i think i want to stop killing myself. stop thinking this is an okay way to live. you know, i’ve accepted the growls and hatred and dark cloud sky dumped into my brain each day, i’ve accepted it as life. the storm blanket is comfort now, safety instead of vulnerability. maybe it’s easier to live without trying so hard. i want to realize it’s been four ******* years. sometimes i pretend to wonder why i’m not okay. my fingers type out words about me being confused, why is everyone else okay and i’m just always not. as if i don’t know what i put my own body through each day. is this what makes us the most advanced species there is? the self doubt, the ability to harm ourselves against all evolutionary instinct, the need to hate ourselves? is that really what makes us special?

leonardo, michelangelo, bramante
i’m drowning in my chair in the back
of this art history class that has an
unfortunate association with you
in my stupid brain and the way
the high renaissance style reminds me of
my life when you         (when you, cared)
i painted the walls in shot color
the pinks and dark reds shined
through my cheeks, did you know
how much i cared?
or that raphael left perugino out
of his most famous painting
hanging on the walls of the vatican
and now his memory is fading
like i wish you would.
i excavate my brain every day
trying to find the reason why
why i care so ******* much.
why you could **** and bury your feelings
with ease like they were never real
were you even real?
or did i dream up your laugh
while sitting in the corner of my room,
combining feathered pillows and laundry beads
with wax from my favorite candle and there you are
born in my brain like an invasive species choking my veins
gasping for air as we watched the stars
in your driveway or maybe it was pompeii.
it felt like standing in ruins
i watched the things our brains can’t say cut
through the stone falling around our bodies.
did you notice everything we destroyed?
i could have flooded the colosseum
with the tears i held back
i wish you cared
i wish you knew
that i write poetry about the things you love
because you said you’d make me love it too
                              but i learned without you

a bewildered face, a blurry
cloud in the sky, i’m
turning in circles and every second i see something else collapse.
like the lungs
behind our ribs, we can’t breathe
when the air is so thick.
our bodies shrinking, lungs
suffocating, i don’t think you have room for
me,, anymore.

tense tense ten, days left
the strain of a rope-wrapped-hand weakening
until the lights flash like first class grins do...
                                                do you remember

carol of the bells echoing off the walls,
the repetitions don't sound like chords anymore
but mutter, sigh, and oh no
i have so much to be sorry for
                                   do you remember when she

because the sun is setting at 4:43pm and
the warmth is leaving the world too quickly now.
dewy-eyed, no it's fine. everyone is happy, right?
                    do you remember when she laughed?

at peppermint tear drop petals
silver shine bright ornaments
red and white mix like the night on the bathroom floor
                     remembering, remembering, remembering.
the clock always tick-tocks the same

when she yelled, cooked, danced
with love until anticipation replaces grief
and family connections are dis
connected, confrontations, confusion

remember when she used to smirk?
                 no. this is how it is now...

i google it at 3am because
lightless blue shadowed rooms can cover secrets
and lies.
and the glance up, look away quickly and blink blink blink

like it never happened, can hide behind my eyelids for now. because
tainted thoughts don’t qualify for pity
and wake up headache stare into space isn’t a question of how are you, it’s why are you this way?

i don’t know, i say.
i’m sorry, i say.

that my brain clutter is too much of not the right stuff and my eyes don’t look dreamy like you imagined
they would be. dripping caramel swirls and covered with a golden starry sky.
that all i have are unsteady hands and undecided eyes and uncertain everythings.

and because yes, i live
in oblivion but that doesn’t mean i enjoy it.
or that i like staring at the shine bright white between us
or the dot dot dot of our thoughts . . . willing the what ifs and if onlys to come true because

the clouds move faster than i do. hot glue face to window
until you say my name           soft on the edge of your lips

because what would happen if i hung by anything more than a thread

i google it at 3am because how else am i supposed to know.
my blood is floating with question marked uncertainties and

blurry,, blurry vision.

how maybe it’s strange that always we are surrounded by the stars
yet rarely do we actually look
yet rarely can we actually see anything more than dim sparkles
in navy blue like glitter spilled on jeans and. the moments
i’ve taken to stare for a minute get stuck in my mind
like permanent hot glue or gorilla glue or whatever that stuff is called.
and memories don’t leave, sometimes they say “hey do you remember me?”
laying on the trampoline when i was supposed to map the constellations
but i don’t think i cared.
there was so much to look at.
by the big loud lake at night, the brightest they’ve been.
by the less big less loud lake at night when no one wanted the day to end.
holding on to small time.
sometimes the stars stare back.
3:00 am cold driveway pavement and shivers and you
and you and you
and the time they danced for us.
the night said ‘here watch i made this for you..
while they sleep you are here wondering what is next?
what is next?’

Red screamed to Sky—
“Why can’t I be Gold, who is cherished,
jackpot, a bull’s-eye. Honey glazed fields
and caramel skies eaten
up like a succulent mango. Gold
gets to fill the pots
on the end of rainbows,
while I am merely a member on the spectrum.
Gold is a craving, desire, a thirst,
but I am     hardly     much. Rust, decay,
a rotting radish, I weep from their bodies,
defective. I’m the polluted breath
on their polluted tongues, I scorch
their skin and blast their wicked hearts out.”

Sky whispered back—
“I look down
on the globe and there are no distinct, dazzling
metallic Yellows, but I see you,
Red, in the rose bouquets and apple trees,
in blushed cheeks, and soft
kisses. Red,
you are dewy strawberries
and strawberry bushes with ladybugs dancing
on half eaten leaves. A woven picnic
blanket, checkered in line with the adoring
couple and their glimmering hearts and their freckled
faces, rain boot hit puddle, bitten lips, lip bite cherry,
sip wine in scarlet dress, spicy pepper,
firework—
You are Red.

"do you think you truly know me?"
i hear you ask through the thick air surrounding us.
and i’m scared to say that,
to me, you are that small space in time before
the *** boils over the last cherry is picked
the first raindrop drips from the sky.
you’re the suspension that could be lived in
always hoping for perfection because
once occurring, the what could have been is broken
and that’s when i’m scared we’ll crack.
eggshell on tile floor and brittle dried clay
we wouldn’t be sharp glass but
a plaster wall with a single tear through the middle.
and i’m scared to tell you that when i saw the way
the cement under the bridge turned brown from the ruin of the rain,
the iron bleeding,
i thought of you.

their genesis was hollow,
like thrown stones that don’t skip.
just fall through the water’s surface
drop 10 feet down on the east side
of the lake, never to be seen again.

they took the lie
and tried to make it real.
went to please stay and i’m scared
and all the hyperreal places where
people go to be saved.

but then smoke fills the room
and the fire escape shuts and that
bright yellow love
is burnt with all the
things you thought

but never said.