I'd like to talk electricity,
chemicals,
living better through

I take medication
and when I don't
I feel
effortlessly
lost

thoreau would be so proud
I cry at provocations
that I would sneer at
in better days

waiting for better days
I can imagine them coming
warm and sweet
sunny fall days
nippy but still safe

even winter seems like
it could be all right
in better days

but they aren't here yet
I want to burn myself on them
push myself nearer their fire
than I can stand

I cannot bear to run away
the ink runs off my maps
staining my fingers
till everything tastes bitter

trying to redraw in charcoal
the places I know must be there
but all the familiar landmarks
are dragons now

and even when I do
even when I remember
and I even eat
and sleep
like I did when I was
ok
years ago, in a country I can't find
now
that might never have been there in the first place

even then
I'm maybe not drowning
but the air quality
is a little suspect

drown an old shirt in a moonlit creek
hold it under, cover it with rocks
it should be plaid
but polka dots will serve
leave it there
you don't need it now

cut your fingernails as short as possible
try not to make them bleed
but if they do
that's all right
it's all all right
rubbing alcohol though

you are going to get sad
sometimes over and over again
choke on your own spit, up and out
bite your hand like an apple
till blood leaves for a while

blinking lights like petrified fireflies
on and off, off and on
you are so thirsty always
and the liquid in your veins
might as well be the yellow paint you swallowed
because the happiness wouldn't come
won't come

go back to the stream
there should only be rags left
soft, crumpled, and wet
bind your wounds
cool against your skin
feel the heat of infection settling
and breathe

We can’t find each other– it’s
real dark outside,
cool, but not cold.

We will probably regret this by morning, nothing
left but the breath I’m losing. Forget
school; I don’t think I’ll make it home. And when

We have to stop for a breath, her motives
lurk in the air like the cigarette smoke she longs for. It’s 3AM,
late even for us. But

We don’t say much, and look for something to
strike her match with. Now she’s wondering what
“straight” even means as

We share my brother’s hoodie, and
sing anything we can remember. The
sin – or the smoke – dances in the air, but

We can’t tell the difference. This
thin hoodie somehow covers both of us, and I smell
gin or maybe whiskey on her breath.

We have never talked boundaries,
jazz, or those stars engraved on her wrist. I touch one. “Last
June,” she tells me, answering a question I never asked.

We sit for a while. My hand still covers the mark, and she says, “It wasn’t to
die,” but I stay silent, afraid to show her my own faded scars.