your razorblade tongue ran across my forearm
my *******
my thighs
i know it isn't right
but make a mistake enough times
and it no longer feels like one
i am always fine
until i am alone
in my room
thinking about you
and your
quick
cutting
tongue
on my skin

forgive me lord
i have
sinned

i need to stop thinking.

i know if i think too much
by myself
i will end up sitting on my bed
drawing pictures on my arms
with a knife
and they tell me
not to do that

i have never been good at listening

tragedy has made me silent.

he crept down my throat
and softly snipped away at my voice;
now there is nothing.

i smile and nod
smile and nod
smile and smile
and nod and nod
falling asleep in plain sight
watching your lips move in speech
wishing mine would follow suit

tragedy has made me silent,

made me timid
made me grow in stature until i am awkward
gangly
always in the way
hiding behind
a shorter sister
but still a sore thumb

a quiet
quaking
obvious protrusion
i invoke conversation
but it dies out
with the smile in my eyes
the bobbing of my head
the silence of my lips

tragedy has made me silent.

i guess you have to learn to be content.
content with the boy you have
the clothes you own
the place you're in
the lot you've been dealt.

though i am not sure how you learn it.
i suspect that your mother teaches you
but i wouldn't know
would i

i wake up with the cloying taste of a nightmare in my mouth
not for the first time this week
and i imagine not for the last

i made you a chart
concerning all the ways we ****** up
and sent it to you last night
haven't heard a word
since

i had the implicit feeling that what i was saying was dangerous.
that it could take this little thing we have going on
and expose all the little tangled wires
sparking
and smoking...
that i could make you feel bad enough
that you wouldn't want to talk to me

and i was right.

katy perry wasn't far off track
sometimes my emotions feel like plastic bags
drifting in the african dust...
a place i put my feet
one february
years ago

and flatsound tells me to come clean
but i can't
i have nothing to contrast it with
ignorance is my final plea

and i don't even know
what holocene means,
bon iver

but i know
that poetry is just words on different lines
and they're the only ones i seem to write
these days

they have not words
to strike a competitive pose
against ours
but they do the best with what they have.

i become extremely depressing at night
and i can feel it bothering you
in the pleading tone of your voice
the begging in your questions
you finally just give up
after a while

i didn't use to do this
it's a new thing
since you came
and went
and i came
and i went
and you went

i can't take a summer without you