rarely am i so torn as when i think of all the ways i have failed to love those dear to me

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

i'd like to kiss you once just to see

they look so happy! look how happy they are!

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?

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

my fists are beating themselves again and i dont feel .

my heart is the plate untouched and the last kitten picked from the litter. the wilted wildflower and brown bird. you judge my painted feathers and detest my naked petals. leave me to find solace in the ditch when you spit me from your window as you drive.

been on this earth a whole 18 years and truthfully it feels longer. i'm set in my ways, set in the rhythm of rigid days, set believing morality is an endless maze and people are never who they say.

break! monotony is a dream! monotony is only real on the days you don't scream

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

why is she always crying?
eventually
she will run out of tears.
or maybe
the tears will run out of her.
either way
                                                                ­    there are much better things
to fall for.

depression is back like a prison sentence i forgot i was serving.
freedom felt like a vacation instead of a destination and
summer ended months ago.
there is so much more weight than there used to be but
there is also nothing there and i don't know
how to explain how much slower i'm walking.
i lie more, cry more, sit alone inside more and
i'm left wishing i could go home but
a little voice inside me says
you are.

vulnerability isn't openness,
it's generosity.
you aren't showing yourself to others
you're giving parts away to them.

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.

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

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?

bat me across the room and act
surprised when i don't know
what to do when i get there.
girls like girls because
we tell each other the words
we wish no one had ever
told us, and each time we
internalize them they
taste sweeter. sugary soft
rejection colored blue
like her eyeshadow,
glossy lips and glitter eyelids
masking volcanic rage,
girls like girls because we all
see the cage,
we paint our bodies and its bars
with the same pomegranate
chapstick, we love glitter,
chafing bones and the sawdust
of two girls alone in a
cage, applying chapstick.

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

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?

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 .

gives me a stomach ache.
what am i to say? and to whom?
every letter droops with the
dampness of what they call
'love'
but they call it sweetly,
in sultry tones and trembling
caresses, calling it like
a bird, calling it like they know
it does not care
and does not hear them.
their drooping calls and caresses
hang limply in the air
waiting damp and dull
to be found and lulled
back to a sleep
of threadbare dreams
where 'love' is not a bird
or a heartfelt leap
but a sad saggy poem
full of letters
that droop
as you weep.

it's not that i love you but i really think i could

why do these men dance
as if they own themselves?
as if these dances make them gods--as if
they are not fleas, deliriously
basking in the flames
of mortality;
mayflies.

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.

an iron bar in my chest, pinching my lungs,
my stomach. tears and taunts erupt--recoiling from your
touch, pleading
    crush me
                         set me free .