1.  a curbstomp/a caress/a question of faith.
youre laughing but everyone can tell
youre looking for the door.you in a glass tomb and them watching you rot.
2. youve had the same dream five nights in a row.
you dont tell anyone. they dont care.
3. youre young. you feel empty. you dont know how youre supposed to be
but
you think that this is wrong.
4. 7am wake 8am school 9am 10am 11am 12pm read 1pm school 2pm 3pm 4pm leave 5pm 6pm 7pm home 8pm 9pm run 10pm 11pm 12am 1am 2am 3am sleep repeat
5. a funeral. you are at home,
trying not to get ***** on your nice black dress.
6. your friends are all unnerved by you. you are trying to fix it. you watch how life is supposed to go
and try to do the same.
everyone is unnerved by you.
7. a funeral. you are trying very hard to care.
its not working very well.
everyone is uncomfortable. no one is crying. you get dirt on your nice black dress.
8. you are very smart. you are a very smart young woman. youre just unmotivated /
youre angry /
youre hateful /
youre selfish/solipsistic/spiteful/youre
bored youre so bored you feel so empty it
hurts.
you feel so numb it hurts.
you feel nothing and it hurts.
9. you are so scared
10. you are so scared
11. you are so scared
12. you are so scared
13. ██████████

From the cabin near the stream I'll witness the atom bomb fall.
I'll wave a hand: "goodbye, trout neighbors." Flip off the bears.
The Cubs are **** and so is deep dish pizza but the trouts,
the neighbors, they've never hurt me, and now we'll flop on
the mushroom cloud grill, and so why shouldn't we say so long?

Have I been forgotten more than I’ve been remembered?
I’m afraid to ask but feel the gentle nudge of my overthinking little demon telling me I need to know. I want to preserve. That is my goal ultimately. Preserve my life, preserve my memories. If only I had done it sooner, maybe I could remember my own Mother’s voice. Maybe I could remember who I am. What I want to be. I am built of choices and principles that I am not entirely sure I agree with, but have I ever been entirely sure about anything? Uncertainty is my main anxiety, uncertainty is my most well established feeling, for there is no doubt in my mind that I am uncertain when I’m uncertain. Or maybe there is. I want to see color on my cheeks, happiness on my lips that shows with every word I say, a body I feel blessed to have no matter my weight. I want to taste happy. I want to taste it in all of its mellow waves of sweet fruit and darting sunsets. I want to taste the Caribbean Sea mixed with sweaty hands and palm trees. I want to be happy. That’s who I want to be. I know there’s no ending that ends with “Well kids, she did it! She found happiness and became nothing but an overflowing beam of light flooding those she loved with warmth and growth and the support she always wished she could give. She found happy.” But if I could just get a taste, a whiff of happiness, maybe that would be enough. Maybe then I could move on and pursue my next dream. Maybe if I caught a glance of happy I would gain the strength to fix our economy. I don’t want happy to be my “The End,” I want happy to be my “Sorry for the technical difficulties, now ladies and gentlemen, on with the show.” I want it to be what gives me the strength to do everything else. Maybe it’s nonsense, only a dream with no bearing to reality. Or maybe I am simply overlooking, overthinking, everything over, look down, look down! Stop being “Over,” things, you are over nothing, you are not the sky nor the clouds in it, you are not the highest branches nor the leaves that remain on it. You are the ground. The very definition of grounded. People walk on you because you let them, it makes you happy. People often see you as *****. You are the ground, which means you are necessary, you are what holds us together, quite literally. You are the ground, and that's makes you beautiful. You’re not intimidated by the footsteps of a thousand warriors for you are under them. And for once, that means you have the advantage. You are the ground. It is short and sweet, so why do you still manage to find misery? You are the ground from which happiness grows. I am happiness. You found me.

Holy rot. I cover the street.
Breaking, breaking.
Loose glass, filling with blood.
Teeth on the pavement.
Teeth in the sky.
I’m sick of these smiles.
Blood flowing laughter.
The body turned inward.
Crossing a river.
What connects me to you?
The hunger. The horror.
The wretched maw of time.

everyone is dying
has died
will die
the greatest predictor of the death sentence is ethnicity
we're been increasing the income gap so our children leave home without shoes or umbrellas or lunches or coats
i hate this world so much i
choke on my worthless privilege
reading research pieces playing
playstation to escape my own existence
i am breaking apart like waves of
radio static on unconscious shores
waiting for the end to sweep the earth into
sand glass broken teeth
the sun's plasma core
*******
**** your cult of everything will be alright
my gender studies tutor was ***** because you stood by
and said the world isn't a fair place
and to get over it
*******
*******
*******
i ******* hate you all

lost ash blurred skin lips emptiness there was something before but it has fled departed in out something important meaningful run into the ground through streams of bitter ache i was a memory caught in its own remembrance straining to be heard now i am nothing returned to the vessel womb death it is six and the heater does nothing air like frost father telling me that the future is positivism there was a staircase surreal void morrow the edge of the world lost between something i could not perceive trapped in the moment flashing with red tumbling seeking losing words sinking through my own flesh to the earth dirt too far from my head to tell grains apart split like atomic what did i want to remember i have spent days losing too much on purpose bed soaked a matted waste of sweat and the hours **** splitting futures like a prism where i find myself a stranger i cannot stand she us a wretched heart on a couch sitting all sudden a boring cliche lips running along salt severed skin fingers head the bone breaks the back arcs itself in an unending whimper a voice escapes and i’m left trying to catch it in the morning teeth the sliver of a smile haunting the air like a phantom fingers trace smoke sunbeams and feel nothing i fell into her like ash the breaking end of a cigarette all cold and irreversible a collapsed worthless wake and now i am alone

last night
dreams of neatly packaged anxiety
neatly parceled into my worst fears
planted themselves, grew their roots during my sleep.

i dreamt of irreparable scarring
a face no one could love
the pity of strangers
grief painted across my face in streaks of angry red
dry skin
red like your mother's old tea kettle
crackling like newsprint on a windy day

when you feel as if you are fighting a losing battle
with your own flesh
there is only so much war to be waged
face defeat.
skin will never be her flawless porcelain
will burn as deeply as your shame.
your teeth slightly crooked
sugarfree gum packed into a hesitant casing
leaning as if trying to escape the only mouth they will ever know

in an age of daylily smiles
women sculpted by their own reassurance
will you ever see my smile beyond all that i am not?

Do you know The Wikipedia Game?
The one where you find a page
from another page. Let’s say
The Beatles from The USA.

This would be tricky,
you’d have to cross the Atlantic.
But they did, so it would
be written. There, you’ve found
it, somewhere hidden. The past,
replayed
in games, virtual roleplays.

Hyperlinks to hypertexts,
DDOS on the hyper hearts.

Do you know The Synonym Game?
I have played for years and it’s always the same.

A news story draped in glitter;
glitter from the mouths that speak
from thousands of glittered boxes.
From the mouths that take time
from the crowds to tell of
the days in an hour.
And to end with the weather.

My parents eating dinner, drinking wine.
Trying to find that time that’s agreeable.
Between the coffee and the calendar lines
crossed out above the fruit bowl.

I shut my eyes at night in ritual
to vacate. Dawn is wise to imposters,
I should sleep for eternity. After all,

the forests are mostly forgiving;
when you’re lost they lead to openings,
subtle, saturated hues.

Openings in the canopies
that camouflage the light with dust.
There is no finer fear than fear of absence;
a life amid explosions, frequent with mistrust.