I think that today,
we should all scream
until our lungs ache
from the distance we’ve tread
and the things that we’ve said –
anecdotes that fill our hearts with joy,
tearful stories of all of that wrongness which we’ve faced,
the lyrics caught between our ears
and have been for days and months and years,
all of those words that we’ve written
in bright fuchsia gel pen in the margins of diaries
from our awkward third grade years
that we hoped no one would ever lay eyes upon.
Scream until the last syllables
crawl up your throat in an effort to be heard.
Scream until your tongue ties itself into knots
from the exhaustion of spilling all of your secrets.
Scream until you grow weary,
but that kind of weary where
you fall asleep with a smile on your face
and a soreness in your every muscle
that means you have accomplished something.
Act like a little kid again
and chase after ice cream trucks,
shouting along to
the sticky-sweet cadence
that drips into your ears.
Or crumple into a heap,
***** laundry piled as high as
Mount Everest
on your puke-colored carpet
and
scream.
Just scream
and scream
and scream.
And when you lose your voice,
come to me
and I will make sign language jokes
into your sweaty palms,
fingers curling expressively
as your shoulders lay just a bit higher,
the scaffolding that had been holding you up
torn down joint by joint,
rod by rod;
but it didn’t hurt did it?
It felt exquisite,
like waking up on Christmas morning
to the smell of just-burnt Pillsbury cinnamon rolls
and dented, wrapping-papered packages.
Let these memories whisper through you,
not scream,
and let them carry you to sleep.
You screamed today.
Now,
you can whisper
or send back witty one-liners into my palm
without the fear of explosion.
Now you can chase ice cream trucks with jingling pockets
faster than ever
because you are so
*******
light.

When did you become someone
whose presence I longed to feel
at my fingertips
more than my pulse?
When did you become someone
whose voice had a cadence
that I would sacrifice
my dusks
and dawns
to waltz to,
spinning in your arms
and falling into the rhythm
of your footsteps upon my concrete heart?
When did you become someone
who I allowed to paint on every inch of my body,
never becoming tired of swirling brush strokes
and passionate color?

When did you become someone
who held down my hands with the weight
of your shackles,
slowing my heartbeat to yours,
barely fluttering?
When did you become someone
who kept me in your poisonous trance,
hearing sweet fairy music
whilst dancing a fatal few steps?
When did your soft brushstrokes
turn to pummeling stones,
taking the beauty from my skin
and replacing it with a thready luminescence?

When did everything that I revered about you
break me into two:
the one who had it all,
the one floating a foot above the ground
with socked toes and lacy clarity,
and the one who couldn’t stand her reflection,
the colors laid upon me no longer bright,
but thrusting me into the concrete jungle
you had momentarily freed me from?
Just answer me this…
when?

I used to talk about poetry.
Now I just write it.
I used to talk about it,
quote little snippets,
would they pick up on my genius?
...see what I did there,
my crickets?

I used to send poems
to friends that got me,
or needed them.
But the beauty I found in
fitting their lives to mine
was less
an exercise in type.

I used to be approached
by readers with kind words,
and open hearts, poets themselves.

I am poached these days.

I used to be a poet,
to blank stares
and shifting glances
steeped in shame,
I toppled like a tower.

I should apologize for the days I am withdrawn. This is not what you signed up for. I should apologize for when I don't want to speak or communicate with touch or when I want to be without you but also do not. My indecisiveness is appalling: and I should apologize for that. But today I do not want words. I do not want to be felt because I feel you grabbing and pulling instead of caressing and comforting. You have not done anything wrong. I am just mean. I am just inside myself today and when you want to know what is up I want you to accept that I say the sky instead of pressing for more. My thoughts are poison right now. You shake me like a magic eight ball and I keep thinking try again later but saying not likely. I have the capacity to be kind but my words are pinpricks in your chest and every time I claw you with my numbness I inwardly cringe because I don't mean it, I am sorry, and I should apologize. But I can't. I can not bring myself to vocalize that I am not okay because you'll want to help and I don't want to be okay. Not yet. I want to hide in my closet and cry without company. I want time to myself today. But I don't want to hurt you. I am sorry. You are no burden. I am withdrawing. Not from you, but from me. I don't want to be kind, or resilient, or strong today. I just want to fold into myself, I want to be small and insignificant. I am tired of being fun and happy, it's tiring work. I need time to be low without an interrogation. I just want to be empty for a moment. And I should apologize.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless ***. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

i would like to spend
the remainder of my days
floating
alone in outer space

past the edge of the universe
where not even starlight could reach me
and I would float in the blackness
without sight or sound or heat
forever

no gravity to press down on my
shattered body
free from the dull ache
of titanium plates and screws
relief to cartilage ripped to shreds

but most importantly
i would be far too far away
for anyone to ask me
if i was okay
or if i needed help