the water's changing
finding places to sink into
breathing deep
breathe's my type of food

we're getting older and
as i'm drifting further
i'm feeling farther from
myself

it's tight, again
i'm crammed, crying again
it's taken a while to lift my head
to see the light of hope again

i'm missing something but
it's beckoning
it's a pre-quarter-life crisis
it's pretty close to failure

my mind's buzzing
rarely sleeping
it's taken me seven months to realize
i miss therapy

it's no fun again
it's drivin off a cliff
it's tiring and it's dark out at 4pm
i'm trying to look somewhere else

maybe close my eyes instead

i really been out here
really been missing myself

I woke up with my world in my hands
my world in numbers (worth), old hands (family), shared trauma (all of the above)
I wish I could feel like a kid again, spine bent and mind in tact
Clocks ticked and there was no meaning in relationships
I’m not old, I know
But I’m more of what I know, or less of whatever before, I don’t know
But I know: I’m perpetually alone, out-of-zone, proud and somewhat undone
I’m five years to 21 and I love my mom.
I’m body, all broken and sunken in. I’m unaware of mostly nothing at all
Pretentious and stuck up. Beautiful and ****** up.
Everything and all of it or none of the above.
I’m undecided, but that’s not a check in the box
I’m sad and I’m exhausted but you can’t major in that, can you?
I’m too tired to talk to you but I know that’s not an excuse.
So maybe I’m 21. Maybe I hate my mom. Maybe I’m not alone.
Maybe I live in a condo on the West Side and maybe I’ve checked into one.
Maybe just maybe I don’t need to know anything about me at all
Maybe I’m a question mark.
Or maybe I’ve missed it.
****.

these little talks of ours are getting repetitive
i repented on the floor of my brothers bedroom
i repented on a busride on my own at 1am
in the ibuprofen pills locked away somewhere

these talks are seeming less like talks
and more like tradition
there is no hope in me left to question
if im being honest here
(and ive always been)
the line between help and harm
is very blurry right about now

maybe ive accepted what has come to be
that only of us is coming out alive
and it wont be me

ive only one question left
and its important
what the hell did you get out of this?
cause ive lost everything

are you tired yet?

how are you doing?

perhaps i am holding secrets
and the holder is keeping me captive
like my mind has been caged up
imagination flew someplace far off

and everyones in love now
while i pretend to care about things
when I'd rather just drown

i dont ******* get that i dont get it
that this thing im searching for might just be impossible to find, might just be broken.

wish i could say i didnt care
wish i was strong enough for my lies to even sound half believable
wish waking up in the morning didn't seem so insufferable

i wish i knew i was loved.
or at least what that even feels of.
i wish i could stop acting so ******* tough.
i wish i had the power to say i even really knew anyone.
i wish my mother speaking in tongues stopped making me feel so uncomfortable.

how am i doing?
i feel numb
i feel empty and full and useless and like im being used.
sometimes i feel like even my dog hates me.
so how am i doing?
i don't really have a clue

maybe i should go back to plan A.
i wish i remembered how to pray.

there is no rhythm to my poems anymore
i've lost touch, lost the skill to manifest these thoughts
perhaps the ability to think
my thoughts have congealed, melted, turned my eyelids from red to pink

it is exhausting
feeling nothing without knowing of apathy
it is like drowning
but you just never sink

i want a movement, baby
i want pain and a heart on the side
letting things go is like watching myself die

living life is not living if it is all for the wait
i want to feel the sun on my bones
feel my soul for a change

when does it get better than this?
never knew myself to be so lazy, tired, stoic, stained
i want to be myself or whoever else for a day
i can't seem to shake this feeling again

we knew it couldn’t work
i followed her into the hole in my heart and
she built a home there right from the start
she led me to the city’s edge
and i followed right to the end
we kept a mutual knowing between growing distance
between the coffee dates and
stolen glances
and restless ways
we’d wring out our hands
and i knew it couldn’t work
i told them about you
and it felt good, it felt new, it felt different
but i let me get the best of you,
and you faded away with all I couldn’t give you
our love was as good as dead and
we didn’t last anywhere
just in new york, in my dreams
in the world in my head

in a couple of years time ill ask if you understand
and we’ll do it all again
knowing we’re done before it ends

therapy feels harder
permanence feels present in the birthday candles im forced to blow out
my door pushed open
my priorities in shambles

my work key twists the latch in my soul and holds it there
i am what i do
so then how am i nothing?

hugs are asked for, harder
days feel shorter and my gas tank feels somewhat hotter
its all creeping up on me now
this is when you are supposed to feel something, right?
if i am what i do
i’m hoping at one point i’ll be you.

an empty brain
almost as empty as the road ahead
it feels a bit painful to stay so still
and think so hard of nothing

its not loneliness
not a feeling
no, this is objective
i AM alone

headlights pass my peripheral
the darkness is tainted
more ghostly
silent

dont do anything stupid
11:25pm
please?
11:26pm

get out of my sleep baby
cut it out of me
summer is lost so
let me go
cut the care out baby
let it drain out of me
i dont care about faking hope

forget brushing trapped teeth
i’m full of them
locked bathroom doors
and stars sweep you off your feet

i’m in the backseat of your car
sunlight, mountains, enough of talking
enough of me
i can see the end of the world from here

do you remember me?
crashing slowly, tears underneath sheets
a hallow heart, trying to be nice
melting hears under sweltering heat

i learn to be silent
winding roads, and the eclipse, all gone
reasoning is hard when eyes are open,
sad season is lost, and you’re lost when it’s not

i’m sorry you’re getting away from me
i’m full of it
tourist towns and rickety ****
i’m sorry i haven’t felt any of this trip

terrible memories clouded with
bright green grass, brown, wood and ash
forests speak in your dreams, vacant floors
empty shelves and unraveled curls

coffee cup to the moon, praying, begging
“close this moment, lock it up, make it right”
i’ll cry and scream to make this what i want it to be
pretty thing, i wouldn’t say it’s fine
but you can twist this whichever way you want it to seem

feeling unkempt
left me untethered, you caught the next cab
south of any air
ill keep close ithaca, warm me from the inside, heading anywhere
be too loud for me
perpetually alone
keep me far from anything ive not learned i need to know

and earthly ties they’ll ask for closure
while the bed pulls you closer
feeling unkempt
choked me breathless, i climbed an unsteady ladder, running out of air
ill be dumb for you, bliss
wrap me in illusion
evidently ill be consequently blind for you
perpetually forgone
any sense of known
tell me again, call me your fool
feeling unkempt

ill forget me again for you.

if all the lives i keep living
ill keep forgetting
then which do i get
and who does the living?

am i forgetting something?
am i living somewhere
am i living?
have i ever remembered?

it goes
it gets
so far away from here
i go
i get
so much farther from where
i remember

i don’t call
i don’t text
i cant remember
where i left my bed

i cant remember
where i left my bed

i think that its pretty far away from here.

i dont know if you remember
the last words you said
tangled in feeling it replays
as if youre me and i am dead
do you know how long it took for you to get out of my head?
and you’re back
a middle name
a feeling im fearing wont come back
a moment
the why my breathe spreads on your neck
do you know how long it takes for me to feel like youre not there?
you linger like the name i remembered, the eyes i cant forget
and youre across from me, and i said
“how did i get u back?”
and you said
nothing
like the way my name still lingers on your breathe
how long do i have to wait until i feel your fingers again?
you have such a way with glances
a middle name
a look that i just cant get
you are every word ive never learned
and im the last girl you said

there is a visceral feeling somewhere in there
but it hides amongst the trees, leaves dripping
with green, stems are broken bonds, water used to flow in these veins,
but now they are fluent, transparent now, clear and immobile

toxins fall onto your skin, pesticides and poison
seeping in as to
make you stronger, eventually
despite the pain you feel

it hurts too hard to scream, so you are silent in this growth
through this sickening feeling in your bones
if she can make you stronger, if she says she must,
then well, its not like you’ve ever had anyone else to trust

she tears you raw, rips you barren but it is the only love you’ve ever known,
she says you can leave, it’s okay to be gone
but where else is there to to?

it’s all routine at some point
but i feels more wrong amongst the years
there is no breaking point, no period of knowing
just a crashing, a noticing of scraped bark.
a hallow feeling and empty branches
a blinding enlightenment amongst the darj

are you parched? starved?
have you noticed that there is rot where once was heart?
this venom has reached its end, and you are the strongest you could get
weak, fragile, weighed down
but stronger now
in awareness all around

and so she asks if you need water, offers you peace, family, vinegar
fix it now, you say or imagine, because you have become so utterly afraid of her
with dead leaves and less roots
she harvests you with a fiery hunger

but amongst the hunger,
these years of growth,
there is no produce in this lumber
this tree is seas and crass and venemous
so she throws you out,
without knowing she had caused this

the aftershock of knowing that
nothing will come after this

19 years of hoping, longing, asking
where did that pain go? that waiting?
the bliss of knowing that
all that comes after will always compare to this
the worst part of my day is over
the best time of my life is 2 years younger

the begging, the feeling of hoping that
I can still taste you, smell the smoke on your breathe
the realization that
you took from me the only thing I thought would make sense

you look so small atop that mountain, the way down
and mine - I'd hope - so large - as I hit the ground
the aftershock of knowing that this never was a good thing,
you were just your lips and my sense was the protagonist missing.

Fess up.
Empty-handed, palms face down on the table.
It won’t get louder unless you let it.

Chest up.

Breathe in the smell of smoke you’ve spread.
Do you feel like harming yourself?

Will you let it?

Let nothing consume you.
Don’t let your empty hands ruin you,
Until you’ve something to show for it.

Untether it.

Feel yourself shatter to pieces.
DNA into grain, skin turns to gray.
Choke on the white noise in your chest until you’ve given into it.

Until you can’t.