i don't
drift off to
sleep.

instead,
i stumble and
fall into it,
hard.

enveloped in cold
sweat
and vicious nausea,
i pass through all
the stages of
restlessness
until my body
slows down and
gives in.

200 am brings
nightmares
320 brings
panic
and 630 brings
light but
not relief.

everything
aches
aches
aches.

this is
why
last month i started
sleeping at
the foot of my
bed.

so now
in the softest hours
of the day
the moon
reaches out just to
kiss my
cheeks and
gently
loosen
slumber's grip
on me.

i feel safer with
her soothing
touch
because
i am alone and
it's only early morning
but

i am already
so ****
tired.

to all the
liars
critics
bigots
politicians
false prophets
abandoners
abusers
psychiatrists
conservative radio show hosts
self-proclaimed deities
and traitors,

go to hell.
(please and thank you.)

while you are
on the road to
somewhere-far-away-from-here
i am barely awake
on my bedroom
floor
watching my ceiling fan
dizzy itself
trying not to think
of you.

i really really
*******
miss your
voice,

(but it's ok,
i didn't deserve it
in the first
place.)

it's not so much that i'm falling
but rather
i am being pulled
milligram by
milligram

by some outward guidance
other than god,
gravity, or
fate.

i feel fingers
pierce
my body
and move downward,
thumbs getting
caught
in my collarbones
but eventually finding
their way
home.

they grab ahold of all my
organs
and keep them
tight,
as a cloud of
warmth
envelopes me and
holds
me

just as i always
wanted
to
be
held.

all my limbs
weigh 2000 pounds
each-
almost exactly
how it feels
when you take
one
too many
pain pills.

i try to remedy
this by lying
on my stomach but
my hip
bones
bruise my
skin from the
inside
out-

i am
purple
all the way through.

(but only
if you're looking close
enough)

because at first
glance
i am worlds away from
human.

i am something
else
entirely.

all of my should haves and what ifs
crawl into bed with me
at 6:30
on a wednesday
morning.

some days
are worse
than others.

at 6:45 i reach
deep
into my throat
and pull out the
sleep
that waits there
like a
sick dog
throwing it over my
shoulder
and leaving it
panting
just beneath my pillow
waiting for me
to return home
at the end of another
very
long
day

some of which
are worse
than others.

the sunlight
reaching
its fingers
through my bedroom
curtains is no longer
gold and beautiful
but muted blue and grey-
i know this feeling.

briefly i think
i can hear an alarm
clock clock down the street
or maybe it’s mine
i’m not sure i can’t think

but i realize
eventually
it’s just my ears ringing
like they do
at the start of
another
unwanted
morning
so
i pull together
all the worn
stitches
at all my exhausted
seams
just enough
to make it
downstairs.

this is how it always
starts

but some days
are worse
than others.

i always thought
i was
straight.

but lately,
the curves of her
body
have me bending
over backwards
just to meet her eyes
with mine.

the human hand has 27 bones.
i had 27 chances to tell you no.

keep
the black hole,
the cherry pit

of self loathing
tucked neatly
away
at the back of your throat,
beneath

your tongue and
for god’s sake
don’t let it slip
from behind your teeth and
into your
speech-
when you
do, everything
after
is slurred and
*****.

so keep.
keep the self loathing-
away.

keep it at the bottom
of your pocket
and let it
sink
into the holes of your jeans along with
your house key and
your lighter and
the spare pills.

keep this feeling
in the folded palm of
your hand.

keep pretending
like none of this
bothers
you
until you can taste
the cyanide
in all the cherry pits
you’ve been choking yourself
on.

but don’t ever
try to pretend
that no one ******* loves
you
when you know they do

and keep yourself
together
long enough
to realize
how wrong
they were.

the gods spoke to me
from the depths of my
shower drain.

choking on
old soap and
blood,

their echoed whispers
soaked my hair
and stained my skin

seeping beneath
the cloudy film of
my ever weary eyes.

the back wall of my closet is plastered with your name written in purple sharpie and covered with those little gold metallic heart stickers.

this is not at all unlike the way your name appears in the stars i see behind my eyelids when i stand up too quickly.

your name is caked so far beneath my fingernails that you have become a part of these hands, reaching for your own body.

your name melts in my mouth.
i can feel every letter snaking between my teeth, soaking through enamel as i roll over them with my tongue, savouring the taste.

your name is a beautiful white/*******/noise.

you are playing in the background of my thoughts like a soft symphony of static-
you are a far away rumble of thunder and the gentlest downpour of rain
because even the gods are weeping with the beauty of your name.

the sound of you lingers in my mouth and my ears and my eyes...and all my nerves and my bones. i have laid you to rest in my ribcage, but at night i can still feel you trickling down my sternum and up my spine, burning in the back of my throat, a thousand bottles of whiskey and wine.

your name is so far into my blood and my brain that i wonder if you are not also an illness. if you are, then it is such a lovely disease that has stricken me. you are never far from my sickly thoughts.

so as i lie here, wrapped in loneliness and bathed in myself, staring at the back wall of my closet, i will call for you. because trapped between the roof of my mouth and my pale blue deathly lips, your name is the only thing left for me to say.

wish that you could be
her.
wish that you could be
a piece
of someone beautiful and
undesiring
of a new life

that you could be
a flower
and grow into your
own blossoming
self hatred.

wish that you
could be
the name that melts
in the mouths
of every lover
you never
had.

wish that you
could be
needed
(if only for a
moment)

like the last lost
flashlight
during a storm
or a steady breath of fresh,
open
air
after a long afternoon or
after an even longer
tea-stained night of
this and this and
that
or a good paint brush when
you realize
you broke your last one but
you cannot
contain
the jitters in your fingertips that
reach
for the canvas
or the wall
at the back
of your closet.


wish that you
could be
needed.

like a good kiss or
a 1:30 am walk
to the front steps of the
library
with a
pocketknife
for a sense of false
security and
independence-

or hell
for all of the above.