i'm
spitting blood into the sink
because I brushed my teeth six times
in an hour
today
what must that be like?

to dream without drowning
beneath black water
snakes turning themselves inside out
without ghost haunted sheets of the past
hanging over me like witches feet and nooses
so i’ll dream about black water and snakes
and creatures with holes in their chests as large as oaks
and maybe  i’ll wake up different

i’m searching the backs
of subarus for your stickers.
feeling sick in the soul
but this can’t be exorcised
or driven out with iron
prayer
and holly stakes.

dried scale snakes
twist in my stomach tearing the
lining to bits while i swallow down
more blood. brush
rip gums and smile
a hyena grin
as it comes over cigarette yellowed porcelain
and shiver.

i woke and felt the weight
of an immeasurable sadness on my chest
or more aptly
on my throat
because i couldn't choke out the salted word 'stay'
fear held its hand over my mouth and i shouted against it
'please. stay. i love you don't leave' 'if you leave you wont come back'
so instead i wrapped serpent tight around you
wanting you so much closer
and hating my ravenous heart for being so gullible
so instead i kissed you
and knew you must have tasted melancholy
on gnawed lips and across my morning bitter tongue
i looked into your eyes only once  
pleading and hungry for the warmth of you
and closed my eyes as you greeted the morning
you will sleep tonight
pushing me away and mumbling incoherent
reasons as to why
and i curl
facing the window
awake
listening
listening
and i wonder if you can feel the quake of my doubt
and fear in your dreams

I would like to write you a love poem.
I would like to speak in flowery metaphors
and smilies, where your face is the
scarred moon
and your breath the dawn
but it would be more beneficial to
write
instead
an epic dedicated to the
way yoga pants make my *** look
because black stretch fabric
and my thighs
have a relationship worthy of fluffy fan fiction
and my worst pair
hug my body better than you ever could.
and black will always have more loyalty
than your heart can imagine

maybe that's why I hate math so much
because i have spent so much of my time
with
numbers being
drilled into
my head
and
showing on my
hips
or falling off of my
rib
s
because I know
how many calories are in each item of my fridge
better than the backs of my hands
and the lines carved into
my
thighs
like tally marks

this must be how a tiger feels
declawed
staring through the glass of a cage
at children
pointing
and mothers
scolding
and lovers walking
handinhand
do they revel in their sadness
because i imagine
they sleep all day
for the same reasons that i do
because staring at people watching you
bask in your own misery is
tiring.
but i am not a tiger.
i am a sad sad girl
addicted to misery
eating her yogurt
imagining herself a predator
while wanting a doughnut

i think it must be human nature
to feel lonely at your
worst.
to reach                                   out
mad with
grappling claws
at those around you
wanting
needing
out                               for five minutes
or maybe an hour
or long enough for tea to boil on a stove
choking on your own thoughts
and loosing battles to your demons
but this
is
when
people
turn
                                             away.
because no one wants to love
a mad creature who cannot save itself.
a mirror full of c
ra
ck
s, reflecting the worst of your personality.
a cat who cannot retract its c     l     a   w   s  
and i think it must be in my nature
to be found wanting
because drinking isn't helping anymore
and i just want a *******
hug
and a hand to go through my hair
because sometimes
being alive is hard
and my mind is too loud
for me

you do not owe beauty to anyone
i have always told myself
and my friends
staring at themselves with mascara running down their faces
and stomachs poking over too tight shorts
and the etchings of skinny jeans left on their legs
minutes after having shed them
that
beauty is not something required of them.
and you do not deserve to
think 'isn't that typical'
about every ******* who casts you aside.
because it isn't typical.
it shouldn't be.
there should be no standard of misery
that we learn to swallow
even if it goes down a little easier
than free drinks from
a bar from
strangers who see our faces
and *****
and waists
and ****
and vaginas
as pretty
little
debts to be payed.
you should not come accustomed
to empty voice-mails
and promises
and beds in the morning
because you feel like
your face would never sell at auction.
and you deserve to have shoulders
weightless of the
drag of sadness
'typical' seems to put on