sorrow?

I dunno how to forgive you

(and I dunno if I want to)

Not even

all the king’s horses

and all the king’s men

were enough

to mend her broken heart.

I’ve never been someone’s “everything”
and that really ******* hurts sometimes,
ya know?

I don’t want to carry bear spray
because I’m afraid of being
attacked by a bear; I want to
carry bear spray because I’m afraid
of being attacked by a man.

There was never a “before” sadness.

Perhaps my sorrow is like god:
it is impossible to precede
something that has always been.

It’s tough “love”
not
tough love

You know what’s worse than the actual nightmares?

Becoming so used to the nightmares,
they don’t even faze you anymore.