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Chloe Apr 2016
We leaned into each other's personal space.
The pebbled surface of her bicep rubbed against my tattoo the skin gently rasping.
When she stepped close, close enough our arms brushed, I was reminded of how well she knew me.
We shared a dark intimacy over identical experiences.
She understood my demons on a deeper level.
I felt less alone with her, less fake.
Our mutual knowledge of the other meant I didn't have to pretend.
When I had to leave home she sheltered me.
For a week I learned about her experiences, quirks, triggers, and lifestyle.
Nothing was left out.
It took three nights before I could be coaxed into her bed.
I had been sleeping in the closest unwilling to join her.
She lent me her car during my stay.
Her driving privileges were temporarily revoked.
I drove her everywhere.
Everything we did had an undercurrent of personal knowing.
It was a private understanding of the other.
It brought us closer in more ways than proximity.
Chloe Oct 2015
I had a muse once.
It was a six foot tall “him."
For two years we roamed the city.
Brother and sister, shoulder to shoulder.
Riding the various highs we explored the world.
He sometimes complained Salem was too boring
as his fingers twisted up the volume on his stereo.
Yet we always found ways to pass the time.
I watched him on every outing.
Memorizing the way his arms arced with speech
and the way his smile would hang from a hinge
slightly lopsided and askew.
I would’ve fled, bled beside him.
We were partners in crime.
Inseparable.
I saw him every day
in body and writing.
When our fallout happened it felt like
I had lost another brother.
Now all I have is a dusty muse.
Chloe Sep 2015
When I look at your face
my heart aches to trace
the line flowing down your nose
like running water from a teapot.
My eyes run up under your cheekbones
on hands and knees attempting to scale its surface.
I blink snapping a photo of your lips as they pour forward into a pout.
Light reflects off your eyes brightening their color.
While your ears curl inward away from the light
gauging the waiting circular darkness at the end.
I pay attention to your chin and the way it juts stubbornly.
To your jaw and how it settles the weight of your teeth.
Your face is a picture of words inside my head.
And my heart longs to memorize the clarity of such simple beauties
like the wrinkled grooves embedded in the bridge of your nose
or the petite quirk at the top left hand corner of your mouth.
I could look upon such wonders for days.
Your face speaks of friendship.
A visage so unlike any other I can describe.
Chloe Jun 2015
In a perfect world…
Women aren’t ***** at such high rates.
They don’t suffer from debilitating invalidation.
Societal pressures to deliver a baby conceived by ****, nonexistent.

In a perfect world…
Families are carefully planned with the right ingredients.
Women aren’t the only ones getting the **** end of the stick trying to
raise
care
build
a better human
than the ones already in the world.
Once that child is grown s/he has three options
become a well-adjusted cog in the clockwork of society
become a criminal that actively tears at the seams of society
or become an unexpected victim to society.

In a perfect world…
Women aren’t brutalized just to satisfy a man’s ego.
Our worth isn’t based on reproducing and rearing children.
We aren’t objectified; cut, chopped and reassembled
like slabs of meat a butcher can trim on a whim.
The v between our knees and the ******* on our chests
aren’t the most coveted features of a feminine figure.
Our brains and intelligence are the commodities, plus they last longer.
We band together in an effort to empower one another.

This isn’t a perfect world we live in though.
Chloe Jun 2015
Am I candy
or eye-candy?
Was I candy the night
he violently unwrapped me and
stripped me of my striped coating
his flesh slick with sweat, always rubbing?  
His ravenous lust was too much to contain.
Just like a man’s anger when he shoots up a school.
His hands found mine when I fought
melding into manacles before
cementing himself at my core.
I didn’t want this.

I am not candy.
My sweetness has long melted.
There’s a biting bitterness in me now
injected right between my hips.
Chloe May 2015
Pain is nothing but a series of ever-growing rooms. We all start off in a small room, sometimes a broom closet or maybe even the crawl space. It’s in room one where we learn about scraped knees, broken bones, bruises, and illness. Once we've learned about the beginning of pain we move forward into the next room.
It’s a lot like the last room, only bigger and harsher. Again the process is repeated but with heartbreak, betrayal, depression, self-harm, and anxiety as the key wounds of room two.
Once those have been conquered room three becomes available. Theft, ****, attempted suicide, and addiction reside in its musty corners. And again we familiarize and learn about these mounting pains broadening our empathy.
Of course not everyone follows the same linear path. People end up jumping from room one to room three before even setting foot in room two. Others might find themselves having to double back to the same room over and over again.  
The furthest I've ventured is room three. Every day I find myself pacing within its four walls trying to make sense of my hurt so I can move onward to room four. I’m not even sure I want to though. One room leads to another larger room. The only difference is the severity of the pain.
I know this isn't exactly poetry but I'm just so glad to have written a little something that I wanted to share.
Chloe Apr 2015
“No use crying over spilled milk.”
It’s the only thing I can think of
sitting on my bedroom floor
sobbing over a half gallon of milk
that had been put to waste because of me.
I forgot to put the milk back in the fridge.
It spoiled and my brother had to pour it out.
“I forgot.”
A simple enough explanation
but who really believes it
when it’s always the cause of my mistakes?
When things that had been so familiar
are now completely foreign to me?
A spoon had me stumped for thirty seconds once.
I don’t maliciously forget things.
I just forget things all the time.
Either chalk it up to my PTSD
or blame it on my perceived incompetence.
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