on purpose, on purpose.
I will not love you on accident.
I did not wake up suddenly overwhelmed.
I am quite whelmed, honestly.
but with my head up, my eyes open, my arms held wide aloft,
I am walking face-first into loving you.
the stains on my teeth from where I bit back
should scare you off, would scare me away.
but your hands are raw with fighting back.
I want to love you on accident. I want the surprise, the shock, the explosive horror of being so uncontestably tied to someone else that I cease even to be my own body.
but this is better. maybe less movie worthy, less poem worthy, but better.
I look at you and see your flaws, and think how they mirror my own.
and I want to be here, fully here.
on purpose, I think of you.
on purpose, I am loving you.

it spills out of a closed wound
a hole carved in you that you've covered a thousand times
you gag it down, but it come up anyway
pours out of your eyes and ears
tastes like smoke.
hot tar, sticking to everything
***** again, ***** again
filthy, immeasurably filthy
you want so badly to be cleaned
sticky and thick, you're choking
stop it up, close the hole again.
you're choking, close it up.
you're choking.

you turn them over in your head
over, over, turn it around
every angle, every reflection
every reaction,
you know the sharp edges
it isn't a surprise when they cut you again
you don't pick up a razor and not expect to cut something.
carve away the old scars, deeper in
cut them down to bone.
you'll heal again, close up over the infection and need to be cut away.
if you weren't the infection, you could be cured.

sticky, thick, you're choking again.
close the wound.

I got tired of the beating, so I took it out.
that messy red lump of flesh, dripping onto the laminate floor.
thud-thud-thudding even removed
wet meaty smell and sticking to my fingers.
a cavern in my chest echoing through my ribs
miles deep and deep and deep
I'll burn this mortal heart
and cure myself of longing.

I want to crawl between your ribs
Nestle on your lungs
Breathe in deep and slow
Feel me there on your sternum

You broken cherry stem
Your body so divine
Your thighs my diadem
Your love as sweet as wine

Break my body down
Rip me into shreds
My skin becomes your gown
And on your wall my head

I miss my passion
the endless roar of want and need in my throat
every possibility exciting and new
possible, even

I miss needing to know and needing to be and feeling so much
feeling everything, constantly, overwhelmed by so many things that I was lucky enough to experience

and this emptiness, this aching hollow where my heart was
nothing can fill it
where my passion ripped out of me and bled through my shirt as I repeated line after line
an empty space beneath my ribs and behind my throat

I miss explosiveness and anger
I miss crying
I miss feeling whole and real

the way you look through me
makes my heart drop
from my chest
heavily
to my crotch
I wish you'd lower your expectations
and raise your skirt
but it's nice to pretend
that you could ever care for me
when you share platitudes.

I am the god of mortality and cold
I am silent and ancient, or, I was
I have died so many times, now it is all I can think of
I have forgotten the wrong I committed that cursed me to mortality
but it must have been very wrong indeed
I can only hope one day, or lifetime, my penance will be complete
and pray to be released from this formless curse
mortality clouds me, my greatest fear and my only chance for relief
and I have no knowledge if it helps or harms to take it into my own hands
it feels better, but I keep coming back
I want to be finished
my soul is too weary for another living body

we'll never be clean again
the angels in their spotless robes, glaring down untouched
the first hand put on our skin was filth forever
lick their lips and **** their teeth, rosaries and morals clutched
we'll never be clean again
no soap washes away the stain of men, having a body, the ultimate sin
never asked for, but punished anyway
nothing cleans away the memories twisting behind your eyes, but forget or they win
we'll never be clean again.
never speak of or think of it.
never be like them.
prayers writ and wrists slit,
and wonder where from it stems

my heart is full of cotton and I feel so light thinking of you
like tempered chocolate or sea foam
emotions like this are so new to me but they feel so warm
even though you'll never feel this way for me, thank you for letting me feel it for you

my bones are quartz
my heart a horse
my eyes are dew
I'm nothing but a compilation
or emulation
of things I see in you

draft horse heart, walk on
till the earth of troubles
seeds of hope planted in may never sprout, but the roots reach further down
draft horse heart, carry all my sadness
one heavy step in front of another
a beating heart climbing the same hill
draft horse heart, walk on
carry the troubles, the sadness, the pain
heave through snatching brambles
there are greener pastures there
walk on, draft horse, to the stable you seek
your hooves a beat of a bleeding heart
each trouble precious and sharp, wrapped in gauzy nostalgia
each sin and lie another stone, tucked in silk, packed so neatly
my broken heart, my lost direction
walk on, draft horse, walk on
the stable there is not right, walk on
we may find the right one later, walk on
each step a beating of this heavy heart
walk on

oh, my soft heart
oh, my gentle dream
oh, my delicate soul
oh, my downy love
you are every smooth, soft, silky thing of me
you are so soft, my heart
you are so gentle, my dream
you are so delicate, my soul
you are so wondrous, my love, my sweet velvet darling

I wish I was cold-hearted and frozen
if it was frozen I could cut it out and let myself be empty
but it beats hot with the smell of wood fire in stone hearth
hot like embers in a pyre
I wish I was spring, new and clean
frozen hearts of ice in the streams
but winter's all I have
with fires burning in lonely homes
an opposite that's less attractive
melting from the inside, I wish I could freeze

he whispered
"I love you"
but it was too quiet
so he said it again,
with a closed fist.
eventually
it only sounded right like that

to be so full of love I shine like a beacon
I want it to fill me like glowing water and drown the darkness in me
to drown when I cry
flowing light and glittering ideals
to hope, hope despite evidence that may make me stop
soft like a blanketing of snow
suffocatingly, deafeningly, consumingly soft
love like a fist and hope like sea and stones and the endless rhythm of tides
to be soft and loving and hopeful
tasting blood and cracking knuckles, to be loving, to be soft
to never be hurt again

love is a sin never planned for
be unrepentant with me
be, with me, a sin your parents and your priest will never absolve
love me like you're saying a prayer, late at night, hopeful
evangelize the feeling of being in love to everyone
love me like you're singing a hymn you know by heart
exist in me as god does in everyone; in love
sin with me in adoration
pray to anyone who will listen, this is purer
a clean sin, victimless
purgatory at worst

I want to be spring
I want to be soft buds on tree branches, the low murmur of melting snow, the fresh blue of newly clear skies
I want to be soft, brisk wind whipping across forests and plains, animals moving as one from darkness to the world again, pollen in the air
but I'm not
I'm winter
cold, unforgiving, ice and metal and skin, the heavy blanketing of deaf snow over miles of the world
frozen branches snapping in silent nights and the retreat of all living things deeper into their homes
winter with it's dangers, it's unknown, a set of footprints in the snow leading deep into the woods and never coming out
I want to be warm and soft and new, alive again every year
but I'm not

we are so very different
you, you are the moon
you are cold, glittering, distant
silvered with stardust
beautiful and wan, you are
slim and precocious, all the things you should be
of the moon
between us are lightyears of void
occasional stars that burn and burn and burn
more than we can count between us
call them a group, all the stars
call it all of them
I am a thing of the sun
I sit heavy and wet in dawn light, newly hatched each morning
I am a thing of mars, dusty and cracked
aching for water, alone with a robot
I am a thing of pluto
distant, frozen, devoid, small.
I am a thing of jupiter
huge, unstable, storming
I am a thing of the sun-touched sides of these planets
a thing of the harsher, hotter light of day
I wish to sit in the cold, watery light all of them
and your moon
would show me

the moon is mirrored in your eyes
a glittering satellite reflecting light onto the sleepy planet below
I wish I could take your hands and tell you I hung it just for you
but I'm not god, and I don't think you'd believe me if I was

we, all of us, are born to die
some just get to tell a better story before they do.
the end is never dignified, never clean
we cry, we bleed, we scream, we beg
we lay, silently, beside our loved ones, all praying we'll open our eyes just one more time
just one more time.
one can only hope there's more beyond it
something else, something different
a new life, a continuation, a god to smile and say you're here
you made it, I'm so proud of you
even a nonbeliever can hope
someday
that you can find the end you're meant
that you're not forced to be martyred to meet someone waiting for you at the far end of it all

what strange fruit grow in the shadow of the grown
strange, bitter fruit
inky roots grow up, gripping ankles to pull down
fertile ground, grown up children
each step through dark, muddy ground
those who grow in this soil plant seeds
more inky roots, bitter fruit
to reach forward and drag in the weaker
we walk alone together
the roots are in me, the seeds are in me
I could be a disaster and not even see it
feel the roots wrapped round my spine
I could be just as bad
feel the roots wrapped round my brain
I could be even worse
feel them drag me down deeper
I can't let it happen
feel them in the lungs
I can't let it happen
feel them in the heart
I can't let it
feel them under skin
I can't
I can't
I can't feel them anymore

I'm a thing and I'm made to listen.
I cannot break.
pain is proof I'm learning too slowly, not broken.
I can never complain.
I'm a thing and I'm made to watch.
I do not speak.
unless in answering "yes, yes, always yes".
I'm a thing and I'm made to be used.
I don't complain. I don't feel. I don't breathe.
things can't die. inanimate things.
I'm a thing and I'm made to do everything I'm told and be silent and know what I'm supposed to but never too much and not hurt and never say no and keep secrets until I stop being a thing and start being a corpse.

"I'm lost." I say, tongue heavy. feet wet.
"you're lost?" a question. open eyes.
closed hands. "I'm lost." an answer.
"my name." I say, hands opening. a mistake. "myself."
the lines of my form are taken in to account. a burning sun on dry skin, a glistening eye in an empty face, a thought of longing in an empty mind.
"you're lost." a challenge.
arms spread. menace, teeth, bigger, badder, predatorial displays of power. a weaker person. wooden splinters in an aging bridge. volcanic ash. I can't speak, my name is taken. my face. stone under water, washing away.
"you're lost."
closed hands. "I'm lost." acceptance.

my heart is the moon
glowing pale and wan
cold light filtered through voids of flesh
shadows dancing into shapes in the crevices
beating in tides against stone
saltwater drips through my veins
an ocean of blood colder than the sea pooled behind my eyes
my lungs are the sun
roaring, empty, gasping oxygen
a shining light, shying away the moon
choking for more, desperate
words fall in sunspots, blinding, pointless
the planets align in my joints
snapping into place and crawling through orbits
asteroid belts curl behind my tongue and stars burn in my ears
cosmic, ascent complete, I look below me
the void is everything
I feel distant and spread, broken into parts
solar ice forms my teeth and I gnaw at dust
above all, I am alone

First, you choke on an easy mouthful of air, gasping in over and over but feeling more light-headed all the while
Second, you close your eyes, taste the terror rising up the back of your throat and blocking the air from going down
Third, you shatter, feel your body falling apart and realize with a vengeance how delicate your life is
Fourth, the panic starts. you shake, scream, sob, curl up or lash out while it grabs hold of your nerves and bends your body to it's will
Fifth, you find some breath. maybe someone is helping you. maybe you're helping yourself. a wave of calm displaces every other feeling.
Sixth, you lose your body. your mind floats in a pool of nothingness while your body runs out of primitive instinct. your calm turns to numb.
Seventh, you blink. you breathe. you remember what it feels like to be in control of your body again. you drink some water, or sleep, or both. your head hurts. your mind drifts between your body and the ether. you wipe your face and try to remember what it's like to not be having an attack.
Eighth, you can't remember, because it never seems to end. you accept it. you refuse it. you hate it. you cry. your chest gets tight.

when you're four and your older brother corners you in a bedroom after you complain about a loose tooth and wields a pair of pliers like the key to heaven's gate, you don't panic.

when he rips a barely-ready tooth out of your mouth with the precision of a little boy doing harm, you don't panic.

when blood pours down your front and tears leap from your eyes and your mother scolds you for "letting him" do that, you don't panic, you clutch your tooth in your fist and swish the saltwater in your mouth and ignore the prestissimo baseline of your heart at the sight of all that red on your chin, so you don't panic.

when you're nine and a man you're told to respect corners you in his home and puts his hands on you, you don't panic.

when you remember, suddenly, that your mother told you not to "let" your older brother pull your tooth out and your brain tells you that she'd ask why you let this man touch you like you were made to be his, you grit your teeth like a wolf about to attack, so you don't panic.

when you remember that your word won't be believed and it doesn't count if you stay in your clothes, you close your lips to keep from screaming, from biting him with your slightly-crooked teeth, and you don't panic.

when later the truth comes out and your family and friends ask you why you never told anyone and you feel the judgement of their not being told weighing on you more than the secret of never telling ever did and their eyes dig into you deep enough to cut out anything he hasn't already taken and the feeling of drowning overtakes you even though you're sitting in a dry living room, you don't panic.

when your first check from your first job comes to your first home away from family and your throat tries to close and your hands curl into fists no matter how hard you try to keep them open and you struggle to breathe, you tell yourself no, you don't panic.

when your mother calls you and tells you your dog was killed, you feel yourself start to cry and hang up, you breathe ragged breaths and choke on yourself, on your feelings, and you don't panic.

you don't panic, you bare your teeth like weapons and stand to your full height and take up as much space as you can without being touched by anyone because the not-panic of those years that man put his hands on you creeps up the back of your throat and threatens to scream out in a request of "never put your ******* hands on me".

your teeth grow sharp and long and you rend yourself on borrowed blades like fighting depression is fighting the skin that holds it in this body you call a house and your shoulders get broad and you teach yourself to play house again because when you were a kid and your bother dared to pull your teeth, you played the dog in the house and bit anyone who touched you.

you close yourself up and pretend the fading memories you're unable to grasp are less important than the repetitive now and you ignore the looks and taunts of men who call you too big and too butch and refuse to call you by your name.

when you feel the creeping sting of panic starting in your slowly-numbing limbs and wrapping around your dizzy head, you reach for the razor and then stop, force your unwilling lungs to breathe and tell yourself no, you don't panic.

a rolling
thudding
ball of lead
rolling in the inside of my skull
pushing through my brain and pressing ******* the back of my eye
heavy, heavy weight of something
knocking everything loose
making it hard to see straight
heavy something, something
words and pictures twisted together
all thoughts and memories combined
into a marble of dark-matter heavy weight that rolls through my skull
leaves my brain to drool out my ears

scissor cuts and pencil marks
crumple, flatten, write, cut
take out of your pocket before you wash
more than hearts, entire wholes
grind with water, spread on screens, let it dry and repeat
the deep breaths that sound like open books in a breeze
inhuman dolls, things like people
two-dimensional
we fold ourselves small
compact the colors of those ***** feelings
get lost in corners and swept under chairs
sleep between the covers of a good book
written out theories of thaumaturgy and melanokinesis
painted, torn and taped and writ three times over
tattooed trees, spineless, boneless
the kind of kid to crumple at a stiff breeze
sideways invisible
diving into the creaking cracks in the floorboard
the kind of adult to only give tiny, stinging cuts

one evening, like all others in most every way,
as I wash my face, brush my teeth and prepare for the coming night,
I look farther up than my chin in the mirror over the sink.
I look up, into my eyes, staring mostly blank into my reflection's eyes.
they're thoughtful in the way a sleepy child's are, half-lidded,
vaguely thoughtful, nothing inspiring, wondering what comes next.
my eyebrows raise slightly, startled by the revelation of existing.
I exist, in a human form that is my own. every millimeter of my body is mine.
I'm frozen for seconds, maybe hours, watching myself breathe, feeling my realness so suddenly that it could crush me with the weight of actually being a person,
and then my eyes cast to the side. I break my own contact, **** in a sharp breath, and continue my routine,
to pretend I never noticed myself.

I hate death.
I hate the eventuality of it
I stopped being scared the first time I hoped for it, the first time I chose to run alongside the car and try to leap into the door instead of wait for it to get to the bottom of the hill.
the eventuality of death is horrific.
I have to plan for when I'm alone.
that far-off time when the people I love cease to be
and that's terrible.
I hate death
I hate losing people, I hate that someday
someday I won't be able to go to your house
and watch those silly alien shows and make bad jokes with you.
I hate that someday I'll have to stop saying "my dad always says"
and start saying "my dad used to say".
I hate that you won't be able to help me anymore.
I hate how much I miss you even though I saw you today, even though you're still here.
I ******* hate that I have to plan for you to be gone when I can't even fathom a world
without you crying over pixar movies and dogs
without quiet heart to hearts on the porch, the boxer circling our legs like our words are morsels for her to grab
I can't even imagine never having your grilled steak again, silly as it is
I hate death
because it will eventually take you

I feel like a shadow trick, things piled to look like a person

I have always believed that human beings grew up wanting to be grown
and spent the time when we were wanting to try again
all the time I have known I felt this was true
and coming back to me and you I'll say it again:
life is not lived outside of original sin
and every step I take feels like a mistake
no emo lyricism here
just real fear because there's too much dark in this big broad world for anyone to shed any real light
and without light the shadows creep and crawl
and I can watch the walls but who mans the halls
all night long I wait awake
every blink and every breath I take another reason for me to fear
"major depressive disorder"
doctors croon that like a sweet lullabye
but that does nothing to dry my eyes because what?
I'm not sick, just crazy?
I'm not hurt, just lazy?
I know the pains I feel so deep
if they aren't real then neither am I
I fall short of every sunrise with color but I try
major depressive disorder according to books
(allow me to paraphrase, I can't be bothered to look again)
is categorized by an extreme feeling of hopelessness
and loss of interest and I feel they are lacking finesse
when I am told I am a sad sad soul because the world is grand and wide
and I would invite it all to come inside
but I can't and that makes me sad.
it makes me sad when I see the way people are treated.
it makes me sad and often downright defeated
and when the little flame that keeps this broken heart burning
gets washed out by the darkness of the world awake and yearning
waiting for a moment of doubt and weak
I feel so ******* meek
me, meek.
I feel like the world is collapsing but only in my chest
I feel like an infant in a bulletproof vest getting shot
my skin starts to itch and I can't scratch with my nails deep enough
and son of a ***** they don't trust me with sharp things anymore
and the scores on my arms are the times I have lost
and this battle isn't won and this is hardly a war
this is slaughter, this is me standing alone under the whole wide world and keeping it up
and this is everyone I love looking at me straining and telling me that I'm slipping up
alaska is too far south today, do I even give a ****?
depression is not a feeling of overwhelming sadness
I am not sad because of misaligned cables in my mind
I am sad because no matter how hard I try
I'm told that I am not.
but here I am still trying, standing up from my cot on the floor
and every step outside that yawning door
there are people pulling me back and slinging words that cut deeper than I ever did
and every hand that grasps my shirttails to try and pull me home like a lost little kid
leaves mars all down my back, claws that sink and ravage leaving me ****** and raw
and bleeding open and sloppy all on the floor I keep my pace, like every step will be the last straw
like every step is the last one I need to take to get away
and as I go I follow all the trails of similar blood, refreshed by people like me every day.
and I just wanted to say
I don't give a flying **** what you think you know about my scars
I don't care if it makes you uncomfortable to see my arms, the sun is out and it's 90 ******* degrees
don't lie to me and say I should be ashamed and not wear these badges like good luck charms
don't tell me my survival is offensive to your eyes because you should know without being told
these scars are here to help me grow old
when I needed to remember I was alive these scars
were fresh cuts, science experiments on a corpse brought back screaming "I'M ALIVE"
I'm not ashamed for surviving because if I were ashamed
I wouldn't be.

I am ready to fall apart
and with a shaking heart I whisper:
"it's okay"
I know the taste of a blade
and the color of the sky as it bends and then breaks in that way
I am ready.
I hold my head steady and I step
forward, bringing no baggage with me to shlep
"I am ready!" I scream
the lights on a silver screen illuminating
my internal clockworks ruminating
this soul is weak and older than time but I am prepared
I can step into this light with all my anxieties bared
the scars are fresh
on this flesh, prison for the wispy not-quites
the things inside that make me me that give my eyes light
I am ready to fall apart and with a shaking heart
I whisper, "it's okay"
another time, another day,
I can look back because today
the pages of time flipped and turned
and everything synced into rhythm and rhyme
and falling apart seems scary until you do
it makes you wary, you don't want to
but you fall apart, all to pieces
only to catch yourself, not so much glass as puzzle pieces
put it all together and restart.
I am ready, and with a shaking heart, I whisper:
"it's okay"

let's lay in my bed and
talk about the end of the world and
how much I hate my mom and
how much you hate your hair and
pretend we don't have to figure out what to make this

we, all of us, all these
kids
who make lists
and count, count doorknobs
and bus stops and fenceposts and cars on the highway
and scars and broken bones and illnesses
we make lists and reasons and categorize
categorize, organize, memorize
we know, we KNOW how many steps it takes to get to the mailbox
the bus stop
the garage and the car
we count the steps to putting on shoes
1. pick up shoe 2. open 3. pull on 4. tie
we remember the things everyone tells us to stop worrying about
like we don't KNOW
that the weight of this big big world doesn't rest on us alone
and that turning the lock three times doesn't lock it tighter
that going right sock right shoe, left sock left shoe
isn't gonna make things better in the long run we KNOW
we know we've got everything categorized and memorized
and then people have the audacity to say our mental states
are disordered

I have the sea in me
this terrible, ugly sea
the salt burns at my bones and the waves lick my wounds
crashing, they smash against my skull inside
agony, immense and innumerable agonies
suffered all in this great and terrible sea
all of them come together
I store them within myself,
bottle this sea up and pretend to be a person
ignoring the pleading calls of the ocean, begging I return it's missing parts

tear me open
chew me up
spit me out
break everything in my chest
bleed me dry
make it hurt
make me scream
don't be gentle
don't be careful
it isn't suicide if someone helps

when I was born and named a girl, my older brother decided he hated me. there was nothing to it; he wanted a brother because that way he could take out all the anger planted in him by my other siblings, and he got a sister who idolized him because he could make friends.

when I was three my mom, in a moment of clarity, took me to a doctor after I was sick for three weeks. a nurse heard my heart not beating right and sent me to get seen, six months later I was cut open and sewed clean, a hole in my heart to match the one my father had sealed up by modern medicine.

my mom never forgot that "miracle" or that I told the surgery psych that I was getting my broken heart fixed, and that my father was more worried that I'd live in constant agony than that I might die on the table, in mind or body.

at about four and a half, my dad came and took my brother and I out of my mom's care, because he had a home and didn't want us on the streets if he could help it. it never lasted, homelessness was as commonplace as walking to school for us. I didn't know it wasn't okay to live in a car until I was six.

when I was five I missed most of kindergarten because I lived in a shack on a ranch and had lice, and by the time I was back in class, I was the only one who didn't get basic math and couldn't read, but California doesn't hold kids back unless they have to and I got pushed ahead.

in second grade I made my first friend, and a few months into the school year I made another. I was a girl back then and they thought it was cool that I wasn't girly, so I was allowed. one day on the way in from recess I got called fat and ugly to my face the first time, and when I looked for support, I was told it was true.

I was nine the first time I wanted to **** myself. I ran my fingers over the blades of my father's razor and I wondered how much it hurt to bleed out and if blood stained linoleum and how much it would cost to bury me somewhere, and then I closed my eyes and remembered that my father would **** himself if I wasn't there.

by fourth grade I didn't care what was happening, I just wanted to read and sleep. I never did homework and my friends were only interested in me if I knew an answer they didn't. the teachers were convinced I was learning disabled but I was busy growing up two-parts ignored and one part abused, because the day I brought home my best grades was the day my uncle decided that he'd punish me himself.

when I was twelve I was told my dream was STUPID because I was never going to be good enough, not me, to write what people want to read. I was told that, with the grades I was getting I shouldn't even be allowed to do anything but schoolwork, despite my constant requests for help they wouldn't or couldn't give.

the first time I cut myself, I was in seventh grade. I stayed in my room all day and stared at the scabs, and then I scratched them off and did it again. it felt better to be bleeding outside and crying than to be collapsing inside and crying; there was a physical reason to my methods.

when I was fourteen, I was hospitalized for two days after I threatened to **** myself, and the doctors told me the "rosy glow" I always have was rosacea, and that I was depressed but not depressed enough to take up space there, and sent me home.

I wish I could say I stopped cutting then, but I didn't. it got worse when I moved in with my mom again, because she told me everything I secretly was was disgusting, and the two months she kept me medicated lamented over the high price of $50 for her child's sanity and well-being; even if it never worked, the thought that it wasn't even worth trying hurt more than the razorblades she kept around to tease me with.

I was fifteen when I carved HATE into my left forearm.

it took me time to understand that humans smile and the whole time I tried to learn I was ordered to STOP SCOWLING. it took me time to learn how to talk to people, to understand that unless someone starts a conversation I'm probably not wanted and to trick myself into thinking of character flaws as quirks and of the shattered pieces of myself as ripples in a pool instead of the breaks that they were

I learned to hold my face in a smirk and my arms around myself and that if you laugh loud enough no one looks too hard at the scars that keep multiplying, that if you joke often enough the tearstains on your cheeks are normal and the way you bristle when someone puts their hand up too fast or hugs you first will become afterthoughts, just like I taught myself to be and that no one worries about you not sleeping for a week if you memorize interesting things while you're awake.

The storm rages, winds pulling and pushing,
Wrapping around the legs and chests of the world,
Stealing away their breath for instants.
Cold-lipped kisses patter on their hair, the backs of their necks,
Arms of thunderstorm air wrapping round them,
Watching, the sky darkens, lightens,
Morse code.
Damp earth and wet pavement kiss sneakers and boots
And the soles of bare feet,
The earth and the sky, pressing on all sides to reach each other,
Allowing those of us here to become caught
Between them.

You put so many words in my mouth
Sometimes it's hard to breathe.
All you show me are warped faces
I look in the mirror at a monster.
Words in your voice are different
"Grateful" means subservient.
My time, my thoughts, my being are worthless
But I need to keep trying, because... Why?

The bright white filaments
Burning behind my eyes
When I close them and lay down with
An arm over my face to block out real lights
Burned out brightness
Setting fire to pain receptors
Send bolts skittering through my pan like lightning
Or raindrops
A heartbeat multiplied tenfold
And reversed
Fluttering like butterfly wings
And mazapan
And fire in the wind.
Sleep becomes a fever dream from a nightmare
So I stay awake another night
And burn out my filaments.

Pray for me,
God knows I need your prayers.
Amen.
Wish better on me,
God knows I'm beat down by naysayers.
Amen.
Eyes and hearts so vacant,
Starlet-smile empty shells.
Amen.
Easy words, complacent.
Open lips and full-up hells.
Amen.
Amen.
God is love, take me to church.
He knows I need something in my heart.
Hallelujah.
Accept me, catch me in this downward lurch.
God save the poor broken thing, this heart.
Hallelujah.
God is light, take me to church,
Darkness never scared me this much.
Hallelujah.
Please, don't hurt me, aide this search.
I can't think over the loudness, it's too much.
Hallelujah.
**Hallelujah.

This time of year is so tiring.
Acting all the time.
I get tired thinking about it.
Talking about work and school,
Dreams I shouldn't be following,
Ambitions I can't achieve.
"Have you started dating yet?"
"When are you going to college?"
No, but soon, I swear.
I don't know what I want to study.
Merry Christmas!
Christ was born in August and this celebration is a Hallmark rendition
Of a Pagan sun festival
(But I don't want to go to any ****** where my parents might be present, anyway).
Maybe I'll figure out a major I won't feel is wasted on me
Next year.
But what four years won't be wasted on an untimely suicide?

A lifetime of wrongs
Wrought by insensitive hands.
Grasping like prongs
And, well, as it stands,
I'm ******* ******.
There's nothing left but this.
All the chances, you missed.
So give my fist a kiss.
You're gonna bleed, you're gonna die
I'll burn your past, I'll skin you live,
Before you open that mouth and ask "why",
I don't care, take a ******* dive.
I can't stand you breathing
You made me mad, and don't you see?
It all ends, in a ****** wreathing.
And you bet your *** you'd better be scared of me.

Remember when you were young and dumb
And the world was new and big and beautiful and terrifying?
Remember when
You weren't embarrassed of being excited for small things?
Remember when
The flashes of things that can't be and thing that aren't
Were fairy gifts and magic being?
Remember when
You were so small, so very small
And you compressed yourself into corners and boxes
Much like you try to now.
Remember when
It was safe to tell people the things you saw
Because your imagination was healthy?

Fire licks at my heels
Blood, thick, black and brackish
Spills over my lips
The eyes of one thousand lost souls crown my head
My wings
Black eyes from an inhuman face
Watching
My sword, drawn, drags
I am monstrous
I am deadly
I am immense
I am celestial
I am godly.

Apathy is the stones waves of emotion cast you against
Until your body smashes open
Fills with saltwater
Heavy-wet lungs
Sting
Cold as the ocean

Bodies bend, break, sink in the tide.
Everlasting tides that pull
Drag those like us under the water.
The cuttlefish watch
Bubbles surface, blue water, red water.
Light from the failing sun burns on the sea,
Clouds forming acrobat troupes
Burning
red, gold, orange.
The water is calm and quiet
Beats the stones into eventual sands.
Silent waves wrap
Twist snakes of currents around ankles
Pull
Pull
Until they fall
Join the sea.
Water in lungs, swinging low in the chest
Chests opened by stones cut by the floods.
Chumming the water
Drowning
Lost at sea and revived as sirens.
Blood on the water burns in the light.
The reflections make seeing hurt,
Almost as much as watching the sun die.

Hazy half-light mornings interspersed with giddy sleep
Silent showers and quick grooming
Breakfast maybe, chores and work and walking in my slippers.
Afternoons tense with labor and stress
Broken up by slow-falling meditative mind rain
And usually Fall Out Boy in my ears.
Quickdark evenings.
No light.
Demons aren't occupied with being scared of being burned.
Staying up until god only knows and then some
Laying in the dark and feeling panic
Ice bones, fire veins, a noose around my throat
And not even in a **** way.
Shaking, teeth chatter, eyes roll, spin, turn, off the bed.
Sit on the floor. Lay down. Room's spinning.
Stumble to the dresser.
Grab the cure.
Illegal cure, no one knows anymore.
Dulled by use, old when taken, press harder.
Crimson bubbles, drips, rolls and stains.
Demons lap it up, whisper thanks, leave.
Sun comes up, lay in the half light.
Fall asleep giddy with pain.

We all own other people.
In parts.
We cut out the things we want with words and wear the pieces as badges
Medals.
Blood dripping sashes.
Words are knives and we ask for the cuts people may deign to give us
We want to be owned in those parts so we can own them in turn.
I wonder what pieces
I've let people take from me?