Sometimes we have dinner together.

All she can do is talktalktalk about food and her family’s obsession with food and how much she loves pizzaicecreambeefchocolatepastadonutscheese while she stares at her plate as her fork twirls the spaghetti around and around and around until it’s only particles, only dust, and somehow there will be a little less there than there was before but she'll be saying something about how it's notasgood as back home, back home where she must eat fifty meals a day with all the food she’s tried.

She isn’t fooling anyone and she knows it, but it doesn’t matter because it's the pretending that keeps her alive.

I wonder sometimes, where to go
what to do.

A slender spirit may oft appear
his teeth as yet crooked
the eyes a piercing blue.

He never smiles, only seethes
and asks but a simple question:
why must he stay still?

His arms are long and wicked
but a touch, and I am frozen
with thoughts of all before.

Across his palms lies "HERE THERE BE MONSTERS"
his fingertips, each a word:
Suffering, Ridicule, Betrayal, Loneliness and Decay
such lovely friends I've made.

All memories, my knowledge
the better senses bid me leave.

Still I wonder where to go.

I never held his hand, in truth.
I never felt his eyes on mine, I confess.
I never walked beside, nor brushed past

nor fell with

nor kissed

nor hurt because

I only love, as I have ever loved.

5:48 you saw me
crawling on a bed
moving with these creatures
desperate to be fed

I am the beginning of my own end
I know.

I am afraid.

I am afraid of who I was
who I am
where I go
with these hands, these hands
your hands.

Just let me go.

But you grasp these fingers tight
and keep me still.
You taste these chapped lips
and give them sustenance.
You betray me, break me, slay me
all to save me.

And I know, somehow.

You are the beginning and the end of me
and it's a dangerous road.

Don’t let me go

I’m almost there.

I don’t want to sit here anymore.

I'm done.
I won't come back.
There’s no one to wait for.
Call his name—
I dare you.

See?

Let me go.
Wash those hands clean.
And twenty years hence, take my place.

And if he comes—
if he dares—
swallow your pride
and smile.

Wait 'til the last breath.

Just.

Overcome the angel
and wonder.

Don't.
There's a word for you, a word I like, a word you treasure.

*****.

A five-letter fantasy of brute force,
a word too appropriate for a girl like you.

You say it's for the laughs
a "term of endearment"
only true affection could contradict.
Yet with it, you can shut me down
convince the world I'm wrong
spin the story as you like—
all with a smile on your face.

Naturally, I do the same
with a tone that seems sarcastic
the word itself less frequent.

I like its flavor
so effortless.

We think ourselves clever
hearing others call us "cute"
but of neither term are we deserving.

We're still ******.

For neither of us is beautiful,
neither of us could hold the weight of the world,
and neither of us is worth ****.


At least I admit it.

He doesn’t understand that everything I take from him is a story, every word floating through the air, another line. He doesn’t know that my open mouth is the pen, my rolling eyes, the style. It doesn’t occur to him that he doesn’t know a thing about what his daughter might be thinking, because if he did, he would know what kind of novel she writes.

She is hardly a professional. She cannot fully comprehend metaphor, symbolism, allegory. For her, it becomes like another soul's voice, a trembling thing filled with a measure of ambiguity and a touch of wisdom, but still distant, still muddled. A lovely concept existing solely for the purpose of distraction.

No, for her, poetry must make sense from the beginning; it must make sense to everyone. If it doesn’t, then it is only words, a mishmash of thought and action made to look attractive. It is simple: if she hears a work is bad, it is bad, if she thinks a thought is stupid, the thought is stupid. Her reality is the true reality, thus, words are only a reality if they are hers.

So she writes underneath Bohemian pillows for now. The papers crumple in her hand at the slightest creak, lest the scrawling letters find her out.