I ****** up. I know that. Guilt comes fast, asking what I was thinking. I was doing it for me, but mostly, I was doing it for you. I wanted what I wanted and what I wanted you couldn’t give me. So I let you give me something else, and I tried to be present, tried to accept it graciously, but my head was elsewhere. Guilt rolls down my back, coating it like tar. My head floating around in space somewhere between “do it for her,” and “this is not what I wanted.” Guilt sits down and pours me a cup of tea.

Consent is ****. Reality is not.

He picked me up from the Taco Bell, hot summer
day. Played music in the car, but denied me air. “It wastes gas.”
The man I gave my virginity to made me sweat it out on the way to do so.

His pasty torso was covered in unfinished tattoos,
a lifetime reminder of unfinished business. “Would you
like to see my rabbit?” he asked, and I thought that
rabbit was a euphemism for ***** but it wasn’t. He pulled
out a literal white rabbit, and placed it in my hands. The
soft fur burned with a sense of impending doom; of
the contract I’d foolishly signed in my mind. “His name is lucky.”

But I wasn’t. He ****** me hard against his
bed frame while I stared up at a reproduction of a Wicked
poster his fiancé had painted, but not before singing me
an original song- to make you cringe a little harder- off key.
I didn’t know how to give a *******, so I let him split me
in half.  And then I suited up in my crisp white shirt, slipped
on my black bow tie, and served people popcorn for seven hours.

If I'm not the problem, there is no solution.* Destiny disrupted by rusted liquor lust. Liquidated terror is the soup du jour. Stale coffee exacerbates the problem. Relapse hangs overhead like a grotesque mobile of alcoholic death. There's glitter in their eyes and a bottle of pills in their pocket. Smoking as self care. I want her to carve her love into my clavicle; I'm dangling by a thin gold chain.

Alcoholism consumes, is a broken
Love affair that takes everything from you; a
Codependent partner that
Only cares about
Herself. And we stay her slave until we're able to
Open our eyes; realize that everything she ever whispered in our ears was a
L**ie.

Take me, Satan, for I have sinned.
I fell down on the job, fell down on my sword
but with no real purpose or cause. A martyr
for the sake of martyrdom is as useful as a
parka in Mexico.

Slit my wrists with a freeform kiss.
Cracked teeth, cracked skull, saltine crackers.
Counting calories, skipping meals.  
Did it hurt to ascend from hell, and
how did you wash away
the grime?

I want to believe that you love me
but the world is unkind.
I need a shot of reassurance like a shot of
eighteen year old scotch, neat.

Rapid fire rejection, thunderstorms
of doubt. **** me with a smile. Rebuild
my psyche, brick by brick. Mortar me,
babe, and I'll adore you for it.

Melt into my mind and live there,
the mice who currently occupy
the quarters are hungry for
touch.

Ride my metaphor like
a throbbing **** longing for
release; please, release me.

Why are we so concerned
with whether the glass is half
empty or half full
instead of being grateful that
somehow, something, somewhere
out there, gave us a glass?

My preteen years were
filled with white zinfandel
dreams and a collage
of wood panelling.

Broken thoughts become
ninety proof lies; drink-
don't think.

Diet Coke cans filled
with wine, hiding from
myself but mostly from
my grandmother

I wanted to conceal my
role as the family ****-up
for as long as possible
but then
I hit a wall.

Drinking is a constant love affair,
I keep coming back like a battered wife
because I can't get a grip on my
battered life.

Living for the burn
that spread its legs all
the way down my throat.

You're going to die, they say.
Maybe one day,
I'll believe them.

My rib cage is parted, a bird's nest inside. The
pebbles and sticks guard my lungs. Sparrows
peck at the hollows of my heartstrings and
feast on aortic valves.

The sunflower dreams disintegrate, leaving dust. I see you there through the plexiglass wall, and wonder if you can see me too. The wax drips from the tip of the candle. Five spots, six-seven. Nine. I burn for you. The red runs crimson down my thigh. I reach for you through my condemned klonopin haze. Once again, I was too weak for you. The pressure builds, forming cracks in my psyche, making me wonder who I am or where I’m going.

Blank spaces. The canvas between white and black, the words that don’t fill the spaces in between I love you. And I don’t know what you want me to do, so I sit outside and chain smoke and listen to the birds who are confused, because it’s raining. I’m sick, you say, as if that straightens out the jumble in my mind. We’re solving the world’s problems one puff of nicotine at a time.

The ice queen attempts to be more fact than fiction, but her eyes are covered in placenta. She can’t see through the burden of her mother’s expectations, the pompoms and Bible shoved down her throat at an early age.
The ice queen attempts to be more fact than fiction, but her eyeliner is smeared and so is the world. She’s always loved women, and hated herself enough to be with men. She’s always drowned out the protests of her own mind with liquor, finding refuge in the ability to ignore.
The ice queen attempts to be more fact than fiction. Is unsatisfied. Disgusted. Displeased. Dear Academy, for your consideration, would like a new self image.

I feel the pressure to create bearing down on my skull like a claw hammer. I am not a conquest. And no, I will not be your conquest (yes, you). I am me: flawed and imperfect but somehow still here. Fighting through the misery with Marlboros and earl grey. Bone broke, broken bones; a metaphor for broken imagery, a torn imagination soaked in ***** and blood. Would you still love me if I threw myself down a flight of stairs? Two for one pain, buy one dose, get one free. Ragged breathing, lace collars, four inch pumps and a plastered on lipstick smile.

Grey areas like a giant black vortex, ******* in everything; nothing can be classified as right or wrong. I turn away, sobbing, and you kiss me on the cheek, as if everything will be okay. It will not be okay, so long as I’ve tangled myself in this web of indecision; this chasm between what is right and what is wrong. I imagine the *****, burning it’s way down my throat; my esophagus has turned to ash without my consent. I’m in a dark place, and I can’t find the light switch.

A glass shatters. The shards multiply and scatter beyond
the scope of the human eye.
We sweep the broken bits away, but leave
fragments, waiting for an unsuspecting heel,
ready to make their mark.

Actions are like shattered glass. A mistake
is made and the aftermath ripples and
ripples across the surface, touching countless
lives in ways we never could have premeditated.

Does that, however, mean, that we should
never act at all? Hardly. Faith without works is
dead, they say. Life without action is execution. But
we must remain conscious of the ripples we cause,
the actions we take, and the decisions we make
for one day, they might impact the one we
hold dearest.