the very first thought i have each morning when i wake up is "i'd rather be dead"
but i am still so very glad i did not **** myself at the age of fifteen.
in five years, i have known. i have known triviality
heartbreak
physical scars that shine white and straight on my skin, and
emotional scars so deep i am still recovering from them.
but most importantly, i have known love. i have known
love for myself, and love for the people who have sewn me back together
piece by piece
tear by tear
and smile by smile.
i have known these people inside and out
dreams and thoughts and ambitions and fears and most of all,
hope.
we hold each other together at the seams. every time we split
we glue ourselves back together with memories and heartache and drunken heartfelt confessions.

this is me, baring my birthday suit to you. my insecurities
are my nakedness. my heart
is on my sleeve.
i am scarred. i have
rolls and snags and marks where there should be none, i
am coming apart at the seams, i am spilling over
with feeling, with the idea that there is a beyond. what do you think people think of
when they think of a beyond? do they mean the one that comes to them after they die or
the one that happens to the world after they do?
sometimes i hold on to these ideas of almost-existentialism and try not to cry when we read about them in class.
i used to say i was broken.
when i said i was broken, i imagined a sea of smashed lightbulbs, filaments
flickering feebly in an attempt at survival. what i was, was broken mirror
shattered vase
and an unsaveable phone screen. in my head,
i was poetry. but this is me, in my birthday suit. not hiding behind my purple
prose, not hiding behind my blurry concept of broken. i
am not broken. i was never
broken.
i like to think about the fact
that iron flows through my veins. i think about it a lot, the way i used to think
that letting the blood out of them would help me vocalise my broken.
today, i went for a walk and i thought of ways to not go home and make it look like an accident.
(i am fat, i am worthless, i am redundant, i don't deserve to live i don't deserve to live i)
today, i came back home. i ate dinner. i wrote this poem. i talked to my friends. and i thought about whether anyone really deserves to live.
the way i see it, i've been holding on for so long for the promise of bright lights and soft smiles and long car rides into the unknown and someone to fix me, to put me back together
i forgot what i already had.
i have glue, i have drunken confessions and smiles and long drives and longer hugs from people who love me.
twenty-five is just five years away, and it feels like forever.
i know how fast it's going to go. i know. i know i'm going to look back, and i'm going to say
"i'm so glad i didn't **** myself at the age of twenty."

what i'm trying to say is chin up, sunshine.
this feeling will never go away.
you will always feel the pull of steel and you will always look at very tall buildings with just one guilty thought, and write bad poetry, and **** up your metaphors, and
hold on to your hearts of glass and your constellations and your big city dreams, and
that one person you can't stop writing about.
you're going to find your birthday suit. you're going to find your naked
your unprepared
your "i'm barely holding on"
your swan song. you're going to stand in front of someone with a full heart
and an unburdened soul
even if it is for five minutes, you're going to hold your best friend's hand and say
"i'm so glad i didn't **** myself five years ago,"
and
"i love you."

chin up, sunshine.
it's never going to get better
and that's more than okay.

<inhale>
your eyes are like sandpaper, rubbing raw
at my innocence under the streetlamps
that should have been repaired three years ago. i wish
i could look away, but
your razor hands are pushing me down
and your cruel eyes are stripping away my skin, my flesh
is vulnerable.

i wish i could breathe, but there is sand in my eyes
and gravel in my throat. you are so
heavy, so crass, so animal. my heartbeat
echoes your pants and gasps, bile
rises in my throat, and my bones tremble
under the weight of your ‘love’, but i
will never let you win,
not even when you strip me of my breath.

i will never walk gracefully to you, holding
my head down low like a lamb to the slaughter, like
a condemned man walking to his death. i
am a force of nature. i am a hurricane. i
am a tiger
stalking through the forest, i
will never let you win. i will look you in the eye as
you stab me through the chest. i am not destined for your
slaughterhouse, and i will breathe in till the end, because i
am not stardust, not
moonshine. i am not a delicate flower. i
am strong. i am the sun.
and i will shine.

<exhale>

the last time i wrote a poem about you, i compared you to a constellation.
it's so hard not to think of you like a group of stars, with your hair always in a disarray and your eyes like pools
of milky coffee i've drowned in on so many sleepless nights
( i don't even like milk in my coffee).
now, when i think about you
you aren't anything celestial in my head. in my head,
you used to be all i ever thought about.
now, now when i think about you, i think about your fingers
(holding mine when i am falling apart),
and your voice on the phone at 1 am
(and "crying isn't weak"),
and the weight of your head on my shoulder
(on difficult days, when holding ourselves up is harder than breathing)
and singing along to bad music in the car when there's nobody else around
(and the Doors when there is).
i guess you could say this is a goodbye poem.
i guess you could say you crawled out of the cracks in my ribcage and planted peonies there instead.
i guess you could say that i loved you once. i guess i love you still
but maybe this time my ribcage is my own and my body is my own and my heart is my own
and even if the peonies in my chest try to suffocate me, i know that you will pick them for me
and put them in that vase that always falls off the table when i get drunk.
i guess i'm okay
i guess
i do.
and i guess you are not celestial, you
are a Person, and i guess that i was wrong about loving you
(but i do).

THERE IS CLOTH AROUND YOUR EYES AND YOUR BRAIN AND  YOUR MOUTH AND YOUR HEART AND YOU ARE TELLING ME HOW TO SEE HOW TO THINK HOW TO SPEAK HOW TO FEEL
I AM TIED DOWN TO YOUR CRUCIFIX OF HUNGRY EYES AND I AM POWERLESS
YOU ARE AN ANOMALY. YOU ARE THE OTHER.
*****.
****.
*****.
****.

*FEMINIST.

i dream of silk and black lipstick, leather and ice-burn
i fashion thoughts into clouds of smoke i ghost out of my mouth
into necklaces i will only ever give to you; you
are burnt russet bitten lip bleached bone coalesced into
constellation; you burn brighter
than any constellation i have ever breathed

i dream of your hipbones; stretch marks flicking over them
like lightning glimpsed between fingers; like wishbones silently pulled apart
in promise; you are wishbone you are gold plate you are sunshine
through a stained-glass window; my heart is glass
a cemetery to your footprints a cathedral to your broken
dreams; i can taste the honey in your scattered thoughts
like a prayer on my tongue
i dream of deep purple and yellow and green and
black and fading bruise and blood
at the corner of your lip; i can taste iron in your breath
rotting in my dreams slow-burning ice in my veins; vengeance
is a dish best served cold i know
that if i unfurl my skeleton and tuck you into the spaces between my
ribcage and my lungs you will taste just as sweet

i dream of ruby emerald sapphire in brooches pinned onto black i
think of the bruise-giver of the blood-spiller of cracks in my
ribcage of wishbones of constellations of iron-taste of ice-burn of you of you of you
and i let you in
and i am cathedral i am cemetery i am bonfire i am in l o v e
with constellation

step one* // live in denial for most of your life. tuck yourself into closets and cupboards and slow-cooking pots of rice until all you have left to offer her is your warming breath

step two // warm her hands with your breath. tell her she's worth more than *that guy, than the number on the scale, than her grades, than anything in the world

step three // don't think about kissing her when her lips are bitten with worry. don't think about kissing her when you're tired and it's two a.m. and god, she looks so beautiful today. don't kiss her. don't kiss her

step four // let your breaths fill the closets again. you are eternal, you are infinite, you are alone, but you still have her

step five // write her a poem. metaphorize your heart of glass. verbally trace her hipbones. tell her she is a constellation.

step six // "accidentally" give her the poem. laugh it off when she says that poetry's not her thing, anyway.

step seven // only cry when you are alone.

step eight // bare your skeletons to her unflinching mouth. it's cold and dark where she comes from, too

step nine // when she tells you she loves you, let her. hold onto her tight enough to shatter your ribcage.

step ten // let her tear the breath from your lungs-it's all you had left, anyway.