i believe in permanent strings
rather than stitches that come undone in a week.

we promised we would be there in the future
together
we have to get through the present
separate

I want the edge of Christmas, where the nights look like it's about to snow, and only the brake lights of cars are seen. The chilly air whips your cheeks as you leave the building. And because you know Christmas is coming, the nights don't seem so lonely anymore.

the worst kind of crying
is that film residing in your throat
glazing over your vocal chords.
your stomach is twisted
into tiny intricate knots, triple tied.
your eyes bead in the corners,
glistening but not dripping.
you feel that you will never
be as sad as this moment.
your brain shuts off
a failed attempt to detach itself
from the veins fusing and tightening
stars heighten without blinking.
you have become so unaware of your actual body
the sadness eats away
at whatever remains. and even then
you are much too empty
to be dissembled.

The president of the horticulture club
thumbs the violet leaves of a aconite
ignoring the shooting pain crawling on her skin.
The other members glare at her,
waiting for the reaction-
touch the frail plant
and your mouth is sure to set on fire.
The contact she has on the flower
is insanely dangerous.
Potent alkaloids bloom overhead
and she continues to breathe in deeply as if she is trying to swallow
the strong, acrid taste of the atmosphere,
which should have sent her into a frenzy of disorientation
and seizures of her small limbs
but at last, she glances
at the frozen treasurer and spoke calmly, her mouth slouching,
"Are you writing this down?
I want the future of this club
to know to never touch plants
without doing their research."
Then she blinks,
slumps against the bench,
undeterred.

How do I get a carving out of a tree?
The smug shape of your G+E
outlines with a stupid, misshaped heart
etched into the evergreen.
You ruined my favorite tree
with five words.
A sentence I knew you would inevitably say
at some point of our lives together.
I really wanted to doubt myself for once,
and be proved wrong in the right way.
But you just had to keep me incorrect.

I call the local lumberjack and ask him,
"Cut down the tree as soon as possible."
I think that's how you get a carving out of a tree.

It's getting easier to say goodbye to you.
Every time I migrate away from home to find warmth,
leave you behind in the cold,
I am taking back a piece of my soul
that I have left in your icy hands.
You still have the same hold, the same capture,
but I am learning that it's much easier
to keep my heart to myself.

Now that I'm alone
I try to find people to talk to
go through my contacts
and my eyes fell on your name.
I have not spoken a word to you
in about four years
but on text, it's been sixteen months.
It felt weird to consider talking to you.
My first choice, always, but now
a choice I can't choose.

my stomach churns at the thought
of the 20th Christmas i'll spend
without someone who loves me.
everyone in my family has someone else
and i wait for someone to fill
the empty spot beside me
holding my hand.

one pitcher of sugar, three tea bags
can't sweeten the southern drink
any more than you could sweeten
your flat, stale love

A shred of gasoline spills
each time I give myself to you.
I continue to light my breaking limbs on fire
each time you glance at me.
The flames burn and lick and spread
each time we crash we disintegrate we exist no more.

I am alive and I am terrified.
Why does the future have to be
this question mark, this puddle of murkiness
wagging its finger to beg you to come
closer,
closer
closer.

Darkness lurches above me in
halos circling brightly, making no sense

I can see you, Future
I can see everything I want to see
but the waters won’t clear, the question mark
won’t turn into an exclamation point,

and you make me travel down the path
farther
farther
farther
into the unknown.

They say that the Arizona trout is found
only in this state,
and I wonder if I had not found you
who else would have taken me in?
The sore problem is maybe
you have discovered me on accident
when there was someone else out there
that needed you instead.
I'm petrified at the thought
that if I swim away,
no one would ever find me again.

The disappointment that resides in me,
as much as I tell it to go away,
swallows my entire body.

It eats away at my flesh and rarely
leaves enough time for skin to regenerate.
The disappointment that resides in me

licks its lips hungrily
at the sight of my blood, salivates
and swallows my entire body.

This cannot be healthy,
I say to myself. There has to be a way to invalidate
the disappointment that resides in me.

I wonder if there was ever a phase of sobriety
when my expectations' weight
did not swallow my entire body.

I suppose I must return to reality
and succumb to incubate
the disappointment that resides in me,
that swallows my entire body.

i hate that im not sleeping with you tonight
i finally warmed up to the comfort of being near someone somewhat close for a long amount of time
obviously it doesnt have to be specifically with you for me to feel that comfort
but i know ill crave it until i find someone that im remotely comfortable with
even though i panicked i still liked the idea that i was next to someone
and now i feel a little empty with no body shifting beside me
(and sleeping with their mouth open to collect air rushing in)

I felt homeless
even though I had two houses.
I asked myself,
why do I always have to pack a bag
to go to the next house.
I never really felt at home in either place.
Of course I appreciated the bed
hardened by years of my emotionless body
but I never had a home within range.
My real home is 2120 miles away from my house.
Sadness is just about the only thing I experience,
beside the anger in my parents for their sickening divorce
beside the loneliness that hallowed me into a stone heart
beside the nostalgia I crave to be at peace again
for the first time in fourteen years.

Nothing works out in the end.
All of us will be gone.
Our name will not be remembered.

The signs and lights will fade to black.
The Hollywood sign will collapse of old age, like us.
Poppies shrivel up, their red coats falling onto the scorched earth.
Grapes transcend into wrinkly sacs of bitter wine.

The way your hand slipped in mine,
the fingerprints will rub away.
Our heart beats slow,
diminish.
Our laughter evanesce,
wanes
as our voices descend past the Pacific ocean.

I write letters to people who
do not speak to me as
often as their name screams in
my mind full of words.

I need to stop looking
at her as though the sun has risen,
and the rays paint the universe in a collection
of pinks and oranges, and sparkles the terrain.
She cannot be the most beautiful thing
I have ever seen. For she is also the night
who constantly leaves me in the dark
when I need only a single slant of light
to scarcely live.

Two linked sugars
make up a disaccharide.
And that’s what we are-
simple, plain table sugar
dully passed back and forth
to sweeten our taste.
Sometimes I'll accidentally
switch the shakers for breakfast,
hand you the salt
just to change up the spice.
And sometimes I regret
the bitter words
you exchange in return
for breaking the boring
status quo.

They say you can’t keep your prying eyes off of a w r e c k.

The extended siren diminishes even as it creeps closer,
the road only grows harder, pierced glass and incarnadine blood.

Clear in your head where you're setting those sights,
disregard the stench of burnt metal and the doused fire of the passenger seat,
block out the screams that streams into your ears.

There is nothing to be curious about.

The slow, infantile pause while your pitying gaze
shifts across the midnight scene
is the only thing the jaded victims can feel,
beside the rusted pain destroying their decaying bodies.

Strangers are the distraction from the d e s t r u c t i o n.

You sold me a false dream. You told me that I could make it home after I graduated. High school. College. I’m still ******* here. I told you that I was a failure, I failed at achieving my dream of finally escaping hell. Everyone else got their form of happiness. My turn will never arrive.
You told me that the future would be a happy time, but when I thought of the future ten years ago, I didn't think I would still feel like this.
You told me that people loved me, but they never showed it. No one put in as much effort into the relationship as I did. It was always me who responded first, initiated the conversation, sent reminders that hey, I guess we’re still friends, even though you don't act like it.
You forgot that I did not work well with the routine of muttering in my head, “I’m fine, just relax and breathe.” You told me that I needed to make the most of where I was, which was like forcing a fish to live on land and expecting them to breathe.
You told me that I moved on, and then I didn't, and then I did. Quit playing games.
You told me that it was okay to tell that guy extremely intimate details, but I ended up disappointed.
You told me to assume that someone I loved would be just as willing to love me fiercely in return. You told me that someone special will come along. Where are they?
You told me that I have to make everyone in my family happy, but everyone has different expectations and I’m struggling to fulfill one person’s wishes without upsetting the other.
You told me I need to go out more, accept invitations to attend some concert in Dallas, or hang out at her house for New Year’s Eve. I hate going out.
You told me to pretend that I was in a cliché high school movie at a party and try to flirt with a guy. He didn't like me. He was more interested in my brother.
You told me that no one cared how badly I presented my speech in my last Spanish class, but I felt everyone’s pity cutting into my mouth.
You told me that my soul is the one thing I can’t compromise, but it’s already shattered into irreparable fragments.
You told me that people would admire the way I loved sunsets, the lights on the streets after dark, the small things. No one has told me that they noticed my habits.

I placed myself back into my body and walked away from the mirror.

I crave human affection as much as
a flower demands photosynthesis
hiding beneath a shaded tree. It has
no control over capriciousness
from the sun.

One day we were counting
the ghosts of our mistakes
and you randomly brought up,
"Ernest Hemingway saved his manuscripts
by throwing them out the upstairs window
while his studio was burning."

I compared you to Hemingway
that a man can love words
more than an actual person,
more than his own life at stake.

To which I responded,
as I hope it marred your mind,
“I liked the idea of loving you.
I wanted some sort of filler
to compensate for the feelings I got.”

Your fixation was intensely unnerving,
like you were unwrapping every vein that rippled in my body.
I carried on, watching the embers of fault lick you profusely.

“For some reason, I use people until there’s nothing left to use.
Romantically, I used you to cover what I wanted-
Cast you in daydreams where it is like this right now,
in a coffee shop underneath the streetlights.

“It was all the idea of it.
As much as I wanted to make up our relationship,
I couldn’t imagine what it was like to really be with you.
To be close to you, your hand in mine,
to watch your favorite movies under a warm blanket, to jump
in the car with you to chase a sunset.
To have you text me at two in the morning
and tell me I’m beautiful.”

You began to protest,
but I wouldn’t listen.
There is something satisfying
in expressing true happiness
rather than dwelling on it in your mind.
I knew you weren’t giving me that.

“So I don’t think I was ever in love with you.
Just the thought of you.”

Realizing I am slipping away from her when she didn't text me happy birthday this year. Even though we haven't talked in four years, the very least we could do is say, "I thought of you today, and I hope it's going great." The absence of that sank its fangs into my throat.

Sipping a hot cinnamon dolce latte while sitting on the second floor deck of the student center. Watching students stream in waves to classes, and wondering what their story is.

Hearing the three chimes in 'Cassy O' and the guitar's chaos at minute 6:47 to 7:45 of 'Freedom' live at the Hammersmith Apollo, 2007.

Gazing at the sky when the sun is on the other side of the world, but a shade of crimson tinges in a terrifying drench.

Conversely, when the sky is so white, all one smooth blanket, I wonder what color will I see when I finally go to sleep- or will I be stuck in a black film?

Knowing a boy is near me so I stretch my neck, straighten my back, and hope he notices everything I want a person to notice and grow to love.

The disappointment people have in me swallows my whole body. Sometimes it's an act of cannibalism, and I can't push away regret faster than it starts to lick its lips at the sight of my glistening blood.

Seeing a picture of my younger self from sixteen, and it seems I have changed far too much to connect with the person in the image. She didn't know anything. I still don't know anything.

I stare at myself in the mirror, sometimes fully clothed and sometimes naked, and I wonder, "Who the hell is this? Who is she?" I detach my soul from my frame, and my face does not match my mind.

My eyes can just take a picture. I know the quality and the subject, my camera does not. I see angles and perspectives differently, and it frustrates me that I cannot get my vision out.

Some days my hearing does not affect me whatsoever. I don't even think about it. But others, particularly when I make mistakes, I blame my disability. And I hate to make excuses.

I want someone to film my passing moments, catch my laughter, study my ****** expressions. Expect me to glow and beam when I hear my favorite sounds, know where my dialect comes from, smile when I mention my friends.

One day someone will hold me and reach intimate places, and I'm afraid I will not be sufficient enough.

The scariest thing, however, and I absolutely have no way of explaining it, is life after death. We live for a fraction of time. We will forever live in white space, and not come alive again. Doesn't that terrify you?

Even white clouds form into
        demons at night.
How terrifying they appear
beneath the crescent moon,
a parchment of wispy black and expiring halo.
          When the sun is awake,
the clouds are innocent angels,
           relieved of their sins
from blocking the stars.

             Demons are not villains.
You have to give them a chance to change.

I’ve always believed that we were on the same wavelength,
but never the same tide.
From here I can almost see the sea
with you on the other shore.
Are you reaching out to me? Or is this morning fog too strong?

I glance at you from the other side of the room,
hoping that maybe you are looking back
wondering if I was looking back at you.
My eyes shift down when they’re tangled in your sight.
I wish you’d notice me.

There has only been a few times when you stood close to me.
As I felt the heat radiating off your tall body
a hurricane collided. The tides have crashed.
It feels like lightning running through my veins
then it all stops when you step away.

In little ways you remind me that we belong together
but you don’t see it like I do.
Of course you don’t.
It’s been eight years. By now,
I figure you’d realize it too.

It’s lonely being on this side of the ocean.

Didn’t I ever think to be authentic
collecting words, snapping photographs
exclaiming I am enamored with language and art

when honestly, I am merely a fraud
to what I love. My hands aren’t stained with ink,
my eyes aren’t trained to learn new techniques
paper is not my friend nor is a roll of film
tossing around in my bag of nonexistent records that
I actually love my hobbies.

I feel that I am not quite
an owner of my interests,
stealing passion from others and wishing
they were my own.

I didn't jubilate the anniversary
this year. The song is still one
of my favorites, but I've forgotten
your voice singing softly,

only for me to hear in a room
of twenty other kids. It was the happiest
I had ever been; that moment you noticed me

as more than the girl who sat
next to you, and pined for you for two years then,
and nine years after. But I realized
it is not exactly an anniversary

       if you don't share it with me.

The scary thing about
how time heals
is that I forgot
the only person I wanted to remember.
I force myself to be okay with that.
I started to lose

all the details about her, all the fights I knew I'd lose
before the arguments began, because I couldn't stand to think about
her being upset with me. I was quick to let her think that
the tension between us healed
that neither of us could remember
the reason we were fighting in the first place. I forgot

her coffee order when she's sad, I forgot
how she freaked out when she lost
the callback to someone we despised. I forgot how she remembers
that I counted how many chicken nuggets I ordered. She was all about
knowing the little things that kept me at ease, that healed
my stress away from her. But then I knew that,

with the poison I kept on the tip of my tongue, that
would be impossible. She tended to forget
even though she was the one to heal
me emotionally when no one else could, she would lose
me at the same time with disappointment. It was not her fault. About
four years now, I'm still alone in pictures. I remember

that we were always together in a single frame. I remember
I kept my mouth closed and she smiled with her teeth. That
passenger seat remained empty, beneath a full moon about
to transform into new. Once I forget
eclipses only last a few hours, I lose
the nostalgia that never did get me healed.

Replaying my memories will not heal
what I once had. I will not remember
everything I thought I'd never lose.
Once it hits, I am on the floor, pressing into the cold tiles, so close that
I can reimagine her skin, and I will never forget
all of the things I thought about.

I believe she can no longer heal me and that kills me.
I can't remember to forget her.
I constantly wonder about her, and the universe I lost.

I will drag my knife along your skin,
sharp blade down into your fragile, shaking canvas,
incising an increasing beat of whimpers and whines.
Please hold still. I promise this will hurt.

I will expose your clattering bones,
rip out your chattering teeth,
erase every impugned utterance
you muttered against me.
I will carve my letters slowly
on your unzipped frame,
sliding the burgundy blood across to
blot
       clot
              dot.    

This is only preparation for what is about to follow.

I will puncture your throbbing organs,
slash your stretched cartilage
with an unwritten script.
Before I press further,
I’ll assure you, you are still alive.

I will twist each phrase,
haunt you to believe it is your fault,
force you to beg the slightest escape.
I will permanently etch my name
deep in the frozen chambers
of your quivering heart.

I will open up the blueprint as a demolition expert,
remove whole fractions of your fractured soul,
leave you a horrid wreck in the abyss
of a mess you just made.

You will not get rid of me,
though no trace of evidence is left behind.

My hands have been clean from the start.

I will drag my knife along your skin,
sharp blade down into your fragile, shaking canvas,
incising an increasing beat of whimpers and whines.
Please hold still. I promise this will hurt.

I will expose your clattering bones,
rip out your chattering teeth,
erase every impugned utterance
you muttered against me.
I will carve my letters slowly
on your unzipped frame,
sliding the burgundy blood across to
blot
       clot
              dot.    

This is only preparation for what is about to follow.

I will puncture your throbbing organs,
slash your stretched cartilage
with an unwritten script.
Before I press further,
I’ll assure you, you are still alive.

I will twist each phrase,
haunt you to believe it is your fault,
force you to beg the slightest escape.
I will permanently etch my name
deep in the frozen chambers
of your quivering heart.

I will open up the blueprint as a demolition expert,
remove whole fractions of your fractured soul,
leave you a horrid wreck in the abyss
of a mess you just made.

You will not get rid of me,
though no trace of evidence is left behind.

My hands have been clean from the start.

thorns lay down in my arachnoid
membrane, splintering my scalp at the mere
memory of anxiety-
splicing and slicing into my brain
drawing blood, swirling pools
killing me slowly
not all at once,
not all too quickly,
but miserably constant
in a stream that never empties
poisonous venom.

I'm the sappiest tree ever grown.
My fear, though, is that one day someone will
cut me down, take all of my treasured
products and leave me with nothing
but the scar from their jagged saw.

I am the typewriter and you were
backspacing backspacing backspa
all my words as if I had never said them.
You knew I meant
every letter I slammed down
furiously into the keyboard
writing about you
about your lack of making time
closing me off last minute
ignoring any plans we made at all.
I don't get why you had to leave my
thoughts as if they were not validated.
If someone cared for you as much as I do,
I sure hope you don't backspace on them
before they can get a word out.

Reminding, rewinding, removing, regretting
Tears blind eyes in corneas, splintering spliced sight
There is no world where I can't stop forgetting.
I have a picture of you, watching the sunrise
stratus clouds stretched along the gold blanket of sky
the waves before you striking the dock gently.
I can't find myself behind the camera,
Remembering my thoughts as I snapped
the shutter. I forget.
I go through my own ocean
where I am tossed between wanting to be shipwrecked for good
or rescued by you. I want to either let you go entirely,
or keep hanging on. But I am gripping a rope on its last thread.
I know you have already let go. I haven't. I don't think I will.

All I want, though, is to be a part of a disaccharide, and never dissolve. Someone I can grow old with, share a bench under the Space Needle, take photographs of me when I'm not looking. I don't want to be old news to them. I want to be the newspaper they pick up every day, read my stories, and know tomorrow will still happen, there will still be more stories to read. I would very much like to be in someone's life the way I wish for someone to be in mine.
I don't want to spend my whole life searching, chasing, waiting for you.

The sun undresses its silky rays
before the blushing earth.

The earth gazes,
her sapphire eyes soak in
the glimmering shot of dawn. The moon
hide away, curving against
the hangnail of light. Stars
scintillate their last dust of evening.

“You always act like you’ve never seen me before.”
The sun removes another layer.
“Like each time is too good to be true. ”

Spinning, the earth grows dizzy. “You are the one who
abandons me in the dark.”

Above the horizon, the sun smiles.
“Clairvoyance is buried inside of you.
You know I will always return.”

The sun’s amber skin
radiates along coasts and cities,
intensifying. Brightness diminishes-
night turns into day into night once more.

“I’m still alive for you, love.”
The earth tucks in the trails of dusk
as the sun cradles revolving planets.

“See you again, soon.”

the world is mind numbingly quiet
the streets drenched in nostalgic sepia,
the kind that ushers you into a movie moment reeling in
under the notes of a power ballad
and all of a sudden you just feel
alive but detached from your life.
your body is immobile in a moving vehicle,
your brain takes pictures
of the people that is around you,
and you realize that their life
is not yours.
they are under impressions of sunrises
and the shading of trees in the summer's sleep,
while you exist
because of the way the street appears
at night beneath the empty moon.

Watching the exchange of two people in love
really validates the small percent of hope
I have left in marriage. It completely overshadows
the bad experiences I've seen between my parents.
You see how she absolutely lights up
when he talks, like the stars have arrived
after a rainy day. For those few moments
of seeing real love, I forgot all my cynical
views and desperately wished I had that exchange.
Hearing him say "This is why I married you"
after she said some intelligent remark about our
parts of speech work sheet, and her smile
spoke all the words unsaid. How so in love she still
is, with this man from their wedding ten years ago, and a kid throughout their ongoing journey. They are a story
so rarely told, and I want to shout to the world that love
remains alive.

One day, maybe in two years, I’ll eventually
finally experience the rush
I’ve dreamt of the future
that I so terribly ached
for, that I would undoubtedly  risk
the factors of throwing away used

items that I no longer cherished, used
people only needed to be a stand-in, and eventually
the risk
will not catch up to me, since the rush
of real happiness overshadows the ache
like a penumbra clearing away in the future.

But it’s terrifying knowing that the future
will become a washed up, used
daydream to quiet the ache
I thought would never eventually
stop the overflowing rush
knowing that my biggest dream is entirely a risk.

I am willing to take the risk
so that my deserved  future
will swell over the echoed rush
coffee beans stained  used
cups will eventually
wash away ache.