Eye contact
From across the cafeteria table
Maybe you were saying something
But now we don't speak
We just sit quietly
And we might as well be alone
In this room together
Your blue green eyes
Locked on mine
Until we look away
I'll just bathe in your smile

shut away in the darkness
too small
my knees shake
everything is dark
and I scream, but nobody comes
I can hear her outside
laughing at my pain
as I rest my forehead on the cool locker door
I try to let the pain fade away
but I'm still there
so small and weak
drops of blood trickling down my cheek
a while passes
my name is buzzed on the intercom
over and over
but I stopped screaming
because my throat is raw and screaming at me
I start to shudder and wracking sobs course through me
someone comes up and banges on the door
"------- Are you in there?"
I reply with a sob
and she says
"I'll go get someone"
a teacher comes
and she says
"----- are you okay?"
I'm still sobbing
and they cut the lock
because she won't tell them the code
and I'm free
but I feel more trapped than I've ever been

My body is made of flammable stone
a paradox in its own birth
a wooden crown atop
goddesses in dressing gowns
sleeping to the sound
of fire burning me to the ground.
I am swaying with the tears of my mother
hitting silently as they fall,
everything that made me special
also put me up in flames.
What a sight,
all this destruction
pillars of smoke around my teeth,
rosy cheeks as I’m lowered into the grave
because it is I
and I am one
with the great Notre Dame

A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't

She was like music,
and I longed to dance.

Her heart was the beat,
and I begged for the chance.

Her words were the vocals,
and I was put in a trance.

Her smile was the melody,
and I fell in love at first glance.