i've reverted back to the days when
i held a permanent position
in between the arms of an
ugly, paisley patterned easy chair.

i played a game of hide and seek--
hiding from feelings, sought only by others
to prove that i had some semblance of humanity
lurking behind my blank eyes.

those days were dark, angry
as they ate me up, gathering every drop
of my existence like a sponge

fast forward: i'm far away and
mom says the chair is gone.
what should have felt like anguish
feels like nothing.

all the feelings are in the chair
like coins hidden in the couch cushions,
gone before we recognized their existence.

i've reverted back to the days when
i held a permanent position
in between the arms of an
ugly, paisley patterned easy chair,

but now the chair is gone
and i am left to soak up the feelings.

the reflection of street in window
and the smell of red
meat, remind me: not
everything is idyllic

red velvet seats
itch my skin
while they pass
murmuring

voices harass my ears

to what do I owe
the pleasure of your company?
the empty vase—
        this cup
               full of coffee

the mood, set by cheap christmas lights,
is somber.
the sun will rise soon, saying goodbye
to another sleepless night filled with
half-hearted attempts at productivity.

words blare into ears through tiny buds and wires.
the darkness, now, feels permanent.
this is the way i like it: dark
and somber.

when the sun rises obligations and responsibilities resume.
apathy consumes me
fills me to the core.

for now, out the window, little dots of light illuminate
few details in the blackness.
only outlines of leafless trees are seen
highlighted by squares of brightness from windows.

i prefer the way the darkness feels
it is not unfriendly as it wraps me up
in its blanket of indigo

lovingly, it caresses me,
holding me tight
as I sit, gazing outside.

the mood, set by cheap christmas lights,
is confused.
what i want is undeterminable.
but, in the dark it does not matter.

daylight comes soon
and with it
all of my nightmares.

random ads with nonsensical jokes
fill the space between my ears.

i can't understand what they mean
but they keep talking to me,
asking me to listen.

the music that follows is only a trick
to make myself believe that something
in this godforsaken world
brings me joy.

the music is dark in color
and tastes like disinterest.

it's funny

i thought i finally understood what it was
that i wanted:
i'm no closer than i've ever been.


so i stay still.
i refuse to leave
to move
to speak

to figure out what i want.

i haven't been in the mood
to keep up appearances--
but it appears the more i distance myself
the more people appear to be close to.

i want to disappear
to no place in particular.

the room smelled so
suddenly of my grandmother
cigarettes doused in perfume
--cover the smoke

my jaw is shaped like hers:
a protuberance of chin on a face
{the bump of a curly bracket}

in her split level cottage,
a home away from home,
I made

little tea set memories
positioned in pastel houses
“I’m a lady,” I told her,
only dolls for witnesses.

smell the similarities of our faces.
hints of cigarette perfume
emanating from the pores
in my plastic doll skin

i haven't said two words
since i arrived back home.

i told her through my silence
that i was failing her and
myself.

she can't hear my thoughts
but they sneak into her head
and she is aware of what
i want to say

tomorrow i will not feel much different.

alienation is only the beginning
of a long list of grievances i face:

poor decisions
poor judgement
a more than momentary
lapse in happiness.

memories pour in through
my nose and ears,
triggering reactions I'd care
not to have.

i am filled to the brim with panic.
stop. breathe. stop--

the other night i cried myself to sleep.
heavy, heaving sobs. stop.
heavy, heaving sorrow. again.

when it is all over
simultaneous emptiness
is paired with intense feeling

but i am not sure of what.

evaluating descriptions
of myself and what it means
to have high arches
and elbows that crack.

or angry base ****** expressions.
I don’t look friendy.
or personable
or happy.

what I’ve found is I don’t fit
into a perfectly shaped puzzle piece
hole (that was made for me
to help identify who I am)

I am unidentifiable by choice.

or maybe it's not willingly
but rather an unfortunate truth
I have mistaken as my own decision.

all I really wanted was
someone who fit into
the puzzle with me.

like two nesting birds
that stuff their feathery bodies
into too-tight spaces.
(we don’t fit)

instead I am just one
lonely bird in a too big nest.

my feathers are ruffled
from frantic, panicked waves
of agoraphobic episodes.

this immense space
looks ridiculous
for one body

I can't be the only one who feels so

alone.

All of the identical houses
have identical stains--
each one a sprawling green spot.
a moldy, neglected reminder
that somebody didn't finish their chores.

slanted roof tiles, now crooked, yellowing
like unbrushed teeth.
weeds erupt from the cracked pavement.
these are the signs of undetermined futures
lost.

forget the ugly idealistic fantasies of tomorrow.
optimism has found a new home

and it has moved far away
and it has packed all its boxes
leaving only vague memories behind.

once upon a time
I did my chores. ( Not well)
But they are done.
I asked for help but I only received
blank stairs.

I don't care
anymore--
nothing
is interesting.
it is all
one shade of midnight
blue
it is all
one shade of
*******
(as if I even had the energy to
feel such anger)

these words come from
oops, I am spiraling again
oops, I already spiraled
I hit bottom
and I think I will stay here for awhile

feel free to come join me if
you think you can

a little water churned by acids:
internal stomach sounds

jaw clicks mash
strawberry ice.
repetition of noises
fading into never

mind the **** in the wall.
brick pieces falling—
one for every two moments
of hushed time—

tiny little whispers
chronicling each and every
blunder

there is a void—
silence where your
voice should ring

I’ll continue to be distracted by my self,
shifting glances towards the door
window, cars

that almost wreck into
horrific could’ve-beens.

what you are
is more than every speculation
of the rubberneckers.

it’s been six days
since I saw your face
that quivered with fear.

Or was it embarrassment
that vigorously shook your jaw?

the mortification, I, too, once felt
sliding down closet walls, splintering
into millions of fragmented emotions.

don’t shatter your jaw with the pulsations
that come from the other you.
the you that sends ugly messages
from the depths of your skull.

distract yourself with each and every
fall in the cadence of my voice
that collapse like water over boulders,
while their quiet hum beckons ugly messages
from the depths of my skull.

the soft melody reminds me of
the summer
and the low finger picked guitar
****** my heart, making it ache.

remember:
lonely car rides with mixed CDs
to nondescript houses
where wires attach to heads
that zone out in the hopes of being fixed
in the most science fiction type of ways.

houses where the doctor wrote notes about me
that felt just as painful as the words
the others said behind my back
her words dug deeper
her words stung worse

and so

the water was gonna take me
and I was gonna let it
because I had decided there was
nothing left.

but each time the tub filled
the little strength I had withheld
drained out of me
and I just sat
adding salty tears to the scalding water--

there is something heartbreaking
about not having the will to die
even when its the only thing you
thought you had the will left to do.

I am
so tired and full
of doubt--
the crippling kind of doubt
that ***** up everything in your head.

all there is left is mush
all there is left is the regrets
the "I won't do this."
the "I can't do this."

the optimistic me of the past
has long since left the picture.
she ran very far away
and I can't find her.

I am not sure I want to.

I am
so tired of being
forgotten.
I am so
tired of being
lost and
confused and
dazed.

I am jaded now and
there is no pleasure left
and I have no courage--

I hope no one every finds the other me
because if they do she will be so scared
of the her that I have become.

deep in the pit of my stomach
sits a small but heavy rock.

like water at the bottom of a broken well,
it sits, and sits, and sits.

but unlike that water, it does not evaporate.
It will not evaporate. It cannot evaporate.

the rock in the pit of my stomach sometimes feels like homesickness.

that’s how I describe it:

an intense longing for comfort, for ease,
but no respite in site.

one year ago
i thought i was at the brink of escape.

the rock would escape the well.
i would escape the rock.

i was foolish.
you cannot not run from rocks
in the pits of stomachs
so engrained into the lining
that they are fully a part of
who you are.

one year ago
i thought i was at the brink of newness, freshness, wholesome beginnings

i was to be born-again
i was to be crying, screaming into a new life
i was to be able to breathe without fluids
drowning my lungs with expectations.

life cannot be born again.
life cannot be restarted.
life cannot be a clean slate.

each atom i have is different from the atoms i was made up of last year
but they've seen all the same ****.

there is no escaping
there is only moving forward.

each day feels longer.
I am not sure where I am
going tomorrow.

it is the cycle.
everything is
a cycle.

i'm starting to believe that nothing ever changes
and no one ever changes
and i don't change

the only thing that changes is the number on the calendar
and the temperature outside and the faces that come and go.
but the numbers in my head that add up to equal
the sum of my misguided thoughts
don't change

each and every time
i wonder if it's worth it.

the battles will bend and break me
the battles will tear me down
and the cycle always wins the war.

the cycle says that this is the year
that i, once again, contemplate the end

the cycle says that i am too cowardly
and that it isn't time

not yet.

someday the cycle will say
today is the day:
let go
and you'll be free.

signs say: moderate yourself
I put up a sign, too.
one that no one will read but
its important. You must—
Leave your mark.

I lost my mark (my point)
I can’t find…
Who I am.

unidentifiable places in the
creation of time and space

Wait. Suddenly I am in the Milky Way.

I see them: my points
They battle and break.
I weep.
They show me who
I could have been

i am
healing
the wounds
now.

bit by bit
piece by piece
they sew themselves up,
leaving little bitty scars.

this is not the first time
and it, most likely, will not be the last.

every year the cycle repeats
its ups and downs.

the more familiar i am with the cycles
the more i embrace the darkness.

summer's sunny disposition warms me up
like butter in a microwave and i
melt into some sort of vision of contentment

but sooner than i realize, winter comes again,
angry and cold, to plunge me into its icy depths
where i stay, waiting for some sort of solution
to a problem I rarely address in any serious sort of manner.

they all say, you can't do it on your own.
stubborn natures persevere, fighting against other instincts
that say, this isn't right.

every time I climb back out of the hole where I live,
it is impermanent.
the dark, sorrow-filled, and angry  abyss is my home.

if you have any interest in taking it off my hands,
i hear the price is just right for that sort of neighborhood.

it was like if colors could make sound:
an aria of light and I was the soloist,
slowly singing, linking each note with the next:
dissonant noises.
not all sounds are pleasant.

thank you
for teaching me that hurt heals
and anger subsides.

lessons worth learning are hard.
hard as rocks, which press you, mash you into pulp.
but even mush and marrow have purpose.

(thank you). the bitterness of my
appreciation does not escape me.

when you told me you loved me
i thought i was safe
because you said it first
and you said it fully
and you said it with a desperation behind your eyes

i said it back
but a few days later
and timidly
and with fear

we said that we loved each other
and I think that we meant it
i did.
but now i question everything

i knew we weren't perfect
nothing ever is
but love is funny

like a white male comic
who spews ****** jokes
but still gets the laugh

i keep finding pieces of you
in my room
in my car
in my heart

i wanted to tell you about the new exhibit
at the museum
where we looked at the small rooms
and we laughed in each others company

i wanted to tell you that i saw a movie
and you would have loved it

i wanted to tell you that the silence hurts me
that it feels heavy and angry in its weightlessness

that your absence is greater than your presence

if only we had gone to see
more movies
or laughed a little harder
or taken care of ourselves
in the way we aren't capable of doing

if only i had texted less
texted more
been ever-present
and invisible at the same time

if only what you wanted was possible

if i could turn back the clock
to the day you told me you loved me
i wouldn't change a thing.

today is for
grieving and
disbelief

today is for
looking around rooms
filled with teary eyes
understanding that we feel
together

yet,
we feel differently.
time is what heals
and even time can't heal
everything

I haven't felt so lost

(in some time)

it will get better

he wasn't an angel--
but he wasn't the devil either.

like most of us,
he was caught floating
somewhere in between
wandering
and wondering
who
      exactly
               he
                  was.

he's a:
seasoned chocolate milk drinker
man-child
annoyance
testy *******
best friend.

he touches
my arm because he knows I'll let him
and we both need it.
some sort of physical acknowledgement of
our own existence.

two small children figuring out their future,
longing for a relationship to call our own.
we aren't the perfect soul mates for each other,
yet he is my other half and I his.

we aren't sure how we feel about each other.
there is a mutual timidity, fear, reluctance,
down right refusal to acknowledge the tension.

he pulls in closer, I move away.
I move in closer, he pulls in closer.
we realize. we both move away.

we make eyes from across the room.

there is a comfort in knowing that
he will always care.

that's the hope,
the desire.

home
each drop a little reminder of
summer camp storms
and big Tennessee yards
and happy singing dancing spinning
into memories frozen in time

summer rain feels like
longing
each drop a heart ache, a heart break
an awful nostalgia that pokes and pinches and burns

i want to move like the clouds
swiftly, with angry tears
leaving pieces of me behind to be evaporated by a warm sun

each little drop is a piece of who I am
each little drop is a piece of who I was
each little drop is a piece of
summer rain

i want to find something bigger than me
to swallow me up whole.

consume me.
let me fill you up to the brim
with thoughts, light, and laughter.

and you can
keep me
warm,
keep me,
safe
keep me,
forever.

i want to find something bigger than me
to swallow me up whole
so that I never have to feel
lost again.

they say with the highest highs
come the lowest of the lows.
i am pretty **** low.
lower than i told myself was acceptable.

and i have you to thank.

not in a facetious, bitter way
because i mean it:
thank you.

appreciation for the high
is the only hope i have left.

and i want to think i'm fine.
because in the grand scheme of it all
i am. i'm fine.

but.

nothing replaces the emptiness,
the large gaping hole,
the anger and sadness.

nothing fills it up and keeps it secure.

tears fill my eyes when i see your face.
only in photographs, a video,

a constant reminder that you saved me
and for that,

i thank you.

i love you so much
in ways i cannot describe
i just
feel it

the way looking at you makes me nervous
the way thinking about the future makes me weep
the way knowing forever isn't truly permanent
makes me feel defeated

i love you so much
in ways i cannot describe
because saying them out loud makes them true

the way you wheeze when you find something funny
or how you look when you're sleeping
or how you can spout nonsense on cue

love is pain disguised by fullness
they are two ends of the same circle
the fine line where they meet
eventually becomes indistinguishable

i hate to see your eyes empty
to see your smile fade and the light slip out

don't shut out my love, love
don't close off you heart

i love you so much
i could love you always
but i'm too scared of always
to love you forever

insatiable:
i feel empty.
there isn't enough to fill the void
that has hunkered down in my stomach.

grabbing at air, i wonder if anything will ever feel
like enough.

someday this won't hurt
but today it still does
and that's okay

i think

its the little things
you know?

the posts you share
the things we used to share
we don't share them anymore

i want to pretend like you are upset
you are bereft
that you feel the way i feel

but i don't think you do
and the worst part is
i don't know

i want reassurance that i meant something to you
that this wasn't nothing
that i am not nothing.

i am every piece of every moment
those moments include you
those moments existed before you

i am everything and anything
and i feel and i feel and i feel.

i am all the little things.
i am not nothing.

seeing you sit across me is
scary and
familiar

and scary because its familiar
(and familiar because it is scary)

i don't love you any more.

and that is scary and unfamiliar.

but seeing you sit across from me i became so sure
that i didn't even need to question it.

i feel the hole in my heart stitching its last little stiches
it is fragile but it is complete.

i will never regret my love for you
because to love is to feel and to feel is to be human

i will never regret how i gave you everything i had

but i will always regret not seeing when enough was enough
for not believing i was enough.

i am enough.

sitting across from you is pleasant but fleeting
and though i'll smell your scent on me for hours afterwards
and stand and watch you walk away for a little too long
it will all flutter away
it will melt and it will pass.

and i will smile because i am full and a little more sure
and that is scary and unfamiliar
yet pleasant and permanent.

i took a picture once
of a beach in a city
that i love

and the people are all so small
next to the big big buildings
that line the coast

i took a picture once
of a beach in a city
that I love

a city filled with dreams
and little wishes and
bigger hopes.

a city where i found myself
and lost myself
and found myself again

and maybe lost myself once more

i'll find me again someday.

i took a picture once
of a beach in a city
that I love

because i wanted to remember the feeling of
being so small, surrounded by big big buildings
and other small people
who came to the beach in the city that I love

probably to read and lounge and take a swim

or maybe to ponder big questions next to big big buildings
and endless lakes that stretch to the horizon.

maybe someone once took a picture
at a beach in a city I love
and i am the small person
peering up at the big big buildings
wondering who else knows
i exits.

i ask my best friend for everything
because she knows best
and i know nothing.

i asked her if you could be in love with two people at one time
and she said:
yes.

but

i don't know how to stop loving him even though i know i should.

i don't know how to stop loving him because i don't know which one i am supposed to stop loving.

everything i feel now is
bitterness and regret
i want to say our love wasnt such a mess
but that would be a lie to myself
and to the world
and I just want to feel like i am important
and free and unfurled

i wish that you had loved for everything i am
and i wish i noticed everything you werent

but here i am 5 months later
alone and scared and shy
and i wish that i could fall for someone else
the way i fell for you

but life isnt perfect so ill monitor your moves
on some media platform and ill wonder
do you do the same as i do?

or am i lost to the past?
and what all is left
of what we were?
who am i now that
time has gone on by?

i loved you with my everything
my all
my best

and I want to go back to when things werent such a mess
but here i am now
vulnerable and so afraid
of who i am
what ill be
who ill love
without you.

each and every day
is a little easier

182 days of
deep breaths
and adventures
and pain
and healing

its the little things
you know?

remembering the words you said
the anger you caused
the way you treated me.

the way i felt:
drowning in undying love
for a person who would never
love me back.

the way i felt:
drowning in anger
at myself
for my stupidity
for my helplessness

the way i worked:
the itty bitty steps towards
fullness

the realization that I deserve something better.

i still worry i meant nothing to you.
that everything was all a lie

that all our love was just the fog,
disorienting and fleeting.

but

i am every piece of every moment
before you
with you
and now after.

i am everything and anything
and i feel and i feel and i feel.

i am all the little things.
i am not nothing.