downtown is
a much newer scene than even
i thought it’d be - i was
prepared to be
a novice. i was prepared to be
out of place. and this was
nothing, i could handle these
old odd eyes, i just
wasn’t ready to feel so
dropped in.

but i’d drawn a diagram
of this situation,
a different specific

(*******.
i can’t hear myself think)

why am i surprised to feel
so dropped in
when i’ve drawn it?
drawn upon it?

why am i surprised
that a new brand new
situation feels
just the same as the new situations
of before, when i’ve
had so many
that i can picture the the sensation
of my brain?

i’ve made a series of green lines
on a yellow, lined piece
of paper.

i’ve meant to take it
to my shrink for months.
once,
i had it in my purse and
my guts, when i entered,
decided to shrink.

i said
i was fine, and the same,
and i started to drop
the pills that stole my sleep
onto the streets.

it’s helped,
and i’m surprised. and my brain
feels more awake than
any other time
in the past
three
years…
so.

to which part of town
do i go to

from here?

it is hell
to have loved someone-
to know you love them
right now, still-
so much and for so long,
and to realize
you don't actually feel
them loving you back.

if you turn onto
a one-way street
in the wrong direction,
it is still dangerous,
against the law
even if you didn't see the sign.
and just because i love
and my love is accepted
does not mean
i'm on a two-way street.

now i'm crushed.
between metal and metal
i'm crushed. in flashes,
when you speak, i see
myself chewed between your teeth.

so when you light up when you smile
when i say in some way that
i love you, you are also
the oncoming headlights,
appearing suddenly,
coming at me on the highway.

the feelings of hurting i've been
having since you told me the way you work
are not the worst that i've felt all
my life. it bothers me that you've gone,
and it bothers me that i'm only bothered,
not dying.

i loved you in a way i've never
loved another soul. i loved you to your core.
i loved you as a being in a faulty body.
i loved your past life's symptoms...
still do.

i feel overly sensitive
to the sun - just by rays and not
by warmth. i can soak in the warmth, i can
feel reborn if i keep my eyes closed.
i can see the blood red, begin
again. i open my eyes and i'm all
blood red and even my breath
hurts my skin.

you told me you were akin to disease,
like your own, but toward me,
and i should have made it more clear
how well i would handle the word "terminal"
if it was you who directed it at me.
to be honest i would love nothing more
than being restricted to bedrest,
afflicted with you.

you have every permission to
eat at my brain like a poison.
burn my heart with equal parts fire and acid.
i'm asking you for it. i'm asking for you.
i'm calling for you and you hear me. we see
each other, stare. you don't answer.

you wanted to clean me up, dust the
dirt of you off me, wipe the mud from my eyes
that you think surely must be keeping me
from seeing clearly. but there is no mud, just
my own dark circles. i am clean
though i stand in the deepest hole i've
ever dug. still you scrub. my skin goes
numb.

i miss you,
in such a boring way.
my eyes materialize you
slowly, and blurry,
and automatic.

i don't need to wish you were here
to wish you were here.

he is not
quiet inside,
or beside
himself in awe.

he's just been
a middle-ground
or a stopping point
on my way out
of my mind.

but he keeps
appearing
while i'm steering down
searing black-heart tar
at a speed too fast.
and yet he remains an ember
only ever having grown into
wet timber -
a spark, but no hint
of a flame.

and maybe he does
smell just like smoke-
but it's still not
the same as
you.

and that's why i just
miss you
instead of letting him
call me "honey".

there once was a woman named ferrin
who got sick of the skin she was wearin'.
so she tugged on the zipper
and let the world rip 'er
in half so she'd finally stop carin'!

all the tangled veins broke
and the waterworks started.
little firework drops
colored my skin on the surface.

and you took this all in
watching me barely breathing,
my soggy heart hardly beating
in the palm of your hand.

i've never wanted anything
more than i wanted this:
my life in your hands,
my DNA in your fingerprints.

this is the only way to die-
at the hands of a stranger i wanted so much,
who could see my entire life at once
by reading my heart's pulp like tea leaves.

i crush all of my thoughts-
seizing those fleeting-
and put them right back into me.

my arm looks like a mood ring.

green for envy
and blue for broken.
black and purple,
both pathetic.
yellow is yellow.

when my skin fades back
to it's dowdy, cloudy white,
i'll know
i'm numb
again.

no color, no feeling.

i have a nosebleed
and i breathe steam
seamlessly from this black hole,
******* life-air away
from those who actually
deserve
to live.

why this blood-red mud
frightens my friends
i'll never know-
it's me! so real!
me, the drinkable.
me, so easily consumable.
me, in a manipulative form.

my clay brain, melted,
sliding through my nose,
it brings the *****
little piece
of **** that i am
out into the light

where everyone can see it.

i don’t want to feel
like poetry
is a chore, like i’m
choosing to pour my thoughts
out of my head
instead of doing it
because i can’t
stop it from spilling.

can a person really
write a poem about
indifference? can i write
about how i’m sad
at my apathy?

i guess i’d give the gift away
for a life
of active living.

i think moving on
of any sort
means adding
potential moments, lost,
to the list of things you grieve
just every once
in a quiet while.

was it not enough
that i loved you and
you loved me?
(and i was never even sure
of the latter
until you said it
right before you tried
to **** yourself
for the ninth time or so.)

you never said it
out loud,
not in specific terms,
not right to me;
my best friends told me
that is why
i should be wary
of how strongly i felt
about you.

but i'm the one
you thought you should say
your last "i love you" to,
the one to show all of your
pretty black and white
versions of pretty flowers
to. i'm dying, trying to
think of what your
night garden looks like
and where in it you wanted
your best friend to find you.

i must reinvent
so my friends will forget and
strangers will want to.

i liked you best when
you were sleeping: your face still,
your problems all gone.