You’re trying to find words
with a mouth full of saltwater
and i’m going to bed
with eyes full of sand

foggy dreams
thick with desire,
a compass
that always points north,

I’m going to swim
in a current so strong.

this summer,
I am half the girl I used to be.

I need to cry
like I need to sneeze
from an allergy to being alive.

day to day,
the urge to paint everything white
and disappear becomes
stronger.

i've got a pressure in my head
and a weakness in my bones
like someone
punched the inside of my body.

afternoon hanging heavy,
caressed by a tomato soup fog,
tired carpet, fleshy velvet couch
both aching for validation.

ten photos of the same dog
speak Latin all at once

a desk in utter disarray,
fishbowl walls slimy
and coated in shame

a bookcase crammed with
stepfather books,
trying too hard, too much, too soon

giant cilia lined lungs swing from the ceiling,
******* in and out and in and out and in and
all of the oxygen and

it has already been an hour,

$150,
a check is fine,
see you next week.

The door,
the same old door
open and unlocked,
you sit on the couch,
the one you slept on for
six years.

In the flames tonight,
the smell of burning will be back
but this time,
it is welcome.

The cabinets,
the dishes,
they are all broken
and I am standing on shards of porcelain
piercing my feet,

in fear of more pain,
we stay where we are

you, on the couch
and me, on the plates.

welcome home.

On a mirror in lipstick:
No hard feelings.

I take pictures about letting go
even though I keep holding on

When I left
nothing happened

You breathed in a lot
but I got the message

I find too much meaning in nothing
Once, I saw a man eat spaghetti on the porch with his dog
and I still think about what that could mean


I scare myself
and I hope I scare you too

what’s ****** up:
I still hope that you love me
and in an ideal world, it would be okay

what’s even more ****** up:
it would actually be okay if you loved me right now

the most ****** up:
we do love each other but you can’t make yourself happy

I wanna marry a man who isn’t really
a man, but the illusion of one,
he’s actually just a cut out,
and I want to write his name in my
blood on the church so that God
knows
that I am okay alone.

And I’m tired of checking up
on how you’re doing,
because you probably don’t think of
me.

We sit on the fire escape at dawn,
my cardboard husband and I,
and we smoke cigarettes
and he burns a little
because paper is flammable.

When the sun comes up,
I feel you.
Landslide, land mine, landline, and
the burns on my tongue.

Bitter coffee and it’s not so bitter
compared to the taste of the spiders
crawling from my mouth,
and when I think of you


...You probably don’t think of me.

I’d write your name on the church,
but I don’t have enough blood for
two names.