he snaps his barbed jaws made of thin sticks— you know
the kind that
SNAP and CRACK ominously underfoot when the woods have grown too
quiet, too calm, for all to be well
teeth gnashing— this the sound of dead leaves skittering against pavement and river rocks at dusk (that time when you need to settle down and get a fire started, but you’re not quite sure of where you are)
              homeless
wandering the woods in search for something he will never find
hysterical, eternally lost his

eyes

are the dim, barely there glow of camp fires that go out too early
fingers the cold that creeps around the base of your sleeping bag and along your neck
cheek bones the sun-bleached sides of mountains
his voice is the unrecognizable call from some animal you cannot identify in the depths of the woods, but not so deep that you cannot imagine it coming towards you. not so deep that the sound doesn’t make your hair stand on end.

his feet are bound with the ghost skins of snakes that lurk under rocks, darting out only when you have one foot precariously balanced on its side.

he travels — howling and yowling like some hell cat out of deep
mountain lore— starved, half crazed, ravenous
fever hot and parched
his mouth a voracious, vacuous, vorpal cave
that leads down into his river stomach— that part of the river you thought was deep, but revealed its true nature with the electric sting of broken legs after jumping.
his howl is the pounding of the wind at your tent
angry hands running broken glass claws against your skin as you walk against it.

he is jealous of those who wonder the wood for he has no true home.
his ribs the skeletons of eerie, too thick mountain laurel trees and the hollow shells of long fallen oaks.
the light of the moon burns his moth-wing skin on nights when the forest is full of her radiance. so he yowls, furious and powerless
rattling and shaking his bones — the dead arms of trees that stretch out over too steep mountains, acid burnt and raw

his name could have been pestilence to the christians
but only the Natives know his name and only whisper it lowly
and on nights when the wind is calm and he cannot hear their summons—
Windigo.

his only purpose is that he has none.
his motivation is endless hunger
that is older than the mountain itself-
or maybe it was born with the mountain…
he in his rabid madness has long forgotten the origin of his emptiness.
he is hungry, and you are in his wood.

I can imagine

myself as a midwife or a medicine woman—
waking early
               wandering
the wooddesertmountain
with bad-*** boots & a patchy coat, pockets filled with rosemary and crystals
driving an old truck that smells of rolled cigarettes and gasoline
drinking hot tea out of a mason jar.

i see all of this & I wonder where this image will land me.
   Portland in the fall?
Nevada in the Winter?
                              Colorado? Montana?
But I need the trees.
My power is in the mountains.
Or maybe it is in the moon—and her face isn’t bound to the side of the mountain

i need the howl of coyotes, the smell of pine, the sound of running water over rocks, cold air, wind.
i crave this to the center of my
bones.

i want to dance with fire women, sing air songs, pray to the earth, bathe in the water, and
speak with the
spirit mother & the red father that binds all of these together in a chaotic harmony i will never understand.

i need to paint my body with the stain of poke berry and

run, foot against stone, against decaying leaves.

there is a savage within me
that needs to run free

that needs to bark at the moon and breathe clean air.

rage has a way of awakening
the sacred fiery feminine within me
i suppose i should be accepting of flippant
dismissals and easily broken
plans(promises)

after all, it is what is expected of my gender—
to be silently accepting
to be smiling and forever forgiving
to be blind to your *******.

but I’m not that kind of *****.

the waters of many rivers flow in my veins
over the rocks and thorns that are growing inward in my inner darkness
wise and warrior women of my past lives swim in these brackish tides and they
are having none of your **** today

there is a predator that hunts in the base of my skull
that loves to feed on

boys {I would say ‘friends’ but none of you are deserving of that title}
like
you

through heavy breaths and gasps between too hot sobs this creature is released
and it reminds me
with the worst of pain
that i
am stronger than you
that i
am stronger than anything within your petty soul

we’re all made of energy and mine is too bright to be diminished by the likes of you

while i feel worthless and want to destroy myself
{because the easiest way not to feel
is to bring blood,
to bring forth ribs,
and cheek bones, and burns—— for the longest while I thought the fault lied within myself, that I was worthless and disposable, but now I see that I’ve only been attracted to the weaker breed of human because you are easy to manipulate. You were stupid enough to consider my compassion a license to abuse my over giving heart}

this animal keeps me in line, holding my hands within its claw riddled appendages
tight enough to bring blood, holding me still until my cries turn into war songs
my frantic heart beats into the sound of war drums.
my tears become paint streaking my face, readying me for another battle.

the scorpion ever present in me rises, barb dripping with the poison
my tongue would love to lay into your psyche

but you aren’t worth my words.

my words are my livelihood and nothing i could say could
every arouse any interest nor care from such a small minded individual as yourself
whose ambitions are the small fractions of debris beneath my scarred feet.

in this holy and reverent cold I thought I needed the warmth of companions, but I realized I was skinning myself raw to cover others who would only ***** out the flame keeping me alive.
my heart thrives in this harsh season and the skeleton of the scorpion comes alive in solitude.

the warrior woman within me is reborn this night.
she has watched my neglect and has pulled me into her armed embrace
and tells me through stoney and unforgiving eyes

that you were never worthy of my radiance

i am an animal— should I not delight in this?
Should I not celebrate
                                  bare skin and bared teeth?
Should I not
dance
barefoot in the light of the moon, jubilating in all that I am?

I praise this body that moves me— from the too rough soles of my feet, the hungry churn of my stomach, the burn between my legs. I give thanks to broken skim and bruises; these are the evidence of my life force.

I sit in a Labyrinth, a holy place where my brother & sister stones give me solemn council.
I feel life.
I smell it, I hear it, I taste it on cold air.
Life energies flitting all around me. I soak it up as my skin drinks the sun.

Am I thankful for life in this place?
                                                        No.
But I am happy to greet it. I accept its presence for another day and I move with it, dancing and contorting as I ought. I stretch my muscles and fill my lungs.
And in this moment I feel no fear.

When you do not fear Death how can you fear Life?
How can I fear anything in this life when death—full of the unknowing dark, full of the unblinking darkness, full of that which is unspoken— is known as a friend?

When you welcome death into yourself, you gain and lose life simultaneously.
While you see the day in a different light— more pure, calmer, brighter that you ever could have imagined— this light you are observing doesn’t really
reach you. It doesn’t
wash nor warm you as it
                                          once
                                                     did.
Everything
becomes Colder.
Everything becomes colder, but the cold doesn’t hurt
quite
          as
much.
It’s there, but distant— ebbing at the edges of my nerve endings, but my body doesn’t dispel it nor does it coil away, spitting. Rather, it embraces it. Grows little white flowers in its dark shade and growls merrily from the frozen ground.
        
Let Winter come
and let it awaken the dead-tree creature living within me, somewhere between my
spine
and
my
rib-bones.
Let the cold douse the fire and let that which is pale and hungry roam. Let it breathe its own fire amid the skeletons of Elms and Pine. Let this feverish animal breathe steam into the night air. Let it roam, choking and coughing on a too hot stomach {too much burbon and hot chemical fire}. Let it run itself back into the ground, squirming with the grubs and the centipedes, blind and snuffling, frantic.

You cannot cage your own animal nature.
It will only grow Wilder there. Wilder and hateful— it will turn on that which tried to lock it away. Let it live free, by Bone and by Fire, by Water and by Stone— let it come Alive.

Something made of teeth lives there, breathing shakily, bleeding and slithering in the dark we all try to put away from the light of social normality. Something anthropomorphic and angry. You can’t hide away that which is within you. Maybe it lives at the center of the Labyrinth, waiting on you to stumble upon it. Maybe it only lives at the Labyrinth’s edges— skittering around  outside walls, keeping you fighting within it.
You could drown this creature with bourbon and whiskey, but it will only laugh and dance out of your throat. You could stab this animal, but it will only bleed ink and raven feathers. Ink from words left unwritten and thoughts unsaid.
            I am the snake, the bird, the cat, the wasp, the human.
        The Animal.
I am the mother, the daughter, the grandmother.
                            I am Alive.
There is power in the bones.
May mine rattle in the hollow night, may mine howl, hungry at the moon. May I crave blood, may I hunger for its life as my body hungers for sustenance.

i am homesick

or maybe just
                      sick
laying in my bed— which really isn’t mine

wishing i was in a house

that doesn’t feel the same

wishing for a place that never wanted me in the first place

where ghostlaughter of
girlchildhood
                    floats
around my head
the fumes of nostalgia
make me sick

and i feel pathetic
because i need my mom

sometimes i feel like i’m two creatures caught
b
e
n
e
a
t
h
skin
sharing one body.

my tongue rough- sandpaper, broken glass, too many curses
while the lips around it burn with apologies
fleshy brooms sweeping up the messes
of another woman.

i feel like there are two animals
each fighting for their right to shine through
they’re voracious in this battle— it surprises me that their clawstalonssteeth don’t break through the thin expanse of flesh to the outside.

i have two women living within my skull
one wildroughfighting— slinging glasses and insults.
face paint, bones and bottle trees, fire and ash
wet pine needles under bleeding feet.
the biting creature who leaves bruises on the lips of men.
the warrior, Artemis. laughdancing through flames.
a bear, a wolf, a cat, a bird.
animal in nature.

the other fights with words.
elegant, gentle, soft, break able-- everything the other
cannot afford to be.
goddess of the hearth, she feeds her comrades like children
keeps fires stocked with woods
and binds bleeding arms.
this woman carries pitchers of water
writes sweet letters to missing friends
and opens her soul to many lovers.

am I some crude splice of these creatures?
am I a ******* of these mothers— each passionate
one biting, brackish tides, slow moving rivers, still ponds
the other a warm, clean bath?
am I both simultaneously, or am I wearing one face while the other
watches behind mine eyes?

I am the moon—
full and loving, dark and hiding
and something in between.

yeah, that sounds about right.
something in between.

If ever I thought I was
worthless
useless
an empty vessel to hold the blame of the world, I was ignorant.

In the shadow of others I did not realize I was outgrowing the limited social garden bed of my ‘friends’ and companions. Friends would be an overstatement and a title many of them have never and will never earn. As a Scorpio my trust is not easily gained, and one lost, it is gone forever. Something in me, though, always forgave, but kept the trespasses against my trust cataloged, loaded, waiting to fire across my synapses is self destruction.

If ever I took your interest as a sign of friendship, I was a fool.
If ever I opened my heart to you, if ever I extended an almost maternal hand to you I was an idiot.

My body has been run ragged with its attempts at pleasing all and apologizing for its darker nature. My narcissism has become a survival mechanism that I once thought needed you.
My soul is weary of your needy hands, your open-bird mouth that I keep feeding more and more of my soul. Compassion has an end with me. In this game of survival, I will always be the fittest and you’ve stopped entertaining the animal within me.

I am worth so much more than being drained of my entirety. I am manifest energy as you are, as the earth is. Like the Earth my resources have been tapped and I can give no longer. Like the Earth I shall strike with ground shattering vengeance.

If ever I thought friendship was giving you everything for nothing in return, I was blind, for I am a Goddess as you are. I am a Goddess as you are a God, and your meager offerings of passing interest and constant need are insufficient. My inner patriarch has fed of your male-centric patterns of thought, and the women of my past lives are too loud in protest for this to continue.

I deserve much more than “friends” like you.

& most of all

If ever I thought my thighs were a sufficient reason for me to hate myself, if ever I thought they were an excuse for you to disrespect me, then I was a *****.
Because you are an *******.
And my body is rad

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.

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.

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.

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

the problem with dorm rooms
is that there are hundreds of
people
se     p        ar        at   ed
by paper-thin
                     walls
never interacting
only existing simultaneously
(which, is a cosmic interaction if you think about it.)

sometimes I lay in my bed
face against a cold paper wall
and I
think: what are these other people doing?

in this awkward layout of beds and desks
in the earlylate hours of the nightday
are some

sleeping                                    frantically working

drunk in their beds                   laying frustratingly awake

awkwardly *******          awkwardly ignoring the awkward *******

having cramped ***        sleeping in the lounge to avoid said *** being had

crying and homesick                  consoling a homesick friend

too high to sleep                       too exhausted to be awake

or are some just as awake as I, wondering sleepily, what I am doing on the other side of the wall?

How do you tell someone that you’re tired of existing?
    No one has done anything wrong, and by all normal standards this day has been quite nice, but something in me
can’t
handle
that.
Something in me can’t stand this constant standard of  
                                                                                            “surviving”
Being exhausted of simply being is draining and no amount of stimulant can correct this.  

How do you tell someone that it takes all of you to simply wake up in the morning? To wake, to breathe. How do you tell them that it’s nothing they’ve done, but you just can’t do it anymore.
                How do you say **** like this?
How do I think **** like this?

        Where could I go?
France?
Scotland?
        How far would I have to run for these hounds to stop their pursuit of me?
Will they stop this chase?
            The answer is no. No, I don’t think they will.
I think they’ll keep ******* chasing me.
                    They’ll keep coming. They’ll keep
this race no matter how run-ragged I may be. They’ll keep pace, keep biting at my ankles, keep snarling, snuffling, tearing the ground with their paws. They’ll hunt me until the end— no matter how many rivers or oceans I cross. Or maybe the river Styx will clog their all-knowing-noses….I shouldn’t have given them my scent. But they know it now. They know it and they want more.

I’m living off jolts of too much caffeine right now. What way is that to live? Living, though is an overstatement.
I’m not living— I’m just taking up space.
Taking up space and filling up volumes with these hollow words— as if I don’t know how stale I sound.

So where can I go? What do I do?
                What the hell do I do when I can’t even decide if I want to be Alive?
What do I WANT to do?
        I WANT a house in the mountains.
I want an herb garden planted in the shape of a sacred spiral. I want a river to bathe in, a fire place to cast into,
a cat to hate and watch suspiciously,
a dog to keep the hounds at bay,
a kitchen to make magick and medicine in, and a bed warmed by someone else.

I want cold nights and mornings warm
only because there is skin against my back.
I
want not to be a prisoner of my own words.
I want to stop dreading the day that I run out of words-- because the day I run out of words will be the day I let the hounds catch up to me.
I want moonlight&moonshine.;
I want sunlight and dizzy sun spots.
I want trees and the sound of a roaring tuck.
I want sweat and the smell of Wood.
I want woods and warm skin at my back.

& I have loved every moment of it.

This summer has drawn me in with heat and rain,
and spit me out as a whole new animal.

I have danced drunk around bonfires, done rituals in the damp woods, cried on swing-sets, screamed about the stupidity of boys, and smoked too many American Spirits.

My heart has been opened to others as well as myself.
I have met the most wonderful of people and some of the not so wonderful.
With Nicole I have found a family that has no blood ties to me.
I’ve found a
HOME
not just a room where I’ve created a home for myself.

My feet have found pleasure in the heat of the earth after a hard storm and my lungs the heaviness of summer air.
Love has become a thing I demand rather than crave.

I’ve found my strength in bottles of red (&chocolate;) wine and in the embers of a fire.

I have found myself knowing that I am enough.

I may be confused in the ways of my future, but I have a place to figure it all out. I have a family dwelling in my bear-heart. I carry them in my chest and in my soul.

eating disorders are so hard to

                  Kick

because your eating disorder becomes your

closest most

                     honest

most

             Vicious

friend.

your eating disorder will never abandon you.

it will never ignore you it will never

leave

        you

                                      ­    ALONE

at the End of the day, it’s just you and her.

and I say {HER} because mine is a real *****.

your eating disorder is always there to

                     whisper-scream

in your

         ear.

always

there to swim in your aching(empty)(toofull)

                    stomach

to claw at your skull to

break your heart.

she, my vicious friend, comforts me.

because even though I’m being

               destroyed

               ripped apart

at least I’m not alone.

hell, she even gives me an excuse as to WHY

I am

                         alone

itsnotmeitsmyweightnoonecouldeverwantafatgirl

itsnotmeits­myweightthatkeepspeoplefromgettingclosefromLOVINGme

She knows me better than anyone— knows how b

                                                              ­  r

                                                            ­       o

                                                              ­ k

                                                              ­        e

                                                      ­            n

i am.

as much as I ‘recover’

she is there— curled under my brain matter

like a troll in a fairy tale.

she is there

waiting

watching

counting

smiling

because i always come

back.

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

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

Read the Printed Word!

It is liberating and overwhelming

(to the point of
hot
tears)

to know how long I have been letting people drag my body through hot coals

while denying their abuse only because

letting them mistreat me
was only a way to

mistreat
my
    self

But as I have stopped hurting myself, I have become aware that
while I dare anyone to try to hurt me— I say this with a fire glint in my eye--
that I have been opening myself to the worst of people.

I am seeing myself in a better light—

I am powerful
I am beautiful
I am sacred
I am deserving
I am independent
And I don’t need people who I never really needed in the first place.

I’ve gone nineteen years sacrificing myself and it cannot go on. I will not let it go on. My consciousness is shifting, my inner self is awakening and stretching its muscles.

Vomiting up this cancerous, petulant, bone-blackening self loathing, cutting out this metastasizing inability to love myself, is painful.

It is the worst sort of agony
{and my body can take a lot of hell}

but when have I ever shied from pain?

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

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 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.

i miss that light

                       i might die

buzz that I used to have.

it wasn’t the amphetamine high--

it was the empty stomach

i don’t have to eat

high

every meal skipped was power

as if we were otherworldly creatures

whose stomachs would only contain naughty water and faerie food.

we were hollowing out
and i loved it.

the lightness of my bones, the way my cheek bones were shining through

and my ribs were getting

                               e                
                                 a              
                                    s    

                                   i
                                 e
                                r

to count.

& i miss that heart exploding dilated eyes

rush. not for the high

but for the simple matter that i was bird thin

empty.

not thin enough, but on my way.

i miss it, and it misses me.

i am strong enough…aren’t i?

i could do it again.

and this time—

                      i wont need the pills.

self loathing is fuel enough.

i want that power— every bite I don’t take is a boy who

told me i wasn’t good enough.

every skipped meal is a small triumph against myself.

i can do it.

it would be easy and no one would notice.

but i wont.

sometimes the hardest part of the day can be waking up

i went up like five
and down like ten more
world spinning head on the
                                               floor

hands shakingshakingshaking like wind blown leeeeaaaaaavvvvesssss

twice wasn’t enough, but the third time is always the charm—

i’m saving that for another day.

i’ve flirted with death

called him up on a tuesday
whispered sweet nothings— or maybe sweet somethings—
to him while his parents were asleep in the next room.
we cast devious glances at one another from over a bowl filled with
***** and blood, he knowing tonight would not be

the night

because I wasn’t ready— not yet anyways.

it was the loudest and most quiet moment of my life
my hands like the weights of Ma’at ten pills in one
nothing in the other

the world feels so different now
like i am playing with some otherworld
watching them watching me
waitingwaitingwaiting
on me to stop playing pussyfoot with the last round

i’m moving and i guess that means i’m living

i’m living so i guess i should be moving, but all i want to do

is

sleep.

i’ve set fire and doused it with gasoline
i’m burning and i guess as long as you’re
burning you’re alive.

but sometimes waking up in the morning can be good
it can put a wicked animal grin on your face
mouth full of broken glass and breath a chemical fire
as you wonder
if that didn’t **** me
what will?

death didn’t catch me
district twelve wins again

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 am selfish in my adoration
                 - in my observation
as if this light, this moon is
mine&
mine alone.
as if no other being is looking upon same
face as i
as if this face is put on just for me.
as if she is my mother and she has no daughter quite as grand as i.

i bottle her clear, unlying light with my
eyes &
hide those bottles away deep my
                                                      chest
somewhere close to my heart so few may see it.

her beams are a lullaby sweeping over mountain ridges
that i like to pretend only i can hear as she sings over the
loud whispering of the trees.
i like to think that i am sole and secular in being bathed in her
spectacular, white-gold luminescence.
her engulfing gaze is the emanating heat of my blankets, encompassing me like a child.
i do not share this warmth- no,
no instead i wrap it tightly around me, i burrow down within it
and let it dissolve the cold of the world untouched by her light.
her light keeps the true night away—
even the creatures who ride the wind, howling and furious still.
they skitter around her;
quiet and heavy with awe as if they know they are in her territory and their kind are not welcome there.

her grandeur is not to be shared nor looked upon by unworthy eyes.
it would be vain to think that no other shall gaze up at her as i do
                                   but i shall be vain.
i shall be vain and i shall try to trap her essence within my veins to keep
the undeserving away.
i am gluttonous with her abundant shine &
in quiet, lonely moments like this i {selfishly}
like to think
that she is smiling just for me.

i’m that girl

the girl who looks   good

U
N
D
E
R
the dark
     Under the guise of too many shots
That girl
            who will make you come in her mouth But never come over
That girl
            you can **** but can’t Call
That girl
            the one who will ******* like your ****** is the center of her universe, the sum of her self worth, the essence of her being
but can’t hold hands with in
                                       public I’m
                                                    that girl

But I’m also THAT girl.

The girl who believes in a revolution of thought in body that girl who will

NEVER
let you define her worth, her ****’ worth, or her ******’s worth.

THAT girl who will spit flames or warrior women in your mouth at any suggestion
that women are the ‘weaker ***’

THAT girl who will always answer

                                            catcalls with

                                          a

                                             * ROAR

THAT girl.

I’m a feminist with a chipped shoulder, a chip that has been worked at and worked at by boys
               like

                      you*

boys made of salt and misogyny

boys who “are apologies that should have been made to women long ago”

boys that have made me what I am.

& maybe that’s why you thought I wasn’t good enough—

because I am THAT girl.

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.

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

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

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

i love asheville.

I danced my *** off at the Highland Brewing Company to a live band, smoked good bud before hitting Rosettas, wandered downtown, walked through a sketchy alley way.

I’ve met the coolest of people
{and some of the not so coolest}

but the good far outweigh the bad here.

this city has swallowed me whole

rolled me around on its tongue

and i covered me with its shimmering saliva— because everyone in aville sparkles, y’all
and i marvel at the inside of its beautiful mouth

there is power in these mountains
and good mojo in the air

we just need better water.

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

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

And I hate you.

every time I draw in a ***** hot breath

when I hate myself

for everyday that the word

           FAT

crosses my mind

everyday that a smaller pants size is a bigger victory than

published poems

for ever calorie

counted— because numbers are so much more than digits; they’re definitions of who you are. they’re nights of smiles and laughter, or they are nights on the floor of my bathroom, leaning over a porcelain bowl.  
1234567891011121314151617181920(we’re okay…)304050(getting into dangerous territory)60708090100(going to far, stop now. this is enough for the day)200300400500(stop.)6007008009001000(I can burn this off. I wont eat tomorrow..)1100120013001500(you’re disgusting)

for every list of food I’ve made

for every time i can look at a plate of food and accurately assign each food a number

for every day you’ve made having an eating disorder okay

{buti’mnotthinenoughforaneatingdisorder, right?}

I hate you—

almost as much as I hate myself.

& 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 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 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

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

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

& in these moments
after sitting in a dripping wet and muggy forest
the world seems okay.
my decisions seem right
and all my hopes are in bloom.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.