A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't

I didn't know you were unhappy.
Somewhere
when the dishes sat drying in their rack
and the baby fell asleep,
like the rats neglected in their cage
I overlooked it.
Wrapped in weighted folds
of sleep deprivation,
headlights not yet through the fog.

she felt herself falling

but didn't try to catch herself

because she wanted him to do it for her

and she fell

and fell

he never came

she realized he never would

and she learned to love men who wouldn't be there to catch her when she fell

-to my father

Chaos;
not just outside,
but inside too.

Words;
spoke too much,
understood a few.

Destroy;
the walls around,
and open the shell.

Speak;
Not just for you,
but for others as well.