i collect snapstreaks like monopoly properties, hoarding them to their fullest, raking in the numbers like they are the thing keeping me floating. a drop in number means a decrease in value, as if my friendships have numerical value. it’s all about putting myself on other people’s VIP lists and keeping them off my own. i never realized how great a desire i have for control until i got a sick sort of happy seeing that emoji telling me, “you’re on their top eight best friends list, and they’re not on yours.” what is this, myspace? i play it like it’s a public social media page but in reality what makes it so sweet is the fact that only i get to see it.
or maybe i just like knowing i’m important, at least to somebody. maybe if they see my contact name at the top of the list every time, then they’ll want to talk to me. maybe it’s less like chess pieces, piling up pawns, and more like sitting on the corner singing old sad love songs with a hat out to catch pennies. these interactions add up to pennies. we’re still playing monopoly, i think, but why is all this property not adding up for me? why am i still losing money when i should be, by all accounts, winning? maybe i just need to start another streak.

i know i dont live in a movie
this isnt an episode of skins, my name isnt cassie
but i didnt eat for three days just so i could be lovely
and you didnt even notice me
maybe thats why the only musician ive really related to lately is josh ramsay
it's been a decade since its release but im still looping 'fix me'
when you hit the bottom of the marianas trench youve got to pick up a shovel and start digging
but once you get through the mantle and past the core
suddenly you're not going down anymore

nephil of ancient age,
your flaming sword lights my way,
keeping the dark at bay and the path straight.
watch your footsteps, guardian,
lest you forget your own importance,
wilting feathers from once shiny blades.
let air fill your lungs, the scent of old but strong loves.
let light fill your eyes, glimpses of golden gates.
fill the gaps between your fingers with someone else’s flesh--
gently, with care, the way callouses always are.
you are amazing, worth the weight of a thousand stars,
the way laughter lights up your face,
how smiles find their proper place.
you are the cadence of waterfalls,
hopelessly romantic in your strength and fighting calls.
misty and shrouded and all to yourself,
carefully tucked like a secret into half a dozen hearts.

dear mom: (this is a poem)
     (this is typed so that you don’t have to struggle through my handwriting-- which is, like me, sloppy and a little difficult, but sometimes people tell me that it’s pretty and artsy. your handwriting is swirly and elegant and sometimes hard to read, but i love looking at it anyway.)
     psychologically speaking, children do not understand “good” and “bad” in terms of flaws until they are taught by observing, watching their elders discriminate peers based on skin and shape and size and little pieces of identity that seem to be unusual. children see moles and freckles as interesting marks. squishy tummies are good for laying on. good hugs are good hugs, whether you’re tall or short or gangly or round.
     psychologically speaking, a child’s insecurities will stem from their parents--
     when a girl sees her mother disliking something about herself, that girl is more likely to grow up and feel that way as well.
     people tell me that i look like you all the time. (i like to roll my eyes a little passively and act like i’m sick of hearing it (sometimes it does get tiring) but it has always been a compliment.) this is not me telling you that i have your insecurities (i know you don’t like your chin and your arms and sometimes you don’t like your tummy) but instead this is me telling you this:
     you and dad always like to tell me how beautiful i am.
     momma, i look like you. you’re beautiful too.
     you’re the perfect height for hugging because, if i want to, i can engulf you and pull my arms over yours and tuck my face into your shoulder. but you’re also the perfect height for hugging because if i need to, i can tuck myself under your arms and press my face against your collarbone and feel protected by you.
     your hands hurt a lot now but that doesn’t mean they can’t still make beautiful things. i love the way that your fingers compliment your wedding/engagement rings.
     your arms are good for lifting, picking up new projects and painting and framing and helping me carry things.
     (harry potter had his mother’s green eyes and so do i. lily potter didn’t have glasses but that just means that we’re beating them by just a smidge, then.)
     your hair is perfect for being played with, soft and easy to run my fingers through. (you endured countless Little League baseball games with me twisting your poor tresses into knots, didn’t you? and you’ve spent hours patiently playing with mine, because even though your hands get tired you know that it feels good.)
     dear mom: i know it kinda ***** to deal with moody teenagers (twice!) especially when you can’t really figure out what we’re upset about half the time, but you never get angry when i cry out of frustration. you listen to my dubiously-correct fun facts and watch silly videos of adorable cats and you buy me books and paint and all kinds of crafty things, and i know from experience how hard it can be to love yourself sometimes but mom, here’s the thing: *i love you.

spit out sanctuaries in graveyards of skeletons decomposing in summer closets next to ripped denim and tank tops.
let glass crunch under canvas rubber-soled shoes and examine how rubber your soul is, easily bent to fit the mold.
how can you expect to get anywhere if you're scared of what the future tells you?
autumn leaves and candles dripping wax ghosts as flames of dancers reach high for sunrises that they don't remember.
chalkboard chills lift mountains of goosebumps in your skin, textures clashing like swords in a war not worth waging,
indents of pencils pressed too hard to pale tree skins.
make marks wherever seen fit.
hearts of gold are hard and cold,
but hearts of ice can be melted and boiled.

your eyes are riptides,
undertows,
the current sweeping me off my feet:
pulling me under until i cannot breathe,
drowning me.
in a sea of people, i always search for you,
hiding across the crowded room.
sharp relief of your jaw line
--sculpted,
a statue of david--
your soul smothers me when you smile,
lights up those eyes
like the moonlight reflecting the choppy
ocean water at night.
in a sea of people, i always find you,
gentle touches like stingrays and eels,
sugar-coated shark teeth
sinking into me,
windswept across the beach with
cawing seagulls hunting clams.
your words are too sweet
--candied,
falsified for personal achievement--
smothering me in my sleep when you
trill your fingers to say hello.
in a sea of people, i always miss you,
shadowed,
a ghost of what once was and what will be,
things that i saw and things i will see.
the tide tickles at my ankles
as i stand on the edge of the horizon,
searching for your silhouette
in the darkness.
the sun has set and the tides will rise
--moonlight,
moonlight in your eyes--
but i am accompanied only by silence.
the ritual
of a faded dream that
crossbreeds with vague metaphors
and bad similes.
sweet dreams, great barrier reef.
goodnight, my darling.

it’s the first day of a fresh new school year when
one of your teachers looks you dead in the eye and says,
“introduce yourself.”
your classmates,
familiar to you yet all somehow strangers,
scramble for some short snippet of a way to encompass everything they
have spent the past sixteen to eighteen years accumulating.
when it’s your turn and every eye turns upon you in anticipation for you to “introduce yourself,”
you taste iron in your gums and say,
“i’m not sure yet.”
and every last one of your peers agrees.
see, for the past three years every time someone asks me how old i am,
i start to tell them “fifteen”
and i don’t think that i’m the only one when it comes to this whole crisis of identity.
see, for the past three years i look back on who i used to be
and sneer at past versions of myself,
a babushka doll of self-loathing as i once saw it so eloquently put.
how am i supposed to introduce myself
if i’m going to hate what i see looking back in probably three months?

it’s some kind of family event or holiday when
one of your relatives, or friend of a parent, friend of a friend of a friend of a coworker,
looks you dead in the eye and asks,
“what are you doing with your life?”
your cousins are all too much older, family and yet strangers,
staring wide-eyed because they remember the horror of
getting asked this by every other adult in sight.
you take two short breaths and taste iron in your gums and you say,
“i’m not sure yet.”
and everyone rushes to assure you that it’s fine not to have decided yet,
as though anyone ever actually sticks to the career path they choose when they are just
eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen, thirteen.
when i was thirteen, twelve, eleven, ten,
took every single interaction as an attack upon my person.
i was selfish and self-absorbed and, quite frankly,
one of the most problematic kids that i know.
not in the “scene kid who won’t stop talking about anime” kind of jokingly problematic
but the kind of problematic where i thought it was okay to
repeatedly ignore a gay friend’s request to stop throwing around the word “******.”
how am i supposed to tell you what i’m doing with my life
when less than a decade ago i was everything that i have now come to completely
and utterly hate?

it’s a social event full of friend-of-a-friends,
people who are complete and utter strangers,
meeting you for the first time so of course
they’ll look you dead in the eye and ask you,
“what’s your name?”
suddenly your heart is in your throat because there is power in names,
power that you will never shake,
and to be quite honest you have too many names to pick just one.
in a split second decision you have to assign this new person as a peer, an acquaintance,
figure out who you are mutually in contact with.
when the silence stretches a beat too long,
you taste iron in your gums and say,
“i’m not sure yet.”
maybe this time it’s not as appropriate of an answer,
and all your friends are looking at you strangely.
see, everyone i know has a different name to call me.
my best friend calls me ‘jack’ and my mother calls me ‘claire.’
my teachers struggle to figure out which one i prefer.
see, once upon a time i read an essay about how names have power.
you summon spirits by their names.
you control demons by knowing their names.
an angel’s song is its name.
i tried to divide myself into tiny pieces so that no one could ever have full control over me.
i have accepted a handful of aliases and nicknames that i respond to
sooner than the one on my birth certificate
so that no one may ever own me.

i write a lot of poetry about not knowing where i’m going.
the problem with dwelling on these things is that i am still going,
going,
going with still no destination determined.
how long can a train go in a straight line before it derails itself?
how far can a train go before it runs out of fuel?

hi, my name is jack. i like
outer space and poetry,
physics and creative writing.
hi, my name is jack. i am
not an earthling-- my home is in the stars,
somewhere far away for which i am still searching.
the marrow of my bones whispers for me to just go go go go go--
but i can’t drive on the highway without inducing anxiety,
and i don’t think i’m quite smart enough to become a rocket scientist.
i’ve just got to cross my fingers and pray
that somehow they’ll pick me to revisit the moon someday.

Rough edges shape their calluses to my own
We bite softly at first
Tasting shadowed limitations
Deeper flavors blossom wet and dark along thirsty tongues
I need closer
To render you tearful, speechless
Peel back each layer then climb inside
Saturating my parched surface
With the dewy fabric of your subconscious mind
Ebony pupils widen into the spalunking expanse of my own
I could explore your depths for a lifetime
I would still be left wanting

i watched the earth
consume the sun,
a rampant fire blazing within.
the sky turned orange
and pink and peach and purple
and everything in between,
it was like an explosion had gone off
and left the beauty and dust behind,

i eyed the green trees
become dark silhouettes,
painting themselves
against the backdrop of opalescence.
smoke coming from chimneys
took on a dark grey shade
and outlines of houses and rooftops
began to separate the gravel from the welkin.

i adored the sky ablaze
and watched it scorch and blacken
with rage.
it was everything and nothing,
and as angry as it was, it felt peaceful.
and at once, the sky was dead,
and small fragments
of the previous blaze dotted the dark coat above.

it was as if to say,
the world is sleeping,
but our problems are not,
for though the sky is dark
and no longer ablaze,
stars still coat the interstice
to remind us of what is unfinished.