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  Jan 2018 kayla
Lauren Johnson
And for the first time in forever,

I danced alone in the kitchen at 1am

without the help of alcohol
kayla Jan 2018
“I remember the night,” he spoke in a low tone, “you had called me crying.”
I shifted around in bed, and turned over to face him. The streetlight shining through the window casted a faint orange outline on his face.
“Why was I crying?” I asked. I laid my head on his chest as I listened for his voice. I could recall the amount of alcohol I had that night, but I couldn’t remember the call. He wrapped his arm around my bare torso and pulled me closer to him.
“You were drunk. I asked what was the matter, and you said,” he inhaled deeply, “you said you were afraid. And when I asked why, you said because you were falling in love with me.”
a little memory that doesn't belong to me.
  Jan 2018 kayla
Kayla Flanders
she was not fragile like a snowflake.
she was fragile like a bomb.
and i didn't know which was scarier-
                                                        ­  her explosion or her calm.
part 2
kayla Jan 2018
I’m not much of a talker anymore.
I don’t hold conversations‒
I dislike the discomfort of hearing
My own voice dilute empty rooms
And reminding me I’m powerless
I’m not much of a talker anymore.
It’s 2017, and I‒
I mean we‒
Still don’t have the power to speak for ourselves.
Rather us,
We fold the laundry
While they ruin‒
I mean run‒
The world.
In my household,
My mouth was sewn shut
Before I learned to use it as a weapon.
And while my throat aches for the power to speak‒
My tired feet pleading for a break from the walk of shame.
I‒
I mean we‒
Are tired of speaking
Only to remain unheard.
kayla Jan 2018
I remember when I sat at that bar,
Thoughts in my head colliding like car crashes-
I was in the process of emptying my bones and my wallet-
I just got paid that morning.
I was already floating on the stool,
But it wasn't enough
Because you were still crossing streets in my mind
Picking at the last garden on the corner of the crashes
Calendulas and canna lilies
Lightly decorating my frontal lobe-
I wanted you gone.

Later that night,
I went back home
To my haunting four walls
Lines of poetry on the knives
Ready to jab you like nobody else could
Lines of thrill on the table
Cutting edges of my desolation
Just a cheap trip
To somewhere you aren't

It's easier to not think about you
Because you take too much from me
And give nothing in return.
In my body,
I have nothing.
You took my persona,
And I was so vulnerable
I sold the inner working in my bones for 30% off
And a pack of cigarettes.

I'm only filling voids you created
But I'm running out of sources,
If I leave right now-
If I'm off this earth in the morning,
What would you do with the parts you took?
this is a mess, but it's just my mood right now.
kayla Jan 2018
over a year
of waiting for the agony to takes its course
the pacing in my room at two in the morning
quick breaths toppling each other, never to catch up to my lungs
i never got the chance to unknot—
to replant my roots into someone new
or into different floorboards
yet i was too restless to flourish
into what i assumed was supposed to be my "awakening"
but see, my nerves were too messy and tangled
and i was impatient
so i let the wires undo themselves
or should i say waited—
because it never happened
so more and more nerves connected and collided
creating a construction of clumsiness and clustered words
isolation was becoming me
and i was becoming isolation.

from sitting in my room for far too long,
i have cuts on my hands and scars on my mind
too many anti-psychotics and psychedelics
soon enough, i was melting into my office chair
with sorrow sitting next to me, patting my back
leaving burn marks on my upper right shoulder—
they still ache time to time
and if i was really up there,
my heart would talk to me about the agony
and how it's always picking pieces from my ribs and throat
causing me to speak less and think more
but she did say that it was passing,
that i must be patient—
that was seven months ago.

a week after that talk,
i began traveling further passed that state
trying to talk to agony itself
i was so out of it
my bones weren't bones
and my feet were tingling,
but i had to keep traveling.
i was tired of waiting;
i couldn't keep up with the pacing
i was growing weak
and i just wanted a break
but, i never got to him,
and i never got that break.

and that's why i have bags under my eyes
because the sadness ran out of places to hide so
it hid under the deprivation—
agony was coming
but it was just passing through.
this is unfinished, and does this even make sense?
  Jan 2018 kayla
haley
love is not a safe word
it’s one haiku revised 400 times
on cracked leather chairs in the corner of cafés

some of us love badly
she says as she kisses the rim of her glass.
some of us love stretched out
like pizza dough that rips when our rolling pin rolls it too thin.

some of us love in secrecy
we do not trust your hands.
you try to pull our scalp off and draw your portrait on our mind

some of us love clean
like bubble bath that smells like lavender from some fancy store in the mall
some of us love *****
we cant clean you off our skin

some of us kiss with our teeth
some of us braid our lovers into our hair
and when we remove the hair tie
it is crimped and messy and tangled

some of us love love
but only far from home
when we slip into bed we start thinking
and we can’t stay still

some of us wash our clothes even when they don’t smell
or aren’t stained
just because it feels like you are inside of our shirts and pants and sneakers

some of us walk alone past your house
on the way to ours
and stop at the front step
waiting for you to come out
and smile at us
the only thing we wait for today
are the smudged signatures of snails
scrawled across your pavement

some of us love to the bone
until there are no more “ifs”
just “is” and “are”
the collected poems of our fingers
swollen, bruised, red like a bouquet of roses

some of us love
and we regret it
we never get home in time for dinner because of it, we leak like a faulty faucet, we sleep with our pillows over our heads to keep everything in
but some of us love
some of us own a watch and know the time with a glance at our wrist, some of us own a sponge to soak up the water, some of us own satin pillows that feel like whispers on our cheekbones

— The End —