My hunger pains lull me to sleep;

they scream victory.

"And in a funny way, the shaving of my, uh, head has been a liberation from, uh, a lot of, uh, stupid vanities really. Uh, it has simplified everything for me, it has opened a lot of doors maybe." - Stephen Malkmus, Jo Jo's Jacket

the first layer of skin i shed
was the bra

rid of the foreign metal sculptor producing a deep rift between skin
my third eye, swallowing gazes

rid of my **** , my ***** , my rack
replaced with sacks of fat and nerve and milk ducts
hanging, existing, for no one else
not even myself

the second layer of skin was the painting of the face
the concealing and erasing of imperfections, the lines of laughter of sorrow of life
redirecting attention and importance to the bow and symmetry of the lip

no longer did i have to put myself on in the morning
i woke up as i was, as i needed to be,
bare and uninhibited

my skin now breathed, and for no one else
not even myself

and then i grew another layer of skin,
made of dank tangles to protect my age,
i stopped shaving the years i'd walked this earth, shedding my womanhood

the skin grew to my armpits, little tufts of sweaty, odorous mother nature dozing in a fleshy convex nest

and to my legs, were the tangles wrapped around my ankles
preventing the spreading of the legs for every life
for not every life wanted what was not tame
and what was not tame no longer wanted to be.

my body did not conform,
for it was not brought into this world to be consumed for the pleasure of others

it exists for no one else,
not even myself

and as i was engulfed in this hairy wonder of my own body
i shed the last layer,
the shaving of the head

my brain, my being breathed
porous and exposed
vulnerable to weather and whispers

but i was all at once naked and calm,
having finally peeled away the layers of ***** over-sexualization and constrained femininity that had molded this meat sack that serves me,
a bundle of circuitry and solution balancing and bobbing on the neck

for i exist for no one else,
only myself

I am my own worst enemy.
       I know my weaknesses.
       I know how to tear myself down,
       Leave myself hopeless,
       Confused, betrayed.
It’s funny how I think I'm only
       Looking out for myself,
       When I'm really looking
       For how to make myself fall.
I cannot hide from myself.
       I am always lurking,
       Waiting for a sign of weakness,
       Predicting the next move,
       Begging to pounce.
I am addicted to self-destruction.
       I **** myself
       And it kills me
       To know that it’s all my fault
       Yet I'm still breathing.
It makes no sense.
It’s not logical.
        It’s not pleasant,
        But maybe just maybe
        If I can survive myself,
I can survive anything.

the world is too bright.
i am blinded by false smiles and laughs strained to reach that falsetto note.
that preconceived notion that paradise of the land brings paradise of the mind.
sand is still sand, and water is still water,
less we quantify their quality by purity and color.
sand is still sand and water is still water,
and i am still me.

the world is too bright,
so i filter it into sepia tones gentler to the mind's eye and swim to where the water meets the clouds.
i am drowning,
but not from the ocean's relentless caresses,
but from the world's relentless stresses:
beauty that is measured and calculated,
saturated with standards that burn like the sun and are as intangible as its rays,
a paradise built on sand as quick as it is to judge.    

so i swim to where the water meets the clouds.
where the water is still water,
and i am still me.

Stop talking to the people who are not worth your time, who cause you unnecessary drama, and make you feel worse about yourself.

Be honest with yourself.

You have fewer friends than you thought. Your cafeteria table slowly decreases in size, as do your social commitments, but you do not have any drama, no shallow or fake nonsense. Slowly, everyone starts to seem annoying, and irritating, and you do not want to converse with any of them, ever again.

Do not have many friends, and sway between feeling sorry for yourself and feeling like you are superior.

When the one friend you do have does not come to school because she has to take a driving test, eat your lunch alone, and listen to music on your iPod so you do not appear as alone as you feel. Realize your condition has gotten much worse.

People talk to you. You feel ecstatic, even though you won’t admit that to yourself.
You get a shot of adrenaline when you feel as if you’ve breached their walls.
You try to say something—an opinion, an agreement, anything.
They ignore you.
You walk away, and think: you are above them anyways.

Do not get invited to parties. Think it is because no one likes you. Be sad; be resentful. Think about all the things you are missing at a dumb party thrown by a sophomore—which is bound to fail, and bound to get broken up by the cops. Realize that the reason you are not invited is more likely because you have never show any interest in parties. Force yourself to feel grateful for the lack of an invitation; no cops will come knocking on your door, asking questions.

Plus, you have to go to work tomorrow, and that is much more important.

When the party does get broken up, pretend that you knew it was a bad idea and that you had never wanted to go. Listen to the stories of running from the police, through thorn bushes, with a twinge of jealousy.

Not only do you not go to parties; you do not have any plans for the weekends at all.

Never have sleepovers. Instead, wake up at 12:00 in the afternoon, stay in your pajamas, and have a Netflix marathon of Supernatural. Eat a lot of junk food and think, “**** it!” and then immediately regret it, you are trying to lose weight.

If you lose weight, you won’t be a loser anymore.

If you lose weight, people will still remain the same.

You cry, because you think it’s what you should do.
You feel pathetic.
The tears running down your cheeks do not do justice for the raw, uncomfortable feeling making your stomach clench.
You are stronger than all of that.

You sit on your bed and think about a better time, a better place, when you felt accepted, loved, and even popular.

Think about the time you weighed a good fifty pounds less. You were on top of the world.

Talk about your future, because at least you have them beat there. You will go all the way.

Think about your straight A’s. Get on the scale. 145, 160, 194 pounds; why do those numbers matter? The 98’s are the ones that are going to get you into a good college.

College…
High school.
Present.

Walk through the double doors with staggering confidence.

Talk about how you are a loser—it makes people believe that you do not actually see yourself that way. Losers would never admit that they are a loser. Plus, the people you are talking to are obligated to deny the fact that you a loser, no matter their opinion. It’s common courtesy. Sometimes you want them to deny it, and sometimes you want to prove to them, and to yourself, that it is okay to be a loser.

You define yourself as one because sometimes you are proud of it.
Why?

You think: I do not want to be friends with these people; they are annoying, petty, and shallow. I am much more independent and mature. I’m off to better, bigger things.

Later
You think: it would be nice to have a few more friends, people to talk to, people who care.


Get assigned a creative essay titled, “How to Become a…”

Choose: “How to Become a Loser”

Plan on the piece being light, funny, and paradoxical, ending it with a sarcastic, but optimistic line.
Realize that you are not the loser; everyone else is.

Doubt yourself.
Realize this is no longer a humorous essay.

Dear boy who I threw my virginity at,

I never expected you to like me,
I purposefully picked you because I thought you were a **** boy.
We'd **** and forget.
I was some random chubby senior
and you were some random ****** sophomore.
But then you didn't let me leave,
even when I tried, you only held me closer.

I liked you because I thought you must honestly like me.
I liked you because I could not see how someone like you
could like someone like me.
You went for the skinny, blonde, dumb ones,
I was not skinny, nor blonde, nor dumb.

And I liked your dumbness, your childish innocence,
even though I was way more innocent than you.
I liked that you defied all my expectations
when you were sweet, and vulnerable, and there.

And I loved when you were ratchet,
when you'd slap my *** in public,
or try to force your hand down my pants while I was driving or on the phone.
I loved it when we'd go to parties and not actually show up because we'd just be ******* in my car.

But I was leaving to college and refused to ever call you my boyfriend but I liked you.
I liked you because nothing about us made sense,
but we did it anyways.

and then I ****** someone else, just to show you have much I didn't care about us, but I did.

Dear man who I played,

You came to me when I was at a low,
low point in my life.
I believed nothing I did was wrong and everything about me was perfect.
I was fine,
even if everyone around me told me I was not.
I was not fine.

And then you came to me,
and you were everything I was supposed to avoid.
You were way older than me, worked for my father and even dated one of his exes, and your life was going nowhere.
You were perfect.

And I didn't like you that way, you never gave me butterflies,
you never made me giggle every time you slapped my ***,
but you made me *** and our relationship made me walk on egg shells.

And I saw you fall for me, I saw you wrap yourself around my finger
saying the whole time you expected nothing of me.
And maybe that was true, but you wanted it all, you wanted all of me
and I craved that.

And now every time I see your name pop up on my phone I feel grimy.
I feel grimy because I can finally feel the weight of how wrong you were for me,
I feel grimy because of the overwhelming guilt I feel for feeling disgusted by you,
someone I never liked but almost made fall in love with me.
because of the overwhelming guilt I have for being such a ****
and the shame of allowing myself to be so cold.

so I stopped responding.

Dear boy with the beautiful eyes,

I liked you, I really liked you.
I thought we fit together so nicely,
and yes, at first you were another that I was not supposed to go for.
You could have been fired and constantly had a gun on you.
You were supposed to be protecting us
and that was ****.

And then you whispered sweet things in my ear in your broken english,
and we spent a whole night only kissing, and I loved every minute,
yearning but not needing more.  
I could have kissed you forever.

then came the staring, you'd look at me and say nothing, and I was mesmerized.
and you'd trace my ****** features and I never felt more special, more wanted, more loved.
and I never wanted you to stop staring at me because I never wanted to stop staring at you.

and then I was at your house,
with your lovely, hippie family.
and you made me breakfast and tea, and we read together on the couch,
each in our own language.

and every time we ******, you'd look into me and I felt like maybe this is what people meant when they said making love.

You'd wrap me in your arms, and I never wanted to leave,
but ever comforted by the fact that in a few weeks I would be leaving
to a different country, to a different life, to somewhere where
I would not have to face my growing feelings for you.

and now I sit with a heavy heart, half way across the world, missing you and your beautiful eyes.

Dear boy who gives me bruises,

I think I like you, and it scares me because you do not live half way across the world.
You live down the hall.

It scares me because you are smart, weird, fun, and someone I could actually date.
And I don't date, I ****.

It scares me because I still have nightmares that your ex/my ex-bestfriend will still ****** me if she ever knew we were *******,
but thats another story.

I like the way you are unapologetically odd,
a slob and sometimes completely antisocial.
I'm always sad when you don't sleep over after ***
but I enjoy how awkwardly you say good night and leave.

But I love how ***** and rough our *** is.
it's not the best *** I've had,
but its *** with you that I always want to have
and its the same *** I fantasized about in high school while watching ****.

it's so twisted
and I twirl in the mirror, admiring the countless bruises covering my *** and spattering my collar bone.

We've boxed ourselves in this drunken corner
of such ****** up *** that I think were scared to do it sober.

I love our drunken after-*** rambles about philosophy and life
but as soon as the ***** runs out and the sun rises,
it's all the same awkward laugh and shifty gazes at the floor.

and I wonder what the **** I'm trying to do with you, this boy who loves memes and rough *** and has such a brilliant mind,
and the answer is I have no ******* idea.

And when I'm honest with myself, I think I like you because you don't like me so all this fear is for nothing.

but I wait for the ***** to flow again and the sun to set, and for us to do it all over again.

at age 8 i stopped wearing jeans because they were uncomfortable.

at age 14 i wore high heels, fish nets, and skirts to school and a man once asked my mother if she really let me leave the house looking like that.
i also wore checkered pajama pants and shirts with holes in them to class, i dressed up and down because everyone else seemed to dress in the middle.
i dressed however i wanted to because my mother told that guy to shut the **** up and mind his own business.

at age 16 i wore crop tops the size of sports bras and pants so tight i understood why they called them skin-ny jeans
my **** and *** would be flying all over the place,
but people with larger **** and larger bellies, people like me, weren't supposed to be wearing those sorts of things so i thought i must.
or so i thought.

at age 18 i started dressing in oversized shirts and formless dresses
i didn't believe my body needed to be objectified and put on display anymore,
i didn't need to prove that my waistline was small enough,
i didn't need to wear the spanx i wore every day at 16.

at age 20 i stopped wearing make up or a bra,
my **** sagged and eyes bagged but i wanted to show people that ***** aren't always perky even on twenty year olds.
i also stopped shaving my armpits
i thought they were cute.

at age 22 i stopped shaving my legs.
i didn't think they were cute.
but i realized not every decision i made about how i presented myself needed to be in order to make myself more beautiful.

and at age 24 i shaved my head.

a man once asked me,
as he looked at my college ring wrapping itself around my pointer finger,
if i always did things differently just to be different?
and if id always be doing things just because someone told me not to?

i should have looked at him and asked him
what has he ever been told he cannot do?

A single light
fractured into a billion shards
of bright white energy

fall like raindrops of
golden emotion to the
Earth.

All things under the sun,
sewn of the same silk and
molded of the same clay.

All pumping life
through roots embedded
in soft flesh.

Consecrating acts of love,
hate, and whim for they all flow
from the same spring,

reveling in the fact
that one exists exactly as
nature intended.

Familiar grooves and caramel swells,
Fleshy masses and velvety, flecked skin
Of the body she hates and loves so well.
Trapped in this sole vessel in which she dwells,
Behind corpulent walls, she feels choked in.
Familiar grooves and caramel swells,
A warm and supple being, she compels
Herself to deface with hate. The scarring
Of the body she hates and loves so well.
Stare at the reflection, try to dispel
Scrutiny. She wants to embrace and grin.
Familiar grooves and caramel swells,
She knows her body’s deep and ***** spell,
Justifying gluttony, making sin
Of the body she hates and loves so well.
Gently caressing as she softly tells
Her fullness of forgiving and loving
Familiar grooves and caramel swells
Of the body she hates and loves so well.

Freedom, unadulterated freedom.
Freedom to dig little toes in the sand and run as naked and
as wild as the wind.

A freedom so complete and vast and uncensored
that it weighs like chains,
and chokes like an iron grip.

And so little hands meld mismatched links of their own,
rules and laws, and should's and should-not's,
tying little feet back to earth,
away from the suffocating sky of infinite possibilities.

Little hearts yearn for shackles,
feeling utterly exposed without them,
for a free body is one that tempts oppressors
unless he dons crude metal adornments of his own.

And so with the imprint of unsung lullabies
floating in the night air, little cheeks
nuzzle their iron blankies and doze off
under the familiar weight of confines and conformity.

my first love
i fell in love with being loved.

now i am searching for a love
such that i can fall in love with loving another.

Trees of emerald and expectations,
taking root in dirt and damnation,
grow fruits flowing full of flirtation.

Children complain of chapped lips,
clinging to women's waning hips
as drunkards are in dire need of one last fix.

Suffering stomachs grumble
and morose mouths mumble
of a society that continues to crumble:

Demanding water of a well they dried,
without any tears, the people cried
for their way of life had died

in a world governed by greed,
while the people bleed
blood of toil and seed.

But power is now paper green,
and the forlorn farms stay pristine
while the people are lying in between
dying
and
death.

a red velvet cupcake wrapper casts shadows on the desk while
abandoned crumbs still cling to a dainty mouth.

a rose dress worn by rosy cheeks and some pink thighs,
pink thighs that stay petite to match that flawless, porcelain stomach.
a stomach he wants to grab, and pull, and hold.
fleshy lips and rough tongues.
pleasure on the lips, on the hips, on the tips
of the fingers
that intermingle, and intertwine
that trace the perfect buds of a budding girl.

stark white snow ******* the life out of the frozen ground.
stark white sheets ******* the life out of men.
gloves that come in neat little packages signifying
love?
lust.
trust?
a gift given that can never be returned.
she can never return.
yet the bumping and thrusting and heaving continue.
sweet smelling sweat and sultry sighs.
roses are not innocent.
they conceal thorns, they draw blood.

blood the color of the last remains of a cupcake,
frosted with secrets and assumptions.
a pleasure on the lips, but
never on the hips.

How can I ever be strong
When I know there is this
Incurable weakness writhing
Within me?
Every time, I repeat my mistakes
Because I am too weak to say no.
Every time, I miss opportunities
Because I am too weak to say yes.
Every time, I fall into self-pity
Because I am too weak to make myself
Better.
I can see myself
Stronger, improved, worthier
But I cannot remain on the path to
Success
For my childish weakness trips me
And drags me down
And I am too weak to fight off my own
Weakness.

How can I ever be good
When there is so much bad
Swirling within
And strangling me?
I cannot suppress the evil and twisted
Thoughts that sprout from my mind.
I cannot help but take delight in them,
Somehow find pleasure in their utter
Despicableness.
And I cannot help but find a sour pride
In possessing such horrible thoughts,
As if it makes me special.

How can I ever be me
When I am completely influenced
By the people around me?
I am a collage of mirrored traits
And characteristics
Adopted from friends and family.
All my aspirations of personhood
Are tainted by society’s ideals.
Nothing is truly mine.
Nothing is truly original.
I am trapped in a never-ending cycle
Of give and take,
Repeat and release.

How can I ever be happy
When I know death awaits me?
And while I live on this Earth,
I am merely a meat suit,
Imitating the ignorant beings around me
While weakness and evil
Manifest within my body.
Maybe death is not such a bad thing.
It is escape from myself,
My poisoned, tainted being,
My sad excuse of a life
Without hope of redemption,
For all humans are the same:
Wicked little beings hidden behind smiles
And good intentions.

what if i just was?

when you zone out, where do you go?

if you look at anything long enough it turns into exactly what you were looking for.

i am looking for nowhere.

hiding in what was.

i want to be in between the lines of my childhood memories,
in between the folds of time
in the solid swaths of color

huffing on emotional echoes.

i want to be in the stills from a movie, but not the running film.

where do ditzy people go when they ditz?

i want to live in the moment before you wake up, when you nuzzle into the void between consciousness and unconsciousness

the in between inhale and exhale

how do i know what words to let out of my
brain
mouth
?

who is the author of my thoughts?
what is making me write this?

i want to be mad
delirious

just be.

i am.

its okay.

Guilt, it consumes you
Not enough money,
Not enough respect,
Cannot please them enough.

The expectations, they strangle you.
Unreachable, unforgettable.
Must try, must fail.
But the disappointment is too much.

What is the point?
Lives lost, money gained.
It’s all one big game!
No one is a good person,
Only some worse than others.

In a world full of evil,
Of selfishness, of greed
What you do cannot be condemned
But it can be frowned upon

And when all you want is to impress,
Be accepted, be loved,
When all you are is denied and rejected,
There is nowhere for you to turn.

Money cannot soothe,
Cannot buy you innocence
The guilt will consume,
The dream turns to nightmare

Running,

running away from the present moment in time
because you know the minute your feet
stop pounding the dirt below you
you have succumbed to the belief
that the moment snapping at your heels
is the last moment you will ever have.

Fear,

fear is the air you breathe, the blood
pumping through your veins, pulsating
at your temples, the only thing that
is keeping you alive. Fear that fear
is only temporary, a fleeting spark,
a false and empty hope.

Numb,

numb as your mind has disconnected itself
from your body, has shed its shield of thought
and is now an open soar of raw and exposed emotion.
but as long you keep running, keep
moving, you manage to avoid the eminent truth
that you are only prolonging the inevitable.

But until then,

you fly with the quickness of panic and denial,
because there is no escape but ultimate surrender.

Killing herself slowly, silently,
unceremoniously.
The glowing ember perched between her lips,

She breathes fire.

No blood pooling on ivory wrists,
no pill bottles scattering the floor,
just dark eyes and a chain around her neck.

Pulling the world into her lungs,

She breathes fire.

Her watery eyes sooth her raw throat,
as billows of lies escape
her red painted lips.

Flames lick the inside of her palms,

She breathes fire.

With a sad smile and slight shrug,
knee high socks and a black heart,
ashes to ashes, she inhales,

breathing fire

as she burns.

Sometimes I like to be alone,
Being alone excuses you from
Following social norms,
Of feeling judged for every little thing
You do right,
Or wrong.
You are no longer under the watchful
Eye of society;
You are free.

Loneliness by choices is a very different
Matter than from those times
Where you feel completely alone
In a sea of people.
Another benefit of being alone:
You do not feel alone.
It is an active choice of removing
Yourself
From those around you.
It avoids feeling rejected, unwanted,
Intruding on the wonderful,
Golden world of the accepted.
Instead you can have your own
Perfectly and selectively chosen
Party of you.

Here you are number one.
You are the best
At everything and anything.
You are the strongest, prettiest, fastest, smartest.
But you are also the worst.
The weakest, ugliest, slowest, dumbest.
But maybe it’s worth being the worst
If it means you can be the best,
Too.

In the real world,
There are always people better than
You.
There are always people worse than
You.
But in the real world, it is hard to feel
The best at anything,
While feeling the worst is,
Almost,
Natural.
That is why I prefer to be alone.
I encourage you to join me,
But not to actually join me,
For my party of one is full.
But you are welcome to reap the
Benefits of being utterly alone
Somewhere far away from me,
Where I am spared of your judgments,
And you of mine.
Together we can live in bliss,
Separately and
Alone.

I think too much,


                                              and sometimes
                                                       ­                         

                                      ­                                               I forget to breathe.

Daintily dressed in white,
We sit.
Watching souls
File down the aisles of our mind’s eye,
A never-ending stream
Of people to whom life was denied.
Six million.

Today,
We remember
Those who bore our identity
Whom their world hated, imprisoned, killed,
Who walked to their death
In silent rebellion.

Behind the tall backs and straight necks,
Behind eyes dry of tears,
Lie broken and scattered souls,
Destitute hopes,
And dreams of a day to come
Crying out in vain.

We thank God we are whole.
We are not the ones who were
Picked apart,
Conviction casted away,
Limbs left lifeless,
Nothing but empty shells
Of a people once strong.

We thank God we live in a time
Where that shell has been filled.
We pray we may never see
That emptiness in us.
The thirst, hunger,
fire,

The blinding billows
Of smoke,
Choking out dignity.
No hope or prayer for life
Left,
Only the hope that this
Atrocious massacre
Will never be repeated.
Will never be forgotten.

devour me.
eat me until there's nothing left
but a hollow shell and heavy
breathing.
cast me to the side,
tears stained black,
thoughts fuzzy and a bad taste to
the tongue.
skin tearing, lungs collapsing,
just breathe.

the world spins,
falling, falling,
crashing.
heads on fire,
eyes diverted.
quick, silent footsteps across rotting ground,
dark rooms and dank air.
words that tumble and jumble,
roll out of the mouth before they can
be put back into their iron cages.

**** on my insides until theres
nothing left,
but a wondering as to what comes
next.

just breathe.

the sun comes up.
my demons are put to rest.

in middle school,
i saw girls obsess over boys
chronicled every detail about them,
drew hundreds of hearts with their names in them
and now i wonder if it was a distraction
to avoid how much they hated themselves.
the ones that obsessed the most
were always the ones who thought they deserved the least.

sometimes, i try to explain my loneliness and lack of a partner.
everyone says that the first step in being in a healthy relationship
is loving yourself first.
i think im worthy, i think im doing my best, i love myself.
and yet, all i think i crave is for someone to love me as well.

i dont day dream about a boy with blue eyes that i can get lost in
i day dream about a man who will smile in the morning just because he's waking up next to me.
shouldn't i be dreaming of a man who makes me smile just by being there?

am i delusional? do i not accept myself as much as i think i do?
have a convinced myself that i have surpassed the self esteem issues that plague the the minds of every other girl my age because my desire to be perfect became so strong that it convinced me ive found self acceptance when i havent?

but if i feel as if ive accepted myself, shouldnt that be enough?
isnt believing youre in a mind state the same as being in a mind state?
so am i just broken? too self involved to ever find love?

i think maybe its that i dont believe in love.
in high school, i saw girls who hated themselves so much that they could not stand to be single.
if they couldn't love themselves, at least they could get someone else to.
and if they ******* love themselves, at least they had someone else that they could love.

sometimes im almost positive i dont believe in love.
my parents got divorced when i was young, dont remember what age.. five six..
i believe that it was the best thing that happened to my family.
i got to see both my parents more since they both valued the time they got with me more.
they were bother happier than when they were together.
but now my mom is an what i believe to be a pretty loveless marriage.
and my dad knocked up this lovely woman and now theyre married.
but i always remind myself that they only got married originally cause she was pregnant.

if we love ourselves enough why do we need the validation that we are enough from others?
why do i have to believe that some one else is so amazing that i couldnt live without them?
why cant i make myself happy enough in this world without someone else doing it for me?

i had this argument with my mom about ***.
she thinks im too promiscuous.
and for comparison, my mom is chill, she's not off base when she calls me out for sleeping around a lot.
i do.
i tell her i dont believe *** has to be intimate.
i dont need to believe that this guy is decent enough to date to want to ****.
i believe we are all human, with innate ****** desires.
i believe we are all human and we crave to be social and i believe *** is a type of communication.

tangent on tangent but back to love.
its not that im not open to it,
i want to make someone happy,
im skeptical of the idea of someone else making me happy.

and now i guess my conclusion is that i dont want someone to make me happy and then leave.
i never put myself out there when i like someone,
i pick people that will fall for me, but i dont fall.
im so utterly afraid of rejection because i believe that i am worth a whole ******* lot, and if someone else cant see that,
then maybe im not.

Without one, there cannot be the other.
It is the sometimes harmonious,
sometimes discordant,
blend of dark and light,
that stirs within our shells,
creating life,
creating being.

It is the dark that makes the light angelic,
for it is when we have crawled from our deepest depths,
that we can truly bask in the glow
of glory and satisfaction.

It is the light that casts shadows,
making our darkest corners apparent;
it is the light that illuminates our flaws and errors
for the world to mock.

Observe the ever-moving flux and flow
of our twisted souls,
a hopeless state of affairs.
Confused and distorted
are we.

Seeking peace and calm
in our darkness;
our cowardice at the thought
of enlightenment.

Blackness engulfing,
troubles disappearing,
mistakes forgotten,
blemishes concealed.
Let us find solace in our weakness.

Let us crawl into the blackened crevices
of our souls.
But let light tease our toes and coax us
back out.
Let us not become swallowed and abused
by our fears.
But let us not burn and wither in the heat
of ourselves.

The alcohol that you measure in your graduated cylinder  
is not the alcohol you binge drink on the weekends,
is not the alcohol your parents drink out of elegant crystal,
but they all burn.

Burn like the knowledge that knowledge gets you swallowed into the abyss of faceless statistics only to fill up the remaining desks left by those who care too much not to.

Life is too short to worry about why 1, 2, 3 has turned into your abc's while life screams just shut your textbook, please. There's love, and ***, and drugs just waiting for you to realize that school rots the brain, not Mary Jane.

But Mary Jane still sits with her nose in a book, knowing life doesn't end when the graduation caps fly up,
                                                           up,                    
                                         ­                        up to the top of her class, because money may not buy happiness but without a solid education financial stability is a joke, and it's a matter of time before you crash and burn,
                                                                ­          burn like the alcohol in your red solo cup, chugging away the inevitable:
                        life is wasted by the try-hards and the try-nots.

The geeks and the nerds whose potential is squandered by the system, teaching them how to read rubrics and recite rhymes and reiterate the same ******* spoon-fed to them by those who failed to exceed to the limitations of the textbook.

The hippies, the druggies, the ones who can be found in the dark hallways and back rooms and hugging the outside walls all see the futility in it all. so why not jump out of an airplane without a parachute because each joint only lasts a few puffs, and the high only a few short blinks until you are thrown back down to earth.

High school reveals how you will survive life: in one impetuous bright burst or one prolonged apathetic smolder. But all the blazers and all the late-night homework-doers will have to put out the flame or turn off the light sooner or later.

i lost my innocence when i began to believe **** was superior to ***:
reliable, constant, and emotionless.

i lost my control when i realized i was getting high to calm my anxiety and tempt sleep rather than have fun.

i lost my sanity when i convinced myself my problems were too trivial to express and so i dismissed them to the farthest recesses of my brain.

i lost my integrity when i started viewing myself as a sequence of numbers and statistics and measurements that never quite seemed to add up.

i lost you when you went looking for yourself. you were the only one who kept me balanced and now

                                                 i have tipped the scales completely. i have rejected humanity with all their useless emotions and inevitable flaws, falling into a senseless and seamless abyss that i do not know how to escape from.

i have lost myself.






i am gone.

wavy face , wavy hair
raw naked vulnerable
reborn into the world, just coming out of a trip

i fell in love

with dilated pupils and an insatiable desire and unbounded awe

her hands
the childish , plumpness once there
gone , replaced with a maturity and a womanly affect
with nails reflected current inner stability

they fell in love

caressing and holding, her thumbs pressed up to open lips

moon like phases of excitement and apathy ,
alternating between pure experience and
happiness and
pain and
adventure
to recuperation and **** and self reflection and away with
the emotions she cant bear by herself anymore

she falls sometimes
holding on to love ,

giving love ,
waiting for love

convinced she had no beauty,
she stared at her own reflection
into her pupils , down her throat , into her ear canals,
until her own face morphed into something unrecognizable.
she cut herself open , let her veins run like a stream , shed her skin, searching for any beauty that may exist
deep
deep
down.

and in her desperate searching
she found it ,
lines and bumps and curves she once thought were horrid
transformed before her eyes.
in her constant and endless willing ,
wanting ,
wishing for them to be beautiful,
they became.

and the world started to notice ,
eyes widened , heads turned , hearts opened , and groins awoke
and she reveled in her new-found power.
she wrapped men and women alike around her dainty but deft fingers,
shining jewels.
her beauty was a power ignited and fueled by herself alone
and she burned , a beautiful flame , with an intensity that left nothing but ash and scar in her wake.

exhausted after ******* the life out of yet another and already seeing the next one willfully align in her crossfires,
she tried to lessen the flame , to tame what she had now become ,
she wrapped herself in cloaks , shaved her lustrous locks , and swore herself to celibacy.

but her beauty was unleashed and could not be returned to her dark depths.
it shown through every crack and cloth and she ran ,
ran from herself ,
ran from the world.
touch became sinful and painful and unwanted ,
gazes became violating , haunting ,
and she cried out at the world blaming them for being so weak and lustful and victim to the wills of the skin

and she cried out at herself , brushing her finger tips over her own skin ,
for the power she had wished into being had become her greatest curse ,
the world , in which she only wished would see her ,
to love her ,
she consumed violently and she now found herself utterly alone ,
with only herself to love.

when all i want is to be free
im trapped
behind a suffocating layer of myself
when all i want is to taste
i dont
i will myself to turn away from temptation
when all i want is to succeed
i fail
too little or none, i shed nothing
i am still all that i was before

Hello there, it is me.

Who am I, you ask, 
well, to be honest, I am not quite
sure.

Who is this
        I
I speak of?
Is I am or am I is?
Who is me?

I have not met this I.
I have not met this me.

But they can tell you much more about me than I can -

They tell me I am woman.
They tell me I am white,
Jewish,
smart,
promiscuous,
fat,
kind.

They say I am defined and thus I try to define:

amongst the 1's and 0's,
those bits concretized in the grid of the orchestrated I for all the Others to consume.

I do not know this I,
and so I consume myself so that I may learn and I may imitate.
So that I can be I,
But who am I?

I say I am strong, but I know I am weak.
I tell myself I am the smartest dumb person, and the dumbest smart person.

Yet I am not who I was ten years ago as I am not who I was when I started writing this poem as I am not who I will be when I finish.

So who is strong and who is weak?

I am all that I am and all that I wish I weren't.
I am everything and also nothing.

I am not man, but I am not woman.
I am neither kind nor mean, fat nor thin, smart nor dumb.

I am desire and I am pain.
I am suffering and I am happiness.

I am the breathe I am taking but I am also the tightness I feel at the armpits as my chest expands,
there isn't enough space for the world in my lungs.

I am larger than the world,

I am fluid.
I fill space,
expanding into,
invading the empty.

But I am the emptiness.
I am also the world.

I am you.

I am.

sitting, lying in his bed alone
balanced perfectly in a disinterested, nonexistent relationship
composed purely of ***** calls that i make
every so often
when im in town.
we dont really talk, at most a drink,
before we start ******* in his oversized bunkbed.
we didnt even kiss when he left this morning,
leaving me naked and untouched.

usually we **** three times when i come over:
twice before going to bed, and once in the morning.
this time we ****** once.
and i know he’s busy studying,
and i know i dont care about him that way,
so why is it all gnawing at me?

it’s probably the romance-soaked pages of the books ive been devouring lately.
movies, tv shows, films
cannot really capture the inner monologue, the lingering butterflies,
the lust one can have for romance rather than ***,
but still a lust in definition.
i want something, i want to have something that i want, i want to want,
but i haven’t wanted in a long while
and i’ve forgotten what it feels like.

maybe im merely and impulsively looking for a way
to ruin what i have so beautifully constructed, piece by piece, as i turned my back on it over
and over
and over.
im only interested in the disinterested,
so maybe im looking to blow down this paper castle of fuckery i’ve built around us,
as I interlace our fingers
as he takes me from behind.

last time we ******,
he told me he was leaving for germany in september,
and he wouldnt be coming back until he had a wife.
he is four, five years my senior,
but the thought makes me uneasy and a bit nauseated.
the closest things ive had to a relationship
are intense, but fleeting, three week flings with israeli boys with beautiful eyes who can barely speak english,
and what we have, four years of ******* but maybe once each year

we first hooked up when he was my age, 21, and i just 17.
it took me a year from then to lose my virginity before i would **** him.
it took me ******* up my flight plans a few years later for it to happen again,
even though i left a girl friend’s apartment that night claiming i would not be ******* him,
unlike the last 5 guys that week.

we didnt cuddle last night, either,
like we normally do when the AC has finally cooled our sweat soaked bodies
enough to handle non-***-crazed touching.
but i guess in the end it is always and just ***,
the budding of it at least,
for every time we spoon
it results in those lil’ hip gyrations, grinding together ever so slightly, until his **** stiffens against my ***,
and eventually, i allowed it to go there,
painful and ****-less.
but the ******* inside of me was delighted,
always wanting him to rough me up a bit more,
slap me a bit harder,
choke me a bit longer...
i’ll take the pain where i can get it.

this cannot be romance.
romance does not push your head further still, after gargling its hairy *****, towards its even hairier ***.
this is not romance.
i cannot paint these white roses red
for they are not even roses.
they are far lighter and more frail than the most delicate origami,
but a breathe away from toppling down,
sustained by
neglect,
****,  
and
*******
alone
in his room after he has gone.

i liked to be closer to death because it made life just a little bit sweeter.
sitting on ledges, just for the occasional heart flutter, slight gasp.
smoking cigarettes, seeing people walk by with faces of disgust, because your ***** second hand smoke was robbing them of their precious lives,
or pity, because i was robbing me of mine.
drinking until i feel my insides come back up, harshly, and, without dignity, id bow down. and the weakness in my knees and the precarious state of my stomach.
starving myself, feeling the twists and the turns and the pangs of hunger, seeing if i can go longer, seeing if i can eat less, seeing if i can be less.
or all the drugs that made me lifeless, limbless, paralyzed for too short of a time.
the constant ever approaching, never arriving death, made me more thirsty for every breath, a little happier to see the sun rise, a little happier.
and then you befriended me, death.
you consumed only smoke.
you were sweet and enticing, as you slowly ****** the life out of me. you were toxic.
but we built a beautiful castle of darkness. we staved off the light as if it would **** us, and maybe it would have.
we made crowns of wilted flowers and sipped sin from the bottle. we'd hold hands and frolic among the valleys of sorrow.
we danced with the devil and then you ****** him while you drank my blood.
things would blacken and shrivel around us, and i blamed myself. and you blamed me. and the sun never rose on our empire of darkness.
i was your prisoner, as you slowly killed me, drained me.
death, you are a soulless, selfish, manipulative blackhole of a being.
you blamed me for killing you, and that almost killed me.
so i ran from you, crying and shaking, life no longer tasted sweet.
you spoiled everything.
death, you will continue to feed off of the life around you but you cannot live just as much as i cannot **** you.

I have nowhere to go
nothing to do
no one to be.

Soham.

Splayed out, face to the sky
let the ground consume me
let me melt into the floor and float
down a river of onyx oblivion.

Soham.

Hovering between inhalation and exhalation
let silence tattoo itself onto the back
of my lids
and stillness weave itself amongst my ribs.

Soham- I am that.

i need you to go
so that i may miss you

clinging to only that which we can remember
only the imprint of something too bright that has been stared at for too long
we bump fleshes
we meld corpses
the mixing of secretions
until i end up covered in yours

i am not sure you see me anymore
but it pains me little for i am not sure i see you either

like a well worn fidget, a subconscious pull of the lobe or the twirl of a piercing,

or perhaps more like your instinctual grab at the farthest recesses of your fridge upon coming home positively toasted

through liquor soaked lenses i aimlessly ***** at the past while sober me of tomorrow awakes with nothing but the echo of something within

temporally filling the void between lips and ******
the void of my gut
of my heart

but a throbbing shadow remains

no longer will i punish myself
and instead i will forgive

forgive not only the mistakes
-to err is to be human you know-
but the critiques and the shame that i have inflicted on myself

i once believed these negativities would mold me into something better
but there is no better that would absolve me

and so

i give myself permission to be
without constraints, or qualifications
without remorse, or judgment

everything i need i can give to myself
and i should give to myself

unconditional love
for all that is
and was
and will be

i am both my mother and my daughter
and i shall care for myself as such
and i shall love myself as such

and i shall be loved and i shall love

out into the white yellow concrete jungle
across heat soaked stone

she wished,
with a childish grin,
for a quest,
the whoosh,
she said
a twinkle in her eyes

and i,
tethered to her by locks of lustrous, thick hair,
followed her into the void
my world reduced to the slightest slits
tingly, weightless, floating, bobing on the heat,
following

and she
dancing just ahead
adorned in pineapples, and melons, and cherries,
and the tiny phone in the tiny pocket
nestled between her shoulder blades,

we looked for
the whoosh

i used to spend hours in the shower
as i child, playing out
make believe wonders 'til my fingers
were prune-y and the water turned to ice.

now my adult mind is a constant blur
of to-do's, and tick-tock's, and
never being satisfied with the amount of
time in a day and is there ever
enough of it left to just
soak.

today in the bath, i loosened my mental grip
and leaned into the grooves
of a younger brain as i stared
at my ***** hair

pulling it towards the sky
and in the place of coarse keratin
rose a tiny forest, on a tiny island,
with two, looming mountains
emerging out of the sea beyond.

i rose to a seat and embraced my
knees as my shins turned into
textured tree trunks.

the water still draining from around my ankles,
rinsing off the day, rinsing off the clock, i took special
care to give every part of me affection and attention,

i tickled my armpits and my *******,
kneaded in between my thighs,
hugged my shoulder blades.

and as i bent over to clean in between my toes,
i wondered how many people take the time
to wash their feet in the shower.

as i sit staring at the trees flit by, i leave
my head, no longer living in my sunken
sockets, descending deep down into the depths of my womb, stretching into my twitching ****.

every rumbly tumble of the ten ton
vehicle vrooming down the turnpike
outlines the echos of his hands.

the echos of them in the negative space between
my thighs that exists only in my mind as they
intimately embrace each other against the bus seat.
the echos of them still filling me making me feel
fantastically full and yet frighteningly empty.

i feel firmly on the fence between ****** and
arousal, every pothole filling my holes and
lurching me
towards ******, every
soft vibrational hum of
asphalt
against my asscheeks, pulling me back to my pleasurable perch.

i have reduced myself to merely a
warm,
wiggly wash of titillation, teetering in between
temptation and utter satisfaction.

i close my lids slightly and breathe in the
absence of his presence,
as if ive been staring at a dazzling light too long left only
with its dark twin in its vacancy.

the separation stretches speeding down highways, so i must
wait,
wet and wistful, to be bathed and
blinded by the brightness once again.

I’m bald as a rock, with a million arms
and a million words on my tongue.
The night’s darkness keeps me warm
as I take the world into my lungs.

Stars make me sneeze
and tickle the inside of my nose
as I sway in the breeze
and wear the twilight as my clothes.

My tree is made of clouds
and its trunk is made of me.
I stand alone in a crowd,
rooted in thoughts and inquiries.

my room is clean,
my plants are dying.

the one peeping out behind the door
cannot get enough light where it is,
but i like the way it looks in the corner of my room.

my banana tree is slowly molding from the inside out,
has been for the past two years.
i tell myself if i keep ignoring it,
just keep watering it,
the tree will rid itself of its disease all on its own.

my room is clean,
i am dying.

i keep my surfaces shiny and dust free
the dirt from underneath my nails remains in the pots
but i haven't left my house in three days

and i feel the mold creeping up around my throat and down into the pit of my stomach.

i am just another plant that needs water and light,
maybe i need to be repotted.

my other plant is plastic, though,
she's doing fine.

******* as escapism
desperately rubbing out the pain
***** hair busting out of my underwear

i dont have anywhere to escape to anymore

a dull ache , i want to strip
strip my clothes , my skin, my subjective experience

curl up next to a warm body
water my poor dying plants
but my tears are too salty

the bodies too cold

too much sleepy snow up snot-filled black holes
now heavy weights behind and below the eyes

invincibility sparked by a drug exposed autonomy
like water
i can take whatever shape i form

i can occupy any space in which i put myself
all space

but i am sober now
i would rather occupy no space

cracks of the couch cushion too small
for me to slide into

tea makes me hot

ill sleep naked

i thought if i acted disinterested enough you would notice
but you didnt
and you kept kissing and caressing until i told myself that *** would make me forget how unhappy i was because *** has always been the strongest part of our relationship

but it doesnt help anymore
it doesnt make me forget

ive been so wrapped up in who is right and who is wrong.
i try to place blame for why things arent working out because it would be easier if it was your fault
because it would be easier if it was my fault
and i still can't remember who started the last fight

and i dont want you to hurt
and i want you to have comfort
but i dont think either of us are providing anything but warmth
as we both curl up on opposite sides of the bed
isolated in our individual sadness
until our half sleep oblivion momentarily makes us forget why we were fighting
and we hold each other close
until the sun makes us remember

and so i cry because im mourning our relationship thats still slowly dying
and i cry because i shouldnt be this sad in a relationship
and i cry because im crying on some random porch steps down the street from your place because i dont want to come home to you.
and i cry and i cry
and in the pauses when im not crying over you, i cry over myself

and i feel so unloved
and then i worry you must feel unloved
and i wonder if we are just both too wrapped up in our own issues that weve forgotten how to care about each other

and im sorry i was cold
and im sorry i was mad
and im sorry the only way ive been able to deal with our relationship is dissociating
and im sorry i couldnt love you more

and when you are gone i still miss you
miss your arms around me
and even when we are together

i still miss you

and so i must let you go.

auto pilot kisses
caresses out of habit

if only i could open my lips and close my legs
speak and not moan
words not whimpers

need to be alone, need to think, need to feel
can i still feel

so much to say but nothing
if my lips are on yours
if my throat is around your ****

fill the hole in my head
the hole of my ****
the hole that is my heart

rub away at my **** and through my self-imposed numbness

**** my words and my thoughts  
down my throat until they disappear

but they wont

will i

i have stars on my knuckles,
a spiral on my head

an amorphous blob,
feathers and pounds i have both gained and shed

tangles in my underwear and on my toes,
stripes on my *******, ***, and thighs

a dent in my chest,
and dust in my eyes

my bellybutton is a blackhole

i am a work of art,
an unfinished collage
of heart, body, mind,
and no soul

i am not a poet
my period is
my hormones make me feel prophetic
and tortured

lets paint the hallways with menstrual blood

except i am bloodless
‘cause of my iud

my body betrays me
it wishes to be inseminated by more than
inspiration
and american capitalist ideals

it yearns to create its own masterpiece

but motherhood isnt warm and fuzzy
isnt just a lovely concept

life is hard

instead i impregnate myself with a little piece of metal
swollen *******, mood swings

and a breeding kink to boot

my ****** loves to play tricks on me
i dont really want to be a woman

i am an enemy of the body