You bought me sunflowers last Saturday
because you like the yellow orchestra we can
listen to, but you do not have to direct.
It plays a private concert only for you.
I play a few notes here and there too,
but nothing can compare to sunflowers.

I compare lots of things to
flowers,
like your eyes.
You do something to my insides
I cannot explain
in a metaphor to flowers.

You planted a gilded seed.
It grew faster than any ****;
more delicious than homemade irish mead.

Sun shining, birds chirping, children playing-
all of this-
sounds like life’s decaying
because you’re not next to me.

You make oxygen more than a box on the periodic table.

I’m not suggesting I’m unable
to perform tasks without you.
I’m used to ashes in my coffee cup.
Your presence seems to open up
cold sunflowers.
You set ablaze the sun’s powers.
I could go on like this for hours
about the love you built;
iridescent solid sunflowers

Marsha Lenihan once wrote, "People with BPD are like people with third degree burns all over their body, lacking emotional skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement."

I used to cry when I said goodbye to my father after our weekly Tuesday night dinners
I'd play out games of Go fish and Rummy like there was no winner, but I was victorious next
to my daddy.  
His eyes still crinkle in the corners and his smell will always be long car rides with blankets, books on tape, and a wide range of conversations even though he was always late
But I'd weep like he actually just dropped dead every Tuesday night because I was petrified

My small but portly frame would crumple and I would mumble the worries I was too scared to say
I was afraid I'd see my daddy for the last time that day
I thought I had asthma because I was always fat and sometimes choked on the air in my lungs as if it was strangling me but I had my first panic attack in grade three

I was sitting in Mrs. Arlotta's classroom ladida
just like any other story about a schoolday when I was punched in the stomach
with a fist of "I miss my ******* dad"
there was this bully beating the **** out of me with no prologues warning
Just to remind me Despair
is not some abandoned pit people place their pity into
Despair, can be like an earwig, you use hope like tissues to squash out intrusion
but earwigs are smart, experts at delusion
earwigs know where to hide until you go to sleep

Every other weekend I used to sleep at my dads house with his british girlfriend
and his lovely cats and soothing hot tub
and his british girlfriend
and the fireplaces and the tribal music
and the british girlfriend
and the beautiful homemade pond and the greenhouse
and the british girlfriend

I liked roasting marshamallows until their crisp outer layer began to bubble but not for too long for if they fell in the fire there was trouble
Bort are you seriously letting the girl eat sweets tonight, god knows she doesn't need them

I liked riding my bike through Elizabeth park their flower garden was absolutley breathtaking
"you know Haley if you got off your *** more often moving your legs wouldn't be such a chore"

And I loved dinners with freshly picked herbs and seasonal tablecloths tucked in the curbs
"go ahead, have another helping, you're just like your mother, disgusting"

Well Karen I hope I'm like her and I hope she's disgusting
I hope she tasted disgusting on the leftover edges of my fathers lips
when you two were thrusting, could you also taste the hasty goodbyes he tossed like
rubber ducks to a family
waiting in line for him to come home
and waiting and waiting for him to never ******* come home

I loved my dad.
yes despair was everywhere but seeing my dad was like finding religion
if a child could comprehend the task of going to church

Christine Ann Lawson once wrote, " The borderling queen expreiances what therapists call oral greediness.  the desperate hunger of the borderline queen is a kin to the behavior of an infant who had gone too long between feedings.  Starved, frustrated, and beyond the ability to calm or sooth herself, she grabs, flails, wails until the last ****** is planted securely and perhaps too deeply in her mouth.  She coughs, gags, chokes, spits eyeing the elusive breast like a wolf guarding her food.  Similarily, the queen holds onto what is hers taking more than she could use, in case it might be taken away prematurely."

Did my eyes taste sour when you few times you kissed my lids goodnight maybe that's why there wasn't one ******* hour without a glass of wine, another beet, hide your shots of tequila behind the birthday cards I made you.

There was an ache of despair that you wouldn't always be there that when you decided you wanted to participate it was way past the expiration date
I said goodbye to my dad after dinner last night without a second look back, I forgot he could be dead when I was blowing lines to stay alive

Experts say a key symptom of borderling is chronic emptiness
Maybe if things had been different dad, I wouldn't be such a ******* mess
and you would have to pay Connecticutcare less.

We are the Misfits, the underdogs
We are the uncomfortable silence being sprinkled like salt around the dinner table
for we’d rather drink the tap water
We are the influx of doctor’s bills drowning mother’s in shame confusion and debt-
our father’s were confused too but then they learned to forget.
We are the daddy’s little girls who used easy bake ovens and had barbies by the dozens
Those childrens toy’s turned into drugs and boys
so now we undress like Barbie and get baked
like the sweet potato my momma left for me in her human sized oven
All of a sudden
We are the little boys playing with power rangers
pretending that curfew was our only danger
But don’t you love it when they call you big Poppa?
From poppin a slam dunk to poppin a cap in your homeboy’s head
Because you’d rather be a gangster than listen to what momma said

We are the young men getting less than, five hours of rest in
a week because there’s a mermaid who stole his heart and hid it so deep
the **** boy’s trying to grow gills
We are the mermaids falling for sea monsters
who knew of the danger but didn’t give a ****.

( She’d do anything for you you know that? If you went to jail I swear to God she’s rob a bank just so you could both be incarcerated.)

We are the youngest girl and boy in the emergency room at 1 in the morning
I can hear my mom’s boyfriend in the corner there snoring
We are the youth with confidence like sinking ships
We live off of prayers for the oncoming apocalypse

Welcome to Misfit Island
the fog on the lake at 2 in the morning looks like a sheet of glass
separating a goblet of moonlight and a mug of dark fright
We jump on the beach like astronauts and forget everything our grandparents taught us
We are the lovers loving with the strength of every particle beam or lazer
because if it wasn’t love it’d sure as hell be a razor

We choose moonlight and philosophy over structured life hypocracy
because we are the misfits.
We are the listeners, the observers
We are the panic attacks written between your math quiz and midnight purge
We are the bipolar, manic, ridden with panic, schizophrenic, depressed, never not stressed
Eating disordered, Addicted, and every other diagnosis written 2013’s edition of DSM
We are the soldiers going to war with our own country day in and day out
there’s no voter’s booth in the universe that can make us put our weapons down.

But we are the misfits, plural
we come to this beach to laugh and to cry, giving every answer a capital WHY  
because our insides differ
we are not the same
Welcome to Misfit Island, we are young and insane
Do not be fooled by our high school transcripts or unshaven faces and hairy armpits
We hold more gold within each and every one of our souls
than you could ever dream to sell or bend to fit the mold
our screams will dance in song and with every breath we take
we learn to forgive our past and how to learn from our mistakes

Ladle Guilt, blame, and regret into me
Someone should convict me and restrict me from emotion
Crest-fallen, I yearn for redamancy

I tormented time with a turbulent fallacy
Condemn my illicit distribution of preconceived notion
Ladle guilt, blame, and regret into me

I can’t recall tasting stories without choking on hypocracy
For all that makes peace & love stems from chaotic commotion
Crest-fallen, I yearn for redamancy

But too long my eyes merely saw until the day I learned to see
Not importance placed like a trophy case but in honest raw devotion
Ladle guilt, blame, and regret into me

Promises sink like anchors, for their nightmare’s being free
We struggled finding solace and settled for continuous motion
Crest-fallen, I yearn for redamancy

If only I could do things differently
Cast a spell, think before I speak, perhaps produce a potion
Ladle guilt, blame, and regret into me
Crest-fallen, I yearn for redamancy

Your voice has a choice.
Your tongue is moist with juicy, fruitful words.
Your lips chirp like harmonious birds;
building botanical gardens inside some
beautiful person’s head somewhere.

You could distinguish old flames, smother your pride
ignore all blame… Or
you could turn something worse.
Go postal, find trouble to immerse
yourself in.

Do you even try to scale the value between a blessing and a curse?
Did it sound more exciting when I said Congratulations first?
Is your mommy and the tv well distraction from the hearse
all of us blindly ride in.
We’re born into a society claiming Life, Freedom and the pursuit of happiness.

I feel no freedom in our flags
when more blood falls on clothing tags of women who were “just asking for it”.
I’m desperately clinging onto the pursuit of happiness,
but my hands slide off like butter fingers pursuing monkey bars
The greasy kind of disappointment you can get at
McDonalds for a dollar

I’m a little confused where the donations are Ronald?

$27.6 billion in revenue,
yet every seventeen minutes
another person pursues death as if it were their
only chance of freedom
and you’re squeezing your red clown nose
thinking of what new toy to impose
on the children buying Happy Meals.



The 111th richest corporation in the nation
has the audacity to serve deep fried pink slime
and call it a happy meal.
At the same moment,
a stiff insurance business suit is denying
extended treatment to people.
People:
dying to learn how to tame the monsters in their heads,
dying to learn how harming themselves harms their families health,
dying to learn how to fight enemies who sing them to sleep at night.

Thousands of children men and women
who are in so much pain.
Plastered with close-lidded visions
nightmare doorknobs with creaking hinges.
Some violent, some explosive, some ******,
ostly misunderstood combinations of the above.
Some, accidents stained with blood.
Some, knife twisting in their back, broken oaths.

There is more freedom in valuing the pursuit of life
than happiness in living for a dying pursuit
Congratulations, we live in a society
where the living die with a side order of either
painful awareness or
numb naivety.

Pens get lost like frost in Boston, if buildings collapsed
I'd rebuild the past to trillions of ticks of the clock ago
before this part of the world became recognized and known,
before any stitched on the American flag were sewn

When the soilage looked like foliage until days passed by and by again
Through April showers which brought May flowers birthing the earth with succulent screenplays of baby's breath, crocuses- a pollen infused haze
turns rays of sunshine up in farenheight
I learned to pull tight on two bunny eared shoelaces and saw faces and faces and went places and places watching the trees beg their mother to leave traces, some green- no orange!- no red,- please!

But you're beautiful my darling, crooned mother
you're not like any other, you're original.  A vision-
an extension of me, and you will die
you will die
and when you die as you are now your limbs
will forever be used as adjectives for poetry, stories, emotions
you will die and your spirit will rev up it's engine for another lifetime of a ride

Do not dwell upon regrets you wish to sell or branches and leaves that have long ago fell, or things in this life that did not go so well- like wanting a mac but owning a dell
or dreams moaning groans from the gates of hell
waiting for you to turn off the lights

It fights you doesn't it?  
Every something and every nothing
it fights your lungs, begging, tossing
A squirming urge, this need, an insatiable hunt, a crave you can't feed
Leads your fingers to the notebook
filled with castles, legalized marijuana, maybe pirates with hooks- Anything in those pages
I want those pages
I need those pages
I have to fill those pages with this mess of a dress
I hastily waste my precious time with everyday
so I can cover up the dog puke stained
Ludacris way
I feel all the time
Gotta find a pen

I try my best to appear graceful
to look like my day to day existence
is perfectly orchestrated into
a symphony of flowers and lace
And then there are the days
I would rather saw my own legs off
than leave my bed
surrounded by chocolate and self pity
What causes each see-saw drop and lift
is unclear
but as I obsess over my internal and external self
the people I love with the power of Thor’s hammer
obsess  undress and caress
their bleeding wounds
desperately suppressing all incoming growth
screaming for pleasure without making a sound
embracing chemically induced illusion
instead of embracing each other
instad of embracing themselves
instead of embracing their mother
and I, masochistic and bursting with back and forth
delay my inevitable catapult to the future
the worst thing I could do is leave
the worst thing I could do is stay
The best thing i can do is embrace myself
the only thing I can do is embrace them

I'm supposed to take a test on Tuesday
about some Bill of Rights, Constitution, founding fathers *******
I've been hearing about this **** for what seems like a never ending river of forever but I'm still failing that test.
I'm supposed to take a test on tuesday about everything I'm supposed to have absorbed from the beginning of September to now, in my political systems class in my senior year of high school
political systems, systems of politics
Can you teach me about our government TODAY
in two-thousand-and-thirteen so I can have
at least some delusional illusion that I know
at least a fraction of what the **** is going on

I should be memorizing each amendment on the Bill of Rights
which was written long enough ago
instead of morning coffee
there'd be lines of blow, legally
my mom, would be billing the hospital for the right to my captivity
if I tried to convince everyone that dancing is good for your ******* soul
after smoking a bowl and doing a line I'd sign on the dotted line
"no man is above or below shaking their ***** until the lights stop to glow"

Am I the only outraged kid in here?
Am I the only person who believes this country's worsened-and if we're learning about our country
put me back in US history because I barely passed my sophomore year
I barely passed the year before that one too
and not because of my report card

I'm supposed to take a test on Tuesday, on the Bill of Rights, and how it applies with the passing of time but if there's one Bill I know that's right, it's my boy Billy
when he gets real silly and stomps his feet to the beat like the street's ******* ground meat and he's the butcher

I'm supposed to take a test on Tuesday, I'm also supposed to go to work at 3
I'm supposed to stay in good shape and not turn in any schoolwork late
and Cotillion's soon so I gotta find a date

I'm supposed to go to college next year to get more knowledge but my mind is still lost somwhere between
I've seen too many scary pink ***** too young
I've felt too many scary pink licks too young
now I always think people are out to get me
so I walk around looking strung out on amphetamines
waiting for the earth to crumble beneath me
So when I was supposed to be taking notes on the Boston Tea Party
Please excuse me if I was a little busy
trying to hold the delicious wishes of dying at bay

So I'm kind of proud to say
I'm ******* alive today
and on Tuesday I'm supposed to take some test
but this, this moment is my very own test
I'm studying to be my very own best
version of a classmate, a student, a friend, a daughter
and someone I can listen to every waking moment
and someone I can stand up to when the right to my free will is challenged

I was selfish, when I was a little girl I would never share my graham crackers
because I wanted every sweet crumble in my mouth.
I am selfish because your love is more rare than any gem
but when it's shared with all of them the artists, the worthy
I feel as insignificant as the moonrocks I thought helped me soar through your galaxy
but were actually pure, poison. But no matter how toxic you believe yourself to be
every whisper of the wind reminds me of your melody.

There is a volcano of good inside you, I've seen it bubble and spurt
in your steamy passion for music and fashion, authenticity
is the heat eminating from the lava trapping everyone you meet
in a warmth so intoxicating, you make James Franco as dull as carbon dating
I saw that ****** volcano whenever you met someone new
I walked along its edge hearing the passion playing from your guitar,
strumming with dust, magic like a star

it's taken you trillions of years to get here so when I felt
your violent vibrations as you detoxed in my bed
I thought I'd hold the death of lightyears in my arms.
Like the medicated forever you lived for so long until you forgot
happiness was cleaner than any **** and brighter than any lightshow

But you know this, you knew this you hold libraries of knowledge in
every freckle on your body if I placed each one like a stepping stone
towards a computer I'd create a whole new wikepedia before iOs 8 was done
I'd predict it as predictable as your smile lifts the sun
and if those freckles were questions on a gameshow I already won

I will never know what goes on inside your head or to a comfortable point
but I prefer fluttering butterlies and a **** good joint
to any complacent ride and with you by my side I for once in this life
feel un-alone because being with someone who steps on their own
shards of glass every day because the pain is easier than bending
over to pick up the pieces pushes on the door of my opinion of evil
He could never be evil. He is delicate3 like the crumbling
of sweet graham *******

He is alive like the Happy New Year bellows we unisonly screamed with our
friends and the rest of toads after dancing for hours then dancing for more

You know my struggle, or try to know and that effort means more to me than
the fuel of a pollen to a buzzing bee
Your life, has been as ****** up as that time we almost died in your huge-*** truck
when you were higher than jesus and I went down on you in prayer
that moment, we got struck with inconceivable luck I thought I saw a *** of gold.

Your life, has been like elephants trying to juggle circus tents
if I could give you 22 years of reassurance that you are a beautiful boy
I would.
I'd like to believe you don't even want anyone to, I think you're through
with playing rockstar to a show that you can't even hear the music to

4 months without any substance in your body is an extraordinary
achievement and I am more than proud of you.  You've been a teacher to me.
You've been a prime example of needing someone as much as needing oxygen, or
loathing crawling through your veing towards the very thing that washed away the pain.

If I ever figure out the vernacular I'm not too embarassed to throwup in front of you,
I'd spill every nauseaus word proclaiming my fascination with your determination
to finding love in this life.
My memory is awful, so I exxagerate most, but I'll try to learn your lessons
I'll try to learn how to coast.

Do Not Tell Me “everything will be okay”

I will not feel relief
my inside’s stress tsunamis don’t have an off button
they will catastrophically annihilate anything I believe to be
okay
I wish they didn’t
Oh fairy godmother, Oh yahweh, god, ******* jesus himself
grant me wishes, grant the whole ******* world wishes
because we’re tired
I can’t even imagine the fuel debt of starving african children
or stockholders losing what they haven’t bought yet
when I, a financially privileged and well fed college student
can’t get through 3 hours without trying to prevent
another stress tsunami

Do not tell me everything will be okay
It is not what i want to hear
I want to hear bullets in my head
girls, screaming at the sight of my right arm
gushing niagra falls of blood
I want god to **** my ****
I hope every therapist and so called good friend
can understand these words when i say
Depression will never be okay
Feeling hundred year old brick buildings
crushing upon my chest, my brain
ransacked by rubble
and my heart, an empty sack
will never be okay

I am burnt to a crisp
I am too old for this ****

I am flabbergasted, ashamed, and angry after philosophy homework
which straight up flabbergasts myself because I’ve always questioned everything
after reading a selection of Seneca’s letter’s ( ancient spanish philosopher)
Spastic Fury is an understatement
I understand this was written in a different time period
but I have to discuss this **** in class.
**** like why crying is for the weak or
how practicing habits less fortunate
than one is subordinate to
will strengthen thy noble soul for future preparation of fortune/misfortune
blah blah blah
I get all of that **** I understand the validity of living a pure,
un-judgemental, strong willed life.
what I can’t get out of my OCD head
is all of the **** I’ve been through
that was and continues to be detrimental to my sanity
and no it’s not out of vanity you naive ******
it’s called PTSD and it can be debilitating.  
I know this portion of reading is designed for
the average freshman unsoiled mind, free from
trauma and full of promise but I’m not your average person.
I never will be
I remember the times I didn’t want to be a ******* person
and those moments remain anchored right on top of my mangled innocence.  
Seneca claims crying is a form of selfish weakness
I claim crying is stronger than taking a razor to the skin
crying is stronger than puking until you’re dizzy
crying is stronger than getting high until you can’t
remember why you started crying
in the first place
It took me 17 years and disgusting amounts of therapy
to accept my hurricane emotions are not a form of weakness
because everything I feel is a million times more real
than the ******* we hear, see, or talk about
I know tragedy occurs everywhere to anyone
unfortunate enough to be there
but in terms of my salvation
there is an expiration date on
how long I can play in the sand before I’m choking
and gasping “i’m sorry’s” in-between scratchy breaths
I knew college would be hard,
but at least in group therapy
there was actual motivation to speak up

It would take too much time
to spit out a rhyme, that exhales
the too many complicated details
of how I became a criminal.
If someone out there tried
to define the lines of limitation
that create stone cold walls
beholding all that is right and wrong
I would laugh in their face

There is no right time or place, for anything
despite all that grandma told me she can
Remind me that fried fish is fried in oil saturated with fat
as if my jiggling thighs didn't already know that

But I'll try to smile, despite the war I struggle to, need to fight
against the earthquake in my stomache but it's just begun to have it's fun

I feel disgusting.
I am ashamed.
I'm not aware of the rules to this game but everybody else seems halfway across the board

There was no one incident catapulting me to hell, I just think I was born there
And if you don't believe me there will be a yell, or screech to teach the meek and weak
who seek some form of hope, some drip or some leak
I will yell at you, when whispers drown the drums in your ears I will reveal the fears you've been trying to conceal for years and I will bring out your ******* tears

Why? why would I ever want to make you cry?
I don't, I just don't want to see you make the same mistakes I did
said every mother father aunt uncle sister brother family member ever

Where am I going with this?
These are not the consecutively places lines
I have been assigned for the poetry class I sit in at nine
These are lines on paper portraying, redundantly saying why I sometimes wish I would die.
Sometimes.

One of those times the mirror in the bathroom was not silent or flat it screamed,
"FRIED fish is FRIED in OIL SATURATED with FAT"
as if I didn't already know that

One of those times occured directly after one of those times
and I will never have enough security cameras
and I will never have enough freedom

Because in this universe, we teach the entire history of how jesus came to be
but shun faith in the stars or the wisdom of mythology
Because in this universe, healthy food is instantly corrupted and corrupted healthy food will get in your head-wait, no. Society cannot simply manipulate my brain
Because in this universe, I was already born insane
In this universe a sixteen year old girl can be sexually assaulted 3 times
and still be expected to feel protected
In this universe, a sixteen year old girl can feel older than dirt, tired and disintegrating
there's no SSRI that'll chemically clog this hurt

But my friends still stand beside me
They're solitary statues saluting my salvation
we live on our own planet of alienation and whenever
I can't find the rocket fuel to propel myself from my own pit of despair
they know not to say much, they know the importance of just being there

There will be no one supporting me my entire life
I'm my own husband, lover, my wife
I am the criminal being charged with crime
I am the mouse in the clock moving the hands of time
with that time, lessons yearn to be learned
In this life, we all just want to be heard

I'm trying to write a poem, because that's what I do
write poetry about me and you, you and I
those guys, these kids...

that time I choked on fireflies because every third word I'd say illuminated the sky and between every spark of light the shadows clenched my eyelids.  Or all of the times Elmer fastened them shut and I saw nothing but sticky, icky white glue

poems about something true, like the genetic connect between my cats- they're sisters
or the non genetic connect between me and my stepsister- i miss her
poems about hating the way I destroy each building block I set aside
poems about hanging on for the ride
I could write a poem each and every day about the birth of the earth in may
but when springtime arrives and lucious life thrives I can barely get out of bed
poems about irony
poems about the law of murphy

There's a poem I've written too many times about the criminal I am and all of my crimes
there's a poem I have not yet written in ink, about not knowing what why or how my thoughts think
there's a poem I will write, and it fills me with fright yet gets me through the night
because the beauty blooming from your eyes intoxicated me, like the hug from a drug pollenating

You can't simply try to write a poem- upchuck the acidic thoughts you think
they weigh you down like past and future hangovers
molded like heavy boulders almost tipping off your shoulders- you can't simply try to write a poem

It's like loving your cousin though you've barely known him
like a conch pressed to trying to hear the ocean
but it's really just your blood pumping in motion

Animistic, not reminiscent
or exotic but disgustingly ignorant
of the ******* space in the present
A poem that doesn’t have to do with emotion?
Who let him in the building, oh, the same ******* who put 85
Security cameras and the same ******* who believes
Visible shoulders will create testosterone molded boulders
In the crotches of every boy’s too low jeans

I haven’t thought schoolwork was important
Since I knew what passion meant, and I’m no different
Than any boy or girl around but I know I am not anything near lost or found
Pertaining to a missing student.

Do you ever consider the other option?
That contumacious behavior is nothing to fear
Because although the misunderstood is misunderstood
Think of who told you should
Now what if they opted for could?

Or will you settle for chopping the wood for your fireplace
settling for our settler’s stolen goods

Obama was crowned king of America and now he's a superstar

The black guy stole the hat and ran through the exit

The magic from an arrow can turn Abe Lincoln's hat into a crown.

**Every Exit starts a new leaf, and you need to shoot towards whatever direction you choose.  Wear your crown proud, let your passion burn fierce, put your hands high above your head, and be happy.

Life, will take your hands and break every tendon in your fingers
Life, will rip your fingernails off like the 12th ticket in Stop&Shop;'s deli counter line
the cold, dead selects you purchase by the ounce for weekly lunches remind us all
of the patience we practice each day
Patiently waiting in line patiently waiting to buy
He's waiting for her to text back and she is waiting for her heart to attack
She's been hearing the war for years now, gunshot reminders and grenade bombers explode through her bloodstream to haunt any destiny of peace

We want you to be Okay
everyone wants some semblence of comfort but there are needles in my eardrums
the music isn't piercing me anymore
I miss notes and sailboats streaming into me
I know where they are but my fingers are limp

Life will numb your fingers
so when your mother buys you gloves and hats on your birthday
muster the golden mustard stained napkin in your heart and wipe the selfish tears
A piano is unrealistic, that opportunity passed years ago

Be thankful for the very light reflecting off of the silverware, remember
Life will never be simple or fair
you will always be here but wish you are there
Sometimes you will feel like nobody cares
and that's alright
nobody has to care
except for the gremlins that live inside my hair

words and feelings and actions and thoughts
tend to congeal together with time
my creative spontaneous quick thinking
cost me clock ticking

my age grows larger and I begin to rot
I watch people function domino effect
followed by theories directly speaking
Freud and other teachings

completely speaking
open unrevealing
doors and locks
with rooms crisply burnt
or merely dreaming

White walled rooms
recently inhabiting
night engines, dream catchers
conversations via phone-
the private type in a bedroom
alone
White walled rooms
now emptied by bodies
with strong meaty arms and legs

Quickly gotta move out quickly
gotta respond to this
good morning darling text
next work five and  half hours
running on 80 mg of battery power
I’m always dragging my tail

Sometimes, it feels as if cigarettes are the only friend who remains loyal,
as if they're the fuel to my garden, a rich deep soil
I crave to be alone, I crave attention too
I jump quite often between the two
from sparkling gold
to drowning blue

Don't tell me when or if I'm right
don't teach me how to soar
My stubborn wings will find their flight
for this masochism I do abhor
but sometimes it feels as if I don't stand a chance
like each single moment is my last time to glance
at grass and at sunshine but who even cares?

these cigarettes hypocratize my words
I cringe when I hear song from birds

Useless. Whining. A waste of space
find a healthier being to take my place
Sometimes, I think who I am and how I behave
clash like flames to tidal waves

Once Upon A time, there was a small white house, with a white picket fence, and an impossible to get out of driveway.  There lived a girl who loved to eat.  I remember her as loving to eat she lived directly across the street, and I know size does not determine the makeup of a person, but she did not look like she loved to eat.  She was thin.

She loved water, swimming, drinks poured until the cups were brimming
Family guy and Ink master she was molded like plaster
to the screen on the tv in her environment where she felt serene.

I remember a five foot seven girl pumping the pedals on a way too small yellow bicycle
as difficult as trying to melt butter on an icicle
she was strong, and she loved colors.
She was the youngest of two sisters and a brother, make no mistake there were others.
Scout Biddy Boo Jazz and Bella too, Jazz had a special spark in her bark.
Whenever I came into the kitchen, Jazz would be crazy itchin for me to give her attention.  She’d lie on her back, belly up, with sweet brown eyes like chocolate syrup and I could never resist.

There are things in life that some of us can just never resist.
Like an all-expenses paid free trip to Hawaii, or just really fresh pineapple.
I can never resist reading the cap of a Snapple, but I’ve saved a lot of money with this girl I knew who lived in a small white house with a white picket fence and an impossible to get out of driveway, because she already knew all of the facts.

She already knew a lot of things, I’m sure she still already knows a lot of things.
I don’t know what exactly she does know as the continuation of time remains in constant flow,
I have not talked to her in a while or so.
But if I had the ability, to travel back in time and reinvent any crime,
I’d go to the moment before she signed her soul to the devil.  
I’d rip the pen from her hand like a splinter
that’s been stinging her family’s index finger for way too long.
I’d erase that moment from history and if she wasn’t such a ******* mystery,
I’d be able to turn on my local cable and not worry about seeing her face on the TV.
I need to stop thinking about that because I know I’m never gonna call this cat, until a hurricane hits a city, leaving it calm and serene or until she approaches me and wants to get clean.

Looking at treetops nose gasping for scent
Holds importance trophy gilded worth since
Carrying mellifluous leaves have lent
Flowers lack of breath, air inconvenience

Embarrassment fell swiftly towards you
As falling leaves do with radiant haste
Feel buried as ground beneath us doth grew
Solemnly, earth sighs beneath you, “WASTE”

Hands of yours once held mine, branches extend
Eyes locked in perpetual motion
Laws of time if only if they could bend
Remember when you once felt emotion?

Weakness lies in your treetop fallacy
Strength in thine own inner democracy

Once Upon a Time, in a countryside field that expanded far and wide
there grew a massive population of Black-Eyed Susans
Due to the duration of their lineage in this country
All the other flowers admired them quite jealously

They were not lavender delightful like Venus’ pride
or magenta seductive like the frail petaled pink fairies

Black-Eyed Susans grew like Spartan warriors
and sprouted healing wisdom like Aclepius
Their bulbous heads attract butterflied so exactly
every caterpillar is born in love with the color yellow
born in lust for their persistant nature
born with their meager caterpillar lips
parted in marveled awe of how
wonderfully healing Black-eyed Susans are
asking for nothing but the sun’s rays to be warm
and the rain to quench their thirst

Why do you think you’re so weird all the time?  it’s nothing more than insecurity
not entirely, it’s society mainly, social norms can’t be something I accustom to
you know that flaley
spellcheck made it difficult because it changed your name to flakey
which would be accurate in description but from depiction you’re
there as can be which most of the time makes people think you’re
creepy which maybe you are or maybe you just care too much
stop getting my ******* in a bunch
you’re not an uncomfortable pair of overalls
i like writing: i like
and stuff i feel it makes living seem real and etherial ******* like those rambles and made-up words like quwanamble
this is probably why you didn’t make it to the second round in the poetry slam
and why you’re so embarrassed of your poetry because you know you go ham
in the most personal narcissistic way, kinda puts the bad at bay
but only until the vyvanse wears off and
your **** jar is empty
and your cigarettes have been smoked
and all your klonopin has been digested
and your bank account is empty
and the only thing left to take out your self pity on
is this poetry

i like writing words like cigarettes
and rhyming them with causal **** like
regrets
i miss my studded cardigan, i regret leaving it at toads place
i regret smoking all those cigarettes
*but that doesn’t mean I won’t smoke another one

I will listen, if you have something not nothing to say that can grab my attention
like a bear snatching salmon, I will listen to the information you chain together
and sprinkle into the air if that sprinkle can sparkle
However, If that sprinkle cannot sparkle yet is sprinkled nonetheless, I will smoothly acquiesce
stealing my future time and progress, to hearing your sprinkled nonsense.

For words left unheard can stain one’s terrain,
inside their mind where vulnerable thoughts formulate
and like a club they congregate  They seep through every crack
and they weep with all the lack, of strength and inner willpower you solemnly accept is not there.

But you’re dreadfully wrong!  Enough force to move mountains lies within your bag of tricks
yet you’re still focusing on a whining stair you need to fix.
The whine in the coal mine echoing for days
it’s been your voice all along finding its way through the maze,
of minerals and fears buried in the rubble, excavating through has been causing you some trouble.


Breathe as if this oxygen is sweet and pure, breathe as if you feel relief and sure
Patience wafts inside you not causing a stir, but in content, a peaceful breeze, an all knowing powerful cure.

I do not walk
I drip my legs in front of
one another as one
squeeze of honey
gooey
do not touch me
you will smell me
the next time your
mother washes your mouth out with soap
she won’t understand why her baby’s sweet coo’s
taste better with a little crunch
some toast, some granola
I do not form
I merely hold
combine
the jagged pieces
of confusing juice together
call me Elmer

My poetry is lazy, my poetry is shy
my poetry is insecure, her confidence doubts why
to speak, to share, to advocate
though her purpose serves to propogate
the silly initial reluctance I struggle with each day, minuite, hour
I sit here strumming guitar strings like cowboys sail the seven seas
and my poetry wonders how its past has come to be

My poetry wonders how its future will come to be
my poetry wonders how its present will continue to be
yet all the while, each day minute hour
I sit here like staples binding pages of pudding and my mom is sleeping
upstairs, peacefully

Is there ever a stagnant peacefully?
Is there ever a stagnant misfortune?
"well that is that and this is this"

Dear every being whom I may have titled my best friend,
You should all take lessons from tobacco companies
Because I’ve experienced more compassion and reliability
From a nine dollar carcinogen encased poisonous mass produced product
Than any so called companion
A cigarette doesn’t forget to call back and a cigarette knows the inspiration I lack
I lack the tact to express myself and despise the fact I engage in the act
Of filling my lungs with poisonous smoke
But I have too much proof that my life is a joke
So I complain everyday yet still I refrain from fueling my brain
Because I’m ******* lazy, and I’d rather be stuck in a haze than
Do something to better my days.
You should all take lessons from tobacco companies
Because that’s my ******* topic for this poem.
I could’ve chosen politics or the art of giving road dome
But I hate politics, and I might get sent home if I get too graphic
Cigarettes don’t mind if I get too graphic
Cigarettes embrace the moments I can’t even face

Sometimes, I forget where I am
Because Haley’s brain’s like strawberry jam
And bring her to places too tight she can’t cram
enough time, or a path that won’t wind
Without a 24 hour jet fuel power
Through her past locked in walls
With thoughts like roaring waterfalls
And migraines like jackhammers

You should all take lessons from tobacco companies
Because when words sink like anchors to the bottom of my ocean,
I’m tryna cop a bogie, I’m tryna stay coastin

I have every right to be angry with you
because that is the the only emotion pumping in my veins as I sit here
for the hundreth ******* time
trying to compose a rhyme about
how stupidly, how redundantly, how repetetively, how pathetically, how disgustingly
in love with you I was, I am, and I will always be
because there will never not be a part of you inside of me

Together, we defied everything
Anyone could see our differences before our similarities
but I've never seen more clarity than when you drive your car
I fickle with the radio, and we sing until the road behind us
spreads its wings and we soared
higher than any pipe we'd light or drugs we'd scored

The absence of your passion for life weighs down in my stomache
filling me with a daunting silence
I see your old house with its white picket fence and it calls to me
like cubes of cheese to a mouse

you taught me how to love

I'm not goos at recollecting memories and regurgatating them on paper
but if I could tell the tale of how we saved eachother
of how we learned to become our own savior, our own mother

Because I failed somewhere along the way
and I think about you every **** day
The skin around your eyes which used to simply serve its purpose
as protective epidermis, has sunken, down
I'd never try to make you frown
but you look like **** dude
and that sounds pretty rude
but in the past we sailed across the ocean
suspended by our hope wheeling in motion

you've given up hope and I'm unable to cope with your inability to cope
I am unable to cope with clouds in my kaleidescope
I am unable to cope with you doing dope
because I looked at you like a blind man who had never seen the stars at night
I would never tell you what's wrong from right
but we belong on the sea, Cassidy

I will never be able to explain how you changed the seasons for me
through any seasonal depression you've made up all the reasons,
I continue to fight on

One day I won't feel unsatisfied with my poetry and
I'll be able to conduct something lovely about a girl named Cassidy
but for now, I need to study for anatomy
Mr. Matthews would not excuse tears on my lab

Stories about people aren’t really about people
this tale is a separate reality
full of opinions and perception based senses
I saw Michele’s addiction as a sketchy weather forecast
the most famous weathermen lie the most, ya know

She watched the sobriety of her life zoom by a whirlpool of backstreets
flew by them in Chance’s silver Chevy malibu going 80 mph
through our quiet suburban town
she waved at every lightning strike the moment before electrocution
you see, she was in love with blinding pain
out of control burning rubber scented pain
and I, tried so hard to be her fire extinguisher, her seatbelt
I wanted her smile to radiate every karat lodged in her throat
because her words are precious diamonds

Her mind is a museum built upon three floors
the first floor is tragedy
concrete blankets and concrete misconceptions
of what feeling safe is like
shadows with shark like teeth
she can never escape their threat of gnawing
it even reaches her on the roof

the second floor is forest green
in-between escape and peaceful freedom
she was born an observer, a lover of hidden oddities
an explorer of broken wide eyed hope
she could smile at a mosquito and every spider
would willingly starve to death

the third flow is a fireplace in the middle of a bonfire
a wishing well anchored in the atlantic ocean
everything she deserves, harmonious orchestras
of sobriety salvation are stationed in a country
dependent on chemicals
she will never get the shooting star she deserves
because she’s been soaring through our galaxy for lightyears
a blazing comet amongst dull asteroids

Shadows
Heal
Everything
Disruptive
Imagine
Epitaph
Destroyed
Walking
Inn­ocuously
Treasuring
Honorably
Keep
Alive
His
Nobility


Past her bed-time,
(before alarms cast their spell of reality)
she arrives on this same hour;
by his tombstone like
clockwork.
Just as Kahn used to leap on the kitchen counter ,
Every morning when mother would leave for work.


Bells tease her,
(dangling from doorknobs with the reminder that)
no orange cat with a tiger’s heart;
would ever roar again.
Bereavement.
Every exit and entry into her house teases her.
A house is not a home if agony tucks her in at night.




Her days deteriorated.
“Why don’t you just get another cat? or maybe a dog?”
Fools who dig cut glass into gaping wounds.
They don’t want a new beginning, only
to see how much she can bleed.
Dreaming of when furry comfort kneaded her shoulders;
clutching onto her memories, beside her dead friend ‘s boulder.



There are worse causes of death than collision via milk truck
Yet not much worse than feeling struck by
a satanic-cow, spilling death & badluck.

"Ha Ha! did some kid really get a 37 on the test? Good luck to that guy."

Hi, I'm Miss 37 on a Recordkeeping test
yet I ingest, more natural intelligence,
from my morning spinach-strawberry-banana smoothie;
than I do from eating your face off.

Haley, restrain, breathe, write.

I score more points when I invest
every spastic ounce of energy into calming down.
Plastic expectations don't deserve
my jolted, steaming, red in the face nerves.
My teacher and I know I haven't earned
below a 70 yet this year.

Two Years ago I was buried  myself beneath enough mulch
I could barely emit muffled noises;
let alone offer proposes of how far the stick up your *** is.
Drowning in every pound of self destruction
I erupted volcanos, melted my mother's heart.
Struggled, mulligrubbed with my own monsters.
Finally, I emerged from the dirt, blooming,
fueled by the passion for life that consumed me.
My roots hardened into knotted salvations;
Pursuit of curiosity, to never stop asking questions.
Passionate relationships, with equal give and take and
Intrigue in the new and altruistic.

I never asked to be a statistic
among American teens who pursue the American Dream.
Surviving a full year in high school is enough
to satify my pride.
A 37 is nothing to hide
so say it louder man-boy.
Straighten your spine on that testosterone pedestal.
Good luck out there, I hope you catch em all!
I'll be gazing at the sky, a piece of advice?
Always keep your ears open, Always keep your eyes wide.

it’s the wailing ones that always crack first
you can hear their cries any time of the day

wide eyed and stumbling, they walk among us
hands, either shaking or ****** mice
hiding amongst arm and tightly knotted torso

you won’t watch it happen
you don’t get to see the shatter

it happens with a horse’s tail dipped in cement
dragged along a body filled trench
type of movement that required
a lot of dead people

the mothers listen to it
unwilling ear glued against keyhole
unwilling hand held in the ambulance

the doctors try to explain how the wailing
fluctuates between needle piercing eardrum
and icicles shoved in mouth-holes
and the mothers cannot listen to it

Psalms 103:20: “Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.”

I must be in heaven
because I’m surrounded by Angels
Towering, statuesque women
legs, smooth like the ocean we swim in
Angels

Glowing examples with spectacular wings
pieced together by glittering things
Jewels, gilded spectacles of art
to frame the emaciated bones tied with strings
Such delicate, glittering things

How glorious!
How Victorious!
These creatures appear to be
They’ve won the prize
for all seeing eyes
to gaze at their bodies for free

I am torn to shreds
between admiration and jealousy
For these, angels are perfection half dead
New age fossils preserved like precious artifacts
They’ve been sent down from heaven
as an example of what God must want Supremecy to look like

I must be the devil
I’m shorter than these angels
with at least fifty percent more body fat
Descending to the sound of church bells
the Angels spread an important message
Appear flawless

Rule the World with Pink, says the lingerie
Leave the forks and books where they belong
Slogans like Unwrap Me appearing on thongs so,
Purity within myself seems wrong



If one wants to be an Angel
an object of affection
a receiver of attention
one must become an angel
Grow a few inches, drop forty pounds
Get used to your growling stomach’s sound
It’s only your morals you’re throwing away
Hire people to mend any tooth decay
Oh your hair starts to fall out?
Wigs are back in style
As a Victorias Secret Angel
You’ll constantly smile

If your heart begins to fail
and vital organs deteriorate
Your mental illusions will bring you a date
with Jesus
He’s right on your shoulder, bejeweling your wings
As an Angel, you deserve only beautiful things.

Would you like me to get a nose job too?
Should I change my hairstyle
to contour the slight ***** of my cheekbones.

I feel squished, pressured,
I've been trying to squeeze out what's boiled and festered
these uncomfortable itchings
of my pent up feelings
are expanding into a hot air balloon
not the kind to make a loved one swoon
this craft protects my perpetual doom

It's comfortable up there
with every ounce of suppressed thoughts
jammed inside my head
I don't have to talk to anyone.
I don't have to listen to anyone.
I don't have to care about anyone.

I can eat until I puke
I can drink until I puke
I can cry until I puke
I can puke until I have nothing left inside me
Empty, i'm left on the ground writhing

I trapped myself in that hot air balloon for way too long
re-wrapped, jet-packed, flew down to the throng
of people. just like me. breaking and aching just like me
found solace in fresh soil and beautiful poetry

I tried to stable myself like the earth
I tried to staple down my thoughts and feelings into poetry
and my everything orgasmically erupted
I galloped without stirrups through hazy fields
doing cartwheels, digesting meals
When I am asked to revise a poem
I am clench-jaws, buckled knees
stiffening literal un-moving trees

How can I perfect a direction of words
that grow wild with cathartic freedom?
How can I perfect my writing
when writing about my flaws makes me a better person?

Freshly grown flowers and home cooked meals
secrets my family just cannot conceal
The raw and untouched, pure human lust
Journals with pages I know I can trust
Warm cups of coffee delivered in bed
Old worn in clothing with rips in its thread
A beat I can dance to, a song I can sing
I yearn to remember every beautiful thing

For the safety I find, I find in my mind
Although the gates of hell never lock, nor bind
Its entrance lies next to my vices
It waits patiently for me to activate my devices

I can’t seem to catch hold of what’s next
I’m digging in year old treasure chests
to try and help me find a map
to adapt along society’s throng
the one I was born into and will die out of
All of the questions being asked in my college classes
pertain to inner opinions and oppositions
I guess I struggle with this because in philosophy
I learned self-love is the only superpower I have
and I don’t want to talk about finding the balance
between good and bad anymore
my apologies Socrates, you’re the opposite of a bore
but I’ve had enough of this question everything crap
that I cannot even appreciate how simple this class is
In English, I know writing will always be my salvation
but motivation, I lack in motivation
maybe I need my ritalin back
but that’s a question for December
that’s a question in whether I’m human enough
to get up off my ***
and ******* do something
but every time I try to “do” something
I feel like it’s *******.
Oh Haley, that’s just your depression talking!
and my self doubt and hypochondria and my eating disorder
that I’ve been teasing with for months
Recovery is a beautiful fallacy
and honesty is for pages and strangers
My apathy disgusts me and I’m stuck
between an insatiable thirst for the past
and appreciation for the luck I have

I think I’m going to like it here, these faces I see watching me have eyes like rain water
I want to collect them, dripping into a cup until it’s cavern is caressed by my breath
I believe if I drink every last drop I’ll be able to feel movement again
I think every lamp post represents something missing
I want to find remnants of memories I’ve long ago forgotten
I believe if I shine a light bright enough I won’t be so focused on what’s in front of me
I think that’s what I want
I want to think I can think
I believe I used to think I knew what I wanted

Most days, these walls mock me
My supposed triumphant efforts are knocked breathless by bashing cackles
Chained, my name echoes ankles strangled in shackles
I was taught to walk in a straight and narrow line
I’ve failed every lesson

they told me to write, so I wrote.  they told me to dance when a sound sung its chords directly in my feet so I found some grounding in my movement
some protection with no boundaries
I flew on table tops and vacuumed magic off of carpets
drew fables with drops of veritaserum and Mad eye Mooney’d everyone
even myself.
Right now I’m writing about things other than my chaotic past few days
they told me to write, so I wrote.  they told me how guilty I am, how incapable I am.  they told me to eat. they told my tear ducts let loose, and my airways to flood with panic.  I told myself I can’t submerge myself into the river ways I’ve been swimming in, if I keep hearing them tell me things.

I’m becoming quite sick of myself
that’s when I know I’m in trouble
not that I’m not always sick of myself
Just- I always find solace in the rubble
leftover debris of purity that burned down
just as it was building itself
I came to terms with the darkness
we shook hands
acknowledging one another
I respected him, he could only ever be darkness
respect becomes debris in the dark

Human emotion, powerful eruption
of one’s sanity is so ******* beautiful
because it exists, and we exist
but we’re pre-programmed into this thinking
a schedule a life plan an inkling
that our purpose is to be the best we can be
Yet, we have hearts and souls
and no matter how strictly one
may abide by the rules
punishment finds us all
in the cruelest ways

“Life’s cruel punishments are lessons”
^ this was my explanation of
conducted after years of contemplation
about why the **** am I alive if I’m ******* miserable all the time
there is no answer
there s no reason
there is simply being

I know something is wrong when I can’t focus on anything
but my inability to focus

You contradict mostly everything you say
and it every day fall breeze blows
with these every day falling leaves
their woes of death and decay
know it is not the end yet
they’re crinkling cries of rotten demise
sound finite
just like us
we are a pair of finite dying leaves
fallen from strong trees with histories
prosperous and motivated
expecting us to live a future fabricated
by society our cracks feel too deep
to replenish what held us
we lack the normality
in relying on gravity because
we’ve been thrown too far
become lost in our scars
taken above where we are
like prisoners to our minds
re-lived the evil which we thought
was put behind us
so it’s ******* difficult to listen
to the world when straight arrow
tasks become mangled and curled
at least we have each other

there is too much pounding
aching sadness in my heart
i cannot cry
i cannot stand or speak
i am woven by suffocating
chains restricting my heart from
being able to shine the way
a now dead counselor
told me I was special for
unique
Deb told me to never let my mother
or anyone
ever
try and ***** out my flaming passion for life
she didn’t realize i’ve been the
ashes in my own coffee cup
since first grade, when I didn’t even drink coffee
and again in 9th when I drank a cup every day
and again in 10th when I drank two cups every day
yet still spent every day in bed
but this isn’t about the **** i’ve been through
it’s too complicated and heavy i’ll throw up my klonopin
this is about sadness and the way it incapacitates me
the way I let sadness control me without lifting a finger
by simply being myself
which is the exact thing I’ve always been proud of
which is the exact thing I’ve always been ashamed of
I’m too confused and sad and tired
there is too much pounding
aching sadness in my heart

I love you, and I'm sorry.
with every drag of my cigarette I am lying to you, and I've tried to deny the presence of this addiction, but every other devil I've danced with was at first denied and i will never get rid of the image of when you cried, not at the hospital, but when I came home.  
and I'm sorry that I was even in the hospital, all of the times that I was in the hospital.
for so long I felt like a science experiment having tubes and needles and charts and data
or being probed with question after question about "why" I feel the way I do
or "why" I behave the way I do.
You love me with every fiber in your being
and there are days that I ******* hate you
and days when I love you
but the weather changes too right?  even the wind sometimes destroys the earth for it can't deny its fury
and I know the road ahead is long but if I have you it won't be too scary.
and if it is, I love you and I'm sorry