A shallow lake off of I-95. My mouth was a water fountain. My back was arched the way my mother’s was the day she gave birth to me. My belly was round and steep like the high peaks that circled our watery bodies like branches of snakes. By the lake there were woods and in the deep mouth of those woods we lay with sweaty arms and burnt legs. You groaned as though your mouth were full of wolves. My eyes were tightly sealed. I thought mostly of my father and of the bed that I slept in when I was three years old. I thought about my grandfather’s hands, too, stained with beer and old milk. It was like I was leaving my mother’s womb all over again. Thought: this is what it will be like the day I give birth. Thought: the trees are bent at their waists the way my brother always is; he sinks into himself like ocean. Back at the lake you unwrapped a pack of cigarettes and I unwrapped my mouth, vomiting into the sand. Nobody else was there. I remember you always smelling like smoke. That entire time we were awful drivers.

I want to tell you what I'm doing right now,
I miss the feeling you give me when you are around,
And how you understand me better
Than everyone else.
I want to tell you my
Mysteries,
Secrets I can't bear to
Hold on to any longer.
The dark threads of memory are slipping
From my clammy grasp.
I want to give you every poem,
So you could see my brokenness,
So you could teach me how to cope with pain.
I just don't want to spoil this feeling:
A blossoming friendship
In the heart of a rose.

I want to tell you,
But I won't.

Don't get me wrong--
I trust you.
I know you could hold a secret,
Treasure my heart.
I've already fallen for that.
Maybe it's me I need to trust more.
Maybe if I loved myself,
I would have a greater urge
To run to you,
To hide those precious moments,
So we could remember them together.
I don't think I've been in love before,
Somehow this is different
Than the other times I felt my heart
Find another friend.
Maybe you don't understand,
I know I don't,
But teach me how to get through this,
Teach me how to find love.

I wouldn't consider myself suicidal but if someone was holding a gun to my head and threatening to pull the trigger,
I would pull it myself for the fear of not being in control of my own death is greater than the fear of death itself.

*-c.a.

I have this fear that you will discover that I’m not as great.
I am strong, but I break.

All the women walk down the street,
All beautiful and petite.

I look down the street to stumble upon long slender legs and dainty feet,
Only to realize it is because she does not eat.

I see a distorted image constructed by society’s idea of beauty,
And I am no longer aware of my duty.

People are always trying to define you,
That is what makes us all so blue.

I will never be good enough,
Which makes life so much more rough.

All I do is cry,
But my tears are running dry.

I sit here with a blade to my arm,
It has gotten so bad I turned to self harm.

I will never be good enough for you.
And with that I bid you adieu.

As I close my eyes,
The room fills with my cries.

Society is eating me alive.
When did this depression arrive?

All I want to do is heal.
But nothing here is real.

Here’s to society for making me hate myself.
You can place your trophies up on your shelf.

You injected your poison into my mind.
Heaven forbid you be the least bit kind.

This is the real world, no glass shoe.
Do not fall into the hole and let society define you.

I wander through the mist,
the heavy air by sunlight kissed,
yet now too late to dissipate,
crushing, unrelenting weight,
maybe we can coexist.
The sodden earth beneath me lay
trodden normally on by day,
though now was overcast by gray,
the fog that did persist,
the bog would not decay,
I wished that I could stay.
But then ahead appeared a light,
to my dismay, far out of sight,
how could it be, as dark as night
I thought it was today.
A slimy serpent crossed my path,
and with a smile, hissed,
humbled by its vile wrath,
I wander through the mist.