On a winding road resides a house,
a bit less opulent than the rest.
Painted beige with green shutters,
and fitted with a scuffed white door
holding a “no trespassing” sign in the window.
The grass is slightly too tall, and the garden unkempt,
but inside you will find no such problems.
The air smells like clean laundry, and pictures of
not-so-pretty people with smiles that end at their cheeks line the walls.
As day turns to night shapeless figures return to their rooms,
shutting the doors tight behind them.
When all others are asleep and the hum of the air conditioning
is all that can be heard, a light flicks on behind the first door on the right side of the hall.
A young girl of not yet fourteen lives here.
Her skin is sickly pale and tissue paper thin, like a careless touch would tear it open;
and her small eyes are glossy with tears not yet ready to be spilled.
On her desk there lies a graveyard of crinkled papers,
with chicken-scratch writing occupying every line and margin.
She wants so badly for  her words to be beautiful,
for them to burrow inside of you and leave goosebumps on your skin.
Because to the unloved reactions feel a lot like caring.
She never was what they needed her to be,
and now she’s nothing at all.
Locked away she lost herself,
and she calls out for me in the dark.
I try to stifle the sounds of her cries, but they find me in my dreams.
This goes on until morning,
when sunlight pours in through the slits in the blinds,
and frauds come out to play.

-K.M.

Trust me when I say you are not the first to love me against your will. I am your every I-shouldn’t-be-feeling-like-this and palms pressed to eyes and dreams you don’t want to end and touches you wish were real. I make you want to stay and change me or change yourself and break your every rule you have ever made for anyone before me and most importantly I make you want to break the world.

Do not make me the epitome of a riddle because, you are smart enough for this and I am not something that can be solved. I am selfish and I am aware of that and I want you but you’re not the only one. I am sorry I never warned you about how I can make you feel and I am sorry I didn’t want to anyway because you are this little book of hope and innocence I lost when I grew up and I need you to be my refuge.

I am waiting for something uncertain in the future and that is why I am playing with the certainties I have in my hands now. Just because I have your feelings intertwined between my fingers doesn’t mean I don’t know the consequences they have on my sentiments. This is not the first time I have done this but the intensity does not die down with the next person and I know I shouldn’t be doing this but I look for homes in people.

But trust me when I say you will fall in love with me on your own will. These moments are temporary and fleeting and they’re the most beautiful mirage you will ever come across. In these moments I am more than just a dream and I am more than who I am and I am more than the 20-year-old girl you fell in love with. And more than anything, I will become nonexistent right on front of your eyes.

A ***** dull and grey
bored into cheap floorboards
the plastic around the bath
shattered
limescaled shower
trying to excrete
discreetly
hungover hot ears and cheeks
heart loping away
among laboured breaths
God Jesus ****...
Robbed happiness
cheers in the pub;
Here's looking at you, kid.

We only connect when you cry it seems.
So many different stains on this bed,
and I wish you were here when I was
happy, but not smiling;
Any of the moments that would be
cheaper for sharing,
but stained if you were there, now.
Here, now.

I wonder, (now, and not often)
if those sheets hold more
tears, or *** fluids, or sweat.
I don't dream anymore, however.

I've never had a beautiful dream
about us, and when I did we were
awake
and a long time ago
we shared that common dream.
You don't even feign interest
in me anymore.

You watch me starve and carve myself into
morsels, easily digestible fragments,
and then turn over and, maybe praying,
though we swear we don't believe in god,
that I'll die mad and half naked in your sleep.

Some trees bear flowers and you'd swear
they die in winter and may never blossom again.
They freeze and turn into wonderful spidery things;
fingerbones strewn haphazardly on some streetlight.
Petals that were pink like new flesh,
rotten out of mind and existence.
I wonder what the blossoms become
when the tree sleeps.