Big headphones to block out the world
And music
Turned up loud
Dark sunglasses to hide my face
And all the lights
Turned out
And if I don't let them all see me
Can I keep
This brokenness
From breaking out?

Kilometers away, I watch
you struggle with your panic and I
grapple with my ever-growing
sense of inadequacy, dearest
your control is slipping and I
want so much to be able even
to offer you a hand to hold or
better yet, a hand to grab and
pull you out but I know
that is not my role in this, are
we living a tragedy or divine
comedy? At these hours I
was never able to tell. Dearest, you
were never darling, because somehow
that name was too common
for you. Oh, love, watch, I
am the bull in the china shop that is
your fragility and I am breaking
things I never fathomed the existence of and
crunching underhoof the shards of things you
will never let me see. Kilometers
away, I wish
there was something, anything
I could do, but as the stars wink out
there is nothing twinkling left
for me to hang my foolish hopes on.

You got ready
for battle and you
fit yourself into
your armor and then
just in case someone
should try and sneak up
or get any closer
to you you welded
the sharpest spikes
you could find
to every inch, fancying yourself
a porcupine without the fragility,
no soft underbelly.
And I will brave
these daggers and come
forwards, into
your painful embrace
because all you ever
had to do was ask
and I
will
follow.

Real people
could not have stood
inside these walls, four
to half a square meter.
Real people
could not have lived
inside these walls, four
breathing in unison.
Real people
could not have been
but how could real people
have done this.

Let me tell you
about that room.
That room
is not a passage, that rom
is a dead end, that room
will lead you nowhere.
And in that room
your breath will catch
and your stomach will tremble
and your head will swim
and your heart will beat out rhythms
of fear, until you feel
they must have taken your soule
while you stood in wonder, and hidden it
under the thousands of shoes
that are heaped on your sides.

When I am
tired or
sad or
hurt or
drunk my
thoughts start
to appear in
my head with
line-breaks.
Strange for
someone who
never thought
she could
write.

I can't stop thinking about him. I'm on a plane, 9,682 meters above the world, literally thousands of kilometers away from him, and I can't stop thinking about him. the funny noises he makes, and the way he hugs me tighter like he isn't going to let go, and the way when he sleeps, he pulls his hood over his eyes so the whole world is kept at bay. "*******," he said, waking up in the middle of the night. the melatonin stopped working because "my brain was like ******* and I woke up." "mm. why did it do that?" "cause you're here."
I miss the way he sticks his tongue out and his laugh and the way he says he's doing fantastic like it's his favorite word. I miss his hair and his tiny kisses and his nose and mouth against the back of my ear and his chest, so soft it should be a sin and that curve above his left shoulder, where I fit perfectly, he puts his arms around me and I feel like that's it, I'm home.
the others, see, the others were fire. they were exciting and a little dangerous and always a risk. a small flirtation with tiny deaths, a dance to draw in and push out, keeping me always on my guard and dancing, dancing. I came out of those bruised and exhilarated, high on something drugs can't buy, exhausted and hungering. they kept me red.
and he
he is my blue self. he's earth, a blanket, a warm bed. safe whimsy, when I've danced over the line to danger so often, a place to rest on the sidelines. instead of a burning fascination, he's a sudden, knowing wish.
I never saw those working out. when your fascination is fulfilled, where do you go? they were nice possibilities that got me through tough realities, but fire dies down and every dancer must tire. I can imagine it, though, this future, and I'm so much more cliché than I ever thought because oh man
I'm terrified
see, I'd only ever thought about him in passing, before two days ago. what if, my mind whispered. when I told him I'm not good enough for these things, I was softening my thoughts, the ones that always came after. I'm not- I can't stop thinking this, can't stop it from saddening me because I know- good enough for you. but I don't tell him this because he would tell me I'm wrong. no, he would say, this proves that you are. I almost said it, I whispered the softer version into his neck that night, half happier than I'd been in so long and half so heavy I was surprised I didn't sink through the beanbag into the floor, anchored in his arms. he wants me, and I? I want him and know he deserves more, deserves better and I'm having such a hard time convincing myself not to be selfish and go for it, grab his hand and run so far away there is no one else. or better yet, wrap myself in a fortress made of his arms and let him hold me to sleep.
how did I get into this? how did I let this happen? how did I not know, not notice I love (****. ****. what have I done?) love him until only two days ago?
those three hours between when I realized and when he told me he wants it, too, were the hardest thing I've done in so long. exquisite pain, lying there next to him, terrified out of my mind of loving yet another friend to ruin. I'm still scared.
but god, I would give so much, up here on this airplane, I would give up hours and days, I would give up minutes and memories, I would give up wokenness and sleep, again, just to be back in his arms.

I'm leaving my heater on
tonight and it's all your
fault, see, cause
I haven't adjusted to how cold it is
without you here and I
keep shivering. You're
a better heater than
this machine. I need
the noise, too, the whirr
and hum, because it's
raining and I can't stand
the rain outside my window without
thinking about you. "*******
listen" you would whisper
and fling open the window
and pause the movie
and kiss me and I want
that again I want
you again I want
you to be back I don't
want this empty bed or
whirring heater, neither
give off as much warmth or
make as nice noises
as when you kiss me.

(this poem might be
pointless but I guess
what I'm trying to say is
thank you)

Eventually, I think I'll become just
A pair of eyes. I won't judge and
I can't speak, all the words I might
Have used are being erased. This
Simple act of seeing and remaining
Mute, may dictate I be
Permanently so.

You are treading dangerous waters, and I
have been entrusted with your
care. Though I wish to be only
impassive bystander, I must guide you
through this new enviroment, ******
upon you so quickly and without
any warning. Though I wish to harbor
only sympathy towards you, a single look
in your direction renders me completely
empathetic, until I can feel the waves closing
over my own head, remembering vividly
my own drowning, so far away and so long ago.

You have pulled me through the breaking
point so many times. When I thought
I could not continue on, you would
**** or carry or pull or push me until
I would stand again. And now
we keep walking onwards. But I think we
have forgotten- until you
are utterly shattered, you cannot start
fitting pieces back together. We
are walking on uneven ground, and you
have made your life on ice floes, shifting
as they do. But I cannot be you. I
am gingerly stepping across the cracked ice
you leave in your wake, looking
for the balance you have stolen. I am inching
out along the branch you have broken, grasping
at every small leaf. I am trying
to stay with you until our components fit
once more, like a puzzle just waiting
for the one who can see whole picture.
I don't remember when I stopped believing
such a one exists. I have swallowed
our shards for so long and covered up
the broken parts and I
can wait for the solution no longer. You
have pushed me to the breaking point this time, and I
will soon stop trying to fit
everything back together.

You're gonna tell me
you miss me
and when I don't answer, hope
I didn't get the message
I didn't check my phone
anything, anything but the truth.

You're gonna tell me
you miss me
and when I don't answer, maybe
understand why, but more likely
wonder what's happening
after all, we worked out our problems
right?

You're gonna tell me
you miss me
and when I don't answer, know
(even though you won't relize)
exactly how I felt every single time
I tried to tell you
I love(d) you.
Remember?

Jagged little pill
smooth little pill
soft little pill-
           fill my head with cotton
                 but make everything clearer.

Square little pill
round little pill
oval little pill-
           paint the world in shades of binary
                 a collection of dualities
                       a simplification of choices.

White little pill
brown little pill
orange little pill-
           fuel the fire inside my belly
                 but exhaust me
                       take away my hunger for life
                             outside of the lines you have drawn.

Nexium
Jarro-Dophilus
Aderall-
           of all the little pills every morning
                 the ones the doctors prescribe and question
                       the ones I am never sure if I can feel
                             the ones whose effects are dubious and enigmatic
                                   you are the most quantifiable, and the only one
                                         with whom my relationship is Daedalean.

You were my sweetest downfall-
I loved you most
I loved you more
than I ever should have.
The taste of you;
honey-sweet in my mouth
heady on my tongue
left me giddy and floating.
And when my senses returned
to be only my own,
the absence of you
which I had known, intimately, and forgotten
was suddenly bitter, though tinged-
the saccharine aftertaste
of a sweetness lost.
And now you try, but you
cannot part my lips
the way I thirsted for
everything you were- for
you are different, love, your sweetness
is now contaminated, though
you are here, you taste bitter,
the taste of your absence and my tears.
I lay myself before you, before
everything you were, before
you arose and walked away, before
my walls rose to protect me.
I tried to bring them down, before
I realized I now have need of them.
You were my sweetest downfall-
I loved you most, and now
I have to go.
I have to go.

There's always this stage, later on
after you have realized that you
actually can live without
this person, though it is a continuing
source of pain. At this point, everything
you were so scared of saying
for those long many months, somehow
has been said. You both know
how much you mean together, how
your conversations will go, what
the subtext clearly says, though not
said clearly. I know you miss
me, just as much as I continuously
miss you. After some point, I will know
you love me just as much as I
will try to show you how much I love
you, though I didn't believe it before and
I couldn't tell you so for old fears.
At this point, the wound of you
not being here will start to scab
over. The very essence of your unbeing
in my presence will dictate that you
cannot heal me, that I must live
with this pain and your vacancy. I will not
tell you I miss you, taking a knife
to my healing holes. Against my will,
I am pulling back. After the thrill
of "I miss you" has worn off, it only
brings pain with every utterance. I miss
you, I miss you I miss you I
miss you, and you are missing so profoundly
the very air around me sings
of your absence, whistling through emptinesses
that echo the ones inside. But sometimes
I would rather not remember
that you are missing.

They say He
is in the stillness. The calm
after the storm, the quiet
before the noise, any tiny
moments of rest scattered
throughout the day. Maybe He
is even here, right now
residing in the cool cessation,
calm silence, living where
no words will thrive, the deafening noiselessness
pressing down on me- maybe
I should be comforted that
in the absence of you, He
has come to fill the spaces
our words have left behind. Darling,
I must apologize yet again
for my consistent inability to perceive
the divine. Please, understand
when I try and tell you, here,
I see only emptiness.

The screams coming from
downstairs are shredding my ears
and stealing my sleep.

Today is so beautiful.
Today is so beautiful in the forest.
Today is so beautiful in the forest with the blue sky and the golden leaves.
Today is so beautiful in the forest with the blue sky and the golden leaves and the ten thousand buried in mass graves.
How.

The saddest part
is on the last days, when
you realize that your words
don’t come as easily, don’t flow
from you like pain, as
they did earlier. When you realize
you’ve seen so much
you’ve used up your quota
of surprise.

There is a smell here, insidious
enough to almost be insipid, but not
quite, from where I stand inside
this sterile room. The smell
is sticking to the hairs
in my nostrils, coating the membranes
of my lungs, until my air glides
unnaturally inandout in the manner
of a poison, seeping
in to all your systems, that you
won't notice until
You crash.

Darling,
this is how entropy increases. It's not in the loudness or the noise, it's not in the moments after when we're all shell-shocked and confused, no, because this world will not end in a bang. Entropy increases is such a fundamental concept, and yet
I had hoped and prayed and begged and bargained and pleaded and screamed and whispered and
until the air ran out of my lungs and my only words left were
not here not here not here not
here, darling, this, is how entropy increases. When I am too tired and you, you are too busy. We will not fall apart in glory, love, we will not burn out, this thing we call we will just
fade
away, until all that is left is the faintest glimmer of stardust coating my cheeks and clinging to what once was wet. We are drifting, heart, softly
and the space between where our gazes fall short is the void
that swallows our words. This
that you are reading is the only thing I have managed to rescue, fish out, drag through layers of fear and hesitence and doubt by sheer need to tell you something. You know, we are
celestial beings, stars, constellations, but even the glorious fades and only leaves behind the faintest of imprints on my eyelids, so I think I can almost just remember you but not quite because entropy has turned my memory
a rabbit-warren of twisting confusion and holey nostalgia oh love I'm sorry this
was never the plan you
were the sun and I was a star and we will not go out with a bang, darling, with the milky-way of our star-brains smeared across the space-wall we were not destined for such things
we were not destined for anything
maybe that is why the only thing
is to go out not with a bang, but my whimper.

I miss you the way
          that the sea, who tries
          so hard to stay, misses
          the shore, even though she knows
          it's impossible and even though
          she knows they will meet again
          soon, she tries to rage against
          the tyranny of the moon.
And some days I
          miss you the way the moon
          inevitably pines for the sun. Although
          they will never meet, she waits until
          the sun's warm rays will touch
          her face and she can pretend
          she gives off her own light
          while she glows. And even
          so, half of her life
          she cannot see the sun
          for the earth.
But most days I just miss you
          the way the earth longs
          for the stars. They are so
          far off and they glitter seemingly
          so impossibly. Like the earth I
          cannot come to you and
          like the stars, you
          are so far away and
          so beautiful, but
          you are
          so cold.

The Tartars thought that a neat
clean hole in your head
would let in the gods
and you could hear their whispers.
A neat
clean hole
in your skull.
An honor for those worthy.
But what if
a hole
is to let things out?
To let out the pressure
to let out the whispers
to let out the shouting
and the voices of your inadequacy
ever-present.
When your thoughts are too expensive
to ever want to keep
could a neat
clean hole
let them go?
A hole in my head
and a hole in my heart
to let out the pain
to let out the love
to let out the heaviness
and the lack of hope.
But I cannot drill holes in my chest
or my head
So I punch holes in my skin
Until pain bleeds out like water
through the tiniest crack in the ****.

The space between us is congested
with all of our unspoken words. I
breathe them in, feel the way
they cut down my throat as I swallow
my thoughts, choking silently. They explode
inside my chest, forcing
their way through my ribcage, shattering
the very framework of my body, until
shards of my own bones embed
themselves in my heart. They burn
inside my stomach, fueling
the automaton I have become, making my
movements strong, jagged, hasty, making
my smile too loud, my laughter
too jarring. Can you
feel them, too, or is this just
what you call air?

What they don't tell you is that
the first time you punch that hole
in your soft, unresisting ivory skin,
waiting like a ****** stretch of snow
(whether it's your blade
or nails
maybe teeth or keys)
you're not letting your pain out so much
as you're letting in
little demons, big appetites, twisted thoughts.
You used to be scared
of that first step but now
addiction has replaced your fear. All
you want is another little crack in your now
not-so-****** stretch of skin.
You need to let the pressure out, let your pain
out, let them slowly leak away let
every little demon in, a little more
and you feel them call for your blood.
The whispers become deafening and still
you watch them multiply until they
reach your mind
set up camp in every thought
and you realize you were not letting them in
for the first time, but rather
welcoming them home.

(hands in glass are like
a heart trying
to let go. bare skin and
sharp angles- even when
you put down the shards, pry
your fingers open your
hands will glitter and
sting like unshed tears with all
you grasped honestly, nakedly, all
that you can't leave behind)

my mother built this
child's gravestone with
(her child's gravestone with)
her own two hands. she lifts
the glass and places it in
the mold, bending, and shifts
her arms and twists
her hands to let go. This
is her penance, this
work is not swift she
plunges her hands in, looks
for pieces to fit while
the glass tumbles with
a tinkling 'chisk'
but her hands
are protected
by gloves.

"One of the things I
least want to do is hurt you."
"Yeah, well, that ship's sailed."

We are hurtling through
the night and I
am hunched in my seat
on the front of this
metal beast, with my music
pounding in my ears, much like
the way my heart
pounds even
as I write to you. You
are scared of tomorrow, I
am scared of right now and all
the uncountable thousands
Of what-ifs. A behemoth
carrying other beasts like a mother
duck carrying fuzzy ducklings passes
on my right and I
flinch instinctively, though
no duckling caused this wariness
in the pit of my stomach.
Your fear paralyzes me, and
my fear is not
only for me, but multiplied,
for your scars
will never heal, should I disappear
Today.