i guess problem-solving becomes a skill when
you need it to survive. i wish i could learn
something i could use to thrive.

i am
afraid.



other people with their loves
               losses
              and lives
                                            and i sit here,
                                      filled and falling in fear
                                      grasping strips of veins
                     and drinking from rain
                                                            ­            pretending i
                                                                ­    don't
                                                                ­care.

stop DRIVING me INSANE
i ask for NOTHING and you still disappoint.
i just want you.
you just want destruction.

the government shoots half of us with poison darts
and the other half with vaccines
and as the venom slides through our veins
the vaccinated half screams
why are you crying? we felt the same pain! .

have you seen the way she holds them? she holds them in her eyes.

when you forget what healthy feels like
and blue veins rise up from your skin
do your lungs fight? does the heat bite?
do blue fingernails mirror your bruises
blue like a little lighter's light?

a single daffodil
burns
in the shadows
of the earth
as it turns
and we
still
can't
speak.

(do the comets sing?
                                             do ten thousand asteroids whisper when        
                                             our kisses sting?)

someday i want to be with someone who doesn’t make me afraid to embarrass myself. i don’t really know how to get to that point in a relationship or why i need it so badly. i guess i’m afraid that no one will ever think i’m worth the work. i don’t know that i am.

no matter how hard i work i just build a bigger wall. in my effort to impress and attract i conceal everything i truly want validation for. i know validation is a bad word sometimes, i know i’m not supposed to need it--much less know i need it--but sometimes i choke on the sawdust of my own apathy and truth might be bitter but at least it has a taste.

i know your truth tastes better than mine, and maybe that makes you better than me. i’ve tried changing truths and i’ve tried pretending i don’t have any but even artificial flavoring has an aftertaste impossible to avoid.

maybe someday i won’t equate embarrassment with shame, and i won’t feel the need to change my name. shedding identities to avoid coming to terms with them is an impermanent lifestyle but it’s the only one that fits. i’m sorry sometimes i can’t see past what i need to fix.

. what are you so afraid of
                  my inability to feel
                  my heart
               as it pumps blood and beats
                              in my ears, my elbows,
                              the cords in my neck
         the violet pulsing
         the violence

the very freckles on my back, rippling and
writhing, telling me
                                                   be very afraid .

do the fingernail marks in my skin make me tough? enough? do
they prove anything about me, prove my worth, prove that
maybe
pain inside me
exists
               am i
                   enough
                           for you  
                                   for once?

they look so happy! look how happy they are!

i asked you to share yourself and
you told me there wasn't
time
or trust
and i said if we don't make it,
there never will be

i am not the victim of my circumstance i am its
creator.
you feel that i hide myself but if i do
i forget where.
at this point any word that comes
from my mouth feels half-formed.
i don't think
i can be the glue
to fix this one.
you prefer me broken.

i feel so trapped by everyone else's thoughts about me i can't stop caring and changing myself to fit the their best preferred version of me and i can feel myself dying and twisting trying to be the person they all separately think i should be. mutually exclusive realities living in the heads of people better than me who try to force their opinions and truths upon me ruthless and regardless of how far i have to bend to be satisfying. i feel shriveled and scared and unsure of how to proceed if at all. is it feasible to leave? is it possible to abandon the only things i see guiding me? i have always hated control and now i can see it lives inside of me. even now, thinking about how you will respond, how everyone will see me. you, talking to you thinking 'there is a easy solution to this' THERE IS NEVER AN EASY WAY OUT for me. i easily identify my own character flaws please refrain from pointing them out for me.

i scrape by with poems and songs and each of them says "there is purpose, there is love," and I hoard them as my senses ring and touch turns intangible and the music sings "you are something, God
i don't know what,
but you're something."

someone once told you that your bitterness was like dark chocolate,
a delicacy, something unusual and rich and exquisite.
i'm here to tell you that even the bitterest of chocolate is sweet
compared to you.

and maybe i'm stupid or dumb but i never craved ******* love i just wanted someone to fall back on.

romance is lovely but butterflies are overrated.
i just want to laugh and feel at home.

yeah man, anxiety's not real i mean,
it's O.K. to be shy and all, but let's not be DRAMATIC,
your lungs look perfectly fine from here, why r u gasping? lol
for god's sake, get out of bed and take an aspirin
what's that? your hands shake? you must be cold (on a summer day?)
hey, why's your sleep schedule so ******?
if you ask me, that's why you have anxiety
if bad thoughts keep you up at night, just don't think!
problem solved. ;)
i think i have a career as a SHRINK

the ants in my veins dont bite me anymore
was it something i did? are they dead?

or is there just less to feed on?

every place i turn i see
my own sadness staring
back at me, i know
you say you're there
behind the glass
but seeing past my reflection
feels like an impossible task.
the floor is so inviting,
i know they say
isolation is harming
but i crave it; if i could escape
the company of my own sadness
i think the mirrors
might finally break.
i know you think it's you
i'm running from but i'm just
trying to find a room where
i don't have to look up.
yes, i haven't looked you
in the eyes in a while.
sadness is a curtain
i don't know
how to
draw.

i never understood people who liked those who weren't good for them.

then i met you.

we tell
each other
"you belong to yourself"
like that is
something
to be proud of.

i am glad
to say i do not
belong
to me. i am flimsy,
ever-changing,
and insignificant.

i am proud
to say i do not
belong to you.
you are illusory,
holding a pretense
of stability
you could never defend.

i belong
to nothing
but Someone, and
i see you in flowers
and sunsets
and love.

you tell me
"i belong to you
and you to me"
like we are
something
to be proud of.

heavy fog seeps in my eyes
i cant cry
thudding and whimpering all at
the same time
feeling less and numb and
sitting stone faced,
dumb,
wondering how much of me
is left, and less, and gone
depressed,
and done
nowhere to run
or hide
as the fog thickens
in my mind.

we're all scared of something. heights, caves, clowns, darkness, flight
the way your heart beats mid-fight
the light
in your eyes
fading

degrading,
becoming the person you once hated,

i have those fears,
i do
but i also know that these
material things don't last, don't
affect us as much
as the things
we touch
with our minds,
our forgotten
and rotten
desires

snakeskin folded in our arteries
everyone i don't ,wanna please
and between it all
death

in a thousand
tiny
flicks
of your wrist

                                      is this
                               my disease?
.

but Are we scared of dying or of Being alone?

every time i say it out loud it becomes less
real, less of a big
deal. i don't know if this is what coping feels like
or if i am trivializing myself. i think
some things aren't meant to be said, but i
desperately want to be heard.
when broken orchestras turn to whispers,
do you listen? do you see instruments
behind my words?

It's another loveless Sunday Afternoon
and between the gray sky and the
responsibilities that pile up
faster than October's drooping leaves,
I'm lost,
wondering if I missed my exit
or if I'm just meant to feel this way.

when i am angry
                     there is no fire,
         no directed flame,
         my anger is acidic, carving its way
     from my fingertips and lips,
                                                        burning everything it touches.



                                           a pool of acid means whatever was there went out screaming .

i draw flowers and spirals
up and down my arm and they
casually
ask if i want
tattoos.
as if permanence
isn't
terrifying.

daisy daisy blue berry
when you touch my arm i feel
like i can carry
more than i would ever
allow myself. you're lovely and i'm
two steps too broken up
about a life i've never
broken into. used shoes and
worn shirts comfort me
more than my
choices do. asking for
peace and
happiness feels like
the opposite of what
i want it to.

crack it. my Finger stiff of cold. she doesn't care but i do, typing pop pop on keys too soft to snap. I'm full of **** and **** faced of me, praying for A New Thing to come along, any new thing works for me. hm. Wild Thoughts and yikes a little too much Love From Me. affectionate failure is still Bad when I am pretty.

bad things come here when i Say More Words than for me. Hold trinkets of apathy. Drop me.

maybe the key was not something i had to look for,
but something that found me.

i still care for you.
in a small, true way
this piece of me
is always you.

sicky sick raw edges of my tongue from the empty
wrinkled bag on
the floor where i tossed it earlier like a hour
or something ago and i
haven't let the words go
recently they haven't
wanted to leave i keep scraping at them to leave me the ****
alone
but here i am instead (again) with raw edges and
a poem like an empty
wrinkled bag full of regret

alone

my hands are trembling with infuriating intensity and she just stands there, eyes shining and hands fumbling like they always do. looking at me like she always does—like i am someone, or worth something, but she’s always been wrong.

friendships are hard to form and easy to break.
who came up with that

love,
except what i see
in you.

i stand at the doorway and know where it goes.
i keep knocking and i wait for anyone but this ******* self.

who is my self? different people held together by a string? a shelf? a suitcase of forgotten touches and bad health?

i forget myself over and over again.
where are you?

we wait. together on the doorway, opposite sides.
no plant hangs from me.

freedom lays where you left her. bring her with you next time.
i wait at the doorway and stop.

knock.
hello me.

shallow breaths feel like punches
who is in this room
who is here who is
am i about to die?

blinking like the stars blink
frozen, burning,
here, lost between
the dark and what's sane

croaking, a deathbed whisper
whispers slip into the sheets
whispers feel like raindrops
in desert heat

two statues in red as the bird growls. the small chatter of a bear in flight, chattering and the clouds fall into it. fairy light toads pop into the windows of her sweater. she is alone! and the popcorn sizzles. cooking another tea bottle, another burning cup! she eats it and her fingernails grow. contentment in the soul comes with leaves. soup them together! grow his hair! wrap yourself in shower water and breathe outward. the inward air grows stale and forgets its leaves. remember.

two deer walk together in the Deep Sea. neither better or alone. she holds them until her fingers bleed. red dowries.

this sort of rattling,
battling
in my chest
i did not ask for it,
they did not say
the trembling would start
in my veins, would start
driving me insane, would leave me
begging for pain, begging
for any feeling that made
me feel the same,

the way i did
last year.

come back to me when you finally realize
you can't find peace within yourself

i'd love to talk.

fling words into the keyboard and try not to cry

why would i bother trying to make my words appease you? we are two equal wholes of this and i still look for you to complete me.

girl asked boy
what is your favorite sky?

boy replied
i only know one sky. how could i know another?

girl replied
does not the sky change face from morning to night?
do you mistake bloated stars for clouds?
does sunset's passion taste so similar to the hope of the morning's blue?

boy shrugged
if the colours of the sky change with or without my recognition, why should i waste my time?

.

crumpled t-shirts pile up
like regrets
every empty cup
an inner mess
do your notebooks
feel like failures?
do you leave lost dreams
on broken hangers?