sext: wrap me in the blanket that's in the back seat of your car, call her while I'm staring into space, tell her you love her out of no where
sext: uuuuuuuuhhhhh......I don't want to move in with you
sext: I love you but I'm moving a thousand miles away
sext: I love you so I'm moving a thousand miles away
sext: I'm moving a thousand miles away BECAUSE I love you
sext: I want to bite off your tongue
sext: really bad
sext: you shouldn't have told her you love her when I was already off the ledge
sext: I'll bite your lip, it'll bleed, red will pour down your mouth and your clothes and your horns will poke through and BOOM! satan
sext: baby baby BABY you turn me on
sext: especially when your actions completely correlate with what I was always told not to do
sext: I was told not to do you, but, well....ok we were supposed to hangout at a park like this is a ******* indie movie but this cop told me that park was closed? I didn't know parks ******* close? so we met in a parking lot and you mentioned how your roommate wasn't home and la la la la LAAAAA, we ended up on your living room floor and the carpet was covered in my black lace
sext: I'm wearing high heels, tall ones. I'm 5' 11 1/2", you're, ummm...something. someone. oh yeah, I'm in love with you. well, I dunno about that anymore what's love? I defined it and it said "sext: an intense feeling of deep attachment". ah, ok, got it. I now understand you, love. this was supposed to be **** ya no, like me running down the back your legs in my red high heels, sending chills through your veins and breaking all of your bones. ****** ****, right? **** I ruined it when I brought up love  
sext: uh, it's been 3 days since we've talked. I know you said like 3 months ago that we needed to "draw new lines for each other" and "figure out how to have self control and not pounce the other when we're alone and I play smashing pumpkins" but we've ****** like what, 40 times since? and you told me you loved me and begged me not to leave soooooooo....? those lines need to be erased buddy boy
sext: uhg. you don't get it. I'm tired.  got so drunk I could barely stand last night. slept for fourty minutes. then worked a thirteen hour shift. I'm sorry. give me a kiss. no? but this is supposed to be a sext?
sext: nothing you say is equivalent to a sext these days
sext: take your clothes off
sext: take your clothes off
sext: then take mine off
sext: then take mine off
sext: you wear mine, I wear yours
sext: jk babe the clothes are off we're ******* ******

I.

poetry written while I'm lying in my best friends bed in the middle of the night

II.

the way the words "breaking up" coming from your lips sound; the way they feel the same whether it has to do with you leaving me, or you leaving her

III.

you have to respect her, ah... I see. and then there's me

IV.

poetry written by putting hands to a keyboard and just moving until there's no more roman numerals left is poetry that's written in the middle of the night while I'm lying in my best friends bed

V.

I deserve better

VI.

you deserve significantly worse

VII.

here's how I imagine it- my phone rings.
"I broke up with her."
"I don't think we should talk anymore"

VIII.

I didn't lie when I told you I love you but I don't know what love is. you'll always be my first love, but I really don't know what love is

IX.

but it's probably not this

X.

we didn't talk today and I was glad, I had a good day

XI.

twenty two things written while my best friend snores to my right and I wait for you to call tomorrow so I can rush off the phone and pretend I'm still far away

XII.

this was still my city before you came into this life, so why does it feel like it's all in honor of you?

XIII.

today I read that if a trans person starts taking testosterone they need to double up on vitamin C because it kills their immune system so now I have to stay with you until you start the shots so I can bring over 5 cases of OJ and force feed it to you like the child you are

XIV.

the child you look like.

XV.

I dunno, like, I just don't even know how you're going to react, and like, I'm torn between being really curious and wanting to rip the bandaid off and just not wanting to find out, you know?

XVII.

You know what I think?

XVIII.

another-break-up-poem from the *****-who-just-won't-break-up-with-him

XIX.

one time when I was in 5th grade we had to learn Roman numerals and my teacher made us do entire math work sheets answering in them for like a month. her name was Ms. Schwanbeck and I had her the year my mom started dating that one guy that she married that one time. she was also the one who taught me it's L-M-N-O-P that we were singing in the alphabet song and not elephant ***

**.

I dunno, maybe I'm just not strong enough

XXI.

like poetry aside, metaphors and all that ****

XXII.

maybe I'm just not meant to do it anymore

XXIII.

I do love you, I have this whole time

XXIV.

but don't forget that I have no idea what the **** love is

Touch me, I am fragile but I know I will not break. If you look at me long enough your eyes will start to water based on the saltiness of my skin because of the sea's I've swam to get to the place I'm in now. Open, closed, I've ran back and forth a hundred times, I am the weakest link and the leader of the group. If you sawed me in half you'd see three things: my barely pumping heart, a toxic amount of love, and a will to survive.

Touch me, but be gentle, because although I learnt to withstand even the deadliest of summer heat your cold heart isn't something my body is used too. Close your eyes, count to ten, am I on your mind? No. Throw me into the ocean. I'm no use to you then. It's cloudy but it doesn't rain, mid 70's but no humidity, my heart is sore, but I'm breathing. Oh god, I don't know how, but I will continue.

Touch me, be rough, *****, make it a melody and prove to me all I'm missing out on by not being enough for you. Afterward, I want a list of ten things I can change so that I will be enough for you. Make it a hundred if you have too, I just want to be enough for you. Staple it to my forehead, toss me in the ocean. I'm not here for your approval, only my own, and I don't think I'll be content in who I am until I'm something you think is worthwhile. Push me on the ground and kick me as hard as you can, make this pale skin your canvas, I want bruises and blood, six broken bones and a concussion to match. Make me hate you. Babe, all I've got is love.

Touch me, one last time, but don't let go until the end of this lifetime. This love became a competition long ago, and boy do I love to win. Tonight the universe spoke to me and it told me here is where I need to be, and I think it wants me to fight. Put on your armor, give me some weapons, I'm here for the long haul and I'm taking every prisoner I can. Touch me because I am weak and I need to learn to be strong so I can withstand this, 'cause baby this love feels like seeing a doctor coming towards you with a needle the size of your head, "oh don't worry sweetie this will only hurt a tad", *******. I still felt it a week after. But this one, ****. I'll be lucky if it doesn't still sting in a year...

Touch me, please. I'm begging you. I need to feel alive, but you've been suffocating me and my heavy heart. How am I supposed to survive when loving you feels like death?

I pull into my driveway and
my neighbor is standing in
front of his door wearing a
wife beater and basketball shorts
that go to his mid calf with
his bare feet shoved into
slides that are too small
and he's owned since 2005.
nearly every part of him is
large, except he's 5'7:
his beer belly protrudes
from his ribbed cotton shirt
his his ego escapes from
his perpetually messy house
(his door is wide open, all the
cold air is escaping, it smells like
cigarettes and being ******* over it).
he watches me park
his woman (I have to set this picture, there is no better term)
stands up straight at right
underneath his eyebrow
and glares at me in unison
I let my hand trace the chair sitting
on my front porch for a few seconds
and wonder why I’ve never sat here before,
residue rain falls from the outside banister
and I feel as at home as I’ve ever felt in this
stupid god forsaken ******* apartment
my neighbors are still watching me and
I realize it’s because they don’t recognize me
because I'm really never here
with the hair on my arms all
standing up in unison
I unlock my door and step inside
drop my money and count my keys
my knees are rusty, I feel small
there’s only so many times you can do this
and only so many times I can too

this is the poem you're too self indulged to write
then everything is going okay it's easy to cover your ears and let your eyes play tricks on themselves and go to work and do your homework and lay in his bed the day after she did and not think anything of it, but once he says that one thing or does that one too many times you manage to pull the horse blinds off and see what's happening.
this is the poem you're not self-indulgent enough to write
love is tricky. it may be one of the most common concepts us as humans cannot seem to figure out but us, as humans, as a species, we need love to exist. without the eyes and hands and time from another person it starts to feel like we aren't really even here, that maybe somehow by being independent and alone you start to fade away, like another person in the crowd whose face you'll never quite be able to remember- but when you're in love, every color seems to go brighter and the feeling in the pit of your stomach makes you drive faster and your legs shake ten times easier. it makes time slower and faster at the same time and the sky seem bluer and the world a little neon.
maybe this is the poem you're too blinded to write
love is not supposed to hurt. love is work, and somewhere along the road you'll have to kick and fight and scream to make that love work but in the beginning, the little bit, it's not supposed to feel like glass on skin it's supposed to be smooth and silky and for whatever reason us as humans, as species, we decided that the more effort we put into something that's difficult the more important to us it should be and the more attached we should feel, but sometimes it's okay to let go. I'm telling that to you, but I'm telling that to me.
this is the poem you're too tired to write, because when you spend your time working and going to class and fighting for the only person who you've ever really felt but you've never been able to keep a grip on and it isn't fair because you deserve to be able to hold onto something other than your own hand, your eyes start to grow weak, and so do your arms and your legs and especially your heart, because when love hurts, when love becomes something that's really terribly bad, what's left? what's supposed to get you through the day when the one emotion that's supposed to lift you up leaves you aching and collapsed on the ground?
this is the poem no one should ever have to write
I struggle to call love an emotion, because in this sense love is a verb. like "I loved with all that I had until I couldn't stand anymore and then I was just collapsed loving you more and more and than you held her hand in front of me and didn't talk to me for three days and I thought if I loved you anymore my skin would burst and I'd just be on the ground aching and hyperventilating and screaming your name wondering why everyone makes love seem good because love is just bad, it's just broken glass and long drives because if you cry anymore your head will fog up again, it's wanting to write but not wanting to write because you've reached the point of a horrible mixture of exhaustion, sadness, pain and adoration that you can't even get the pen to the paper, it's feeling so much that not even words can explain it, like driving by his house because when you see her car out front your arms go numb and for whatever reason you like to make it hurt even more, for some ****** up reason, for some ****** up ******* reason you're a dumb ******* miserable human who only let's herself feel more miserable and let's herself fall more in love and refuses to end the vicious cycle of you and him and him and her and you only wanting him but him wanting you and also kind of wanting her but wanting her more than you and knowing that and just wanting to collapse on the ground. for the 6th time this week, and it's only wednesday"
this is the poem I should have written the
minute I heard there was another one
the minute I found out that love has conditions and that sometimes love is felt when it should not be felt. sometimes it'll pop in your head during a meaningless task and you'll realize you can't run from inside of your head no matter how much you wish you could and during those moments you won't think to write this poem, you'll just collapse. you'll only collapse and call him and tell him you miss him and he'll say something too fast and too quiet and you'll realize she's in front of him so he can't say he loves you back and it'll **** you. but you'll stay on the ground. and you'll stay with him.
this is the poem you're too guilty to write, and too confused and too in love. but you waited and you waited for someone to come and for it to click and for you to get him and him to get you and when it came you didn't realize there'd be conditions, and when you had them in front of you, you didn't realize you could say no to them. so I guess in a way this is a poem you waited to write, but you never realized it'd be so bittersweet. that sometime love poems aren't about love at all, but about losing it and the pain of it all, and being the girl who goes there, and the girl who met him and became really really good at pronouns but really bad at tenses and deciphering between first person and second person, and started talking in third person a few dozen poems ago and forgot how to get back into her own skin.
this is the poem you should never have to write, and if you ever do I hope you notice and you leave. because love might be tricky, but love should also be great. you should only ever be at the brink of collapsing before they come over and pick you up, you should never be on cold tile on your roommates bathroom floor too exhausted to stand up and screaming too loud and crying too hard to move when he's in bed with her, sound asleep. she's warm, and his arms are around her, and you're shivering on cold tile, and you're writing a poem you never thought you'd have to write.

I close my eyes
the drums are beating loud
one after another
rhythmic
it's bright in here
my eyes fill themselves with water
and decide to glare down the lights
you've got me on a leash
I'm back and I'm forth
the streets are never ending
the sidewalks are all crooked
I am the crack you just stepped on
why do you keep stomping on me?
for a moment I think I can see the intersection
the end.
but I'm wrong, just like always
the buildings are tall, so tall that I can
barely see the sky when I'm not in motion
maybe that's why I never learnt to stand still
the sun never comes up here
but the moon is bright enough for the both of them
It took me a long time to realize that's what you
meant when you said I was your moon
houses are aligned side by side
with only a foot between them
right and then left, I tell myself, right and then left
I'm not here right now, I don't believe it
I get so caught up in this place I forget what
I'm trying to do and that scares me
the sky tells me something but I refuse to believe it
mostly because there are no stars here
the clouds are gathered as far away from me as possible,
almost as if they have a secret but who doesn't nowadays
no one is clean but yet everyone
is yelling at me for being *****
I am screaming but everyone just
continues to march in a single file line
they can't hear me in here
I open my eyes

If I was a coffee drinker
I’d balance your body like a rosetta
I’d kiss your cheek with my
Colombian coffee breath
the flavor of our love like
your crema on my tongue-
notes of rich chocolate evenings
and salty, very salty
your bitterness like the very first time
notes of my coffee cherry-
no, your coffee cherry
the aftertaste like high acidity
your complexity gets lost on
my caffeine intolerance
but I still feel your finish
each time I swallow
I still find notes of you,
cupping me

1
I read in a poem that there is no sound more ****** than the clink of a belt being undone but you only wear worn out t-shirts and a frown on your face. I think of the sound of tires driving slowly over the asphalt and how I could get turned on easier by a look than a touch.  Your bed and you both taste like sweat but I am not going to complain because I'd rather be overheating than alone. I consider switching on your swamp cooler but it's loud and I want to be able to hear your moans in order to remind myself that you want me too. Do you?

2
I was doing my poetry homework when I had to stop in order to write poetry.

3
I dont know if I can handle the fact that you have made playlists for other people and that is so 2018 of me. Did you make that playlist for her?

4
[redacted]

5
If panic attacks actually helped anything I wouldn't mind the hyperventilating but instead I still feel like a sink has sunk inside my chest even after I've calmed down. Wouldn't it be nice if you could cry it, release it, scream to the skies and then be okay afterwards? I'm not sure who made me believe the symptoms of my mental illness should be like a shower; I don't feel cleansed. I don't feel new. I only feel raw, exhausted. It feels more like that same dull knife is tearing me open each skin layer at a time until I figure out how to grab the hand that holds it or I'm left open on the table, whichever comes first.

6
I'm writing in order to breathe. If I can't get oxygen to my brain my fingers won't be able to move.

7
I'm so scared I'm going to lose you. I don't want you in any other way. I want to love you, hold you.

8
I hear a baby crying outside of your window and I realize I need to get up to go home and get my work clothes. I find these simple things excruciating. Writing to you is a diary but I never should have learned to open my mouth and speak.

9
I started this poem four months ago and titled it a seven day long poem but I guess now it’s more than that. You always made me feel the things I’m currently feeling, I've never given up control this much in my life. I like to be in control, the one ignoring, the one who needs the time. I wish I didn’t love you like I do (it's just, there you know. It won't go away. It's not too much or too little, it's just stubborn, just like you). I'm so scared I'm going to lose you. I don't want you in any other way. I want to love you, hold you. Did you make that playlist for her too?

you tasted like ******* and I tasted
like blue raspberry jolly ranchers
you tasted like what am I doing
and I'm sure I did too
you smiled and leaned in and
I put my fingers on your dimples
you pulled me on top and I forgot to think
I forgot that drugs that taste like
gasoline when they're "the real ****"
aren't flavors I'm supposed to enjoy
you kissed my nose and said it was
weird because you are so closed off
but I make you want to open up
I shook my head and pretended that
wasn't the millionth time I've heard that one
oh I make you want to throw away your past
and get close to someone again?
cool, write us a happy ending too
I woke up this morning exhausted
with matted hair and smudged makeup
I kissed your neck, kissed your neck,
kissed your neck....
your roommate said she liked me
and I kissed your neck again.
you are movement
you are time
you are start middle finish
you are finish line, winning by a second
you said you don't want to open up
then tell me why you're here?
tell me why you're looking at me like that
and kissing me like that
and holding me like that
tell me why you're touching me like that
your insides are ripping and
you're dying to crawl out
I can see it in your stare
you were not expected
frankly you weren't really wanted
but I put my fingers in your
dimples and I forgot to breathe
I always forget to breathe
you tasted like ******* I mean that literally
you tasted like this isn't a good idea
but I want it so bad and I mean that literally
you looked at me and said
"no like, if I'm doing this it's because I mean it"
I wanted to tell you same thing
but looking back I don't think
I would have meant it

that weather changes. I know, I know that's common sense or it should be, but when you're under a roof that you've always felt safe in things like that don't just click, so now it's getting cold outside and I have shorts that cover my belly button and shorts that, well, don't. that you can sit in coffee shops 3 times a week and feel FINE! she's right, you don't love her anymore, but it's FINE! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

that there's an 100% chance you'll get sick of writing about your own experiences and it'll take everything inside you to convince yourself that there will be someone who doesn't get sick of reading about them. like okay another poem about the time I ran away and got on a plane and broke up with her and realized **** I can do just FINE! all by myself, awesome good job my hands are typing the same stuff over and over and it ***** cause now they're bored? they don't care that this is a different city and you probably don't either. I'm finally leaving him! no one cares. except me, really, but I don't. I'm over it.

that decisions don't get any easier as time goes on because one second I'm like oh yeah let's turn left and then I read robert frost and think of the road less traveled and I'm like wait? which ones less traveled? what am I actually supposed to do with any of this?

that getting a medium instead of a large $5 coffee doesn't stop you from being ******* STUPID for wasting money when you're TECHNICALLY HOMELESS.
that you're toing to be TECHNICALLY HOMELESS.
but what the **** is a home? 'cause I remember one time I wrote that your smell and smile was more of a home than any house I ever lived in blah blah disgusting but last week when you looked at me and said some dumb ******* that I don't even care enough anymore to write about, I just wanted to go back and lie in bed until I get all these months back. because they were a WASTE.
that it's going to be different. you'll settle and then something will change and you'll miss it and you're a really very nostalgic person in general so you tend to look back on things but
that looking back on things is NOT a good idea. you're just going to get sad and want to lie in bed, but you're technically homeless so that ******* *****, sit your *** on that couch and shut up.
that one day, you're going to have to man up. and you think you've man-ed up and you're flexing and **** and you're ready to rip it to shreds, but nah. you're giving yourself too much credit. I'll see it when I believe it, just like everyone else.
that getting drunk off shots that your brothers girlfriend, who happens to be a bartender at that new-ish bar downtown, keeps handing you won't make ANY of it easier, you'll just laugh and drink the pineapple upside down cake shot and like really like how it tastes? so you'll drink three more and go to walk home and she'll hug you goodbye and make sure you're staying in this city for longer than you did last time (aka 16 years) and then you'll laugh and say bye and thank her for not ID'ing you because you've still got 4 years til that's legal and GUESS WHAT. NONE OF IT WILL BE EASIER. you'll just go home and lie on your god forsaken couch and worry about what the **** is next? and what do you do now? and then you'll try really hard not to make the same mistakes again and to stop your dumb lonely brain from going off on itself again and you'll listen to music until you fall asleep at 4 in the morning and you'll be like, ah..... the **** that they don't tell you but probably should before you get on a plane at 5 in the morning and run away from the people you've spent 16 years imagining running away from, but the city is cold now and they're angry at me and won't ship me any warm clothes..........ahhhhh.....serious **** man

if it's the middle of the night and I'm laying in my best friends bed while she sleeps to my right, and I'm kind of reading poetry and kind of pretending  I'm knee deep in traffic lights and 80 miles an hour to nowhere, and the room is dark and her fan creaks every three seconds on cue, and her washing machine is going because I spilled on the white shirt she was going to wear tomorrow, then maybe I can exhale five times fast let things be as simple as they really want to be.
maybe I'll write a letter to your father and tell him he ******* you up and simultaneously made you the best person to walk around in tucson arizona, and he'll probably smirk condescendingly cause I correctly pronoun you and he thinks there's something wrong with you but he'll be pleased that someone is proud of what he created so he'd let it roll off his back while behind every word I'm only wishing you'd roll off my tongue, like you used too. your maroon sheets were the soundtrack to my summer and I mean that because the noises that were made while I was wrapped in those managed to open my eyes and make my heart beat and system overdrive with all of my other senses like when you stand too close to the amp when your guitars plugged in, like there was this mountain I once saw in place of your head and when I saw that I had to climb it I thought hey atleast at the end I'll be sitting on his face, right, get some head outta this whole ordeal am I right, but instead when I got to the top I was sitting on your shoulders like I was your daughter and we were at a parade and you saying "that's some hard stuff, kiddo" was on repeat in my head like kiddo? kiddo? that is definitely not ***** talk and in actuality I'm a good 4 inches taller than you.
here we go, I plan to have a photoshoot at a laundromat and I get my camera's ready and clear a memory card and my best friend gets all ready to be my model and we laugh and she poses and we pretend not to notice when people eye us suspiciously and then we climb some mountains and I turn and you're nowhere to be found and that ***** why would I climb the mountain that IS  you when I can't even find you and I think that might be a metaphor because you're literally nowhere to be found we haven't talked all day but maybe there's no hidden message and this is all just one really bad long run on sentence about mountains and the head that I'm not getting but I totally should be getting and doing laundry because I spill on everything and write in the middle of the night when my best friends asleep and you're short and I'm tall and I love you and you say you love me but really who the **** knows. who the **** knows what you really mean by any of this at all
maybe I'll write a letter to your baby sister and tell her you slept with someone that was a year younger than her and I'll watch you get all red because you're embarrassed and angry when she calls and questions you and you'll say something like "yeah, her...yeah, the one you've met...yeah, she did stay at my house that night, no what the **** I don't know if we had ***, what the **** stop you're making me uncomfortable, I am not going to go to jail" and you'll be eyeing me angrily and when you get off the phone you'll scold me and I'll laugh all the way to the top of your mountain and when I'm at the top I probably still won't get any head. angry ***, that's a thing, I'll write the same letter and send it to your girlfriend and when you yell at me I'll say something sweet and innocent and put my hair in pigtails and lick a lollipop and say nothings even happening here so why are you yelling and then I'll skip away from you and look so cute you'll call me and ask if we can camp on the mountain tonight like we were supposed to the night before I moved but your girlfriend flipped so we got coffee instead and you pressed ignore until no one could ignore it any longer so you answered and I left.
then I came back.
but I dunno, have you even realized that? like, I'm here..... I'm back now....where's your head at? but more importantly, where's mine.

my hands melting on the page as my eyes close
begging for unconsciousness
but if I don't get this out now, I never will

to be completely unburdened
by anyone, and that includes me
would be simple and easy
and it would bore you to death

to need someone
why do bodies crave other bodies?
a body is just a body
until you get down to the soul
your purple and blue bruised soul

If I don't get this out now, I never will
because honey really does come from bees
and the night you kissed me for the first time
you mentioned how you were deathly allergic
so honey, do you have time to hear me?

If I knew you wouldn't
one-
get scared and run away
or two-
get bored and ask for your CD's back
I'd give you every last bit
but I have to hold some in,
to make sure you stay

words are hard so you use your hands
and looks,
and the tilt of your chin
and the shaking of your knee
words are hard so I choke out syllable
until you hand me a glass of water
and I simply sing out your name

If I don't get this out now,
I never will
I'll follow the leader,
I'll obey my command
did you expect me to make this easy on you?
oh honey, I'm not that sweet

I'm the venom in your morning Cheerios
I'm the paper cut at your favorite part
I'm the black in the morning sky
honey, I'll only make this harder,
as hard as I possibly can.

right between the place of being perfectly okay, stable,
and content and ripping at ever seam, loose at the hinges
you can see that the stitches are coming apart and
the heart doesn't want to beat anymore
I was born here
between the lines of need it I need you and that
wouldn't be good for me and neither are you
the space between total distance and I miss
the word baby so much that I feel achey
I want to yell and I want to scream but
my mouth is shut, I know there are reasons why I'm here
whether it be bad karma or the way the world turns and
if there isn't then **** whatever card I drew out of the deck
once I said
excuse me father for I have sinned
because I didn't know how to pray so I begged for
forgiveness until my ego bled reasons that I needed
to be alone but I'd rather be excused then forgiven
because I'm good at excuses and I'm still waiting
around for the moment where I forgive you

I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE.
WHEN WILL THE SKY STOP FADING
TO SUCH A DARK BLUE THAT I HAVE
TO TURN MY BRIGHTS ON AT 4 PM
WHEN WILL THIS CITY WAKE UP ONE
MORNING WHEN IT'S NOT EXHAUSTED
AND HUNGOVER ON IT'S LACK OF OXYGEN
WHEN WILL THE BIRDS SONG
BECOME OUR WAKE UP CALL
WHEN WILL THE LEASH COME OFF
WHEN WILL THE WORLD SPIN ON IT'S OWN FREE WILL
AND WHEN WILL I  STAND ON MY OWN TWO FEET
I DON'T WANT THIS, I NEVER WANTED THIS
I GOT STUCK INTO BEING SOMEONE
I AM NOT COMFORTABLE WITH
BUT I WANT TO BE
I WANT TO BE SO BAD
IF ONLY YOU KNEW HOW MUCH EFFORT I PUT
IN ASKING THE GRASS TO GROW FOR ME
IT NEVER DOES
IF ONLY YOU FELT HOW MANY TIMES I ASKED
GOD TO TAKE AWAY THE FEELINGS
TAKE AWAY THE KNOWLEDGE
TAKE AWAY WHAT I NOW UNDERSTAND
LEAVE ME BLIND AND IN THE DARK BEFORE
YOU LEAVE ME SOMEONE WHO WILL NOT BE
ACCEPTED BY ANYONE, ESPECIALLY HERSELF
IF ONLY YOU KNEW HOW MANY TIMES I BEGGED
EVERYBODY TO STOP STARING AT ME
I'M IN A ROOM ALONE BUT ALL I CAN FEEL IS EYES
AND I DON'T KNOW HOW TO STOP BEING ME

on my good days I am floating, there's background noise and the faint smell of desire, but I move like a needle pushing through skin; deliberate, with purpose. whether I'm the vaccine trying to prevent the disease or the cure hoping to alleviate some of your pain, I don't know. I think I might be a weird mixture of both, but the story is only in its rough draft, so there's no telling on if I work or if I'm just a waste of time.

on my bad days I'm only a silhouette, more background noise, the faint smell of gasoline, the sound of sirens, shady looking men walking down the street in hoodies and smoke in the air from a fire down the street, I am the stray dog, the road ****, the broken down bus and the stars completely covered by smog. if you close your eyes, I'm still there. I think on these days there are people trying to run from me, I know I'm one of them, but we can't get away. red light after red light, 13 miles with a cop on your tail and tags that expired last week, rest assured your shadow always follows you, and so does my silhouette.

on both of these days, I love you. on both of these days I long for you, and on both of these days I am running in an attempt to get ahead of time because it's running out, and I'm not finished yet. I'm not ready to become someone who was, I know that I said I would be okay as long as at some point you remember me as someone who played a part but I am not ready to throw in the cards and become a past tense, not yet, maybe not ever.

I'll be 900 miles away driving away from the smog just so I can look at the moon and know you're standing underneath the same one, I'll be 900 miles away with different background noise then this with my hand in the air wondering how in the hell we're supposed to keep in touch if I can't manage to touch you. you say it's not that far, that I won't fall off the grid, that the months will fly by and I will pick up where I left off.
you say a lot of things.
I whispered that I loved you quiet enough for you not to hear and we hung up.

everything's falling, breaking, the seams are ripping, the hinges are stuck, the car won't ******* start again and I think the locks jammed too with my **** keys inside- and then there's the background noise. it's still all just background noise.

it's the middle of the night
and I won't rest until I get
the chance to change everything
and jump into another body
I've got chlorine in my hair
I've got scars on my skin
I'm only trying to keep my
head above all this water
the end means I stop looking back
you know how skies look different
when you're at a ****** gas station?
I think that's kind of the same as how
your love always seemed sweeter
when it was nearly killing me

I'm polluted with thoughts I don't feel comfortable thinking. I'm searching for an on and off switch, constantly, but I still haven't figured out why the world looks so different when I don't take my medicine so it's hard to imagine cutting my own circulation.
I am a figure of irrationality.
I counteract myself more times than I can count on a daily basis yet math has always been my strong suit. I like right or wrong answers, it's easier when there is no room to debate, but I like to argue more than I like to talk, ask any of my ex-girlfriends.
A guy I knew from high school shot himself in the head on top of a hill behind his parents house on my 20th birthday, for days I only thought about the look on his brothers face when he found the body. everybody described him in different ways, but my only real memory of him was the time I got drunk with him for the first time and I ended up running off a 6 foot wall, I don't have feeling in part of my leg because but for some reason I still wish I could hear his final thoughts plugged into my aux chord in my car so I could listen to them on my way to work and attempt to decipher,
I only want to understand.
Understanding always makes it hurt less but I think that's just because I make excuses for people in order to make myself feel okay.
I learned really early to play dead. It quickly progressed to avoiding mostly everything and using my newfound skill to become invisible. It's all just so morbid now. I talk a lot and smile a lot and enjoy life way too much for somebody who has these thoughts but one of them is surface level; I'm not sure which, I'm sure one day I will though. It's not my place to think or feel any of this, I have no right to reach out to people, but I still firmly believe that I am the owner of all my experiences. I miss feeling nostalgic. I don't care about the past anymore and it's only making me homesick for the times I spent swallowing the noise. It's just so ******* quiet now.

Why did he do that? How did it get so bad?

"what does she have that i dont?"
I imagined asking, I imagined calling hours after the fact and letting you hear me squirm out muffled cries,
the grey area between please, please no and thank you for doing this now

"what does she have that I don't?"
I imagined asking, I imagined calling and begging you to give me a better reason why I wasn't enough to show you that you deserve so, so much better, that you deserve to not be a wreck, but I stopped.

"what does she have that I dont?"
I realized, in that inexplicable grey area between want and loss, there is one and only one thing she has that I never will,

you

Control
Everything comes back to control
There are pins on a board
Places you took me
Needles in my skin
Places you touched me
But, no
This time I'm not losing it
Maybe it's because you're only a foot from me
Maybe I still have some hope
Trials and errors
Everything comes back to trial and error
You were a trial
I was the error
I'm realizing in time,
Everything really does fade to black and white
I'm realizing
Everything doesn't happen for a reason
This wasn't fate
This wasn't a higher power
Here I sit,
Ready to pour
And your back is turned to me
Nothing's the enemy
There is no ******* enemy
Walking through empty corridors,
Filled with paranoia
I'm not afraid of going numb again
That'd be the best case scenario
No,
I'm afraid of feeling this
All of it
Like a slow, steady beating
Like a nail on my kneecap,
A hammer in your hand
Like it was all just
Nothing
This was your trial
And I was the error
Like a hammer in your heart
Like your heart morphing into a hammer
One swift hit
Trial and error

you make me think that maybe
everything happens for a reason.
you met me at a time where I was
convinced faith was a concept I had no time for
you met me at a time where I thought
everything happens at random and ineffectively
I'll meet you halfway
if it's the last thing I'll do

in hindsight, if I fell in love this easy, I should be able to fall out just as easy, but for whatever reason reversal always seems a lot trickier. faith is just something we use to trick ourselves into thinking everything's okay when in reality there is nothing left, so no, I don't have faith that we'll work this out because that would prove we couldn't. I'm not throwing what we are into the universe and leaving it all up to fate, halfway because I'm a control freak and halfway because it wouldn't be fair to our past, to all that we've been through, to shrug and leave it up to chance.

the night I was planning on leaving you, you were also planning on leaving me. we met up in your bedroom when the sun had just gone down and we were both exhausted, before you'd been at work all day and I'd spent hours in a bookstore, it was a very typical night for us to end up together. I didn't break up with you and you didn't break up with me. does it mean something that both of us had the intention to end it, walk out and not look back? or does it mean something that neither of us went through with it? later you told me the day before when you asked me to meet you in your bedroom at 7, you'd been planning on telling me you had to work it out with her. I laughed and told you that when you asked me to be there at 7, I nodded and decided it was the last time I'd tell you I'd see you there.
in actuality that night we had *** for somewhere around 2 hours and I decided that I wasn't selfless enough to adhere to the cliche of loving someone so much you let them go. you called me baby for the first time that night. to date, you've called me it twice.
in a perfect world, I'd be sitting at a red light trying to catch a glimpse of the accident thirty feet in front of me and I'd pick up my phone and tell you I was having an existential crisis because I was ten seconds away from being hit. in a perfect world, you'd smirk and tell me that's a really selfish mindset because someone actually did get hit and it wasn't me. in a perfect world, I'd lay on your chest and listen to your heartbeat and feel content instead of empty. in a perfect world, your arms around me wouldn't remind me of how lonely I am.
I know this love is real, and honest and incomparable, but I also know this love is selfish, and every time I dry heave in my car because your bedroom light is on and her car is out front while I'm trying to navigate, screaming "I have to break up with him, I'm going to break up with him" over and over and over, believing it less and less with every cry, I only end up loving you more, and that's some ******* *******
in a perfect world, I wouldn't have to write this. I wouldn't have to ask you to step outside because my chest feels so tight I think my skin might just rip, and we wouldn't spend 25 minutes of our 30 minute conversation having small talk just to trick my body out of panicking. in a perfect world, I wouldn't say, "she's waiting on you, are you going to be in trouble?" and you wouldn't say, "I dont know, probably. can you breathe?" and I wouldn't reply, "your voice makes everything a little easier," and you wouldn't say, "I don't like that you are in this place," and I wouldn't whisper, "in a perfect world, we would be perfect together, you know? in a perfect world what we have would be perfect. we'd be perfect," and you wouldn't get sad that I was thinking like that again, you wouldn't sigh and say "I know. I have to go soon honey," and I wouldn't say "I know. I know you do. I'll let you go," and you wouldn't say goodbye and ask me to text you when I got home safely, and I wouldn't say I will and wait for you to hang up before whispering, "I love you so much I think I'm going mental".

in hindsight, this should have never started. sitting here now I can tell you 4,000 ways this could have stopped before it became such a gross mixture of gratifying and the most painful experience to date. I read the other day that our hearts form before our brains so maybe my reluctance to listen to reason has to do with my heart crying out seniority and swearing it knows what it's doing. It's funny to think about the night we started and how many different things fell apart before you saw me and told me you liked my smile and asked me to text you. I wasn't even supposed to be there that night. I could call that fate, that the stars had me and you in mind that night when they got my gig cancelled and called me into work, or I could say something like, "in a perfect world, I could love you, and you could love me, and that could be enough"

you met me at a very odd time in my life

look at me.
look right THROUGH me.
I'm focusing on all of the wrong things and I'm putting all my effort into them, the wrong things, all my time money energy patience into them (the wrong things) and at the end of the day I am exhausted and have nothing left for the right things and that makes it all my fault. everything.

look at me.
tell me that when you see me now all you see is the color of my lipstick wiped onto napkins at the top of your trash can and my mascara all over your pillow- or, well, my pillow, the pillow of yours that I used, and tell me that you still haven't washed the pillowcase or even moved the pillow, that you sleep in a weird S shape to avoid bumping into the pillow (as if I'm still there), and tell me how you were brushing your teeth and she was sitting at your desk and you saw the napkins and you just stood there, you left the water running so she didn't know you were done, and you stood there and watched the napkins. you watched, and you remembered my face with the mascara streaming down and you remembered me trying to yell but not being able to stop my voice from cracking, and you remembered the look in my eye when I gave you up.

LOOK at me.
tell me that if you lost me it'd be like losing your right ******* arm, it'd be like losing your car keys and having to be at work in an hour or maybe like locking your keys inside of your car and slamming your head against the window because at the end of the day this is all your own fault. I'll tell you that I like being your passenger seat and you won't understand but I will, and our song will come on and I'll forget about the napkins for a second and that ******* pillow that needs to be washed and let myself just, stop. let myself stop, let myself focus on the wrong things for a few more days because the right things are a lot of work and I'm not sure how to motivate myself if the outcome isn't positive and immediate.
but, well..

look at me.
I'm trying, right?
I'm doing something right. because tonight when you walked passed me and didn't say a word to me I got teary eyed and locked myself in another room just to take a breath and realize that I don't even want you anymore. so who cares. I cried, I wiped my face with a napkin, I threw it away, you're the one standing and staring at the crumpled and wet remains of what we were and what happened to us, not me. not anymore at least.

look through me
and tell me again that you aren't sure if I was ever really happy with you. know that you're right, I wasn't, but believe me when I say I tried, and I tried, and I tried some more, but at the end of every day you still only left me raw.
so I gave up on you.

It’s getting colder out and I’m really excited to have less of my own time soon, I say that but it’ll probably get really old not being able to go out and do whatever I want whenever I want, although I am pretty sick of the smell of cascade hops on your breath as you tell me something about some thing about something-
I wonder if I’ll ever be in a relationship where I don’t have to sneak into the bathroom to *******.
Tomorrow marks a year of my life I’ve spent with you.
The air is getting colder and I wonder exactly how much ******* in my life I’ve romanticized. I thought about you cheating on me right when I was about to finish and it didn’t even completely ruin it for me, maybe I could turn it into a good thing. A year ago exactly you slapped me and then came, now you’ve got me flat out on the ground and you’re walking and stomping all over me instead.
I do in fact get to write an angry poem. I get to sit in my little corner and write some words nobody will ever read.
I wonder if I’ll always be laying on the bathroom floor making myself come.
I imagine each of the bathrooms-
The one on 5th street, my apartment but I guess she called it hers too, always with the light off and in the shower because I was ashamed.
A handful of times in the one on the north side, usually light on because I was home alone. The shower was running just in case. Door locked.
This one- with stains of my love leaking out each corner I turn,
my towel on the rack and my thong on the floor and our single tooth brush in the cup.
my soap in the shower and my makeup stains on the mirror and the time I got up and locked your bathroom window because your friend got robbed that way and you were scared and I wanted to make you feel safe in your home.
I’d love to leave this city. I’d love to go somewhere where the weather isn’t so bad, it really affects my moods in so many ways. I’d like to be a little bit shorter, too, smaller in general. I want to take up less space. I want to blend in but whenever I open my mouth it's always me asking to stand out.
I love you today as I did then.

I want to feel whole but I only
feel like my skin isn't on properly
is there a way to tighten it?
take it off and alter the way it hugs my bones?
it's all a mask and I'm only
trying to figure out how to rip it off.

if you walked a thousand miles in my shoes you still
would not have any room judge me
where'd that idea come from, anyway?
that because you see what I see and walk where
I walk you have the power and knowledge to
write a book of every mistake I've ever made
and set it right outside of the gates of heaven
so that when my time comes I know it was your
words that left me dead?
people are not god's
you grew up reading mythology, watching the half-human
Hercules build a wall on top of his shoulders and carrying
it even throughout his most human times
I grew up reading poetry, memorizing the beauty of
metaphors to the point where I decided that when I grew up
I would become one and everything I do would be one
no wonder we have such different outlooks on life.
if someone put a knife through your back, you would die
you are not immortal because people are not gods
so why allow them to do what they do?
I told myself you would never make me sick again, ever
let me have a 105 degree fever and a pain in my shoulder
before I ever get nauseous remembering what happened
what was said or what we both did, but when I went to
the doctor and begged him to cure me he just filled his
syringe up with a photographic memory and inserted it
directly into my veins whispering
people are not god's
people are not god's
if you want to became the hands on a clock learn to
add and subtract and memorize when the sun rises and sets
if you are dead set on becoming something no one can
touch without crumbling to a pile of dust
breathe deep and walk tall
move as if your spine is made of words
that were said in such a fragile time that if you distribute
your weight improperly the tightrope will break
act as if it is never a fragile time
even though it is 99% of the time, but say it's not
say it's all just fine until your mind is snickering because
it has convinced the rest of your body it's able to keep running
people are not gods, people are not gods
people are just people and that's all they'll ever be
a mere five and a half feet, unless you allow them to
put on stilts and start walking around in your head

our palms and shins hit the floor, hard
the sound of our bones hitting the wood
echoes and your face shows the pain
you look at me, I look at you
a bandaid, yes, no, an ice pack
our spines and tailbones hit the grass, hard
the sound of our nervous whispers and
the lighter flickers through the night
your face shows your nerves
you look at me and unfold
I start to spiral out of control
but I attempt to keep my cool
I'm wearing 4 layers you'd think it
wouldn't be this hard but hey, it usually is
our lips hit eachother, hard
and then my lips hit your neck
and your lips hit my shoulder
and my shoulder hits your stomach
and your stomach touches mine
the sound of your breathing,
my breathing, sighs, sheets, skin on skin
you're whispering my name so quietly
my ear comes off and stretch out to your
mouth so they can hear more of you
our backs hit the bed, hard
and now you're on top of me
the sounds of the last time we fell fill
the air and you say something about
finally and I say something about don't
jinx this and we both shutup
and listen to the moment
the sound of the moment finds its way
through your bedroom door and sits on
the chair next to your queen size mattress
our heads and our hearts fall out of our
bodies and find their way to
each other on the cold tile floor
the sound of desperate crawling
fills the room and we look at each other
confused
time will never, ever be on your side, you said
no amount of luck or stitches could save me now
my hand cups your cheek and you close your eyes
one day
everything's going to be okay
one day
it will be okay

I sit on top of my rooftop
eating honey and smelling flowers
wishing on the stars and the
cracks in the pavement
for a chance to become a bee
if you want to give up, go ahead
I'll try to pick up the
pieces as best I can
but just know I'll
always put myself first
besides of course
when I put you before everything else
which will happen fairly often
if not always
but other than that
it's about me
I know you are sick of my
indecisiveness and irritability
and I know nobody thinks that I
notice when I start to spin out
but I really can feel the difference
in the same way
I can tell what color a rose
is by the way it smells
and the gender of the
bee by the way it stings
on my pessimistic days
I can tell if a rose is dead
by how bad the thorns
make my fingers bleed
there are talents behind
this shaking knee
and inability to sleep
ones you will never see
If you are having a bad day
I can try to help it turn around
but just know once I start
I'll never stop
x

I am outside a high school party with a cigarette in my hand and my sweater trailing on the ground. I belong to the night; to the teenage desperation you find right through the front door inside every single one of those boys and girls eyes. It is dark outside but I can make out everyone's faces simply by the light of cigarettes. I close my eyes for a second and inhale. I can barely make out the silhouette of the person I wish was in front of me. My eyes open. You are not here. To my left there's an alley and a short boy is throwing up the 22 shots that are tallied on his forearm. His best friend is video taping it. I don't think I'm really here. Is this the alcohol speaking? I didn't feel this attached to you 3 hours ago. My mother thinks I am at work. I don't feel bad at all. After everything I have done, lying is simple. I've become accustomed to being a lie. A boy is trying to get two girls to make out and that offends me. I'm not here. I'm not anywhere. I'm with you. I matter to you. I matter to someone. I am something.
I open my eyes.
A guy is handing me a beer, so I take it. I should be going home but that girl looks like you. There are four boys to my right free styling. One of them is actually really good. I try to weave through the people to find a familiar face. I find one, and he's handing me a bottle. I don't know what it is, but I drink. It burns.
I'm outside again sitting on the curb. The streetlight that shines above me is a dark shade of yellow that glows off every wall. It reminds me of the night. The moon is looking at me with an intensity I've never seen before. I have a text from you on my phone but I don't want to open it. I don't want to be able to feel this much. I go to find the bottle again.
I'm laughing a lot now. I found the bottle. The familiar face is laughing too. Her boyfriend broke her heart last week.
Your silhouette is standing in the corner. It's beckoning me. I open your text:
do you need something?
I close your text. I close my phone and my eyes and my arms and my heart and I throw my empty beer can at that silhouette of yours.
I'm outside again. Familiar face is going to take me home.
The cigarette is glowing orange and I'm dancing to her car.
You don't love me. I don't care.

I'M GLAD YOU
think there's more to me than this
I'm glad that when the sun shines
it shines right onto your back
I'm glad it darkens your skin
and brightens your mood
I'm glad we are complete opposites
you smile at me and I smile back
you'll never be as neat as me
I'M GLAD YOU
say you love me
I'm glad that you love me
I'm glad you think you do
I'm glad that I'm not sure if I love you
it's easier this way
we stay, ok, we don't, cool
nothing really matters to me
I'd rather be halfway than
completely hindered
I'd rather be halfway than
completely hindered
I'd rather be halfway than
completely hindered

I am as strong as I want to be, because right now I care more about leaning out and taking in as few calories as possible. Losing the pounds in order to gain 'em back, you know? There's very few questions that truly have a right or a wrong answer, and I believe that with 98% of me. Sometimes a right answer simply means it is socially acceptable and a wrong answer is the truth, so in that situation you'd want to throw away your moral compass, clench your jaw, and hope that the lies that come out just result in pearly, shiny teeth.

you take a sip of something and it tastes like, ummm.. bad. it tastes like deceit, but that isn't totally possible (OBVIOUSLY), so in a literal sense it just tastes like the Coca Cola syrup that didn't have any carbonated water mixed with it. It's sweet, flavorful, but kind of tastes like it could erode my car engine in a matter of seconds, you know?

I feel the sip deep inside of my body, I can feel it trailing down my esophagus (is that what it is?) or maybe just my throat, a tube to my stomach and then to parts of me I better just not try to name out of fear of sounding stupid. fear of sounding stupid drives the majority of things I do, but that's okay, because at least I don't sound stupid.

the sip gets caught in the pit of my gut and I start to feel uneasy. I probably should have looked at the bottle before sipping it, huh? I probably should have asked for a detailed list of ingredients like the responsible wanna-be-vegan I should be? I call myself a wannabe most things. its just the person I am.

I take a seat because I don't feel good. this is going to hurt, this is going to land me in the hospital probably and might take a whole while to get over. this is turning too literal and I'm trying to beat around the bush, so ill just tell you about the time I took a sip of a coke can and a bee was inside and it flew around in my mouth for a solid 5 seconds before I managed to open, spit, and scream. that could be poetic if you really hunt, like I waited 5 whole seconds to get the monstrous bee out of my ******* mouth, I just sat with a confused look on my face for 5 whole seconds!!! thats a whole giant metaphor! I still swallowed the Coca Cola and it tastes like ***.

IMAGINE THAT people- poison only takes like poison once you've swallowed it.

but I’m alive
important distinction
that sometimes I can’t make out
I tried to reach out to my ex in an attempt
to analyze my previous relationship patterns
but they ignored my call
so I guess that told me what I needed it to

I’m very jealous of you, for so many different reasons
maybe that’ll be the next poem I write

in order for me to pick the roses and give them to you, I first have to grow them. it starts with planting seeds. I forget that a lot which only leads to feeling guilty that your hands are empty, that I don’t have something to give, but I know that one day I will. sometimes I find it difficult to find the time, energy or even simply the motivation to water the soil that’s clogging up my already cramped bedroom, but again, without these steps, they can’t ever grow and neither can I.

I want you to know that I sleep on my back now. in fact, I can only sleep on my back, but not in a I-never-really-sleep-very-comfortable type of way, more that I doze off peacefully, with my fan on full blast and my face pointed towards the sky. I am moving as freely as a flightless bird these days because I have two working legs but nowhere to go but I want to let you know that my mind is still moving a million miles an hour. the world looks a little different when my eyes are dry, in the same way that some of you look much less appealing when my conscience is clear. I pack a bag and drive to another city sometimes when I’m having a bad day, and it reminds me of how stationary I am- but only for now. it’s a good thing because this world is really ******* big.

I’m so happy I don’t have to take care of you anymore.
1

I cry for you once each night, every night.

I forgot I existed before waking up on your front
porch at 6 am. We walked to your bedroom as the
morning light waved goodbye, the first and last time

I will ever sleep in jeans. We kissed like we were mad at
each other: urgently, my hand clenching your thigh
for dear life, pursing our lips because that makes it

slower which somehow means it's more intentional.
I’m ready to wake up for the day and immediately
move my body. I wonder if that’s only something I’m

able to do if I’m not telling anyone about it. Still- it
did always feel so time sensitive, I would be rushing
without any idea where I needed to go except that I

wanted it to be with you. I was hesitant at first, until
I was able to remember what your perfume smelled
like: clean, no matter how drunk I was, no matter how

tired. I’m afraid it might be lingering, but I finally learned
that it isn't beautiful to be so tragic, not even in November.
Now pity feels nowhere near as good as intimacy

does, and intimacy only feels as good as the last time.
I struggle to find a point where I wasn’t naked in every
possible way, but that’s because people usually fall in

love with me if they’re having *** with me. This
time I was too busy remembering how to be on display,
how to play the right amount of pretend and the right

amount of dead. In the dark it’d be impossible to tell
the difference between the way you saw me and
the way I saw you, but I can still feel the sinking.

I was only fifteen inches and barely seven lbs, I was born with really curly dark hair and five different illnesses. The first year of my life I spent strapped to a bed to make sure I didn't move around and choke.
It's always been a ******* trap.
Nowadays my legs hang off my bed because my body is too long.

The place becomes familiar, the weeds start to appear, my dark roots start to show on my patchily bleached chemically stained hair, the hard drive starts to slow down, I have to take my car to the mechanic, and you feel like us changing from what we once were is just a part of life.
The bones break, the skin wrinkles, the metal rusts,
my shoes have holes, my hands have cuts, my body starts to grow tired, the job gets boring, stuck in the same place with the same people doing the same thing, life becomes just routine alongside the winter that turned to summer and the people that you can no longer consider strangers. The money runs out, the clothes start to wear, and all of it, absolutely all of it, loses its charm.
You say nothing can stay the same as the beginning, but do you realize what that equates?

I am a poet
when I speak, I speak
when I listen, I listen
and when I write a hole is created
inside of my chest which nothing can fill
do you like what you are seeing?
sometimes in the middle of the night
I crawl back into the cave I came from
and imagine if all of it wasn't real
the grass is green but I didn't water it
so I can't make any metaphor about what
is on the other side or how the work you
put into it always comes back threefold
if I was to explain something to somebody
I would automatically arrange it into a list
you always had a particular look about this
found my unwillingness to write paragraphs
endearing and romantic, but obnoxious
said my brain works in one to tens-
but wait my heart must beat that way too
I count the times you water it, the times I do
I count everything in shades of grey
sometimes I wonder if the grey I'm surrounded
by was white that I accidentally threw my black into
maybe it was pure and I let it all dribble too many times
or maybe it was just something I was born into
speaking of being born, on his death bed my
dad told me about the feeling in your chest you
get when you know something isn't right
the way your eyes shake, the inner conscience
that comes out to play through your pupils
pupils tell a lot about a person
what makes something turn green?
I always say stuff about my dad on his
deathbed but in actuality he was nine
hundred miles away in a hospital bed
with nobody except a prison guard
and the handcuffs on his wrist
he died a painful death, alone
sometimes when you mock me
I want to show you the venom
I have inside of my veins
I'm nobody's, not even my own
I'm something completely
uncharted and untouched.
sometimes when I think of my dad
tied to a bed taking his last deep breathes
I wonder if death is something that's
pre-programmed into us when we're
born or if our fate is somehow up to us.
without honesty, without trials
without any of these abundant emotions
we're just on boring and borrowed time
no matter what words you make a bow out of
the truth of the matter will always be shown in
how green our grass is and how alive our eyes look

my sister overheard you saying that your car broke down
so now she drives you to and from work
yesterday when I went into work you were
standing and I noticed you got a haircut.

this is what happens when you lose a person
you no longer know about the little things

i'll never be good enough
i'll never be good enough
i'll never be good enough
i'll never be good enough
i'll never be good enough
i'll never be good enough
i'll never be good enough
i'll never be good enough  
i'll never be good enough
...
never be (good) enough
never be (good) enough
never be (good) enough
never be (good) enough
never be (good) enough
never be GOOD enough
never be GOOD enough
never be GOOD enough
never be GOOD enough

i'm embarrassed that i still love you
i'm embarrassed that i still love you
i'm embarrassed that i still love you
i'm embarrassed that i still love you
i'm embarrassed that i still love you

i'm embarrassed that i still love you


i'm embarrassed that i still love you



i'm embarrassed that i still love you

I want to write a poem about being
malleable,
so I buy clay. I try to make a sculpture
of what it is that I’m feeling and it looks like
absolute ****, it isn’t my fault
my hands are just too weak to
carry the weight of the mixture I tried to make.
that you once were.
I try again.
I lift and I punch and I mold
and I kneed and
I grab the clay like I’m
grabbing the back of your head,
your hair in my fist so now it’s grey between my fingers once again
and I hit and I switch and I try so hard to make something sturdy  

it needs to be cooked to stand up straight.
maybe you’re just not there yet.

there's a part you will never be able to touch
whether you shrink yourself down to the size
of a quarter and jump into her back pocket
whether you beg and plead and stomp
and cry and demand to understand what I
have that you don't, you never will

it isn't love or effort or commitment
it's responsibility and dependence and
the cruelty of saying you'll never leave.
and then there was me
trying to make the blood stop gushing
slapping her face with a force I'm not proud of
trying to get her to stay awake long
enough to regain consciousness
memories of somersaulting down stairways
and the look in her eye before I saw fists

MAYBE I AM AFRAID TO WRITE BECAUSE IT
MEANS I HAVE TO PICK A DIAGNOSES TO TREAT
MY SYMPTOMS PLAY TRICKS ON ME SO I MIX UP LIES
BUT I PROMISE YOU I WILL ALWAYS COME CLEAN
I BRAG ABOUT MY IMMUNE SYSTEM LIKE IM NOT
THE DIRTIEST ******* YOU’VE EVER MET
BUT NOW I CARRY HAND SANITIZER EVERYWHERE
I GO THROUGH THE DAY CONCEALED BUT CONTAGIOUS
LIKE MY SISTER GETTING MONO AGAIN SIX YEARS LATER
WHY DO I CARRY A GUN? FOR DISEASES LIKE THIS
MY MOM ALWAYS SAID GOING FROM HOT TO COLD SO
QUICK WOULD GIVE ME A SEIZURE SO NOW THAT I CAN’T
FEEL TWO CONFLICTING FEELINGS AT ONCE ILL BLAME HER
I’D SIT IN A HOT BATH AND LET ICE COLD WATER RAIN
I’D LAY UNDERNEATH MY BED IN THE DARK TO *******
I’D HAVE DONE ANYTHING TO JUST OCCUPY MY OWN SKIN

SHAPESHIFTING
7/25/2014
in under two minutes
I could shed my skin
my limbs aren't my own-
to be in your presence
to feel the warmth
hearing breaths, chest moving
If your arms are around mine
the shift becomes inside
like the plates of the earths core
positioning right into each other
filling each other, filling me up
shapeshifting
I'm not me when I'm with you
I'm indebted to this feeling
take my skin;
my veins -
rip out my entire being
shapeshifting
for you

I love to write about people that can’t be bothered to pick up my phone calls

this is something I do - any time someone I have some kind of respect for asks for one of my books, I have to re digest it through their eyes. Immediately I go home and read it as if I am them instead of me and now I like my words differently depending on who it is I’m reading as. It shows me- I am not afraid of touching things filled with memories. You can be. I am, however, too terrified of freezing in this place if I stay unable to figure out how to move. 
this is something I do - when I was a child, every night as I would try to fall asleep my mind would come up with the most terrible things. Intrusive thoughts that I would call bees in my brain, I couldn’t help it nor did I understand it, I’d try for hours to distract myself but still each night I’d dream of burning alive, and I believed I had myself to blame. I’m telling you this now because in adulthood I have gotten very good at ignoring the bees, too good, I’ve decided. I can barely hear myself think so how can I possibly create?
this is something I do- crave, in all regards. Food and love are the same and I am only asking for a bite. A relic from my eating disorder, I’m used to surviving on little bits and I know there is a part of me that prefers it. Restrict now, binge later, the problem is there is no longer anything left that isn’t filled with memories and sometimes it is too much for my body to understand. I will ask for permission before I am affectionate. I will still eat in a calorie deficit today.

each time I can’t get you off my mind
I remember you can’t get me off at all
sometimes I want you to know that I
intentionally drove to your house that day
I wanted you to hate me as much as I hate you
and you still take depression naps
and I still take all of the side streets
now I have a new sense of purpose
and you have a car payment

I feel so alone but so held at the same time
as if it’s the moon that’s trying to talk to me
why have I always had pivotal moments
while staring directly at telephone wires?
to this day I’ve lived six different lives
and I have no plans to stop evolving
coins still fall from parts of me wherever I go
it never had anything to do with you at all

if you go at someone else’s pace it shows you care
which is ******* insightful and I learned it from ***
I remember the smell of your mother’s house anytime
I’m clean so I stopped showering and doing dishes
my roommate rolls her eyes each time but I’m
just as ***** as I’ve always wanted to be
I rarely ever miss you and when I do it’s fleeting
I keep having dreams where my hair is to my knees
I know how to stand up straight and
you’re still just as small as I left you

I want to ask you questions that you’re not going to want to answer. I miss the parts of you that you’re hiding away. There’s a guy that is rocking back and forth to our left and you show me him with your eyes; I want to trust you more than anything in this world.
Do you think of her? Do you miss her? Have you spoke? I’m scared I don’t believe you.
I drink wine now, I loathe this day. My skin is itchy and I miss the way your cheek feels against mine, you’ve never felt this far and one time I slept away from you for a full month-
Is this right? Is this real?
I miss your skin. I miss feeling connected with you, I miss being able to feel secure. I miss when I saw your hands move and didn’t wonder about her, I miss the purity, the simple,
I never was supposed to like the taste of wine. The guy is rocking. The guy is rocking.

I don't know when enough is enough
giving up is something I never learned to do
and my expiration date was marked
for the minute she took her call
I knew that then and I still do now
I see clearer now than I ever have before
but I look around and I wonder
what it's like to be found
or at least ******* seen, pathetic

I almost got to touch her, once or twice
but I just laid in her sheets and wondered
if I did it now, if it'd hurt worse later
if I do this now, if I put it into words
will it still hurt me in the morning?
I'll never find an easier way to let you
in on what the inside of my body looks
like than by telling you that I still
cry for a girl I never even touched
I'm not sure you know what I mean by that

maybe this is the only way I can deal with it

Is it possible to love in silence?