Don't get used to me, please.
That's how it starts.

Remember when we met?
See me as you saw me then.
There must've been something to make you want me.
Remember it, please.
Keep it new.

I'm doing my best to be new
To still be exciting
To still make you interested.
I don't know my success rate.
I think it's low.

I've been through it before.
Once you get used to me,
You start forgetting.
You forget why you wanted me.
You forget any reasons to keep me around.
Reasons to still try.
So, you stop.

So, we stop.

So remember me, please.
Was it my words? my face? my tiger shirt?
Whatever it is, don't forget.
I'll drink more to get back to those words.
I'll put on more makeup to bring back your favors.
I'll wear that shirt all you like.

But please, I'm asking you.
Don't forget me.
Don't get used to me.

This noise is acid on my brain
burning straight through
leaving none in its path.

I feel it-
the loss
the pain
the sizzle.
The empty hole it leaves
running straight from my skull to my breast.

I wish it would spread.
Leaving one with a hole is cruelty.
Destroying the total is a gift.

Mortality means that you can **** my body
With unlimited weapons.
Nature. Technology. Man.
All would end me
In minutes
In seconds.
Living is dangerous;
I can die just trying to survive
Without even recognizing my struggle.

In a sense, I am the least powerful thing in existence.
I am slowly rotting away as I write...

Nothing can stop it
And that is the beauty
And the cost
Of being human.
That is the beauty and the cost of being free.

You had a black cat and a tiger cub
Equal in size, equal in ferocity.
All silk fur and knife teeth- you said they were just playing
But they bit and scratched only me.
Scars incurred were real.

You experimented, scientifically, with my childhood belongings
In the back of our broken down truck.
You didn't know they were mine.

We played chess, us and another
Someone unimportant enough to forget, I suppose
Since I already have.
There was a scandalous edge to it.
Something dark, dangerous. Exciting.
You made me a promise when you took my queen.
I couldn't quite understand what it was.

Later you played basketball, alone in the dark
You car headlights providing the only stars.
I followed you
Found you playing horse, a sad game alone.

There was electricity in the air
Waiting to shock someone.
Waiting to shock us.
You were about to say something magnificent....

If only I could return.
If only I could hear you say it.
If only I could escape the felines for good.

Blood rushes to your head
And takes over, controls you.
The buzzing left in your ears from his mouth drowns out everything.
You try to move but your legs go weak;
Bone is not bone, but more blood
Limp and liquid.

You let him hold you up so he'll hold you down later.

You discover swollenlipsracingheart is not a cliche
It is a medical condition and you are a victim.

The cure is more
-more hands, more tongues.

Breathless, you breathe him in.

I guess I need to remember that we are young
And most young love ends like that.
Sometimes I forget that love's supposed to end.

It's funny how your needs wane when my needs wax
Or at least stay the same. In stasis.
I still prefer just us two.
I understand that you're the opposite. Your needs wane.

And I still want you twice a day. I guess those needs wane for you too.

This isn't a poem. This is just a break-up letter, before it happens.
You seem to like preparation.

I wonder if you'll still read these.
I wonder if you'll still talk to me.
I wonder if I'll still want you to.

Since I was young I assumed I'd be alone. It wasn't something I thought about. It just always seemed the way of the world. I was always fine with it.

I'd rather be with you
But you say young love ends like this.
I say-
It doesn't have to.

I was thinking about you today.

Not because I missed you.
I don't think I've missed you once.

But it's almost time for school again
And you never got started unless I started it.
Or not willing, I guess.

I was remembering how proud I was of you, once.
Of who you were going to be.
Remember?
I hope you'll become someone you're proud of.

And I wanted to say I'm sorry I moved on so fast.
And I'm sorry I'm so much happier without you.
And I'm sorry I hurt you.
But I can't say any of that
Because it wouldn't be a good idea to talk to you.
And I don't really want to, either.
We never had much to say to each other.

But I hope you're okay
And I hope you're happier without me
And I hope you can find someone
Who can be the one you love to need.

I let you into my safe, where I keep my heart
And gave you access to words, rare and true.
My moral compass shook, needle spinning
I guess we were near a pole.

I've shown you what I am and how bad I am at navigation
Who I am, inside. What I think.

I don't know what it means
Or I'm just not mentioning what we both know.

I just want you to know me.

I can't be this alone, with you.

If I'm to be alone, let me call myself alone.
Don't make me suffer this killing hope.

Wrapped in your sleeping arms, let me not think
"alone"
Watching you laugh, make me not think
"alone"
Feeling your lips on mine, force me not to think
"alone"
I can't be this alone, with you.

I think of you by the minute. Can't you think of me
sometimes?
You say you know, but if you know why don't you care?
If you know, why don't you try?
I can't be this alone, with you.

Free from expectation and hope, I can survive.
But this, this drains me. This will leave me dry.
Choose one and let it be that. Just choose.
Because I can't do this with you.

I don't remember to wash off my green beans before I eat them.

I'm not patient
And I think complaining is pathetic,
But I still end up doing it.

I'm not considerate
And I have trouble empathizing
And I'm always desperate for attention
A sure sign of a weakness.

It's not necessary to tell me my faults.
I'm well acquainted with them.
Probably moreso than anyone else.

I read because it distracts me from how empty my life is
And I like when people don't know my music.
It makes me feel superior.

There are thousands more.
Some very silly, like how I never really finish my own beer
And some important, like how I play the martyr way too often.
But just trust me.
I know them plenty.

Let me survive.

The drive home is long.
Where usually I'm surrounded by cedar trees and grass
I see only black skies and cop cars.

Where usually I listen to skinny boys with acoustic guitars
I listen to angry fast-poets with hate to spare.
It's not the same drive
Though I'm on the same road.

I don't get that feeling of serenity
That usually makes itself known between the trees.
That flows between the rivers I cross
And melts into my soul.

Instead I feel an ache in my gut
And the buzzing in my head tells me
Something's coming.
Something I am not ready for.

I  am a goddess of the sea.
My skin is red with sun,
My hair swirls like a jetty.
My eyes are dark green from natural knowledge.

I am a goddess of the sea
And your petty rules and expectations
Have no effect
On us eternals.

I will forever be eight-teen
And have freckles on my nose
And sand in my soul.

Maybe sometime I'll feel like you want me too
Because I know it's all in my head
But you're not very good at helping
(No offense).

I would never stay mad at you
But I probably could.
I think it's because you don't mean to do what you do
Which is actually nothing at all.
I guess that's the problem.

It's hard to feel anything without writing it off when you're so self-aware
But it's hard to feel some things all the time
So I guess what I'm saying is it doesn't really matter what I think.

I just wish you wanted me with you
Or you wanted you in me
Or really that the words "want" and "me" (or you?)
Would ever go together at all.

I don't blame you
As in, I'm not trying to accuse
That's just the way I feel
But it doesn't really matter what I think about that.

A marvel of human engineering!
A cyborg of delicate mechanical balance
She swoops down
And conquers the world.
Her world-
Her section of the Earth, created for her.

Nothing left out of place
Nothing amiss.

She is the world's first crossbred perfectionist.

I stopped loving you on my birthday. Did you know that?
It shocked me out of that confused numbness I'd been living in
Momentarily.

Like a twig snapping
A candle, quickly snuffed.
All the other cliches people use to say that what was,
Suddenly isn't.
Can't be, anymore.

But it was sudden
And it was shocking
And I didn't know what to do.

So I tried to pass it off as ***
Or stress, or distraction. But I knew what it was.
I knew what it wasn't, anymore. You didn't.

I wonder when you stopped loving me
Because surely you've stopped loving me
And I'm glad you've stopped loving me.
It's all I hoped for, from that day to the end.
I hope it was before the end.

For my birthday, I made my cupcakes
Drank my liquor
And prepared myself to remember how to love you.
But I knew I couldn't, anymore.

I'm sorry my temper flared,
Behind my eyes.
You weren't meant to know.

You are not the cause, my lady.
However, your actions speak louder
Than I could ever hope to express.
They are saying most inflammatory things.

Yes, anger may have me for now.
But soon it will leave
And you were never supposed to know.

I don't want to write about farts
And limp *****
Or dry vaginas, as my gender would suggest.
I want to write about love
And laughter and beauty and joy.
Because maybe
If it's true that life imitates art
That is what my life will become.
And I crave that hope.

My best friend doesn't consider me her best friend.
My confidante does not confide in me.
My peer doesn't see me as an equal.
But I always, always know
That the love of my now
Unequivocally
Undeniably
Undoubtedly
Sees me as the love of his.

Three a.m. is my time.
Every night
No matter when I fell asleep
Or when I have to wake up
I will invariably be awake
At three a.m.

It's not on purpose.
My body just decides.
"Look at the time
Time to get up and wonder
Why they hell you're awake"

It makes for a sleepy Christine in the morning.

Who are you
To undermine my reality?
I am interested in neither your validation
Nor your condemnation.
I am the beginning and the end of my world
As if I were not I, there would be no me
And if there were no me, I would not be aware
Of any existence.

I have the power to believe as I believe
And create and destroy myself as I choose.
I am Shiva and Vishnu and Brahma
I am the Alpha and Omega.

If I did not exist, the world would go on without me.
No lives would be lost had I not been born
And the Earth won't feel another soul escaping when I die.
I am one of billions,
Irrelevant and insignificant, in truth.
But if I did not exist
I would not be aware of you
Or your various philosophies
Or anything else in the universe.

Therefore, if I was chimerical
Unreal
A sham
You would be the same, for all intensive purposes.
And I am who I choose to be.

I am my own creator and destroyer of my world.

He contacts me
Once in a while.
When we're both too drunk to be afraid.
But mistakes change things...
Now he knows I won't speak when I drink.

He contacted me
The other day.
He's coming back
Back from the sea
And the land of the confederacy.
He says he's going to come see me...
That he'll get me to speak while we drink.

He will stop contacting me
One day.
When he understands
That I am not scared, but that I am not his.
That his hands can no longer fumble with my ties.
After he comes to see me...
I'll make him understand what I speak when we drink.

I haven't been writing much lately.

My vault is being emptied into you
Instead of into poems,
I think.

Maybe I'm running low
And need to go to the bank to get some change.

Maybe I need to
Diversify my portfolio, so to speak.

Maybe
I need to go to the casino
And take a gamble to see if I can refill it.
But I've never been good at any game but slots
So you'd have to come help me.
We can count cards all night
And stuff my safe with the anticipation
And risk of getting caught.

Maybe I just need an accountant.
Maybe I need a loan.
Maybe I need you to be my loan-shark.

I know what I should be writing about
But I can't.
Not yet.

I can't think about it.
I can't feel about.

I'm afraid of what will happen if I do.

I'm just glad you'll be there
When I have to.

The world wanes like the moon;
I'm at the line between now and then
And all I can think of is you.

Your facets, flaws, fine features
Are only parts of a whole.
Your hands wouldn't make me shake
If they didn't have your intent.
Your eyes wouldn't liquidize me
If they didn't show me what you want.

I think there's a reason you rhyme with heaven.
I think there's a reason we have each other.

Potential is kinder than perfection
Because it allows you somewhere to go.
Thank you for that.

The world was waning, and I wanted you here.
I still do.

What do you think of at night?

I hope you don't contact me.
I deleted your name
And your number
So I can forget.
I hope you did the same.

I hope you don't fall
Down those stairs you tripped over last time.
The ones that have self-loathing at the bottom
And substance abuse.

I hope you let me move on
And I don't have to make you.
Let me have hope again.
Let me believe.

Music is the only escape I have.
Books used to be my chosen drug
But as they say, it was only my gateway.
Now I have music.
I don't have to think about anything
Just enjoy.
I guess that it's my ******.

Thank God for music.
You scream until your voice gets hoarse
And yell until you run out of words
And now I think you're crying in the next bed.
The crying breaks my heart.
But when I finally get to put on my headphones
You leave
And I have a beautiful man
Singing in my ear.
This stuff doesn't really matter.
It'll all be ok.

My words have started leaking out like a virus.
They are meant for the page
Some just for my head
But they leak out
Sneak out
And pop up in conversation.
Strange phrases
And extravagant diction
Creep into my daily life.

Soon they'll send me to the nuthouse.

Broken
Shut down
Demolished and destroyed

Brought down to her knees
Literally, literally brought down
Face to face with porcelin and water.

Purge, purge, purge
Empty the empty
Break down and out
Out, out, no way out...

Betrayed
Dismissed
Returned, replaced, retried
Falsify your family, break it down
Let it out

Praise thee, mighty nothingness.

Betrayed
Belittled
Baking, burning between battles.
Blundering, blustering
Begging by bribing.
Bribing by begging.
Best?
Bottom.
Boastful, bragging baboon.

Bye.

You say you're gonna go burn the house down.
Good luck.
I know it's harder than it seems.
You love it
And what it holds.
You're just insane with hormones.
But that's okay, because so am I.

When you think about it, we're all insane with something.

Your hands are torches
And you're writing sonnets on my skin with fire.
Instead of welding me and you together
You open my flesh
And burn my essence.
Your lips create the wind that blows the flames
Heating more by the minute.
And as you speak, I burn.
When you press the bellows to me
It only fuels my furnace.
This is the fire only you can start
And I'm aching for you to put out.

(Firehose, please.)

My brain is filled with static


I feel like I'm not here

I feel no pain
I feel no pleasure

How can I tell if I exist...


All I can hear is white noise
runningthroughmyhead
softsoftfuzzfuzz

All I can see is blurs of color
greenandwhitesandbrowns
ohmy

All I can smell is nonexistant
airrushesthroughholes
nothinghappens

All I can feel is without reaction
dryhandscoldteeth
don'tcaredon'tcare

All I can taste is tasteless
coatofliquidonmytongue
pleasantunpleasantneutral




Ma­ybe this is what it's like to be. Or not be.

There's a shirt at the store.
A beautiful blue shirt
Cerulean, like his eyes.

It reminds me of him.

Everytime I see it
I fold it up
And try not to worry.

He's leaving this week.
To the desert,
Where there's danger
And guns
And war.

I know he stays on base.
I know he can handle himself.

But when I see that shirt
It reminds me of him
And it reminds me
That my brother is leaving again
And that I've never been as close to him
As I want to be
And that I've never seen eyes as blue as his
And that, again
He's going away.

There's something beautiful
In eating meat.
Devouring what was once a living being.
Turning that animal into calories for you to burn.
My teeth pierce the skin,
Tear the muscle from the bone.
A performance of delicious savagery
While staring into my lovers eyes.
Primal.

I'm not sleeping tonight.

I know if I tried, I'd fail
So instead I'm thinking of you.
Cataloging you in my mind.

Simple things: favorite colors and foods
Deeper things: experiences and viewpoints
Deep things: do you notice when the moon glows?

I've got most of the first section down, I think.
The second will need time to fill.
The third keeps changing.

The third is most important to me, you see.
What color do you think music is?
When you see the sun
Do you think of power
And creation and destruction
Or do you think of skin cancer?
When you eat
Can you feel your taste buds celebrating?

Basically, do you notice important things?
Do you see what some people don't care about?
Because I care.
And your catalog can't be finished
Until I know.

He and I
Are oil and water.
He is cigarettes and ravioli;
I am cranberries and ramen.

The great benefactor?
Yes, a factor
But not the end.
Not the root.
I shall never be a beggar.

Hark, calls reality
Indifference is aching for you.
Threatening, forcing.
Beware, or it shall overcome you.

I was never good at chemistry
And what is painting but a solution?
What are we but unstable?

Perhaps we are just allotropes.

A cliche group of young adults
Sit around a badly-furnished living room.
One by one they go around the room
And express their (completely valid)
Insecurities
Over the future.
Four people
All paying tens of thousands of dollars
For a piece of paper
That may or may not even be useful.
Journalism. English. Farming...
All hoping to join
Various dying industries.
All being fully aware
That the jobs they want
Likely won't exist in five years.

All not knowing what to do.
Follow your dream
(Which is likely dying)
Or switch majors.
Turn the last two years
And the last forty thousand thousand dollars
Into a waste.

I could shun my English degree
Repress my hopes
(Which are now, at the most, three-quarters hearted)
Of becoming an editor
And becoming someone to help the world
Become more focused on literature.

I could be a nurse
Do as my mother did.
It's hard
Much harder than sitting and reading
For hours on end
But I could do it.
I could help people
And always be guaranteed a job...
I could not be useless.

Dreams or realities?

Everything is too easy.
Not once have I suffered
To win.
I skim through books
Glance at notes
And I am a perfect success.
The only difficulty I've ever had was social
Or maybe physical.
But I haven't earned my life.
I haven't tried
I haven't made the world better
I haven't been of use.
Maybe it's time for some
Self-imposed
Suffering.

The warmth
Of steamed, solids turned liquid
Thaws my frostbitten throat.

My solar plexus heats
Recalibrates my needs
And diverts resources.

Coffee provides what I do not receive
From a warm body gone missing.
My core solidifies, as clay in a kiln.

If I cannot have a hand to warm mine
A mug will do.
But if I cannot have you
Liquid is a poor substitute.

How do I summon my narrator?
She's the one who writes the good ****.
Her voice is breathy
sultry
But it's mine too.
She's connected to the world
to the water
to the earth
to the wind
She feels.
She feels how soap slips on her skin
and how her teeth need to be brushed
and how her hair needs to be torn apart.
She senses more of what's going on then I do.
If I could be her I would.
I tried.
I tried to be connected like her
But I know that's not me.
That's not who I am.
I'm denim and cotton
While she's soil and grass.
When you pretend
You just end up with disappointment
And desperate wishing.

Open, but empty.
Waiting, but without expectation.
Come get me.
Come find me.

Cone take me away
From what I am.

Back home.
Back to the comfort
Of a stove and vh1.
Back to my parents and my boyfriend
And a real bed.
In a few days I will lament the horrors
Of living with one's family
But for now, I am content.
Thank goodness for laundry machines
And ovens
And cable tv.

Strong hands, big and warm
Covering, comforting and caressing me.
Smoothing my skin.
Erasing my erosion.

In wide strokes of blackboard Braille-
*It's all going to be ok.

I don't like talking.
Sharing is uncomfortable
Understanding is difficult.

I like to be
a l o n e

It's not meant in offense to anyone
Though I often end up offending when
They make me talk
Or I talk to myself.
I don't really think
Anything sentient is all that great
Including myself...
(Not that I think immobile things are fantastic. They are nothing.)

Socializing is pressure
When forced, I sometimes don't even feel like I'm really there
Being in the same room as others
Cause friction in my brain.
Synapses explode
The tiny unicorns that handle maintenance
Get distracted
Nothing good happens.

I like to be alone
But I hate small spaces.
Therefore, my life is a compromise.

My life is a strict routine
Of self-flagellation and control.
There are specific ways to handle
Every situation.
I manage to keep tight control
Over my own soul
By constantly reminding myself
That I'm not important.
It's not about me.
They won't remember me.

I think if I do it too harshly
Or too long without a break
It might accidentally break me.

I must keep this in mind.

Covered with your arms,
I feel your pulses-
One of your heart, one of your soul.
As they rush through you
I too am filled.

Safety, warmth,
A vise grip, but without pain.
Tightly wound, but never tense.

In fact, melted
A molten creation
In which we are just are.

That is not blood in our veins
But the ichor of the gods.
You are my ambrosia
And as I devour you
I will be strong forever.

You say I make you feel like a man.
Well, you make me feel like a woman.
Young and beautiful
A creation of the gods.

When you touch me
The tremors of earthquakes crash through my veins.
I am a world
Created for you, only you, always you.
Born of the clouds and the tides
I am worthy of being studied and sought after
You show me I am worthy.
You show me I am good.

When I look in your eyes
You are surrounded by stars.
And if you're made of light,
I must be too
For we could not be so far apart.

While I may make you feel like a man
You make me feel liike a woman.
We were created of the heavens.
We were created for each other.

Is he mad at me?
He won't respond to me.
Did he read my mind
And see my questioning my fidelity?
Did I send him a message
Meant for someone else?

Why won't he talk to me?
What did I do?