Why do you think I borrowed your lipstick?

Why do you think I used your Chapstick?

Why do you think I wore your lipgloss?

Why do you think I hold your hand all the time?
Why do you think I play with your hair ’til my arms are sore?
Why do you think I let you win in tic-tac-toe?

Why do you think I pretend to be mad when I lose?
Why do you think I bake for you?
Why do you think I buy you snacks?
Why do you think I cry to you?
Why do you think I tell you everything?
Why do you think I look for you in a room full of people?
Why do you think I hug you all the time?
Why do you think I tell you not to fall for your friends?
Because I do. I fall for my friends.

When you did my makeup in the truck for the concert, you held my face so tenderly while brushing on eyeshadow.
The way you tenderly wiped the corner of my lips.
I don’t know how to feel.
Why did I feel so happy when you broke up with your girlfriend?
I felt so weird when I met her.
Jealous, possessive.
You aren’t even mine, and you never were.
Never will be.

And I know I don’t have a right to be emotional.

I got you together, what did I expect?
I want you to be happy no matter what.

I have a partner, I know that.
I know.
And now, you do too.
I would understand if you were confused.

That day in drawing class, when you grabbed my arm to ask me a question? You just kept it there eventually.
I turned so red. My heart felt like it was going to leap out of my chest.
I need to leave. I need to go to New York so you’ll never see me again. So I’ll never see you again and think, what if?

Because, what if?

What if I kissed you?
What if I told you how I felt?
What if

But I don’t want to know, because I’m scared.
And you deserve better.
So have better.
Better isn’t me.

A burgundy heart pounds under the cedar of her chest
Like a grandfather clock, she cries out at midnight
Inside the plush, velvet canopy where she lays to rest,
Mechanical begging in the silver moonlight.

Sensations and textures overtake our heroine, unaware
As death watches from the wardrobe in awe
And the darkness cloaks his silhouette as he stares
Flirting with death, she screams ‘ah-ah-ah-ah-ah’

Push the threshold when all alone,
In the comfort of her own home
Nobody to answer to, nowhere to go
Cinnamon fingernails, she can’t say no.


She avoids the eyes in the light of the day,
But yearns for the freedom of the cabaret.
Heavy bronze curtains conceal secret ***
No one need know how she tempts death.


Magenta, and lavender, black and then red
All of the colors that rush through her head
The closet’s a coffin in the glow of a candle
Death as her ******? Imagine the scandal!

Push the threshold when all alone,
In the comfort of her own home
Nobody to answer to, nowhere to go
Cinnamon fingernails, she can’t say no.

Once she reaches as far as she can take,

Her knuckles glitter with liquid quartz
Slowly, from heaven she seems to wake
Cheating hell with la petite mort.

The clear salt crystalizes within my raw, pink throat
But I taste it like coppery blood on my tongue
The regret wells deep down in my chest, like smoke
It’s hard to navigate shame when you’re young

I got what I wanted, but what I wanted isn’t what I got
The words burn at my nose, eyes, ears, cheeks

Always words I want to say, but, then again, maybe not
Worry grips me, because what if you have critiques?

Will you want to carry a piece of me with you, without having a piece of me?
Is love something we can share without making it? Not that I don’t want to,
But I don’t know what’s good, what’s sane. Can you still love me, if you can’t touch me?

Is it the touching that’s tangible love? Would it hurt not to? Would it be hard to?

I want to recline in our bed, but it’s on fire
Like my skin when you talk to me like that
I’m reluctant, and hate my own desires
It’s confusing, if one can surmise that.

I black out sometimes, and I’m already exhaling
When the cold hits my skin, I wish I never spoke

When I come to, resistance is already failing
Suds wash my mouth out, making me…

When I chop off one rose, another head pops up
Like the hydra, it’s a never-ending cycle
Red petals, dissolved when I’m blue, more gossip
Then the green stem bleeds red--teen idle

Yellow petals, lovely and soft as ever
Corrupted and crushed under the pressure
Cruelty wrapped in a plush, canary sweater
Stress causes a shedding of feather after feather

That makes me green as I lean over the bowl
The red rose begs the frail stem to grow up,
But it doesn’t care about wellness, only control
So when radiance snaps, try not to throw up

The ice in my head cools the burn on my hand,
But not before lighting a cigarette from the singe
The darkness says nobody can understand
My own demise makes my diary  flinch

A piece of me fades every time the needle drags through my grooves,
and the sounds I make each repetition degrade along with me.
Each revolution, again and again...
Front and back, the cycle never ends.
The first note stops, then 'til the end...
The last note plays, the first begins.
On my back I lay and warp, then I can't play anymore.

I won’t grow
I won’t change
Because ghosts
Just stay the same

In the graveyard
Of my mistakes
The wretched surnames
Are all the same