how many people
can you ruin
in a lifetime?

if

the more i feel,
the more it hurts

and the more it hurts,
the more i feel

then do i keep feeling?

Daddy,
Can you tell I notice your hands are empty when you go to grasp Mommy's face?
Do you watch me see your eyes look passed her shoulder and never at her,
Like all of what is there are only left overs,
A broken soul erased after each night that you come home late because of "traffic"
Do you see her shrinking until she's bone and broken, broken bones
A skeleton in the dungeon of marriage
Faded into nothing but the silhouette of a woman
Do you see her?
Is she not pretty anymore, Daddy? Is she not pretty?
Does her face seem to droop when she walks into our living room?
Are you too busy watching television to know her nails are so short they bleed?
That last night she didn't eat,
Her stomach says she's feeling sick but by now it's been a week
Are you worried at all?
I've watched my mother shrink because a man thought he was too man to love her
Not man enough to love her forever
Now I am engaged to the reality that some women are fated to be thrown away or kept under the covers
My mom is a woman
My mom is a woman who has been pried open by her husband
Left to damage and to renew her vows to her own self destruction
I've watched my mother die inside because of a man who lies
I should have known as a 24 year old Marine you must have had a love for war
Then you brought it back with you and put it into your relationship, into your job, and into our home
Now 25 years have fallen and Mommy can't think straight anymore
Now I see her shrinking until she's bone and broken, broken bones
A skeleton in the dungeon of marriage
Faded into nothing but the silhouette of a woman
Her shadows on the walls are getting smaller
And her voice a lot quieter except for when you're fighting
And I ask you if she's leaving
You want to tell me
"Mommy does nothing wrong,
But Mommy is not enough for me and I’ll forget you remembered I said this when I tell you that I hope one day you’ll grow up to be like her,
I hope one day your brain will shrink so you think you need to settle for a man who will never give
I hope every inch of your being is ingrained and bestowed in his name
Then you'll realize the reason that I still come home and the reason that I pray are the same,
It isn’t because I know I did wrong,
It’s because I know I’ll always be forgiven
That’s why I tell you to always look out for Jesus because Jesus has always looked out for me,
When I felt her hair and body brushed up beside me,
Saw different colored skin on the bed sheets and forgot my own family"
Tell me why you did it, Daddy
Tell me why my mom is one of those women who will never feel worthy
Tell me why because she loved, now she's hurting
Tell me why when I meet a man who wants me I ask him which parts he would pick out of me,
Sew into another skin that may feel more meant to be,
May be more soft, maybe
Smooth instead of my roughness is way more pretty
Mommy told me better sewn, because at least then there's still pieces of me where he was stitching
But I'd rather be wrong for you, because my father taught me I can be a wife and you will still choose otherwise
Tell me why I am not right for you
Tell me why I am not enough for you
Tell me why my mother and I have shrunk until we're bone and broken, broken bones
Skeletons in the dungeon locked by the men who swore they loved us
Pried open by them after they promised they wouldn't hurt us
Faded into nothing but the silhouettes of women.
Do you see us?

If I were a constellation,
I think I'd like to hang above your backyard.
Though my glow would already have been
too diminished for you to see me.
I guess-
I just keep trying.
And I guess
I just keep lying.
And I guess
I just keep thinking,

if I were not me,

if I were not me.

to have looked at this same sky with you
from the same place where i am standing now

I will never have a love life.
I will live being lonely because I do not believe in soulmates,
I do not believe I am on Earth so another human being
Can **** me when they please.
All of my relationships
Don't work.
And it is not that I wish they would have,
It is that with the very last one
I tried.
I do not believe in soulmates but I will live lonely
Because a person could have been put on Earth for me
That I am not meant to spend the rest of time with.
I have cravings across bodies of water that make it easy to see
The sky is not big enough,
And the winds carry nothing but emptiness and leaves.
Love is not all that is wrong with my life.
If I had love, I still would never be
Myself.
I am not satisfied with only close friendships because
Still, they cannot understand all of me.
My dishes and plastic cups all have tiny holes at the bottom,
With which you can pour water for days on end
But it will never reach the top.
I leave every cabinet open,
Because I do not like closing things.
I can't have *** with someone unless I love them,
And I won't ever have a love life
So I have convinced myself otherwise-
That virginity is just a social construct designed to
Make us feel bad.
I am worried about my mind.
It seems destiny is all only for me and my writing,
And not at all anything else.
I am worried because I do not want to be
Miserable until I die.
I am worried my Depression is what
Makes me a good writer,
And that I will be like
Edgar Allan Poe,
Hemingway,
And we will all die alone.
My sadness
Makes me intelligent,
Makes a personality that is not too boring
For a poem about sympathy.
I exist in crooked dimensions,
Where another person could try to
Want me with their fingers but it will most likely
Die out at their eyes.
I feel everything that is broken.
I feel nothing,
I feel I do not like my neighborhood.
I feel a nice neighborhood is not enough for a
Creative mind.
I feel my worries will **** me before my body does,
And marriage is a lie.
I feel I am not seen as art anymore,
And that all of my paintings of van Gogh are just
Desperation to try,
And failure.
My brain is interconnected with
Pain,
So much so that you are happier Drunk
Than thinking of me.
I do not Drink to form my sentences,
Despite what you might believe,
They are all just as Sad when I first hear them.
I believe that God is tired of me,
Or that I am selfish for using him in my writing.
I think He sees my cracked ceiling,
And expects me to believe it’s Him.
I think I am pathetic for remembering
That crack in the ceiling was from me.
He knows my walls are collapsing,
But I am still laying calmly inside.
My paintings hang around my head,
They are falling-
And I am not so afraid because I am
Falling, too.
I am worried about my Writing.

I am in my own little world.



Are you trying to be in it, too?

somehow i'm still a ******* loner

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
those angry voices wouldn't bruise so blue
and you wouldn't feel the need to hide your third degree burns from me

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
the anything's that sink deep in the left side of your brain
wouldn't force feed you full until you tell me you don't want to eat

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
that closet door you always keep wide open would shut
and you'd pack your mask in a box you don't need

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
your walks wouldn't bring you to the middle of the street
traveling all alone at midnight when you leave

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
whatever tells you i won't see it for long since you can't
would stay quiet like black ashes falling from the sky in light debris

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
you wouldn't still keep your pills in the drawer of your nightstand
tucked underneath your white t shirt so only you can see

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
earth would be bigger and nothing wouldn't scream nothing
yet you can still hear it perfectly

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
life would feel more like life and death
is only mystery because you never quite get there when you dream

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
you wouldn't need to dream as much
as you do but i believe you that it's all to feel closer to me

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
you'd recognize when i showed it
maybe if i showed it

maybe

on earth
i am bound by
traditions and opinions

in secret
i am bound by
everything else

Sometimes I think-
about the world and if it's
ever wrong about things.

I wonder if sometimes
it splits apart the wrong people
and if it lets those who
continuously harm and are
toxic to each other's existence;
toxic to each other's happiness
stay together.

I wonder if it always expects us
to fix its mistakes.

But if the universe can mess with
love, how are we ever supposed
to find the capability to overrule it?

Nature shows me just how destructive
the world can be with its wind
and its hurricanes, its tornadoes
and its blizzards.
The same way it stretches and squeezes,
shrinks and grows,
compresses and exfoliates,
supplies us with and strips us of the
oxygen we need to breathe, it does so
to the love I feel for you.

It gets back at us for all of the
damage we've done to its beauty.
It slowly picks the leaves off of
our trees of interest the same way
we cut them down to build a home.

But this world is the world's home.
The same way we've stolen it, the world
steals you from me.
The same way we "try our best" to use
alternative energy, it plants you right in
front of me, teasing me the same way
we humans do to make it seem as if
we care about extinction.
It gives me insight to how it feels, being
forced to separate from the rest of its
universe, feeling singled out,
punished that it had to be cursed with us.

See you were my home. The same way
the world could live and grow within
itself I could do with you. The same way
the sun rose with light and the moon
stood by in the dark you did with me.
The same way the world could show
its destruction and warmth I showed my
insecurities and passions with you.

Our love was symbolic of nature. The
strength to power through anything in
its way. And the world decided it wanted
you for itself.

The world noticed your uniqueness and
potential and unshakeable love. The world
noticed your mind and your eyes and your
heart. The world noticed you.

So from now on the stars will paint your
smile in the sky. From now on the sky will
become the shade of blue that's deep in
your eyes, the shade that's a mix of the
ocean.
From now on the world will take care of you,
as you do to it. It will take you to different sights,
to see different sunsets, hike to the tops of
mountains tipped with warm and positive energy.

And the world will be enough for you.
And the same way you'll admire all of its
beauties and comforts and blessings, I
have done to all the different parts of you.

it hurts to think
i hurt with words

since words are the
only thing i have

At the end of the night
Know I love you,

Even if us two aren't right.

not seeing your face or hearing your voice is the worst kind of alone

the emptiness in
missing someone
is a wound deeper
within the heart than
the soul could
ever go

I see you in my sleep
Entwined in blackened rhythms,
I see you standing right in front of me

Then darkness grabs you quick
And I am drowning in a black sea,
I see you in my dreams
Left thoughtless to images of stranger things

Is this what my mind imagines it to be like when you leave?

I see you when I sleep
When closed eyes leave no witness,
But always keep you right in front of me
And watch your life and body dissipate

Soon you are invisible
And I am drowning in a black sea,
I see you in my dreams
Listening to seraphine and metallic malaise

Whistles blowing sound like wind dancing through rain

This is where dark figures live
I dine with them as beasts
We dance at dusk together
And move on to grab each other
I let their hands move on my hips
And love the ways they grab my waist

Then darkness grabs us quick
And we are dancing in the black sea,
Swimming with our demons
And all of the men of my dreams

This is where dark figures eat
And quench the hungry beasts
I notice that they’re starving
And invite them to feed on me

Then darkness grabs me quick
And I am drowning in a black sea,
I look and he does not look at me
And I know, now, that I’m not sleeping

each night

in my bed

i call for the space to shrink up

and it never

does

when i look at shattered marriages i think,

-

what will it be like for me?

still, my best chance is through
words without sound
but the silence can hurt
when my thoughts are so loud

you were the sun

and i was the moon,

you turned away

when i looked at you.

when the stars appeared

you had gone,

maybe alone in the darkness

is where i belong.

He feels like water,
In my palms that soften at his touch
Cleansed of old fingerprints and DNA
I thought I wanted to keep

In my blood,
Sliding through and warming me
With more pressure in certain spots

I am so warm
I cannot remember when I was freezing,
If I was freezing,
I must have been too frozen to feel it
I must have been too busy sleeping

I must have been asleep,
Because in what I feel now I know I have missed this
I know I almost missed it

In three months I swore myself to be healed
In healing, I had given up my right to feel
I haven’t felt some things and then
I felt it all

It felt good, then horrible
Then good again

Now it feels like water,
In my palms,
In my blood,

It’s easy

And keeping me from dying

the flowers died

when you ripped them up

out of the ground

-

remember?

They never love all of me.
Only some of me.

Last night I couldn’t let another body
Touch mine
Even though his was just as soft
His hands did not graze quickly over
They stayed put in places for seconds
Sometimes minutes at a time
Like I was the earth itself

My body is not meant to be touched
Or so, I tell myself
Letting walls down means being held
Being held means holding
I don’t want to hold him

I don’t want to hold anyone
I want to be alone
Alone is safe haven
Where depressing pigment is worn in confidence
I want to be alone with myself
Where I can win and lose in two,
No matter which of the halves are left on top

I don’t want him on top of me
On top of me means I am under
I have been underground for months at a time
Trapped by different permanents
Whether demon or person

I don’t want to be a person with feelings
Feelings mean being pried open,
Mean my nails have grown weak in my door crevice,
Mean the floorboards are ready to be lifted

You shouldn’t try to lift me from this
As if you could
As if you would

Last night I couldn’t think of another body
Touching mine
Even though they may be just as soft
Their hands graze quickly over
And find new homes to stay in by nightfall
For days, sometimes weeks at a time
The home inside me welcomes barely

My body was not meant to be touched
As long as I told myself
Cages are meant to be kept around me
Locked in means locking you out
Write poems about wanting to hold me

I didn’t want to hold anyone
Wanted nothing but to be alone
Alone is safe haven
Where depressing pigment is worn in confidence
Being alone with me is part of a muse
That replays how people break in two,
No matter whoever’s halves are left on top

You knew not to be on top of me
Not to ever let me be hurt from under
I have been underground for months at a time
Scarred by different permanents
Whether demon or person

I didn’t want to be a person with feelings
You were careful not to pry me open,
Undress drapes unhooked like shower curtains,
Upon wet stone floors begging me to slip

You wouldn’t ever let me slip
As if you could
As if you could

When you stand balancing over me,
I do not see him.
I do not feel him,
Miss him, I—

I remember all of them.
Every boy I have ever given my body up to,
Whether it was only at the sight of the crevice that pillows my words,
Or the entirety of my existence.
I let them have it.

Let them crawl atop the tethered grass that’s been ripped out of its place
And make a bed.
Let them make a bed even though it does not comfort me.
Even though that isn’t even where I sleep.
I let them dream,
Let them dream until they tell me that is exactly what it feels like—
Like a dream because it all must be a movie,
Because every movement is so translucent,
So unsurprising and superficial.

So expected and too perfect,
Too familiar because I’ve seen it so many times over,
When you stand balancing over me,
I do not see him.
I do not feel him,
Miss him, I—

I remember all of them.
Every boy I have ever given my body up to,
Whether it was only at the sight of the crevice that pillows my words,
Or the entirety of my existence.
I let them have it.

When you stand over me I feel powerless.

Powerless because I am not in control of my mind, because my thoughts are not mindful of everything I’ve been through.
They try to forget but they cannot erase what has happened to me,
Cannot erase the red and blue that surrounds my eyes because I rub too hard,
I think too hard,
Because it isn’t that I don’t want you to,
It is that I don’t want to be the one to give it to you,
And suddenly I remember all of them.
Every boy I have ever given my body up to,
Whether it was only at the sight of the crevice that pillows my words,
Or the entirety of my existence.
I let them have it—

The resolution of an empty bed that I refuse to lay in when it’s warm,
And even if it’s mine,
My resolution is that for you I have nothing more than empty promises.

I promise you can fill my space when it gets cold.

If only you knew how it felt-
That the few inches between us in the bed
are not something you wish to bridge.
You let them grow inside of themselves, instead,
Without lifting a finger to reach me,
Or turning a cheek to look at me.

It has been three months since I've disappeared
and you have not called me.
You have not thought of me.
I am a bleached memory that has begun to look
better washed out,
Like I was ***** before
When it was sore,
Like you were always on the edges of things.

If only you knew how it felt-
To see my eyes and not think of anything.
To not feel anything.
To be free from everything that encapsulates me.
Like I was ***** before
When it was sore,
Like the eyes didn't show anything more.

If only you knew how it felt-

Knowing that you don't love me anymore.