I don't even know where to begin with this one - nothing could have prepared me for you.

Nothing.

I KNOW mental health issues are real, but if stigmas are the rain-clouds baby you are a hurricane.

No, more like a tornado, I finally understand why you can only get a few minutes warning to take cover.

No one can predict the sudden build of pressure. It's palpable. Raises every hair on my back it is animal fear, all wide eyes, lizard brain and heartbeats.

You lash out with the coordination of a drunk at the bottom of a bottle, sparing no one in the crossfires

But as fast as it begins, it is over, and I am left shaking teary-eyed in the rubble and ruin wondering if that natural disaster was actually real.

I look around and I can't figure out if I'm Dorothy or the witch beneath the house. And can a twister even hold remorse?

I close my eyes and click my heels three times, wishing I was anywhere but here.

I've always thought about making a photo series of only people's hands
And sometimes I think of my own hands at different stages of my life

In childhood - filthy, bitten fingernails

That time when I was 15 and I decided I was done biting my fingernails so I painted my nails black every day for 3 weeks - only to immediately start biting them again.

The pick pick picking of the skin near my thumbs. Every partner I've ever had desperately grabbing my wrists, begging me to stop.

The actual hundreds of times my fingers had part time employment dunking in bags of molly.

Nervous hands slipping baggies and money in palms on the dance floor.

My sweaty palms when I get too high, fingers fumbling to get the **** baggie opened.

That time I sliced my thumb open when trying to learn to shave because I was too embarrassed to ask for help. I was 13.

My finger I re-sprained over and over again for 6 months doing yoga.

My fake knuckle tattoo phase - oh to be 2006 again.

My hand holding yours.

The first and only time someone bought me a ring, and I put it on my finger and felt nothing.

But I left it there.

Guess I'm ****** up/

Callouses across the top of my palm from 4 years of yanking on swan-boat pullies all summer long.

Sometimes I look at old pictures and I look at my hands and I swear to god I clenched my fists for 3 years after my father died.

I look at my hands and I think of the all the things we choose to hold on to.

And I'm always reminding myself to make sure I let go.

This twinging, this tingling, this sharp pinching
tugging from my right eye-socket to my shoulder
muscles, tendons, strings of sinew tensing, shortening, sticking
it's like a mosquito buzzing in my ear - an endless high pitched ringing
enough to send the tension spreading across my forehead, teeth clenching
I feel it, the anxiety, vibrating inside of every square inch from finger tips to my right ear.
Wrapping around to the back of my shoulder, pointed blade, locked in angry throbbing webs.
She called it the stress spot, and I can feel you pushing my buttons.

I have to teach at 6am tomorrow and it's 9:50pm today. My hands are throbbing from birth defects and surgeries and I'm not sure why I seem to think that the exact motion of typing which is my top agitator will somehow be cathartic.


They say don't fight the splint.  My OT says

Don't
FIGHT
the Splint.

Splinting is not enough, you must rest. You must accept the shape and stillness to have any hope in healing. Every fight - the muscle spasms, the tendons tear, the inflammation swells. And it will never stop hurting.

And of course I think of you.

You asked me to write you a note in cursive when you were drunk. I'm not sure if you were serious, but I'm going to anyway because cursive is a dying and beautiful art, and I'm interested in what I'm going to say. I don't know if I'll actually give this to you because I don't know what direction it will take me. But I'll humor both you and myself and give it a try...

Even just starting this makes me worried that this is something you don't want from me. The flood of emotions and thoughts drowning my brain are overwhelming and disorienting. It leaves me speechless, breathless, unable to grasp the worlds I need to paint you the picture I want you to see. Meeting you was green, dark green, like sunlight dancing on moss.  You were this endless, exciting, inviting stretch of forest that I wanted to explore. The more corners of you I discovered in those first few weeks had me wanting to grow my own roots there. But as I tried to plant my seeds I realized growing in you was like throwing seeds into the ocean - roots cannot form in something that refuses to nurture, cannot see or feel tiny, delicate tendrils in the coming tide.  And it was just like that that I found myself hopelessly drowning in you, until finally I was forced to pull out my sopping, heavy, rotting roots, desperately coughing and sputtering for air. And although I limped away, tail tucked between my legs with an aching heart I realize now that waves do not make personal attacks on daydreaming, lovesick girls because they are not listening for love songs over the roar of the tide, they are not feeling for tiny seeds, they are being the ocean, you were being exactly you and I am not the moon.

But once a heart knows fear, it changes, and me a once wild creature looking for mysterious forest paths to call my name, I want to cover my ears, cover my heart and run the other way. I wonder if I can move my frozen feet, as I contemplate when bravery becomes carelessness. Each night I can't help but dream about you, and as I feel myself ripping at the seams in this inner game of tug-o-war I realize the only reason I feel these pushes  and pulls is because there is a part of you I can't seem to let go of, I am still clinging to that slippery, soft, green, green moss in the woods of your heart.

And for this I have yet no conclusion, no explanation, no promises, no expectations.

Breaking down armor, bulldozing down walls accidentally,
Of course it’s only right it happened at 3am in my car, rain down pouring, unsuspecting.
The most vulnerable and raw glimpse of who you really are,
A taste of your core; crying, crumbling, chest ripped wide open for me to see
Your fiercely pounding heart; your blue-green eyes somehow more vibrant
Against red, puffy skin; dark eyelashes clumping haphazardly, clinging against
The storm raging inside of your soul, echoed by thunder on the highway; the quivering of your voice, your trembling hands, you surrender,
displaying emotion so deep, more powerful than any song
I’ve ever heard; a moment that took my breath away
Like nothing has before.

Groping for a lifeboat
In this turbulent tear-filled sea
I snatched the brown Aspirin bottle
Five hundred bitter
Small white pearl-sized wishes
Slide down my throat one by one

1. I wish I could forget you
19. I wish I wasn’t fat
37. I wish honeybees weren’t going extinct
113.  I wish my mom would accept that I am not her
174. I wish I never tried it
175. I wish I had some more
212. I wish I planted sunflowers last spring
227. I wish track marks weren’t so hard to hide
251. I wish my throat wasn’t so dry
288. I wish I told you the truth
289. I wish you didn’t believe me
301. I wish I had a cigarette
333. I wish I could stop crying
342. I wish my cat didn’t run away when I was 8
396. I wish I went to your funeral.
403. I wish I didn’t bite my nails
417. I wish this concrete floor was warmer
447. I wish it wasn’t my birthday
448. I wish anyone had called
498. I wish I were dead
499. I wish I were dead
500. I WISH I WERE ******* DEAD

Listen, I understand that being happy isn't all that artistic.
That loneliness, anger and self hatred are trendier
than being content.
Unrequited love, jealousy and deep-seeded unquenched desire
mathematically recorded in clever metaphor and
unexpected similes simply sell better than stanzas
sifting and shifting to shape a smile.
But writing is a form of expression, I can only mirror myself.
If only I could express to you fully how amazing it feels
to finally look into that mirror to see me completely
with every flaw, every blemish,
every pimple, every crazy strand of curly frizzy hair,
every tan line, every inch of stretch-marked blotchy skin,
every pet peeve, every tear, every inch of stubbornness,
every reckless thought, every word I've desperately written,
every choice I ever made and truly love every bit of it.
I imagine it feels like moving the ocean; I'm a shining beautiful moon.

I remember when all of my answers fit inside a pill
Extended release, 30mg, tiny little white beads shake around loudly
like the panicked thoughts in my head
The amphetamines would run through my blood stream hungrily
looking for neuron receptors to prey upon,
sitting like crisp, new, heaven-scented virgins, fresh meat for the taking.
They'd disguise themselves as endogenous,
as if the body and the brain naturally made this happen,
wanted a gushing current of dopamine to start pouring out
of every synapse, wave after wave of artificial pleasure,
euphoria, focus, mania, sweeping me off of my feet
into a world run by pharmaceuticals. In my mind,
problems literally could not exist - the chemicals taking over
my midbrain would not allow it. Palms sweaty, heart pounding,
pupils dilated, I would be taken over by chemically-induced content-ness, a happiness high. And that was all I wanted.
Wrestling with addiction isn't fighting if you want it.
I was never fighting with Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, or Focalin,
I was avoiding them: you cannot truly fight the ones you love.

And then I stopped wanting them.
They sat in my drawer untouched for days, weeks, months.
I found better pleasure centers that went beyond
the ventral tegmental area, the dopamine super highway present
in every human brain.  I found meditation, I found dancing,
I found friends, I found yoga, music, incense, singing
bubble baths with scuba masks, picking apples in the rain,
smelling the sweet thick scent of flowers in the spring time
the taste of fresh pineapple on a summer day,
the crackling sound of golden leaves crunching beneath my feet.
These were answers to questions in the deepest parts of my soul
that went untouched by man-made substances inside a prescription bottle.
I felt like I had finally awaken in my life, I had finally arrived
in this moment: fully, freely, confidently and full of love.

People told me I'd be an addict forever, I thought I would always
be haunted by the demon voices that lived under my bed
when I was alone and unguarded. But here I am, the real me,
the dark, thick, medicated sludge covering my true self
has been wiped away completely, like snow melting off of flowers.
The only part of me that is upset is the part that knows that
the four final papers I have will not write themselves. But none of
that seems important anymore. Mostly, I am relieved. I am free.
I feel like I conquered a terminal illness, a fully recovered brain
cancer patient that never touched chemo and kept all their hair.
Who knew all the answers I thought were in a pill
were always right in front of me, in the now,
in the constant, colorful kaleidoscope of present moments
happening to me that I was ignoring.
The answers were inside my Self all along, all I had to do
was stop thinking, look closely, listen carefully, and trust deeply.

Life is Like a Tree.
A huge spiraling tree stretching stretching STRETCHING
toward the sky with enormous tangling never-ending roots
attaching it to the universe below,
the universe not just being dirt and clay, but you and I,
everyone and everywhere, connected and wrapping around
each creature, each animal, every single THING
every single everything that makes up the world, known and unknown.
The towering branches with their extended long thin fingers touch
every star, every planet, every cosmo
because we are all connected like such;
each bit of nutrients, water, life itself flows through all of us
in this rushing, bubbling, constant current.
You can hear its murmurs and love-filled whispers
if you are quiet enough.
Hush, be still, listen right now in this moment.
You can hear its gentle humming on the breeze,
you can hear it in each kiss the shore gets from the sea.
You can hear it inside seashells, or when a bird sings.
You can hear it underwater, and on a butterfly's wings.
You can hear it in the flowers and even in the snow.
Once we recognize this, we begin to grow.
We are so much bigger than we know.

There’s only one tina rage, that’s what they say. But it’s only because one is enough chaos for a million.

It’s hard, I mean its easy. It’s easy to be crazy. All you have to do is do exactly what you want to when you want to where you want to without a single ******* thought at all.  It’s easy to just wreck havoc and release all the awful energy building inside you. Its like if you don’t release it, explosion is inevitable.  My energy will spiral into itself and gather so tightly it will have the gravitational force of a black hole, pulling all in its orbit into absolute darkness.  Any that try and fight the tugging will stretch into spaghetti, bones broken and organs useless.  The end of my world would start with my attempt at containment.

But you know what is hard? Accepting that part of your personality is “bad”.  That it is toxic and maybe even lethal.  When others sense your ego dripping with this dark, goopy essence, they run as fast as they can.  no one wants to hurt. No one wants my hurt. No one wants the crazies. No one wants me.

It makes me cry that I have to apologize for who I am, because it is an inconvenience for others.  And it hurts so much, my muscles bleed and scream as I try to hold this huge part of who I am in some deep cavern inside myself.  As it grows, I’m running out of room.  Its squishing into my kidneys, puncturing my lungs with its pointy claws, eating golf-ball size holes in my brain for its dark beady eyes that can now see what I see.  

But the rejection I face whenever this demon seeps out of my pores hurts more, so I continue to let it eat through my flesh until I rot into the very ground I continue to damage with the uncontrollable fire that burns in my soul.  Nothing hurts me more than the cold, metallic, damp, dark feeling of being alone.  I’d rather my heart fever and blister from the heat of my flames than freeze around a heartbeat.

So if having a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on, another body to warm my chest that grows ever colder means fighting who I am, so be it.  They say no one can be youer than you, but it is possible to be too youer for you?  I don’t know of many ways I can successfully seal this destruction inside of me with concrete.  It’s bled into almost all of me now, so that the two energies that wage war in my body are now turning into one, a new unit consisting of two ever-fighting yin and yang.  Now the only way to stop myself from harming the people around me is to turn all the energy off.  I need to go to the very source and power down all emotions.  Certain substances do a very good job blocking the synapses that are surging into overdrive.  But Ritalin doesn’t know how to pick and choose.  But I do.  And I choose living like a zombie over living like a martyr.  

There’s only one tina rage, and even that is too much. Too much rage for one world to hold.

I haven’t written anything in a long long long time.

I feel so old.  I feel like an old woman whenever im crashing. Or thinking, actually.

I don’t even know where to begin.

i haven’t even written anything yet and my eyes are welling up.  Its so ******* hard, everything is so ******* hard.

I remember when I wrote that speed makes everything easy.  And it does, but only for a little while.   Now, everything is broken.  Nothing feels right.  Actually, nothing feels like anything anymore.

Now, I need it.  So. *******. Badly.

24 hours.  Exactly 24 hours.  That’s when the withdrawals start every single time.  Sometimes I’ll withdraw by accident.  I’m so caught up in my life I forget that I’m a sorry ******* speed freak, I’ll forget I’m an addict.  I’ll forget I’m a low-life pill head and I won’t feed the growing monster inside me.  But it doesn’t give up that easily.

I’ll feel it in my head.  It starts with this blossoming pressure headache, right between my eyes, on that bone between my eyebrows.  It feels hot, stabbing, relentless, constant.  It feels like my skull is bleeding.  I can’t see, I can’t look at light.  I wear dark glasses to hide my eyes, haunted by demons and ***** chemical desires.  My limbs shake, my head spins, I feel like I’m about to pass out, throw up, not really sure, maybe even ******* die.

But they have pills to fix headaches.  Excedrin became my best friend.  

Then started the manic depression.  Unpredictable, wild bi-polar mood swings that drove me insane.  I got so low once, I didn’t leave my bed for 36 hours.  Didn’t brush my hair, my teeth, nothing.  Just lay there crying.  Cried about the life I was ruining, my beautiful family I was letting down, the friends I couldn’t bare to see anymore.  I was so emotionally fragile, one wrong comment and I burst into tears.  I felt lost, I felt alone, somewhere dark, deep, deep down in a cold well by myself, shivering, afraid.  But I didn’t know how to word it, I only knew how to cry.  

My only escape was sleep.  Until it wasn’t.  Speed was greedy, it took that from me.

I started having crazy narcoleptic sleep-paralysis night terror episodes.  I can only describe them as slightly schizophrenic.  I wouldn’t remember falling asleep, and something normal would happen.  I’d be sitting in my bed, and then I’d fall and slam my face in a floor full of glass.  I would try and move, but I would be paralyzed.  Then I’d blink and I’d be awake, confused, as to what was happening to my sanity.  Dreams and reality cross, and I cannot longer differentiate between the real world and my imagination, ridden with monsters.  I started to hallucinate, spiders coming to get me.  I’d sob because suddenly I had nowhere to run to, I was no longer safe even in my dreams.  I am a slave to my poisoned mind.  The lack of sleep made me further depressed, dangerously suicidal.  When I slept, I would sob and yell out horrible things.  I’d cry and say I wished I would die.

I’m too sad to eat, too diseased to sleep.  I have no motivation in my life anymore to do anything.  My problem ruined my life.

I never feel happy anymore.  Now I yearn to just feel normal, or at least rid enough depression to not be suicidal.  And I miss feeling happy.  I used to be so ******* happy, and I abused it.  I took advantage of my gushing dopamine, never imagined a life without it.  I never thought one day I would need a substance to feel “okay”.  

The only thing that makes me happy now is a lot and lot and lot of speed.  But I know it’s only temporary, and only further buries me in this awful cold place I inhabit now.  

No one can help me, there is no comfort, no warmth, nothing that makes me feel less isolated, less ****** up.  I am ashamed.  I hide from the people I love, and cry from homesickness and loneliness.  But I can’t let them see what I did to myself.  Even now my fingers shake from the tears I’m fighting back as I think about my triplets, my little brothers, my kitten, my best friends, all so far away in the past, in beautiful sunny memories I keep tucked away in notebooks and pictures.  I think about my grandma, my mom, my godmother, and I whimper in shame.  I miss them all so much. I just want to go back and fix everything, but I can’t.

I can’t tell them.  They wouldn’t understand.  They would hate me, disown me, never speak to me again.  I’m so delicate right now, that rejection would push me over the edge, finally **** me.  I’d rather have them all think I’m a selfish, lazy idiot than a drug addict.  

It all just makes me cry.  I’m so lost in this awful mess.  So alone.  I miss my old life, I just want to reverse it.  But its not that easy.  

Why is it that after all this, I sit here now, fighting the urge to put another pill up my nose? WHAT THE **** IS WRONG WITH ME?

Why do I still want them? WHY? It is 2 in the ******* morning, why can’t I just come down and stay there?

I guess I’m scared. Scared to face what I have to.  Negative emotions, withdrawals, the inevitable.

But why must I binge? Why can’t I regulate? I guess that’s the definition of an addiction, a lack of self control.
Ah, the inner turmoil, the war raging inside me is slowly destroying me.

I can’t stand it. I’m sure soon I will die.

I am a creature of habit

I keep thinking wowohwowohwowohwowohwow how things CHANGE man things have changed SO much it's amazing it's incredible unbelievable overwhelming unfathomable unable to have ever predicted that here we would be hugging outside of the ADC no longer with forced smiles from clenching teeth and wicked, glassy marbles for eyes

Yet here I am still pick-pick-picking at the skin on the side of my thumb

Isn’t It Weird, I Mean Wired, I Think I Mean Weird Wait

Wait

Wait

Please

Don’tGo

Hold on, wait things haven’t changed at all, I’m thinking about the fall, thinking about the fall when the leaves were changing and so did we, permanently.  I think about the night we stayed up until the sun came up touching and talking and nearly dying one powder-filled capsule at a time.  I’m thinking about hallucinating black spiders crazy coming at me, grabbing me, surrounding me, consuming me until it seemed like there was nothing left of me at all

Except spiders, spidery veins, spidery ribs poking out from my spidery skin in every which direction with my spider tired eyes sinking into my spider tired mind

I’m thinking about another sleepless night, countless by then couldn’t remember the last time we really drifted off together into deep, peaceful rest.  We lay there at rock bottom which really turns out to be just another K hole but no amount of sticky sweet sugar will get you out.

And I took your hand in mine and said man we can’t stay like this, I looked at the spider cracks in the ceiling that matched the creases in my shaking hands and realized we changed or died.  

And I chose life.  I bent my knees and pushed up as high as I could off of the cold blacklight-lit lumpy, stained mattress on the floor we laid on because there was no other way to go but UP.

I climbed and climbed and I felt crushed beneath depression and exhaustion that latched on to my back like long-forgotten heavy backpacks full of stones and I wasn’t exactly sure who they belonged to so I carried them with me.  

The demons in my eyes started to dissolve into puddles that leaked into my lungs so I coughed them out violently night after night for weeks that seemed to stretch into years.   When my eyes managed to flutter shut for a moment I was immediately propelled into night terrors that had me screaming, crying, begging for a different life, a different night, for someone, something please save me from myself

It’s weird that that someone ended up being me

SORT OF. SORT OF is me, because I still am my own worst enemy.  I’m fighting this never ending battle in myself with myself, and I think of all these things I changed but here I am HERE I AM AGAIN listening to those same sweet whispers from under my bed, those **** demons that tell me we can just do it for a little while just to be better for a little while to not feel tired lets get wired **** everything lets get high

I’ve grinded out the sharpness of my teeth, just like I’ve grinded out the sharpness of my words, and grinded out the sharpness of the dark contrast against the images of memories of artificial sunshine happiness in my mind, my dopamine pathways have been long hibernating but unlike predictable seasons I'm unsure of when exactly spring will come, or if the groundhog will forever fear its shadow, a demon that reminds it of speed monsters it could never overpower.  

I feel like each relapse is worse than the last, like I lose another piece of me, shave off another few years of my life one heart palpitation at a time, and each time it takes more and more to finally feel fine

But there’s so much to do and so little time, so many tears to cry and no one to care, and no matter how many friends I have how many coffees I drink how many hours I sleep there’s only one thing that really makes me feel like I’m so recklessly alive

A creature of habit, I mull these thoughts over and pick my thumbs raw.

Your lips say I love you
But your hips have bite marks
That don’t belong to me
How can I ever believe you?


There is nothing quite like
The tingly anxious butterflies
Of new love, like breathing
In the first fresh flowers of spring

And there is nothing quite like
The suckerpunch to the gut
Of love’s betrayal, leaving you
gasping for air sharp as razorblades

Don’t you ******* cry, don’t you dare ******* LOOK at me like that
Like the scared little love sick boy I know you are
Don’t you dare tell me I’m beautiful, STOP I don’t wanna hear it
Don’t explain yourself, for the love of GOD DON’T tell me how it happened
How thoughts became actions or somehow accidents even though it seems very on purpose to me
Those accidents or actions quickly became regrets mistakes you couldn’t scrub off with any amount of Head and Shoulders
No amount of silver tongued talking is gonna wipe this from my memory

So don’t you ******* cry you did this to yourself

But you didn’t make me like you, I did that on my own
I’m so mad at myself, the ignorant student repeating past mistakes like an overplayed song.
I thought I was playing it too cool, I thought I was keeping my distance
Keeping that vital separation that barrier between your heart and my own
Observing you with the detached interest of a 5 year old watching ants
Occasionally squishing them with a ***** thumb just to prove that he can
When did I start forgetting where I ended and you began?

Don’t ******* tell me you love me, you don’t understand
You say words much bigger than the feelings you are trying to express
Just keep being an ******* keep ******* other girls
Keep saying what you do and start doing what you say
Instead of using that silver tongue to kiss smiles on to my face.

You aren’t broken, I am
I am flawed
I am malfunctioning
I am defective, ugly, wrong
I am mean, beyond repair
Disgustingly bitter, like licking the outside of an orange,
Disguised as a tempting delicious throbbing fruit of life.
But in reality, I am insufficient, innutritious,
A casualty no one wants to carry
But I am so afraid that one day you will see
This unfixable imperfection that is me
And you will leave.

You destroy me.

Every time I feel like I’ve finally regained balance from your tornado winds ripping through my existence you return.  And I’m never ever ever ready.

Finally I am reborn and rebuilt from the ashes and rubble you leave behind, and you tear me apart like the crumpled wet tissues I cry black eyeliner tattoos into at night. They always spell out your name.

You always come without warning, a thief in the night intent on taking every ******* **** thing you can get your hands on, every solitary item I ever held near to my beaten bruised and misshapen heart. And you take that too, and pierce it to the wall with the sharp passion in your empty-shell love ballads.  You lay it out for all to see, beating viciously, vulnerable.  You touch it till it burns with desire and then you toss it aside, an old child’s toy you have grown bored with. And you leave me to shudder and cry into the cold night, alone. You always leave me alone.  To die.

And I cry for a few days, flee into the dark to tend to my wounds, huddled and afraid.  People try to touch me and I draw away. It stings when they try to wipe away the endless river of tears.  And then I pull myself together and I start to rebuild.  I surround myself in my friends, build a protective shell around myself with their compassion and empathy.  And when I finally feel safe, you barge right in and blow my house down.

My big bad life-******* werewolf.

Why?

Why do you do this to me? Why do you torture me? Can’t you read the pain on my face, see the sleepless nights in the bags under my haunted eyes? Where is this full moon that keeps bringing you back to me at those moments when I can’t handle it? What makes you feel the need to lift me out of the water im drowning in and throw me in deeper? I need to find your kryptonite before I can’t rebuild anymore.

I’m still waiting for the night you sneak into my window just to hold me.

It doesn’t make much sense that I love you.  I’m so wrong for you, and you so right for me.  I guess it does make sense.  But you don’t love me so don’t feel bad.  It’s okay, I understand.  I’m not a high class, well-educated girl.  I feel like you need someone more like my sister, not hot-mess me.  I never match, I’m always late, my hair is always frizzy, I can’t dress myself nice, I love you.  I ******* love you.  Why can’t it be that simple?  Why can’t it just be

I love you
I love you too
I love you more
I love you

I love you.  So completely.  So needy.  Truer than blue.  You’re just

So.

Blue.

And I love you.

Your eyes.  Your smile.  Your laugh.  The way you talk with your hands.  And slur Italian so ****. Your arms. Your muscles. Your skin. Your sweat. Your spit.  Your feet. Your chest. Your strut, hips swaying. Your hips, those hip bones.  My mouth is watering. I want you.

I love your anger.  I love your jealousy.  I love your stubbornness.  I love your cockiness.  Your ****, too.

I love your hangovers.  I love your attitude problem, the way you talk down to me and ruffle my hair.  And tease me and talk to me and you don’t love me.

And it breaks me so violently, snaps every single one of my ribs, one at a time.

Crack. Crack. Crrrrrackkk-kah.

It hurts me.  It will **** me.  But it’s so true.  Because you are so completely and fully

Blue.

You consume me, floodwaters breaking the gates in my mind, leaking into every cavern, swimming debris of you slicing my brain, shallow cuts bleeding into the blue.

You move me, an ocean untamed, your waves thrash against my sanity, turn switches all the way ON.

But you go through me, you don’t see me.  You are this endless, perfect, vibrant, enormousity of sky and I am a bird, mesmerized by your beauty.  

I’m not Old enough
Smart enough
Wise enough
**** enough
Charming enough
Graceful enough
Clever enough
Fast enough
Strong enough
Tall enough
Skinny enough
Crazy enough
Impressive enough
Bodacious enough
Perfect enough

To ever win you.

How is it possible for one person to make you feel so absolutely wonderful and absolutely awful at the same time?  Even now I feel self-conscious writing these words, as if you are somehow perched behind me silently dotting i’s and crossing t’s.  I wish I could be prettier about this.

For you.

I ******* love you.

And I can’t say a word.  I’m afraid to inconvenience you.  I don’t want to make you feel anything but bliss. Part of me wishes you could just feed off my rich, sweet, sticky love for you.  And you could live forever.  But part of me knows you don’t want to sip from my overflowing cup.

And
You
Come
First

So I’ve sewn my mouth shut and fed you the key.  I only hope you’ll reject it, throw up stinky bile all over me.  It’s the only love from you I even deserve.

I love the way you touched my thigh.  Your fingers just barely grazed it, as if sitting next to me was so natural you forgot I wasn’t a continuation of you.  I only wish your lips had followed.

Sometimes I imagine myself getting drowned deranged drunk and spilling my thoughts all over you, a slimy shower of emotion you would rub all over that ******* chest and your heart would pound so loudly veins would rip.  But then I snap back into reality when I bump into a pole.

You smell like Italy, summer, on the beach, with an ice cold fruity drink in my hand.  White white teeth, smiling around an orange wedge.

Whenever we talk I secretly reread our conversations and overanalyze and morph and mold them into the perfect love.  You and me.  I think you are pounding at the door ten flights down screaming my name.  But it’s just all the stupid drunk druggy college kids.

Am I a stupid drunk druggy college kid

To you?

I remember when you hit me in the foot with a door and I yelped “ow” and crouched to the ground. And you crouched down and said, “Are you okay?”  But you looked right into me, into my muddy eyes, and you were

Soooooooooooo thisthisthisthisthisthis close to me.

And I got angry.  And said, “Yeah, I’m fine, ****, calm down.”  Why did I do that?

I told you I have a bad memory.  I don’t.

Have you ever lied to me?

I’ve been writing so much all I can smell is the tangy bitter smell of ink.  And it’s sad that that’s the only sensation I’ll ever know when it comes to you.  

Unless you want ***.  And you might.  I could give myself too, let you use this mint-condition waterbag shell.  You could use me ‘till I wear down to bone and my organs look like rotten vegetables.  But it would **** me faster.

I will be your *******.  You can cheat on me and hate me.  And chew my nails.  Eat my skin.  You already set me on fire.  I’m just gonna burn out, anyway.

I want to look in the dictionary and write down every single word that belongs to you.

I want to write you suicide notes.

Every time I eat an apple, I think of the time you let me take a bite of your forbidden fruit.  And you bit right on top of my saliva and teeth marks.  Like nothing.

Because you are everything.  And I am everything else, nothing.

Soulmates.  So you say.  Why do you tease me?  You hang yourself right above me, a shiny, round, juicy, tender, tempting, sweet nectarine without a single bruise, just out of my reach.

I howl my rage at the moon every night, for tattooing your contagious inferno across my throbbing chest.

You make me cry.  Did you know that?  I cry into my pillow so it stifles my whimpers.  I sound like a choking, sputtering, snot-filled dog.  And I can never swim to the surface of the loneliness that is drowning me.

Sometimes, I just wanna ******* punch you.  And knock all your teeth out.  Stab you up the nose so the whole **** thing falls off in a gurgling, bubbling, ****** mess.  Because

Well I don’t know

You make me mad

But that made me think of you dying and the jolt that just went through my body was so searing I pray you’re immortal.

And I never pray.

When I met you, I never intended on dancing for so long.  Every year I’d think, “this is the last time I’ll ever see him”.  And I would get all weepy and teary-eyed as we sent the boats out for the last time, partially dismembered and covered in old, ***** tarp.  But sometimes, I swear, I swear, I’d feel some warped sense of

Relief.

Like I could finally send all my lust and desires off with you to another tomorrow, where I would not be.  Every year was your last year.  And every year I’d say, “this is the last time I’m ever gonna see you” and you’d say “don’t be ridiculous, we’re gonna see each other again.” And I, “How can you ever know for sure?” And you, “I just got a feeling”.  Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly like that, it was much more poetic.  You’re much more poetic.  And I’d melt like play-doh in the sun when you’d look at me lazily with those sky, sky blue eyes. And wither at the thought of you leaving me forever, my sunshine warming my skin to reach and grow.

But then like the tide, you would always return.

And then it was back to those hot, hot summer days, sweating ***** and drug cocktails out of every pore imaginable.  And in this state, being expected to attend to all the ridiculous tourists looking for a boat ride around the Public Garden. Yeah, can’t say pedaling a two-ton boat full of gossipy annoying foreigners is easy.  But the work pays for my play, so it’s back to the old wooden dock once more.  To your irritable character staining the dock Fridays through Sundays, as if your unbearable hangovers were my fault somehow.  Bloodshot eyes behind those ridiculous J-Lo-esque bright green sunglasses you insisted on wearing.  That is, until they broke and fell into the swampy glittering water.  Which started another screaming match between us, ending in me pouring disgusting pond water into your open, snoring mouth.  Yeah, it was mean, but someone had to let you know that you were being an *******.  You threatened to throw me off the dock, you even pretended to try.  But when you wrapped your cinnamon arms around me, the last thing I had on my mind was fear.  

I can’t even count on my fingers and toes the number of fights we’ve had, the times I’ve made you desperately rip at your thick blonde hair to try and quench the fire I started deep in your belly.  The times you’ve called me weak and naïve, stupid, childlike, to which I’d say you looked like an angry leprechaun.  That one always hit you the hardest.  But when we’d be up in each others’ faces bellowing and screaming, the energy passing between us was of such crushing force I could almost feel myself being ripped toward you, like a magnet to metal.  I could feel myself becoming a part of you, or you a part of me, whether I liked it or not.  

Between the fights and the hangovers and the thick ****** tension hanging in the air like smog, there were the “good days”.  The Mondays, the Wednesdays, when the only thing tainting the air was the rich conversation shared between us.  Some days we would talk for hours on end, about anything that crossed our minds.  “What’s your favorite color?”, “You don’t really believe in the end of the world, do you?” and “How do you say ******* in Italian?”.  You’d laugh at my silliness and I would bask in your happiness, drink it in like sweet nectar from a flower covered in thorns.  And then your happiness would transform into my happiness, and I would skip all the way home singing.  And so continues this delicate dance we began so long ago.

Three years.

Three years.   The difference between you and I, and time past.  Time I’ve spent watching you so carefully as you strut down the dock, muscles contracting and relaxing in rhythm with each deliberate step.  I watch devoutly for the white of your teeth to greet the sun shining so brightly in the sky blue sky.  Sky blue eyes.  All mine, sometimes.  This time.  In my mind I am forever living in the moments we spent entwined together on the forest green bench at the end of the dock, soaking in the sunrays in a content exhaustion.  I am living with your arms around me, you teasing my hair with tired fingertips.  At night I can still see you swerving down Commonwealth Ave and nearly knocking me over with your drunken embrace, then simply placing your arm around my waist.  It fit so well on the small of my back.  The days when you would loop your arm through mine as we finally got out of work and we’d practically run out of the place, as if we were chasing the remaining day through downtown Boston.  I always, always go back to the times you’d put your face so close to mine, as if we were living on a single breath between us.  But I’d blush and shy away, embarrassed, ashamed for feeling anything at all.  

These days, I find it hard to decipher what is me and what is you.  It’s as if we have been dancing around each other for so long we have morphed into one body, moving and mesmerizing.  Our time together is coming to an end, and minutes that once ticked by so slowly race through my fingertips, sand falling through the hourglass in an endless stream.  Days fall off the calendar effortlessly in a final solemn countdown to graduation day.  Every morning is one more morning without you, another moment wasted with you so far away.  Every night is one more night swimming in my loneliness, choking on words I wish so badly to throw at you, so you can finally carry the crushing weight drowning me.  Soon I will go looking to dive into the pools of your eyes and you will not be there.  I know the day I walk on the dock alone is coming, too quickly.  And to rip apart from you now might destroy me.

So time continues, and I continue. To watch, to wait, to covet.  Three years and I’m still hanging on to nothing.  When will you leave me and never come back?

Why don’t you like me?

WHY?

You liked me before, you liked me soo much I could tell by the way you looked at me with this big puppy dog brown eyes, they almost looked wet, tearing, as if your love and affection was so full it was about to spill forth all over me.

But now you don’t look at me.  Well, you do but you don’t.  You look at me but you don’t see me, you don’t see the me you loved a few months ago.

Now your all coooooooool
Yeah?
What was that?
Whatever
Huh?
Whatsup?
I’m kind of busy
(But)
I gotta go
(B-)
I’ll talk to you later
(Oh)

But then you never do talk to me later.

What happened?  Did I change?

Am I not quite as pretty, not quite as thin, not quite as perfect as I was before?  Suddenly my nose looks a lot stranger and my stretch marks seem a lot uglier and my stomach seems a lot puffier and my ***** seem a lot smaller.  My eyes seem crooked and my smile seems forced and I suddenly don’t feel as lovely as I felt when you looked at me and saw me like you did before

Like someone swapped my mirror to show me a new me but the problem is I can’t tell which one is real.

I can’t see which one you see.  Or maybe

I just couldn’t be
The me
You see

Or saw, whatever. I’m not sure.  Did I fall from the pretty perfect pristine pedestal you perched me on top of so long ago?  

Or perhaps you grew bored of watching me way up THEEEEEEERE from way down here.  You watched my perfect porcelain smiling teeth collect dust like long forgotten picture frames holding memories of long gone friends, blending into the furniture.  So you left me to rust away with age and neglect until I eventually disappeared completely beneath the building grime of what could have been.

But WHY?

Is there someone else?  Someone more beautiful, more contemporary, more “new and now” and less “last year”.  Is she more intelligent, more poetic, more interesting with better stories better sentences better hip bones.  She’s less flashy less fleshy less feisty but still frisky.  She stands out but she isn’t loud, is polite but not shy and she always chews with her mouth closed.

I know I’m not being fair.

I could’ve been yours.  If I had decided to give you the time of day, a hand on your face or a kiss on your palm I would’ve in an instant been snatched into your loving tan muscley embrace, you would’ve given me all your attention had I ever mentioned that maybe I wanted it.  And even so for so long in your eyes I was yours and you held me so close to the soothing steady beat of love in your heart that for a second I thought that you were mine.  

But you never were, I never gave you those extra minutes on my clock, I never got past my fluttering upset unsure stomach to lean in to kiss that beating heart.  

And now you never will be.

At night I lay awake staring at the clock, cursing it, screaming at it, pounding it against the wall hoping that with sheer will I could somehow make it stop.  How could you let my precious moments and opportunities and letters I never sent sift right through my fingertips like sand, how could you let this happen? This. Time. How could you let us meet in such a way that on this linear plane we would only grow toward each other infinitivally but never actually touch, feel your nervous breath so close to my face but never taste it, only see you for a moment before you go right past me to a somewhere so far away from here.

It’s just not fair.

But it is fair, you were never mine to have.

And now suddenly my ears get hot whenever I think of you, my palms get sweaty when you smile at me, like I’m some pathetic love drunk hormonal 14-year-old girl desperately scribbling our names together in notebooks.  It’s embarrassing, it’s awful, it’s almost comedic.  Let’s make her want him as soon as he closes his door.  Like he had opened his home to me for so long and waited as I stood there unsure and unmoving for months until he decided I probably don’t want to come in, and its getting cold in the kitchen.  As the door slammed in my face I lifted up my hand like wait a second, I’m actually a little cold out here, and I liked watching you smile at me.

Do I really like you or am I just chasing a sunset because I’m afraid of a lonely night?

I want something I can hold
Something I can count on my bitten fingernails, taste on my chapped lips
I want something real,
Something I can smile wolfish grins about when I’m sagging and old.

I want something warm
Something that can thaw my chest that grows so, so cold.
And so, so alone.
I feel so alone.  All the time.

There’s a voice that whispers wants and pleas into my delusional head
A pleasure center rubbed raw one tiny pill at a time
It says that I Am Alone Forever, No One Loves Me, Nothing Matters,
Thick ropes of dark blue snaking around my tortured brain

I just want to make them stop.

So I do the only thing I know. Get HIIIIGH. SOOOOOO high.
And the voices, they shut the **** up.
For a brief beautiful moment in time,
I’m fixed.

But then my body screams and my thoughts panic at the weight of the influence crushing me
Bones and vital organs crumble as I bury my problems, one snort at a time.
I don’t know what will **** me first, the depression or the drugs.
But for now, I’m following my loneliness out the door.

words are mean
they dont even mean anything
and yet they assign meaning
whatever that means

they are supposed to describe feelings
but how can you feel a word?
(or how can you word a feel?)

but a flow of words can give you a certain feeling
a feeling so indescribable
like mutual understanding, no
like someone holding your hand, not quite
like, like....

I'm sorry, I can't seem to find the words

(I can't stop laughing)

Just a Psychedelic girl
And Nothings gonna change my world
Blue skies
Kaleidescope eyes
Tan thighs, time flies
Flies away, don’t exist
Colors dripping off my lips
Looking for one perfect kiss
Kiss the sky, flying high
Goodbye time, hello mind

Want and Need
The Difference Between
Under Hunger’s Spell
We Fell.

Who knew the sky tasted so Sour? Bitter?
Words can never describe, as soon as I feel my adjectives grasp

the flavor on the tip of my tongue, it dissolves, escapes into my body.
I think of ****'s sweeter psychedelic cousin invading my veins,

putting thumping jumping beats and tapping feet in my brain cells.

The frigid February air invites pleasant shivers all over my body

climbing up and up and up my spinal cord, driving me wild. Am I wild?
I feel beautiful, I feel perfect and I want the world to know.
People stare, I wave. They reply with expressions that make me 

practically roll on the floor laughing. Am I scaring you tonight?
My head is roaring, my skin feels hot and as I fall into a backseat

I think, I feel it. I feel so good, so good. What better way to go but Up?
So I rip open a baggie and pour another hit into eager lips.

We walk in, and we are It. We are what everyone wants to be,

living on a steady diet of rails, hits and clouds of smoke,
and
shot after shot after shot, hold the chaser. 

We are a hot mess of bones, skin, hips and teeth. 

And then the DJ drops the beat and we transform.

Mt. Mt. Mt. We move, one body flowing into another.

We dance hotter, closer, faster, smoother,

bodies rolling effortlessly, melting into one another,

a collection of spidery neurons lapping up every sensation joyously.

Bones moan, trapped in the ecstasy, and then

I'm dancing with you, I'm rolling with you, I'm feeling so fully with you.

My shirt clings to slick skin as my hips fit so perfectly into yours.

I feel the energy coursing between, swear I can even see it through all the

dazzling colored lights slicing through the air. And you must see it too,

because then your lips are on mine and we are clinging and kissing and 

eating each other's passion, tongue on tongue, licking the salt off

each other's faces. I'm drenched and my soul's inflamed and so completely turned on

and you ask me if I want another hit of molly. I say absolutely.



You take out a key and a bag of sparkly white powder, balance it so perfectly,

offer it to fervent sinuses, and I breathe it in graciously. I feel myself come to life.

You smile and you grab me, claim me, and then your hands are on me.

Hot, smooth, wet, I can feel my euphoria fill me and spill out of me, 

offer it to the world around me. And then we are together again, and you say

Show Her You Love Her. And I do. I press my lips against hers, open my mouth,

offer her the flawless exhilaration consuming my anatomy, and she accepts.

Then you join in, three persons lulling in this incredible feeling, 

tongues and bodies moving together, dissolving into each other, until 

it’s impossible to decipher where one begins and one ends. 

And the music is blaring and we're jumping and thrusting our hands to the ceiling,

thinking we could really touch the sky from all the way Up Here.  

I grab you, pull you in toward me, squeeze you, hard and you groan,

head falling off your body. You pick me up and spin me around and around, I laugh

and wrap my legs around your waist, ride you like a riptide, wave after wave of desire

moving my body, moving through my body, moving in my body. And then your lips

are pressed so close to my ear, teasing me with thin wisps of I Love You, I Want You,

Give Me All Of You Tonight. And I push against you, fall into you, and then


I Wake Up. Drained, wasted, spent, brain throbbing against my skull.

Sprawled in my bed, sweating out toxins that loved me so well the night before.

Betrayed, falling into depression, body aching inside and out, I shut my eyes,

try to concentrate on not throwing up, and I feel you. You're lying next to me,

and When Did You Get Here? What Did We Do? You smile and ask if I'm up for

round two. No, Get Out, Can't You See I'm Hurting? So you take out some sweet

California green and a piece, pack it tight. Light it up, rip it hard, offer me the bowl.

I do the same, feel a little better, but not. Not the same,

I still make you leave when it's kicked. Lying there, dropping lower and lower

as minutes tick by so slowly, I try to embrace the purple haze enveloping me.

But all I really want is some water and some ecstasy.

The best part of me is me with you
Without you I am bitter, hard to swallow,
Like swallowing shampoo in the shower,
Unwanted, unpleasant.  I am about as desired
As terminal cancer, slowly feeding off of
The happiness of others until they sputter and dry up.
Without you I am just one puzzle piece
One broken little insignificant nothing
Ugly, misunderstood with nowhere to really
Call home.

But with you I am perfect, you make my sugar sweet
I was merely a locked door waiting for your shining,
Pretty, perfect, golden key.
A key that opened my heart to love, beauty, a
Threshold of feeling so full, so vibrant,
It shines right out of me.  It shines in this
Dewey glow that is warm like a sweater out of
The dryer, drawing everyone near into my heart bursting
With the love you started, a fire you sparked
When my skin met your skin.

I’m just too
Much.
Too much everything
Too big, too loud
Too passionate, too intense
Too much for one person to handle

I am slowly drowning in myself
The ocean of my personality
I am trying to suffocate myself,
Muffle my enormosity
In hopes that I will get smaller
And smaller
Until I disappear.

It happens all of the sudden.  One day it’s just one time and then it’s need.  That’s when you run into trouble.  After that, it’s a whole other ballgame.  It isn’t addiction until you need.  

I remember the first time.  You always remember your first time.  It’s like opening the biggest present at Christmas, it’s like sledding on that extra icy hill you knew was just a little too slippery, it’s like skydiving shooting stars high flying crazy.  

Instant exhilaration.  

It’s like that millisecond licking your lips before you go in for the kiss, that steamy shower on your cool skin.  

Absolute seduction.  

You just smile, lean back and say

****.

My first time I said no.
No way.
No how.
I don’t do that.

It was a door in the back of my mind I had branded with a Do Not Enter sign.  I argued morals, I argued boundaries.  A secret promise to myself I kept safe behind lines I swore I wouldn’t cross.  But what really stopped me dead in my tracks, what kept me away from the forbidden fruit was fear.  

Maybe even some paranoia, or a little indignation at the idea of putting things up my delicate little pixie nose, scratching the thin tissue of my sinuses.  

But suddenly your friends are doing it, and they look just fine.  That security blanket of fear dissolves, a scary story to tuck away under your pillow like the boogieman.  They call it peer pressure, I think of it more like peer assurance.  Or maybe an experiment.  And that’s all we’re doing right?  The first time I said no.  The second time suddenly those lines were disappearing up my nose.

And then just, ah hah! This is what it’s like, this is the hype.  Like the first time you sit in the front seat of a car.  And think to yourself, well

That was pretty fun.

But nothing serious, just a fling.  One **** one night stand, no biggie.

But it’s nothing like that.  It’s like someone running up to you and whispering in your ear the biggest, darkest secret of life.  And that’s the funny thing, because that’s just it.

It starts with want.

And you have fun.  You get lost in your own lust and you take all you can get.   And you crave those little white pills because you just feel sosososo good.

And then one day you’re tired before school and you don’t know how to pep yourself up.  And you get this idea.  This crazy idea.  And you rail a little white pill.  And as you walk out the door, you feel like a million dollars.  You feel like you slept for 10 hours, like you just got every question on a test right including the extra credit.  And you breeze right through your day, high flying on autopilot.

That’s the ***** secret with the whole thing.  It makes everything so **** easy.  

Tired? Have a line.
Hungry? Have a line.
Sad? Have a line.
Bored? Have a line.

It becomes a ritual, it becomes a secret club no one else can know about.  It’s that lover you sneak off to in the middle of those lonely nights, when your thoughts endlessly thrash against your skull, doubts echoing into the dark room surrounding you.  

But it’s not your life.  More like a habit, like a friend from the wrong side of the tracks.  

What happens from then on is hard to say.  For me, it was when my world shut down around me, when I felt like I was absolutely alone.  When I felt like I was free falling and I had nowhere to land.  Like I had just been beaten in an alleyway left for dead.  I needed someone to hold me.  And all I saw was the Ritalin.  

For me, it was falling in love.  It was giving my soul to you and having you rip it apart.  It was the way you looked into my eyes and stroked my hair.  It was the echo of you closing the door.  You left me behind.  You made me love you and then you just kept walking past.  It was getting my heart broken for the last time, it was a moment of weakness.  As my world crumbled, I took a whiff on courage.  

And suddenly it’s need.  

It tricks you, it makes you forget that once upon a time you were fine alone.  It manipulates you and makes you think you can’t live without it.  Suddenly, there is no life without drugs.  

You’re avoiding people, you’re skipping lunch to powder your nose, your eyes are bugged open and you’re chomping gum 24/7.  People insist you look fabulous from the lost weight and you feel ******* fabulous from your lost hate, buried under the influence.  You are up for 3 days and asleep for 20 hours.  And the crash.  Your head pounds and your hands shake.  You yell at all your friends and you’re late to work 4 days in a row.  And you just needneedneed to go up again because you just can’t take it anymore.

You scamper up as high as you can reach and you’re afraid to come down.  But your body can only last so long.

The big OD is not something taken lightly, a grey no-man's land where brittle lifelines tend to snap.  I was lucky.  I didn’t break, didn't get the 911 nightmare, just took too much too fast, and I felt SO good.  But then, I didn’t feel so good.  Suddenly, I felt pretty **** awful.  I didn’t go into cardiac arrest or anything, but it scared me shitless.  Scared me right off the ****, minus a binge or two.

At least, it did.  For a little while.

Now that voice I know too well is whispering again, and I don’t always feel like saying no.  

I remember when I used to flaunt my new hobby to my friends.  I felt like some sort of glamorous superstar that knew exactly how to have a good time.  Like it was some sort of VIP club that they just had to get into.  And then I didn’t wanna talk about it, they just don’t get it.  They don’t get it.  I need it.  But only sometimes.

Yeah yeah, stupid.  I get it.  You think I’m asking for it.  I lost control and I’m gonna lose it again.  But I made myself stop before, of course I can do it again.  I am cool, calm, collected and totally in control.

Right?

 I felt so cold when you left me here.  I never want to feel again.

Speed demons.  
They wait for me under my bed and whisper my name into the night.

They sink vampire teeth between my eyes,
inject awful toxins that make my mind throb,
pulsing pain like a second heartbeat.

Thump.
               Thump.
                              Thump.

I battle.  
I ignore.  
I cry alone into the night.  

I clutch my sweat-stained sheets,
trying to grasp reality as vivid hallucinations of another dimension
dance across my vision, a world of
***, drugs, and rock and roll.

It’s ******.  It’s sensual.  
It’s perfection, my forbidden fruit,
tempting, red, succulent, delicious,
rocks my body like an untamed sea,
unties the ropes of blue that pin my brain to D
                                                                                  O
                                                                                     W
                                                                                         N
and let me run free.
                                                                            P.
Free. Running Free. Flying High.  So Far U

I can barely breathe, my heart is racing
And this is only memories.  
My head flutters at the idea of flying again.  
And I ache and I pine the touch that only speed can give me,
a high that takes me to heaven on earth.

But still I battle.  I battle for my friends.

They cry, they get upset.  
They tell me I’ve changed,
riding an emotional rollercoaster straight to hell
to blow lines with the big man in red.  
They see a demon inside my sunken face.  They just want me.

To own me.
To own my body.
Once Again.

They plea, they want to help.  
Call, text, show up, knock at my door.  
We will tend to your broken baby bird body.

My body is breaking.

I am frail.  I am small.  I am hollow.  
I am cold, all the time.  My kidneys ache, my head screams,
my weight disappears faster than I can choke down bites of mediocre sandwiches.  
I am tired.  I am sad.  I hole up in my bed for hours
drowsily listening to the sweet sultry voices under my bed.

But I fight.  I say no.  I cry.  And I yearn.  
I never stop wanting those ******* pills.

I’ve never been so lost in such a sweet, innocent kiss.
It was like the smell of the pale, pink petals
Blowing off the cherry blossom trees.
The way they floated so carelessly, so lightly
Into the dark pool below.
That’s how I felt, like a blossom in the breeze
Forever in the present moment.

I know what love tastes like, I taste it when we kiss.
It tastes like melted honey on fever swollen lips.

I know what love looks like, I see it in your eyes.
It sparkles when I laugh, swells in anguish when I cry.

I know what love feels like, it lives in your embrace.
It's butterflies inside me when we walk with fingers laced.

I know what love smells like, it smells like cigarettes.
It smells like smoke and love-making, the mixture of our sweat.

I know what love sounds like, I hear it when you breathe.
The pitter-patter of your heartbeat, tiny murmurs in your sleep.

People laugh at me and mock me, say that love doesn't exist
I just smile at them and whisper "I know what love is"

I feel wired.
I mean weird.
Wired and weird.  Rearranging the letters is making me dizzy.
My eyes don’t want to focus.  So they don’t.
I let my pupils dilate, relax and unfurl.
Images blur. I struggle to make out the words I type in front of me.
Can’t tell if they’re sensible, can’t figure out if I care.
Maybe I’m tired.
I might be tired, but I’m not sure.
Thought I was before, so I snorted another pill.  And another. And another.
And maybe I felt better but I can’t really remember.
Now I’m not sure if I ever was tired.  Don’t know what I am.
I feel disoriented.  Confused.  Just somehow not right.
I can’t grasp the words I need to describe it.
I just feel weird.
I mean wired.
Wait, which was it again? Can’t remember, not sure.
My head feels like thick mud, or quicksand. Or something.
Or maybe it doesn’t, I’m dizzy again.
What was I saying? Right. Wired and weird.
Will I ever feel normal again?

You make me feel worthless.
An old piece of jewelry once pretty
worn down by time with rust and familiarity  

Replaceable. As if any girl could rub you the right way and
Your gone, a simple game of touch-and-go that
I just can't seem to win.

When did I become so ordinary?
Am I not so shiny copper penny new?
Am I not quite so very interesting, crisply witty remarks ridden?

I look in the mirror and I see beauty.
****. Funny. Perfection.
I see you whispering pretty things into my neck
in the dark quiet of your room, muted tv light dancing over our
flushed skin.

I see you falling asleep smiling at my eyes
touching me So tender, holding me against your body.
My name escaping your teeth clenched so tight by
lust, desire, fire in your veins singing sweet symphonies
that I started.

But then I look again. and I see sub-par
Negligible. Dull. Grotesque.
I see shaky escuses to lead me to the door,
selective hearing that refuse to acknowledge heavy questions
weighing on my shoulders, leaving me so completely alone.
So. Completely. Cold.

Is it possible to be in love with a feeling?
To love not the person, nor object, but
That stirring in your soul you can’t describe?
Like walking on your tip-tap-toes
On a slippery kitchen floor? Or catching
Every perfect snowflake on your eager tongue?
Is it feasible that the object of your affection
Is not an object at all, but the crackling,
Giggling flames spreading warmth deep down
In the bottom of your flopping belly? A feeling
So beautiful, so much more worthy than I.

I am from noise.
From a womb that was too crowded
and a million hospital wires
In a tiny broken body.

I am from laughter.
From towering Christmas trees and squash soup.
(Bright orange, it tasted like warmth)

I am from music.
From constant choir chants and piano fingers
Scrambling and hurried, excited.

I am from Michelle my Belle
From a full hectic house and gravestones
That never made the cut, no matter how artistic.

I am from a rusty fifteen passenger van.
From Rodgers and Frere Jacque.
Dancing bare feet on the cold white cement.

I am from Roots and Wings
From “that’s my girl!”
And “I’m sorry for your loss”

I am from hot cinnamon skin,
Glistening with sweat.
From a hard day’s work and “If you get better”

I am from squinting eyes and skeptical looks.
From the big oak tree leaves you could touch if you
Reached high enough.
And screams echoing everywhere.

I am from footsteps getting the laundry
From black and white movies that a child
Should never watch.
And gingersnaps with a hint of smoke.

In a black bound notebook,
Covered with crayon marks crazy
Within every lined page are my days I lived
My horizons are laced with uncertainties
I hide them under my pillow
Listen to ghost footsteps
And cradle Sunny to sleep.

He gave me the key to heaven on earth
He being the man in the orange jumpsuit with the dreds
Out on a patio smoking cigarettes, apathetic
It tasted like grated demon bones

He being the man in the orange jumpsuit with the dreds
Twenty dollars I didn’t have was more than worth it
It tasted like grated demon bones
A five hour violent ****** spilling out of my anatomy

Twenty dollars I didn’t have was more than worth it
It punched me in the face and knocked me to the floor, dry heaving
A five hour violent ****** spilling out of my anatomy
I hold a hurricane in my body, blowing my mind destructively.

It punched me in the face and knocked me to the floor, dry heaving
A collection of extraordinary sensations imprinting my psych.
I hold a hurricane in my body, blowing my mind destructively.
Explosions of laughter, I’ve never felt anything so plasticy.

A collection of extraordinary sensations imprinting my psych
Out on a patio smoking cigarettes, apathetic
Explosions of laughter, I’ve never felt anything so plasticy.
He gave me the key to heaven on earth.

I want you
I need you
Gotta have you
Taste you
Feel you
Touch you, ah
So hot, so warm
Ouch burns so bad
So good, no bad
Bad? Can’t want you
Don’t need you
Replace you
Pain
Is
Weakness
Weakness
Leaving the body
No wait, wait
Hold on, no
Don’t leave me
Shield me
Hide me
Love me
Want me
Stop, stop
Don’t touch me
Don’t call me
Don’t say my name
Like that, no don’t
Can’t need you
Please leave you
Hot and cold
So quickly, stinging
Skin, hurting so
Can’t, can? no
Headaches, tossing
Throbbing heart
Tension of opposites
Ripping me apart

This is a thank you
For everything you do
For looking at me that way you do
With your blue
Well, sometimes, green eyes.

For sitting alone with your guitar
For asking for my number
No matter how bizarre,
How strange I’ve seemed

I’ve seemed to interrupt something.
Some, Thing,
Much bigger than me.
And I don’t want to distract your beautiful soul
I don’t want to strengthen your devilish ego

But I can’t help but miss you
And wish for you
Wanna kiss you
Talk to fish with you
Lie in bliss with you

I know you have to stop doing
And start being
But please
Don’t go.

We could meditate for hours
make halos out of flowers
dream of superpowers
If you’d like.

You can kiss at my door so sweet
It tasted like melted iced tea
**** all the ice cream off my teeth
If you’d like

You can push me up the tallest trees
Even if I cry and scrape my knees
I’ll climb any mountain if I can be next to you
Even though I’m scared of heights.

We can just walk, too.
Around, anywhere we want to
We can talk about anything that crosses our mind
Or say nothing at all, and just hold hands

Nothing takes my breath away
Like the tingling touch of your nervous palm
Whispering against my thigh
Your fingers tracing strange patterns on my backbone.
Quivering. Shivering.

I’ve never felt so sure
About anything before
Nothing feels as real
As your tiny snores
next to me.

I know you have to leave
Not to do, but to be
So you can reach
some sort of
Awake
that I don’t really understand

But just promise me
Please.
Be.
Near me.
I want to hold your hand.

I walk down beaten paths toward a cross

Held defiantly against a brilliant blue sky 

Kneeling beneath it buildings worn and weary, like the

Heavy shoulders I wear into our City of God.

One step in front of the other

Like a soldier in the ranks of this battle against sin, 

Blistering heat upon blistering feet upon blistering street

Lord, can you hear my prayer?  

As I fall to trembling knees,

I contemplate questions left unanswered

Echoing in the barren stone hall

Left to burden disappointed ears.

In response to your letters, all together,

Your love forever kept in my drawers, pretty whispers on paper

In exchange for the pieces of your heart I keep in my room,

A little piece of me for you.

You were mine before you knew me
You were a song I already knew the words to

And when my eyes first shook hands with yours,

I heard that sweet melody play.

I was yours before you had me

My Soul forever tattooed with love for you

A throbbing that kept me awake at night

As my heart screamed your name.



Two fires burning so brightly together,

It was rushing, it was fervent, it was passion uncontained.

It was heat on my cheeks when you kissed my teeth

And declarations of love filling the darkest nights.



It was the goodbyes crushed together tight

Clinging and kissing like we were dying.

It was your fingers fitting perfectly in mine,

It was sweaty fire nervous in your bed.



You opened your hand and offered me the world,

You kissed my neck with promises of tomorrow,

You wanted to walk beside me forever

But I only wanted to fly.



With you I grew stronger,

Without you I grow stronger still. 

Young love too beautiful to understand, 

Two lives tangled together by coincidence or fate

Violently ripped apart by infidelity,

The Flesh's betrayal to the Soul.

Maybe our paths will cross again

But until then all I offer is this;
This letter perfumed with soft kisses and memories of yesterday,

Ghost finger tips tracing my backbone, 

I breathe in the scent of your skin

And wonder.