I am a white, Jewish girl from Florida.
Hit me.
Hit me with your white girl jokes,
Your Jewish American Princess stereotypes.
I will giggle and squeal right along with you.
Because yeah,
I do order white chocolate mocha frappuchinos from Starbucks,
I Instagram pictures of my nails,
I take selfies, whiten my teeth, straighten my hair,
Shop at Forever21 and drink Naked Juice like it is my job.
Yeah, my daddy buys me things,
I don’t pay for my data plan,
There’s no way in hell I would drive a sedan,
I wear Nike shorts and avoid any nearby cameraman,
And let me tell you, I love jamming out to old school Britney Spears.
Hit me one more time, because none of that means I am any less intelligent,
Any less diligent,
Any less likely to face judgment
Than any other slice of diversity around me –
I am a white, Jewish girl
My nose is not its own cartoon,
I eat bagels (but I absolutely hate lox),
I’m not tan or even the least bit tinted,
And god knows I don’t wear Uggs.
Tell me I need to get married young,
Major in business,
Wear clothes that leave me airless,
Get some of that European gracefulness,
But don’t tell me I’m dumb.
Don’t tell me I’m not thoughtful.
I’m a white girl.
Take a glance at my resourcefulness,
Understand my goals of being ambitious,
Get rid of your own stereotype-inducing cockiness,
And notice me in all of my flawlessness.
Because I am a white girl,
And I am unique, strong, inventive,
Empowered, passionate, adventurous,
Indomitable, unbeatable.
I am an individual –
Not part of some whole that you put me in to stabilize your mold,
Not the example of a societally scatterbrained ***** meant to be your centerfold,  
Not a previously worn-out piece of clothing thrown to the gutter unsold,
Rather a human being of my own rules and my own morals
A human being with ideas and intelligence and power,
A white, Jewish girl,
A person.

Nervousness sets in
As I await the news
And doctors disagree
About their medical muse.

Confusion swarms high
As answers are not clear
And possibilities come to my mind
Cancer and tumors, the greatest fear.

Anxiety bubbles up
As the next appointment comes
And I don’t know what I want;
My thoughts are going numb.

Sometimes I think the possibilities of health are shrinking
And then I realize… that’s just wishful thinking.

a tiny round pearl
a thin oblong sapphire
a small smooth ruby
a fat opaque opal

keep me alive
control me
erase me

i want to smash them
implode them
they are not worth the effort
it takes to mine the earth

i am powerless
not real
i do not exist

When you left, you took with you my ability to move,
My ability to breathe, my ability to speak.
You stole my muscles and my bones,
My senses and my desires.
I can no longer taste your lips on mine,
Or smell your shampoo on my pillow.
I can no longer hear your voice calling my name,
See your smile, nor feel your hands wrapped around my waist.
All that is left for me to feel is the crushing blanket of loneliness,
A knit wool too warm to cuddle with under the covers,
Too heavy to hold to my chest to give it freedom to rise and fall.
My body is numb, my brain is numb, my heart is numb.
I can feel the darkness of the vast and empty night sky above me,
Slowly lowering down to Earth, directly to my empty bed,
And for a single moment, I want to feel like the universe is safe,
Like it isn’t about to crush me and my heart isn’t about to explode.
For I am left without shield, you, my warrior, my one-man army,
And I am immobilized and unprotected,
And there is no way in hell I can win the next World War against myself.
Escape is my only option to divert the attention from my hiding place,
To prevent the enemy of me from further destroying my soul and consuming my body.
So if I’m lost, please don’t find me, and if I jump, please let me sink,
For darkness has fallen on this sunlit winter day,
And the sweet crescent moon no longer casts a light on my pillow,
Leaving only shadows of Heaven in the darkness.

Drumsticks pound at a continuous beat
For every fourth count they sound
And they resonate like the drone
Of a hive of bumblebees.
Common sense tells oneself to hide –
Run far, far away from the sound of the drone –
For if one gets too close, a sting will ensue.
I, however, cannot run;
The hive is in my head,
And it gets louder every day.
No spray, no poison can terminate
No net, no flower can rid
My mind of the little terrors
Lurking at the end of my ear canals.

For the monsters are trapped –
I am trapped – in an invisible prison,
A prison which was has no key, no guards.
With impenetrable walls of steel
And the torture of loudness that
Not even an immortal could endure.
But the worst term of my sentence is time –
I will be here for a very long time –
As I will be imprisoned here
Forever.

I feel the tendrils creeping in
Wrapping around my core, my neck
The muscles slowly strengthen, suffocating me
Making my calls so muted they’re virtually nonexistent.
I’m shouting though I can’t breathe,
But no one can hear my screams from the
Deep, dark trenches of the shadowy sea
As unbeknownst creatures emerge,
Leaving their places of sweet asylum
And intruding upon mine,
Yet, I still am stranded here in this place.
I don’t even know where I am,
But the voices of fear and insecurity in my mind,
Tell me what I need to do - when, why, how -
Steadily I hear a crescendo of a piano some distance away,
So far, almost on the outskirts of the complex town inside my mind,
Though I discover the music is waiting just around the bend.
A flats, F sharps – getting louder, louder!
“Stop!” I am screaming now
Or at least I think that’s me.
But the music blocks out my voice
That tender little voice of mine.
Suddenly, as I see a blonde-haired head pop up,
I lose my balance, and I begin to fall
Deep into an abyss, a magical abyss
With walls that close in more and more the farther I drop.
As the yellow light above me slowly dims,
I expect a rope, a ladder, anything,
But there is no one there to save me.
I realize the opening I see is a barrel,
And I am staring directly into its wide-eyed face.
A click tells me that the trigger is ready,
As the melody overtakes me and
I am caught in a whirlwind of music.
Spinning, spinning, everything going round and round
All I can see is the darkness behind my eyelids.
So I cry out loud yet again
But no one comes to my side,
Which doesn’t matter, I guess –
I don’t want my skin to be a bulletproof sheath,
Protecting and preserving my unyielding wall.
I want the demons to infiltrate my soul and strip me of this agony
So that I can finally smile amidst the ocean’s fury
As the tornado destroys my mind
And the tendrils of the music pull me in.

Whenever I taste your sweet menthol on my lips,
I inhale the desirable into my lungs,
And I exhale the tragic out of my soul.
But in reality, I breathe in death disastrously,
Filling myself with chances of possibility,
Artful ideas of being successful and extraordinary,
Forgetting any remnants of how I feel honestly,
With wishes to destroy every lightweight dandelion seed
I planted within myself, easily whisked away by a breathless wind,
Pushing my inner horizon farther and farther down the skyline.
Every minty swirl of hazy exhaustion I release
Finds me additional pieces to my jigsaw masterpiece
Countless shapes and sizes available for me to lease
But only one is correct and allows me to cease
My everlasting journey to find what I need.
A finger flick on a flame lights up my brain,
Igniting passionate affection for creativity,
For building up my future full of sovereign devotion
To assurance and indisputable positivity undarkened,
A clear-cut, twinkling vision of self-affirmative action,
Establishing a reality only seen in my dreams, me, chosen.
I always view the future haphazardly,
If I’m not a scientist what the hell will I be?
I just want to do is create and inspire and explain me
Looking through scopes and writing down numbers is not enticing
And I need some sort of stimulus to keep my body sane and happy.
My whole life I’ve wanted to make an impact, a change
Just now I know how that’s going to make way,
I want to write, express, let others know they’re not alone,
And if that is unsettling, I’ll just let your mind be blown.
My ever-expansive appetite craves for adventure,
I yearn for travel, for maps, for experience, new cultures
The globe is my home and I want to unlock every door
So my thirst will be unsatisfied until you give me the key for more.
Now I’m not trying to move mountains, stop war,
I just ask for a peaceful border, for safe travel and legal cigars.
Our society is mesmerized with beauty and love
But we lack the propensity to settle down and be content with ourselves
And if we can’t covet ourselves, who are we to judge?
She’s a little sad, he doesn’t curse,
Who is anyone to say that they aren’t worth a poetic verse?
Without a simple change to the way we perceive, we’re held back –
We, ourselves, block the borders to love and to peace,
Gunning down possibility,
Wearing away the concept of wholeheartedly,
Only accepting work done effortlessly,
Forgetting the importance of personality,
Living systematically,
Mathematically,
Temporarily.
We need change.
Escape the man-made Inferno of what we call society,
Climbing up the ladder of knowledge and inquiry and creation
Until we reach the omniscient sun and the moon,
To the stars and beyond.

Uncertainty bubbles within me
Confusion haunts even my deepest thought
Rejection lingers in my heart and soul
And sadness makes my vision distraught.

Sleep no longer comes easy
Dreams are vivid and whatnot
Questions await their partners in crime
While I try to recall a single moment we fought.

Glances slowly shrink away to peeks
Fingertips curl into anxious knots
A head nod or some symbolizes hello
As we realize that mutualism cannot be bought.

Make up your mind, oh, anytime now
For my heart beats, I don’t know much longer how.

If I had a magic wand,
I would make you understand
That overdosing won’t **** you,
And I would make you understand
That your screams rattle my bones
And your cries tear my heart to shreds.

If I had a magic wand,
I would make the feel of my embrace a sweater
So that you could wear it anytime you like
And I would turn my laughter into a bandaid
That absorbs your pain and sends it to me,
Because I care so much
I’m going to bleed to death of it anyway.

But most of all,
If I had a magic wand,
I would make you believe that
You are enough.
You are so enough,
It is unbelievable how enough you are.

I gave blood today; I wanted to be a Good Samaritan, help those in need. My blood, after all, is healthy, pure. The thing is though, is that as I watched my life slowly ebb into the pint-sized plastic bag of rescue, I was imagining how lovely it would be for all of it to flow out, into a bag, into the bath, into the universe. To be empty, weightless, cold. As the blood pulsed out of my veins and my arm became weaker, I wished for my eyes to close and for my thoughts to slow down, for the discombobulate realm I call my life to slowly disappear or at least evolve into a breathtaking pasture of wispy freedom. Once my arm was emptied and the possible end was stopped, they told me - drink up, drink up, eat up, eat up - replenish the sugar and tiny hemoglobin cells that I so gracefully supplied. I took hold of the juice, and I took hold of the cookie, but once out of sight, I tossed them to the side. I wanted the feeling of faintness, dizziness, the insecurity of being caught in between two worlds. And as I sit here now with a muted mind and a slight headache, I am slightly pleased.

Sometimes I feel blessed by the Gods
These gifts I’ve received
But I am not Hercules
I don’t deserve any sort of Chiron
I don’t want any benefaction
Take them away,
These powers – superpowers
That have been bestowed upon my soul.

I am not a hero,
I am not an extraordinary being –
I am sub-par,
A simple human at best,
And I don’t want my skin
To be a bulletproof sheath
Protecting and preserving the unyielding wall
Between Olympus and Earth.

My fingernails, long and sharp
Hover over my skin, gliding over
The nooks and crannies hidden within.


I press down, hot water burning me
As I scratch and scratch the dirt
And the residue that you left.

The ashes on my skin are permanent,
Fixated forever by your touch,
Glued unto me by the adhesive of your name.

No matter the amount of water poured over,
Or the roughness of the washcloth against my body,
I cannot scrub your name off of my heart.

Dirt and Soil are two very different entities:

Dirt ruins sidewalks with villainous hieroglyphs
Tainting mounDs of snow betwIxt blackenEd dishonor,
Staining calloused hands with failed attempts at beauty.
Soil energizes budding stems of life
Beautifying chiLd-rIdden parks along suburban aVenuEs,
Painting hard work and dedication on weathered fingertips.

Everything around me is glimmering with the remnants of a luxurious Soil bath at a ritzy hotel,
While I am clutching my shaking body, sitting in a puddle of mud amidst a ***** tsunami.

It was all without
For what of us
Do ***** on the hour
She drunk as liquor
He like toast

Do you ever hug your pillowcase,
Face down, eyes searing through the light colored cotton
Like you’re trying to see through the fabric,
Looking for a reflection into your own head,
Searching for some peace of mind within you?
Peace of mind.
The one thing we all need the most, crave the most
All everyone says is keep looking, keep trying
It will come eventually -
*******.
So the search for serenity continues
It’s gotta be somewhere out there, right?
All that results is overthinking
Thoughts spinning out of control,
And consuming your entire mind.
And now it’s 4am and it stings in the shower
And I’m sorry if you understand that
Because it means you know exactly what I’m talking about.
I’m wondering about you
Wondering why this isn’t working,
Like when we’re sitting together,
You and me at dinner, and you won’t look up.
Is your phone prettier than my face?
I’ll never really ask because, yes,
I am that shy girl I sometimes refer to.
So I’ll keep on searching for answers to my questions
But the problem is that the answers are not inside my wrist
So I’m just going to hug my pillowcase some more,
Thinking about you, thinking about us
Letting the pain seep deeper into my heart.
It hurts because it matters.
And yes, I might wonder too much,
But I’m so obsessed with finding someone to love me
Because I can’t love myself.

And now it’s 5am, and I should probably go to sleep
So I can look okay when I see you in the morning.

When I ran into your arms,
After four months of being apart,
I felt something new.
There was a new electricity,
Some sort of eccentricity,
Drawing me forth to your scent
And ******* my soul to your being.
I saw you again the next day,
But only a mutual glimpse in passing
Deepened our connection,
Tightened the puppeteer string between our hands.
I saw you again the next night,
At our first lone dinner,
Full of awkward laughter and true smiles,
Ending with ****** tension thick enough to slice
With the blades I keep in a little purple box in my sock drawer.
You told me you wanted to cut that tension,
Tear our preventative electrical wire to shreds
So you could reach my lips.
But then you left.
Five days of me without you,
Me determining ways I could destroy our barrier,
Thinking up the different speeds I could run into your arms,
You mingling the crowds in a far away place,
Feeling the lips of another girl.
And you had the audacity to tell me,
To be proud of your endeavors in lust,
Not thinking twice about your words to me.
I don’t forget words.
Especially yours.

Don’t you dare take pity on me.
I am what I am,
And I am because of myself.
My choices, my actions, my feelings, me.
I am not your responsibility
I don’t need you to fix me
I don’t want you to repair all of my tendons,
Replace all of my broken bones,
Stitch up all of my scars.
The joke’s on you, boy,
Because you can’t anyway,
And you’ll never be able to.
I don’t need you to protect me
I don’t want you to comfort me
All I want is for you to tell me the truth –
Is that really so much to ask?
Give me one simple answer,
Make yourself transparent for one ******* second.
Explain one feeling, recite one moment –
Anything with me that wasn’t a lie.
I opened up to you, told you things from the depths of my fears,
And you destroyed me.
So go take your dismal pity,
And save it for your own poems.
I don’t even think I want you to love me anymore.

But I need you to.

Dreary raindrops drip
Racing down the window
Blurring my sight of the world.
We’re moving now –
Unless that’s just the world
Spinning around me,
Trapping me in its tornado of uncertainty.
Or maybe I’m the one spinning,
Going out of control
With no sight of what is right or real,
Hair flying like a madman’s
Whipping through the cold air
And the bright white gusts,
As I attempt to keep up my defenses
Against everything else caving in.

You don’t know what you have until it’s gone
The things we take for granted
Forget to be thankful for,
Even on the most thankful of holidays.

These things are lungs
Pulling life in, pushing death out –
Stretching
Constricting
Diffusing
Incomprehensible

Two porous sacs so seemingly simple
Yet so complex, so undeniably fragile
Connected only by a string
Easily snipped like a thread of hair.

Two vital organs so seemingly complex
Yet so simple, so surmountable
A few puffs, one burst
And suddenly defunct forever.

Like a springtime blossom
Lungs are Her Romeo and Juliet
Growing
Flowering
Collapsing
Forsaken

Come winter, the leaves will fall
Barren branches remain
Bereft of in and outs
Leaving only a cavity in the chest.

Help me
I’m trapped, falling into the abyss
All I can see is darkness
Voices whisper to me as I sink
And no one can hear them but me.

Save me
The walls are closing in
And my arms are getting squeezed too tight
Please, loosen the ropes around me
Catch me before I fall again.

Release me
I see the light through a hole in the cave
But the glimpse only lasts a second
And just as quickly as it arrived,
The light disappears.

          It is dark again.

They tell you that running is good for you
Cleanses the body, detoxifies the soul.
But when you are running around and around in your mind
The thoughts lapping one another yet never reaching the finish line

It's tiring

And no matter how supreme your physical stamina
It is incredibly easy to be drained of all the energy
Stored in your thighs
From a few slices of bread.

They’re back, these ghosts
That haunt my every move,
These demons that massacre
My every living thought.
First they whisper, sweet little melodies
Into my ear, telling me wrongs.
Second they chatter, annoying voices
Back and forth in my brain,
Then they yell, irresistible orders
Straight to my nervous system,
And last they scream, over and over
Unconquerable and invincible.
The voices are killing me,
Slowly but surely and undeniably.
They don’t want me to experience
All the wonderful moments of the future
Or the unchangeable moments of now.
But most of all, the demons want me;
They want me to become one of them,
Destroying good and creating bad
To ****** soulful beings like myself,
Especially myself,
And hurt everyone around me in the process.

The secrets you keep **** me inside
Every little word you spoke was a lie.
You took the most precious key that I had
And used it for nothing but grief and passion gone mad.
A robber, a murderer, a liar you are
Making me hate every last breath that you draw.
I hate how I love the feeling of your skin
But you’re a conniving cheater, man’s biggest sin.
You took a love given only once every life
Now filling my heart and my body with strife.
Deep feelings of anger and sorrow now abide
In the corners and crevices hidden in my mind.
What to do, what to think, even what to feel
Are wonders unknown to this broken down peel.

I know that this is wrong, our bodies intertwined so;
But when my leg touches your leg,
And your leg touches my leg,
Even the sharpest strike of lightning could in no way
Ignite the fire that the friction of our skin creates.
Why must there be only twelve numbers on the clock?
For our time of now has been cut short, snipped by
The scissors of Fate, and only one thread remains to determine
If we shall ever meet again.

The tousled blanket and the pillow falling off the bed
Are the only remaining evidence of our existence;
Yet when I make the bed at dawn,
I will flatten the sheets,
I will straighten the pillows,
and I will bid you goodbye.
And as I sit here alone, the door locked until time persists,
I remember the volcanic essence of our nights together -
The way your touch sends shivers down my spine -
And the whiteness of your eyes coming at me from the darkness of your face.

Now that we have parted and the holy aura from our bodies gone,
My brain can only feel the chemicals left by your aroma.
Nothing remains but the memory of scorching breaths and sticky arms
As well as the feeling of your smooth bicep lying across my bare chest -
The story of two star-crossed lovers with a finale seemingly as tragic.

You radiate magnificence and truth
A soft luster attracts the greatest love
Shimmering with halcyon times of youth
I, your chemistry undeserving of.

Loose molecules are forgettable threads
Yet the simplest dissolve and agonize
The scattered musings in your mind are webs
Great Walls of which I cannot hydrolyze.

You’re the one element I deeply crave
But we’re no match; I am passionate red -
If a one thousand sixty-three heat wave
Should pass, I’d make a mold of the unsaid.

All that glitters is not gold, people say.
But in my eyes, your shine’ll never decay.

i think about the hospital a lot
the crisp white sheets
the shiny piece of tin on the wall
the ***** trio of couches

these images are super glued to my eyes
it’s almost as if i wish i was still there
but that would mean, of course,
that i am still sick – or at least what they say sick is

the scent of hospital air lingers on my sweatshirt
you know, the one i wear everyday
the one that hides my imperfections
and my scars

my sweatshirt has been washed
smothered with detergent
but all i smell is the mental ward
the brain senses what the brain wants

maybe i want to be back there
with the others who, for those seven days, i considered my family
perhaps it’s because i felt safe
like it was okay to be the way i am

i want to be back there
in the isolation of a sad, protected world
either i’m getting sick again
or i was never cured

You said my name today
And it brought me back to life.
It snapped me out of panic,
A state of complete and utter disorientation.
Your voice among a sea of screams
Scattered all my insecurities among the shadows.
I never realized how six simple letters
Could sound so much like a symphony,
With the beautiful hum of the bass
And the quaint flutter of the winds.
You woke me from my thoughts of sleep,
Though I can’t tell if they’re dreams or nightmares
When you’re in them.

A scared, sad little girl arose from her seat
At the dinner table, where thoughts went off beat.
Her plate empty, her stomach full,
And a brain filled with plans
To become a perfect little girl.

So she slowly sunk back to her room
Laid down on her bed, dark thoughts abloom.
Surrounded by the evil voices in her head,
And despite the howls and the screeching sounds,
Those terrible thoughts, she could not shred.

When she later arose with a tear-stained face,
She stalked to the sink, and gripped onto its base.
A glance in the mirror, a monster she saw,
With tiny seeds of self-love and self-hate
And out came that dinner, once and for all.

Eventually invisibility was all anyone could see
As she withered away, she was happy as could be.
Our beauty now lives with a broken mind, body, and soul,
But because of her secret no one shall know,
She forever has a heart full of sadness and holes.

Nineteen.
Clueless and unprepared, I am diving headfirst
Into a world for non-nineteen-year-olds,
A system so precise and so imprecise that I cannot win
A universe so unpredictable that I was better off eighteen.
But now it’s time to reach out to destiny,
Blow out twenty candles (one for good luck)
And live life like everyone is watching.
Ideas and goals have been ingrained into my mind
Whether I like them or not does not matter,
As they’ve made homes in my skin but don’t pay the rent
And I cannot kick them out because we are symbioses
******* the poisonous vitals from each other’s bloodstreams.
Suddenly, it isn’t so insane to think that my success
Is not successful enough and that my wedding gown
Could be my clothes on someone’s floor late at night
And the future fades into never, not as a beautiful ripple
But as a vicious surge, and I realize that
Once upon a time is once upon a dream and
My dreams are nightmares and I scream
Through the night and I’m modestly nineteen
So no one else is responsible to wake me up.

I want you to want me
And you say you really do
But I know your words are lies
Just told to make me feel beautiful.
You feel for me not what I feel for you
So I understand your reasoning -
Why would you choose me,
A daisy in a field of roses?

No matter where I run,
It seems to find me once again
As if I have targets on my hips
And lasers streaming from my cheeks,
With satellites detecting my bones
Drawing them out from beneath my skin,
Convulsing my body as I leave the stratosphere,
Leaving me stranded out in space, where I long to be.
Weightless, a particle of nothing,
Floating in zero-gravity,
Free-falling above and beyond the cosmos.

Look into my eyes, tell me, tell me
Don’t you know? Don’t pretend
The fire, the fury, the pain
Drunken calls for help, all truth
Drugged pleas for you, all real
Help me, you’re the one
Not the one that I want, but I need
Only your savior can release me
Release me from the pain, the AGONY
The terror, the tears, the trials
Everything unpleasant, anything awful
Death, blood, dreams, lies
Lies to myself, to you, to everyone
Lies about me, you, everything
You know the truth, tell me the truth
Why won’t you tell me the truth?
It can save me, it will save me
Because the lies are sending me away
Deeper and deeper into the dark abyss
Where monsters can grab me, strip me
They’ll infiltrate me, my soul
I will be destroyed externally
Almost as destroyed as I am inside.
A destruction so pure, so thorough
That I’ll never be fixed – no, not ever
I’ll be gone forever, forever
And not even your memories, your pleas
Can bring me back, because I’ll be strong
I’ll finally be strong, I’ll be invincible
And you’ll never be able to find me
Never able to bring me back.
Now is your only chance,
Your last chance, for good.

There once was a girl, a very beautiful girl,
Who cried herself to sleep every night.
She didn't have much - friends, a boyfriend, the life.
And she didn't have happiness.

There once was a girl, a very beautiful girl,
Who cried herself to sleep every night.
She had it all - friends, a boyfriend, the life.
But she didn't have happiness.

There once was a school, where two sad little girls learned history and math,
Where two sad little girls ate lunch -
Or didn't.

There once was a bathroom, in some school somewhere in some town,
Where two little girls went every day around noon.
One went to cry, and one went to try
And empty herself of her mid-morning meal.

Every day they acknowledged each other's existence,
With a nod of a head or a brief meeting of the eye.
They understood each other's pain,
They knew each other's secrets,
But they said nothing.

They never wiped the other’s tears,
They both ignored the other’s gags,
No questions asked,
No words said.

But these two beautiful girls had a bond,
A bond they shared with many other beautiful little girls
All over the world.
Very few of these girls knew of the others.
They each thought that they were alone.
But they weren’t.

One day, the two beautiful girls,
The ones who went to that one school in that one town,
Decided that they each wanted to be happy.
They helped each other,
Supported each other,
Wiped each other’s tears.
They were not alone.

Soon enough, beautiful little girls all over the world
Began to find each other.
They started to help each other,
Support each other,
Wipe each other’s tears.
They no longer felt alone.

Eventually, the two beautiful girls,
The ones who went to that one school in that one town,
Stopped going to the bathroom after lunch.
Every day they acknowledged each other’s existence,
With a smile or a friendly hello.

There once were two girls, two very beautiful girls,
Who smiled
Everywhere.
Two little girls, who each had a new best friend -
And happiness.

i was sitting in your passenger seat
that new car smell
laughing awkwardly yet engorged
in happiness
together

she walked up to the window
interrupted with ‘hello’
eyes searing through my shield
of cover up and jewelry
broken

a wide-eyed gaze upon my skin
scarlet art visible
my secret identity discovered
what is that? she asked
            Nothing

Most girls my age
Make a wish at 11:11.
They wish for Prince Charming
Or to travel to romantic places
And they look for good and happiness.
But I, on the other hand,
Used to wish for the bad and scary –
That is, if I thought a wish was worth it at all.
I used to wish for cancer, or a crashed car
Anything that would make those with experience
Hate my very existence
Almost as much as I did.
11:11 meant a time for tears –
Because I was someone who didn’t care,
Someone who didn’t want a future –
What would I wish for?
A slow, painful death at times
A quick, painless one at others.
Everything around me was gone at 11:11 –
Family and friends and love and future –
My surroundings were a fuzzy white screen,
A television without signal,
With no goal, or hope even, for repair.
It is 11:11 once again,
And though I’ve been “fixed,”
I haven’t taken help in days,
Avoided my chemical necessities.
I don’t want any repair, readjustments
Or the liberation of love and romance.
The only thoughts running through my head
Are jumbled and insane,
As I rack my brain for a new wish,
But I realize I am too late;
It is now 11:12, and slowly I remember
I just made the same wish as before.

See over my right shoulder, the dead, dreary, dead branches of the wintery trees, barely moving in the ever-powerful gust of wind driving this dead, dreary, dead wintery season. Not even a fervent burst of energy can move the slim slivers of silver gray metal fibers springing out from the ever-overlooked sabers of the smothered icy flatland.

See over my left shoulder, my pale, ghostly, pale face staring back at me forcing my lucrative thoughts to my shaking hands. Not even the strongest helicase enzyme could unzip, untwist, unzip the simple, dangerous, simple deoxyribonucleic acid strung down my body, running down my veins like my steaming morning mocha, caffeinating my blood, my blood, my blood and pushing me to push farther, deeper, farther into the heavens of my thoughts, the meadows of my eyes, the hell atop my fingertips – one, two, three, four, five.

Thank heavens, your heavens, my heavens they’re all there; the unsolved mystery beneath my fingernails is still lost, lost, lost like my last fourteen chapsticks. Help, anybody. Does anyone see a lonesome chapstick tube? Forget it. It’s right beneath my toes – one, two, three, four, five. I am standing on top of a gold mine—inhale the chemicals, feel the potency of the potential inside of my body, do you realize how stupid you were? I gave you my attention and you took it like fame, I gave you my love and you took it like medication. Darling, I gave you my everything—I gave you myself but I can’t say you took it because you never did, and instead you stole my muscles and my bones, and the gravity holding up my chest from crashing back down on me after every single breath.

But most importantly, you stole my magic potion—one sip of that ever-so-clear concoction has the ability to provide me with a splinter of the sun, just enough to shine illuminating light on my mind, giving me the realization that I am still drunk off of you—and you and you apparently. But you grabbed it, took it, grabbed it, you thief, and you left me here to bear the freezing, cold, freezing winter on my own. My body is numb, my brain is numb, my heart is numb, and not even the symphony of my screams is enough to shatter, shatter, shatter the icicles surrounding my soul.

Instead, all I have is a noxious, lethal, deadly, cup of noxious, lethal, deadly poison, and I can already feel a single sip of its opacity slowly trickling down my throat like molasses. And it burns it burns it burns. Look into my eyes. See the raging heat rising, dilating my pupils to their limits, vanishing the blue from my irises, and understand that the words coming out of your mouth burn me like lava, and the volcanic essence of your intentions burns holes in my veins, leaving a forsaken cavity in my chest. So the next time you have the opportunity to articulate an opinion, make sure you don’t create a copy of the key to the cage of my own personal dragon, waiting to breathe fire on your words and wrangle, mangle, wrangle your next ones.

I feel a pounding
Strong, like the beat of a bongo drum
It’s in my ears, my heart, my blood
The feeling pulsing through my veins
And it is burning, it’s scorching my insides.
It’s in my fingers, my bones, my toes
Getting closer, closer, almost there
But where, I don’t know.
My eyes close, the pounding fades, it stops.

It’s lost, that feeling
But still so **** loud
Deafening my every nerve
To the point where I feel nothing
Where, who, why is this sound apparent?
Boom, boom, boom, gone!
I can feel the vibrations now
I sense a new knowledge,
My awareness has peaked –
That sound, that awful ******* sound,
Bashing my heart and my brain into shards
Is coming from Hell,
Which I now find is right inside me.

You made me crave the fall –
One so hard, so unrecoverable,
So permanent, that I could not avoid an end.
I want to jump from a twelve-story tower,
Shattering my head on the hard cement,
Or leap from the highest bridge in this city,
Detonating my body in the freezing river.
I want to take a nap on the railroad tracks,
Finding eternal rest on the slim metal rods,
Or starve my system clean of your toxins,
Carving frailty into my bones so they simply snap.
I want to sleep on the shore in the winter,
Being dragged out to sea to embrace its calm,
Or slice myself open, to let you slowly ebb out,
Draining my being free and erasing me of you.
Most of all, I just want to cry, cry, cry,
Drowning in tears and disappearing forever -
Making it clear that you pushed me down
And forced me into an abominable free fall.

it’s 1:29 am
it’s been 3 hours and still i’m unable to fall into slumber
i’m sitting straight up in my bed
quietly singing love songs to myself
thinking
about how alone i really am
not only tonight, but always
it’s not that i’m alone – i have friends and a caring family
but i’m lonely
and if you’re lonely,
you’re alone - always
no matter how many others surround you

sometimes i think i’d rather be like this
i like the isolation
the ability to get lost in thought
deep in the maze of my mind
it’s easier
transient relationships
fleeting memories
i can remember them - without forgetting the details
but still, i’m human
and i crave the intimacy
and love and lust and connection
of a life without pain.

Do you see my gate?
It’s closed –
With metal rods blocking any entrance, any break in.
Oh, but the gaps –
With places where you could reach in and grab my hand,
Saving me from the loneliness of forever.
You could open my gate, but you’re choosing not to.
Why?

One step onto the sidewalk is a burst of fresh air inside my lungs
As I feel the explosion of feeling provoking expression
The possibilities just around the corner are waiting
Like a passerby anxiously waiting to cross the street
Hectic intersections before the destination
The objective? A trace of importance, matter

Eyes dart around like gnats, testing the waters
Frightened thoughts **** and pearly white teeth flash
Nervousness pervading through the crowds
A performer’s opening act
Creating a new era
An unknown journey’s dawn

The first breath on Earth
Expectations
Happiness
Future
Hope

I often sit on my soft, white carpet
Staring

At the blank wall in front of me.

It is blank, but that wall is not empty -

Full of my secrets and smothered by my cries,
It knows me better than I know myself.



At night I lie in my nice, warm bed

Staring

At the blank ceiling above me

Its white paint is darkened – 

The switch flipped to off means it’s time

For my disguise to turn off as well.



In the morning when I wake, I find myself

Staring 

At the blank walls of my room.
The walls are simply walls –
Unchangeable,
impenetrable and menacing.

I think they closed in a little overnight.

I’m riding waves of unhappiness
With peaks of glimmering hope
And troughs of utter disappointment--
I think I’m in love.

My nails get shorter
My eyes get wider
My smile gets duller
My skirt gets tighter
Leaves fall
Flowers wilt
Children call
Pictures tilt
Questions arise
Seats empty
The wedded despise
No one’s free
It has the ultimate power
To ruin lives and love
It increases every ******* hour
And burns our skin from above
Guns are built
Trees are uprooted
Blood is spilt
Cries come from the new kid
No one can win
It all ends in a tie
It’ll crack our heads in
So get ready to die.

I look at you
The way I looked at my first snowfall:

At the first mention of “snow!”
I jumped to my feet, sprung to my toes
To an overcrowded window brightened by
The fluorescent lighting of the hallway outside my door.
And what I saw through the glass
Brought sparkling tears to my overjoyed eyes
As I realized I lived in a place
Where God creates masterpieces with his fingertips
Showering the earth with drops of happiness and love.
For what I saw through the glass
Broke down the dams behind my eyelids
And let flow waterfalls of possibility
To find the lost and hide the found
Washing away the key to the levy of evil.

But
I am passionate as Icarus
And you are perilous as the sun
And I am the snow
And you are the sun
You are my sun
And
Oh God, when will it stop hurting?

Yet still,

I look at you
The way I looked at my first snowfall.

My eyes have been looking
For weeks, months, years
For perfection –
Or at least perfection in their view.

They see me try my hardest
They see me throw away necessities
They see me fall.
They cry.

But my trials of heartache do not matter
For my efforts go unseen.
No changes –
Neither in my eyes nor in those of others.

I stare at the mirror and see eyes looking back at me –
Eyes that look like mine, but aren’t.
Eyes unrecognizable, but still, eyes.
Turquoise, cerulean, cobalt, even;
Bright, wide-eyed, and

                                         sad.

Beautiful but sad.
Sad because un-beautiful.

The eyes in the mirror are desperate;
Sighing, searching, waiting
For that one morning when they will see a change,
The change they’ve been waiting for, for oh so long.

The change that will bring all –
Happiness, love, success –
Everything my eyes see at night
When dreams become reality.

But right now, my eyes are blurry
Covered in tears
Overflowing
Because they do not like what they see.

Something has been planted deep within me,
Oh so deep, I can feel it molding to my soul
So powerful it pounds to the beat of my heart.

Something has been forming within me,
Only it bends and folds and twists to your voice
Say something, anything – catalyze its creation.

Something has been growing quickly within me,
Opening my eyes to the power of your smile
Smug yet shy, crippling my awareness of its emergence.

Something has developed within me,
Operating both my mind and my heart
Shoving past my bones and crawling to your being.

I don't even want to bleed
I just need to know I'm alive
I'm freezing but there's no AC
The air is so ******* still
My stomach hurts so bad
Acid is burning down my cheeks
I couldn't dance around in my pjs if I wanted to.

the perfect photograph
taken with your vintage Nikon D-something-thousand
sharp lines and enlightening contrast
clear edges
exact focus
the sun rising in the horizon
cannot convey the way I feel
about you

I never thought I would be that girl,
That girl who hikes so high up a mountain
And forgets to bring water, or any vitality,
That gets so lost among the trees,
Loses footing on the off-beaten path that
She attempts to break forewarnings to travel.

That never thought she would go this crazy,
Insane enough to pick all the petals
Off every flower in the field lining the street,
Knowing in her heart and in her logical mind,
That she was just killing flowers
Because she knew he loved her

Not.