I never write poetry
I write crap in line breaks

sometimes I feel very very small*

I am here
on the bed
a cocoon
fighting desperately to be a butterfly

you are there
a bird
big strong wings waiting
to eat me.

I am small
like a loose thread from an old sweater
moving against fingertips
you could roll me into a ball

and you are the smudge on the window pane
that this ball cannot wipe away.

I am the small drop on the shower head
clinging, trepid,
anticipating my great fall

you are the hairs on the shower drain
not going anywhere
stuck
hindering the flow.

I am small
and I am tired of you

I am sick of the parts of you still in me.

I am the cocoon
desperate
-ly fighting
to be

aching for freedom
I break my mattress cage

I crumble, choke, struggle
instead of fly

The feathers in my pillow
are yours

now,


smother me.

my life consists of needing mirrors
to remind myself
that I am not invisible

you have taken parts of me
and thrown them away without question
without regret.

the ease with which you let me go
echoes within me
like a "*******" spoken in church

a crack on the pane
of the room's only window.

you were not a liar
but you made yourself one

and I say that I do not hate you
because I've forgiven you

but you made that a lie also
you shaped it so that the reason for my lack of hate
is that I can no longer bring myself to care.

I will smile when I see you
because you can no longer hurt me.

your apathy shook me
like an antique chandelier
just before it crashes to the ground

and the fact that you read my poetry
and feel nothing
makes me shiver

you are cold.

you are the corpse frozen in indifference
a dead heart pumping the liquid
of fake tears.

you look and move like you used to
but I can see the stitches in your skin
the glassy, empty, gaze in your eyes

you are a monster
but I am no longer afraid.

I drop my torch and pitchfork
and watch you
destroy all the things that we built.

I raise my palms

and warm myself by the fire.

the truth is
I want to die
but the truth is
my death
would hurt more
people
than my life.

for in living
it is only I who suffers.

and I have discovered
that the greatest pain
is not in being hated,
but in being ignored.

and sadly
the only way for anyone
to really understand what I meant by that

is to live through a life
of being overlooked.

of speaking
and never being heard.

of wearing masks
so everyone can stand being around you.

of being constantly told
that you are fine
when deep down you know your truth.

of using tears
to clean your face
just so you can smile once more.

being frustrated
at your inability to articulate
these feelings into words,
failing to realize that there is no way
that they could understand what you mean

because what you experience,
this personal hell,
is not in their scope
of existence.

I could go on
but their voices have seeped into all my cracks
"it's all in your head"
"get over it"
"you're just being dramatic"
and I end up judging myself

feeling less like a person
and more like a thing
that was made wrong.

a misfit
a mistake
a dysfunctional
an oddity
an alien
a ****** up
overdramatic attention-seeker.

everyone has ****
why can't you keep yours in line?

everyone has pain
why can't you fix yourself?

just talk about it.

let it out.

it's easy.

what is wrong with you?
why can't you just tell me?

I hide tears away like illegal contraband
feelings that should not be indulged.

I wear smiles like special passes
so I can weave my way around society.

and all I really want
is a little patience
a little acceptance.

I'm not too much of a freak
that I cannot be loved.

I promise I'm not so bad.

just give me some time
I'll be good

please?

Static electricity is an imbalance
of electric charges

If your words are so weightless
why is it so hard to let go?

maybe love is static electricity

a transfer
in hopes of striking a balance.

erratic exchange
back and forth
insults and compliments
good and bad

static electric charge is created
when two surfaces contact and separate,
and one of the surfaces
has a high resistance to electrical current*

you got more than you gave
******* insulator
contact and separate

contact
separate
you left me, a hot wire
waiting to explode
starving for peace

and your lies are rubber balloons
sticking to my cotton heart

cloth grown thin from trying to scrape past
the rough edges of broken promises

and the more I try to wipe the lies
to see them clearly
the more they cling to me.

Like poison
I feel myself dying slowly
you are killing me
without even touching me,
the hair on my arms rising
from the chill of what you've become

I found a sketch
I did

of your face.

I am careful
as my fingers pinch the edge
feeling the straight line

one hand separating from the other.

I start from the top
and end in the bottom.
going the same direction as
us.

I am careful
as I rip away the shreds of you.

careful to destroy every semblance
to the face I tried to capture.

for the honesty that existed there
was one that my own hands
and eyes
added

and it is
in the mass of the irregular
white pieces
and gray lines

that I see the truth of you.

I grasp the pieces in my palms
and clasp
and feel
as they rest in the spaces
between my fingers

it is in this mass
of shapeless nothingness

that I begin to really feel

you.

he knows it's justified
to **** to survive*

dark thoughts still come sometimes
but I think I'm going to be all right.

I write "you exist"
on the fragility of my wrist
because I need to remind myself
that this isn't a nightmare
and life has good parts too.

I need these words to fetter me
as if I were something solid
because I haven't felt that lately

I am the dead leaf
detached from branches
broken off from life

I am the echo in the mountain
too late
belonging to no one

I am the carving on the tree trunk
a reminder of a love already gone
fading, unnoticed

I am the falling star
burning, blazing
dead a million years.

I am nothing
but I exist.

I exist.

I used to enter the coffins of bathroom stalls
to dance my weird away
to be free  from prying eyes…
now, they are chambers for my sadness
too small to hold it all

they are the mummy's sarcophagus
and I am cursed with your ghost.

I am
lonely

but the only place
large enough to hold all this loneliness
are your wide open arms.

"move on"
you said.
as if it was easy
like loving you,
as if it wasn't more
like dismantling pyramids from the top
down with a toothpick and an unsteady hand.

someday you will choose to love
but I am not the girl
to change your mind.

I am slowly accepting your death
brushing the dirt off of artifacts:
the way you held me
like an ancient civilization’s most precious deity,
late night walks
through labyrinths, with no wish for threads of return
jazz concerts, green jokes,
our staple, our oral tradition
and food always parted at the middle
a sacrifice for all the hopes we had
in this dating ritual.

you will never be the you that I once knew,
that you is dead
mummified,

existing only in my memory
like a brain kept in a jar
away from the rest of you.

This new you
(the only you that exists)
is a stranger
a different person
an un-dug desert, jungle un-ventured

and though
I grieve for he who has died
it would be stupid to dig up his grave
inside of you.

have a God,
be a deist instead
then marry me,
the mediocre Catholic.

let's have children,
let's not have children
because "Parents, they ******* up."
but you'd make a great dad
I think
yes? no?
maybe?
and I'd make a great mom...
...sort of.

We'd love them (the children or child..whichever)
and we'd be weird
so they'd (or he or she..again, whichever) be weird
and their friends would say,
"Who the **** are The Beatles?"

Eh...let's not get married
yet.
let's hold hands first
or be together a year
or get through one meal without having to giggle and look away
because I caught you staring at me
or was it me who was...never mind.

Now I'm studying my hands,
the ones you have not held,
the ones with the ugly, fat, stubby, unlady-like fingers
the same fingers you said you loved.

you're such an idiot sometimes.

Remember that time you said I was beautiful?
which time?
oh right, you've said it more than once;

you idiot.

Do you notice how when you're not looking at me
I stare at your face?
your eyes?
your lips?
your perfect lashes?
No?

good.

I should stop now.
see you soon,
you

idiot.