i just want your compass to point you to the home you could find in me

**it doesn't matter anyway

come on in baby the water is warm

i'm afraid to dive,
because
last time
i lost bits and pieces of myself
inside.

kiss me baby my lips are warm

i can't, because i'll swallow
what was left of the pride
in my mouth
when your tongue
is inside.

i'll hold you baby my body is warm*

my body is a shaking
little mess,
but you open your arms
and hold me
inside.

don’t rip my heart out of my chest until the swallows are choking on their hallelujahs.

twelve year old girls are popping pills; mommy’s medicine cabinet, vicodin to numb the pain. slitting wrists is out of style so they smoke instead, slow motion suicide that is nothing but a human way of escape. self sacrifice is sin unless you can make it look like an accident.

mommy and daddy think i am innocent but i’ve lost my sense of self awareness, i crash.

babydolls drool on her pillow tonight, their chests are ripped open and their eyes are gouged out. baby lucy doesn’t want to meet little bear, she’s already met the beasts in her mommy’s heart that beats at a rapid speed even when she’s sleeping. mommy is weeping.

it’s my party, it’s my party, i’ll **** well cry if i want to.*

my mind is not twisted, it’s just a little hazy, so i’ve forgotten who i am. no one knows how crazy it can get when your parents toss you around like a rag doll maybe i’ll bleed out all of the drugs that are swirling inside me.

i.
only kiss her outdoors,
where the sun will darken her pale skin and

light up her dark eyes like a candle
in a dark room

ii.
don't tell her your sins.
she will find them.

an angel always finds out about sins you can't even remember
committing. when she finds them, you will

remember and she will kiss your scars
before slitting her own skin begging you to lick the cut clean

iii.
put her on a vegan diet. then watch her
as the mango juices drip down her chin.

wipe them away with a gentle, careful, loving thumb.
watch as she licks the mango from it.

iv.
cuddle with her, innocently, in the gardens.
then hold her hand as she flies you

into the clouds.

i really do wish you no harm.

i hope you don't get pocket lint on your dum-dum,
because that would be tragic.

i hope the next girl you date doesn't bite.
even though, you deserve a gnarly girl
who can get low down and gritty.

i pray you don't fall going up the stairs
and slide all the freaking way down.
i wouldn't want a concussed friend
now would i?

i cross my fingers and shut my eyes,
wishing you a pretty girl with perfect teeth
and pale skin
and an american accent cuter than mine.
in bar. or no- in a basement.

i would never wish you the worst hangover that
you've ever had
with a headache so bad
you feel like you tried to go out with a bang (literally)
like kurt d. cobain, and survived.
if you aren't an uneducated swine and know who that is.

i hope you never feel heartache like this.
feeling your chest tighten with anvil heavy memories
and sun-kissed, barebacked truth because
you had to let go what you love
and love what you let go.
crying when you see "message me i get bored x"
in their bio on a tuesday night, for the first time in six months.

smoker's cough
cough syrup
syrup on pancakes
pancakes flat on the road
road signs
sign language
language is power
power-puff girl
girl with a flat chest
chest full of secrets
secrets of lovers
lovers kissing
kissing goodbye
goodbye for now
now or never
never leave
leave me alone
alone on a sunday night
night whispers
whispers like autumn
autumn weather
weather for sweaters
sweaters unraveling
unraveling thoughts
thoughts on peace
peace and quiet
quiet down
down the rabbit hole
hole in my head
head of the household
household of disfunction
disfunction in my brain
brain dead
dead serious
serious situations
situations avoided
avoided my problems
problems with me
me and you
you are nothing
nothing much
much different
different sides of the world
world keeps spinning
spinning like a record
record speed
speed dating
dating yesterday
yesterday is gone
gone with the wind
wind on my skin
skin deep
deep water
water bed
bed of flowers
flowers in my hair
hair so brown
brown like mud
mud pie
pie filled with cherry
cherry red
red blood
blood oath
oath by the river
river fishes
fishes swimming
swimming in tanks
tanks in the desert
desert people
people without purpose
purpose
purposefully making up my mind
mind your mother
mother knows best
best man
manly faces
faces i can't remember
remember this?
this is where i say no
no thanks
thanks for the memories
memories erased
erased the words
words caught in my throat
throat full of tears
tears on my cheeks
cheeks of ruby red hue
hue of blue
blue
blue
blue skies
skies are falling
falling in love
love you more
more than you ever loved me

we are always busy trying to pretend we never knew each other, but i haven’t forgotten. at least, not yet. i was everything when i was with you, but you seem to prefer that i become a faded version of that person. life is not something we are promised tomorrow. but we weren't promised it yesterday either.







i'm afraid of the future, of growing up, and losing touch.






none of it matters, though.








nobody cares enough to tell me that i'm wrong when i'm not and lull me into a false sense of security.









goodbye.
goodbye.
goodbye.













goodby­e.

you say you never gave me aught. i find this funny, because you gave me confidence before you gave me heartache, but both of them you gave to me. i try not to sit and wonder what if? what if i was there for you when you were at your worst? would you really have loved me?

nothing but late night whispers as misterwives covers that song about wendy.
wendy grows old, her window will close, and peter will still never grow up.

ready, set, stop. we don't go anywhere, although i'd love to go everywhere there is with you. i'll be a mermaid- my hair will be wet, my soul soaked in misadventure. i'll let you duck my head under for as long as you want, and if it kills me in the process, you can swallow these jelly beans whole.

my jelly bean soul will be with your gummy bear heart, and it will be pretty.
your smile is so bright it glows in the dark- i wonder where it's gone?

this ultralight beam is carrying me home. home away from home. home away from the heartache, and away from all of the things i lost when i thought i was in love with you. i lost a part of myself. it's still over where you are. singing songs i want to forget.

i've been spinning like a record, seeing you in the city, in the red of stoplights.
i once said i'd wait for you there but i'd rather float face down in the water.

it's easy to become lost within one's self.
picking apart one's skin until
old scars are ripped open.

but you bring me back.
god, do you bring me back.

your lips write me, like a poem.
your hands right me, like an old wrongdoing.

even when my blood has spilled
onto the floor, like ink to paper.
even when i cry, 'i have been alone!'

you bring me back.

scars will heal. but their mark will remain.
i tell you this, again and again.

but when my scars threaten to open,
and time travel to the past
is like an echo- it's so **** repetitive,

you bring me back.
god, do you bring me back.

tell me a story, my dear, ill fated lover. my white dress floats in the bath water. i want you to stand next to the tub and tell me about the first time you saw me. you were a prince, and i just a girl. tell me about how you fell in love with my walk and my curled toes and my cinnamon smile. sickening spices. uniquity. grace.

biting my bottom lip, i ask if you will say hello again, blooming.
why is it that you always whisper goodbyes like autumn leaves?

you are catastrophic, and i a mad, young, silly girl. but you used to be perfect and i used to be wise, and our most promising traits are announced to the tides as i pull the drain stopper out. wait! i laugh. i put the stopper back into tub. row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.

i’m wondering as you look at me with those empty eyes.
i wonder, if i know i have gone mad, am i mad after all?

i don’t see it in your eyes, my dear, ill fated lover. i only see death, death, death and love. you used to utter sweet words with warm breath in my ear. i’d dance for you until my back hurt and my heels were sore, until i wanted to cry and laugh, for you were so enthralled by the movements of my body. I don’t dance anymore. and your breath is cold, your words sour.

the tub overflows and i shut my eyes, although they beg to see.
will i laugh when you scream my name, saying you can’t swim?

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.

i was drowning in your galaxies of blue.
blue so pale- like your    e   y   e  s
when i swore i could feel them on me but
you weren't there.
i was drowning in your galaxies
in which the stars would shine
shine bright / bright light / bright white light / pale bright white light-
not like printer paper in the sun
more like the pigment of your skin
in the moonlight.

i didn't mind. drowning didn't seem
so bad.
because even though i felt awful and sad, i
also felt loved,
and that was so very pretty to me
as a poet. as a lonely star amidst
constellations.

you almost said the "l" word
a total of (probably) seven times in the five
long-short months that
we were almost lovers.
i actually said the "l" word
a total of five times.
twice as a half joke, hoping you'd pick up
where i slacked in clarity but never
in sincerity
and three times (thrice) in my goodbye
in which i beheld these self-evident truths:

that the almost (always almost) meant
that we could never be lovers
and i thought that i'd prefer us to be nothing to each
other but maybe friends.

(maybe, maybe, maybes make me want to wish on stars
but not the ones in your eyes)

and although time flies
i'm still somehow drowning in your galaxies
of blue.

and i wonder if its killing me
slowly
as your stars blink
and i'm gone
when they open their eyes.
*almost.

bubblegum princess, open your eyes. (pop) i see you in your tower but there's no prince- i bet he left you so he could die eating peach pits in his vanilla ice cream. (pop) bubblegum princess, your mind is a desert but your heart causes warfare behind the dunes. (pop) bubblegum princess, one day you'll lose your gum and your crown. then what will you be but sorry? (pop)

sometimes i feel like my metaphors and similes are too pretentious. call me a liar and you wouldn't be wrong, but call me a fake and you'd miss the target all together.

outer space is like broken english. if you lean in closer you can understand it a little better.

i've tried to separate my soul into several pieces of dust and scatter them until i can't feel anything at all, including love for you. i picture myself far, far away; maybe some place close to where you are now, or maybe in a void where everything i've ever said loses all its meaning.

what a wonderful day that would be.

i bent my body into a canvas of pillared secrets, and opened my eyes into a land of streetlights and headlights, but never into stars. now i'm drunk on the light of the moon. literal moon-shine. don't look back, it says. don't look back. but i turn my headache head anyway until i am an owl, accompanied by the vastness of everything i'd forgotten.

i'm scraping dreams from my skin
with my fingernails.

dreams where you move down here.
where i'm your little spoon
and i'm in your tee shirt.

water beats down
and my skin is raw.

oh, silly little me.

i can't scrape away the pain
in my chest with fingernails

and red hot water.

i'll be almost an adult
yet i don't feel mature
as the pain goes down my throat
and collects itself into a ball
of tears.

stuck.

i feel stuck.
i feel sorry.
(i wish i could say i feel nothing.)

i feel like i'm going backwards, asking myself
if i should be or not be at all.

i don't know what i'll say
on my birthday

when they ask me what i wished for
on the candle of the cupcakes

that aren't even the ones i asked for.

my mouth of fable could collide with yours-
myth, fairytale, and folklore.
what am i even reading you for?
tales are caught on your tongue with no spoilers.

and we could never be found,
or we could be bound
for happily ever after.
i really prefer the latter.

just don’t hesitate
because it’s wrong to wait
for saving.
please don’t hesitate
because the devil’s bait
is in waiting.

with my eyes of disguises, i could be your muse,
in different shades of greens and blues.
painted on the canvas ’til your amused.
until the images on my tongue are all gone and used.

and we could sit still and cry,
or dance because i wouldn’t mind.
i’m dreaming of whatever
it means to be together.

just don’t hesitate
because it’s wrong to wait
for saving.
please don’t hesitate
because the devil’s bait
is in waiting.

i’m stacking metaphors and similes
not telling you, because if you see
that i’m close to breaking
and my soul’s rearranging
into comets and galaxies
you might just leave me.
so i tell my self to wake up
that i can’t speed the pace up.
i can only hope you won’t forget me
because i could love you if you’d let me.

and we could cuddle kiss,
stare at the sky, sharing a wish.
you ask me what’s the matter
i smile saying it doesn’t matter.

just don’t hesitate
because it’s wrong to wait
for saving.
please don’t hesitate
because the devil’s bait
is in waiting.

don't bruise my mind with your
spat out slurs that fall
to my feet
with
a thunk.

don't fill my pretty little head
with insanity-notions
and those lies
that
are pernicious.

don't tell me i am prettier
when i am angry;

you want me
when i am angry;

you'd **** me
when i am angry.

don't.
don't.
don't.
don't
say you love(d) me.

past or present tense
the lie is still tensing

the backbone
you say i don't have.

don't look at me.

*your eyes aren't the only thing i won't miss on my body.

i.
midnight drives on these long nights,
i leave the heat
low
in my car
so i can see my breath
in order to know
that i am still breathing- alive.

ii.
after the blankets
of white
come the blooms of brilliance
roots sunken under green.

this is the kind of feeling
that makes you
soar
over mountaintops
and trees
of green.

iii.
bare arms and
tank topped torsos
sweat dripping onto
each other as we
embrace.

words i say
emanating heat and
childlike perfection
chalk marked sidewalks.

bright eyed, i say yes.

iv.
colours.
orange, yellow, red.

the trees
are on fire-
it's that time
of the year.

the trees are on fire,
but
cool air
is
holding desperately
on to
my space.

v.
maybe your heat could melt my icy skin. condensation dripping from your finger tips. i'm holding on to this, this moment. my life isn't in several shades of watercolour blue hues, but in vibrant shades of yellow. mustard is the one shade that's screaming whispers and lighting matches.

you are an echo of my voice colliding with the wet walls of this place. 'it's okay!' i scream. 'it's okay' you, my echo, say; you whisper like a flower petal in the wind. (it will dry up and die, just like we will eventually)
                                there are better days
                                somewhere far away from here
                                i swear - i can tell
vanilla chocolate chip is my favourite flavour of all time. the beauty of it all is equivalent to the sadness - i imagine what you'd taste like before i sleep and try not to cry. those misty eyes are not the answer.
                                so many days of
                                solitude on my beige walls
                                hanging, bitter, art
i pedal slowly away from the end. i am not ready for anything this dark. i sing every single love song ever written to the wind. she is my best of friends really.
                                *i can't get those words
                                unlodged from my aching throat
                                love's trapped there for now.

nothing gold can stay

i try my best to ignore the fact
that one day,
i'll see my first laughter line
a sign
of my own body rejecting my laughter

the beautiful are
the ****** in this land
we call earth

i'm just walking on concrete,
while you're walking on water;
even though you're not jesus,
even though you can't see this
love inside of my eyes.
what a surprise.
what a surprise.