by loose definition:
to build a muscle,
you must first tear it apart
and let it heal over
and over and over
and over and
over
again before it grows into
its utmost potential.
my heart is a muscle
and let me tell you,
it keeps tearing over
and over and over and
over
and over
again
and so one day it should overtake
my entire person
and spray the whole world
with scar tissue and my greatest,
biggest love.
right?

the busiest sidewalks breed the deepest secrets
yet everyone pretends that they've forgotten how to speak
if we took a moment to watch how
the truth tumbles out from crumpled coffee cups and crinkled napkins
we may learn a thing or two
about our hollow brethren

They stare
Too many of them do it
They look at you with their sideways
face.
They don't peer
They arn't peers
Lack all intuition
And empathy
"What?"
"Huh?"
With a plastered on smile
On their sideways face
I am done trying to explain
to the people frozen in their
permenant Dutch Angles
"Wait, what?"
You can stick your sideways face
up your sideways ***

Do you want to know why I stayed?
I threatened so many times to disappear before you glimpsed
the worst parts of me, through whispers and fists and biting
my lips to stop the eruptions of volatile girl from stabbing
you with my skeletons.
In the misty, early hours when neither of us were sleeping
because you were scared I'd go and I was scared I wouldn't,
I showed you the nooks and crannies of my character, the
crevices and caverns of my interchanging moods.
I did my very best to upset and cause unrest and I flung
every miserable curse in the direction I thought you'd be going.
I screamed my violence and mistakes against the front door
and told you I had proven you right.
I was unlovable.
I was a dysfunctional bundle of bones and you were
better off without me.
And I turned over to sob myself to sleep and considered
how I would also be better off without myself and as I
went to hit my pillows-
As I heaved in a shuddering breath of regret and guilt
and my lungs expanded to places I had never felt before,
You reached out and caught me and inserted yourself as
a root in my flailing, upended life.
You stroked my hair and cradled my shivering body and
quieted my sobs and told me there was no way in hell
that you'd leave this beautiful mess.
You said that I punish myself for being anything other than
what I think I should be. You said that I wreck the things
I love the most so that they won't one day see me as
a monster, and you're right. I prove how horrible I am
before you can. I sabotage so that I can say
I know. I'll let you go.
But you absolutely refuse to go,
So here I stay.

Momma always taught me to pull up my sleeves
Before sitting down to our evening meals
So that I'd protect my arms
From the messes I carved
While letting my salted wounds heal

I am a master at the art of ashes
human cremation takes artistic commitment
once the smell of singed eyebrows
burns your nose you can never be the same again
you know, my skin grew flame retardant and at first I wished grossly to return it and buy a new shell
but I've made the executive decision to aerate my diaphragm and pump this fire out of my pores and into your palms
singing with a slow burn
branding your sweet fingerprints into my skull
see, something outside of myself must contain me or I'll spill, gritty and fine
end over end into the depths of the alleyways and cobblestones
but, to be quite frank, I'm drowsy
so I'd rather you climb to the top of the world and release me, softly letting me blanket everything I've ever come to love
instead of confining me in that ugly porcelain jar that I spent my entire life peering at
while it hovered, haunting me, above my birthing ground
sitting precariously on that wooden mantle
above my fireplace
above my home.