i was weaving through lit-up boxes
with lollipops as joysticks.
i was following a fairy that left
a trail of violet pixie dust
behind her iridescent wings
and streams of what do you want to play?
i sensed the glare of a drunken owl's eyes
singe into my back as i traced letters
on the surface of a toy chest:
i'm sorry baby, it read,
yet he lowered his gun until it reached
just the tip of his wings
and he fired.
he fired life into the words i wrote,
life that made the words i wrote surround me,
suffocate me.
he was drunk on restless nights,
wanting to
f
  e
    e
      l
         love again.
love, love, lust, love;
does he even know the difference?
suddenly i felt the flat surface
of a blade stroking my back,
teasing me of my death.
are you having fun?

     do you want to know what real fun is like?

his embrace stole innocence from my lungs
and the kisses he planted on my cheeks
burned holes into what was once a rosy pink,
into what was once of joyful skin.

you lost weight, he acknowledged with a smirk,

     *you look amazing.

pour into the blank space
where children laugh in your face,
where wild poppies stumble with grace.
feel your mind rot at a steady pace,
delicate fingers tangled in lace,
petals falling from wounds, without a trace.
run into the sunset's embrace;
do anything to get out of this place.

on a hot summer day of popsicles and cantaloupes
we're on the asphalt playing tag and pushing swings;
my pigtails bouncing from skippers and jump ropes.
i'm wearing suspenders and a bow tie
and you're in a baby blue dress with sunflowers in your hair
and there are gems in the corners of your eyes.
we're walking across balance beams and meeting halfway
but the sound of 80s music blaring
from the windows of my mother's voice is calling me away.
i look into the young sunshine in your eyes that lured me to stay.

on a rainy spring day of dr. seuss books and board games
we're under a blanket fort making shadows and telling secrets
with our minds getting so lost in stories until we forget our names.
i'm clenching my pink teddy bear, in love, yet in fear,
and you've glow sticks and their light in your hands
let's dance and go crazy, you whisper in my ear.
we're singing into hairbrushes and playing dress up
but the sound of the doorbell ringing
from your father's door taunts us, saying we obsess too much
but we don't care.
you kissed me for the first time and i knew without it i'd be messed up.

you led me to a field of baby pink clouds
with fairy lights in your stomach
and sunflowers wrapped around your thighs;
you were radiating like magnesium on fire.
you could drive across the oceans
or fly underground if you wanted.
you held the light in your hands
and your toes tingled with happiness.
we laughed with red velvet poppies,
cried with lavender-scented blades.
i stopped laughing,
stopped crying;
you had stopped laughing too,
but you were still crying.

the sunflowers that kissed your thighs
were beginning to wilt with doubt
and seeped into your skin,
and the fairy lights that shined in your stomach
burned you to death from the inside,
leaving you feeling nothing.

i sang songs of hope into your lungs
in attempt to revive you,
but you had buried yourself six feet underground
and left your friends three feet through.
i didn't give up though.
i refused to give up.
i sang songs of hope
until they became cries for help.
i was so desperate to keep you in one piece
that i had fallen and shattered into millions of pieces,
yet i shoved the shards into my mouth
and kept them under my tongue
while you told me
that you admired how strong and carefree i could be.

the thing is, dear melisa,
it's hard to tell others not to worry,
     when you yourself worry.
it's hard to convince others to live to see another day
     when you don't even know if you can make it out alive.
it's hard to stay standing strong
     when you feel like everyone around you is falling.

i cried for help
for you.
i cried because
i wanted you
to be able
to feel again.

lacy roses reign over my veins
and galaxies govern these bruises.
i am delicate.
yes, i had thorns,
but they fell from your reckless care,
one by one,
and now i am all broken roses
with bruises that never end
like the galaxies beyond our knowledge,
beyond your knowledge.

they don't care.
they'll only care when the lace is ripped.
and the children made of stars
engulf me until i am no more;
only then do they realize
that i am delicate.

i woke up this morning
with cyanide in my eyes,
ghosts between my teeth,
and the devil in my stomach.
i looked at the clock
and it read 16:34.
though i slept for 18 hours
it felt like i hadn't slept in 18 days.
i was trying to get up
but the blankets were wrapped
around my neck,
choking me,
and my pillow
was stifling air from my lungs.
my sheets calmed me down
and told me
that 25 lines of shakespeare
were too much to memorize anyway.

somehow i'm awake when i wish i'm not.
i'm awake when he leaves at midnight
and i'm awake when he returns at two o'clock.
i'm awake to hear him shifting in his bed,
i'm awake when he talks to her.
and i wish it was all in my head.

who is he talking to?
nobody, he says.

wishing i was asleep, i'm awake when he laughs.
and i beat myself up
because i shouldn't be worried about that.

yet i am.
i'm awake
to make
myself bleed to see if i still give a ****.

he promised to tell me everything
but this, he doesn't want me to know.
is he moving on too fast
or am i too slow?

i tucked oversized sweaters under my arm
on my way to nostalgia,
where little boys laughed at you for having your jeans unzipped,
where little girls screamed break-up songs until their voices left them.
i pointed which way was west,
which way north,
but i seemed to be falling
falling
f
  a
     l
       l
         i
           n
              g  south
until some sort of
a t m o s p h e r e
surrounded me,
an atmosphere that offered freedom from the tumor
that formed from within my chest
and i followed it west...
...or was it east?
i was lost in some dystopia
where the one i loved was gone
and the only reason i kept going
was because of her.
she can never replace the one i loved
but she can be pretty **** close sometimes.
her arms were around me once more,
guiding me through the doors that
glowed purple and green,
that would give me supposed liberty.
at the end of the path
was the one i loved,
alive.

silence is a lullaby
this gentle song
pours from our mouths
filling the space
of ethereal love between us.

we stood there in each other's arms,
waiting for the waves to pass,
and though we were both scared of the water,
she grabbed a handful of seaweed
and seashells and starfishes,
weaving them into a crown
made specially for me.
she held it behind my back,
hiding it until the tides lowered.
she saved me from drowning
when i was about to give in.
i will make you believe
you are lovely,
she hummed with the sea breeze.
half of me wanted to take her hand
and walk through the ocean she parted,
yet the other half of me wasn't sure
if i could make her believe that she is too.

we sit over tree trunks
and bury ourselves six feet
under the layers of shadows in our heads.
the lightbulbs in our pupils
once shined so bright
that they've blackened,
but we've had them ******* into our minds
for so long that we're scared
to replace them.

i'm swirling the galaxies in my ***** mug of tea
while i'm watching you wish you could become
as small as the morning pills
that the nurse dropped into your hand.
you're counting the calories of hunger
while i'm sticking fingers down my throat,
and we're wishing we could become so thin
that we could slip into the cracks
of the asphalt beneath our feet.

we're sitting in adjacent beds of flowers
in the middle of the road
and i'm laughing at the way
geraniums form on your tongue
as you savor the accompanying taste
of the honey-covered apples you kept in your pockets.
we sit under mushrooms with calligraphy pens,
ink freckles adorning our knees
and our hair wet with tears from old lovers
who left clouds hanging above our heads.

if you and i can look past the differences
between brownies and spiders,
we can look past the thoughts
of button pins and stomach acid.
together, we will make our own rainbows
out of rose water mist
and the light bulbs we finally replaced.
we will sew stars and heart-shaped leaves
onto bow ties and blankets and basketballs
for the day we play four-square with our little sisters.

are you ready?

the birds outside were getting loud,
so loud that i was willing to feed them
with worms that formed on my skin.
pink, red, brown worms on my thighs -

they can have it.

the leaves have been covered
by the snow and i know
that something is out of line.
i feel like i am yet am not fine.
glad, yes. i am glad that
we've sorted things out and,
between us,
there's nothing to worry about...

...but i have my doubts.
lately i've been falling in and out of love,
feeling like one or the other isn't good enough.
i didn't know if you and i fit,
but you were gone for too long
so i decided to make the most of it.
i'm sorry for the way that i am but
now that you know you love me
i don't know if i can.
you left me in the middle of nowhere,
a place i spent my days in
wondering if you still cared.
in time, snow began to fall
and i felt like i didn't know you at all.
i still love you. i do.
i'm just afraid that i'm beginning
to love other people the same way too.

orange peel smiles stretch from ear to ear
and the sounds of cinnamon laughter
erupt from the stars we hit with baseball bats.
the fireworks emulated the sun for seconds
as i found you in a hammock at the dock
with honeysuckle on your tongue.
you were pointing at the brushstrokes
that kissed the horizon and whispering stories to the river
about the time sugar lured you
to drag thorns across your wrists until they bled red roses.
i carried you away and took you to the fields
of worn-out fences and broken branches,
where white sparks and tootsie rolls
hid behind the bushes with us.
paper umbrellas shielded our faces from the water,
but gave into the fire we fed when it began to fade.
we sat on the edge of a pool of icing and lollipops
and watched the umbrellas burn away with our worries.

we've never been this close to harmonious embraces
but i wish we had sooner.

as the mirror reflects what is standing in front of it,
your body reflects the pain you've been feeling
as you slowly let your skin be destroyed.
the only thing you've eaten in the past four days
is an apple.
95 calories.
you lift your shirt and see your ribcage.
underneath those frail and fragile bones
are patches of raw skin in the shape of countries
that contain sure capitals of your depression.
your cold but sweaty and shaky hands
travel to the rips on your waist.
the fourteen rips and tears on your waist.
they formed there when people started
staring at the forty-seven rips your thighs
and asking if you were okay,
which, by the way,
drives you absolutely insane
because they knew you weren't
but still they laughed in your face and called you weird and said you were just acting and it was all in your head. in your silly, pretty head. the silly, pretty head you wanted dead. the silly, pretty, dead head you felt like ripping every strand of hair from and gouging each eye out from and-

as the mirror reflects what is standing in front of it,
your body reflects the pain you've been feeling
as you slowly let your skin,
and your sanity,
be destroyed.

you are beautiful in the light of the woods.
i want to get to know you, but i don't know
if i should, but as i got closer, your
warmth drew me in and i was
filled
with a rather
tingling
sensation,
and i figured it was okay to keep you
in my imagination.
but as i reached for you,
that same tingling sensation felt
different.
your warmth became so hot
that it burnt my fingertips.
and that's how i learned what pain was.
i let myself get so close to you
until i forgot what boundaries were,
and you,
you never warned me.
if only i'd known how
dangerous this love could be,
maybe we could've avoided
whatever happened between you and me.

carnations drip from between her teeth.
black velvet adorns her rose petal skin,
gazing at her tortoiseshell dreams.
stars bloom from the dip of her collarbone
as silk knots wedge themselves between the holes in her earlobes.
she's got a mind of marble and a spirit of stone.
flowers and haikus echo throughout her soul.
her hair is filled with lavender dust,
her fingertips covered in charcoal.
when you hold your breath and dim your fairy lights,
she dances in the dark after 11 pm
in the cosmic alleyways of a saturated twilight.

my sister fixes me when i shatter,
and i hear angels seep
from the gleam of her laughter.
a contagious joy overflows
from her sock monkey mug
as her citrus bubbles pop
and the scent of mandarins fill my lungs.
when my mind is lost in space, she shakes me and calls my name
but through the hardships i've given her, she still loves me the same.
my sister takes my hand as we jump off swings
into pools of elysian dimensions
and streams of dopamine rush through my veins as she sings.
screams of our relief lay halfway through the woods
as i told her all the things i couldn't do,
and though she understood,
killed my poisonous doubts and showed me i could.
my sister lifts me and carries me through my tragedies,
putting me at ease as she jokes in dreams and rhapsodies.
i know that if my world were to fall,
my sister would come running to my little haven in the bathroom stall
and bring me to the comfort of the rainbows on her wall.
calm the midnight ivy pandemonium
and listen to the silence that follows
her melodies behind the cherrywood podium.
should i ever feel useless, or hopeless, or little,
leave me in the middle
of her cherry blossom giggles.
my sister shields me, and when i break, loves me in restitution;
should anyone mess with her
would be the start of a revolution.

we twirl batons beneath a patchwork canopy,
whisper goat noises into the depths of the sea,
ceasing our ocean tears with tea and poetry.
two hawaiian sisters living in a playful paradise,
reciting shakespeare and telling stories of kubla khan,
singing in the rain and drawing anime eyes.
we hide under window trees with branches like limbs,
cut our luminescent hair with blades of grass
only to fall in love with a horse prince.
we admire axolotls and jump with jellyfish,
our constellations colliding with a cappella chimes
as we laugh in harmony at makeshift mops and pretzel sticks.
we sleep in a bed of letters and fake lovers
under blankets of satisfaction, opera masks covering our faces
as we share warm embraces like that of a daughter and her mother.
we seek light in the darkness of japanese lamentations
while neptune's recovery leaves us knee-deep in great sensations.

we were young lights in the universe when we first collided,
but now we are celestial atoms that can't be divided.

silk flows from the left side of the mountain
as we walk along the shore with our fingers intertwined.
there are carnations growing from the slits in your wrists
and daisies dripping from the dagger you found in the clouds.
flashes of loneliness fill the decaying spaces,
alluring you to stab your vertebrae
and leave with tomorrow's sunrise in your pocket.
ocean waves crash into all four corners of the darkness  
that sang lullabies into your iridescent lungs.
the berceuses grow shards of glass under your skin
that you use to shave your cotton candy hair
and watch the sky fall with it.
you're laughing with the wind
at your shattered bones and imploded organs,
daisy-dagger in hand.
yellow paint spills from your lips
as you play with turtle shells and shark heads
that haunt my mind for centuries.
you whisper to the hollow valleys as
your summer laughs turn into winter cries.

i want to fix you.
for you i will carve the tumor out of your chest
with the same shards of glass you used to cut your tangled locks.
i will shelter you in a makeshift umbrella of my body
if it meant the toxic rain wouldn't seep into your veins.
for you i will gather the stars in your hourglass of worries and regrets
so there will be nothing but light after the darkest of times pass.

there are carnations growing from the slits in your wrists
and we're walking along the shore with our fingers intertwined
as silk flows from the left side of the mountain.

now or never
pull the lever
fall on the concrete
keep it discrete
watch me panic
think i'm a manic
not okay
wanna run away
can't escape
wrapped in tape
rip my skin
needles and pins
gouge my eyes out
a mouth that can't shout
pierce my side
drown me in cyanide
let me feel pain
i'm insane

not like you
what did you do
what happened to the girl i knew

i have loved you from afar for years.
i never dared to get near for the fear
of making you scared.

now the leaves are set
to fall and
we prepare to say goodbye to yet
another set
of girls that we both have loved and
i'm not sure if i should love you from afar
or up close,
because right now you're comatose
and i don't know what i'm supposed
to do so that you can learn to cope.

even if you push me away,
i want you to know that i will stay
for as long as you want me to.
though it is not today,
nor tomorrow,
nor real soon,
i will continue to love you from afar
until you love yourself too.

they see my skin
and notice the red cracks,
but they don't know
that i've been through hell
and back.

will you pull the trigger?

SHE* used to be innocent and young and pure
but SHE had no idea about the pain SHE would endure.
ten years in the same school, pre-k to eighth
SHE was the teacher's pet, popular, and always got straight a's.
SHE was the eldest daughter of a family of five,
never dared to touch fire or stroke the blade of a knife.
everything was perfect, or so SHE thought,
but seventh grade was when SHE became distraught.
boys chased after her and dared each other to ask her out,
but between impatient teachers and drama queens, SHE couldn't tell what any of it was about.
SHE was caught up in drama that trapped her in a dome
but the real trouble was going on at home.
her father worked alone, and finances made him stressed
but her mother stayed home, not knowing of the tumor in her chest.
SHE begged her mother to see someone, even though SHE knew
that her mother would keep holding it off and saying, "soon".
in eighth grade, SHE was distracted by high school and her future life,
as was her father, though he should've paid more attention to his wife.
after her mother's birthday, SHE received news
that the tumor in the woman that raised her grew.
SHE felt heartbroken, an invisible pain in her chest,
but SHE didn't think SHE could possibly hurt more than her mother's breast.
months passed by, SHE was still looking for schools,
unaware of the fact that her dreams were to be overruled.
SHE aimed high, dreamed to board in new york,
but better opportunities knocked at her door.
more months passed, and SHE got a grip on the rope,
and her mother's cancer was removed, giving the family hope.
now SHE lives in a place SHE feels that SHE belongs
with friends that feel like family, that made her strong.

all was well, SHE had faith within her
until the night of thanksgiving dinner.
her mother was to drive, but was in so much pain, her mother cried,
and when SHE asked if her mother was okay, the only response SHE got was "i'm fine".
her mother did her best to swallow the pain
until SHE and her father brought her to the doctor again.
exactly a year after her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer,
SHE thought it would be over, but SHE received an opposing answer.
another tumor was developing from an escaped single cell
now in her mother's liver, and SHE felt her life turning to hell

again.

and while wondering where SHE should've been, ran into the embrace
of a woman (SHE considered her big sister)
who gave her the love SHE needed, and SHE felt safe

until her mother died eleven days later.

SHE'd never felt pain any greater.
SHE'll never forget seeing her mother in that **** hospital bed,
hoping it was all just a big, bad nightmare, and her mother wasn't actually dead.

SHE wanted a distraction, craved laughter and pleasure
but SHE was being followed around by her drunken uncle, and that scared her.
SHE tried to ignore him and her camera in his hand
tried walking away, thinking it was a simple thing SHE could withstand.
SHE fought back tears whenever he touched her and called her baby;
SHE couldn't see, couldn't run, couldn't scream, because everything felt hazy.

weeks passed, SHE returned to school and felt like SHE was getting better
with the help of her friends and her mother's sweater.
but even when in the focus of her friends and in the arms of her big sister,
SHE always thought about her mother, SHE obviously missed her.
SHE became scared for her family, future, and her sexuality
and these worries slowly killed her and messed with her mentality.
within that time, SHE fell in love,
something SHE felt deprived of.
time with the girl SHE loved felt rushed and abrupt
and SHE starting thinking SHE wasn't good enough.
SHE overthought whatever came to mind,
leading to an anxiety that cried her eyes dry.
now SHE lives in fear of worries sneaking up behind her back;
now SHE waits for the next attack.

SHE had her life flipped upside down,
SHE had smiles that turned into frowns.
SHE feels like her world is out of control.
SHE feels her life slowly stolen from her soul.

her smiles brought enough joy to make the sun rise;
her hair was the night sky with occasional caramel streaks
and there were endless fields of sunflowers in her eyes.
her voice was liquid silk that filled the doubtful abyss,
but should you anger her would start a storm, yet still,
at the end of the day,
she'll come into your room to tuck you in and give you a good night kiss.

the wind laughed with us as we made silly faces
at the ghosts under my bed and the monsters in my closet,
she pulled them out and filled herself into the empty spaces.
the ocean waves sang symphonies as we ostensibly
walked along trails of light and picked apples in the midnight city.
the snow whispered as we taught ourselves ballet,
we splashed into puddles of pearls as if we were mermaids;
we were our own superheroes that saved the day.
the leaves on the trees fluttered as we cut up sundresses and skirts
for my glowing red bear and princess barbie dolls
that danced in the rain and rolled around in the dirt.
the ladybugs cheered as we watched movies under a blanket of stars,
we ate cake and giggled on a bed of light in the dark,
and before she left for the night,
she slipped a handful of quarters into my hand and tucked her orchids into my arm.

there came a time when her headlights faded;
her own ghosts and monsters took over and left her jaded.
i couldn't tell, between the hospital gowns and jackson-pratt drains,
if she would get better, because remembering her pain
could possibly be my only memories of her that really remain.
the monsters carried her away, their stomps leaving the world,
my world, tilted;
and as i stumbled, i awakened a once-placid cumulonimbus.
the rain seeped through my umbrella and her orchids wilted.

the monsters felt sorry and took her to a kingdom of golden clouds.
they gave her wings and breathed harp strums into her lungs
and her breast
and her liver
and she suddenly emulated the sun and that made the monsters proud.
from the kingdom above, she looks down on my father and my two little brothers.

and though it feels like was all just a dream,
the woman that loved me the most was my mother.

hear the chime
of the cold constellations
that guide you
at 2:56 in the morning.
taste the worries of tomorrow
overflowing from your mug,
spilling onto your lap
of glitching faces,
distorting your body
into millions of pixels.
touch the signals
from the suicidal satellites
dictating your amygdala
in a requiem
of the winter dawn.

you lay
in a bed of clouds
under blankets
of anxious thoughts.
blue volcanoes
spew out violet insults
telling you
that you won't make it
past the milky way,
so you burn your fingertips
trying to reach for the sun
in hopes
that it will prove those indigo offenses wrong.
third-degree burns
**** your senses
and leave you
feeling nothing.
seeing nothing.
being nothing.
you look up to the sky,
eyes dripping with desperation,
only to find
that the man in the moon
left you
for another life.

and
suddenly,
at 2:57 in the morning,
you realize
that orion doesn't seem so bright to you anymore.

the spotlights come up
and the crowd cheers
you put a smile on,
stifle back the tears.

gotta hide yourself,
become someone new.
entertain the crowd
'cause they're judging you.

go with the script,
don't improvise.
do what you're told,
or they'll criticize.

don't falter, not at all;
don't be yourself until the curtain call.

break a leg,
the show must go on.

heart rate at 23 beats per minute.
people pacing, patients fading,
and i take my sweet time, not grieving in it.

called to cut, scalpel in hand;
sliding through their skin
at my own command.

mindless and ignoring
the moans and groans
between the man’s snoring
and the chill in his bones.
and as i intervened within his dreams
there came a scream from he
and a thrill within my bloodstream.

“pain”.
pain is an illusion.
an illusional delusion.
i’ve heard complaints
of pain from punches
but i tell you,
these pleas for ease
are false yet i
answer to them to appease.

you must not be so quick to judge
my sanity or insanity
or lack of grievances for calamities.
i swear to you,
i am not ill,
nor do i crave to ****,
and though you’d think that
from the way i behave,
it is not com-plex,
not con-vex nor con-cave.
my sole purpose,
i believe so,
is to serve others
by easing their “pain”.
do not underestimate me,
nor the amount
of lives i’ve “saved”.

i am telling you
of a true story
from the perspective of myself
ten years time ago.
this was when i,
for once,
had a twinkle in my eye.

i run the midnight shift
and spend most of my free time
with the patient in room 46.
i lay in bed beside him
and together we dream.
with our hands intertwined,
we dream that the stars align,
and i wish for patient 46 to be fine.

as i fill patient 46’s lungs with air,
he fills mine with a kind of
sensation no one could ever replace
and though i will never be able to
accurately describe it,
i wish the feeling will never go away.

rapid response team.
running.
i’m running,
reaching for my dream.
patient 46 is running (out of time),
reaching for the heaven’s gleam.
51 beats…28…9…flatline.

patient 46 dead on january 23 at 23:59.

“pain”
pain is an illusion,
an illusional delusion.
i’ve heard complaints
of pain from punches
but i tell you,
these pleas for ease
are nothing
compared to love’s disease.