She headed for high places
Still as a statue, against the orange sky.

"Do you think she's stuck?"
"Maybe she's enjoying the view".

"If you could have dinner with
anybody, living or dead, who would it be?"

Well, my guest of choice
Is neither alive nor dead.
He does not abide by earthly laws
and is not bound by physical form.

He shows up fashionably late;
at my front door stands an outline
resembling the shape of a man,
dressed fashionably in vanta black.

He is everything and nothing.
He speaks with deafening silence,
whispers in static and white noise.
Tonight I'm dining with "the man
who has all of the answers".

I've compiled a list of unsolved mysteries and universal unknowns.
Strings of words come together begging to know:
Just where did everything go wrong?

But the man with all of the answers--
The man entrusted with the universe's objective, un-biased truths--
The man hidden in vanta black,
first has a question for me.

That man who has all of my answers
has no interest in my casserole.
He instead eats up the shell of my soul
for when he asked me his question,
he realized there was one answer even he didn't know.

I wasn't expecting dinner
to remain at the table
untouched and cold.
"Who are you?" was the question
that swallowed me whole.

My dear girl,
You are a castle, built into wet sand.
A beautiful structure cursed
by unfortunate circumstance.
If only you were born an hourglass instead;
Then you'd feel purpose as your sand slipped away.
But instead, your fragile foundation gets eaten day after day, with each and every passing of the ocean's hungry waves.

A forest-green & tan striped couch, littered with burn holes from forgotten cigarettes, serves as foreshadowing of what lies ahead for the forgotten flower lying upon it.

She curls up on this couch, as it's the best view to admire mom from across the room, mesmerized as she magically transforms eyelashes into feathers with the swipe of a wand.

Ignorant and innocent, she patiently awaits for her time to bloom; yearns for her petals to unfurl like mom's.
Flawless Perfection.

But gradually, mom's smokey cat eyes became dark shadows of hollow sunken ships, and bright rosy skin faded to washed-out colors, like those of the green-striped couch, stripped by sunlight year after year.

Now,
mom buried the bones of the delicate structure she built from inside her womb, and decades later her daughter's dismantled skeleton is nothing but scattered ruins of an abandoned sunken city, polluted by the rotten flesh of unwanted fruit; a weak foundation destined to be crumbled relics of an ancient past.

Never once did Mom leave flowers at the grave that she dug.

I imagine the sweetest sounds to a brand-new mother are the screams and wails of her newborn child, reassurance that it's vibrant life lights up the room as blindingly as the birth of a newborn star, a commanding presence louder than that star's explosive death.

On the contrary, the sweetest sound to her mother was the silence when she muffled the screams; from underwater, you cannot hear screams for help, or much of anything at all. 

Mom's solace was the peace felt when muddy water filled her lungs, the darkness found from deep within a drug-induced sleep, where you cannot hear a child weep.

I had mentioned the young girl always wanted to be like her mom. Like mother like daughter, all grown up, I tried ****** for the first time. I held true to mom every time the rush of warm blood filled the syringe, visual evidence that the blood was thicker than the bond mom and I shared.

Usually when a person's life is ruined by a parent's addiction they will stay an ocean's length away from drugs - but I am a curious cat, ignoring the fact that I do not have 9 lives, and so I welcomed this substance into my veins, into my brain.

The brown lady would wrap me up in her arms each night, then gently dip me in the familiar flame of a fire's flickering tongue. She became the only company that could never overstay its welcome.

And so, for a time I became my mother: "Flawless Perfection." I will admit, ****** is one hell of a drug, but STILL, I cannot see...how could ****** steal my mother's love?

It's the first time we meet.

I can't get a read on that sweet summer smile, or the words that drip like thick robes of gold honey; soft-spoken and seemingly slow motion, a quite complicated question pours viscously from your lips.

You ask me, "What is your name?"

Now honestly, I considered honesty. Truthfully, I prefer anonymity, but it's considered rude to not share some glimpse of identity. Albeit reluctantly, I must decide: Do I introduce myself as "Chelsea"? Or as "A Window-Pane Made of Glass Too Thin"? Well honestly, honesty isn't always the best policy.

It's our first date -
Instead of worrying about which outfit I choose, I worry about the disclaimer I wear on my arms. I worry about the first time your gaze inevitably falls upon the self-inflicted displays of pain that dress my paper-thin skin. I worry, will you see a warning sign that reads "DANGER: Do not touch"? I wonder, will you listen?

Or will you choose to swallow me whole, a bitter pill with a list of flaws longer than the side effects of your favorite antidepressant. Do the benefits outweigh the risks, do you take a trial of me to see if I'll make you feel better or feel worse? Do you pour me down the drain when you find out I'm not good enough?

It's our first kiss -
A moment tainted by guilt that the sweet taste I leave behind on your lips is not saliva, but antifreeze. Drink me down and I'll poison you from the inside-out, and there will come a day that I'll be the taste you'd do anything to erase from your mouth.

It's our first fight -
And then our second, and our third...
The sand is slipping through our hourglass too fast, as we drag our blood-stained feet through a wasteland of eggshells and glass. All that remains is a crimson trail of mistakes, meandering back to the spotless place we started at.

It's the first time we meet, and
You ask me for my name. Silence.
Should I introduce myself as "Chelsea"? Or as "A Window-Pane Made of Glass Too Thin". If I'm being honest with myself, I go with the latter...and you'll walk away to avoid the mess that comes after.

Im an abandoned house with rotting walls
You are the ghost who roams these vacant halls...
We all know ghosts can't return from the dead,
you take the form of rolling fog instead.
Always hidden away where you can't be seen.
So then tell me, where the **** were you when my walls were caving in?
Instead of saving me, you gave in to addiction.
Each line snorted caused a violent shake in my chest
Every new track mark was matched with a cut to my wrist.
You could have, should have saved me.
But ******* is a hell of a drug;
****** steals a mother's love.

Imagine tugging at a loose thread on a sweater, expecting it to break off, problem solved...
but instead that thread unravels and unravels until the sweater is a sweater no more,
but rather a mess of string in a heap on the floor, a chaotic tangle that
resembles the contents of my brain when someone asks, "how was your weekend?"

My thoughts are replaced with the blare of static on TV and I can't hear myself think, so I say what I imagine a person is supposed to say, a preprogrammed response I construct for situations like these when my brain decides to check out...

Because of course the only time my mind -stops- is when I really need it to go, not when I'm laying in bed at 2 a.m., fixating on that cringey thing I did four years ago.

But anyway, I would tell you about my weekend, except it seems that the wires connecting the language part of my brain to my mouth have been cut. My weekend probably ****** anyway, but I manage to say, "it was good." And even then, those three words struggle to get past my lips, and any words more revealing hit the backs of my teeth like a car colliding into a brick wall.

By now the elmer's glue holding me together is losing its grip, so when you tell me about your weekend, the words wont stick. How your breath is wasted on me, when I can't concentrate on not falling apart and on tales of your tomato garden at the same time.

On the surface I look so cold; my painted on smile is a thin sheet of ice, concealing the puddle that hides underneath, one that the sun can't reach --
People will often say, "if it helps, you don't seem anxious". I want to tell them that anxiety is a tormented ghost that drags its dagger like claws across my skin at night, whose presence I can always feel but never see. A monster that feeds on vulnerability, and knows it will never starve.

But, I don't know what to say, so I stare at my hands. Because making eye contact feels like facing a lion, and facing a lion means facing death. But then there are times that death doesnt sound so bad, because I know that as long as I'm still breathing, anxiety finds a way to make that hard for me too.  

Anxiety is a broken appliance that the store wont take back, the Annabelle doll that returns from the trash, so it made a home of me instead. And in return for the shelter I give, my heart pounds like its full of angry bees when I finally press 'send' on the 8th draft of a text message I've been working on since yesterday and I want to hide, but why bother? when in a game of hide-and-seek, anxiety always wins.

It is my shadow during the day and my blanket at night, one that that drapes suffocatingly around my shoulders while I'm pacing the kitchen in the dim glow of the stovelight, worrying that the next day could be the " someday " that the ones I love finally leave me. On these nights, anxiety comes to my rescue everytime. It slithers up my back where it can softly whisper into my ear : "I promise you, chelsea, I will never leave"

My mind was drifting away
Free for once of the racing thoughts
That bind my body and fool my brain
Into reliving the pain again.

But failure follows close behind
And never fails to grab hold of me.

What failure stole was my control.
The scene plays over and over.
How to turn off repeat?
I'm reliving the pain again.

Deceiving. Delicate. Fragile.
Webs woven in the back of my mind.
There are spiders lusting for pain.
My thoughts become entangled, entwined,
trapped. And then unravel like a thread.
Lifeless and limp, they get spun again
into new webs, multiplying until they
line my skull. Much like a wallpaper; So old
and decayed, yet constantly getting restored.

Uninvited...

That's how I feel when confronted with the vacant stare in your eyes.
What do you see in mine?
They say one's eyes are windows to their soul,
but I wear mine on my sleeve.
and it seems as if yours has been carved out and burned to ash.
You feel nothing. I feel everything, I feel it all.
I want nothing more than to see your heart
Hanging on a string, ****** and raw.

Why do I love you?

pierced flesh stings when
your hook sinks in my skin.
hanging limp, I'm submissive
to your gaze; hot blood sears my veins.
rushing,
      rushing,
           rushing.
tender flesh rips apart and
tendons reach their breaking point.
snapped. flailing. dangling.
your mouth waters at the struggle
and curves into a grin,
lusting for a piece of my skin.

I am a clam
without a pearl.
Instead, I protect secrets
To some, this would be a disappointment

Yet your eyes burn a hole right through me
Past my hard shell, exposing vulnerability
Pried open, my guts spill and fill your hands

You eat them all up, driven by
desire to piece me back together...
to make me whole, if only temporarily

I am safe, ****** in by your embrace.
my limbs entwine with yours;
your voice soothes me to sleep

Bound and gagged,
tossed into the ocean...
you are content with
the water filling your lungs.
Unable to move or speak,
you slip deep into
a drug-induced sleep.
Falling further into the
recesses of your mind;
where are you now?
From underwater,
you can't hear my screams
for help

Where did you go?

My hands shake again.
The walls fade and try to imitate
the pale green of your eyes.

But they fail.

These walls envelop me.
Closing in. Crushing. Suffocating.
Blood spills over, but from where?

I am nobody.

My chest heaves as pain consumes me.
Pull me up from below;
Liquid life gushing out hurt...

And love for you.

The needle in your hand
pokes. prods. stings.
Stitch after stitch;
sewing me up,
making me sane.

And the healing process begins.

She      gazes into the mirror;
             Imaginary cracks disrupt
             the smooth glass, distort her face.

Is          this what other people see? Asymmetry. Flaws.
             There's beauty swallowed up and hidden away
              in her bottomless eyes, which are

not       about to give anything away. Glass
             breaks,shatters the stranger looking back.
             Her life in pieces on the floor...it can't be

real.