did you know that
there's no such thing as
a perfect name?

one day i'm catherine
and in the next breath, esther -
boudica, scathach, chiang;
virginia, sacagawea, rosalind.

i change like the ocean
so don't try to name me.
don't try to limit me.

you cannot keep me
from being great.

what a strange species we are.

to burn so brightly for a lifetime
that we might have stolen the sun.

to die heartbeats later, light wasted,
remembered only in your photographs.

we are ready for the rule
but never for the fall

i'm a firework disaster
a monstrous tragedy

an essence of all the things
you hoped you'd never be

and i made myself this way
in the name of revenge

because of what you
did and didn't do

leap from rooftops in your dreams.
pretend to be a hero there,
so when you wake,
the coward will retreat
and the leader rise.

DEPRESSION NEVER HURTS AND
THAT'S WHAT SCARES ME -

THIS NOT FEELING ANYTHING
FEELS NUMB

AND MAYBE SOMEDAY
I'LL TELL YOU
HOW WE FIRST DIED

knowledge is power,
but the truth is terrible and great.

i don't want to be beautiful.
too often, beautiful things do not last.

but at the same time,
your words make me feel
like my skin is incandescent,
despite the shadowstains
of my soul.

flowers that shiver
grass that dies
and love that lasts

"and you really think
that i will let you
take this from me?

"i may not be mine,
but i'm sure as hell
not yours."

i hope we always remember this moment,
but what i hope we never forget
is this feeling

the people here do not stand
for the sky has fallen—

now, they crawl beneath
crumpled edifice and shattered glass
moaning trees and long-dead birdsong—

now, they crawl beneath their own skins
and try to remember
when they last saw the sun—

she dies on a friday.
gets buried on sunday.

it's bright and beautiful and
she thinks she should've loved it
but you can't see the sky
from underground.

the mourners are insincere
with false words, false grief.
they're the ones who killed her
and now the ones to bury her.

the script is elegant and flowing,
something she would have hated.
she always wanted to be cremated.
it takes up less space.

the gravestone reads:
*MY AUTONOMY.

i think i might be iphigenia.
everyone sacrifices me
for the "greater good".

you dream like the moon,

craters shattered
in light-drawn shadows,

a darker side
the world will not see

in this world -

juliet poisons the city
with the ashes of her ancestors
and burns romeo's bones.
the feud is ended because
no one is left to carry it on.

desdemona drowns iago
under the willow tree.
they say there's a nymph here,
one with madness in her bones,
and when iago stops breathing
desdemona does not leave.

ophelia, the nymph says.

juliet watches them,
floating in their shadows,
and holds out for a sunset
before she jumps.

(they tell stories of three nymphs
underneath a willow tree.
the nymphs do not mind
that no one remembers their names.)

it's funny that we bruise black and blue
when the anger behind them is so clearly red

i cried so much that
my heart filled with tears.

my blood got evicted.
now zhe goes to the library
and sits next to hope.

your words slip down my throat like flat coke
sweet, cloying, leached of emotion
i do not know when you grew old
but i know that now you're just
unsatisfying

there is a fine line between "doing better" and "doing well".
do not spend your life obsessed with the former.

i can't say i loved you like some hero of old
the greatest beast i've had to fight is a
man who told me girls couldn't do
anything (and yeah, i proved him wrong, but
he left thinking me the exception,
not the rule)

don't treat me as othello, far from home and struck
down with words stronger than desdemon's love
the moor was everything i'm not

don't call me boudica
don't call me scathach or aoife -
the reason their once-bright flames are
so captivating is that their hearts were strong and
more alive than their eyes (which
danced with fire even as they died)
they were heroes and i am here

i couldn't love you like a warrior,
conquistador,
ruler -
yet.
but it's what's coming that matters,
not what came. (of course i can't love you with
fire not yet mine.

it will be.)

we are strangers in this world,
far from our homes in the night.

everything we touch burns.
at our core is the impossible
and it fascinates the beings we meet.

dying stars feel only peace.
human bodies are powerless against them
but they feel joygrieflovedespairmore.

we are fallen constellations
yet this backdrop of terra nova
is more beautiful than the sky.

welcome to the chaos of
my falsified being

truly, i lie elsewhere -
among grass blades
and glass leaves

truly, i lie elsewhere -
in a sea of solitude,
a tear-stained beach

here's where my glory lies:
in a desert oasis,
in a mountain's breath

no, no, that's not right -

here's where my glory lies:
i am not glorious.

here's where my secrets hide:
on the edges of my words
as they burst into starstorms

this destruction helps only i

i can take starstorms from my lips
oh, watch them conquer!

an epidemic,
an infectious disease

they spread like the leaves
that gleam silver-green

like ideas.............

(this explosion will be
another nagasaki)

i can take starstorms from my lips
and they spread like the lies they are

"how are you not tired of being?"
*the adrenaline of love

sometimes i wish i'd never been born
because then i wouldn't want to die

she may hurt, but she is not pain.
she may fail, but she is not a failure.
she may be tragic, but she is not tragedy.

*she may feel worthless,
but this, too, will pass.

if your mind feels like
a washing machine on high
are you insane?
or are you just
*human?