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

my mouth was still stained
red from the
pomegranate seeds i ate from the palm of you hand
when i checked your instagram feed.
i had been lost in your underworld for
three
whole
days
before the weight of your sorrow found its
way into my stomach
and to the marrow of my bones.
like some fish wiggling along the sides of a
tank i ate your emotional refuse
and felt myself
becoming heavier and heavier
while you lifted to the clouds
and found this beauty among them.
i still sat in the bottom of the pond
bloated and
envying the sky above me.
you are still swimming in my blood
like a nasty parasite
and i feel like ripping out my stomach
to pour the weight of you out
but you seem so happy that
i want to pretend that your sadness
never existed and
that i am a stranger merely browsing through
photos.
but the fact remains that i
am still here.
on my bed writing angrily
about you like i have written about
dozens before you
and for some reason
something
hasn't
changed.

at the risk of being weird
I want to ask you to **** me
Even though it is only 5am.
6am comes…and I do not
And you are still asleep
And I would like to be
If my ****** wasn’t aching like an empty stomach
throbbing like a sore tooth.
Spooning is sweet but I want go get out of the cutlery drawer.
It is 7:28 and you have rolled away from me
And I can’t help but wonder if having
Me in your bed is no more than a child holding a bear in his sleep.
But stuffed bears can’t feel insecurity.
The women of your past have been beautiful and immaculate
                          (I saw the **** picture one sent you before we went to sleep--
                            instagram filters can't even make me look that good)
like
stone Venuses, lovely despite the fact that they were made from **** foam.
And I am neither immaculate or made of stone
as you well know
since you have put your hand on my stomach so many times.
And I do not want to be needy but I can’t help but think that
The reason you are away from me
asleep at 7:35
Is that the ghosts of these models that haunt you look nothing like me.

i just want altars to be erected
at my bleeding feet
want black and maroon candles to bleed over
bones and antlers
and the leaves of gardenias and the roots of mandrakes
i want pomegranates to be split and ripped open
over alabaster castings of my bruised soul
and i want the phases of the moon
and the turning of the tides
to mark the eb and flow
of my faces from
gentle and sweet
to ripping open men with black tipped claws
i want wine to be poured over my mouth
and gold cloth to
pour over me
i want fires built to the stars
and feet dancing in my name so furiously the earth shakes
and the oaks move their arms
i want incense lit from the cracks in skeletons
and mouths to call my name
as hexes are cast and salt rings are drawn
and i want my hips to be praised
as the center of life
and i want men to walk in dark forests
and over black rivers
to count the stones beneath their feet
and to leave fresh bread on the thirteenth stone
to avoid my ravenous rage
but if you would just
love me for a moment
i could forget the rest of this

theloraxformula




i am getting to the point of my day
when
waking
up
is like making my way through a battlefield
where Valkyries live in my stomach
when I lay on my back and count my ribs
(what I can feel of them)
and stand only to find my head hurting…again
and I am realizing that your love
isn’t
worth
this.

but this isn’t really about you, is it?
it’s about power
and control
like feeling like a god of titans on a
volcano about to erupt
feeling like pele burning through bones & calories
and feeling some sense
of pretty while
starving myself to death.

but your love
isn’t worth
that
it isn’t worth counting calories in my sleep
playing mad mathematician with meals
weeks in advance
knowing the caloric value of everything in my university’s cafeteria
by heart
and feeling like
passing out when I try to tie the
laces of my doc martins.

your love isn’t worth that
and neither is the hate I have for myself

sometimes in the dark of 1am2ammidnight
i sit alone in my car
under a purple sky
chest heaving under the weight of panic
arm bleeding from letting some of it out
eyes wide open
knowing if i could
just be thinner
everything would be okay
if i can just
be hungry a little longer
everything will
be normal
and maybe
he will want me
but he isn't the issue here.
and i know
that even if the light can one day
flit through my bones
through my skin
even if water can run down
my cheekbones
like floods over a cliff
even if fingers can hide in the ridges
of my ribcage
i know
that it wont help
and i will still be alone
at 1am2ammidnight
in my car
eyes wide with panic

Sometimes you have to understand
that the people you feel you need most, don’t need you.
These people you give everything to will not love you in return, no matter how much you try. They will not love you more for the poem you found that reminded you of them, the scarf you gave them because it matched their eyes, the time you drove at three a.m. in the rain to hug them goodbye for a trip, the time you rubbed herbal salve on a black eye, or the way you can describe their laugh in a hundred different metaphors.
Your efforts will be wasted and your body will be aching for that moment that they smile— that moment where you feel like you are worth something.
But you are worth more than those tiny smiles of gratitude and the fluttering in your stomach you get when they think something you said is funny.
You do not need to wrap their feet in your hair for a moment of appreciation.
Running your body ragged for someone who only speaks to you in times of convenience, only praises the love of another, or leaves you without a goodbye is not okay.
Their love will not fix the sadness in your heart, and their attention will not make your heart less heavy. Sometimes you have to let people go before they burn the happiness out of your body because constantly wondering why you are not enough for their attention is no way to spend the rest of your life. Sometimes you have to understand that they will never love you and that you will survive without them

I would like to say that i am one of those girls

who drink ***** shooters because ‘enough shots feels like love’

but sadly

i am one of those girls

who like to drink

whiskey

until my own miserable

lack of self worth and resentment slithers up out of my throat

but there are men who can smell

this on my skin

like a desperate pheromone calling

to them

saying ‘lovemeusememakemefeelworththy’

but i have a problem knowing the difference between

love and worth and the desperate scrambling of hands

on scalps and legs

because i love my ******* self

and have so much worth

that when men are repelled by my goddess

strength in my shoulders

and the fire on my tongue

i sink into this pit

and wonder why

i am not wanted

and the difference between worth

and being able to look into your own eyes

without seeing a monster

for ten seconds

is terrifying

and maybe that’s why i shatter mirrors

and carve tally marks into my own

leg

because the monster in me isn’t visible

on the outside

so i let her out and let her

cough and sputter

and cling to people

and let her whisper in their ears

all the words i hate to say

and when i drink

she comes out to play

but she still winks at me when i am sober

and like the gods of old i only exist

when i am being prayed to

but the faith in me is flickering out behind the eyes of men

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

if ever the salt in your soul
becomes too much
so grainy that it
fills your veins
and stills your happiness
if it becomes so heavy that it fills your combat
boots like the desert sands
you will fight on
and piles onto the floor when you open your
mouth
if it becomes so brackish
that gin and whiskey will
not drown out  the voices
of the demons in your stomach
i will take your salt and
toss it in the four directions
of the earth
i will give it back the dirt
i will place it on the wings of crows and ravens
to deliver it to the laughing sky
to the sea which craves it
to the cleansing fire
i will give it to all these
and place some of
it in my own heart
under my own tongue
and in my own soul

some nights the nastier bits of myself crawl up from my throat and sit on my tongue & whiskey isn't strong enough to wash them down

there comes a point
when the laughter of friends fades
the warm glow of a pub
the smell of spilled beer and cheap fries
the feel of others
seems far away
these points come
when the heaviness of February settles on your heart
fills up your throat
dries your eyes
at this point it feels like all the warmth you know
is snuffed out
and spring is too far away
and the bottle of wine on your counter is too expensive to drink all at once
in these moments
when the cold around you keeps
you awake
when kanye west's cold
makes you think
about the way you treat yourself
when your feet throb and feel cold
under wollen socks and flannel
when tea doesn't warm your stomach
when ana's words almost feel like friendship
again
these moments can make
a person look
a thousand years old
skin sallow
and bones frail
these moments when your mind crosses
every road
stopping on each face of your
futurepastpresent
of
every
bridge burned
and even those flames can't warm you
when you think about everyone in your life
and realize
                                                         ­                           not one of them would think about you
but tomorrow
when sun tears through
my window
i might feel a little warmer
and maybe i will forget all about tonight
and the sometimes moments
and the lows that come
when you least expect

Reasons why I am going to Europe:

I am going to Europe because I am nineteen— almost twenty— years old and, for some reason, I am expected to have my entire life planned and ready to go. I am expected to go to college, get a degree which will give me above-minimum wage pay, possibly meet a boy. Date this boy on and off (as well as a few others) during my early twenties, get drunk a few times, maybe do some drugs, marry someone when I turn twenty six. Have two kids. Pay my mortgage, plan to travel when I am older. Pay my student loans. Do yoga on the weekends.

No thank-you.

I am nineteen— almost twenty— years old, and for some reason, I have no idea what I want to do with myself. I went to college for a major in English with a teaching license— I hated it. I tried to **** myself three times. So here, I am, working at Food Lion, running around the woods, drinking Gin and blood orange juice on a Monday night, with no plan. And I am happy. I am going to Europe because what else would I be doing with myself? I am going to Europe because I want to wake up in a hostel with someone else’s shirt on, the smell of salt on my skin, and the taste of wine in my mouth

. I am going to Europe because I don’t want my greatest thrill in life to be going to Whole Foods one Saturday of the month to buy nice wine and a quality meat only to watch the travel channel and hope for places I will go to ‘someday’. I am going to Europe because why can’t ‘someday’ be today?


I am going to Europe because I may get lost in a market place, in a bottle of Absinthe, in the arms of an Italian man, in the bottom of a bottle of sweet Moscato, in a pub in Ireland, in the mouth of a french girl, in a German forest, and that will be alright. I am going to Europe because my feet itch, and my soul is thirsty. I am going to Europe because sometimes it feels like the world is only as big as your home-town, and that is only an illusion that needs to be cured.

i see us in shades of spring and autumn
in the  r        s    of earlgrey left on the
             i          g
                n  
bottom of chipped
mugs and tea glasses on antique wood tables
and wood floors
in the smoke of cigarettes french inhaled in the woods
in the smoke of summer fires
that burns my eyes
and in the red stains left of white shirts
and the (almost) ***** left the next day in asheville alley ways
i see us in water running over rocks
and in the moss growing on boulders
in the ice fractures of thin glass
and the steam
vapors of a
tea kettle
at 4 almost five almost sun
                                                u
                                                p
when you are going
to be too far                                        away
and I am
going to be
a little too far gone
in a bottle of wine
a little out of my head
a little mad
a little lost while you are loosing yourself

the soul of a writer can be found
in words
s cr
ib
b led on
crumplednapkins -- like horcruxes--
when sleep feels like a far off dream (when people watch you, wondering if you are strung out on coke while you scratch words on these thin sheets of paper in restrauntsbarscoffeshops
half
mad
eyes glassy)
in discernible handwriting comparable
to some
primitive
hieroglyphics-- a language of voices in your head and dreams too vivid
they can be found on the backs of hands
and journals
and popcornbags
when nightlights are too dim in the early hours of insomnia
and moonlight is obscured by curtains
in drinks like london fogs
and ***** chais
and black coffee
and black tea
in packs of empty
American Spirits
and half-full (empty) gas tanks
and piles of books that will never be read that will be re-read and quoted
and tweed scarves and
empty journals and chipped nail polish
in dead pens and phones
in unanswered texts, emails, messages
and unrequited love
their souls can be found in the
stained
bottoms of coffecups
and sticky shot glasses
and wine glasses (some still half full of cheap
redwhitezinfadel
because rent is hard to pay
when no one wants to
read words
scribbled on the back of a napkin

gin reminds me of
black birds
{singing
               in the dead
of
night
}
  when i want to
take my
                 b   r   o   k  e   n
wings
        &
learn               y
          to       l
                 f
of flowers
blooming in
                       january
and
slightly-sweet country music
of
{almost}
thunderstorms and orange
blossoms
of wearing
too much
mascara
               and blush
just to walk around                    
                                       naked
in my kitchen
of cheeks
flushed
and the taste of lime
and gingerale
                         on the pads of
my
fingers
of restless nights
when days are     l         o      n     g
and sweet cosmos
and wine
don't   cut the    edg
e
and the
                 sting
of lavender laundry detergent
on a paper cut
                          of
being a
GROWNwoman and realizing
that
childhood
doesn't
                   end.
or stop.
when you
walk
         a      c    r    o    ss
a stage
of t
u m
b l
e
off of a summer warmed s
                                               l
                                                    i
                                                        d
                                                             e
of swisher
                   sweets
and wind chimes
in north carolina
of pressed powder and the tastes of
watered down
iced coffee
{coffee
ice
shake
almond milk
pour}
with no sugar

that
               --should you leave the world for a while
there are people who remember the smell
of your clothes
of your skin after being in the sun
your hair after the rain
that there are people who know your favorite color
your favorite author
who would bring you flowers
in mason jars
{irises and ivy and daffodils and gardenias and honeysuckle and sage}
to cheer you when spring rain
carries away your joy
that there are people who know your favorite sound
that there are people who remember what your eyes look like
in the sun
or care about mundane tales from your childhood
like how you got a scar on your palm
or why you’re afraid of to-go boxes and the wind
that there are people who would make you
rhubarb jam
or oolong or english breakfast in early morning hours
who would read your poetry
or make you earrings
or hold your hand when the wind blows too hard
and empty stomachs cry too loud

and sometimes it’s nice to have friends
who think you are pretty
and think of you when they smell lavender
instead of wondering

I am bad at flirting…like…really bad
and
I **** at being subtle.
Your blog is quality and so is mine (on good days, anyways).
I may not be that pretty, but I am a good person.
                                        I won’t ******* over.
And I will make you tea at 2 a.m. and not judge your tastes in music
(out loud).
We can watch Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle or Nausica
and tumble and have *** and wear **** shades.
I will make you breakfast and vegetarian dishes
on Meatless Monday.
We can read Bukowski on swing sets, smoke cigarettes, and drink whiskey, stumble behind bushes and kiss until my lips hurt.
We can have coffee in some place in Asheville and sit really close together and make fun of black-keys hipsters
(even though I really like the Black Keys).
You will probably have to listen to lots of Hole and Rising Appalachia
and read my poetry, but I will always
read your work when you hand it to me.
And probably buy you nice things.
Like a flask with some quote you like on it. Or your favorite pack of cigs with something cute like, ‘let’s have *** in that bathroom’
written on it.
Or a nice sweater because…sweaters are nice and my blow jobs are of legend.
I may not know you that well, but I’d like to.
And I think you would like to get to know me
because I’m pretty rad.
And I look nice in green and dark navy blue,
and my hair looks pretty in the sunlight.  
I’m saying all this because I’m lonely and people with good tastes in music are rare.

i am grateful for stretch denim on days
when
          **** it
is a fashion statement
for lavender laundry detergent
because that smell reminds me of the home i've built in my head
for tea at
2 a.m.
when all the things i've done race in my head
because the next morning, i usually get my **** together
for colds
because they make eating an entire roll of cinnamon buns
completely justifiable
for the mountains that surround me
for NPR and good, rated M fanfiction
for def poetry when i can't find the right words
for finding a pack of cigarettes when it is only
11:30pm on a thursday night
and i am well past drunk in a slightly damp armchair
for harry potter and neil gaiman
for when twenty dollars fills up my gas tank
for my grandma's potato salad and biscuits with honey
for feminist zines that make me want to smash the patriarchy
for burts bees chapstick and jasmine-green tea
for friends who let me cry on their
bedroom floors
for books that keep me entertained
(even if that means me crying in my bathtub while reading them)
for courtney love and joan jett because those *******
have ridden in my car with me over many
heart-breaks
for well-water and sulfate free red wine
for johnny cash and new orleans and whiskey
for salt-- because that **** can wash away anything
for farmer's markets and co-ops
for bottles of water  and for cookie dough
when my mouth
is the consistency of cotton  and my mind is a little bit gone
for warm days in January and cold days in September
for breakfast and for hikes that begin at five a.m.
for summer nights drunk on wine and a little too much fire
for friends who call me 'momma bear' and for friends that call me 'baby bird'
for poems that give you cold chills
and flowers stolen from my neighbor's yard
for skin that smells like the sun and sage
for beeswax candles
and the smell of clean laundry
for days when i wake up and realize
i could have died on a bathroom floor

if the curves of my stomach offend
you
i suggest you get the
*******
   of
me
but when this rage comes you speak
so
sof
      t
ly
and wonder why i look at you
like you burned
me but
you don't understand how predecessors of your gender have treated me.
kind words have never been spoken to me
soberly or
without weight behind them
like bartering in a dark corner bed while everyone else sleeps
where i stop being a woman, an entity, and become an unfeeling orifice whose name has suddenly become
                                          baby
because a few kinds words were mumbled against the shell
of my ear
you don't understand
how hands have grabbed me in the dark
and how my own hands have grabbed
only out of desperation
to feel something
you don't understand how hard it is for you to touch me and
for me not to feel lightening hot repulsion
as i lay drunk, ready to sleep.
you don't understand how when people touch my hair
all i can feel are hands curling against my scalp
and the way cold-shaking hands curled around my dress
and the way fear has been etched into the lines of my brain like a map of the city i know so well
like that alley i can't walk down alone at night
or that part of lexington where men shout at me hungrily
or the way stranger's hands sometimes 'slip'
you will never understand the weight of my insecurity because no amount of sweetness you can pour onto me can replace the venom fed to me by the men before you
no matter how 'enough' i may be with you
you will never understand how 'enough' isn't tangible
how beautiful doesn't really feel like a compliment
and how much
i doubt you actually love me

i drink whiskey because
after so many
shots
something like a dragon wakes up in my stomach
and crawls out my throat with the exhalation of cigarette smoke
i drink whiskey because the dark brown
mingles with the fire in my veins
and the wild south of my soul is reawakened
a part of my soul that lingers in the bricks of marie laveu's and between alleyways in the french quarter
stirs up like a ghostly collection of downy feathers
and the fear that is carved into my ribcage seeps out
i drink whiskey because the salt of my fingers plays
with the back of my throat
coaxing all this fear out, chased with mason jars of water
i drink whiskey because it makes me feel ugly and fierce
i drink whiskey because it makes it easier for me to burn bridges and sever ties
i drink whiskey because it makes being used by men with pretty faces and holes in their dead chests easier to swallow the next day
i drink whiskey because it makes me rowdy and alive
i drink whiskey because snarling rage needs to be let out sometimes
i drink whiskey because it sobers up my headi drink it because it helps me forget that i didn’t say no
i drink it because it makes me angry about what you did
i drink it because i remember the way your hand pushed mine down and the way your hand curled into a fist in my hair and yanked at the top of my dress
i drink it because i didn’t tell you no

i am not pretty because
p   r  e    t   t   y
isn't an adjective worthy nor suitable to be applied to me
Pretty does not make good
daughterswivesmotherstudentsteachersdoctorsloversrevolutiona­rieswriterssingershumans
Pretty is an inanimate unfeeling thing while
i am a life force--- a tornado or hurricane whipping through the air with riotgrrrrl gale force winds in the background, leaving pretty behind me in refuse
Pretty isn't synonymous with worth or good hearts.
Pretty isn't getting up in the morning and making breakfast for your  hungover friends
it isn't giving someone flowers just because you care
it isn't women in in trenches digging irrigation systems for villages
or building houses for strangers in another country
it isn't the first breathe of a baby in a midwife's arms
or the sound of women being liberated.
It has no sound at all.

I'd like to think that I am that feeling you get in the summer before a large thunderstorm rolls over the mountains
and pretty
                     isn't
                           that.
And in sparse occasions that I am deemed worthy enough a piece of meat to earn this verbal badge of honor-- 'pretty'
that feeling will never outweigh the hate and anguish my body went through to earn that
'compliment'
it will never outweigh the meals skipped
laxatives eaten
amphetamines snorted
or times my fingers have been shoved down my throat until the tips of them stung from stomach acid
my body is weary of me punishing it for someone Else's ignorance and my need to hear this silly word & my throat hurts from putting my fingers inside it
& i will be ****** if i spend another second of my life hating myself and hearing women hate themselves because we weren't told we were 'pretty' as often as we would have liked
So no, I will never be 'pretty' -- I will be much more.

my worth cannot be measured in poundsinchesorounces
& all that i am is neither reflected, nor summed up by a number sewn into
a pair of jeans--
hi, my name is Ashley, real swell person. future midwife, Scorpio, size 14.

Days in dressing rooms under poor lighting
when those size 14s feel a little too tight make my day into a battle
& if my being makes men cringe
then I will stuff my face in rebellion
if my body is under social seige, i welcome it with a smile
Because battalions of words cannot compare to the cannon
fire of insecurity
and trigger pulling i've had in my head for 14 years
we fat girls are really good at these sort of days because
we're good at insulting ourselves first.

i wish with all my heart that

you will never know the word
                                                    fat

that you will never know the sting of insecurity like sunburn on your skin
that you will never feel the need to be anymore than you already
are
because you will be as brilliant as all of the constellations spun into one

i
wish with all my heart that
you will never meet the same boys your mother did

that you will never feel the hot-sloshing cocktail of heartbreak, guilt, and *****
in your stomach.
that
you will never know the stain of a broken society
or the fear of a failing planet

that you will never feel the same bitter hate that your mother does
and that instead of fire you will breathe
peace, but your words will scorch those who dare hurt you
because your mother is too full of fire for you to be completely free of it.

i am a woman made
of countless triggers never warned
(i don’t need a ******* trigger warning, I pull them every day)
of unnoticed scars
(i heal too fast and am too clever at hiding them)
and uncounted skipped meals
(because i’m too good at lying and too fat to have a eating disorder)

of empty pill bottles and whiskey bottles and ****** wrappers and inboxes
of unspoken dependence
and too much *****
(because i used to like to drink too much so that i could flirt with death
& if I survived I could feel thinner in the morning)

but all that is changing in the morning

but right now it feels good to feel drunk

and that’s okay

because I’d rather feel drunk and alone under flannel sheets

than ever
              you lot again

as Women we are told that our
hunger cannot
exist
               unless it pleases men
that the expanses of our bellies
are shameful.
as if my stomach -- as full as the moon and as flat as the prairie
is not beautiful in its
ripe glory
as if my thighs-- made of thunder clouds
are not magnificent
as if my body-- striped with pink-white scars
is not worthy of worship

as Women we are told
that we should feel guilty for every bit of nourishment
that passes through our lips
but that we should be expected
to nourish the world.

but I say ****
diets
****
starving
and fasting
andbingingandpuringandworshiping
skeletal goddesses
that do not exist
(because even the most beautiful woman isn't lovely enough for a magazine)
and stop "going on a cleanse"
because we all know that cyanne and water and maple syrup tastes like ****
Instead
Praise Your Abundance.
run your hands over
dimpled
               soft
scared
            taught
rough
           smooth
full
       flat
bulging
skin & know
that
You Are Beautiful
&you;; bones do not define you.

i value myself in rib bones
and my beauty in the weight
of feathers
& in the morning i'll feel a little
thinner a little prettier a little more
o
kay
i weigh my strength in calories
{thefewerthebetter}
like the scale of Ma'at
if my stomach is emptier than water
then
ican go to heaven

we tint our lips the bleeding red of broken hearts
rouge our cheeks &
scar ourselves with the burnt-black ashes of animal bones
we paint each-others faces with the war-paint of our generation--
adorn our hair with feathers
our hearts with chain metal
and our girlish dreams and expectations with
armor and the arms of one another
because when we wake
the war drums of this night {and our hearts} will be silenced
like the quiet of a strangers house
when the ashes of brilliant fireworks
have settled on tiled roofs
the moans of our prey will be still--
we will wake and creep from their sides
and find each-other  in the sleeping battle field
strewn with our enemies
& walk
hand in hand away from the soulless slumbering masses
your lips drip blood of broken promises from the undeserving, of hearts devoured
and mine are singed and cut from the flames a hundred sips of firewater, heated words shouted and glasses thrown
we will wake and walk away
and be pretty girls in sundresses again

lips open like a
v                   s
    e           u  
          n
fly trap
with fox-face eyes
&
a smiles that
could paralyze
the toughest of men like flies
in a spider's w     e    b
Multi-armed and covered in
                                                  muscle
this goddess hides
her blood red
tongue behind flirtations and butterfly wing
eyelashes
her mating dance and hunting style are on in the
same
"you will fall in love with me, and i will destroy you"
she breathes out like the iron smoke from a dragon's throat as smooth as a lady in* silk*

the souls of a hundred boys form stars and constellations
in the night-sky blanket she wraps herself in
                                                                              when
nights get too
                        c
                         o
                          l
                          d and lonely
a hundred hearts rest in her throat
but she swallows them -- and laughs--
and holds my hand on swingsets

she is a goddess of a different sort--
belly swollen with the compliments and awe of a thousand potential lovers
they should make room for her in the heavens
somewhere between Cetus and Vulpecula
but there is no place for her there
because she has already eaten zeus

without the memories of playgrounds--
the smell of too many American Spirits
(andsometimesnewportmentholswhentimesgottough)
the taste of chocolate wine
the cold of holy river water
the sting of heartache and hangovers and broken toes
the glow of midnight fires built too high with entire trees
the feel of tears on my sun-scorched collarbones
the sound of e.e. cummings and the poems from our adolescence being read over baking bread at three in the morning
rushing back to me.
i still remember our fears of shadow people and the
too loud screams of *** rock
over men(i should say boys)
who we centered our summer around
when we weren't busy being goddesses.
& there isn't a day i don't see a swing set
or hear the beginnings of Johnny Cash song
when i do not think of you
and hope
that the world will not change you
that the world will not change me
and we will one day
have a practical magic houses
and hostas
that i glare at
while i make tea in the mornings.

buried behind a wall of complacency
my contentment boils -- steams like pots of cleansing tea-- in the constant cold
pass the peace pipe over the bones of my enemies.
my rebellion is rooted
deep within my veins
                                       {burried under tact and sweet smiles}  but ready to return

the blood of warrior women waiting to return

runs within me- my abilities are their evolution

from the color of my eyes to my tolerance for pain-- rooted

into my skullspinesoul

in a field of dinosaur bones-

only the strong survive the cold

this ever present frost
follows me like the windigo; its return

deep in the decemberjanuaryfebuary ache of my bones
a disease malignant in the
deep r
              u
n
n  
     i
        n
            g
tap-roots of elms-  etched
into
time like
               skeletons in the ice
tested {thawing} with every return
of this ******* season, evolving
from the lifeless bones
of trees to the wings of birds

brittle, but strong;
bundled with love(hate) protecting me from the cold

letting go, but wanting them to
fall back like
cigarette ashes in the wind

this is no place or time in my life for slow acceptance but
I find safety in the muscle bound bones
aware, lying (insomniac), waiting for someone to breathe
life into the marrow.

my love- deep, engrained, rooted
the pulse of human heat keeping me from the cold
will I ever change?

bundled against the cold, the cracking of my bones
is like the creaking of the dead trees i stare up at
with their songs of change
and the end of fears never to thaw out again

Fill the silence of our discontent with the sound of a swishing liquor bottle and the popping of pills.

We are rocks in each others’ sinking worlds but I’m

not your rock anymore.

You threw me out of your life

The night I let you

Hold me

The night I let you

Touch me

The night I let you

Fell the love I have for you through the touch of my lips

The pads of my fingers

And the walls of my ******

The night I gave you everything I had

And asked for nothing in return.

But I’m not yours anymore

I’m just a ***** on her knees begging for something more than ***** flavored

I

Love

Yous.

I’m not yours anymore

I’m not begging or crying with my heart torn open

Ready for you to pack another bowl within it

Waiting for you to forget
                                         hername
                                                         myname
                                                          ­                yourname

Waiting for you to slip past hateful sobriety

Waiting for you to drag me down with you to the bottom of a bottle

Waiting for you to

Love me.

Waiting for you to smile and tell me all the things I want to hear

and trust you.

But I’m not yours anymore and I hate you.

But today when you

Smiled, spoke to me like a friend

While she looked on from the corner

I felt my heart eager for more ashes and resin of some

late night whispers

that sound so sweet

but in the morning light

float away like the smoke that slipped

out of your mouth and into

mine

My legs ready to open

But then I remembered

                                 I’m not yours anymore.

For you

I’m not worth

the lighter

Cigarettes and love

You stole from me

But I don’t give a

****

Because **I’m not

Yours

Any

More.

my heart is a machine

behind every good

                         heart

there is an even better

                         machine

                     waiting to take over

                                impulse

beat- in out in out- beat

       who needs

                      feelings

{ the constant struggle of having to

             repair the break

crashlagslow hurt

                 -reboot- (Call tech support!)

temporary no sure fix

repeat }

behind every good

                          heart

is an even better

                           machine

                 waiting to mechanize

                               bastardize

                               supplement

                  LOVE

abiotic, anaerobic, clean, pure, simple, sterile

who needs

LOVE

when metal & pistons

are so much easier to

                       understand

                       predict

                       replace/fix ?

If they can engineer esters to

smelllooktaste

like anything on earth

                   why the **** can’t that make something

taste

       {like your lips}

smell

       {like your skin; cigarette sweet with an undertone of work sweat}

feel

       {like your too rough kisses and embraces}

because maybe if they did

it might make it easier, maybe I wouldn’t miss you

so ******* much

if i love you i have made you tea

early early morning whispers & promises

over cups of 3am coffeeandchaiearlgreyenglishbreakfast

electric blanket, quilt, and three pillows {warm goodbyes}

groggy morning ‘i love you’ s

and ‘go back to bed’ s make my heat a little less

cold in this frozen Feburary

a little less sick

and a little more warm

I love you my aurel- my golden child.

the most beautiful boy I’ve ever known.

you know what I want to eat?

                                             no. what do you want to eat?

stars; ****

silverwhitebluegrey

light

          like

                  * Li

                  {lithium}

keeping me *sane

                   {if only for an hour} -

                                                            starshine

is better

than

                                                             moonshine

any-day.

& the world

will keep turning

even if you and I are dead to the world

           too tweaked to sleep

            too drunk to be awake

              too hateful to be together

we will sleep

                  and love untill we are we again

& the world will

keep

turning.

greetingsalutations

                          goodmorning

                                            *******.

want a bump?

                   nah, I’ve had enough of your ****.

*******.

              yeah, ******* too.

-insertsmug-teethknockedout-filthyfuckingsleaze-grin-here-
­
sounds like a beautiful day.

& i can fix

a million things
[and your heart is one of them]

i can make you tea
make you breakfast
brush your hair
kiss your forehead
& tell you it’s all going to be

o

k

i can wrap my arms and legs around you
and crush you with empathy
let my tears drip down your forehead like anointing oil
or holy water
i can baptize you in a hundred things, i can burn you and
create anew from the ashes in my arms

i can let you fill my bones with your tears
my heart with your heartbreaks
my lungs with your sobs
my insides with your hurt

i can make you a thousand salves
and a hundred tinctures to keep you from hurting
but i can’t fix myself.