i have been practicing the art of
concealment
because i once thought that love
was a wide open field
where i could spin in careless circles
and scream at the top of my lungs
my every lucid thought
but have since realized
it is instead
a cold, haunted house
with creaking doors
that only open
with the hardest push
and the strongest of intentions
to get inside.

This morning the wind whipped
The rain into a storm
Each drop pierced with sunlight
And I realized,
I don't need you.

The wild joy of youth
In the face of a government shutdown,
History being made,
Tonight
I realize, I am free
To be brilliant
Kind, passionate,
All the things my parents
Don't want me to be
And you don't understand.

I can love someone else now
Someone who cares --
Closer than the wakening wind
Through the storm of life and death
Present in the glistening rain
And the sun taking its first breaths.

i'm writing this letter for you.
you in the other room, i hear you through the wall,
talking
to yourself,
telling yourself secrets you never believe.
i have some i'd like to spill,
but every time i try,
the walls soak them up like
white cotton and
black ink.
i'd like you to hear something other than your own voice
and maybe you can hear me when
you read.
you brought me here.
took me with you when you left like
a trinket,
a memento of home,
something to hold in the night when regret is like
a knot of snakes
in your gut.
ibd driving you
to tangle limbs with another;
a facsimile of love
driving me.
i think now it was less love and more addiction.
less love and more stockholm syndrome,
a disorder i cultivated
to have a reason to stay with you, with you,
the most beautiful sledgehammer
i've ever seen.
euphonious dynamite.
you are thumbtacks in my eyes and dry clouds above my desert,
you drop through me like lead:
you are a pneumatic drill and i
am a porcelain doll,
a quail's egg
you shatter me and i know
i never had a chance -
who bets on a dead horse?
who spends all their faith on a pantheon
that rots as they watch.
you desiccate me decimate me and i let you.
you are a world war in the body of a girl,
and i am naught but
cannon fodder
and cotton mouth i read you poetry but the walls swallowed my words
and all you heard was breath
(isn't that enough that should be enough,
a gust of wind
a breeze;
and the spirit is nothing but air,
pneumatic:
cavitied and consecrated.
the walls swallowed its manifestations,
but you
felt my spirit on your skin)
but i am not
enough
you are tire tracks on my abandoned road and you
brought me with you whenever you ran and
never believed me when i told you that
(not every problem can be solved with a map
spread on the dashboard).
you don't care about solutions,  
though,
just avoidance and denial and
distraction,
you treat every vagrant
like god in disguise
you take every hitchhiker into your heart and carry them like tumors,
infirmity is contagious.
a gift the bodies share.
from you i received
an atrial septal defect;
a hole in my heart,
leaking  blood.
from you i received dysthymia and
a martyr complex.
from you i received knowledge:
[one: nobody is strong,
but some have reinforced their bomb shelters
with their own bones.]
[two: a baby doll, baby girl
thick wrists,
sick recurring pain in the form of mirrors,
bathroom stalls and naked form]
[three: a gasmask can't protect you from the poison in your veins.
believe me,
i tried]
[four: the gaps between your bones
will one day be filled
and you will feel whole]
[five: the blue lips of a deep sea diver
should not be idolized.
the only surgeries you perform should be on your own heart
so you wound no one but yourself
when your hands
shake.]
[six: i tried, i promise,
i tried,
i tried]
you are false sermons and i am a believer you are thumbtacks in my eyes and lightning flowers on my back.
when i perform self-surgery,
i will bisect my heart

take it with you when you run
i will stay behind
and speak to the walls.

only dead boys hold insects like they're something
special
only a dead boy would let a mantis in his heart and
preying was always a better descriptor
because hymns burned in my throat and
i scratched a cross into my palm but i was never lucky enough to scar
but
oh, dead boy
bug lover
enduring a thousand lashes to save the soul of a beetle  -
i'll help you peel off all your scabs to make sure they scar
thick tissue skin memory sometimes you think scars are the closest you'll get
to a wedding ring
you're a suicide king i think a kingdom of hearts was never the safest place for you i
don't think you understand the way your subjects' hearts are strung because
entomology entomos everything you love is cut to bits
and on the fourteenth of february you told me
the only purpose of a flower
was to hold
a spider
inside
and i guess that was why you painted all your walls with roses i
hope your garden  smells as sweet
covered in your misfortunes
only a dead boy would let
a praying mantis so close
to his neck
oh, you freak. disgusting.
i ate the last one that let me this close.
you told me {if i die
leave my body
in the forest
by
an anthill}
maybe you don't realize we were doomed from the start or maybe you're just naïve but
honey you're a dead boy and
corpses don't fall in love.
[you're so genuine it hurts and i think
i could teach you how to be a fake -
nobody likes an honest man
i could teach you how to hate the world but you said

{the only one
i hate here
is me}]

freakish child.
all you see in every rorschach is mantes and
decapitations and
wedding rings you are an aberration,
suicide king entomologist your throne room
was full of termites.
with hallowed cheeks and hollowed churches,
i will assure that you scar
dead boy, if you die
i will put maggots
in your chest

Insignificance is a relative term
The pessimistic thoughts that pass through our heads…
The thoughts that say:
We are not good enough,
We do not matter,
We are insignificant
These are all just thoughts
Controlled by you
A person,
Who can make choices and decisions,
And although you may not be able to change the world as a whole
You can change those insignificant little thoughts
Because a person is more than what you think
They are one of seven billion, but how big is seven billion really?
And the world that you truly live in is made up of much, much less
So the next time you think you aren't enough
Remember that it’s you who controls whether you feel like enough or not.
And when I feel like I’m drowning and I can’t breathe during the day,
And all I want to do is crawl up in a ball in my house and cry and feel and be left alone
I have to be reminded how much I’m worth
Because even if we don’t know it,
We are all worth something
Even if sometimes we make mistakes
Even if sometimes we hurt ourselves to let people know we aren't fine
Even if we feel like we’re nothing
We aren't*
Because although the world is a hateful and horrible awful place full of ignorance and judgment,
There are still lights and halos and happiness and there’s laughter too in there
There’s babies being born, people getting married, and random acts of kindness being done
There are cookies and baklava and puppies
There are young lovers and happy children and sweet singing
There’s music and art and love being made
And although the babies may be still, the couples may get divorced, and the acts of kindness may be empty
The cookies may be burnt, the baklava old, and the puppies dead
The young lovers may break each other’s hearts, the happy children may grow up and the sweet singing stopped
The music may be sad, the art distasteful and the love not true
It doesn't matter because all these things are part of life
And all of these things were done by people
And you’re a person
So I’d say that’s pretty ******* awesome.

cream the soft you are is body
white

             shoulders


completely neat in kissing
easily blades

between muscles rigidly
tight and folding

                 folding


          and

fi


              n


     ger


                                s



yoursmine
teeth please too
a bit at least
because cream

the body soft

you are

is hurt nicely pleasant
and you know


                 (like i know)



pretty is pain

all the streets in girl things comely
arms a bit are haired in

               (tan and tan)


the golden crush of whose mute fingers
make blithe the spring
and against
find the night homely

piercingly the mooon against
into slivers thousand make
their drooping slender of cotton haste
as cherry petals,

                             a branch from shake


in the wind to uncurlsome
neatly wan ankles
and fists o' skin girlsome

crease and crease alike(andunlike)

gossamer



                          faintly





                                                          of




pinkest aching to part


To enter loving


To exit heart

When I was eight years old,
I overlooked a moment of compassion
And challenged the will of a fellow third grader
Compelled by my ignorance
She gave the most astute summary of my life ever uttered.

When I was eight years old,
A frizzy haired girl asked me an impudent question
A question of infinite importance:
How do you sleep?
How do you sleep at night, since you know yourself?

When I was eight years old, my arrogant mind brimmed with resentment
Reaffirming that I,
I, apart from my arrogance,
Was the best person I knew.

I was eight years old, and a prophet had spoken.

Eight years later,
I long to be swallowed by the sheets
Eyes stare mockingly at the dormant ceiling
Clinging to the handrails
As my train of thought
Careens off the tracks
Exploding in a cloud of terror and regret

Eight years later,
I long for the simple arrogance of my eight year old mind
I long to close my eyes
And remember nothing

Because today,
Today I am sixteen
And tomorrow I will be twenty-four
And the next day I shall be eighty

When I'm eighty,
I'll stare at the bleached walls
Succumbing to the force of the past
As it consumes the present.

When I turn eighty-eight,
I'll look to the end of my starched bed
And He shall smile
Saying, "Well done!"

I hope I lie, when I'm eighty-eight,
Because If I am honest
If I tell the truth
I do not know who he is
And I never have
I will be cast away
because, eighty years before,

When I was eight years old,
I was arrogant
But still innocent
eighty years from death
and eighty years from shame
I could have heeded those words
The words of the frizzy haired girl

When I was eight years old,
I could have decided
I could have had him sing me to sleep
I could have died entirely unlike myself.

Now that I'm sixteen,
I still do nothing.