how do you stop your throat from burning
from salty tear-stained gulps and gasps
for oxygen that is no longer there?
there is too much carbon dioxide in the air now
and i want to fast forward into a world
where i can breathe in sweet helium
and ask for it to stop.
because there are times
when it's impossible to breathe
and when my puffy red eyes
can't open more than a millimeter
because you have glued them shut
with your accusations.
i didn't want to be gas station concrete any longer
i didn't want dirtiness to be my middle name
i only wanted to cleanse myself of you and your fists,
you and your laughter
you and your hatred.
i wanted to be clean.

*(a.m.c.)

you were nowhere on the weather forecast
a sudden storm that left me soaked
i loved the chill you sent through my bones
and the water cleansing my sadness.
i asked you three months ago if i was worth it
and you told me i make you feel dizzy
you were high but i know you meant it
and i think you're crazy for loving me.
all i want is you in my bones
and to feel the warmth of every one of your kisses
every single day of my life
you've turned me into something better.
there are still days when i can't get out of bed
and the thin lines on my wrists are a little more prominent
but you have become my home
where everything is sunkissed and light.

*(a.m.c.)

you hurt like ache
and adderall
and arnica

you hurt like bruises
and battle scars
and broken bones

you hurt like cuts
and *******
and countryside

you hurt like death
and destruction
and die-hard

you hurt like electricity
and emergency rooms
and edit-undo

you hurt like *******'s
and fire
and fallen trees

you hurt like garbage cans
and gonorrhea
and gang ****

you hurt like hell
and holes in the road
and heartache

you hurt like israel
and illness
and ignition fumes

you hurt like jaundice
and jugular veins
and jack in the box

you hurt like karma
and kissing
and kerosine lamps

you hurt like lightning
and love
and literary terms

you hurt like mother
and mary
and moses

you hurt like nakedness
and nosebleeds
and nervous breakdowns

you hurt like oil spills
and old yeller
and oral quizzes

you hurt like parkinson's
and parties
and panic

you hurt like queens
and questions
and quantum physics

you hurt like rogaine
and roses
and rope burn

you hurt like solar power
and stomach aches
and ***

you hurt like teeth cleanings
and tar
and tobacco

you hurt like ulcers
and underwear
and unrequited love

you hurt like viruses
and venus fly traps
and vapor rub

you hurt like warning signs
and weight gain
and war

you hurt like x-rays
and x marks the spot
and xoxo

you hurt like your mom
and your dad
and you

you hurt like zig zags
and zero
and zip ties

*(a.m.c.)

i’m sorry your love does not fit into my junk mail
and that i will not become a hoarder for you
you say you’re disgusting
but i think you’ve rubbed yourself raw against my skin
until your bones have become protruding branches from your body
the blood that used to circulate through me
has now turned into sand
you punctured my lungs and i started leaking beaches
there are no sandcastles, just chunks of broken seaglass
just pebbles and bugs and dirt
you can’t shield me from the sun, i’ve already been burnt
so now when people step on me
i burn back

*(a.m.c.)

when i think back to the first punch
the nail and sting and two-week bruise
i don't think about the pain
or the sound of your fist against my ribs
i think of your face as you swung your arm
twisted and red but that was only layer one
layer two was remembering when you coached me in softball
layer three was my nine-year-old embrace
layer four was whispering, "she's your little girl."
layer five was your confusion as i grew up and became quiet
layer six hated yourself in that moment
as well as layers seven and eight
layer nine was your anger again, which caused you to hit
but layer ten was your apology
i forgave you one thousand and sixty eight times
will you ever forgive yourself?

*(a.m.c.)

do not call me a liar
when you're sailing your boat
into vinegar seas
because my knobby knees
crushed you with ease
and you cried "don't hurt me,
please, please, please."

i wanted you dead
for all the wrong reasons
i killed you with time
through the four seasons
there isn't anything more pleasing
than your cotton mouth teasing
my long hair breezing
and you were sick with the flu,
always sneezing, sneezing, sneezing.

*(a.m.c.)

i swallowed the sunset like a pill;
and drowned it with a bottle of nyquil;
so my dreams involve stars instead of your hands;
and my brain contains gradients in place of your arms.
i clawed my own eyeballs out, mistaking them for yours;
and what i thought was your skeleton i rammed with my car;
was actually just a mailbox.
i’ve screamed at the top of my lungs;
but you are still jammed in my throat.
i’ve opened up my skin;
but your poison is stuck to me like a sunburn.

*(a.m.c.)

this swirling romance of life
caught me up in its tendrils
and what did i become
but fire,
an energy that consumes
that destroys from nothing,
from a moment caught on spark
and ash.
warmth loves all that is living
the sun is far too close for us to be cold,
to live something frantic and brittle
and broken
we are too alive for salvation,
for heartache and bruise,
we are consumed in ourselves
and in our flame.
we are humans too beautiful
for destruction
too alive for loving
too loving to live.
call yourselves kings and queens
sons and daughters
royalty
pick up your gemstones
call it electricity
and rule.

*(a.m.c.)

four years ago i became a carpenter
and started to build a wall
between myself and the world.
people came and went
and tried to take out the bricks
like they were playing jenga.
and some people walked up to me
with a sledgehammer in their hand
and knocked me down with the wall.
as the years went by
my wall got taller
and the people became fewer
until there was no one left.
i'm starting to rethink my blueprints
because it's getting lonely over here
and i forgot the windows.

*(a.m.c.)

Do not stretch your fingers in my direction;
I am not your ******* or your heroine;
I am no drug to be addicted to.
My body is bruised and I am bent out of shape;
My ankles are all ninety degree angles;
And my knuckles are caked in golden hues.
The callouses on my heels are peeling;
And your spitfire attitude is exhausting.
"Simmer down, firecracker;
You lionhearted girl."
I'm flying at the speed of light;
I am going to crash, a beaten down piñata;
And nobody will pick up the pieces.

Simmer down, firecracker.
I'll simmer down when I'm dead.

*(a.m.c.)

You move closer to me like we're two tectonic plates
But I am Antarctica; frozen and endlessly distancing myself from you
And the sun.
You are Africa; cracked and sweltering
We are so far apart and you think you can understand me;
You can't read me like the atlas on your bookshelf;
There are no roadmaps to understand my brain.

*(a.m.c.)

do you ever think about
crystallized heartbeats?
and capricorn fists holding
winter solstices within each crease,
palms like mountains
with riverbends and valleys,
cliffdiving into an ocean
of crimson skin?
the lullaby that plays over
and over
in my head is the sound
of your voice
cracking as you said,
"please don't go."
that three-word phrase
sings me to sleep
every single night.

i didn't ask for this,
you know.

i didn't ask for blown-out candles
smoke twirling into tendrils of grey
and ashy piles.
i never asked for your blank stare
when your memory was erased
by people in white coats with long needles.
i didn't ask for your arms
to become my stronghold
and my shelter against the night.

i didn't want this but now i'm addicted.

*(a.m.c.)

you blew a hole through my chest
with your shotgun smile
as i sipped from a cup
of ruin and destruction.
maybe that's how i contracted pneumonia
on the seventeenth of september
and maybe that's why my lungs are corroding
and my voice is gone.
because there's a hole in my chest
the size of you
and it's drafty today
as the wind whistles through me
singing a song
that sounds like crying.

*(a.m.c.)

i write poetry in fifty seconds or less
sometimes the words taste like salt
and sometimes like maraschino cherries

i wonder if my blood is red or if it's purple
because pain no longer feels like the color red,
it feels like numbness, cold unsaturated color.
red is diamond and fire and volcano
and it doesn't seem fair to call myself eruption.
it would be more accurate to say that i'm sand dune
and flood
and hurricane,
something that doesn't burn painfully
but slowly sinks into your skin
like water
until you breathe in what you thought was air,
but really it's not oxygen anymore,
it's me.

this one tasted like salt.

*(a.m.c.)

i wrapped myself in caution tape
but you didn't listen to my warning
you're dying on the side of the road
and i'm flying to space in my rocketship for one
if you could die by hypothermia or drowning,
which would you choose?
the blue hair dye staining my fingers is proof
that i don't have to explain myself
i filled my bathtub with scalding water
and pretended to feel something
all i have left are burn marks on my thighs
and a puddle on the floor

*(a.m.c.)

your hands are gospel, writing history
with your fingertips and whispering
prayers up and down my spine
i called you my ravenous wildebeest, and i
said it with a smile painting my lips, but
you are everything wild,
thorny, and carnivore.
you're gonna eat me up with texas-sized
teeth and leave me a carcass in the
desert. but i don't mind
i want to be bone for you,
bare.
i think that maybe your bigness is going
to consume me
until i'm a star-soaked black hole
set me on fire, douse me in gasoline
make all the blood rush to my head
because kid, you're a firecracker
and i've always been in love with explosion.

*(a.m.c.)

i dream in colors of the sky;
with sandpaper hands
over a glossy finish
and bluebonnet fields
in a golden sunset.
my brain is hot-wired to be alone;
i don't want you painting
my skies over
with white.
i'll paint them black
in the morning,
but i will poke holes
so i can still see the stars.

*(a.m.c.)

i equated you with love
monstrous, monstrous love.
you were calloused hands
and beating hearts,
teardrop stains
and broken words.
i made you into gold
you were metal
and calcium
and tornado,
screaming into my ear
howling my name
and whistling into nothing.

will you laugh into my mouth?
my throat is too red for laughter

will you drink me up until there's nothing left?
you are too much ocean to swallow

i asked you too many questions
until i myself
was a question mark,
punctuation that cut me open.
where are my answers?
where are my answers?
where are my answers?

*(a.m.c.)

and when you're bleeding out,
becoming an addict and an insomniac,
the rain is a salve to your brokenness.
it will chill your bones and soothe you,
will become your tonic and your medicine,
it will sing you to sleep when there's no one else.

there's something about a wet road
and a dark sky
that puts you to peace, and takes the graveyard out of you.

there's something about lightning
and thunder that shakes your bones
that takes you out of hell and puts you back on earth.

with menace and terrifying power,
the sky yells at you,
not in the same way a person does,
but its yells and screams put a quiet in your soul,
to where you can whisper back to the sky,
          "it
           is
         well"

*(a.m.c.)

genetically speaking you are a cluster of stars
a forest where people go to breathe
a crashing wind and interlaced fingers
on a hot summer day
you are sweaty palms
and a beating heart,
crashing and burning
because you are a comet
and everyone is wishing on you
thinking of shooting stars and big red bruises

genetically speaking i think i'm in love with you
because i'm alive on this small rock in the universe
hoping and breathing and wishing next to you
with wide eyes and hunger pains
i think i've swallowed the moon accidentally
because the pit of my stomach feels heavy
and my mouth is dry with unkissed kisses
sift through the dirt inside of my mouth
and maybe you will find
small flakes of gold

*(a.m.c.)

branches are blown
half-heartedly across the street;
your words flung
full-throttle at my face.
leaves are rustling
through the wind and rain;
heat exploding
from my body in this rage.
cars are crashing
on wet and muddy roads;
mind aching
inside this tired skin.

*(a.m.c.)

with rain soaked fingers
i ripped you apart
godzilla and sirens and all things nightmare
could take notes from me
i could write a handbook
about breaking people like breaking glass
it's simple when you stop caring about yourself
when your pearly white teeth rot and tear
when your shotgun heart and poison dart eyes
**** and break and destroy
you'll recognize my coffee-stained breath
hot on your neck
and next time you'll run
and run
and never look back

*(a.m.c.)

didn't you call me a dandelion?
even when i left you on the cold ocean floor
tell me about your travels
did you map out your coordinates?
so that i'll know which corner of the world
i'm restricted from seeing.
do dandelions grow where you are?
or have you changed your favorite flower
to lilies.

*(a.m.c.)

Tell yourself every day that you are competent, you are fierce, you are hard-edged and don't need anyone.

2. Lick your wounds. Heal yourself.

3. Ride the rain, let it soak your bones and cover you in ice until you're sick. Then, burn it off. Turn into fire and stone. Cover yourself in tarps and bury deep into the ground.

4. Skate and skate and skate. Let the concrete scrape your knees, let it break you on the outside but strengthen you on the inside.

5. Walk like you're Angelina Jolie. Walk with purpose. Never run to catch up to anyone, they'll wait on you. (reminder: you don't need anyone)

6. Turn into a dragon. Breathe fire.

i said,
"do i disgust you or am i
the reason you wake up
in the morning?"
with raincloud eyes
and bony,
   bony fists
you said,
"i want to circle the bruises
around your eyes and patch you up
in a styrofoam box
and lay you out to dry"
because you dream of me
building sandcastles on
the beaches of your heart and
making my home in the palms
   of your hands

"i want to sit on the sun but oh! it'll
burn me up."

*(a.m.c.)

i wanted to be eaten up,
swallowed
by the sky.
i wanted the clouds
to become forests
and the stars
to become puddles.
i wanted the moon's laughter,
the sun's attention,
and birds' embrace.
can't you see i don't fit
on the ground,
and i'm always looking up.
are we all at home on earth?
or do some people have to fly
to feel less homesick.

*(a.m.c.)

i tied knots in your chest
with my old shoelaces so
why didn't you ever call me back?
there are rose-shaped bruises
on my lips from where i
****** the blood out of your
heart and i wanted to tell
you that it tasted like
cinnamon but i
can't anymore
because someone
else is putting new
bandaids on your
cuts. i thought you
said you liked
my pain? and that
you wanted my
sledgehammer
to keep driving
through your
wood-paneled walls
but i think you
lied to me and
i wish you wouldn't
have because i never
would've become so
destructive if you
hadn't told me that
hurt makes you feel alive
and that i remind
you of tornadoes and
bulletproof vests.

*(a.m.c.)

i tried to **** some time
with my cut-throat vaseline clues
and quarters and lollipop bruises
my headaches turned into pleasure-seeking
narcissistic blues and bass guitars behind me
i'm done whispering nightmares
in other people's ears
and i'm done watching clocks
begging them to stop
begging me to stop
begging it to stop

*(a.m.c.)

i think my black coffee self
has started to rot away
and i've become coffee with cream
a little softer with less sharp edges
a little smoother to touch
warm like summer air
the war zone inside my head
has made itself childproof
and i've furnished the place
with pillows and chapsticks
i want you to be comfortable with me
because i am most certainly not

*(a.m.c.)

my heart was a monotonous beeping
a soft old grandfather clock,
background noise at dinner parties
and a focal point for insomniacs
it droned on, neither increasing or decreasing,
neither rising or falling,
a steady beat of a steel drum on a hot summer night

i moved an inch closer to you

my heart was a ticking time bomb,
still steady as clockwork
but adding drama to the movie screen
it was stippling and a connect-the-dot photo of a sailboat
if you wired me up to a machine,
the line of my heart would be a steadily increasing mountain,
closer and closer to the destination
which is you

three inches closer

my heart was alla turca on piano
and impressionist paint strokes
it was dashed-dotted-dashed-dashed
it was swift like wind and current
it was nearly hummingbird wing
nearly death defying

you are two inches away

my heart has broken metronomes,
the tempo reached over five hundred
and chatter flooded into it
speaking words so fast
it sounds like a language from another planet
sometimes i wonder if my heart is really like mount rushmore
but it's not the head of founding fathers carved into the side
but the way you look when you look at me

you are here, i am here

the love i feel for you is plotted out on graph paper covering my floors but it keeps running off the page and i don't have enough paper

*(a.m.c.)

take up space with your scabby elbows
and laughter-stained cheeks
say your name loudly and clearly,
and do not cover your mouth when you speak
because when
i lay my head on your chest
it sounds like hurricanes
are destroying houses
do i really make you feel that much?
because i am just a girl
with sadness in my bones
and a cigarette in my hand
and i cannot give you anything
but my emptiness and ache
love is crawling out of your pit
and walking on water
it's floating in air
and breathing deep
love isn't beautiful but something with teeth
it ripped through my flesh and ate me whole
it was killing me in the most lovely way
love was drowning
in a pool full of laughter
it was sinking sand
and car crashes
it was tragic and devastating
it was real

*(a.m.c.)

i never wanted
to become that person
who uses a knife
to heal her wounds
but i have become
a mixture of
have's and have not's
and i'm so cluttered
that nobody wants
to clean up my pieces
and i'm so *****
but flowers don't grow
out of my skin
i am only mud
i am only weeds
i am only poison

*(a.m.c.)

soon enough, baby, you will be okay
i know you'll learn to love yourself
just as i did, remember to breathe
take in joy and breathe out the pain.
i know things get bad
and don't hate yourself for that
give yourself time to truly feel everything
cry, scream, kick, and curse
because sometimes life hurts
after that though, laugh a little
it helps i promise.
take a shower and rinse, rinse, rinse
sometimes when you smell your clean body
you feel cleaner on the inside.
remember to eat, baby, i know it's hard
but i'm not there to remind you anymore
remember i love you, baby, i always will

*(a.m.c.)

there is a marathon inside of my head
each thought racing against the other
speeding like electricity for blue ribbons
and gold medals.
most of the time the winner is death
but sometimes a smile beats him in the last stride
but only sometimes.
i have bruised knuckles from the time
you told me i wasn't enough and the time
you laughed at my headache,
and sometimes the scars that cover my skin
could be braille that a blind person reads,
or morse code that says "HELP ME."

*(a.m.c.)

sometimes it's okay to wrap yourself
in the night sky and spin a web out of rain
you hold mystery in your palms
and i feel it's swallowed me whole
there will be times when it's hard
when heaviness overtakes your wet hair
and the sweaty nervousness doesn't stop
and dirt will get into your pores,
you will feel it down to your very core
and sometimes it's rocky
and there will be storms
but rain won't stop just because you're screaming
go outside and let it pour

*(a.m.c.)

aren't we all a little bit hazy
a little bit destructible in the mornings?
after the battles we've fought,
our bones are heavy and we
feel the weariness weighing
down on our skin.
all we want is rest,
to sleep in a safe room
with the people we love.
to feel warmth on our faces once again,
to rejuvenate our tired eyes
so that we can get up again and tell our demons,
"i'm still here and i'm going to keep on fighting."

*(a.m.c.)

so, set my soul on fire
and let it be your beacon,
your lighthouse guiding this ship home.
but wait until i've conquered cities,
and stormed every gate,
i'm not done with this world yet.
and my fire hydrant eyes
can't douse every flame on your body,
i'm sorry i can't stop the burning.
i wanna be homeward bound,
i wanna be wrapped in gold,
i wanna be the sky,
and i can only do that when your starlet eyes
stop watching me like fireworks on the fourth of july.

*(a.m.c.)

there's too much blood at my feet
where flowers won't grow
and i tried to fill the cracks in the soil
with glue and vaseline
but the ground reminded me of your lips,
split in four places and tasting like salt
i've let too much water leak from my body
so i started swallowing sand and dirt
hoping that trees would grow from inside me
and i could last longer than life
remember when you touched my hand
and lightning bolts shocked the hell out of me?
you were electric and kicking and screaming
i was the sea, raging and deep

*(a.m.c.)

remember
a girl with a bloodstream filled with her brother's laugh
with seaside sand and bottled up ships on the shore
wind and rain, puddles for rainboots to stomp in
her tears taste like family vacations and disney movies
like memories not quite lost but fading
tree roots dig into her mother's backyard, saplings from an earlier life
leaves changing color, brain synapses disconnecting
the months will still move on through years, but time gets smaller
calendars move, people move, feelings move
life feels lonely and her paperbacks are ripping
all she wants is a glimpse of the past and to keep moving into the future
knitted scarves and mittens, snowdrifts and car crashes
piano scores and swimming pools and banana pudding
move through her system, let her remember, let her heal
talking trees and lord of the rings
mermaid tails and dog kisses
fairy wings and sunburn
baseball bats and runny noses
remember

*(a.m.c.)

eat pills, drink medicine, breathe rocky wind
cold hands touching your throat
and wrapping fingers around your head
your fingertips are dead, and it reaches
through your veins and down your body
sternum ache
brain dead
broken bone
you act like it's normal,
everyone has death inside them
and everyone brings it out in the dark.
you can never go back to happiness
once you feel the pleasure of sadness.

*(a.m.c.)

sitting on a curb in the rain,
i was addicted to nicotine and silver linings
always clasping my hands in prayer
for some ghost to take me.
in your genes i see firecracker windowpanes,
dosed in gasoline
your bruises were blessed by catholic priests
and the saints were singing your praises
sitting on church rooftops and asking
questions like,
"what's this pulsing in my chest?"
you told me it's god, like an ocean inside of me
no longer rotten and bruised.
for some reason i can't let go of you
with your tainted lips and scabby elbows
i drink you up out of dripping faucets
thirsty and wild-eyed
always craving more.
you used to be lightness, you know
like deep breaths and wind on leaf
lately you've let yourself absorb into black
where is your face?
where are your hands?
where have you gone?

*(a.m.c.)

you were a beautiful hero
and i fell in love
with safety.
you were home and heart and pulse
  beating
     beating
        beating.
you were golden and shining and charm
and i wore you
around my finger
  hoping
     hoping
        hoping.

i was electricity
destructive and
elusive.
i was a villain
worse than any
toothache.
i was twisted
caught up in
my tragedy.
i was your catastrophe
and darkness and nightmare.

you are good // i am bad

always
always
always

*(a.m.c.)

there were great lakes
pooling in the vibrations
of your voice
lake superior begged me
to love you
lake eerie screamed
and cried
and lake michigan lied
to my face.
they were too massive to overcome
and too swellingly deep to swim
i wanted to cross the lakes
from america to canada
and run across solid ground.
but a tide washed over me
and now i'm lost at sea
i didn't think you could ever
forget how to swim
but my muscles are weak
and the water so cold
and dreams so peaceful
that i think i'll just
let go.

*(a.m.c.)

i poured you out like a ******* drink
now i swallow lakes
and get drunk off the sea.
i thought caterpillars became beautiful
inside their cocoons
but i've become a monster.
because bon iver songs and i love you's
won't last me through the winter;
drunk texts and goodbye's
won't cure me of this disease.
i need cold showers and rainy days,
five-hundred page books and mascara.
i'll cure myself,
thank you very much.

*(a.m.c.)

I have never been soft because shells are much more impressive and bulletproof vests aren't supposed to crack

I have never been soft because the Sahara desert can withstand any temperature but Antarctica will melt as the sun comes closer

I have never been soft because the moon isn't made out of paper and the sun isn't flaking like my old paintings

I have never been soft but right now I feel like a crumpled up piece of paper

I have never been soft but my knees are covered in dirt and flowers won't grow correctly out of my skin

*(a.m.c.)

sadness makes poetry bleed out
from under your bitten-down fingernails
every single time

the bitterness you taste in your coffee
reminds you of past mistakes
and bruises that you caused

fragments of vocabulary
start spilling out of your mouth
like caustic bottles in a nuclear plant

and windblown smiles tug at your hair,
making it hard to open your tired eyes
at the arsenic whiteness of fakeness
and casualties of war

the nation you grew up in
broke into pieces
and you shredded your memories into fine slivers

because each one is a detonator
under pressure in your lungs
and each breath is a death wish
choking your windpipe with salty kisses.

*(a.m.c.)

there hasn't been a black hole
as big as the yellow-orange sun
inside of my chest and my stomach
and my ribs and my arms and my legs
until now.
it feels like it'll never go away
like it'll keep ******* inward and inward,
a vacuum cleaner or ocean tides,
it'll swallow everything whole
until i've disappeared.
i am a comet shooting across your sky
i'm brief and i'm on fire and i'm burning
and then in a blink of an eye

i'm gone.

*(a.m.c.)

i told you in my dreams
that snowdrifts were breaking my bones
and northern winds were closing my throat.
as i sat underneath the iceberg melting
in the pacific ocean
i wondered if my claustrophobia would go away
if i just inhaled the water
and drifted downwards
until the sun could no longer reach my cold hands.

*(a.m.c.)

you told me there were
enough words in my head
to build skyscrapers
and mountains so high
that they touched God

i told you that your
lightning bolt hands
electrocuted my foggy sleep
and ever since that day
i've been an insomniac

i tried to put lipstick
on the cuts of my mouth
but they left acid burns
so hot they felt baked
so now nobody will kiss them

ever since you left
i've been trying to learn german
so that maybe i'll have more barriers
and add language to distance and time
i'll never speak an english word again.

*(a.m.c.)

my lungs are full of smoke
and the smell of your skin
and this ocean that i'm sinking in
is a million less tears
and a thousand more you's
you caught me like a shark
all gnashing teeth
and blood stained skin
i was wild and frail
deaf and blind
until you filled my hands with roses
and whispered into my ear
"i'm here."

*(a.m.c.)