my hair is laced with flowers and my mind has gone. i've spent so much time trying to turn pollen into pixie dust, and one day, as i was singing nursery rhymes, i swear the butterflies led me somewhere like my home.

my heart is heavy enough to restrict me from flying.
bathtub full of flowers, mind filled with honey, honey, honey.

peter pan will grow up to be an old man working a desk job, and hamlet ends up in a place between the depths of heaven and hell. even god doesn't know what to do with them anymore.  he's got no clue for me either for my mind has gone.

white gown and angelic smile, i'll sing to you until you remember.
forever means nothing if you just age until you're a particle of dust.

i have remembrances of you, remnants of you. they're tattooed to my prefrontal cortex, and they cloud my judgement. my mind has gone. love isn't real, but i see signs anywhere i look, and they're singing nursery rhymes.

my fingers start to prune, and i duck my head under the water.
it's only for a while, now. father i won't be long.

i try to find a million words to match all that i am feeling,
but all that comes out of my mouth is steam.
hot air, water clinging to my breath.
i'm longing to drink coffee with you on a balcony
where everything is
beautiful, including us,
and all you can say is a cool breeze of a "thank you"

we are not angels.
we stopped doing those drugs since
dreaming can numb you.

i beg you to rip my wings from my back.
they don't remember how to fly. i've forgotten how,
since you've stopped coming to my window,
since you've stopped calling me pretty,
since you have been on my mind like a scratched cd,
and that one line is full of your words, and they repeat
over and over and over and over.

i used to be bright.
but all glitter is not gold.
this i remember.

i cant bear to even look at the stars. those broken
constellations seem so sad now
that you aren't thinking of me
when you see them.
i open my mouth and all that comes out is a swarm
of bees and they sting me into fragility
until i just break.

we weren't even what
i had wanted anyway.
so why does this hurt?

i.
the taste of blood in my mouth is becoming a lot like the twinge in my ankle. it's my own fault, it used to concern myself and others. but i'm learning to live with it. i'm learning to adapt.

it's really not fair
those ocean eyes drag me down
into their whirlpools.

ii.
there are times when i want to smoke. nicotine rubbed into my fingertips. clutching my lungs until the day it lets go. that day will be the day the rest of me lets go with it. finished. done. better. sometimes i wish i was a habitual smoker. that can't possibly count as sin.

i used to defy
gravity like a full moon.
i'm dreaming once more.

iii.
you can leave. i'm saying this because i don't want you to, and i know you don't want to. but if you think i'm okay with diving into a land of "i don't ******* know"s, maybe i can convince you to stay.

i used to believe.
magic. love. nothing is real.
i'll break my own heart.

iv.
i'm gripping the rope that is the possibility of us us us us. us in america- everything is worse here, but i'm here, don't you want to be too? i'll be a girl. the perfect girl. short skirt, long jacket, and a mask of a face. full of unheard whispers, and sweet simple suggestions.

*i'll leave america.
i'll find you somewhere i'm not.
i'll be submissive.

i.
i still feel you in those times when i can drain the pain from my veins just long enough to smile, before it rips my skin and crawls its way back into my blood stream.

ii.
you are every poem i have ever written about love in a nutshell. you are so **** pretty. your pretty is a shredder, still ripping me to particles when all i want to do is sleep. forever.

iii.
i'd sing no doubt but you don't speak anyway. if i disregarded that though, would you see the irony? would you see that what i mean is i love you, i love you, i freaking love you, and i'm sorry i didn't try hard enough.

iv.
i still think you weave words like blankets for newborn angels. even when the blanket is wool, and it's itchy, and god babe, was that last poem about me? because if so, i want to ask if i'm a baby angel or if i'm just one or the other, a baby or an angel. because right now i don't feel like either, i just feel lost.

v.
you make me sick.

vi.
not because i don't love you.

vii.
i'd prefer you burn me with words instead of whipping my already scarred heart with silence. now my wings are falling off and i am falling apart with them. the cloud i'm floating on is pitch black and its on a pathway to something horrible.

viii.
i define fragility with silent sobs in the back of my throat. my wrists still throb even though for almost a year, i've been totally clean. the amount time i've been clean is coincidentally very close to coinciding with the amount of time i've known you, and i don't know if ever knew you because i never thought you'd just go like this.

ix.
i left for you. almost everything i do is for you- why don't you understand?

x.
i'm still not ready to say goodbye so the change in the weather tries to do it for me. it says that a new season means a new life, and since i didn't know how to live without you in the old one, maybe now i can learn to live without you in this new one.

xi.
this is almost a goodbye. one day, maybe it will be.

i don't kiss angels
but i love them until i
become one myself

step one.
you close your eyes.
you close them tight.
then you press your palms
against your
closed eyelids,
until
you start seeing red spots that remind you
of a song you wrote
for someone so long ago.
that someone doesn't matter anymore,
not really, so eventually,
neither will he.

step two.
you wear a nightgown.
the one with the lacy v neck, the one
that exposes your thighs,
the one with the vintage roses.
you wear it to bed to remind yourself
that you don't have to wear his attention
like a perfume
to feel ****.

step three.
you listen to those songs.
you know which ones.
you listen to them and sing or rap along
until your throat is sore, until
your chest hurts. do it
until you don't know why you're crying,
then write a song about why
you are crying,
so that when you look back,
you can see that it doesn't matter.
heartache fades.

step four.**
dive into a body of water in only
your under garments.
force yourself
to swim,
no matter how much
you want
to drown.