there's a few ways it manifests
just in every way
                                    some small tinge of preference
      erupts into a spiraling sink drain

dragging me into the dirt
                                                        of my own self worth

broken down by my fascinations until
                                       a new picture emerges

a different perspective
                                                           maybe this time better?

                            almost always worse




because I'll never deserve it

If there was nothing
Would you have left?
If there was nothing,
Could you say it with your chest?
As if the matter between us
Split the sky
Your hips
And my thighs
A tigh -tening
Grip
And the curve of your lips
I never noticed
Don’t retreat
Because you’re scared
To meet me
In my room
Under my skin
Beneath the clothes
Hell bent
Give in
Give in
Give in

if you don't think about me,

how'd you do it?

if jesus died for a passion
why can't i?

sense is nonsensical
the way i stretch my fabric legs across concrete
                                         man made
synthetic                and                        septic

the trees blow in the breeze
                      beyond me
there's no pattern to the sway
though it makes sense
                                               in a way

sense is nonsensical
and i wish i could release the weight of my brain
drift into the wind with the tree's sway
if i'm lucky,

                         forget my own name

I find it exhausting to slow the mind
I find it exhausting to keep up

i wish i hadn't spent as much time
                                    fantasizing
i wish i hadn't spent as much time
                                   idealizing

because I passed a stop sign on the road
somewhere in monroe
and i cried
and i cried
and i pounded the steering wheel with tired hands
and i thought about how you abandoned me

i miss the heights of the bridge
above rushing water
i miss throwing pine straw in the cold
when my sadness grew hotter

i miss black coffee in bed
and endless songs
i miss learning the drums
and the long
                                                  saturday afternoons

the blues in your eyes turned from water to ice
the last time you looked at me,

when i realized you aren't nice
                                                                                          anymore.

my hair isn't as blonde as it used to
but i still use my purple shampoo

it reminds me of you
                    and how you liked the way it turned your hands blue

i got to hold you yesterday

                               all seconds of the day

and bring a smile to your face
on a difficult monday

i hate the tears in your eyes
but i'm so glad i get to wipe them
  
                                  before they dry

it's easy to digress and stress
over predetermined endings
and inevitable sadness
pain granted by the calling for its opportunity
in efforts not to rule out the possibility

it's easy to build bones thicker than walls
of resentment and regret
when the brick and mortar are laid
by the weak foundation that caused it to break

it's easy to place hate in the hands of owing grace
and half smiles face the tides
of even keeled
untimely fate

it's easy to blame the sand
for causing the waves to break
in forgiveness and space
no landslide wretched,
i always remained

with all the change, there was always space
in the marrow of my bones, i built homes
for you and me
plenty
for each time you may leave

and each time i will hope patiently
because maybe
it could be
                   or maybe it couldn't

let's just not rule out the possibility

i'm not certain why i thought i might hear from you on my birthday,

you always had a hard time remembering it anyway

i prayed for this
now i don't want it

the highs fly by and my eyes can't catch any moments
i ride on attention and affection

i spend time between the sheets with people i'm dying to meet
and wake in the morning begging for solitarity

i pathologize my feelings
and
i want to be alone but my thoughts are my loudest company

my brain is stuck in cyclical relentlessness
i speak to myself and somebody else answers

i keep my room tidy, so they'll think of me kindly
when they come for my things.

I am okay
it's just extremely ambiguous
              
              A word that holds just as many different meanings as there are languages in the world

i've heard almost every tongue i've encountered use it
           it means the same thing to us all
           it means everything all at once

Am I okay?

I still claw through dense sadness
I still dwell on impenetrable pain
                   I still mask wells of fiery anxiety -- ripping the pit of my stomach
                 I question the validity of my own feelings
    I struggle desperately to heal
                                                                       I'm trying, truly
I'll keep trying.


Because I am okay, I really am.

                                               I'm just within several definitions of that dangerously ambiguous word.

they ask me what my pain feels like,
i say not everything feels like something else

I've been silent on paper
I've been loud in my head
the voices that chatter against my skull
              Reverberations of all my shortcomings, failures,
My narratives of unworthiness

                                  I am my own detriment
                                           my own destruction

I cling to pain and welcome heartache like an old friend

                                     I was born with a broken heart
fragile and shattered
                                  carefully pieces together
                                 bursting at the seams

crushed by the hands i chose to hold it.

i still have your favorite ice cream flavor in my notes
i don't want to forget it
just in case
I still linger on your laugh in the moments off guard, coming across your face on another's page
just in case
i remind myself of the curve of your voice, the tears on your cheeks, and the bulk of porta 800 in my pocket
just in case
i remember the smell of your skin, your ringless fingers laced in mine
just in case
I still hold the breath of our last "i love you"'s in the pit of my stomach
just in case
just in case you change your mind
just in case you come home.

I’m angry with the people who diseased my brain
I’m angry with myself for being weaker than the pain

I grew up five years after breath gave me life.
        I still pray each day that it is 1995
I'd be adequate now
         and whole
I wouldn't have wasted my heart in their         searing cesspools
Incessant uttered pleas, marks that derange the page
Can't harbor the release my contorted heart craves

I wish just now I’d spoken the worst
    I’m so sorry to say that the pain only got worse

talk is cheap - that's why we bought it.

i feel about you the way i feel when i wake up from a good dream:
it wasn't real, i just wanted it to be

if somebody is lousy to everybody but you,
some day you'll be everybody too

i got just what was coming
and you got just what you wanted

i've spent far too long
              compromising my sense of self
grating my back against the broken shards of angry takers

i'm giving my best to the wrong set
               cracking my chest over and over
and before the breach heals
                 i hand the chisel
                         to a new set of hands
unrelenting and unforgiving

                                  i should still remain a light
                                  i should still remain in love

it's all i know how to be
                            all i can see
is the very best of people
                            even if they're mean

there's no glory in this test
i'm just rolling stones up unrelenting hills
                        
                                  ­      hoping for the best

I wish when you said you loved me
       you didn’t have your fingers crossed

i was told i need to let peoples' actions prove their words,
while i've been using their words to justify their actions.

i can try to blame lovers,
    but it's not all their fault
  i'm still learning the difference
between white sugar
                                      and salt

I fit in my body pretty great,
    but not so much in my brain

"your brain is so colorful
                          look how your style has changed
you bring light to the darkness
                       and beauty from your pain"

and words lack in meaning
      but these i can see
                                        they dance to my ears
and ease
                         my bleeding

mourning the loss of people who never existed
you painted a picture


and i believed it.