it's 4 a.m. and i didn't study
those latin conjugations
no, i studied
the last few weeks.

i don't care if i've ****** a thousand men;
i don't care if i've ****** one.
none of you have the right to
make me seem like i'm unclean.
because if i remember correctly
it takes two bodies,
two sets of limbs moving in the dark unseen,
and two resolves to explore
the sensations of their ***.
and i'm expected to sit here quiet and placid
while you throw my sexuality in my face
and make this an unwelcome place
for ****** like me.
*******.
*******.
*******.

i'm a person; a human being
and stop playing nice,
stop playing dumb.
i'm not going to pity *******
because you were kind to me
a time or two
you pathetic *******.

you came at the wrong time,
when i was already seething so silently,
and you asked again and again
like a kid asking his mom for a new toy in the store.
it's hardly even you i'm mad at:
it's this systemic poison in the great pool of people,
and there are plenty of fish in the sea
but how many are free from this toxicity?
i thought *** was an exploration, a harmless invitation
to enjoy what felt so organic and good
but you're the ones who've made it *****,
who've made me feel like a ****.
who've made it your personal business to erase me,
and displace me
because i liked the touch, taste, feel.
this is unreal to me; and i'm sick in my heart.
because everyone wants to try and isolate
this one part of me
and simplify who i am into
the whims of my skin.

no. the answer is no.

so *******.

i still think about you a lot.
and i don't know if that's weakness.
you're in the cigarettes i smoke
(when you handed me one after another and told me not to smoke so much)
you're in my car
(where we put the windows down and you flooded your body with medicine)
you're in my mind, and even after everything
(my hands shaking on the wheel)
you're there
(telling me how cute i was from my passenger seat)
i can barely remember your mouth or the way it felt
('this **** is fire')
and i know you were a cancer, preying on my softest parts,
(you swaying, eyes half-closed, caught in center of that 'fire')
but i can't **** that cancer i can't
(your arms around me through your haze)
because then i'd have to **** all of it
('thanks kiddo')
even the good parts.

There's a somebody for everybody,
but I think my somebody
fell into a well and lives there
like folklore.
I think my somebody is somewhere
far away, not missing me
like I am missing them.
I think my somebody
might already be married
with two kids and a mortgage,
or entrapped in the idea of someone else.
I think my somebody lives somewhere
with dirt floors and no telephone,
and can't write to me
or even keep warm.
I think my somebody is lonely like me,
sitting and thinking
and shrinking away from a world half-empty,
while I'm here
and you're there.

i think a lot about my ribs
and about my stomach
and my organs
and how they would look if
someone pulled them out
i think a lot about my skin
and the way it's whittled
over me.
i think a lot about my mind
and
how the next smoke will calm it
to a dull hum.
i think a lot about my weight
and my mind is heavy with
the thought.

i think about my bed and my sheets
and how they might've once
been occupied by
more than just me.
but now it's so lonely,
lonely, lonely,
like my mind, my ribcage, my weight,
my organs persisting through the poisons
i put in them.

i think too much
and i want,
want, want
too much to say.
i don't know how i got the
privilege of this prolonged
purposeless
sadness.

if i just got out
out, out
of bed and fought for once.

but it's hard when you wake up
drunk, drunk, drunk.

i like to feel my stomach,
where it's soft and then turns
into the hardness of my ribs.
i like the contrast, the
feeling of it underneath my hand.
i don't know why
but i like my contrasts
and the way that sometimes
i feel so low
and other times like i'm
ten feet above the ground.
i like that i can laugh
and then lie in bed at night,
feeling the loneliness settle on top of me
as an extra sheet that fails to keep me warm.
i like that the wild, contradicting variation
like New England weather, like a prediction
versus a storm.
i like knowing that i can feel everything,
all the violence of myself.
i like hurting because it means i'm real,
and happiness for the same reason.
i like my contrasts.

I want to make my body like fall
so that when I'm dying you'll think
I'm beautiful.
And why I'm crying you'll see
orange, red, and yellow
and the litter will cover every imperfection.
I want to be every cliche
wrapped in scarves and leather laced up tight.
I want to be your frozen dawn
and early night.

I want to be warm in your hands
like a mug.
I want you to understand
that I'm seasonal, I can only be so much
for so long.

i know no one is here
looking at my poetry.
but i like having it,
so it can remind me.