This one is for the doctor who called me “delicate”
I think I missed that word in the thick textbooks about disease I’ve seen
This is for the lab technician who lost not one but two vials of my blood
Because I really wanted to help that new nurse figure out veins again.
This is for the stupid slogans on the walls
A fichus with the word peace under it, I'm cured.
This is for the geriatric room with the low table they always put me in
An arthritis patient means elderly woman, right?
This is for the negative tests and endless questionnaires about my health
Checking how often, how severe, and how much I care.
This is for the four empty orange prescription bottles sitting neatly on my desk
Red pills, and yellow pills, and white ones, oh my!
This is for the loud groan of pain in the morning I make before I even wake
Because why shouldn’t my roommate wake up when I do?
This is for the symphony of my cracking joints and creaking bones
Because violently trembling when you walk up stairs is so very ****.
This is for the manic googling at 4 AM,
Does this symptom mean anything? Is it just a quirk or side affect?
This is for WebMd, bless their hearts,
Who think that sniffles mean polyps and headaches mean cancer.
This is for the flights upon flights of stairs I climb each day,
Cats are considered ****, is panting like a dog?
This is for the cramping and shaking hands everyday
Because as a writer and artist I never even use them right?
This is for my mother
Who’s waited patiently with me through every doctor’s visit
This is for my best friend Lauren
Who missed three classes to take me to a clinic
This is for my nephew
Who is too big for me to pick up without grimacing now
This is for the wine I drank
And the bedroom basement I climb out of
And the backpack I heave around
And the school lunches I leave in toilets
It’s for the nights I have to stay in and the ones where I make myself leave
Because the only thing tough enough to stop me
Is me.
And I’ll tip my hat to myself for putting up such a good challenge.
It’ll just make it even more satisfying when I knock it the **** down.

Irony of perception and existence
The supposed gift of humanity
Able to live with and without meaning
A drone with the capabilities of a king

Feels more and more like a curse
Like an ant who saw through God’s eyes
Viewing every beauty and terror and complexity
If only for a short moment

Then shrinking back down to carry sugar
But always remembering the sight
Moving saccharine treats wearily
With the heavy burden of knowledge

Which bred distaste for simplicity
Which bred scorn for complexity
Making life on either plane a cross
And one he must bear alone

I will keep you; stuff you in a corner of my mind
Wrapped tightly like a Christmas present
Hidden as badly as my mother used to,
Like putting them on a top shelf will do.
The memories are dear to me and near to me,
But I refrain from examining them just yet.
I will leave them secluded and ostracized
Like the kids who play Dungeons and Dragons,
Like the girls who wear boy’s t-shirts,
From the clearance section in Wal-Mart.
Eventually I will be able to dust them off,
Take you out of your mental Auschwitz
Where I’ve thought, even if I tried not to
That maybe I was wrong about you and me.
Maybe my constant rambling, like the announcers,
The ones in Airports, repetitively shouting
Rules! Regulations! Announcements! Things!
Maybe that really got on your nerves.
Maybe things were always imbalanced and awkward.
I’ve built plenty of utopias in my mind,
Ignoring the reality of a situation until it ends.
But I’m not going to know for a while now
Whether or not I was right and you were wrong,
Or I was wrong and you were wrong.

The most comfortable and easiest relationship
I have ever had is with my own self-loathing.
It’s almost natural at this point to expect failures.
The whispered criticisms rise in my mind,
A crescendo of hatred and mutiny,
Quieted only by the sound of my door opening.
Soft footsteps shuffle across the carpet and ***** clothes
Stepping over unfinished homework
And an unraveling purple blanket made of yarn.
The din in my mind reminding me of faults,
Failures, stupid conversations I have had,
And every insecurity my subconscious can think of,
Stops completely as I feel the bed dip beneath your weight.
I wait, as still as I can be, for the feel of your hand on my hair,
Brushing it back, out of my eyes with a smile.

I'm sick of sad teenage girls
crying out
"I've been used"
"I've been had"
"He lied"
"I was never loved"

Fear not sad teenage girls
it is clear what happened
the castle you keep your heart in was stormed
and
that tiny little princess that knew no evil
lowered her drawbridge

So, may I say?
Let it go
Mistakes will be made
That little princess can still grow
because she now knows
some are evil
dastardly
deceptive
all for the lowering of that drawbridge

Gard that castle well sad teenage girl
and never again will you know the selfish deeds
of some "Prince Charming" mounted on a less than noble steed

the sad will fade and trust can be fostered
just make sure he isn't an imposter
accept the past
because life is more than your love last
move onward
smile
Or, he might pass by
as if he were just another guy

So I say to you sad teenage girls
This too shall pass

in the meantime,
take your
melodramatic
self-absorbed
excuses
and toss them away
move onward to bigger and better things
because you are beautiful
strong and empowered

move on teenage girl
concern yourself with life
so later
if you choose to be a wife
she will not have to feel
like that sad teenage girl
lowering her drawbridge

With all my heart I wish I could think with just my brain.
I wish emotions were easily controlled,
Like the wind
sometimes.
Harness its raw power and turn it into a type of energy that's pure,
Cleansing to the world.

But I guess there are tornadoes,
Who funnel into one destructive force,
Tearing down everything that was supposed to be permanent and leaving behind nothing
except a trail of desolate bareness littered with broken everything.

And then there's the hurricane.
The power and area it covers is immense, effectively covering everything in a dark shadow
and flooding the area.
In the center is the ebony hearth of the storm, the monster swirling around indefinitely,
whispering promises of catastrophe.
And no one is there to stop it,
Because everyone's already evacuated to somewhere more convenient.
Everyone's already moved on,
before the waters could flow and the hurricane could fully develop...


I hate when my heart starts

sk     ip     pi     ng

At the prospects of idealism, for dreams
Are sometimes not the logical choice but what is life without interest?
Disappointment is something I'm used to
In society,
In everyone's expectations,
in myself.


Why is the heart so painful?
Why is something that is so essential to life so easily ripped apart?
Why is mine always leading me in the direction my brain knows is wrong?