i bought ten scratched
albums at the thrift shop
and covered my white
pants in paint.

i  w a n t
t o  l e a v e

i'll be home
tomorrow night
and who knows
what i'll be missing

maybe him
probably not.

i've been writing letters
folding socks
drinking spicy
ginger tea but
what's really
wrong with me?

oil slick aesthetic
acne under the eyes
i wish this poetry
meant something more
than sadness
and a pretty word
but it's actually just
me thinking out loud.

showering twice a day
in this kind of drought
is not good
but neither am i

i  t    h  u  r  t  s

watch the words
fragment and break
apart so you can't
read them together

i  m    b  l  e  e  d  i  n  g

i've weighed and
weighted out my
options and all
the things that mattered
to me once just
don't anymore

s  u  i  c  i  d  e

i don't know
what i'm doing
or why or even
if anything is real

h  e  l  p
m  e

h   e   l   p

h    e    l    p

h     e     l     p

h
  e
   l
    l

     p

if panic! at the disco
is just the store brand
version of fall out boy

(an open mic frank sinatra
impersonation with a forehead
and the emos are a classical
knife wound in pop culture)

then i am just the
store brand version
of who i used to be

looks about the same
tastes about the same
easier on your wallet
but something's a little off
and you can't
figure out what

but it doesn't actually
matter that much
it's just oatmeal

(i don't know why i
decided on oatmeal for this
it was just the metaphor
that came to mind)

and it will all be
gone by next week
anyway so

who actually
cares as long as
we've got some
kind of breakfast?

(i'm 42% sure
i don't exist.)

intensely greased
plastic hair
secondhand green day
coldplay in the rain

i love the sound
that waxed paper
deli sheets make
and i could choke
on a glassed reflection
of celery salts and windex.

(i'm 42% sure
i don't exist
because when i look into
my eyes i see someone else)

i'm not catholic
and do not
understand who
st. peter is

but i wonder if he won't let
us into heaven because we're
failures or if we're failures
because he won't let us into heaven

(i'm 42% sure
i don't exist
and questioning how
bad hell can really be.)

too quiet for a saturday
i wrote the word
decaf so many times i
forgot how to spell it

decaf
decaf
decaf
decaf

(does decaf
have two f's?
because i don't have
two f's to give anymore
i mean i would but
i can't even find
vowels much less
extra consonants)

when i was a child
i always counted in
mississippis
now that i'm older i
find myself counting in
cappuccinos

i dreamed my
legs were bleeding
and i remembered
that they're not

i want so badly
just to sleep in
a bag of crystallized
ginger and swim
in a mixing bowl of
tasteless tea.

(i can't tell what's
real anymore
but i'm 42%
sure that i am not.)

i keep a red
second place
ribbon on my
bulletin board
to remind me that
i wasn't good enough

i keep defeat in
my back pocket
and failure
on my skin.

(i didn't realize
how nice it was
to actually be
good at something
and i didn't realize
how easy it was
to stop being
good at something)

took the things
i was good at and
cashed them in
for a quieter night

i can't eat
can't sleep
can't write
can't design

bake a pie
write a poem
cross stitch
crochet
i'm not
bad at it.

i still have
hobbies but
it's not like
it used to be
i'd rather
be cleaning
at least i can
do that well

(isn't that
a little odd
considering that's
exactly what somebody
a little bit too close
to me was feeling
when his world got
turned upside down?)

i'm just not
good at anything
not anymore
but it's my own fault i'm sure.

i've had a
good day

remembered
to water my
plants
drank two cups
of coffee
didn't feel the
irrepressible need to
scream at my family
drowned in a
stranger's spaghetti

(okay so maybe
i could have lived
without the whole
swimming through pasta
it starts to wrap around
and choke you after awhile)

found out that
apparently i'm
the nicest person
at work because
i'm the only one who
doesn't want to
throw karen out
the picture window

(i mean i do
i just don't admit it
because that
would be mean.)

i kept looking up
to the bells on the door
remembering yesterday
when i saw the face
of one of the dearest
ladies i've ever known

(i don't know if
she saw me)

and then for some
reason she turned
directly around and
rushed down the
front steps and
didn't come back in

maybe it wasn't her
maybe an emergency
but the question's
eating at me.

slipping back and forth
here and there
into the mindset that maybe
i owe it to them

(i don't want to go
anywhere on monday
nights but i don't
want to tell you that)

then hitting myself
in the head because
what have i been
saying so long?

i don't owe
anybody anything.

i've had a
good day
or a day
that wasn't bad

(just tied my
spine into knots
and i tried the
downward dog
but the dog
knocked me down)

so i'm not sure
why the veins in
my arms are aching
and the muscles
in my elbows
compressing

as if
even

like i'm not
brutally aware
that my wrists are
not currently
available for
extended slitting

so i don't
know why
they're so
upset

then again
i don't
know why
i'm so
upset
either

i mean
i've had
a good day
******.

they say that
if you imagine
something
vividly enough
so many times
you'll begin
to believe
it really happened

(example
a. blood)

but believing
something
without it ever
having happened
doesn't give you any
extra lessons learned

(example
b. blood)

and you've seen things
in your mind's eye
enough times
to know

(a steak knife to
the throat or a
pile of pills
down the hatch)

that you haven't
learned anything
except how to
lie awake for half
the night while your
brain plays tricks on you

(a noose in
the woods
an overflowing
bathtub in red)

it starts hurting
physically
after awhile
a tightness in
the chest that
just won't go
an ache behind
your eyes
a twist
in your stomach

(the yellow line
a pair of headlights
in the middle
of the night)

it keeps you up
just imagining
mental pictures on
the screen of your
eyes that you
can't shut off

(a railroad bridge
the scene of some
prior and future
disappointment)

flashes around the
bathroom mirror at
four in the morning
on a saturday night
when you can't
breathe

(example
c. blood)

worst of all
you're afraid.

i had a houseful
of old friends
milling around
a lakeside town

their summer was
my half of a winter
and they spoke things
that i believed in
but had absolutely
no reason to say.

they were
alive to me
more alive
than anything else.

i don't know where
they went
trapped somewhere
inside a screen
buried alive under
my own problems

are they still
sleeping
in a graveyard?

or is she in jail
and is he seeing
someone else?

they were my
friends
just pieces of
fiction

and i'm hoping
that somewhere
inside me he's still
strumming a
ukulele and she's
standing on the side
of a waterfall and
looking down
i hope they're
alive and well

(knowing them
he's probably
sad but fine and
she's probably
just as crazy as
when i left her.)

but i don't know
i can't promise anything

i lost them
and i lost who
i was when i was
with them.

take me back
a year
take me
ridgeside

i can only promise
one thing

that i haven't
forgotten you.