The flower is
Wrinkled,
Somewhat bleeding,
Odorless,
Bowed stem crippled,
Arthritic,
Greeting me a
Tremulous
"Good evening."

When I was bad,
I mean young,
The summers in the city were
Mean hot,
Ran with the bad boys.
Not bad bad just teenage bad.

So the cops came and got us
Where we were hanging,
Took us down to the precinct,
Till around midnight.

Came home at one am,
My pop heard me come in.

Asked me where I'd been,
So I told him that I'd been arrested.

He thought for a second and said,
"Good. Now go to bed."

We never spoke of it again.

A thousand years later
I figured out why.

I had never seen my formal pop
In his underwear till that night,
And never saw him that way again.

He was more embarrassed than I.

Considered the matter closed and
My heart, full, finally, now.

There is nothing ****, romantic, beautiful or admirable
In starving, bingeing or throwing up.
It doesn’t make you different
And it doesn’t mean you’re in control.
Fish-Bone body,
Spine like shards of glass,
Risking a rupture each time you indulge your
sordid, secret habit.
Why are you trying to find beautiful words
To pretty your ugly, violent acts?
There are none.
There is no beauty
In ***** and bile,
There is nothing to admire
In the punching of your stomach
The water loading,
The blisters on your knuckles
And your grey, grainy skin.

I watched someone die from this.
I refuse to do it again.

I do not know poetry
I know my toenails are too long.
I can feel them snag on the sheets that I haven't washed.
I'm out of toothpaste
my teeth feel grimy,
my gums raw
I waited all day to see you
so you could tell me that you don't like my sweater

You say you don't know how to talk to people who are in pain.
You are exasperated with the burden of humanity inherited by humanity
You are easy when you numb yourself constantly
Anger is righteous to accuse you
Defense is a child who is confident
All the villages you've saved but not me
I remember pain

I am so disappointed with your inhumanity
because no one can fail but me
You can read the look on my face
I can tell
So don't make me say things I can't

Pain is a vacuum
It doesn't exist in perfection
In an absence of sound,
even though it itself is so loud,
is inaudible
While I am at the bottom, God is at the top,
and you are somewhere in between
You are blocking the view,
misleading the people
You claim nothing but we demand something

When I left your house I wanted to crash my car into a ditch
Instead I drove home.