scrambling
                       desperate to
                    get the words on
                          paper.
Hands as a leaf
I cannot fathom how
Intimately
    She and I are linked.

From the start we were kismet,
connecting on a level that
  would astound all those
    passing.

Two patrols of the night
couldn't even shatter the glass menagerie
We built to house our
    broken identities.

I stumble through chaos to
find the foggy mirror
to peer
and view her lipstick
   stained on my chin.

And desperately wait for
midday,
midweek,
   When I can see her beautiful lashes again.

Intimately I want to
Know her, more than
the FIVE FAST FACTS
that stretched into
the perfect first date.

She is the one who fills this page back to front
and

Makes my entire body crumble and crave her like
my next cigarette

I cannot stop shaking
    She will steady me,
My
Abby.

I look at them and want to be all skin and bones
i am healthy and full and quite padded
forever wanting to satisfy myself
i tire of wanting to be less than i am

remnants of smoke still

drifting out of my ears but

even the beautiful spirals

can't push away the images

of you dancing naked in my

closet or snatching the last

bit of ******* even though

you don't even like jam you

were always taking the bits

of me that i wanted most and

all that's left now are the vestiges

of an empty shell how cliche,

how mediocre is it that you're

gone and i'm left here wrapped in

your flannel smoking the very stuff

i swore would **** you but you

managed to do that first didn't

you i always let you take those

bits of me that mattered most

because i looked at you

and all i could see within the

fractured hull that was your skin

was darkness but i could tell you

were building a whole person

deep in there with my scraps

i could hear the echoes of a scream

that wasn't yours but i didn't realize

until i got the call last tuesday that i

could wail in the exact tone and

frequency of those echoes funny

how grief works, you were dying

the whole time and i didn't even

notice you were fading, but now

that you're gone i can't get you

out of my head

waves of lines caress the wall
dripping until they leave a trail that
looks like tears the blood’s fallen
from his fingers for the final time
figurines smashed to

smithereens and i’m at a loss
for words i’ve always been told
i have a knack for
eloquence but when he walked
up to me with his

wrists the shade of my favorite
lipstick and said
"finally my veins can feel
the air” all i could say
was “what a mess you’ve made”
i cleaned him up again and packed
him up for

the house again but i pray
and hope and wish
that they can help him more
than i ever could
i love him to bits but this
love is breaking me
apart.

My fingers smell like nicotine again and I don’t think I mind

I want someone to share these cold mornings with and to warm my toes when the air refuses to stop biting. I want someone who won’t mind my incessant need to trace the curves of their ribs or to learn how their body feels when my fingers grace their calves. I want someone who doesn’t need me to be whole all the time because I’m cracked at the edges and remember there is that one big split right down the middle that is pretty difficult to mend back together. I want someone who doesn’t think I’m pretentious because I write poetry at 11 am on a Saturday. I want someone who cries when they laugh so I can see the real depths of their emotional psyche. I want someone who will appreciate me for the ****** up mess I turn myself into but also for the beauty that I’ve been told I contain. I want someone to be the person to me that I could be to them.

Our friction is something I need right now

The cars roar past as each part of my mind erupts to wage a familiar war.

There is a certain air of romance in walking alone down the side of a busy street at night with my mind spilling out of my ears.

By romance I mean the beautiful and ringing dissonance.

                             ( the intriguing option of death if I step to the left or the warm promise of safety if I keep to the right)

I let myself get wrapped up in my own world and forget how easy it is for everything to change with one swift movement.

As I shuffle down that street with the fake light of streetlamps warming my back I continue to walk forward, in order to avoid the making of any decisions.

But that in itself is a decision, and my feet begin to stray.

I keep to the right, like I always do.

But I’m now forever wondering what could possibly happen if I stepped to the left.

I am an individual who is
Involved.
When asked by curious critics “Who are you?” I’ll invariably state,
Involved.
Involved, Busy, Stressed.
Involved.
Involved is an activity, is a stressor, is a blessing, is a curse.
Involved pleases my parents.
So long as
Involved is within the parameters that they have set forth and therefore approved.
Involved is enriching, ensuring, creating my path to freedom even if my future is still shrouded.
Involved is my choice of poison.
Involved is my choice of passion.
Involved is my sweet drink of hectic relief.
Involved is me.

Je suis malade


Je suis fatigué


Mais tous ces maux stéréotypées pâle en comparaison de la douleur creusée dans mes os qui restaient quand vous avez creusé ma moelle et m'a laissé sans une greffe


Je suis fatigué


Je suis malade

I’m so very tired of imagining all of these false scenarios.
They’re all in my head and of course all about you
I just want to hold you
touch you
feel you
Kind of like that blink song but I don’t actually want to ever blink because every time I close my eyes I see your face.
I don’t even know who you are.
You’re just a passing face.
You’re just a figment, a pigment, a wigment of my shattering mind.
There’s nothing I can do besides pretend my sanity.

Hugo told me that within a writer is contained a world.

You don’t write anything besides grocery lists on the backs of stained coupons.

That must explain why people tell me my eyes are old souls, but say that yours are barren.

I could stare into them forever, not because of beauty, but in fascination, for I’ve never seen any pit as black as those eyes.

Besides your soul.

Of course, I’ve only ever viewed your soul when you pass out with Jack on your breath; with those scared, scratched, scarred fists finally flat, and you let your borders down long enough for me to see.

I open my old eyes and see that the pit continues from your sockets down to your toes.

Sleep does nothing to change the fact that you are empty, devoid nearly of life and meaning.

If I’m not careful I’ll be ****** into that pitch.

Mother always warned me that the brightest burn out the quickest, so I should keep my light away from you. Really, I’m tiring of being careful.

There is a bit of beauty in the dankness of your despair, but I’m tired of romanticizing your illness because all it does is make me sicker than this chemo ever has.

Stop burning out my light.

hands shaking
knees like rubber
pulse in my throat
heart leaps out
dripping crimson
falls to the floor
past my rubber knees
and shaking hands
to lie there dead
turning cold
no longer in pain
but forever in regret

probably permanently damaged goods

I have mosquito bites on my inner thighs

The itch reminds me of winter nights

Under your scratchy cotton sheets

Where it was you biting my thighs.

It was like you were scratching

An itch that had been burning deep

Down within my skin.

The relief was ecstatic, electric,

Encouraging me to open myself wider

To the possibility that I would never

Burn for anything again because

All the fire I needed was contained

Within your eyes and those eyes told me

That anytime I needed to burn I

Could just go to you and you would

Show me what fire really was.

I know I'm not ****, and I’m not traditionally beautiful, but when you touch me I can feel the warmth spreading from my stomach all the way to my frigid heart and you make me feel like both of those things are actual possibilities for me.

Maybe asking you how I can help while you’re holding a gun to your head wasn’t the best idea.

I never thought you’d tell me to pull the trigger.

The tears really won’t stop coming this time, and I don’t think it’s just because there’s something in my eye, I’m almost positive it’s because of all this blood.

I was only trying to help, please just breathe deeper and lie again.

Tell me everything is okay.

i shouldn’t be smoking the death-sticks

i think i got a death-wish

Yeah, I think about kissing you.

Practically all the time.

I hope that while you’re in the windy city and you’re letting the wind kiss your cheeks and marveling in the lights you’re thinking of me too

I hope that while I’m stuck here dreaming about pushing back your blonde locks on that tattered couch in your basement you are thinking about kissing me the way you promised me you would

I hope that you’re thinking about the little things, like if I’ll let you touch my ******* or if our glasses will get in the way

Thoughts are one thing, actions are another. However, there certainly is something hopelessly romantic in the idea that while you are surrounded by the beauty of an unknown city you are still thinking of mousy little me, wondering how my lips curve because you haven’t touched them in a while, thinking about the taste in my tongue, and remembering our fried chicken night in the cafeteria where all I could think about was pushing you to the ground to bruise your lips with mine

Kissing you is most of what crosses my mind these days.

What if I told you that while you’re gripping my hand you’re also breaking my heart?

Would you call me a liar again since you can clearly see it clenched between my teeth?

The name-calling might be justified this time and yeah,

You could say I’m trying to break my heart myself but you are most certainly the one standing there holding the scalpel and yeah,

You can hide the blood-lust behind your clenched jaws and bulging temple and yeah,

I can pretend I don’t see my crimson nightmare dripping off your fingers,

But who the hell is going to stop me from biting down and ending all of this foolish fake nonsense before something tragic really happens?

Wherever she placed her well-worn feet she brought life, but all she could do was sob.

The real tragedy of her blessing was not the barren ground she touched with her toes, but that anything her magic produced died as soon as her soles left the soil.

Spiraling to disaster, she ended her life before she could end any more.

Do you want me as much as I want you?

And I don’t mean in the physical, “I want to ******* way”

I mean in the “I want to hold your hand and fall asleep with you and while you slumber tell you not how beautiful you are to me but how beautiful you are to the world and how you deserve someone much better, fitter, prettier, smarter, better, than me and hope you can hear well in your dreamland and then tell you how I want you to make me feel like the only star in the universe, the one that shines brightest but that will never burn out, to make me feel like the one who deserves everything you tell her in the pitch of the night, but I also want you to tell me these things in the daylight when I can show you those three scars on my arm, when you can see every single blemish that I refuse to cover up on my acne-riddled face, when the cellulite between my thighs and covering my once-thin tummy jiggles while I laugh at the silly jokes you tell me to cover up the fact that we both are terrified at being hurt again and what I want the most is for you to read this terrible poem and tell me I’m not crazy for wanting these things because you want them too" sort of way.

Three-thousand memories ago I once wrote the line, “I’m tragically in love with the idea of you” but I’ve moved past that. I’m at the point where I’m just praying you aren’t in love with an idea of me, because believe me, it’s twisted, it’s warped, it’s a facade. I hope that as soon as you realize I am Jess The Mess you don’t run away screaming, because I sure as hell would.

She was always the reason for my pain.

Sitting here alone
Chilled to the bone
I think of only sad things.

But the music in the street
Makes me bounce to the beat
Happiness tugging at my strings.

I begin to smile,
The first time in a while.
and that bird in my heart again sings.

I may be alone,
But at least I am home
And that bird can now stretch her wings.

My heart screams to me,
Stop this, you are only going to hurt
I numb it out with my mind, twisting, delicate,
Stop this, you are only going to hurt
I look at her and all I feel is joy,
Stop this, you are only going to hurt
Is the pain what makes this real?
Stop this, you are only going to hurt
Her love rebounds, resonates within me,
Stop this, you are only going to
I can’t, I won’t, I refuse to
Stop this, you are only going
For the sweaty, delicious, enervating moments are what I long for
Stop this you are only
Her smile is the sunflower she speaks so fondly of
Stop this, you are
Beautiful, sad, whole
Stop this you
Are the light of my days, the dark of my nights.
Stop this,
I am going to hurt,
Stop
I am going to hurt you.
Stop
Let’s hurt together.

I want to push you against that wall we spoke by and take off your crooked glasses and tell you that I’m the one

and if you say you don’t believe me, I’ll kiss you so deep that you’ll forget what I even said.

I want to touch that beautiful blonde hair and tell you how it looks jarringly familiar messy, but it would look even better on my pillow at night.

I want your mornings and your nights, but I need those crazy moments where the passion hits again and we can remember why we touch each other in the first place.

I don’t want everything, that’s far too much to ask for. I just need everything that you are willing to give.

I’m tragically in love with the idea of you.