Layers
peeled back
everyone's wearing
so many layers.
Under my thin thin skin
the words I haven't spoken
the thoughts I haven't registered yet
beating right inside my chest
the dirt I let in you can't see
the lines, scars, burns, cuts
wounds make up me
wounds made of me
angry, welting, scorched
fade to cool pale shapes in my soul
j'ai faim, j'ai faim
mais je n'ai pas vui
la nourritures pour ma vie
for my soul
I can't see breathe feel think move bleed love hurt
all I can do is be.
But I can't even do that.
I can barely speak.
So I write.

The words are there
coins
weighing down my tongue

Birds, humming
fluttering behind my jugular
frantic trapped
choking for air,
mine.

Awkwardly large
in my mouth
my tongue fumbling
words stuck in my teeth
leftover, but not the right ones

I spit them out
acid, venom
sizzling holes through the fabric
of the silence between
us

All I can say is
why the ****
is all of this
so
difficult?

(cool, pale night)
the right ones come later
paper thin, delicate
bleeding ink printed on dissolving rice paper
slicing my tongue

my mouth full of tears
they wanted to speak.
their salt coats my tongue,
not yours.

The air is saturated with the light aroma of vanilla

and a tinge of red wine

The last notes of “Happy Birthday” hang in the air

each sung in a different tone by the drunken relatives surrounding me

creating a wave of crashing chords, a clashing medley that somehow fits

I grip the table i am sitting in front of

feeling the cool glass surface, almost shatterable but not quite

and the chair legs beneath me that i wrap my feet around

and the candles are lit. they glow like stars set right in front of my eyes

i could almost hold it in its perfection, it does not seem like it would hurt

to cup that flame in the palm of my hand

to spin the stars from my fingertips

they scream “Make a wish!”

my eyes squeeze shut

my breath locked in

so tightly i feel a balloon will burst inside me at any moment

and in one motion i let it whisper out

The candles extinguish

the gray smoke lingering heavy in the air

this moment i could hold forever

the pure bliss of wishes being wished

suspended forever, hanging around me.

and then its gone.

please, if you do anything

dont leave

dont leave

just stay. with me

an absence of you makes echoing

chasms in my chest

heart in the marsh, empty cavity

when i feel the hollow

in my bed

the cold spot where you aren’t

i want need miss you so hard

i can taste it

i could breathe it

i could cry it

if only salty oceans

would bring me back to you, you back to me

when you’re not here

my own voice bounces around in my head

reverberates off the walls of my ribs

eternal.

I am a strange girl.
sometimes i love everything, everyone.
sometimes i hate all possible things in the world to hate.
sometimes i wish i was someone else.
sometimes i love myself more than any other.
sometimes i hate every shred of sole being in my body more than i want to imagine.
sometimes i love everything i think, do, say.
sometimes everything is wrong with me.
sometimes everything is wrong with everyone else.
sometimes i understand everyones brains, know what they think and how they feel.
sometimes i dont understand anything or anyone at all.
i live in a world of my own, with everyone else in it.

Careful breaths
methodical
wing-like

caress my cheek
crawl down my neck
inch and slide
down the small of my back
encase me
imprison me
embody me
preserved
I’m frozen
stuck. Stopped.
Mesmerized, shimmering and numb.

Something so fluid
so graceful, alive
the words, the whisper
twines, weaves, vines, snakes
taking her to the grave
to the higher place
lifted with an unknown destination
yet buried, swallowed
she's been taken
claimed
the breaths will never stop.
Wings that forever beat.
Dewy,
a cage of bones and a thing of beauty.

always i whisper
into your ear
my sweet thoughts
masking my fear

i pour my soul
into your mind
you, the puzzle piece
impossible to find

i breathe a mist
inside your brain
on the other side
they slip out again.

goodbye.

i used to be broken

i was dying in side

and now the roaring silence

that once cut me so deep

burning through the layers of my soul

silently writhing under my skin

has faded to a soft echo

a ringing in my ears once in awhile

a scar.

At this point. Right now

I can’t figure out if I’m falling apart

or holding myself together

or just wishing for something else.

I'm sitting here
and thinking
I'm ******* tired
of love.