it’s almost like back then
i took the best that i could get.
now,
i just take the best.

i think something
we always forget is that
other people
are not so much
other
as they are
people.

i haven’t changed at all since the day i was born
my hair got longer
i got a little taller
but i’m still unexperienced and afraid
crying in a room with my parents
except this time
they don’t even notice.

while finding fascinating ways
to confront the ache in my jaw
i try to find a compromise
with the weather:
you can rain today
so long as the rivers
stay off the streets.

i like to think about
the time before
my life was familiar to me.
remember when the tiles of this
hallway had never
seen my footsteps?
remember when the buttons of this
elevator had never
felt my fingertips?
remember when the music that
filled this hall had never
been made by me?
my memory of the flags in the windows
and the trees breaking up
the pavement in the parking lot
and the glass doors made of
piano keys
it never meant anything then.
i only thought i understood
what i was seeing
when i thought i’d never
see it again.
the painting in front of me
has changed me as much
as i changed it.
just think
if i saw the same things a year ago
as what i’m seeing today
and nothing seems the same
how different will everything be
tomorrow?

can you imagine the airwaves
skeleton wires
ghosts that say hello
say goodbye
can you imagine the tree branches
spider legs
bees that buzz about
buzz inside
can you imagine the grief
you lose your muse
get blues
lose your i-love-you-toos
if they’re gone.
can you imagine what that would mean.
the words whispered
through telephone lines
can you imagine the airwaves
skeleton wires
ghosts that don’t say much
anymore
at all?

it's not that i'm
looking for someone,
it's that i'm
looking for more.

it's not that i
wanna be someone's,
it's that i
wanna be yours.

it’s that song
that puts you in a pillow soft sadness
i press my face to the window
and look down at the street
and imagine falling in love to this tune
in my head it’s snowy
and my hands miss something i’ve never held
but i’ll hold it soon
i’m sure.
i love this misfortune
and i’m grateful for every minute.

i left a tear in the pacific
he sang gimme the beat boys
and i slipped out of my heels
imagined the ocean from atop a mountain
the waves had me swaying and weeping
and the salt found its way home
they hung lights over ocean avenue
these city streets and their poetry
have convinced me that home
was never anywhere else
i sat on the edge of the santa monica pier
and i knew
more than i have ever known anything
that i would be back.

it’s not that i want to be alone
it’s that i don’t want to be around anyone
unless they’re you

you’re the only person i can talk to
as soon as i wake up

my lips get numb and i miss
your soprano laugh
and spinning around on a needle is fun
but it’s more fun when you’re
spinning, too

i drop a coin in the slot
at the crown of my head

it tumbles to my feet and
rattles like a safety pin on a key ring

i've been slipping in pennies
for years and still
they never seem to pile up.

you’re a mood
and i’m stuck in you.
the way happiness makes me glow,
you make me shine
the way sadness makes me think,
you make me wonder
the way loneliness shows on my face,
you show in my poetry
it’s been so long since i had
someone real to write about.
it’s always
“she floated like light
in my darkness”
but she never really existed
my poetry was all commercial lies
until you gave me something to
really honestly write about again
god have i missed purpose.
your voice is in my head
i can never tell what you’re saying
i just hear the sounds
and it puts air in my skin
and i’m suddenly lighter than myself
you make me want to float like light
in my own darkness.
you’re a mood
and i’m so lucky to be stuck in you.

i like to say “****” in my poems
i guess i think it makes me sound serious
like this time i really mean it
honestly?
i’m just looking for a way to say
that i’m tired
but i’m still so, so ready to keep living.

at the very least
i was lost
at the most
i was fine
my body unbroken
healed all but the spine.

someday
infinity will meet me in the middle
and on that day
i will be complete.

if they leave you behind
if they dance under strobe lights
the same ones that they said
brought out your eyes
if they freeze these moments
and churn them into memories that
you’ll never be a part of
if they let you slip their mind
and if you’re still trying to remind them
if they leave you behind
it may be time to
leave them ahead

it doesn’t feel real
it feels like the moments where i sat in the snow
outside my old house
before going back inside
only to find my father breaking things
and my mother sitting by herself
in another room pretending she was right
and my brother angry at both of them
for things they already did
and things they were bound to do later.
it feels *****
like i need a shower
but no shampoo can wash the
anxiety from the underside of my scalp
and no body wash will scrub the
tingling tenderness that i feel on my skin.
the party in the other room
makes me feel like life never
invited me to join in
so i wait patiently for someone to text
and ask where i’ve been all night
even though i’m never anywhere
but inside my own head.

i wish life invited me to join in.
i still wouldn’t have gone
but i would have appreciated it
nonetheless.

it begins like this:
i wake up, and i’m tired
not just the weight of my eyelids,
but the weight of everything i’ve ever been
and everything i’ve never been
i lie on the couch still,
cold beneath the blanket,
until i am begging myself to change my clothes
to eat anything to drink something
i eat ravioli i drink coffee

it continues like this:
i am easily annoyed, easily frustrated
and while this is not my usual state,
it is perfectly normal for my family;
the very moment that i am too compromised
to be the middle ground,
the ground itself is gone

continuing:
i say something that i mean
and it’s only an accident once i regret it
and because of that,
the car ride home is bumpy and uncomfortable
(when i left them for the bathroom,
i could feel them talking about me,
and in the rear view mirror, he’s watching me,
and i know that he thinks i’m a villain)

the engine of his car is so loud
that it feels like a bubble in my ears
and it makes me want to scream
and maybe punch something,
even though i’d never

i would like to go home
and go straight to sleep,
to go to sleep and wake up normal

and oh, did i mention?
tomorrow is christmas eve.
they always say
christmas doesn’t feel like christmas anymore
i tend to agree,
believing it doesn’t bother me,
but i always forget that the season not feeling like christmas
feels so much worse
when you know that it should.

wake from the slumber
groggier and more hidden
than before i slept

the more i ask for things
the more i realize i don't know how
to ask for things.
spent a lot of time as a kid
learning that i can believe i deserve something
but that doesn't mean that i do
i cried in the library yesterday.
i was very very sad
and then i decided not to be
anymore.

my mind weaving baskets
and my arms weaving hugs from the backseat
so many thank-you-for-loving-me's
all i could do was laugh and love you
(thank god i didn't call you like i wanted to)
you told me you wanted my happiness
where it belonged
with the others like me in the kitchen
i told you that you were wrong
i'd never leave you so solitary
oh don't you forget what i said in my stupor
in my public display of desire for affection
(what would i have said?)
you've seen me at my worst now
and even then all i can say is how
much i adore you and miss you
it must be my most passionate truth
(too much)

i’m seeing faces
in the fringes
i pray you burst right through the door
and break the hinges

and i’m
seeing stars
not in the sky or in your eyes
just in the dark

in myself i find
the desire to exist in such a manner
that requires nothing of me
other than softness
and kindness
and yet in myself i find
only a bitterness and sourness
and that boring, bland
sadness that had never really left
and was only just hiding
because it was afraid of the light
and i had been fighting my way
to the sun for so long
but it’s so bright
and i’m so tired
and the darkness from before
sounds like such a comfortable home
to return to

i’m sorry i’m not who i think i am.
was i ever?

i make my bed in a garden
my friends are flowers and they’re blooming
and i’m still obsessed with decay
my body is not enough
how can i be the hero
when i’m living inside the villain?

it’s a loneliness that stems from
a lack of growth
i know my worth
most importantly i know what it isn’t
i can’t say what i’m missing
other than i’m missing what i thought i lost
but i’m discovering that i may have never
had it
no one is invaluable
i know my worth
and i know where i don’t deserve to be
and i hate that my heart doesn’t understand me
he was right
i really don’t know myself
but i really think i do
i think my pain is all my own
it’s a hammer to the rib cage
trying to nail down this feeling
i think it’s guilt but i’ve done nothing wrong
except fail.
yes i’ve definitely done that.

she said,
the good ones never stay

well i must be terrible,
i replied,
cause i’m not going anywhere
.

everyone comes with a poison
my drink of choice
is three-too-many sips of wine
and a shot of *****
yours is the chaser
i am the difficult
and you are what makes it taste better
i am the occasional-unless-you’re-addicted
and you are the anytime, the absolutely
i miss you. i miss you.
the wine doesn’t taste the same without you
the ***** does, but then again,
it had always tasted like a bruise.

god i just feel so distant from all of you
after a carload carpool back from my paradise
i suddenly stopped feeling
anything about you
except guilty and sorry that i was there
i know i did nothing (wrong)
but ruin everything
i used to know i would be sad
if you didn’t choose me in the end
but i’m not so sure anymore
because it feels like i’ve stopped
choosing you

i think it's probably the idea
of such blatant goodness
that really draws me in
i know happiness will linger
where he walks
so i'll follow
because it's that kind of happiness
that i need.

you talked for a minute
and your arm around me was an anchor

you talked for an hour
and your arm around me was a noose

as ruas do coração dela
estavam desertos
ela não tinha nada
para ajudar cidades
que ela não tinha visto

ela estava sozinha
mas as cidades,
eles chamaram
o nome dela.

arriving home at daylight
a twelve-hour light-headed joyride
if you’re at home thinking you should’ve kissed me
you’re right.

bobble from the branches
like earrings
do you think the tree can hear us
do you think it hears the octaves
all the volumes all the quiets
do you think maybe this christmas
is watching us? seeing us? believing us?
not believing us?
it’s beginning to look a lot like christmas
is shifting all around us
trying to shift us out of the room
good riddance
we’ve forgotten the meaning
anyway

she’s spilling over with sunshine
and i’m searching for songs
that are just gonna make me sadder

i’m really not good at existing
on sundays.

it is poetically fitting
that you’re the one to remind me
of a phrase i’ve been trying to think of
for two years

i could never get so much of you
that you start losing value

i couldn’t care less
that my feet are wet

my jeans with the holes
keep my knees cold

i don’t really mind
my fingers like ice

i’ll still take the long way home
good things happen when it snows

i don’t want you
the real you or who you are with me
not like that
not in the way that i’ve been thinking about recently
i think my brain is a little disconnected
from reality or from rational thought
because i’ve never wanted you like that
except for maybe that one time
that i thought i was in love with you
but that was a fluke
anyway the point still stands
i don’t want you
the real you or who you are with me
and i think maybe they’re the same
which is kind of what makes me think
maybe i do.

i'm cleaning out the rooms
let the wind blow through
try to clear the counters of the dust from where i moved.

plucking at the strings
to make a melody
i guess some people never understand my poetry.

i think i'm still alive
tucked below the lights
i know better than to expect sympathy tonight.

i know better than to expect sympathy tonight.

i don’t miss you
anymore.
actually
i’m not so sure that
i ever did.

in these times of chill
these times of blistering wind
i think it is important
to know how to keep warm.

you can reach for a hand
a body a furnace other than your own
and it may warm you
but for only as long as
it can sustain itself
after that, you’re both just ice.

and what if someone
reaches to you?
what will you say?
“i’m sorry i’m too cold
to warm anything at all”
how sad.

i begged myself for an answer
begged to know what to do
before the times of chill returned.
and, lovely and true as i am,
i responded:

put on your winter coat.
wrap your hands in fuzzy mittens
that make your insides feel fuzzy too.
double up on socks
and wrap your neck in a wool scarf.
you have everything you need
to feel warm when it gets cold
it was always with you.
you just have to dig around for a bit.

and so
in these times of chill,
i warm myself.

and my god,
do i recommend it.

swallow this feeling
so it becomes a pit in my stomach
instead of an ache in my heart
so much of my time
is spent feeling ashamed
so incredibly regretful
about just being who i am
i see no worth in me
i bring nothing forth
i don’t deserve what i’ve been given
i don’t even deserve what i’ve fought for
and the saddest part
is that i don’t even feel sad about it
it isn’t even ripping me to pieces
i don’t even want to die
i just want it to stop
being so true

i only ask one
thing. make sure it hurts before
you go.

i kiss the edge of the wine glass
and fall tipsy into bed
the sheets are cold and i am not alone
i have myself for company

my lips may be lonely
but they mustn’t forget about
the blood-red temptation
i swallowed and buried deep

the devil has come down to meet me
and i think he is
beautiful

how could i possibly explain
that i love you because you nod your head
when you listen to music
or that you make a face
when you make a mistake?

it could take me years
scouring dictionaries and images
to recreate the feeling that i get
when i watch you concentrate

it would take too long
to tell someone the whole truth
about how your scribbles on paper
look like something written in the stars

i accidentally listened to a beautiful song
for the first time sitting across from you
and now it's yours

i accidentally became someone new
for the first time sitting across from you
and now i'm yours

sometimes i am granted the ability to see my parents as people
not just the person i know them as
but the person they are
for a brief spare moment
i am able to slip into their narrative
slide behind their eyes
and understand
finally understand their drama and their intrigue
their uniqueness and their plainness
their angels and their demons
and their late night separations
i see who they are without me
sometimes i am granted the ability to see a different version of reality
i think i am omniscient but really
what i am seeing
is me

i wonder
how many times
you picked up the ringing phone
thinking
it was me
i wonder
how many times
it could
have been.
i wrote
so many things about you
when i thought
you loved me
and now i can't
even read my own poems
without remembering how happy
i thought
you made me
and how sad
you actually
did.

i fell in love next to you
but it wasn’t with you

it was with the idea
that lying next to someone
can be religious
and a sacrifice can be
so romantic

give me away to the prospect
of death and holy matrimony
tie me to the stake and set it ablaze
i would burn for you
but only in theory

you tasted like saltwater
and i had never been so far
from the sea.

they’re waiting on me in there
i just sobbed harder than i have in years
in here on my bathroom floor
and they’re waiting on me in there
where we’ll talk about new signs on the highway
and why the dogs are howling
and we’ll watch an old tv show
and i’ll pretend i relate to them
they’re waiting on me in there

i’ll say i got soap in my eyes
and that’s why they’re so red
they’ll know i was crying
but it’s the charade that counts

they’re waiting on me in there
i said i’d be quick but it’s been a long time
i needed time to be so, so sad
to be so far gone in this emptiness
that i didn’t even care if i came back

i’m sitting on my bathroom floor
so alone
and i don’t want to be anywhere else at all
i think that’s really, really sad

i’ve come to realize
that everything i put out into the world
is an apology for being there
in the first place
so, here goes:

i am sorry.

my body is missing something
so i try to cover it in more fabric
bright colors and dark colors
skin tight or loose or covering no skin at all
but still my body is missing something
so i try to drink something
water or soda or juice or gin
i try wine so maybe my tongue will taste
as bitter as i feel
but still my body is missing something
so i scrub it
i place it under a steady stream of water
and i lather it in soap and i scrub away
until surely i must be brand new
but still my body is missing something
so i eat and devour
sweet and salty and bitter and comforting
and it sticks to the roof of my mouth
and i think maybe that’s what it was
but still my body is missing something
my body is craving something
i think it just wants
to be different.

the key to life
is living long enough
that you no longer live with reality
but reality lives with you
in a perfectly melded
twisted version of codependence
in which the answers to your questions
don’t even matter that much anymore
because the questions are just
so much fun
to discuss