(i wonder sometimes
if they miss me)

on saturday nights
of poking away on
someone else's laptop

on sunday mornings
of flustered staggered
movements behind backs

(do they miss me
do they even notice that
i'm gone or is somebody
else better than i ever was?)

is anybody else as
frustrated as me?

or was i the exception to
some typographical rule?

and do they wish that
i was still around to fix
all their mistakes

(to get walked on
at short notice)

can they even tell that
i'm not the one behind
the screen anymore?

i don't know
but i wonder

(if anybody
misses me)*

if anybody
remembers me

because i can't
forget them.

c _ l _ e _ a _ n
d _ i _ s _ h _ e _ s

c _ l _ e _ a _ n
f _ l _ o _ o _ r _ s

something about
the lighting?

i haven't felt
right in days
a headache behind
the eyes and a
knot in my
stomach

(i know how
this one ends)

i'm the most
worst version
of me that i've
ever met

e _ v _ e _ r
m _ e _ t

m_ e _ e _ t _ m _ e
s _ o _ m _ e _ w _ h _ e _ r _ e _ e _ l _ s _ e

I WANT TO
GO BACK IN TIME
TELL MYSELF THAT
I WAS WRONG

W _ R _ O _ N _ G
S _ O __ W _ R _ O _ N _ G

(i'm stuck in my
own head again
can't get out can't shake
any of the thoughts loose)

BUT I CAN'T
THIS IS THE FUTURE
AND I'M JUST AN ECONOMY
PRICED PACK OF MISTAKES

m _ i _ s _ t _ a _ k _ e _ s

i want to hit
my head on every
solid surface in
the whole house

(wouldn't matter
it already hurts)

want to be
better
good enough so
people like me
so that i
like me

(but it's too late
and i'm not ready)

I HATE IT
THAT I'VE MADE
UP MY MIND
FOR ONCE

and if i will not
destruct
i may just turn
myself purple

(red and spotted
itchy and allergic)

BECAUSE I CAN'T
STAND BEING
ME FOR ANOTHER
SECOND LONGER

eyeshadow ground into
a finely powdered bath rug
feet stained gold and as
straight as sink ringed coffee

(it's a perfect day
to run away
from all the crew neck
collars choking you)

fall face down into a
cornfield and climb
dead pine trees clear
up to the blackbirds

(i think you were once
upon a time the one who
never spent weekends
home and hurting)

i am not your past
not your mistakes
i am not who you used to be
but won't say it didn't shape me

(clattering red and
white checks skittering
across the floor as
hydrogenated oils)

i know you're
disappointed
sometimes in who
i've turned out to be

but i am also
disappointed
sometimes in who
i've turned out to be

(only ever thinking about
ceiling fans and my latest
mistakes or an odd assortment
of unspoken disagreements)

i can't breathe under
highway overpasses
in parking garages or when
my hands are made of leather.

(suburbia is just a
repainted mid-century
modern way of covering
up dysfunctional families)

here and there
then and again
i remember that you
probably don't love me anymore

i understand that
neglect destroyed you
but you don't understand
that involvement destroyed me.

begin with a
disinfectant wipe
and wash your eyes
right off your face

(it might sting a little
but that's a small
price we all must pay
before we die)

next grind your
toenails down to a fine
sheen using only the
shower curtain

(it may take hundreds
of years and that's why
i'm telling you to
begin immediately)

let the roots of your
hair dig down into
the ground and slowly
bury your face

(at this point in the
procedure you may
pass out from lack of
air or lack of hope)

finally tattoo morse code
messages behind your ears
with a rusty safety pin and
old charcoal art pencils

(it doesn't matter what it
says because nobody can
read it back there nor
do they actually care to)

and submerge your
nose into isopropyl
rubbing alcohol just
to smell poisoned

but most importantly
of all when you begin
to experience pain so
intense you do not
have words with
which to describe it

always tell yourself
that nothing is real

n o t  y o u
n o t  a g o n y
n o t h i n g
i s  r e a l.

then take down the
noose hanging in
the back of your closet
turn off the light and
fall into the deepest
sleep of your life

*(whether or not you're
real or not doesn't matter
it just matters what you're
telling yourself to stay alive.)

snorting burned toast
too late in the day to
call it a complete and
nutritious breakfast

(i have my heroes
but i also know that i
will never be a hero
to someone like me)

i'm not going
to make it that far.

(call me defeatist but
i guess you're right)

that's what i haven't
been saying is that
i'm not making plans
for the fall or the spring
or the rest of my life
because i'm afraid or
maybe convinced that i'm
not going to make it that far

because before the snow
covers the lawn in quiet
white layers i will be sprinkled
over top of the grass in the
form of a grayish powder
and misplaced hymns

(i doubt that all of us
were born to live)

nosedive into a
sandwich smothered
in over-sweetened
jelly regrets

and forget about the
haunting sweat that
you can't wash off
of the back of your neck

(the nice thing about
dying young is that
you'll have the rest of
your life to forget me)

headfirst slam into
the midnight sky
i cracked my skull
open on the moon

the milky way poured
out from behind my
eyes and galaxies came
up out of my throat

bits and pieces of me have
died here and there along
the way like ripped out
pieces of that hateful lawn

(the reason i want
to be forgotten is
because i was never
worth remembering)

but really it's just that
death and darkness are such nice
peaceful calm and reasonable
topics to discuss at length.

when i came into
work this morning

you were upset
on the edge
just waiting for a call
from your brother

last night your niece
tried to commit suicide

(she wouldn't have
made it if her twin hadn't
had an odd feeling and
called her)

my stomach dropped
i don't know this girl

(they found her passed
out with empty bottles
of xanax and
cough syrup)

you told the story
over the course of
the day unfolding family
details like clean laundry

(critical condition
and now her dad has to
go to the police because
she doesn't take xanex)

"why would
she do that?
she only totaled
her car it wasn't
that bad why
would she do this?"

i didn't say
anything
thinking maybe
it was just the
thing that pushed
her over the edge

and the day wore on
you weren't quite
there mentally
i could tell

but on the other
hand i wasn't really
either too busy wishing
i was your niece.

lipstick stains on
paper coffee cup lids
my brother always
told me i would have
to sit back and watch people
younger and more
inexperienced than i
succeed while i suffered.

oh but i
think he
was wrong
three conversations
and one free cup
of coffee later
things are starting
to look up for me

and i'm thinking that
i am the younger
one succeeding while
elders suffer.

(on the flipside i
don't want to be
making sandwiches
for the rest of my life)

and i wonder sometimes
if i'm just naturally
gifted or if i just naturally
try too hard to be liked

(or there's an offchance
a slim blueish sliver of
possibility that the stars
have all been lined up for me)

anyway that assumption
however incorrect it may
be is better than
last week when i
was thinking that no longer
was i good enough

*(but scratch that
nothing i ever accomplish
or that the skies
have pre-established
will make me believe
i'm good enough.)

steeped my
skin in ginger
a bathtub brew and
sweaty forehead

but i was
the teabag.

when i shut
my eyes
all i could see
was red lines

rubbing where
they should be
remembering
squinting my eyes
in main street sun
thighs burning

(dear goodness
i don't know how
i ended up here
again after so long)

opened my eyes
saw my wrists

white and
whiter scarred
but i always
picture them as
red and
redder slit.

gasping for hot
and humid air
motivation is
strangely illusive
but visualization
forever inclusive.

i'm boiling alive
or bathing to die
in scalding bathrooms
of appalling apathy.

i bought ten scratched
albums at the thrift shop
and covered my white
pants in paint.

i  w a n t
t o  l e a v e

i'll be home
tomorrow night
and who knows
what i'll be missing

maybe him
probably not.

i've been writing letters
folding socks
drinking spicy
ginger tea but
what's really
wrong with me?

oil slick aesthetic
acne under the eyes
i wish this poetry
meant something more
than sadness
and a pretty word
but it's actually just
me thinking out loud.

showering twice a day
in this kind of drought
is not good
but neither am i

i  t    h  u  r  t  s

watch the words
fragment and break
apart so you can't
read them together

i  m    b  l  e  e  d  i  n  g

i've weighed and
weighted out my
options and all
the things that mattered
to me once just
don't anymore

s  u  i  c  i  d  e

i don't know
what i'm doing
or why or even
if anything is real

h  e  l  p
m  e

h   e   l   p

h    e    l    p

h     e     l     p

h
  e
   l
    l

     p

(i'm 42% sure
i don't exist.)

intensely greased
plastic hair
secondhand green day
coldplay in the rain

i love the sound
that waxed paper
deli sheets make
and i could choke
on a glassed reflection
of celery salts and windex.

(i'm 42% sure
i don't exist
because when i look into
my eyes i see someone else)

i'm not catholic
and do not
understand who
st. peter is

but i wonder if he won't let
us into heaven because we're
failures or if we're failures
because he won't let us into heaven

(i'm 42% sure
i don't exist
and questioning how
bad hell can really be.)

too quiet for a saturday
i wrote the word
decaf so many times i
forgot how to spell it

decaf
decaf
decaf
decaf

(does decaf
have two f's?
because i don't have
two f's to give anymore
i mean i would but
i can't even find
vowels much less
extra consonants)

when i was a child
i always counted in
mississippis
now that i'm older i
find myself counting in
cappuccinos

i dreamed my
legs were bleeding
and i remembered
that they're not

i want so badly
just to sleep in
a bag of crystallized
ginger and swim
in a mixing bowl of
tasteless tea.

(i can't tell what's
real anymore
but i'm 42%
sure that i am not.)

i keep a red
second place
ribbon on my
bulletin board
to remind me that
i wasn't good enough

i keep defeat in
my back pocket
and failure
on my skin.

(i didn't realize
how nice it was
to actually be
good at something
and i didn't realize
how easy it was
to stop being
good at something)

took the things
i was good at and
cashed them in
for a quieter night

i can't eat
can't sleep
can't write
can't design

bake a pie
write a poem
cross stitch
crochet
i'm not
bad at it.

i still have
hobbies but
it's not like
it used to be
i'd rather
be cleaning
at least i can
do that well

(isn't that
a little odd
considering that's
exactly what somebody
a little bit too close
to me was feeling
when his world got
turned upside down?)

i'm just not
good at anything
not anymore
but it's my own fault i'm sure.

i have this nasty
habit of leaving
day-old sweat
in my pores
and scraping out
years of
hair follicles in
mere minutes.

have you ever gotten
to thinking about
inadequacy?
or the way a
thursday morning is
so busy but you
just feel
fogged over?

not breathing is
really gross
meaning i must be
exceptionally disgusting

and i cried when
i told you about
the fresh scars
and you gave me a
hug like i needed and
i rubbed the back of
my neck where the
humidity clung.

you see i feel
guilty keeping secrets
but even more
guilty when you worry
because nobody
should worry about me

it's not
worth it.

i'm seventeen
days clean now
seventeen
days closer to

closer
closer

**** it hurts
to be a failure

once in awhile i think too hard
about the graduation parties
inserted into forced friendships
and i wonder if any of my
darkest moments had
been felt by the other girls, too.

there are dark moments
that stand out to me
too bright on the
canvass of life.

i was seven years old
and some boys shouted at me
and told me that my pink bicycle
(obtained secondhand from some
nice church family)
was actually theirs
(it wasn't but i can
still see the scene in my mind
and don't know why it still
bothers me sometimes.)

i was a little older
and somebody was slamming doors
running up and down stairs
and i was sitting on my assistant
pastor's couch with some
eighth-grade girls i didn't know
who were crying their eyes out
and i was feeling very bitter and afraid.

somebody was screaming
****** threats and my heart
was pushed into my throat like
pony beads between marbles
inside paisley print just like that
necklace from that one funeral

was it papa's funeral?
i can't even remember.

all i knew was that
there had been a car accident
and i knew that just hours before
he had won one of
barb's stuffed giraffes in a raffle
and christmas had been coming up
i think i cried in the shower
but i know i sat in the living room
stared at the wall and jared said
"you could go downstairs and
talk to somebody"
i didn't.

that was the first christmas
that ever felt truly wrong.

i have never felt so
alone as i sat cross-legged on
a hospital bed in the blue
paper scrubs they put you in
when they think you're a loaded gun
and listened to the world run by
tears barely dried and pen
scratching away

i never would have ended up there
if i had known how to manipulate
the system like i do now
but i wasn't smart enough to know
that saying you have
suicidal thoughts is as
good as saying you've got a plan and
a knife in your back pocket.

i think my arms were still
bleeding under my sleeves
when you looked me in the
eye and slapped me in the face.

literally
i mean that you
literally
hit me in the face
oh but mom
was ******.

i still think about that sometimes
while we're at the dinner table
all eating together and i'll move
my chair over two inches
because you're right next to me
and i know that it only
ever happened once and you
would never do it again but then
again it seems safer closer
to the wall
and sometimes when you're
standing by the cupboard
i walk all the way around the
stove to avoid getting too close.

i was fifteen years old
and crumpled on the bathroom floor
probably had something to do
with exhaustion and blood loss
i was seventeen years old
passed out the wrong way on my bed
brand-new laptop facedown on the floor
a byproduct of the education system

(seventeen year olds should not
have to experience going into a store
and spending the last of their
birthday money on shapewear so
they can feel almost okay about
their body at the dance
but that's just a footnote or a deep
gray addition to my blackest moments)

i remember that time a couple
months ago when you threw
me into a relaxing bath and i was
afraid you'd see my legs

and i was afraid of who
i kept finding myself to be
on sunday mornings at ten
when i was still at home
lying in bed and listening to
ambient instrumental music

(ripping myself away
is the worst feeling
i think i've ever felt
especially when the
questions start coming
sealed signed and delivered.)

hanging on by a thread
watching all the worst parts
of my memories flash over
and over again late at night
when the music hits that tiny
little crack above my heart.

but i've been thinking about
being a failure and wondering
if every girl has had her own
bathroom floor moment

and does the
difference lie in
how late at night she
lets it keep her awake?

summer
makes me sick.