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 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 want to fly to Neverland

But like hook

The  crocodile

with his Stomach full of my past

Always follows

Tick-tocking

No matter where I go

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

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

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

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.

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 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 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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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 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