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emma joy Aug 2013
There's a bruise on my knee
from last weeks' repention
when you kicked me down the stairs
and told me to be thankful
I have food
on the floor
and a roof
over my scars, and
I must be forgiven for each tear
because drama runs deep in my veins
so that I have become
the boy who cried wolf
and you told me to apologize
for ever word
I've ever written
because it is
a waste of time
and time is precious
so we lay down on the floor
and say grace
and I try not to look at you
but I can't help but see your reflection
glaring off the knife in your hand
emma joy Aug 2013
I have a bad taste in my mouth
one that toothpaste and scotch
can't make clean
tainted by temptation
thrown down a well
zipped close
emma joy Aug 2013
The three little pigs had it easy
they were destined to be blown away
into oblivion
But,
expectations weigh me down in my sleep
and I have to greet the sun and the moon
with open arms,
and I'd rather be curled up in my bed of rocks
that I made with my own wretched hands.

My nails have dirt under them
so when they find me
when they dig me up
they'll realize
I was more alive than dead.

Perhaps perhaps that is true,
but I'm unsure at the moment if I can breathe anymore
without the man upstairs jumping on my chest
and rattling my bones like
windchimes in a blizzard.

They forgot to take me in from the porch
so now I am covered in ice.
Hypothermia is contagious.
I learned that the hard way.

My mother doesn't know any lullabyes
so I fell asleep alone all my life
there is no such thing as love in a world where
doors are always sewn closed.

My brother doesn't know the meaning of the word death
so he doesn't know who I am
or where I came from.
It's a divided house with splintered shutters
hanging only on one window.

My grandmother handmade the curtains so my mother
wouldn't have to spend any money on décor.
It is important to be fasionable yet frugal
she said.
Know your odds and ends
and always sweep the dust under the rug
at the end of the day.

Clean freak.
Everyday.
Shine the house. Shine her shoes.
I think she mistakes them for her soul.
But, it's okay
because ***** things teach important lessons in life
like who can bring the most to the table.

Honesty is the best policy.
I lied to my aunt so I could go smoke
her cigarettes and drink her *****
while she was gone on vacation.
She doesn't know I've slashed wrists
and doused pills with beer and dry martinis
on Sundays after church, but
Honesty is the best policy.

It's hard to explain to someone that addiction's not
addiction because you sound like
you've been shot
when you ask for the stuff you've been dying
to hold.
And they look at you as if you were the one
that ran over Princess Di.

Back up.
Back up.
Sit down. Breathe clean air and tell them that
you're not
suicidal
you just like the way the word sounds
on your tongue.

Aftermath is fear.
Intentions
always change last minute and as they
stuff the tube down your throat
you question if you are you
any longer.

People like that shouldn't rely on such
demeaning ways to be found,
but I can feel my skin rotting
and I'm terribly afraid
someone is going to cover me in
buffalo sauce and swallow me whole.

I was drunk
but does it still count
I've never truly known a woman
because I know the one for me will be
unknowable.
I am drawn to the things I can't have
and oh god
I can't have you.

I hear that if you lick the alphabet
they will fall in love with your tongue.
No one has made me fall yet,
that is no one I have tasted.
I don't trust they are worthy
if they can't look me in the eyes.

I pray to god no one ever inhales the carbon dioxide
I contain.
It is spoiled rotten with ash.
In fact, I am confident the dioxide
has turned black
by now
emma joy Aug 2013
Spoiled in more ways than one
For the record
I once was a pure white maiden
who wore their hair in pigtail braids
and only chewed tobacco on
Saturday evenings.
Sabbath never meant a word to me
The misunderstood don't understand
Mistakes are still made
Out of control
In the backseat beating to a drum
Sound coming from the heart
thrown in the glove box
I didn't mean to -
You chopped off my hair
with a rusty blade
left scars on my shins
battered not broken
for the record
rotten. In more ways than one.
emma joy Aug 2013
I never really learned how to tie knots
I never really cared
Now I am burning in the attic of desire
drinking by flames of doubt
wishing your image out of my head
and praying that today
I forget how you threw a pail of water on
me in the thunderstorm of 98'
and I remember those reeboks that were
kept closed with
velcro
emma joy Aug 2013
we'd play hacky-sack -
I don't know how, but
I'll make it up
and I'll teach them
what to do when
they get papercuts.
And when I make their fluffer ****** for lunch,
I'll leave a note that says
“sweetie”
and they'll throw it out,
and I know they will
I'll **** five hundred trees
but it's all worth it
emma joy Aug 2013
my name is
hard to pronounce anyway
I am just a little
old to be doing this
sort of thing I know
I can try again
does that suffice or do I still need
to try to chop myself up
itty
bitty
too small to fit through cracks in sidewalks
i'll drown
in a lake
I'll try to climb up ladders
instead
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