begin with a
disinfectant wipe
and wash your eyes
right off your face

(it might sting a little
but that's a small
price we all must pay
before we die)

next grind your
toenails down to a fine
sheen using only the
shower curtain

(it may take hundreds
of years and that's why
i'm telling you to
begin immediately)

let the roots of your
hair dig down into
the ground and slowly
bury your face

(at this point in the
procedure you may
pass out from lack of
air or lack of hope)

finally tattoo morse code
messages behind your ears
with a rusty safety pin and
old charcoal art pencils

(it doesn't matter what it
says because nobody can
read it back there nor
do they actually care to)

and submerge your
nose into isopropyl
rubbing alcohol just
to smell poisoned

but most importantly
of all when you begin
to experience pain so
intense you do not
have words with
which to describe it

always tell yourself
that nothing is real

n o t  y o u
n o t  a g o n y
n o t h i n g
i s  r e a l.

then take down the
noose hanging in
the back of your closet
turn off the light and
fall into the deepest
sleep of your life

*(whether or not you're
real or not doesn't matter
it just matters what you're
telling yourself to stay alive.)

the feeling of
of being a rock
in the middle
of the ocean or
a tree in the middle
of the desert

strangling in
what's coming
from my
own skull

introversion turned
dark becomes

i s o l a t i o n

dip me in
melted hot air
watch it tear up
my knees and
blister my palms
deform my face

then brush your
teeth like it's fine

(why do i feel
this way
why can't i be
completely
reliant on myself
emotionally?)

i don't want to
talk to you and
i don't want to
leave the house

so i don't
but then
it kills me
inside

(i don't know which is
worse feeling like a recluse
or feeling like a failure as
a side effect of going out)

i s o l a t i o n

i don't really mind it
when people have fun
without me because
that's what i want them
to do but i won't say it
doesn't hurt a little bit

(i won't say that
being alone in a
dark room all day
doesn't get to me)

i s o l a t i o n

it's my own
**** fault so
now i'm done and
will stop complaining

j u s t
l e a v e
m e  a l o n e

snorting burned toast
too late in the day to
call it a complete and
nutritious breakfast

(i have my heroes
but i also know that i
will never be a hero
to someone like me)

i'm not going
to make it that far.

(call me defeatist but
i guess you're right)

that's what i haven't
been saying is that
i'm not making plans
for the fall or the spring
or the rest of my life
because i'm afraid or
maybe convinced that i'm
not going to make it that far

because before the snow
covers the lawn in quiet
white layers i will be sprinkled
over top of the grass in the
form of a grayish powder
and misplaced hymns

(i doubt that all of us
were born to live)

nosedive into a
sandwich smothered
in over-sweetened
jelly regrets

and forget about the
haunting sweat that
you can't wash off
of the back of your neck

(the nice thing about
dying young is that
you'll have the rest of
your life to forget me)

headfirst slam into
the midnight sky
i cracked my skull
open on the moon

the milky way poured
out from behind my
eyes and galaxies came
up out of my throat

bits and pieces of me have
died here and there along
the way like ripped out
pieces of that hateful lawn

(the reason i want
to be forgotten is
because i was never
worth remembering)

but really it's just that
death and darkness are such nice
peaceful calm and reasonable
topics to discuss at length.

"i think you're
extremely depressed"
you announced
turning off the fork in the road

(well look who's
finally catching on)

"i think that's
extremely offensive"
i replied
turning up the stereo.

"you never want to
do anything anymore
you just want to stay home
all alone in your hot room"

(maybe because that's the one
place where i'm safe to be myself)

"there's a big
world out there
and how are you
going to see it this way?"

(cue that one song about the world
being better off without me)

"mom
i'm tired."

(why do you always
decide to talk at me
on my way to or from
where i don't want to be?)

"well maybe if you
stopped telling yourself
you were tired all the time
you would be less tired!
or maybe if you
stopped drinking
coffee when you
get home from work."

"it doesn't matter
i won't sleep anyway."

"it might help
if you really tried
aren't you taking your
melatonin supplement?"

(i am not taking my
melatonin supplement
because it stopped having
any effect on me months ago
but i'm not about to
tell you that)

"we want to have
fun with you
even dad's commenting
that you don't want
to do anything
and we want you to
go out to grandma's and
grandma wants to take
you on a trip and i want
to take you on a trip
i've been planning it for
two years and i want
you to be actively involved
and i'm upset that you'll
talk to your friends but
not me and i feel like
you don't love me anymore
and i've failed somehow
as a parent and
and"

(and i've
stopped listening.)

"don't turn up
the music
we're having a
conversation here
why can't you go
back to the good
wholesome stuff
you used to listen to?"

(maybe if you wanted
to have a conversation
here you could stop
talking and start
listening to what
i'm not saying and the
lyrics i always sing
along with over you or
maybe you could stop thinking
i'm still who i used to be)

"i think you're
extremely depressed."

*(no **** sherlock
i'm not o-*******-kay
but i wonder why you
didn't notice a year ago.)

i've been told i need
to feel like myself
be comfortable in
my own skin

but it's not so
much the skin

(i'm used to the scars
and jagged red slits
pink and white
stretch marks
corners and curves
i've had to accept)

it's the hair
the way it grows
on my arms and
legs and face and
neck and back
and eyes

whether what's coming
out of my scalp is
brown or pink or some
unhappy color in between

being okay
if it's short or
long or up or
down or dry or
soft or clean or
a day or two *****

(growing into the
length and volume
the sore weakness
of my own neck
was the hardest
part of getting older)

not being
defined by who
the follicles make
me out to be

(the patience
to wait or
the daring to
change)

is when i'll know
that i feel
comfortable under
my own scalp.

the past
how frightening

(i got to thinking
too hard today
this morning driving
by my past)

the thought that what
we call tomorrow will
soon be what we call
an elusive yesterday

(choke your way through
asthmatic games of dodgeball
and forward rolls on blue gym mats
friday midnights of twirling and
swirling through some
bb-gun pockmarked
plate glass reflection of the
lonelier girl you used to be)

that the moment we
put a thought down on
a page is the moment it
no longer holds control

(drown in the square idea
of blue glasses of water under
your chair and a thousand
and one calibrated mistakes
a one-millionth of a light-year
distilled to a drop of sweat)

because it's just
plain gone and
nobody can get it
back except in retrospect

(i think i spent a lifetime
of ten and twelve a.m's
sliding over the
worst of your tiles
but ten and twelve
a.m. are very different
times and that was a very
different lifetime ago)

growing up is
the worst when
it's done in the
worst ways

a childhood to
exist and a
lifetime to
forget.

i remember weeks
of nights i couldn't sleep
on air mattresses and
pull out couches

clutching a brand new
little black mp3 player
earbuds wrapped
around my neck

years and
years later

i'm still lying in bed
but it's broken now
and the music doesn't
play right anymore

(the tracks all
split and break
apart between the
cords and my ears)

and i remember the
night before my
graduation it just
wouldn't play in one ear

and the sounds weren't
coming through right and
i heard a brand new side of a
song i'd known my whole life

(a more raw and real
background track of
harmonization and
something sadder)

and it made me feel
better to know that
there are still unheard
layers to the familiar

that can only be
accessed through
time and the
broken parts.