gently
so gently
you pulled the
threads loose,
set me free

but the relief lasted
barely a moment -
you tied me to
you, chained me,
and even after
you decided
you didn't want me
anymore

you left me
with the shackles
and the bruises
and the empty bed
and the sheets
that still smell
like you.

do you remember the siren in my throat?
the howl of her, the empty vessel?
do you think of me sometimes,
think of how often my fingers
unmade the buttons at the
collar of your longing? how I
unlaced the cement that held
your damaged pieces together
into something resembling
personhood? how you painted
me with the blood of your amnesiac
sins, how I came to be the shrine
of all your broke and all your
bent? do you ever wonder how I
look now, draped around new
frames and coaxed by honey
that drips from new fingers?
do you ever miss those nights,
the half-light of the bathtub, the
shrine of bare thighs and the
drip drip drip as you watch me
melt into something black and
shimmering on the surface maybe
like blood maybe like nothingness and do
you desperately try to take handfuls
as I slip away like sinking ocean down the drain?

I just
    want
            to go
                                              back.

maps are for lost
fools, going in predictable
directions, too afraid
of the unknown.
they'll never step off
the concrete, never feel
the rub of untouched
brush against their skin
or the adrenaline of
where the **** am I?
they play by the rules,
in lust with their cookie
cutter by the book lives.

maps. charted journeys.
these things don't interest me.
i want scrapes up and
down my arms and legs
because i dared venture too
deep. i want bruises and
bleeding because i got lost,
too lost. i want to get lost.
i want to lose the map.
i want to lose my little
here dot, the one that
follows me, red and angry
because i don't stay on the
path to that cookie cutter
life.

i want off this route. this
one that leads only to
                                  y o u.

Skin electric
Words of mindless mangle
Trace the curve of your hips
Trickle along the stretch of thigh
Pools around your toes
Where the world used to lie
One moment of weakness made permanent
Scored in by blade and ink
Scarred friction

so torn between
two mouths
that I almost
would rather
choose neither.

kiss me like I’m the last thing you’ll ever taste

the jagged pieces
left behind
are too many
to hold
now

they cut my
fingers
leave my skin

bleeding
and raw

and i can't
put them down
can't give them
back

they were gifts,
right?

Quiet now, they whisper.
Their fingers are like paintbrushes on my skin
Leaving deep red welts instead of paint smears.
Careful now, they hiss,
Their fingers to my lips and it burns and burns.
I cannot scream, they’ve shoved my sound deep
Into my chest, and it thrums there, boiling and burning
Thrashing like a caged animal.
Still, so still, looking into a black mirror
And the only thing I see is myself;
I can’t help but feel I’m drowning under water
But there is air in my lungs, however harsh it may be.
My reflection stares at me with the blankness of a porcelain doll.
Cold, quiet, smiling in a way that I am not
The body I am in does not smile,
But my reflection does.
She smiles wide and vicious, blinking in deceitful innocence.
And she moves out of the glass, the smoky tendrils
Of her fingertips
Wrap around my wrists, painting all the way down to the bone
And the rest of them silence my screams.

he said,
"please stay."
and so she did.

for a little while.

Long ago, you planted lilies
in my ribcage, roses in my jaw
coaxed them to life, you fed them fire.
The roses grew thorns…
the lilies grew crooked

They got hungry in your absence,
******* at the metal inside. Quietly,
they began to die, turned black like bruise.  
Rotting and wilted, they slip to the floor,
still smelling like you.

plucked
the flowers
from my ribs
whispering,
love me,
love me not.

they left blood
smears across
my skin, left
dead petals
at my feet.

left me the
altar of love
that will never
be mine.

burns, seared
into my flesh -
every mistake,
every wrong
turn, every lie,
everything
I have ever done.
can you see it?
feel the heat of it?
I live in  fear
of the day
you touch
my skin again
and read it on me
like braille.

Dear writers (and artists and songwriters and poets, etc),

Tell me,

When the thing that drives your heartbeat no longer belongs to you

What do you do with the things you made?

Because surely, most of your work is based on this particular muse

Because I see things laced with love and adoration

And I wonder

I wonder

When that adoration no longer exists in you

How could you possibly look at the words you wrote with tenderness

Or the masterpiece you painted in their image

Or the song you painstakingly pieced together note by note in honor of the way they kiss goodnight

And not want to destroy it?

i have lost people
i love dearly
to my own doings
and yet you
have caused more damage
combined.

never laid a hand on me
but i am still more bruised
than i have ever been -

and you ride your carousel,
hiding your grief in woman
after woman and maybe
you did love me as much
as you said

but maybe you loved me
for what i did for you
and when i stopped
you stopped

and around and around
you go.

waiting is
familiar, the
particular silence
of night, the
particular stillness
of music as
background to
dark. the hum
of outside and
the plaintive
whine of bathwater
down the drain.
it is the loneliness
of a blue screen,
waking up long
after the movie
finished and everyone's
gone to bed except you.
they leave you like
this, hollow and wanting
and it feels oddly
impersonal - like
leaving you wasn't
a conscious thought
and how improper
that you feel so slighted.
you are afterthought,
not worthy of goodnight
or goodbye or even
a glance on the way out.
you feel the weight
of tepid bathwater
past collar bones
past ribs, past
elbows, past ankles.
it leaks out along with
your hope, your hope
that someone is waiting
for you - it is only
you waiting for the
love you crave, waiting
for the answer to longing
in your bones and the
need that ripples
through your blood. it
is your passion for alone
yet the anguish at alone
and you are alone and alone
and alone and you wait.

The truth is
It’s 5:05 in the morning and sleep is at an impasse
With the coffee I had for dinner last night, today, this morning—
Time moves so slowly when it’s morningdark and
So many others are beginning their days while
I have yet to finish mine.
You are not among them,
Lurking just as I do somewhere in an inbetween;
You sit heavy in my thoughts
Anchoring them in an uncomfortable place,
Torn between missing you and hating you.
You are the poison in my system,
You’re that third cup of coffee keeping me deliriously awake.
But you’re also my miraculous antidote,
The full night’s sleep teasing
My bloodshot eyes and my perma-fried nerves.

Because the truth is, I love you more and more each day
Reaching a boiling point every time the sun finally gets to kiss the moon
hello, good morning
For the briefest of moments before he must say once more
farewell, goodnight.
The truth is, my love, I’ve spent all these nights missing you terribly
And I fear you’ve scarcely
Thought of me
At all.

I always feel like something's missing.

eventually I'll stop writing about you.
I miss you, in a way. I still love you,
in a way. probably always will.
but after awhile, after it sets in,
you will evaporate. you will stop
being in the foreground of my
waking mind. even now, the space
you occupy is so small. more or less
of a habit, I suppose. the habit
of thinking of someone you loved
for four years. you on my mind
is a knee-**** reaction. I guess I
thought since I did the leaving,
it wouldn't be like this. I thought it
would be like ripping off the band-
aid. the residue that's left rinses off
with a little water, a little soap, a little
scrub. oh, no. you are wound. healing,
but still bruised, still sort of aching.
but you are an exit wound now, the
memory of an injury that will come to
pass. someday, you won't even be
background. you'll be the faintest
whisper of somebody I used to know,
a trace of somebody I used to be.

I don't know how to tell you
but you're my glue.
I'm sorry I came to you in
sharp shards and broken pieces
and sometimes those pieces cut you,
but you're my glue.
you're the thing that holds all
those little bits of me together.
you keep me whole and
you keep me sane
and you'll never know
but you're my glue.

did you know?
when you laid hands
on this fire skin the
flames that licked
underneath?
did you see the
way your palm
seared itself into
my skin? marks like
that rarely last
but days and
days
and days
later,
that mark is
still there

and god, I realized
how you pulled
me out of that
burning abyss
I realized
you
saved me
from drowning
in this ocean
of myself
and I can't
thank you
enough
but god I'm
sorry for the
way things still come
out of my mouth
like terrified
little
whispers

I'm sorry I'm
still wading in this
river of fear
because I know
you're nothing
like what
came
before
you
but I'm scared
I'm still
there
you know?
that girl
from before
and I are
nothing alike these days but I feel her sometimes creeping under my skin telling me you loved a monster you are a monster he'll never love you nothing will ever be okay just wait for the day he leaves and you forget how to catch your breath

I don't know how to
shut her up, but I know
neither of us deserves
her breathing down our
necks
but know
just know
I am
so grateful
for the way
you don't
put me
back together
but the way you
hold onto me
while I do
it
my
*self

you broke me, you know.
it doesn't matter, though.
I've never really been whole
but you left me more of a
battlefield than I've ever
been, and it wasn't until
I was looking at the wreckage
that I really understood
the casualties. and I hate
you for it. I hate that I stand
on the precipice of happiness
and wholeness, and all I can
really see is that battlefield.
all I can really feel is that
vast terrifying emptiness
and not enoughness that you
drowned me in for years. all
I feel is the terror that I'm
going to **** this up,
because I'm not enough. that
I'm going to be left behind
because I'm worth nothing
to no one. and god I never
want to go back to being that
girl I was when I was with you,
the girl whose worth depends
on who she's with. I hated
her. I hated how she catered
to your every whim, I hated
how she swallowed her pride
and her heart every single day
so you could feel good.
you ****** me up and
I don't know how to undo
those years of degrading and
shame and cheating and
lies and anger and misery
and it's the ******* worst
story in the world. the girl
who stayed in the terrible
relationship, and now,
staring down the barrel
of something good,
all I want to do is run.

******* for that.
******* for everything.

letting go is an art form,
untangling from the fears
and the what ifs -
i realize they do not just
vanish, and therein lies
the art.

Bleeding aches wait for days
Feeding on deliriously intertwined wounds
hungry
thigh
adoration
Bruise-claimed jaws and darkened hips don’t mind.
Exhale thorns minded inside by pretty electric blood
And nonsense moves the whiskey inside
Miraculous, macabre cancer.
Hello, our thoughts embraced,
Fed false weakness and colored reason,
The suns of souls fighting our own black shame.

Piece by piece, I'd let you take me apart; a mind, a body, a soul
Hidden between blood and sinew and bone
Destruction is a pretty, pretty thing when done by your hand.
Put me together, macabre puzzle of your own making
Skyscraper mural by your own design.
My love, you could have me so completely if only you knew how.

this body is not a canvas for your deepest demons to be smeared across. it is not the foundation for your falling house wishes or your grand estate failures. it is not divine, it is not hallowed ground, do not pepper it with prayer. there will be no answer. this body is a howling wasteland and the creatures brave enough to venture near will be your violent undoing. it is angry ocean and you are a sinking ship; it will accept your anchors but not your pleas.

this body is not love it is not worship it is hell and I am its prisoner.

I'm sorry
my broken pieces
cut you,
but I'm not sorry
for the way
I chose to put
them back together.

This skin is an uncomfortable stranger
Rigid and unyielding
There is a little voice in my skull
It warns against the hearts
That try to beat along with mine,
Try to get
Near enough to feel my rigid skin
They will tear it, they will shred you
But
Why would anyone want you anyway?
That voice inside is a brutal *****.

There is my face staring me back
In the mirror
And my mouth caves in
Pouring a river of hate
My fingers pinch the skin at my waist
And underneath, carved into bone
Are the fine marks of hatred
Reflected eerily by the blank eyes
And it is easy to agree
With that brutal little voice
And the eyes that stare back at me
With a challenge;
*Try to smile.
I dare you.

the hesitation
between mind and body
here and now,
now and then.
the taste on your lip,
the fear in your eye.

it's the apprehension in this hello,
the distress in this goodbye.

sometimes i wonder
if ideas like fate and
soul mates are just the
clumsy words for things
that are tangled together
for awhile until they
are eventually unraveled -
if soul mates are only
together for as long as
they're together -
until the cords are
cut, the ties are
severed. until the
bath tub drains
and all that's left
is the filth, the rot,
the longing.

Could I crawl out of my skin for a little while?
I’d like to go for a swim in far away universes
Doze in the Garden of Eden
Maybe plant some roses on the moon
Watch a year or two, maybe three, float by without the
Fistful of blades, the bleeding lips
And someday I can return to my body unafraid
And the mess life makes of me will not bother me
So much as it will fascinate me
The small things will not create chaos
And when I feel that unforgiving, angry fist
I’ll think of Eden and those pools of stars,
I’ll look up and see my roses on the moon.

her silhouette behind the shower curtain
her dress on the bed
she sings while she dries her hair
swears when she smears her
makeup

the shadows of her life are
all over this place
they mingle dissonantly
with mine

and yet I find her chaos
bleeding all over my order
to be the most beautiful
form of life
I've ever been
exposed to

and so this morning
instead of complaining about
the mess
I kiss her soft face
and she smiles
and everything is alright

Fingers burn my skin,
Lips scar mine.
Such a shame it is to love you,
So hard it is on            this                body
There isn’t an inch you haven’t claimed
Conquering rigid planes like they were
Yours for the taking
Breathe you in, exhale toxin.
You are cancer preying upon infection.
Footprints beat across my chest
A rusting tattoo, a reminder
Of the ones before you, the nothing
           After you.
Breathe me in, exhale reverence
As if I were your temple, something
            Worth loving.
Beneath, there is bruised and bleeding ache
Feeding upon every moment
You make me feel something bordering on ecstasy
It whispers
           Nothing good ever comes.
You are not good.  You are a dark thing.
We were borne of the same blackness
It crawled in us as infants while we slept
Twined us together. Tore every bit of us apart.
Cancerous love,
       Writing false notes of adoration in my skin
        While my insides bleed
        Waiting for the  
                  End.

I just
     want
            to skip
                                                   *ahead.

sometimes I can't help feeling this
is the dream, the one where I relive
my entire life, just before I die.

Her lips shiver, shatter like glass
Pepper the ground
Slice your aching feet
Yet you bend to collect the shards
Glue her back together, kiss
Her broken smile.

Her fingertips melt fire into
Your skin, but you don’t seem to mind
Don’t seem to mind that she inhales
Part of you every time
She breathes in too deep
She doesn’t seem to mind that your ribs crack
Beneath her palms
Each time her fingers trace your skin

She is the permanence of your spine
You are the ache in her chest.
So easily forgets when you fall
She will be the one to pull you to your feet
She forgets that as intertwined as she is
With you
You are an ending
Without her.

the way the
story twists -
all the harm
came from your
hands, and yet
in the end
I am the one
to carry the
blame.

You are like nobody else
Hot breath on a cold night
The momentary brightness
Just after you’ve closed your eyes.
You are the brightest star in the darkest sky
The blood that boils under my colorless skin
The first and last word of a novel
The most brilliant novel
Filled with pages and pages of nonsense words
And brightly colored and breathtaking photographs
And the single page hidden in the middle
Telling your entire heartbreaking story
In sudden, vivid detail.
You are the rush in my ears and my vein
And the violent wind through my hair
And the violent crashing in my chest.
You are like nobody else
And so I love you.

You are not
The whine on my lips
Not the
Whiskey
Sitting crooked
Inside me.
You are not
The restless thing in my chest
Fighting the minded cage

You are
The violence beating in my chest
The nothingness that burns
That aches.
You are the fingers
Lifting the glass
To my lips
And the reason
I don’t
Sleep
At night.

we are Here.
the little red dot
on the map that says,
you are Here.
but it's almost like
undefined territory
on the map, it's almost
like we're on some new
street that's not on
a map yet. our little
Here dot is floating
out in the middle of
the ocean, it's planted
in the middle of
absolute nowhere
and maybe that's
what we are:
nowhere and nothing.

but god, I'm looking at this
map, and I'm looking at you
and I don't care about any
map. I don't care if we're
planted on it, I don't
care if we are Here or
There or Anywhere
because I'm looking at
you, and you have those
eyes of permanence, those
endless pits of dark
abyss that I want to drown
in and this map means
nothing to me because
you are Here and I am
Here and if we are in the
middle of a ******* ocean
I am begging you to dive.

i am not a girl.
i am forest fire,
i am hurricane -
quick and quiet,
leaving miles
and miles of destruction
in my wake. i am
wilderness trails at
blackened midnight,
hidden pockets and
silence and strangeness,
barren trees looking
more like skeletons
and all the things that
make your heart race.
i am broken fences
and unhinged doors.
i am unmade beds
and unlocked windows.
***** bathtubs and
empty light sockets.
i am heaven and earth
and hell and home, i am
the loss that plagues you
and the trauma that
breaks you and i am the
goddess you yearn for
lurking in the clouds.
i am the disgrace, the fallen
angel that makes you
regret not your last step,
but every single one
you've ever taken. i am
the burn and the rage and
i am the forest fire.
the one that licks at your
door and shatters your window.
the one that takes everything
from you, and yet you
still find yourself in the
quiet wreckage afterwards
whispering thank you.

You are not just a name
Lurking on the tip of my tongue
The backbone of every thought,
But a state of mind.
You’re the lace that holds my ribs together
The ribbon binding me into shape

The blood that rushes beneath my skin
Remembers exactly where your fingers
Once touched
Your lips once lay
Pressing your love into my skin
As if I am your paper, your fingers are ink
Turning me into a letter only you and I could read

And I do, I read it over and over
Anxious for the next letter to be burned
This is my skin, for you,
A thousand different love letters.

standing in your bathroom,
staring down my own reflection,
at odds with your words and
my own thoughts - the ones where
I don't see the beauty you do,
the ones where you don't feel
the feelings I see in you. that ***
sits in my belly, warm and brave
and desperate for something
else, something you don't want
to offer too soon. you're out there,
quiet and waiting. waiting,
god knows what for. waiting
for the right time, waiting
for the spark of something.
yet no one knows the feel
of my skin better than you,
nor do they know the curve of
my hip. and so you wait. and so
I wait.
and I hope.
the *** in my belly
warms the cold need in my bones
and I will come back to you,
desperate and willing
but still,
you wait.

The blood on my palms is ours
It is our blood smeared on these walls
Spilling over the thresholds
Staining the sheets.
They’ll take bleach to walls and the floors
Try to scrub us away almost as hard as I did
And the grit under their fingernails will look like mine
The copper smell of us will give way to ammonia
And years from now they’ll tell the story
Of the little girl gone mad
Taking an axe to her own heart
Just to numb the thunder pace
And that boy who found her
Took the pistol to silence the bedlam in his head
And ease the guilt in his chest.

how long it took me to realize
the hands around my neck
were not yours
but mine

midnight
don't know if morning holds hello or goodbye
the hours, minutes, seconds
dig trenches into my skin
reminding me that they are
tick tick  ticking away

it could be bright -
the glow of the sun illuminating us,
filling every corner with love and light
and promises and it's really alright

it could be shattering,
spreading our ashes across the pavement
it could be radio silence, the static
humming until it fills our mouths and lungs
the blackness of it swallowing us whole.

and I am trying
so hard, I am trying
to believe that better things are coming
but the fear of losing you -
it's pulling me underground
and I am begging
please
please
please
*let me keep him

1.
A boy I used to know
Found me one day, hidden in
The quietest clearing in a vacant park.
He looked me up and down
As if to say
You are not someone I ever knew.
He pulled me to my feet
Brushed the concrete off my shoulders
And he asked me
“What happened to you?
What happened to that girl I once knew?
The girl who accepted nothing less than
Exactly what she wanted
And gave absolutely everything she had?
When did the girl that ignored everybody
Become the girl everybody ignored?”
I didn’t have the answers then.
I still don’t.
2.
He gave me a broken shard of mirror
And the girl in it looked
More like a ghost than a person.
She was so pale,
Eyes sunken and bruised,
Her lips thin and torn to pieces.
The boy tucked the mirror into one pocket
A picture into the other, said,
“You call me when the girl in that picture
Comes back to life.
She was life and soul and love
Personified. That girl was magic.”
3.
I cut myself on that shard of mirror
And it seems I bled for days.
I ruined that picture,
The one of the girl that was
Life and soul and love personified.
4.
I never saw him again, he never came looking.
I don’t know what I’d say anyway.
I’m sorry, old friend,
But that girl died a long time ago.
Where were you? Why didn’t you care enough
To save her?
Hasn’t anyone told you magic isn’t real?
Hasn’t anyone ever told you
Life and love and soul will die?
They die when there is nothing left to feed the fire.
5.
I wrote him a letter.
I wrote him a hundred letters.
I wrote him a letter
About the boy I loved once.
He reminded me a little of you¸ I wrote.
He loved me the way you love a photograph
He touched all the beautiful places
Appreciated the glow and the shine
Kept me on his bedside table to look at
When the nights got lonely.
The funny thing about photographs though,
Is the colors and the beauty and the shine fade.
You forget what happened after the flash snapped
You forget the stories and the honesty and the life.
He lost the picture, I guess.
Beneath exquisite and profound novels. Found
New pictures.
6.
Today’s letter:
I smashed a vase against the wall.
I smashed my mother’s favorite mug against the pavement.
I broke a mirror with my fist
I ripped up every letter anyone’s ever sent me.
Hit the walls with hammers.
Broke a window.
Broke my arm.
Where were you when I needed you?
I need you.
He hasn’t answered any of my letters.
I don’t think he will.
7.
A boy I once knew
Reminded me that there was once a girl
Where my ghost is.
And you know what? My ghost got hungry,
Because suddenly she remembered how
Wearing a body was supposed to feel.
My ghost got angry
I got angry
I don’t know how to find her again,
The girl I used to be.
I think maybe she’s dead, buried in the backyard under
All my childhood friends and the rose bush
My mother loves so much.
8.
He wrote me a letter.
Not so much a letter, but a punch to the chest,
A single sentence written on the back of a California postcard:
Remember the phoenix,
Make use of your ashes.







(nine:
I found my wings, buried under coffee grounds
And orange peels on the side of the interstate.
Brushed the ash off; they still fit.
I met a boy there too
His wings were ***** and beautiful.
He kissed my scars,
Shook hands with my ghost.
I haven’t seen her since.)

Once,
The universe tore us all in half
Tossed across continents and oceans,
Said, it is your challenge
  In life
  To find the rest of you.
  To make yourself whole again.
Some of us have taken this challenge boldly,
Some with a grain of salt,
Some not at all, wasting away in loneliness.
Truth be told, I do not know for certain
If you are the half of me so long ago
Stolen away out of fateful spite
But, baby, I’d bet my life on it
And if at the end of the night, I lose my life
I still had the privilege of losing it to you.

burn this house to
the ground if it meant
keeping you out

sink the whole ****
ship if it meant
watching you drown

take this ground away
like an earthquake or
an atom bomb

just to spare the surface
of your existence that feels
something like slaughter.