A worst-case-scenario mentality
Breeds emotional nightmares of what-ifs
Methodically feeling the pain in each possibility
Preparing for Hell, knowing it is impractical, improbable, and unkind
Each reaction gauged
Smiles erupt in each better choice
A familiar road traveled often
Lead only by a history of pain
It ebbs and flows, bobs and weaves at will
This reality is organized, easy to understand

Random thought of an unlikely, unfathomable future
Vivid like a film
Unwavering, persistent
There is no controlling its outcome
Forced to watch the images forged in a broken mind
Tears burn flesh and a naked heart bleeds
Stop rolling, just...stop
No amount of pleading slows the images
The pain is overwhelming
Far beyond self-inflicted, torturous, methodical thoughts
Uncontrollable, inconsolable
True and real
So very real

There is but one way to stop that future
The one shown in visions of just deserts
The future that smolders through present joy
Preemptive pain is just not an option

I've seen the future my heart has built
The shards of a shattered soul
Offer no comfort

My worst-case-scenario was but a benign freckle on the elbow of a body invaded by metastatic melanoma

Mama's in the hospital again; this time she's a saint.

Seeing Jesus in the laundry,
she strung my little brother from red overalls,
pinned his palms to the clothesline.
Martin's small, bare feet kicked his dissent
until his weight brought him to ground.

Now Daddy's in the kitchen making waffles.
His wrinkled trousers wear yesterday's doubt.

All us kids at the table, hands pressed
on knees, trying our Sunday best to not see the images:
the glazed panes,
the way the butter slides and dips,
how the syrup pools.

My gaze falls out the window at white sheets snapping
on the wire. Disappointed angels, their great huffing
wings strain to flap away from here.

I want to say a prayer but my mouth is full
of statues. Fissured
words scrape across the plate. I swallow
each one, sticky-sweet, unyielding,
with eyes closed.

This is to the camera, that sees me as nothing but
Delicate bones and pearly whites
My essence captured through awkward captions and
My worth measured by likes and heart bytes
A photograph carefully composed
Of a girl with her true thoughts [boxed up tight]

This is to the boys who see me as nothing but
Geometric shapes
Circles and curves and parabolas
**** and *** and legs and waist
And an irrelevant concave where my brain should be
My “radical ideas” make me a butterface

This is to the academy, that sees me as nothing but
3.97 and a good SAT score
A scholar of great potential
That will donate millions or more
As an honored alumni
Of the greatest institution in the world

This is to society, that sees me as nothing but
A golden gal who always colored inside the lines
Mrs. Goody-Two-Shoes, no fire in my soles

“She’s never insubordinate, ‘cause she’s never been inclined”
Determined but docile
Go ahead and assume I’m not the rebellious kind

This is to myself, because I see that
My mind is a kaleidoscope of technicolor dreams
Ideas colliding like specks in sunbeams  
And I’ll call myself a feminist or riot grrl if I **** well please
You are not my dictator or an office label machine
It’s 2015; I’ll be whatever the hell I want to be.

I remember the day I first saw you.
You send shivers down my spine.
You're attractive.
But too loud.
Too showy.
Just screaming for every girl's attention.

Yesterday,i saw you again.
You were sad and discontented.
And no longer loud and screaming for attention.
I grew selfish out of fear.

Often I find myself trying to relive the moments again.
But it will never be the same.
So I hold you so close to me.
Afraid of being alone,
I couldn't let you go.
Now.
You're nowhere near.

May I adore you darling.
For as long as I can.
May we light the nights afire
and curb the day's hot sun.
To remember the passion of our love.

You've beaten me
So deep and with such precision
Left lying bruised
Ashamed of the person you have turn me into
At one point
I utterly surrendered
Looking at who I was at the moment
I was ready for the forever embrace of that knockout blow
Just to have you pull that sweet coup de grâce
And burdened me with the aftermath of my undoing.
Wallowing inside,
I asked myself why?
Searching for answers
I heard an edifying voice
"Pick yourself up ******
Blame it on your lack of strength, fortitude, or help another day
Cuz right now, it's just you
And if you don't keep fighting you'll have no one else to blame!"

So I staggered upright and licked my wounds
Nodded to my reflection in the shattered glass
And under my breath I declared,
"Life, I'm coming for you"

A slam poem


Your contact picture was taken the day you forgot to buy me a Christmas present
And when I scroll through my phone and see your name I remember crying until my pillow was painted black with streams of dashed hopes and childish mistakes.
On our third date you took the clip out of my hair and put it in yours and I haven't worn it since. Now I keep that clip in a desk drawer and try not to remember the way your voice cracked when you whispered my name and breathed your secrets into my mouth before trying to rip them back out through my heart when you decided you'd had enough of laughing over clips in your hair.
At night I lay awake and command my mind to conjure up any thought that's not you in your grey tuxedo, you in your painted skin that you outgrew when you smoked your first cigarette, peeling layers of who you were when you still filmed ghost hunting videos and touch-ups of who you are now, with your tears like rare prizes I wish I could collect in bottles and auction off to every past girl you've ever loved. And ****, there's a lot of girls.
But in the grand essay of your every past love I am the typo on the third page that knocks down your grade two points, the ****-up you would do anything to hit backspace on, the messy extra letter that somehow is overlooked by your meticulous eye because it's 2 am and you stopped giving a **** at 10. I am the coffee stain that gives away your procrastination like a badge worn across your chest, like a bruise on your forehead she may notice when she leans in to kiss you, like a tear in your favorite tie that she will see when she slides it off your neck and slips it sensually onto her own, not knowing I think about hanging myself with that very tie 1036 times a day if only I thought for one second it would awaken you from the slumber you fell into when you found whiskey and me that one December night on the countertop that wasn't even our own.
And I awake every morning drenched in heartache and heavily breathing out the rhythm your heart would drum as I lay at night with my head on your chest and my heart in your hands and my body in your mind. I was the glass sculpture you couldn't resist playing with no matter how many times you were warned not to, I was the wet paint sign you couldn't resist testing, I was the fire alarm you just had to pull.
But I would burn my tongue on coffee watching the sunrise with you again and again and again if it would resurrect the Christmas lights that burned like dying stars in my stomach in the fleeting moment where I truly believed you could love me, your kisses like butterfly wings that became bats all too quickly, your love like a fever that broke too fast- sweating and crying in bed at 2 am-I MISS YOU AND I HATE YOU AND I NEED YOU.
Yet maybe I knew along that this would happen. Yes, maybe I saw you as an opportunity to rekindle my old romance with anger and pain and depression, maybe when my friends told me you were bad news, I rejoiced in the idea of my old friends returning so much so that I opened the door and said "come on in," arms opened wide, play dough mind in their hands.
Or maybe I just really loved you.

"I feel like it's unfair. I feel like everyone should have that one tooth to show off, even if their smile is only one tooth. I feel like that's only right."

He told me, if you are in this class, you have to stop feeling and start thinking.

[Shrug]"I think it's unfair. I think everyone should have that one tooth to show off, even if their smile is only one tooth. I think that's only right."

He asked why?

"Because I feel like..."

STOP! Stop feeling. Think.

That night, I told my girlfriend I thought I didn't love her
I don't think she liked that very much because I never saw her after
but I've been thinking ever since
and whenever someone tells me I'm thinking wrong
I feel mad
but I ignore it
I think I'm becoming a better person
though I smile less, I think more
whenever someone says I feel
I tell them think
I tell them Grow up and use your brain
I tell them think

One day
my professor gave me an F on a paper
but I thought he was wrong
(I never once wrote the word feel)
but he said my thinking was wrong
so that night,
that night I thought long and hard
And the next day I gave my professor a FINAL grade
and I thought it was fair

Now I'm sitting in this chair
me talking to you
you asking me
how do I feel?
How do I feel?

Honestly...
I don't. I don't feel anything.
I think feeling is a waste of time.
and so when those currents come shooting through my veins
pleading with me to feel, if only for one last time
I'll smile
and tell them to count my teeth!

I am not going to tell you that life will be easy.
Its gonna hit you hard.
Like a loud slap stung in the face.

But darling,
Don't you worry.
I've tried.
Catching all the pain i wanted to heal.

Those days when disappointment strikes.
Like a stab in the chest.
Say "Thank you".
Allow yourself to reach out for the stars.

Feel the pain.
That's only gonna make you stronger.
And darling.
Don't you ever apologize for the way your smile refuses to stop shining.
Your eyes refuses to stop glittering.  

Be brave.
Fight like a warrior.
And whisper.
You have yet to meet my mother.

"No matter what happens, we'll never be strangers."

Days like this i wonder how you're doing.
Surely we could send each other a text,
but it becomes archaic.

You and I.
We used to talk under the stars.
Laughing till our faces turn blue.

I kept all your gifts.
A polaroid of us.
Memories.
Buried in a box.
Safe,like how you used to make me feel.

5 years ago,
You came up to me.
Like a dream.
The kind that always leaves.

5 years later,
You left me broken.
Like a record.

I watched you grow.
Like a lotus flower that grows out of the mud.
Slowly blossoms and rise above the muddy surface.

Now.
Im left with only memories of us.
Stored away in the back of my mind.

So nights like this.
When i need you most.
I reminisce all the good memories we had.
With tired eyes, tired mind, tired soul.

Just so you know.
If ever,in future you need me.
You don't have to call me.
Or drop a text.

Just run to me.
Like a kid running to the finishing line.
With arms wide open.
I welcome you.

Mummy,you're my plan B.
I wished you knew that.
I wish i could say it out to you.
But these words are sealed.

During my bad days, i look at you.
How your eyes sparkle.
Smile glitters.
All that is enough to make me -remind me- stronger than before.

Some days
I see how your eyes gets heavier.
Body gets weaker.
Hands get rougher.
But you never once complain.

Some days
I see you crumbling.
Like how dried breads turned into crumbs.
So allow me to pick up this pieces
and remold you.

Some days
I watch you shine
Like angel walking by or like sunshine after rain.
Those days you made me feel alive.

We don't share much.
In Fact
I don't share any of my problems to you.
But you know me like the back of your hand. Like a student remembering formulas.

Mummy, you're my plan B.
Cause no matter what happens
I'll always find my way to you.

The one who whom i look up to.
Catch me when i fall.
The one, I'm proud to call
"My wonder women".
Tearing steel door off its hinges.

The pain seeps out in flashes of insanity
I do not doubt you love me
Though I will always wonder why
In my shattered self-image
In my innate ability to be unseen
Was born an adolescent desire
A desperate need
A yen to be quenched of doubt
To be noticed
To be seen
Both within and without
In that longing to be alive
To be sure that I am a tangible being
In that way I push limits
I test boundaries like a child
Taxing the last nerve of an exhausted parent
Pushing hard until something breaks
Proving I matter enough
Or proving I can bend reality
Until I matter not
To anyone
For surely there is a reason I remain
Unseen
Unheard
Invisible
Intangible
Irrelevant
And Unnoticed
So I push when I'm hurt
Because you promised you won't leave
And I believe you
You said I meant everything I always wanted to mean to someone
And I believe you
You said you'd do anything and everything it takes to make me smile
And I believe you
The pain seeps out in flashes of insanity
I test boundaries like a child
Not because I doubt you
Because I need to always believe