mornings of my junior year were nightmares,
because when i woke up all i wanted to do was
die.
school sounded far away, a made-up paradise where
good grades and white teeth would take you to the toptoptop.
my love had left, my friends did not understand.
(oh, you’re depressed? everyone’s depressed)
pop another pretty white halo,
stay up until you think you see the sun scorching your
already fried brain.
mother cried, father yelled
(why can’t you just snap out of it? look at us for christs sake)
trips to unknown people, with thick reading glasses
and rooms that smelled like incense and money.  

i am here. but i am there. i am nowhere.

i was submerged under murky water,
greeted by sirens and drowning fish.
my blood doesn’t look like mine.
i want my blood to run like syrup.

i was here, but i am not there.
drown me through the lines,
until it all sounds the same.

during steaming showers, i decide
whether or not to **** myself, or touch myself
once last time (how many times?) to the thought of
his collarbones and never ending pride.
i like it hot, so my skin is pink like a baby’s ****
and raw so it screams and scathes over wounds
i had long forgotten.
i breathe in vapors thinking them as gas, wondering
how long it took for Plath,
for Sexton until they kissed their own eyelids.


i imagine his lips as he said i was a sweetheart, a doll,
i daydream of his fingers as they entered me with no
worry, two snakes, the venom explosive.

showers are a dangerous time,
i come out alive, with bile and dynamite shoved in my throat,
with my heart seeping through the tiles,
my sanity disappearing into the condensation

once upon a time, i woke without your
resonance vibrating through my callused fingers.
once upon a time, i traveled without the constant
and never-ending presence of you.
once upon a time, i could have never remembered the shape
of your freckles, the churning of your irises.
once upon a time, i would have laughed at the idea of needing someone
so terribly, so hungrily.

this time, i cannot blink without the inordinate yearn
to bleed among your crackling pigmentation.
this time, the thought, the mere idea of mornings without you,
are enough to
**** me.

we wandered in the incandescent halls of walgreens,
my fingers stitched in your back pocket, your freckles
painted.
1:13, two teenagers with nothing but anxiety attacks
and drunken *** keeping everything
together.
i hummed to a made-up
tune.

it’s fine, i’ll find company within
my strands.
pretty girls are made to wait
for boys with impatient ribs.
it’s fine, i’ll scratch until my
skin bleeds the right way.
pretty girls are built to apprehend
every assault.
it’s fine, i’ll pace my room until posters merge.
pretty girls are assembled to bite
their lips
and wear bruised knees.
it’s fine,
because all boys let me do is
wait.
and i don’t know if i’m one of those
pretty girls,
but i sure know boys will continue
throwing me into the
sea.

one day maybe, you’ll let me write my poems upon your skin,
let the words, like vines, trickle and tingle through your veins, itch and scab upon your pores.
so, whenever you’re sad, whenever you’re lonely,
you can see the ink,
and know i will be there, even when it fades.

he said, “you’re such a doll”
beautiful on the outside,
with nothing but hollow thoughts
and jingling parts tangoing
inside.
"i’m no doll."
more like a rag doll,
waiting for the next
throw.