Not all I am is transitory and ephemeral,
a bundle of nerves tangled between the dotted lines.
I ripple and undulate,
echoing off the walls of my expansive ribcage.

A girl curled up so tight
she ricochets like a pinball.
A kinetic confusion caught between frames,
bouncing around searching for meaning at the periphery.

I found myself dancing in the whitespace
between yourself
and how you see the world,
traipsing around the floaters and stars in your eyes
like an animated recreation
of our universe expanding,
drawn out to eternity with you.

Take my hand
and take off into the woods with me.
We can meander
until we find ourselves together.

Let love nest in our lovely mess
and pray the bees turn their ***** to us
this honeymoon season.

Let's get cheeky,
toss our clothes
and our cares
into the fire,
and watch the flames lick their lips
at the bountiful harvest
of loose ends and broken heart strings
we use for tinder.

The kindling kindly spits embers at us
like ****** on sunflower seed hulls,
cleansed
and ready to be born anew.

The greedy little ladybugs
eagerly waited to mourn me,

dying
to don their black spots as veils
meant to cover the raw redness of their bloodlust.

Dying...

and hoping that I would return the favor.

I can't write poems
because they won't give me a pen

because they're afraid that I'll **** myself with it.

But what they don't know
is that I'm not the perfect Venn diagram
between suicidalness
and patience,

that I'm not creative enough
or desperate enough

to use a ballpoint
or a fountain
or a quill

to hang myself
or poison myself
or slit my wrists.

And because they won't give me a pen,
I can't write poems
to
    save
            my
                  own
                         life.

She kept laughing
even though it wasn’t funny,

shrinking in the presence
of two men sent to interrogate her
about her purity,

the red brand hidden under her tongue
that she tried to hide under nervous giggles,
tried to mask with inappropriate joviality.

She tried to desperately communicate what had made her
choose the wrong side of the road
between laughter and sobbing.

She tried
and failed
to make them understand
what had made them think of her as a hysterical and trivial woman,
the stereotypical horrible driver,
unable to stay in her emotional lane.