I remember when we were
sickly brains and visible bones
and there was something so romantic
in dying.
The night you told me I was beautiful
and I laughed.
And I laughed.
And I laughed, because
who knew those words would mean so much
until you left me.
We would watch the clouds and talk about
how they were meant to be on the ground
but they
hung
themselves instead.
You joked that you were jealous, and you’d be a cloud one day.
If i’m honest, i didn’t really understand what you meant
i didn’t really know, and i still don’t know but
i do know
that when i look at the clouds
all i see
is
you
.

i swear to god if i write one more ****
love poem
i am going to lose it

i was nine years old
when my body decided it could no longer
follow the marbled features of inspirations before myself
my slender, sculpted legs gave rise to thick
thighs
resisted against me
exposed me
and by then i thought
i would never
walk on the runways in high rise new york city buildings
bright city lights to highlight my flaws
my hips just as expansive as the judgment
they give way to scrutiny--

i pity the paintings trapped inside the louvre
i too despise the cold gaze of unwanted audiences
who complain of travel
who complain of coming such a long way
for a disappointment.

i.

some nights i feel powerful
like i have the energy
to entertain crowds of the strangers i live with
who get drunk off cheap alcohol in my living room.
empty plastic cups turned over, sticky red wine
carelessly splashed across linoleum tiles
kind of like how it feels when you get your heart broken
the sort of mess you are left to clean up alone.

ii.

the drunken stumbling, praying to make it to the bathroom in time
nobody notices the spilled wine until the morning
the frantic scrubbing so the ants wandering are not forced
to pull off their limbs
waiting for someone to save them.

my dark undereye circles are hard to cover now
they are from sleepless nights spent
smoking in the backyard and listening to too much sad music
i’m tired of writing poems for you
in 2 days it will be a year since you left
you didn’t write me
you didn’t have to.


a month ago i was afraid of monsters in the dark
from the night i sat up with him and we watched horror movies
i thought of you then, too
not in the way he held me but in the way he left
we were supposed to see each other again
he stood me up


typical.



i shouldn’t look for parts of you in everything i do
but i woke up at the crack of dawn today
little sleep and weary
i snuck out to dance in the rain
these clothes cling to my frame
i wonder if you know what i look like
now


i see my doctor today
i haven’t seen her in years because she only took patients that were
sick enough
and when i gained forty pounds after the ****
she told me i could be discharged
my eating had never been worse
or lack of it


i run my fingers over my collarbones
i need to make sure they didn’t leave
i miss you and the way you made me feel beautiful
without body checks.
i want to get more tattoos
cover the parts of myself i don’t like
my thighs
my arms
my undereye circles

acquaintanceship is hard when
the two of us have more faces
that spit fire from tongues silenced too long
twos company
fours a crowd
the night we met you called me a
gemini *****
i entangled those words in my mind
funny that
that was the night i wanted to hang myself
i'm not that bad anymore but it reminds me that
i long for people who damage me
a "build me up to tear me down" deal
lies
the secrets i've spilled to you on drunken nights
are used as icepicks in the cold dwelling that is my soul
i know you have it too
you told me about the things that haunt you
.

you don't ask me how i am anymore
today i walked out of your room and you didn't look up when i left
and yet you're happy enough to parade me around
a travelling circus
a freak show
until the clock you wear on your wrist beeps
and suddenly,
i'm not convenient
.


i know you're at war with yourself too
i've been enlisted in my own militia for as long as i could talk
i have scars on my body from all the times the soldiers in my head
decided i needed a reminder of what they're fighting
.

why don't you ask about me?
i bend backwards for you until my spine snaps
but you tell me it's only a fracture
.

i drove over the bridge today and i felt above it all
high
and i think of you
you know i am afraid of heights
and driving over the bridge helps me
feel temporary
like loving you--
one wrong reflex after another.
i'm driving high and i feel you there
somewhere
sometimes my body tingles
and i wonder if you're thinking of me then
the places you touched
my body is a wasteland
nuclear test sites scattered across my skin
reminds me i am made for just that
destruction
you're moving to west virginia
i wanted to beg you to be careful
take care of yourself
love yourself like your mother should have
but didn't
i loved you enough for the both of us
i think of you too often
and too much is never enough
but that was always the case
wasn't it?

a house is not always a home
i learned that too early
too young to know what family was
because i never
had one
passed from family to family like some kind of disease
and that's when the disease
became
me
i'm sick again
it had been years since my last treatment
in and out of hospitals like a child going to school
i tell people i'm afraid of needles
and they think it's because i've seen what they do to my brother
but it's what they do to me
that makes my heart jump into my throat
and i can't
breathe
is what my nurse tells me
"maybe you won't faint this time"
i want to tell her that i'm scared
but then my terrible mind stops me
"there are people out there with worse problems"
my mind yells at me
just like my father does when he's had enough to drink
but the difference is
at least i
want
to put my hands on my mind
and choke it senseless
tell it to shut up
tell it to go away
go away
it's a problem
"she's a problem" is what my mother says
i've been in therapy since i was four
and my mother says it's because i had
adoption issues
as a child
little does she know
that the adoption issues didn't go away
i'm still four
million years away
from being okay with myself
as i sit here writing this
my parents are at a dinner party
and i am at my own party
with abandonment issues, depression and anxiety as my guests
they throw open the door to my house
not home
and make a mess of me
shamelessly
they tell me things i don't care to hear
my doctors say it's paranoia
schizophrenia, perhaps
i don't listen
i'm good at that
my therapist says i don't listen to things i don't believe
so maybe that's why i haven't heard my parents say
i love you
in years
or maybe it's because they haven't cared enough
to say it.

And oh, darling,
I am thankful because
I have such small hands
which can grab the pen and paper I need
to write down my untidy thoughts, like
the disarray my sheets lay in
because I didn't have the energy to make my bed this morning;
the depression comes in waves
which crash over my head and drag me down
and when I open my eyes again
I remember that I saw you in my sleep
Oh, lover, I saw you in my sleep.

Today I fainted
and the last thing I saw before I blacked out
was you.
And when they asked me how I passed out
I said it's because I have anemia
and sometimes I get too tired to function
and my body shuts down on me.
But what I didn't tell them is since you left,
it feels like my heart has been ripped from my chest
and sometimes it gets too hard to breathe.