10:20 AM**
utensil song
repeats a sleepy dirge
like i repeat another day
of walking in a circle

She dropped out today.

Out of school, village housing, and our lives

and Mickey Mouse sat
on the edge of his bed,
a controller in his gloved hands.

They are swollen under there,
a gangrenous trap of envy and greed
and she saw those hands with the gloves off,
and as they slid down her face
I heard funeral bells from across campus
because she's gone now and there are too any girls like her
girls the school refused to help
because god forbid they help
if the **** rate on campus might go up
and Don't call it is what it is, Christine
There's nothing to be done, Kara
Just take it easy, he was just playing around
and we don't know what intentions she had with him anyway

Well it's good for them.
They don't have to deal with it anymore.

She dropped out today.

Out of school, village housing,
   the side of the world, the cracks of the law,
           the sound of clapping hands, grinning faces,
                  the coffee house music hour, the soaked sheets at the edges of  time
                                                       and out of our lives

There are few things so cruel as the curse of night time
for on this day, I worked in the hot sun
and cordially spoke with friends on this evening,
we laughed and played and said horrible things that, were we in mixed company,
would have been pushed into the recesses of our minds
to be texted out later.
But the night!
It is not a stalking wolf
not like fear-
that is merely the space between my eyes and the rest of the world when the lids are shut.
On no
it is an old friend,
the sorrows borne of
of
of what?
Fists at my brow?
Lips on my flesh?
Or the curse of my own biology?
No matter! I digress.
The old friend, waiting to turn a nice day into a heart ache.
He's drinking again, and that shouldn't matter to me.
It isn't in excess,
I'm just puritanical, I know,
and for once I'm not having a **** panic attack over it,
but I hurt.
I ache.
This is dumb, it is foolish
it is childish.
Childish! Childish!
Cowardly
What worth is my pain?
Tuesday, it will be a year since I hurt myself,
and I'm not going to again because I have someone I love who cares about me
and doesn't just treat my hurt like it's a ploy for attention
(if it were a ploy, I wouldn't be posting this on a poetry website,
it would be facebook
with tags for the people who put me here).
But seriously though,
what does it matter if I am in pain?
Depression, for me, has always been a matter of
1) ignore the urges
2) cover the symptoms.
Even when I was hurting myself,
I would make the marks look like I had fallen off of my bike or some **** like that,
so my parents would scold.
They never worried
it was just annoying to them.
Annoying?
To you?
**** it, I'm the one having this happen!
But then, you are carting me from doctor to doctor to shrink and back again,
you're the ones that the school calls when I get into fights and I try and **** myself in the locker room.
So I guess I am a burden.
But I'd be more of a burden if I was dead,
because then you'd have to explain to everyone
and my love would be ruined
and my parents would have to pay to bury their girl
and
and
and
**** it, what am I supposed to do?
I knew this would happen,
I don't understand
I'm not particularly smart, or wise, or anything.
I'm just kind hearted.
That's what I do.
So what do I do?
Ah.
Whatever.
I guess I just go to sleep.

There are lips between me and the sky
whispering down to me
spread your arms!
feathers will grow!
You will be an angel and you can soar
you can fly.

But if I listen hard enough,
I can hear them whispering
heh. I told her she can fly
What a silly notion
a spider
*that thinks it can fly!

we
don't want any of your ******* sorrows
we don't want pretty frowns and lip biting sympathy
don't want a ******* protest song
no no no we don't want a hand on our back
we want one wrapped around this sledgehammer
to help us knock the walls down
and not to look at us in the pharmacies
and the grocery stores
and the waiting rooms
and the therapist chairs
whispering
a lazy generation
*******
you know what my earliest memory was?
two planes slamming into silver sticks of butter on a warm sunny day
and getting pulled out of kindergarten to watch
as pretty red and black confetti jumped out of the smoke
a lazy generation
on too many meds
where were we
when you shoved coke up your nose
in a ******* disco tech
that was gonna burn down before  1993
you were our parents
the nirvana generation
feeling so good about themselves
and shoving their music down our throats so long that we can't remember how to sing for ourselves
you had teen pregnancy and world wars
this is ours
my war is waged between my hands
one that has a wire hanger whipping my back
and the other that doesn't feel guilty
but would rather not have my roommates see and report me
that's all i got going for me is a good education
sure; people love me that's great
pick up a ******* hammer
and help me knock these walls down

My face is so sand blasted
I can scrape off the grime with a chisel
some paste of shells and sand
held together by sunscreen and sweat
yes, I am filthy
but something else is here
the waves in my mind
are calming themselves
and I know going back, they will return,
but for now
the sea is choppy
not a billowing hurricane
just choppy

how much longer
until i am just the indentations
of a body
in my bed?

Ballerina's feet
are calloused
twisted
bruised and ugly from far too much use

My friends and I used to compare the carnage
which we called, forgivingly, feet

I was never much a dancer
Flexible, but ungainly
I could lift my leg over my head and hold it for a minute
keep time to music
but there was something about the rigidness of it that I never quite-

I loved it
sweet passion of a not so distant youth
and my feet were always the most battered

Her hands were so sticky and started to swell
Ugly, red, burgeoning paddles
convulsion nervously at her sides and then at her mouth as she held back a whimper
(The neighbors were still fighting
so no one would have heard anyway.)
Anyway
Her eyes bulged
as heart heart felt heavy, then light again, then heavy
When her eyes began to swim, she tried
she did
she tried to get to a telephone
but instead she collapsed
like an egg from the carton
and laid there
until the neighbors stopped fighting.

it is no secret
i am the women in the grocery store with a skirt too short that mommies warn you about
i am hot venom and warm beer and blood from your forehead
i am angry
and i have earned this wrath
i am angry
and i will use it to move mountains
i am angry
and every man who has ever ground their boots into my broken ankles, any man who dares speak my name with anything other than reverence or good humor, and man who tried to stand before me
had best watch their ******* backs
i am a bull with you in the corner of the pen
and i will rip out your ******* guts
and you will feel me for all i am all at once and be no more
i will show you who i am
and i will build bridges out of you

my darling
looks at my unshaved legs
and looks at his
and sees little difference
because
he knows we are both human beings
and doesn't find my natural functions
a novelty
or a turn off

I tried to bake
you cookies but it seems like
I am a hippo

I miss when we were one
one breathing creature,
watching television,
cooking side by side,
making love
and kissing after
hugging and holding and being glad
because I got over my phobia

I miss the feeling of being independent
not worrying about how far you are
and being able to think about ourselves for once
because we're not preoccupied by the distance

this year
how long will it be?
Christmas?
Christmas and I'll see you again
just six more months
good God

till then,  you will eat up my thoughts
till then, I'll go mad with wanting you
till we can be together and ourselves
I will simply breathe for you

I want that smooth, low voice
not this muppet one I have
but oh!
I can still sing!
    Warble and be your song bird
I want to be a *****
one with a sleek, **** body
but still!
There is something cute
  about a plump girl
   writing poems
     more naked than in the eyes of the Lord.

I want to be so much for you
and sometimes, I am only far away
but
but you take those things I am
and you see them as angels' giggles
polish those ugly parts of me
and keep them in a display case between your lungs
right where I keep yours

My boyfriend is my lap top computer
Yes he exists
Yes I have met him
I have met him time and time again
touched his face, tasted his sweet lips, and heard him humming me to sleep
I have done all of that
and I have had him ripped away
across rivers
and mountains
and state lines
State lines carved in our hearts deep as French, German trenches
and as wide
as that song they keep playing on my Pandora
and I would walk five hundred miles...

So
My boyfriend
is my laptop.
When I cannot see his face
there are his photos
and a few youtube videos.
When I cannot hear his voice,
skype sends itself to me.
And when I long to hold his hand,
I can push up to my laptop
and feel the whirring warmth
of a hot hard drive.

Is it the same as his chin on my shoulder?
How he's shorter than I am
but he still rests there
with a little difficulty
and so much love.
Can I feel a laptop
breathing softly on the back of my neck at night?
Can a laptop
stop my nightmares?
Surf the roaring waves of behavioral disorders?
Or even really hold my hand?
No.
It is not substitute.
So I will wait.
I will wait for my love
just until I have the time to last up my shoes
*I would walk 500 miles...

she was so lazy
that the bed swallowed her whole
"Netflix! Come save me!"

packing my bag for the beach
all my clothes slung into the big suit case
with Mom's and Dad's and Ethan's
nothing left to do
but to pack my leisure luxury items.

In my threadbare Ramones bag
with the *** Pistols and Gogol Bordello pins
the Arvo Part patches
(he is a lovely composer)
I pack all of my real essentials:
Three writing journals
one sketch book
a comic I'm writing
the Grapes of Wrath
some Japanese homework
and pens.

I can't just have them ***** nilly
so I open up the secret pouch
the one for wonderful secret things
like the MP3 players I used to hide from my mom
because she'd break them when she was mad at me
it was so black,
no one ever knew what was in there
but me.

I pushed my fingers in
and I pulled back something red
slit on my fingers
from a razor blade I had hidden
so, so long ago.

It is heavy in my hand.
Funny, I haven't used one for a year
and the glinting silver teases me
even on the verge of joy.

I will hide it
for another day
that I hope isn't going to come.

it has always been about controlling myself
i can't just feel without asking whether or not i'm
allowed
to feel something
whenever i'm angry
i don't have the right
if i'm frightened,
i am too weak
my happiness
i am stealing
from someone else
i wish i could pay in advance
at least in blood
can i pay my credit in blood?
oh good
rip open my wallet
and fill the banks
till they are dripping
i don't want to steal from you
i do not want to brutalize my neighbors
please
take my offerings
till i am cold broke
my god
my god

**** it, what do I need to do to get someone to notice me?
Pay attention to me!
Do I have to cut myself some more?
Or should I burn down a house?
******, I'll punch you in the mouth if you'd
just
*******
punch
me
back.
Please!
Am I a ghost? Doomed to wander in this same rut, caught in anxiety and a desperate need to please?
**** that, I'm through trying to please people,
I tried that,
and no one will look at me anyway!
So what do I have to do?
Steal a car?
Break your heart?
**** someone?
**** myself?

**** it, say something!
******* react!
Blank walls.
An Ode to you
To the friends I have, I show you my open arms every last time.
So why is it that when I'm at my worst you send me a thank you letter written in scribbled cursive scribed on your *******?
I love you! I love you!
It isn't my fault I'm scared!
But is this not of my own making, where I won't tell you that I'm not okay?
If I let myself be used…

But I send off all the signals.
I write on the walls in blue and red and neon green, same as that TV you stare at.
Why don't you stare at my sitcom?
It's about a girl ******* herself over so often that the foot up her *** is coming out her mouth.
**** it, ******* know me!
Know me!

one of those fancy 10 word poems I see so often
I tried to write the truth

My baby brother's gone off
on a plane
to way, way down South
He left too early for me to realize
that I
was worried

I've flown alone before
but he;
he's so independent
and that sort of thing can lead to trouble
So now he's off and away
learning how to shoot down jets in Alabama
I hope my air force kid
doesn't get lost

i set my phone on the table
i do so fear that house
the upstairs is nothing but dark rooms
the curtains drawn
and the stuffy old furniture laid in too-big rooms
nana's house is nearly 150 years old
and the joints creak more than hers do
every footfall is an echoing scream that rebounds into the dust
whenever you go into the bathroom upstairs
faces show up in the glass
in the fog that always shows up
and sit there like when you were a kid making hand prints and smiles
it doesn't frighten me any more
but
when i come downstairs
my phone
is on the top step of the basement stairs
the glowering darkness warning me

i am so glad to be back home

there ain't nothing left
but candles burned to stubs
and busted headphones
torn up books
and ones never opened
i am here

beneath

the
       covers
trying to take my mind off of dying
off of loneliness
off of everything

I live
In America,
in a suburb by the woods
where the city is just a sneeze away,
but just too far to touch.
And the fireworks at the baseball games rattle my windows at night
and the 10:15 train rattles by
on time
every night

She lives
In Japan
in a little town by the sea
I was there once, among the rice and water
and we both biked to school.
And the cranes that loaded the massive ships loomed over our lives
and the hush of a small town woke me
ever
single
night