it's november 21st again

2016
the snow is piled
up on the tips of
the tree branches
mounded on cars
blown down my neck
and through the sky

i know it didn't snow
seven years ago but i
can't remember the
weather of every anniversary

2013
just a dusting on the
grass and on my
braided hair
red plaid tunic
i have selfies and
pictures of the dog
my legs covered
in red plaid wounds

today would have been
three years clean

2011
windwhipped trees
black walnuts naked
it rains all month
and never seems to stop

2010
dress me up
take me out
fall back in love
with life but my
past is starting
to bleed

i just can't remember
the weather
i just remember
the date

things get burned into
our minds so we can
never see them the
same way again
we remember moments
and faces that don't even
matter they just stick
in our memories

it's november 21st again

2009
we're all afraid
of dying and
we're all afraid
of changing
terrified of
growing up

i don't know why
it scarred me why
it changed my
family but maybe
i need to stop asking
why and just move on

it's november 21st again
and i'm not saying anything about it

My life is a cup
that needs something in it,
a glass chalice
ready to crack
unless I fill it up.
If I’m not careful
I’ll have to throw it out
even though it is the only one
that I have.

i'm eighteen and
my mind is running away

you're screaming
ranting and raving
but don't know you're
doing it and don't know
that i'm crawling
inside a cave where
nothing can touch me
except wanting to die

you were grumbling after
dinner that i don't talk
to anybody anymore
but you don't know that i'm
not lacking words i'm just
lacking the energy
that it would take to
use any of them

(flashbacks to all the times recently
you've complained i don't love you
anymore. to my whole lifetime of
wondering if you loved me at all)

i'm thirteen and
unaware of my anxiety
associated with existence
usually put in in writing as
"pressure". but you don't think
there's anyone pressuring me

i talk too much to too
many people and have
been hurt before. but
never in that abject
way of it being because
i set myself up for it

(emotions so haywire that i end
up hospitalized over a box of
broken cd cases. now that i
remember it i was rage cleaning
and would unquestionably have
an even worse reaction today)

i'm seven and
having another ocular
migraine even though
i don't know it

(the past as as brittle as the
uncooked spaghetti filched
from the box and wedging
between my crooked teeth)

my memory fails me
whether you steamed
your way through preparing
dinner in the kitchen of faded
herbal wallpaper with words
and woodgrain. if i've been
tuning it out all this time
only to notice recently

("you're just like me" you said today
my seven-year old self thinks that's cool
while my current self is wishing to
deck someone while saying nothing)

today and tonight when intrusive
memories keep coming back is when i
remember that if i don't automatically
see things from your side there will
be a row. despite the fact you have
never investigated my perspective

(you're complaining about how
badly you sleep and how it's my
fault for waking you up at
four a.m. but did you ever stop
to ask why the ******* your
daughter is awake at four a.m.)

"my whole body hurts" you said
having taken some chronic
illnesses for some light grocery
shopping and attend a reception
"so does mine" i said
having taken a dark cloud
with me to work and
a panic attack to the library
"mine hurts worse" you replied
"and how do you know that" i demanded
sweeping my sadness off the kitchen table
"because i just do"

i guess your problem is that you
don't know how to be in pain without
minimizing mine but how hypocritical
when i'm over here minimizing
your pain to justify the fact that
my brain is trying to **** my body

(one of these days i fear what
i don't say will get the best
of me and i will crack clean
in two. start screaming
through doors death threats
ending in quadruple homicide
accompanied by my own
swinging body. it's not that
i hate everyone i just hate
feeling like i hate everyone)

but for now i'm investigating the perspective
so startlingly clear that you never loved me
just did what was required of you and so by that
standard i never would have loved you either

found myself washing dishes
in a bra and pajama pants
watching the rain like
i would watch a movie
with half my attention
and my hands full

anxiety and rage
had hit me again
but halfway through
what i had set out to do
i found myself so tired
i had to sit down and
watch through the oven
door as my life burned away

and i knew that my
five a.m. had
come this time at
five p.m. and
things had finally
gotten bad

but i have to pretend
i'm okay as long as
it's still daylight out
thank goodness
the days keep getting
shorter and shorter
because i do so get
tired of lying to myself.

plan a.
1. take each day one step at a time.
2. find a college and go there.
3. take each day one step at a time.
4. get a job and pay off your student debt.
5. live a life that you're afraid of.

plan b.
1. take up bicycling.
2. get a job and bicycle to it.
3. make money at the job.
4. save the money.
5. don't buy a car with the money.

plan c.
1. offer your services doing lawn care.
2. suffer all winter when you can't do lawn care.
3. take care of a lot of lawns in the spring.
4. make friends with lots of lawn owners.
5. use your connections to full advantage.

plan d.
1. sell your cd collection on ebay.
2. get a tattoo of a cassette tape.
3. invest in a pile of used vinyl.
4. work as a waitress.
5. save tips for concerts.

plan e.
1. hop on a greyhound bus.
2. go to whichever city the wind takes you.
3. take polaroid pictures of the city.
4. sell them to tourists.
5. starve to death.

plan f.
1. give up.
2. scrap that and try again.
3. because you're not a quitter.
4. and quitting at life.
5. was never an option.

plan g.
1. go to beauty school.
2. make people feel pretty.
3. go home and feel less ugly yourself.
4. donate money to charity.
5. hope that karma pays you back.

plan h.
1. pack up with your friends.
2. move to alaska.
3. work over the internet.
4. grow vegetables to offset the cost of hot tea and alcohol.
5. find something to love.

*(and just think how all of
these plans could be done in
one lifetime and how it takes
that many misses to find the hit
i'll give you a hint the thing you
have to learn to love is the one
thing that stayed with you
every step of the way.)

tomorrow is
sure to come

tomorrow is
sure to come

and if i were dead
instead of watching
this cold sun rise
it would still be rising

because time
marches on
with or
without me

and i'm holding on to
one last shred of hope
that i can hang onto
time by the skin of my teeth

because tomorrow
is sure to come
and i can come with it
or let it go on without me

*but tomorrow
is sure to come
with or
without me.

somehow i've always
thought that albuteral
was kind of orange
or citrus flavored

i did not see
this one coming

and i had the
shakes before
the inhaler now
i have them worse

i happened to look at
the calendar on the
bottom right hand corner
of my desktop

(the same one i clicked my
way through on that
day last february when
i decided i needed an out)

9/25/16

and it hit me
in a wash of
bright lights
and nausea

what today is
now that it's one a.m.

and how i gave myself
until september

september

september

september 25th

i may look
dependably unstable
and i may look
explicitly unpredictable

but if there is one
thing you can be
assured of is that i
do not act without a plan

and i had a
plan for today

(i had a complete
plan
the kind of
plan
one does not
talk about)

i can see it in the
white foldout cd set
in my first ever
parental advisory sticker

the reason i
called off my
carefully constructed
plan

was it
worth it?

AND WAS IT
WORTH IT?

i've listened to it
three times and
i still don't know if
it was worth staying for

today's the day
and i had a plan

and now i'm
scared to death

(and i do mean
scared to death)

because a person can't just
forget so thorough a plan.

can't get the onion
out from under
my nails and can't
get it out of my head

(that i should
offer some kind
of ultimatum
for the good
of us all
something along
the lines of
them or me)

i understand that
my maturity is
not something i
can brag about

(but understand that
sometimes what i try
to say gets lost in translation
trying to protect myself
and also that i think we
would all have been better
off if you believed that we
could live without you)

i want to run
but i won't

(i'd be lying if i said i hadn't
thought about showing up
on his doorstep last sunday
night with a backpack my life
savings in cash and begged to
take me along wherever the
hell he was off to didn't care
just wanted to get my *** out of here)

shut my eyes found
another sitcom and
a crochet hook to
dull the nothingness

(i didn't
of course
and now he's down in
chattanooga or something
and i'm up here where
i will continue to rot)

and it's a real relief that
i left my church because
every time someone asks
what i'm doing with my
fall i can hear what they're
asking under the words

(am i going to
be a failure like all
things considered
suggest i will be?)

i have four tickets
in my back pocket
one to my own funeral
one to the end of a bus line
one to debt and anxiety
one to a family who doesn't want me

(i'm not
using any)

and what if this
never gets better
and what if i'm stuck
until i'm thirty-three?

and what if
i put my foot
down and said
that i would leave
in six months if
they didn't first?

but no
you've got me cornered
and i'm too tired for
one last power struggle.

(washed out
and falling
through a pastel
hued autumn
into winter white
and worried)

thick and fuzzy
headed through
multi-toned rings
dimmed down
colorless jewelry
that doesn't fit me

(if i shut my eyes i
can see colors bouncing
through the gray
matter lost to time)

and i'm sorry
for who i've become
sorry for who
i always was

(shouting in colors
outside and
choked in monotones
where it matters)

yellow and navy
to match my
favorite pillowcase
the one place i've
found my head
feeling safe

(i love the darkness until
it swallows me whole
and i can't find my way
back into the light)*

a rose gold
regret
a lifetime of
my own
eyelids to
forget.

it's really too bad
that nicotine
leads to addiction

and it's too bad
that street drugs
cost so much

too bad that
alcohol isn't
given to minors

too bad that
i can't afford
to properly
destroy myself

too bad that
i've always
felt the need to.

i've heard the songs
about killing pain

sounding like the only
way is with a vinyl
record and several
shots of something strong

(but pain isn't all
alcohol and turntables)

it's a stack of cds
still shrinkwrapped so
they shine like diamonds
a discard pile scratched and
cracked so i know that
life keeps skipping on

a fourth cup of coffee
to send my heart
rattling and my
hands shaking

(i've wished to be in
love before just so
my heartbreak could
someday be justified
but i can let the music
paint that picture easy)

buffering lyric videos
sprawled out in bed
watching the light grow
brighter behind the curtains

finding myself addicted
to pain and freezing cold
because i need the white
noise of a fan at night

*(but pain isn't all
alcohol and turntables
sometimes it's just old
boomboxes and black tea)

i remember being
younger
and the black cloud
over my head
was some kind of
novelty

something weird
that would go away
someday if i
changed my attitude
shaped up and
started trying harder.

well i tried
tried my hardest
to push through
did my best to
smile when things
got too rough

i tried to be
the kind of person
they wanted
me to be

(i tried hard
but black holes
inside souls don't
just get filled)

i _ t _ r _ i _ e _ d

t _ r _ i _ e _ d

*(try switching just
two little letters)*

t _ i _ r _ e _ d

i _ m _ t _ i _ r _ e _ d

(is it worth
being real
if you're
sad?)

and i still
still
after all
these years

i am still being
told that all
i need to do is
look on the
bright side
remember there
are people out
there who have
it much worse than me

that i'm going
to get through it
if i just give it
time and try harder

t _ r _ y _ h _ a _ r _ d _ e _ r
t r y

i _ v _ e _ t _ r _ i _ e _ d
a _ n _ d __ t _ r _ i _ e _ d

b _ u _ t _ i _ m
t _ i _ r _ e __ d

i can't keep
you happy and
me happy at the
same time and
quite frankly
i'm tired of
neither of us
being happy.

*(i'm sure you get
tired of hearing
from me but just
imagine how tired
you would get if
you tried being me.)