I know a girl who has a tattoo
of the words “hold on” and it is mostly sad because
her skin
could not hold onto the needle that
breathed the ink
into her bloodstream. She keeps the words
as a petal on the flower of last
summer, reminding her that we can become bruised
again and again and again
without ever losing our sense of touch.

I am just god’s excuse to make a ****** nose
and bruises surrounding
eyelids, even when I get the perfect amount of rest

and when autumn comes
barreling leaves from god’s big sky
I am what catches the sand, blonde grains changing
the color of my eyes.

It is just as true that he cuts the tails
from mermaids and tells me that I can find girls
who would rather be a worm instead, my

flesh is already rippled
pale and translucent pink, the best of beige between

my thighs. Because one morning god called
and I said I would not wake up
and he said that if I did not, he would wring mud
from his terrible angels’ wings and I

still never woke from my sleep.
I am his gross girl, pleased to be the queen of slugs
as long as this is the worst my sins can do.

Through wooded fog
fades the day, abandoned to the grey,
lost road, lost home - belonging to no one

Pictures found upon a mantle, dust and charcoal,
photos framed in rusty metal,
sepia shadows, a broken mirror

Collections of rocks and bones,
letters and sealing wax,
china cups, stained and cracked

Musty pages of paperbacks,
remnants of a life long ago.
Memories, pressed flowers of fading bells,
little relics, loved
so well

i used hold onto sadness like it was what kept me afloat,
not what was drowning me in the first place.
i thought my pain was poetic,
that my self-hatred was what made me lovable.
i’m not like that anymore.            
now, i don’t think about myself like a problem that needs solved
or like something that needs to be glued back together.
i treat myself like something precious, not something damaged.
because i fought a war with myself,
and i deserve to enjoy the spoils.
but not everyone knows that,
because my voice is still quiet and my eyes still look sad.
i know what you think you see when you look at me,
but i promise i'm not what you're looking for.
you want a girl who looks at you like you’re the sun  
when she hasn’t seen the sky for weeks,
but looks at her reflection like her body is a photo album
billed with pictures that hurt to look at.
who never has a kind word to spare for herself,
but somehow always has enough for you.
who will hold her body out  to you like a white flag.
that won't ever be me.
i’m not as sweet as you want me to be
and i’m meaner than you think.
and i might not tell you to *******,
but i sure as hell won’t *******.
you want my thighs wrapped around you,
but you don't know the work it took for me to love them
so why should i let you?
i’ve spent most of my life starving myself of self-worth,
so now i eat vanity for breakfast.
i've spent too long thinking you needed to be broken to be loved,
but i now i know that that isn't true.
you want someone you can rescue,
but i can do that myself.  
so don’t think my doe eyes mean that i’m just a fawn who need your shelter,
because you might be a maple tree,
but i’m the whole **** forest.

Watercolor recollections,
Bleed away with rain
With the brilliant colors
All longing fades away
To have you hold me.

I miss you
And our hours together
color on pale canvas
like the face paint we used last Halloween
And I’d laugh when you’d tickle my nose

My hollow screams rebound
from every brick of our studio
Fragmented cries of someone not whole
You are in every direction here
Each canvas smeared with paint
is another trinket in your shrine

Like driftwood sculptures bobbing in still water
Long buried memories surface
But no blissful moment emerges
those are buried with you

We fought that night
Like wolves for their young,
Father’s for their daughter
Vicious and unrelenting.
Neither of us really won

But I long to forget
Cobblestone words, sharp
Driven from you in anger
Forced out of your mouth
An orphan wrenched from cold, dead hands

So I place our paintings on the doorstep
And the rain becomes an eraser
The color fades
Like runoff water from mountains

And with our watercolor creations,
All memories drain away
And I’m left with nothing
But smudges of paint on my skin
Inside our paradise.

I am not your savior, I am
not god with **** and small hands and a girl’s moan.

The good things about me are not here
to redeem you
or be your solution or stand in the exact light
less nice women would not flock to
when you said the lightbulb
was shattered by a ***** with razor sharp claws.

I learned this
with rope burn breathing on my wrists

and biceps screaming at me when they flexed, they
could have given me a black eye
but now I just have
a black heart
mourning the family man I could not rescue.

I tried to chain myself to him, be
the good girl who woke up a child and laid down
a *****
hiding his tears with the dampness.

I did this so well I
never knew I was hiding my own, becoming a pink
orb of plush, sponge, a ******* machine.

It did not put a baby in my belly
just a ghost in my womb
of everyone’s sadness and pain and large hands that
are believed to protect
when a shadow casts from your bed at night –
see, the same shadow casts over mine.

Tell me cheeks like mine
are made for smiling, and I will tell you to go find
a ******* smile
of your own if you need it so badly.

there is a small thing, a paper cut
in my window screen
and for days now I have used it to ask every bird
every bumblebee every animal with wings
if they have met
my dead best friend in the sky
because I see her hopping from cloud to cloud
on my way
home from school all the time
and want to know when she's learned how to fly.