It had been too long since I paid close attention to myself.

As I sat by the water, small nymphs of some bug pattered down from the leaves above like a soft rain

Kinder to my skin than any water.

A fowl plucks himself, and the littlest spider begins a journey to cross me like my denim is so many stretching lands.

I am interrupting nature as humbly as I can manage, two cigarettes pass and I'm tired of self-ness already

But for a moment? I breathed.

When a spider is scared,
Too scared to run,
To bite,
It draws together.

Knees press inward,
Meeting at a point,
They cover their vulnerability
In an impenetrable wall
Of legs and cuticle.

Tonight, when I close my eyes-
When all I want is the silent,
Empty screen of sleep-
I see the octopedal child
Curled,
Frightened.

I think; "this is me."

Have you ever witnessed
such flawlessly executed
blissful ignorance?

Who are you, and why
have I brought you here?

13 days--just shy of two weeks;
and here you are.
The paint hasn't dried
the pain
still damp to the touch

Pressing eager fingers
still results in
pretty residue, that
leaves fingerprints on every subsequent touch

And, dry,

Pressing eager fingers
still results in
***** flakes, that
reject fingerprints altogether

So why
have I brought you here?
To watch paint dry?
Leave while it's wet,
save yourself the water
it takes to wash your hands

Save yourself the time
it takes to wash your soul
from the presence of

such flawlessly executed
blissful ignorance.

When I talk about you, my voice gets strained.
It's squeezing it's way through my teeth,
The abuse and the fear squeaking along the unoiled hinges of my jaw--
my voice breaks.

I am every teen novel, I am every TV special
on complex systems of abuse
I am victim.
I am girl, sitting in his car and relaying the details
of my youth, the day I lost all trust in you.

The memory of your finger, clammy,
tracing a line down the center of my *******
threatens to pull me under, and I am screaming--
Why? Why did you have to make this so difficult?
Drowning myself was an inevitability,
so why did you have to hold my head under
and add your name to the list of
"who's to blame?"

And to this day, I have this innate need to
please you, I've learned
the intricacies of language for no truer reason
than to string you (happily) along;

Always emotionally available, but never
for you.
Is this part of me that wants you
A product of your manipulation?
Or am I only telling myself that,
so I can remain,
victim?

Once, an old friend asked me; what would my soul look like, if others could see it?

"A bug," I replied.

To crickets, the mantis is terror incarnate--a fierce behemoth, with knives for hands and without mercy. It is to be respected and feared, it is mighty and dignified.

To a human? A mantis is...

"A bug."

It is the debris among the mud between the treads of your sneakers. It is the gross infatuation, the scientific fascination--it is weak. It is small. It is inconsequential.

I yearn for a life of primitive needs and void of wants.

I yearn for the mantis, seeking only to destroy enough to line his stomach, all in a day's work, back to the safe spot where the "bigger and badder" can't reach you.

Life would be eat, sleep, repeat,

and I detest my self-awareness. I'd rather fail the simple life of a mantis and die without need of fulfillment,

Than to realize I'll no sooner discover what "fulfillment" is to myself than reach it--and to be torturously aware of that,

So very, very, existentially aware.

"My soul would look like a bug."

As I'm lying in bed,
Fevered,
In wait,
Burning silhouettes of heat
With my smoldering skin

I wonder how much
Is psychosomatic
And if I'm so convinced I'm
Sick
That fever appeared when
I summoned it

When really I just wanted
So badly
To set aside responsibility
And sleep.

How powerful am I?
Powerful enough to **** myself
With a
Thought.

Thankful for now that all I wish for
Is sleep,
And not death.

I don’t know the science
of it,
but I once read
we are made of the stuff of stars.
Their particles are inside
of us,
and essentially, we are
minutely star ourselves,
floating amidst each other.
I wonder which two,
or ten,
celestial bodies above us share
their most intimate bits
with us, and I wonder
when the Universe fates
us to
collide and supernova
in a coruscation of fiery
shards of galaxy,
do so our cousins?
Are the
same astral fragments within
us smashing over our heads,
birthing a divine and
romantic parallel?

It's 4 am
And the term "exposed nerve"
Has never described me
So well before.

The last three hours
Spent utilizing every
Relaxation method I've
Ever been taught.

I'm so tired.
Tuck me back beneath
Warm skin and let me
Sleep.

I took my glasses off, because crying always clouds them

And I'd rather see you blurry and raw
than blurry with glass between us.

I thought I would look much
cooler
more collected
more mature
more together

If I stood, arms crossed, glasses
planted firmly
Don't cry
Don't cry

But I still ran after
your car, when you turned
out of my sight

And made you stop for one last
Kiss
Hug
Cry

When you were behind the wheel
In my sights for the last time
as someone I was allowed
to touch
to feel
to be

I turned my back,
lit my cigarette,
Like in the movies;
Don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry

And I started walking
to the sound of your car
walking the other way.

I throw myself down the stairs
in my mind.

I curl my toes over the top stair,
Imperceptible sways toward
the ragged drop

I close my eyes and tuck,
knees to heart,
hands to elbows
to face to
feet
to
toes
to

Tumbling, and
screaming and
bruising for days.

I throw myself down the stairs
in my mind.

Outside, I sleep
a little deeper
and stairs are for
reaching the kitchen,

If I threw myself down
them, I would
disappoint
everyone.

Enter;
constant anxiety and
an inability to deny
my body what my brain
will swear is relief.
Stop.

"I love you."

It feels like;
Last week,
Everything in your house
moved--
Inexplicably--
Two inches left.

You still haven't yet found
Why your hip is
Permanently purple
From kissing the desk
You've never collided with before.

The words I'm looking for
Are two inches to the right;
But if I took that phrase and
Shifted it it,

All that would leave my throat
Was the sound of
Bruised skin;
Permanently purple
From hitting the words
I've never felt were less than satisfactory before

Because the words I need don't
Actually exist.

I am on a journey, back in time;

When you're meant to be the one
With experience,
You don't tell him "yes"
When he tells you to come
Home with him.

When you haven't spoken
In months
You don't stay
Five days
Four nights
In a time capsule;

Look! The walls are right
Where I left them
Look!
And I am right
Where he left me

And I have made this room
Home.
And I would gladly travel back
To this moment in history;

Yes, even amongst the
Sobbing--
To make this memory
The space I return to
After a long day of
Reality.

It always comes
Back to
Reality.

My life is;

Françoise Hardy, on repeat
Falling a little bit
In love
With many bits of
Many people.

Maybe if I laugh hard enough this time,
Unapologetically,
Beautifully,
My mouth will be so large
I'll swallow you all

And maybe then I'll be so full of you
I'll finally be
Satisfied,
Satiated,
Fed.

I'm trying to convince myself
I know what something slow
And steady looks like.

But who can I fool
When I still recall so vividly
How on day two, he put his hand
Under my shirt
And I asked him not to stop
For eight long months?

How do I lie so convincingly
When I still remember so well
Before, before
How i would tell anyone who would listen:

"I fell in love the first day
I met him,
And did not stop for
The next year and a half."

How can I tell anyone,
How would they--
Could they?
Believe me,
When they know?

When they know I have such deep
Intuition for what I want,
That I dig my claws in by
Minute one,
And don't let go until

They beg.