and your eyes were closed
so I heard your voice and you were giving life
to words i’d only ever read, so unfamiliar
/ that strange, elusive knowing / it wrapped around me with chiding laughter—
I felt like a child and about to die, all at once.

I suddenly felt my eyes were closed, the way you know something long after it has happened.

Stakes through my shoulders nails
Made of rust i will fly into my past life
To untangle the white knot i love
You so much my heart will ache
To break i will not be the same
but i will make you happy
Father for i have sinned in your name.

My devotion gives the black wings
A new shine i cannot box you anymore
You will hammer out
clotho’s mistake—My beautiful
mistake.

What happened
to the girl with fire
in her eyes and passion
in her soul?
With stubbornness stirring
in her stomach and
lightning coursing through her body?
Who so effortlessly slid
into the persona of someone else
but managed to keep that special
fire with her anyways?
hmmm?
What happened to the girl
who used to cry when
her favorite character
died?
Who hid that deep sorrow
and wisdom beneath
teenage slang and boy advice?
What happened to the girl
who danced
through life like she didn’t have a care
in the world?

who is this girl?
who don’t care what they say anymore.
who gives up.
whose eyes stay dry when her people leave.
who is numb but at the same time feels too much.
who talks like her mouth is filled with honey but is begging you to notice that her eyes are filled with vinegar.

they say.
they say that she has finally calmed down.
they say it like it is a good thing.
they say that she is finally mature.
more responsible.
an adult.
knows when to give up.
is smarter.

but I?
I?
I rock there.
back and forth.
back and forth.
back and forth.
fists banging on the ground.
trapped.
whispering softly
between my
quiet sobs.
“what happened?”
“what happened?”
“what happened?”

when I think of someone like you,
I think of the sun and moon and the stars all swirled together into a galaxy contained in a human body.
of a rainbow splashed on the edge of a gray cracked cement sidewalk.
of how you embody the opposites, laughing at the world with sadness in your eyes.

when I called myself ordinary, you said there was no such thing as ordinary, and even if there was, I would make it special anyways.

you told me that “still waters may run deep but you know that whirlpools run even deeper” and then you laughed that laugh of yours.
you know, that one where there was no way anyone could be mad after hearing it?

and then you were gone, and I remember thinking that no, you weren’t still water.  
you weren’t even a whirlpool.  
you were just a tide in a sea cave about a mile deep into the earth, wishing for the moon to call you home.

isn’t it lovely?
the pain so inspiring
the grief in her eyes strikes passion in our hearts
the terror in her stance makes it so much more compelling
there is beauty in her struggle
there’s something gorgeous about the disaster
she breaks so stunningly
they paint portraits of her demons
they glorify her greatest fear
they heal her just to see her crack
break her, heal her
for all those who see her
just to see the exquisite suffering
of her past
to bring it back to the present
to keep it into the future
it makes us feel better about ourselves.
“oh, how horrible” we coo
as we trace delicate fingers down her horrified expression
we like to pity others
before they ever think to pity us.

I want to be more.
    I want to be more than the bruises on arms
    more than the bags under my eyes
I want to encompass the stars in my eyes
I want to hold the wildness of this world in my stomach
I want to hold your joy in my fingers and let them tingle there for awhile.
give me your anger; I’ll hold it in the soles of my feet and use it to run
    I want to be more than the cage in my brain
    more than my lungs struggling for breath
let me use your pain in my words
I will take the clouds and stuff them inside my head
let me steal your souls to rewrite them into mine I will take your treasured fears and fragile hope and I will break them and build the future.
lift your hunger for something more and put it on my shoulders; I can hold it better than you
    I want to be more than this emptiness in my chest
    more than this heavy weight pressing onto my throat.
I will **** your dancing into my soul and let my gestures show what I never will
the oceans will become my body so I will never be ashamed of it; my most vulnerable will become the most powerful and you will never be able to enter without my permission
    I want to be more than my tired tears
    more than the memories that won’t leave
give me your violence I will use it to win the battle I wage against myself.
gift me your humanity so I feel normal
let me have it. let me have it so that
    I can be more than my body.