angels fall like fireworks
sizzling
crackling-divinity
sparking on skin-burning
brightly
as i held him tightly
as i held him as if i’d die if he would let go

he let go

and i fell, falling like a shooting star
silently screaming as my splayed heart strangely kept beating
“i love you, aziraphale and all that you are” and my love looked down
and i saw him weep
(for me
for me!
Because of me)
i saw the tears from all his eyes run down his face into the sky
as he told me “you and i, all that we are, i will find you again no matter how far
away you land
a thud on the sand
a splash in the sea
i’ll find you again
please!
wait for me”

i fell and angels all around me screamed out their dying cries
i fell and thought the fire all around me was surely nothing but lies
i fell and saw all around me it was better to be ignorant than wise
i fell and the stars all around me fell too, falling through the skies

i fell but i could not stop watching his eyes
those endlessly seeing
Throughout all my being
brilliantly ****** eyes

and i thought to myself
what else
could i possibly want to see
then his eyes crying for me
why would i want to see my life without him
a life with no hand in mine
a life spent twisting my spine
a life with wings bound in twine
a life with no sign of the Divine

oh MOTHER
why would you do this
why must you cast me away
i’d beg and i’d barter
(don’t make me a martyr!)
anything for a chance to stay

oh mother doesn’t listen
oh mother doesn’t care
oh mother i cry out; my tears glisten
oh mother are you there?

no one is there and i’m all alone and sometimes i wish i was made of stone
or better yet,
a galaxy
-brilliant and bold-
no pain to be had, no story to be told
just light all round me
light from the burning, turning sun

the sun, the sun it glows so bright
it feels warm, like a hug from him (so tight!)
so golden, so glittering
so molten, so obliterating
so like his countless tears

what is there for me to look for?
what is there for me to find?
the battle is over; they won the war
and i'm lost to him for all of time

oh sun please don’t listen
oh sun please don’t care
i cry out as my tears glisten
oh sun please just be there

burn my eyes black and haunted
burn them like these wings, undaunted
by the tar upon them

destroy my eyes so completely
so the only thing that can run so fleetly
through my mind is his eyes weeping so sweetly
as She casts me out and the kingdom is restored so neatly

burn them black, i tell you
burn them like i fell, oh hell, you!
burn them crisp, oh i smell you!
oh sun, you lovely ball of fire
grant me this, my one desire
make me blind so all i see
is him
weeping for me

…

it did not work
sun, you failed me

they are not black and haunted
they are not blind and bleeding
they are sickly, ickly yellow
and somehow always needing
to see him again

Unable to perceive the shape of you,
I find you all around me

Here you are in the wind
That buffets and curls around me
Fingers composed of gusts
Brush a lock of hair this way
Then that way
Then this way again

I chuckle
I laugh
I wonder if it’s you making me how you want me

I discover you in my bed
In the softness of clean-smelling sheets
Would your fingers dance across my shoulders like my sheet as I toss and turn?
It’s your legs tangling around mine

I close my eyes

It’s your legs tangling around mine
Keeping me close
Keeping me with you
In this bed

It’s your legs tangling around mine
Not the quilt twisted around my feet like shackles made of cotton and embroidery thread

I still
I shudder
I shiver
Is that you I feel pressed against my back?

I find you in the accidental embrace of a pillow
Reflecting my own heat back like a heated touch
I find your exhaling breath landing warm behind my ear
In the whisper of wind that creeps through my window

I don’t look for the shape of you
I find you all around me

a kiss sounds a bit messy
too much saliva
the taste of breath

it’s the after-the-kiss that i like
(the before is good too)
but the after

oh

the closeness
the intimacy
the sweetness of it

nuzzles and breathless laughs and endless smiles
two people tucked so perfectly
into the gentle hollows of each other

i want it
i want to be breathless with you
noses touching
fingers brushing
two people loving

hands shake a little
tremors in the wrist
as my fingers touch
you, light as a summer mist

the feeling fills me full
this sensation of bliss
it’s so good, so very good
this lovely after-the-kiss

i would close my eyes
to just breathe you in

the points of contact:
(where i feel you)
nose
fingers
arm
waist
knees

where i feel my pulse:
(it’s everywhere, like the scent of you)
behind both ears
left side of my neck
right wrist near veins
inner right knee
arch of my left foot
under my jaw

too many places

am i dying

that feels like a possible outcome

i’ll die happy
ecstatic
in love
terrified
content
safe
and sound

so many things i feel
so many things to list
there is so much, almost
too much, about
this lovely after-the-kiss

I want someone who,
When I say

I’m useless.
I shouldn’t be alive!
Why not **** myself?

To say

I’d miss you

Words on a page
Put me in a daze
Put me in a trance
It's a solemn sort of dance

Aye my life is a solemn sort of moment
My night is of a solemn sort
A solemn sort?
A sort that is solemn

What does solemn mean?
Can you give an example
Sure! the child was solemn
Before he got trampled

Oh God no! One less horrific
But a solemn child is horrifying
Now isn’t that terrific?

No, it’s not at all!
Who are you to say what’s not?
After all, what have you been taught?
I’ll tell you what-absolutely naught!

I’ve been taught!
Yes taught by me
You are just a piece
Of machinery
A clog in my pain
Clogging up my brain
Making me inebriate
I’m drunk on my thoughts
And I can’t see straight

I can help you!
No you can’t!
I know where your help leads to!
Me drowning in the deep blue
Either of my tears or the ocean
Drowned until I cannot make a motion
Who needs alcohol when you are me?
And you are me, you piece of machinery

The bathrooms in my school
Smell like period blood
And periods spent crying in the stalls

How many girls have wandered these halls
To find comfort in a grey plastic stress room
With all the toilet paper you want
To squeeze like a stress ball

All the wall space you need
To write how you feel
About everything

There are sinks to wash away your tears
And mirrors too blurred and cracked to tell if you’ve cried

No one goes near the last stall
And if you start crying
Everyone will ignore you

As I sit on the scarily warm toilet seat
Staring at the door hinge
And contemplating my poor life choices

There is comfort in knowing so many have walked in my footsteps
Slow painful struggles
Or
Quick furtive escapes
To the bathroom

To be alone

My darkness rises
Slowly and seductively
From a pool of despair
She reaches out a clawed and oozing hand
And her eyes are black as midnight

I turn and hide in you, my love
I hold you as tight as I can
I whisper to you, my love
“Hold me while you can”

You wrap your arms around me
Closer until we are one
All I can see is you
All I smell is you
All I touch is you
All I can hear is your heartbeat
Slow and steady
Not her whispers

I’m scared to let you go
I don’t want to face her again
Because, my love, I know
I might not see you again

Her eyes will pull me closer
Close enough for her hands to drag me down
I will choke and drown on darkness

So don’t let me go
I won’t let you go!
Hold me until I forget why I’m hiding
Tell me when she’s gone

I run
And
The world turns to the pavement beneath my shoes,
My gasps for more air,
And
The pain in my thighs

I run and I can only focus on one thing
The running
And occasionally something
Flits through my mind

Bits of songs decide to worm their way into my brain
And I hear them in my forceful exhales
And gasping inhales of breath

I run to the end of someone’s yard
And then to the end of the next
And the next
And the next

And I run until
My chest is considering throwing itself out of my body
My mouth is dry and swallowing hurts
My legs seize up and refuse to move

And I could run more
But I don’t

Because I can’t even do that

They came, I heard them clear, on a windy white winter's night
Their eyes were shadowed and dark, their torches burning bright
They pried the family from their beds, and beat him in the street
They took her and then left her, dying at her husband's cold feet
Then they turned to walk away, for they would not harm a child
A fair and lovely thing was she, but now she looked quite wild
She grabbed a nearby knife and gave her neck a pretty red bow
And then she fell with a muffled thud, making an angel in the snow

Walking on the open road
If you look down
Eyes on the ground
You could be anywhere
Not this little town

The mud turns to gravel
And the gravel turns to grass
The grass runs alongside the asphalt
And there is mud on the road
In little brown dabbles

The road keeps going
And challenges you to go too
Walk like you know where you’re going
And eventually you’ll get through

My hands are small
My knees are bruised
My ankles,
Undefined

My eyes are far apart
My chest flat like a boy’s
My skin,
It itches

But

These are the hands that hold a friend up
These are the hands that write
These are the hands that gesticulate wildly
Bringing laughter and sometimes, delight

These are the knees that balance me
When I’m high, very high up
These are the knees that walk with me
And keep me standing up

These are the ankles that kick
These are the ankles that walk
These are the ankles that pick
What street to wander, what block

These eyes are the ones that show me all
These are eyes that can see
These are eyes so dark blue
Blue as the deep, very deep sea

This is the chest
Flat as a boy’s
Which, honestly, I like
Perhaps I will hide as a boy
And do whatever I like

And my skin, this skin of mine
What should I do with you?
I scratch and the pain wakes me up
I scratch and I feel alive
So I guess nothing
Is what I will do

My computer shines in the night
Calling like a siren song
A blank Google Doc
I could write you all night long

The keys light up
Showing me the way
Tomorrow I have school
But tonight is still today

The sounds my fingers make
Marching across the keys
Words and writings and rhymes
Buffet me like a sea breeze

I type and type and type
And there is still more
My hands, fast and beautiful
Like a wave hitting a shore

Some of this is bad
Some of it is good
Some will be great
Like I always knew I could

And in the days to come
I will fix my errors
But I have to remember how I felt
The night madness and night terrors

The feeling of touch is addicting
To say the least
What will a touch awaken?
The kitten or the beast

You held me
And my back shivers hours later
You hugged me
And now I don't ever want to let go

There is a need
There is a want
And I can't seem to turn it off

Maybe I don't want to

I am drunk on depression
And high on helplessness
Maybe one more bad decision
Will cure my restlessness

Will your kiss save me?
Or push me further down
Will you reach out and save me?
Or be like the rest and let me drown

What’s one more mistake
In a life led by them
One more thing to keep me awake
I have so many of them

The bass of my neighbor’s music
Pounds in the floorboards
Reverberates in the walls
And pulses through my bare feet

I lose myself in it
In the sounds
That sounds like an irregular heartbeat

And I think about what makes
My heartbeat sound like that

And I smile

Hungrily

My hands are small
My knees are bruised
My ankles,
Undefined

My eyes are far apart
My chest flat like a boy’s
My skin,
It itches

But

These are the hands that hold a friend up
These are the hands that write
These are the hands that gesticulate wildly
Bringing laughter and sometimes, delight

These are the knees that balance me
When I’m high, very high up
These are the knees that walk with me
And keep me standing up

These are the ankles that kick
These are the ankles that walk
These are the ankles that pick
What street to wander, what block

These eyes are the ones that show me all
These are eyes that can see
These are eyes so dark blue
Blue as the deep, very deep sea

This is the chest
Flat as a boy’s
Which, honestly, I like
Perhaps I will hide as a boy
And do whatever I like

And my skin, this skin of mine
What should I do with you?
I scratch and the pain wakes me up
I scratch and I feel alive
So I guess nothing
Is what I will do

My computer shines in the night
Calling like a siren song
A blank Google Doc
I could write you all night long

The keys light up
Showing me the way
Tomorrow I have school
But tonight is still today

The sounds my fingers make
Marching across the keys
Words and writings and rhymes
Buffet me like a sea breeze

I type and type and type
And there is still more
My hands, fast and beautiful
Like a wave hitting a shore

Some of this is bad
Some of it is good
Some will be great
Like I always knew I could

And in the days to come
I will fix my errors
But I have to remember how I felt
The night madness and night terrors

I am drunk on depression
And high on helplessness
Maybe one more bad decision
Will cure my restlessness

It’s a writing-poetry-past-midnight
Kind of night
Writing until light
Hurts my eyes
And the pain
Breaks my mind
Kind of night

It’s a tossing-and-turning-while-my-forehead’s-burning
Kind of night
Trying to go to sleep with all my might
But staying awake until I see light
And then falling asleep

It’s a whispers-in-the-dark-that-will-soon-be-poems
Kind of night
When I climb and clamber out of bed
To my desk and computer
Before the poems go right back out of my head

Writing in candlelight
Candlelight from Costco
The words look vibrant
Against the white page
Flowing across the page
My trusty quill,
A black fine point Sharpie
Firmly in my grip
The grip that every elementary school teacher
Tried in vain to talk me out of

A stinging pain
An open cut
Bruised knuckles
And red eyes
Reminders of last night

Last night when I punched a cardboard box to death
It’s a poor girl’s punching bag
It works

The dull, thudding beat of my fists
Accentuated by tears dropping and dripping
To the floor
And the stray stifled sob
That breaks free
And embarrasses me

Enough
Enough!
The voice inside me cries
Enough, enough, enough!
Enough of the betrayal, distrust, and lies
Enough of the lust, love, and heartbreak!
Too many, too many emotions
That make my heart break

Too many nights with no one to hold
Too many hours hiding, afraid to be bold
Too many shivers down my spine that make me cold
Too many times when I think I’ll never grow old

The words and the rhymes
I spit out
Pacing my room
Trying to make sense of these feelings
Before the consume
Me

Until there’s nothing left
So words and rhymes are all I have left
To make sense of this
Broken pain
Wild joy
Violent grief
Cursed longing
And the emptiness
Deep
Inside

The thing I like about poetry is
You can end a poem any way you want
If you are stuck
Just stop.
Throw
In
Some
Strange formatting
And
You’re
Good
To

as black as a nightmare
and the land where nightmares lie
as black as death
and the heart of a man about to die

This emptiness inside of me
I don’t know why it’s there
It coils and strikes
Hisses and bites
And then leaves me bare

There is something missing
And I don’t know what it is
There is a hole to fill
And I don’t know what to fill it with

Drown me in drink
Dissolve me with drugs
Make it so I cannot think
Cannot think of the sun
Fighting through the clouds
Cannot think of the sun
Up up above

My loneliness is in my bed
Teasing me
Almost becoming a body
But remaining a cold
dark
mute
Thing
In my bed

I feel it lie against me
In a mockery of a man
It will not let me be
It hurts me because it can

My loneliness reminds me
Of everything I can not be
Of everything I’m not
And the things I’ll never see

Like an arm across my shoulder
With the hand entwined in mine
The arm and hand’s owner behind me
Solid and warm and mine

My loneliness is in my bed
Making me lose my mind
My loneliness is in my bed
But at least my loneliness is mine

Where oh where
The cat inside me howls
Where is my mate?
He whose growls
Slither up my spine
Taking their time
Enfold me, unwind me
Control me, bind me
To him

Where has he gone?
It hasn’t been long
But where did he go?
I don’t know, I don’t know

Where is my other half?
He who makes me smile
He who makes me laugh
He who makes me wild
Where is my other half?

They say the eyes are the
windows to the soul
If that is true
what will mine tell you
that they have not already told?

O Captain! My Space Captain
Our food is all out
The men have nothing to do;
They are running all about.

O Captain! My Space Captain
The pet hamster go into the fuel
He died and decomposition made it like gruel.

O Captain! My Space Captain
We surely will starve!
All we had left was ravioli
But Cadet Capioli has ate it all!

O Captain! My Space Captain
Our end is drawing near
Never again will I see my friends
Or anything else I hold dear.

O Captain! My Space Captain
Why aren’t you responding?
I tell you we soon will be dead
But you sit in your chair pondering!

O Captain! My Space Captain
I fear that you are already dead
Well I shall walk to my death
Like a man, not bowed down with dread

O Captain! My Space Captain
It has been an honor to serve
A man of your ability and nerve
Farewell my once temporary now permanent home!
Never again will I look at the stars
And see where I wish to roam.

O Captain! My Space Captain
I am too young! What cruel twist of fate
Leaves me dead and floating in space
Never again to do anything I love!

O Captain! My Space Captain
We are about to crash into a star
Goodbye living! Goodbye life!
Goodbye children! Goodbye wife!

O Captain! My Space Captain…

Goodbye.

I put my hand up against your chest
And feel the corresponding beat in mine
This is the rhythm of my life
Slow and steady
Unless
I am breathing you
Then it is wild

I want someone who,
When I say

I’m useless.
I shouldn’t be alive!
Why not **** myself?

To say

I’d miss you

A man is made of angles and lines
Drawn swiftly
With great confidence and unleashed power
In black charcoal on white paper
A Study in Contrast

A woman is a thing of curves and hollows
Drawn over and over
At times swiftly and at times softly
Until she comes to life

A man can wander these hollows
As a woman can fall into a man’s
Ridges and crevices

And the woman softens the man
Has him curve over her
And the man tightens the woman
Until she is taut and ready to strike

A poet is often in darkness
Even when we are young

The nights I strode surely
Then stumbled
On the dark and moonless journey
From my desk to my bed
My lamp being frantically turned off moments before
For there was a sound
That could have been my parents

I had climbed out of bed
Carefully and quietly
The phrases and words and ideas
I had created moments before
still
Darting and flying and hiding and crying
In my head

My heart is beating
And I think I'm going to faint

Is this what love feels like?

Just wanting to stare into your eyes until you have no choice but to sweep me into your arms
Hold me against the wall
Never let me fall
Never let go at all

I can’t live like this anymore
If I die tomorrow
Won’t I be happier if I lived first?

But what if you say no
Dealing with rejection is healthy right?

You’ll never know until you ask
So will you

Like,
you know,

Hold me against the wall
Never let me fall
Never let go at all

I like to imagine you in my shower
You are one tile height above my head
I start at your hair
A brown and down to your shoulders
Brown eyes
With depth, shades, and windows
Your mouth
Ready to kiss
And then the shower peals out its death squeals
And you shatter into shampoo foam
At the bottom of my tub

I'm barely breathing, barely breathing
How can you not tell?
I'm barely breathing, barely breathing
Can you see how far I've fell?

My heart is thumping, heart is thumping
How can you not hear?
My heart is thumping, heart is thumping
It happens when you're near

My legs are shaking, legs are shaking
How can you not see?
My legs are shaking, legs are shaking
It started when you smiled at me

My breathing falters, breathing falters
whenever you pull me close
My breathing falters, breathing falter
Now we are nose to nose

I love you so much, love you so much
So much that it hurts
I love you so much, love you so much
when you say it back you make it worse

I know you love me, know you love me
I know it from everything you do
I know you love me, know you love me
It will be just me and you

A blank page
Where I can write a story
A story of you and me one night
And no one will ever know if it’s true

You follow me out the doors at the school dance
As I head to the bathroom
And when I turn around a corner
you catch up and reach out

To pull me behind a statue
You lean into me and I into you

And this story could end so many ways
It could last for minutes, hours or days
But
I think,
At the very end there is a

Happily Ever After

Where oh where
The cat inside me howls
Where is my mate?
He whose growls
Slither up my spine
Taking their time
Enfold me, unwind me
Control me, bind me
To him

Where has he gone?
It hasn’t been long
But where did he go?
I don’t know, I don’t know

Where is my other half?
He who makes me smile
He who makes me laugh
He who makes me wild
Where is my other half?

Words on a page
Put me in a daze
Put me in a trance
It's a solemn sort of dance

Aye my life is a solemn sort of moment
My night is of a solemn sort
A solemn sort?
A sort that is solemn

What does solemn mean?
Can you give an example
Sure! the child was solemn
Before he got trampled

Oh God no! One less horrific
But a solemn child is horrifying
Now isn’t that terrific?

No it’s not at all!
Who are you to say what’s not?
After all, what have you been taught?
I’ll tell you what-absolutely naught!

I’ve been taught!
Yes taught by me
You are just a piece
Of machinery
A clog in my pain
Clogging up my brain
Making me inebriate
I’m drunk on my thoughts
And I can’t see straight

I can help you!
No you can’t!
I know where your help leads to!
Me drowning in the deep blue
Either of my tears or the ocean
Drowned until I cannot make a motion
Who needs alcohol when you are me?
And you are me, you piece of machinery

Turning in my bed
Sheets twisted around me
Feet cold
Arms too hot
I feel my forehead
Too hot
Put it against the bed frame
That’s better

Feelings in my heart
Below my rib cage aches
My head is filled with shapeless forms
Dancing and fighting and loving
Random lines from books float in my head
I remember a song
And start to cry
I think of how every day a sloth is run over by a car
They don’t deserve that

if I die tomorrow
Have I lived my life well
Will I got to Heaven
Or sink straight down to Hell

Did I live
It up
Did I give
From my cup

Did I love him right
Did I hurt him instead
Did I waste those sleepless nights
By staying alone in bed

Why do I get to live
And others die
Why do the evil live
And the good die

A cat is not a person

I wrap myself around my cat
An arm slung across her back
My cat purrs and tries to lick my arm
So I move my arm back

There is a warm body against me
But it’s not who I want
I don’t want just anybody
There is someone I want

A cat is a poor substitute for a boy
A boy or a man?
What do you call a teenager

It’s getting colder

Everywhere

Purr
Says my cat

I love you
Says the boy in my dreams

I don’t like you like that
Says the boy in reality

Well **** me
Says I

I am never alone
So I am never lonely
There are voices in my head that won’t leave me alone, you see

Memories in the dark
soon become dreams

It's like

I'm on the edge of a pit
I start to fall in
so I turn around
and look back
I don't know
how to scream
so no one knows

I fall in
and then get angry
no one caught me

and it is so hard to get out

i am lost i am lost
And there's no one to find me
i am gone i am gone
Didn’t even look behind me

The world is spinning spinning
And im falling falling
And i steady myself with Them
And then i realize what i am
And i push Them away until I fall down

There was heaven
And there was hell
There was the falling
And those who have fell

There was soft shapes
And hard points
There was limber muscles
And then, stiff joints

They say opposites attract
Well in my dreams that’s true
Because in my dream last night
There was me and there was you

Is this heaven
Is this hell
Do you love me
I can’t tell

I am stuck
Teetering on the brink
I am living in muck
And I’m starting to sink

What is this place
Who have I become
I can’t feel my face
I am numb

What am I to do
How can I escape
I could call out to you
But I fear it’s too late

Why I am forsaken
Why am I alone
My love was taken
Now my heart is stone

"Oh no, my lady. This is your bed”
Purr
“Thank you for allowing me to sleep here”
Mrow
“Of course! That is such urgent news that needs to be conveyed at 1 in the morning”
Purr
“Thank you, my queen, my goddess, my reason for existence”
Meow
“for repeatedly cleaning one spot on my thumb”
Mreooow
“Goodnight”
MRAAAeowaaah