they say that suicide is painless
but i know for a fact that
the day after isn't
nor the day after or
the day after that
but i think the pain of a sliced up wrist
cannot sum up to the pressure
swelling in my head
at the idea of facing another day of
surviving

i am an *******

and I feel weird

all the time

and I have mood swings faster than the striking of snakes
and my rage comes like hurricanes
and my euphoria like spring rain
quick and furious

i am bitter like
wormwood

and i laugh at things
i shouldn’t

and i wring my hands
and bite my lips

and glare
i have no social grace
and i dislike more things in this world than i can admit

but i make you lunch.
and let you cry on me
burn candles
fill your pockets with lavender for luck
and witch bottles full of blood and my hair
and pour salt
and put on party dresses
and pick flowers
and bring wine
and i pour fire in the mouths of those who hurt you

and i abandon you for days
when the dark in my head
gets too loud
but not really

because

i think about you all the time

it’s just

i don’t want you to see the lightening striking and the

lion roaring and screaming in my mind
when i tally up my skin
and empty my stomach i

don’t want you to see
and

i don’t want you to abandon me

so don’t

******* leave me

don’t abandon me

and i know you need space too
because i can be suffocating
but
when i disappear into my own head
people don't miss me
like i
miss
them

when i put so much effort into being
a some-what human being for you

if you were to think of me

i would like your thoughts to be
like the shades of the moon
with just the right amount of
dark
and
light
but with enough power to pull the tides
i would like to think that your first thoughts of me
would be the
blue-black-purple-red of
bruised knees
and pomegranate wounded arms
i would like to think that when you see sandpaper
you think of my hands
after hours of farming
or my tongue after
a few too many shots of whiskey
i would like to think that when you see a pack
of blue american spririts that you will be reminded
of me
but i don’t want to be remembered
like the taste of stale cigarettes in your mouth
i would like to think that when you see
e.e. you think of my words
but i probably haven’t shown you these poems
scribbled in journals that have
been lost in my car
or under undone laundry
i would like to think that when you see
a beehive you will think of the hum of my voice
and the way i eat too much honey
and maybe think of me in sweetness
but we both know i'm more like vinegar
and that
this is all just silly
romanticism
because no one
thinks of
people in shades of the moon

i've been a woman for nineteen and a few months years
and i've never looked at waitstaff
and asked
can i get that with a side of guilt?
but i should have
because it feels like that's what i
am ordering
instead of fries because
all the salt in the world
can't cover up the taste of guilt and self loathing i feel for eating sometimes
this is for all of the ladies i know who look at cookies
longingly, but tell themselves no
only to eat an entire box of them later
and cry
and most women will never admit to it
but i've been there
and cookies don't taste so good when
you're tossing them up
and this is for the ladies i have watched in the grocery store
eyeballing the candy bars like they are men in dark
allies or
snakes in the grass
because the magazines sitting right beside
them are watching you watching that candy bar watching you watching your weight watching those inches around your waist watching you
and telling you that you aren't good enough
a moment on the lips forever on
the- hold that ******* thought
because my lips and hips have two things in common-- they are big
and they want all this
******* to stop
every time a woman prattles off how many calories are in a drink
i can't help but correct her in my mind because
i know for a fact that there are five more calories in that than she told me
because i've been counting calories and playing games with my stomach since
second grade.
i may be **** at algebra, but i know intake out-take math like
i know the smell of my grandma's cigarettes.
eating meals with other women
is unbearable because i am tiered
of having to eat entire cinnamon buns
to myself because
my friends wont split them with me
and i'm tiered of watching women
talk about eating too much but
wanting to get
back
on
it
tomorrow like
feeding themselves is a crime
and so the next time i go to
cookout for a blueberry shake
i'll ask you to leave out the guilt
because it fills my throat up
like sand and my teeth
are brittle and tired from being
bared and ground
while i
battle with myself
over the baked goods at
a coffee shop
wondering if
i feel like hating myself
today

with so many people in the world
it feels in
*******
possible
that anyone can feel lonely
but somehow
in my bedroom
at eight
i sit in my bed
surrounded by undone chores
in two jackets
in stiffling heat
just to imagine
that there is someone else in bed beside me
and this **** is driving me
insane
because
i know it can't
be that hard
to find someone to
love-- or **** that
someone to give a ****
for an hour
even if
you're drunk and their tongue is in your tonsils
but they say i have a problem
discerning 'love' from 'lust'
i know it can't be that hard
but it feels
like i am
permanently
****** up
because all i want
is someone to rip the skin
off of my bottom lip
because when they leave the next day
the black-blue stains on my
skin will linger just a bit longer

i am really tiered of being lonely
and from being seconds away from
being thrilled with life
and wanting to shoot myself in the face
because everything seems to crash down
on my head
when my ears
wont pop

swishers aren’t so sweet when
our teeth are banging together
tongues fighting for dominance
gin burning our lips
hungrily seeking
an escape from ourselves
selfishly burring our stingers into the back of the other
******* are aptly named
La petite mort
because i want to die and be reborn
& i was foolish
for ever thinking that you could be
different