i am sitting and pressing green paint in misshapen swollen dots on my nail beds and thinking what if i mess this up? i am notoriously bad at fingernail painting and i ruin it and i am also afraid i will ruin myself by loving you.

yes, yes i hear you like a train. my head is all railroads and oceans, but i hear you puffing and whistling he does not love you, he would not love you, he loves her. long hair hazel eye i am not her i cannot be that girl i do not want to be his girl

but i want him to want me
oceans
trains

one more time, she whispers,
she whispers violently, tremulously, like an addict whispers
to the fingernail marks in her skin, like persephone whispers to pomegranate seeds, like sin, and her whispers collect on dollar bills in the wind, and the money flies home but she's still sitting in that bin,

wondering if Hades ever regretted his win

i am worn books and french vocabulary, ice cold chai and steaming earl grey. i am stone stares and eyes watering, uncertainty in silence and sharp decisive conversation. i am shaking hands and reciting poetry during anxiety attacks and i am indie rock showers and top-of-your-lungs pop radio in the car. i am empathy without sympathy, crying in the bathroom stall and i am childhood cartoons and your favorite stuffed animal and the beach in the summer. i am desperate to be alone and desperate to scream and desperate to find someone who knows what i mean and still likes me. i am comfort zone constellations, Orion's belt on every nighttime stroll, i am the hollow tree in the backyard of the house we don't own and i am my handwriting and the words in my poems. i am everything you have made me out to be and i hate that; hate that you see all my flaws so clearly but that isn't all of me and i know that now.

i am the trinkets my grandmother left me and her eyes when she looked at me and the way she cried when she read my poetry. i am a thousand ways i have loved those dear to me and the children who fall asleep on me and the way my cat runs to me and i don't need your or anyone's approval but God's and my own. thanks anyway.

sometimes i talk too much about wanting to die
i don't really and thats why it's too much really
but running out of the doctors office crying
was a lot for someone who talks a lot about dying

and talking gets stale like crackers do and
people don't like stale food or stale words
but i haven't been out in a while
and these words are pretty much
all that i've got. i'm sorry.

can you feel yourself dying?  
do you feel the earth as it burns
as it's turning, twisting
and spiraling so violently
the friction sends sparks
into galaxies? can you taste
the life as it's leaving you?
as it's rippling out of your
fingers and snatching the breath
that's knocked out of you?
do you cringe as your edges
are singed by the fire
surrounding you? as the oceans
subside and the planet decides
that erosion's
just your
point of view.

i look at all of these perilously perfect poems and i want to SCREAM
life, your life, mine is not a dream this is not a picturesque reality
please---can we try for a bit of authenticity? c'mon i mean
we all love roses and the sunset gleam but your life isn't
an oil painting (or a tv screen) so can somebody sit down
and write a few lines about the dull gray sky or how her eyes
looked less like a forest and more like a swamp (with flies)?

yesterday you said i'm the best thing
but if that's true
why do you say i'm bad for you
when the sun goes down

a different sort of nerves
run up and down my spine
this is new, this is taking
breath and spitting out
a lie, chewing on the
tacky bits of life yet
still forgetting you
will die;
because death falls
through the walls
and takes us even
if we cry,
if we lie;
death is deaf to
tacky pleas and
pulls our breath out of
the lungs
beneath our spines.

hm. somehow i missed you,
anxiety. i feel
more myself, this is
familiarity in a
nutshell, i know the
buzz
in my chest cavity
better than i know
myself,
it seems.
i guess i'm not the epitome
of health, these days
late nights
droughts and self-doubt all
seem to take out
the part of me that used
to dream. or think. or
do anything at all
really.
i guess that's okay,
i guess
between loneliness
and fear there's
an alleyway, home,
a place you don't go
until you're there,
realizing more
and more
how easy it is to stay
and how hard it is to care.

grief is fingernails in your palm
when you're standing in a public restroom
wondering why everything feels wrong.

grief is not having worn mascara for four months
because streaked ink-black cheeks isn't a look
you want to be known for.

grief is dancing on the verge of tears
in a math class, because your mind wanders
too often and death looms too large to avoid.

your skyscrapers are just overgrown hairs
gaea has neglected to shave.

dark eyes. laughter.
i don't remember a time
without a smile. were you
as funny as i
though you were? no.
perhaps i just hoped
one day you
would fall for the laughter
in my eyes
like i fell
for the laughter
in yours.

is
      speaking in french, wrapping our tongues around foreign
                                                         ­                                flavors and vowels,
          intertwining with each other,
                                                                ­ whispering
                                                      ­                                  mon amour,
                                                                ­                                my
        love love love love love love
    
what  
                           her hair and his eyes, gold liquidated, pooling
              in glass orbs and strings,

      shards and pools colliding and cascading

love
                          is this truth?
                she takes his hand and mind
       all at the same time and they both cry



what
is
love?

white noise. a fan.
the wind, curling around red sand.
clinging to your memories, your hands,
dripping like lost leaves in a lost land,
the scratching of time on mortal man,

can you feel it
in the back of your mind?
these are the sounds
we wash
and leave behind.

i am the aftermath of war,
the tidings that you dread.
the heart when very sore
in a lonely unmade bed.

i find you in the darkness,
alone at 4am,
when guilt is but a wilderness
and night is at an end.

you see me in the shadows
of a long-forgotten grave;
in alleys that are narrow
and seldom ever paved.

you hear me in the sobbing
of a child lost from home;
in the cries of a wolf howling
at the pale and distant moon.

you call me something different
in each corner of your earth,
but recognize me even in
foreign looks and words.

sorrow is a pretty way
to give despair a name,
but sometimes you cannot say
so much in words so tame.

you keep asking me why i'm trying so hard this time and i don't know what to say because there's not a beautiful way to tell you that i'm scared to death of my own nature, scared of my innate inconstancy but even more afraid of the intimacy i crave. living on a pedestal isn't as fun as it used to be and now even the sky feels like another corner.

turns out i'd rather be in a corner with you.

i am so sorry for the next time i lose myself

her eyes pluck him
like harp strings
sing for me, boy.
do you sell your voice
like you sell kisses?

she does not have strings.
he would not pluck them
if she did.

i stopped thinking about big things a long time ago. i can't tell if i'm any healthier or cooler or if the apathy has improved my complexion. i feel lost, though. lost like a minnow in the wrong body of water, lost like i should be asking "why" instead of "where," like maybe the world is spinning like a top and i'm the fleck of dust it's spinning on. i feel like maybe the security is getting to me, like it's a trap, like maybe everything they told me i was looking for was a lie, a gold-painted idol placed in my hands when i reached for the sky. the sky doesn't show itself to me anymore and i can't figure out why, can't decipher the patches in my ceiling---why are there patches? if this was supposed to be picturesque where are the cameras?

why do i feel just as incomplete as i did before?

i spend a lot of time changing, changing clothes and changing earrings and glasses and world views. my opinions leave me quicker than my eyelashes do, and i don't know how to stick them back on because false eyelashes aren't cheap but they don't sell fake opinions at the dollar store. i don't even know what currency i'd use to buy them---my energy? morals? creativity? all spent and gone months before now. i spend most of my energy trying to become the kind of person people like, or at least admire, or are at least intimidated by. if i can't care about you at least i can make you want me to. is that fair? does my loneliness justify the pedestal i put myself on? pride is my only currency left and i don't know how to diversify. at this point all i know how to say is i'm sorry, i'm sorry i'm constantly a changed person, constantly ridding myself of the baggage tugging on my skin, baggage that sits quietly until i am finally comfortable in my seat, quietly until it screams and i have to start over again. unclipping luggage was never so difficult as a child but then again i didn't have this much.

i think perhaps one day
i will write poetry
the way happy people do.

no inconstancies, the little blips
and commas in places they shouldn't be,
just so.

does this bring hope?
is joy found in predictability?
is contentment in life a reality?

just so. flowers in rows,
the old woman bending over
plucking weeds between her toes.

a period at the end of every
line i wrote. not literally, for lines
and sentence rhymes do not always coincide.

i must break off my thoughts mid-stride
to conform to this three-lined rhyme
forced melody is no poem to me.

yet see how this flows so innocently.
like the little ribboned pigtails of a girl
who has never seen anything bad on t.v.

she isn't me, but neither is this,
coincidentally. but how coincidental
can we be? another few commas and this is over.

not to me. fitting periods where commas
were meant to be is the only skill that comes
naturally.

that, and ****** poetry.
happy people pen happier words that
fit together intuitively. not me.

i think our souls will wrap around each other forever.
every moment we spend together feels like
dangling on a precipice and
coming home.
i think our souls will wrap around each other forever.

do you ever feel like you're falling out of your frame

a sort of desperation rises from the pit in my stomach and my hand darts out to catch her as she turns. “liza, i--”

“no!” she yanks away. “you can’t just come back here like this.” she looks to the side, looking at anything but me. “i can’t handle this, nick,” she whispers. “i can’t handle you.” her eyes are shining when they finally meet mine. “you and i, we’re too much. i can’t think about anything when i’m with you, and you,” she trails off and takes another step towards the door. “you never think at all.”

today i realized that it might not matter how hard i try. i might not be able to fix myself. i don't know how to connect. everything and everyone gives me anxiety and bores me and confuses me and i don't know what type of interactions and words to select HAGSDJUSKRVYEURSYBEISEVBRKHVFDJHJ

sitting on the corner of depot and main and i'm staring into the forehead of a bleach tan middle ager with a plaid shirt that looks like easter died. im good except i thought summer was like a door with an exit sign but i forgot it's not always greener at the end of the ride

are there ends to these rides? the speed fluctuates faster than i'd like sometimes, i don't know how to adapt to
anything, really.

coping is hard i'll give them that much. no one to call. no one inside me feeling like trying at all.

i always rhyme by the end of these
spreading wings at the end of it all
but i was never too good with estimates
and fast
we
fall

“i am tired of dreaming about you,” i try desperately to sound indifferent, but my eyes are watering and he knows he knows he knows--

he smirks, closing the gap between us with only a step. “i am the only thing you will ever dream about,” he murmurs.

she begins speaking and the words flow smoothly. the language is seductively soft, like a snake's hiss before it sinks in its teeth. the fear in their eyes is justified but i am too familiar with death to fear it. death is an old master.

she’s new.

“why would you intentionally allow someone to wield power over you? you step perfectly in place for them to checkmate you.”

“yes,” i say with a smile. “that’s the point.”

she scowls. “losing?”

“giving enough of yourself to another person that you have something to lose.”

it's that time of the year
again
full of dry skin and
dryer eyes
emotions feeling like
woollen sweaters
in the sunlight
feeling like regret, feeling
like very not right
feeling like the whole season
makes you sleepy, makes it night
darker mornings, darker times
and it's well known
we all feel a little more alone
at night.

flower petals fall into the sky
with all the righteous anger
they deserve
but they don't cry. they know
there are enough raindrops
in an autumn grey sky.

you know two months ago i was still trying to make these rhyme and now i'm using a scalpel just to extract the words from my lungs, fumbling and failing to fit them together on the page, wondering if writing is killing me or keeping me sane, fitting thoughts into so-called poetry almost as easily as the rings i fit on each finger before i leave for the party i'm not wanted at. i could keep drafting these and waiting a day to publish each or i could accept the fact that my habits and realities will never coincide with the apathy they hope to see in me (even though really they hope i'm never wanted because then i'm a threat, or a tease) and while i may never be self-aware enough to cease i see enough of me in your eyes to know i shouldn't care anymore what you think of me.

i'm scared of you. are you scared of me? my fear replaces your face in my dreams. does your body ripple up and down like acid is eating your bloodstream? the ribbons in my arteries ache as they're trembling. i wrap my ribbons slowly and sweetly and tightly and they're trembling. are you scared of you? i'm scared of me.

WOOP it is all the same with u isn't it, my aquatic lover? would you please! take a moment to keep the drain in place. what EXACTLY did you think would happen when you told all the fish they were insignificant
now the waterlilies spit bile and the dolphins scream

baby, you wanted FREEDOM

                                                     these tsunamis didnt need your pity

sick!!!!!!!!!!!! shaky shaky
can you hear the paper in my lungs
like i can

i can hear it

i can hear it like i hear
the screaming of anonymous
mouths
in my obsessive
compulsive mind
i hear it like the
cries of a pummeled boy
who cries

do you peel skin off your fingers? do you rock back and forth
on the floor in the bathroom on the floor

why am i in the bathroom why did i lock the door????

you run from this i run from this
we all run from this like we run
from uncertainty even when we
make it pretty in our poetry it's
not pretty we're not pretty
there's paper in my lungs.

cut it up breathe it in
listen like paper breaths
sound like violins
what an orchestra these paper cuts
become when you listen
when you hum
and the paper sits in your lungs.

i’m realizing freedom is in reach and it always has been. i don’t have to change the things around me or inside me. nurturing gratefulness and peace and love has never been easier or more rewarding. i'm remembering the reasons i gave myself away in the first place and they seem silly now. the loneliness i associated with myself was always a lie—my independence and strength lack nothing but the things i never needed in the first place.

it's the clutter that gets me
down
i can't stop seeing
it ev
erywhere
its here
there
in the place between
the bed
and the
chair
i want it to be gone gone gone gone
i'm always waiting for th
god i wish i didn't
do a
nything
wrong
i want to be purged of
every
memory hanging
from my head
i never
wanted
this
never thought
they'd still be here
i'd still be here
nothing's as temporary
as we need it to be
and
permanence
scares me.

i think we all have that one person we know
could have changed us

i know i do. i know every time i see your picture i think that could have been mine and i know when you see me you see a missed opportunity but there's no going back now and sometimes doors only open once. and it's not that i want that life, i didn't want it when i lived it, didn't want the place or the people or the rules but i always wanted you.

i think if i kissed you just once maybe i wouldn't regret everything else. maybe then it would be worth it.

i know you think of me sometimes.
please think of me sometime.

i am a small girl and many think i am harmless. i am disarming. i am smiles and laughter and the way your eyes look when you feel understood. i am the light in your irises.

i am a small girl and many think i am harmless. i am charming. i am small touches on your cheekbones and feeling your fingers interlacing through mine. i am the warmth of a lie.

i am a small girl and many think i am harmless. i am alarming. i am your heartbeat when it falters in your chest. i am regret. i am the shaking of your voice and your hands when the anger inside you coats your lips and tongue in red.

i am harming. i am salt in a wound that i created, the only cure that keeps disease aggravated, shards of glass in the water that keeps you alive.

you thought i was harmless. i lied.

it's probably not okay to cry in the stairwell of a building you share with like a thousand other people. right?

New York City is all existential lust and anxiety
personally,
all the words and phrases catching on
each other's faux fur coats and
the way your lips frame love is different than
mine,
and it's like dreaming
or a drug, dancing and dazzling from a thousand feet above
the skyline isn't as cool as they said,
it's hazy and gray (like your eyes), and
i love it

drink up, kid--you've got a while to run,
there's pervert politics and the summer sun
and take the *****, kid--you'll need it for sure
don't follow roads, don't tell them where you were
got any news, kid? we've been hiding out
stayin' outta this town, away from the crowd
buy me new shoes, kid, i know you got cash
you been talkin' to the papers, gettin' kinda rash
what'd they promise you, kid? safety? fame?
lies. you know they're just saving face
and i hope you got a plan B or C, kid
reporters are trash but they messin' with big ****
change your name, kid. (fly to Spain--quick!)
you messin' with snakes, and you're about to get bit, kid!
here's your lesson now, listen real good
gonna tell you once, then i'm gone for good:
better keep your tongue in your head next time
or your body gone be ****** and the fault not mine.

firelight flickers in her irises
as she takes another step away
from the candlelit corridors
she used to call home,
when she was comatose,
when she drifted
like ashes in the wind,
like dying sparks
floating dimly
in a darkening sea--
like he used to look
when he looked
at me.

the dark eyed girl holding the needle is confused. why
would anyone want her eyelids tattooed?
i get it, i do--but it's barely a bruise, barely
a sign that they've ever been used--
and yeah, it's new--it's even strange
it's even enough to think me deranged
but i'm almost done, almost out of pain
almost completed the list of flaws under
my name.
my name
my name my name
my flaws make a laundry list worthy of fame
and they all knock about behind walls behind name
and i can't get them out without playing the game
so i tattoo my flaws on my skin on my pain
desperate for saving of name and of fame
stretched, wretched, falling, lame
too many rhymes and i'll ruin the game
too many words and they're all the same,
too many people are calling my name,
and i
and i
and i
and i
drooping in places, veils on my eyes
is this a disguise? am i beyond lies?
with truths on my neck and my nape and my thighs?
look at the skies.

silence is riddled with death and with flies
look at her eyes.

when roses sip poisonous drinks
do they poison our minds?

do poisonous drinks tattoo their mistakes
on their eyes?

"esmeralda."

“it certainly slides off the tongue, doesn’t it,” i say. her eyes are the darkest shade of blue i’ve ever seen. remarkable.

“no,” she says, chin up. “but neither do i.”

apology... accepted.
how is it i am meant to return fire with
a smile
i take every blow with the grace
i could never find in you.
do you rip kindness out of me
for the hell of it
or because you can't find
your own?

as i drive away from the cigarette town where my tattoo and blue mascara relatives stay i take off my yellow shades and sputter, blowing away the curry-clumpy feeling in my lungs that whispers you are all the same .

you’re the only person i feel safe talking to and somehow even that scares me.

safety. terrifyingly illusory. i wish i could pick and choose my fears, decide for myself what was worth my anxiety, worth hours and hours of tears and self-lies. i don’t know how good i have to be to have made it, how far i have to go to feel at home in myself.

sometimes i think you might be
a crutch
but without you it's a bit
too much.

i’m looking around and realizing slowly that i am boring. for all my pride and perfectionistic tendencies, my life became everything except the things i truly wanted. i have the safety, the reputation, the social circle—but where is my art? i've spent so long becoming someone, i forgot everything i wanted to create. after all, it's only the things outside of ourselves that outlive us.