I don't know where I stand with myself...

And you tell yourself you'll change.
And you don't.
And you push your hand through the water,
turn upside down, watch the sun ripple.
And you stand in the shower-
No, you sit in the shower,
and you breath through the water,
and you imagine what it might be like to drown.
And it feels like air is hugging your lungs for the first time,
curl upside down, pretend the water is rain.
And you're walking home, because you have a home,
and it's raining.
And you didn't think to grab an umbrella.
And you don't care.

When your hands are cold, always trust in a hot water faucet.

Clouds are made of water.
It makes sense to feel like you're floating on air.

Change.
Don't.
Hands through water,
upside down, watch the sun ripple.
Stand in the shower-
sit in the shower,
breath through the water,
imagine what it might be like to drown.
Air hugging lungs for the first time,
pretend the water is rain.
Walking home
(you have a home),
and it's raining.
Didn't think to grab an umbrella.
Don't care.

When your hands are cold, always trust in a hot water faucet.

Clouds are made of water.
Makes sense to float on air.

And you tell yourself you'll change.
And you don't.
And you push your hand through water,
turn upside down and watch the sun ripple.
And you stand in the shower-
No, you sit in the shower,
and you breath through the water,
and you imagine what it might be like to drown.
And it feels like air is hugging your lungs for the first time, curl upside down,
and pretend the water is rain.
You're walking home, because you have a home,
and it's raining.
And you didn't even think to grab an umbrella.
And you don't care.
When your hands are cold, always trust in a hot water faucet.
Flipping 36 times in a row, blowing air out my nose.
And I remember that.
Clouds are made of water,
so it makes sense to feel like you're floating on air.

Dust off fingernails,
blowing cuticles clear.
Orange peel skin
when scabs have dried over-
where shall I swim now?
Hot tub blood boiling
then bruises disappear,
shelved away in the attic.  
Deadly dull
so I chomp,
bit, byte.
A byte is 8 bits
binary math, base 2
not 10.
Ones... twos... fours
and so on
****, am I bleeding?
Dried pool in the sun,
metal tongue lapping dust
hieroglyphics lost in translation.
Back, back, back
to routers.
Why don’t I paint my nails?
She asked me that today.
You don’t highlight the anxious massacre.

When I was a little girl
no older than five,
I ran around our neighborhood,
my entire world at the time,
and helped
an aging neighbor
find her lost canary.

Then
when I was an older girl
still no more than eight,
I walked around our neighborhood,
small in retrospect,
carrying a baby bird left for dead.
Like a flower smothered by curtains,
wilting in the heavy shadows of my hands.

A year later,
I hold my finger out
to some bird perching in our tree,
free as dizzy dust
playing tag in the streaming light of day.

Now I’m left with
limp party streamers
swaying in the wind,
dancing with scattered daffodils
in gutted greenhouses

But when I curl my hands just right,
like a folding lotus,
I can still whistle
to them.

I can't bare to stare at this stranger anymore.

Door left ajar,
swarms of honeybees sneaking in
seeping in and
I'm sleeping in.

Sinking into grass
remembered only by some awful smell,
never placed
yet still, I linger.

Rusty compliments drying out my throat

Tobacco fields replace valleys of grass
and letters pleading for his girls to come home
reveal a man exposing sleeves-
"Come join me!"

An apple rotting, shut away too long, not a single bite missing.

Leave my bones out to dry in the scorching sun.
Bleach them white, flesh falling
until I’m unrecognizable.

Quicksand hearts sink into
disappearing rotting carcasses-
The grass grows taller there.

Door left ajar,
swarms of honeybees
humming battle cries
despite their last breath.

I think they mistook me for the apple over there.

Tobacco fields replace valleys of grass,
letters pleading for his girls to come home
reveal a shellfish man exposing sleeves.
"Come join me!"

And maybe that’s why
I feel some sick connection
to you when I’m high.
Like father, like daughter-
I’m waiting for some self induced
Alzheimer's to set in.

An apple rotting, shut away too long,
not a single bite missing.

An apple rotting, shut away too long,
not a bite missing.

Did you know,
appleseeds can’t actually
produce
trees?

No, you have to cut a branch off,
plant that in the soil.

Soil’s ancestry
leading back  to
bleached bones
left out in the scorching sun.

The grass grows taller there,
with ancient hymns
cooing each blade
all the taller still.  

Yes, the grass grows taller there,
but my stomach
is full of stones.
Leaving pilgrims starving,
nothing left to crop.
Tobacco fields replace
valleys of grass.

The day my father
tried to kidnap us,
there was breakfast waiting downstairs.
I tried to eat an apple, but
stones already filled my stomach.

My room smells like a funeral.

Mother never let me drink her special juice.
Pants around ankles,
she cried in the garage because
she just couldn't make it to the bathroom.
A child isn't meant to change
her parents'
diapers.

She almost died once,
three percent chance of living.
I’m ten, and
in the back of my mind
all I can think
is maybe now
she’ll stop drinking.

She doesn’t.

But she bought me a bouquet of flowers,
peace treaty blemished by thorns.

I often think upon your funeral,
and I have a suspicion
it will smell like this.

They've invented these glasses
(it's really quite extraordinary)
which allow colorblind people to see hues beyond their imagination.  
Suddenly you're watching this world shift before you,
all with a simple switch of perspective.

Now, I've never been in love
but I'd like to think it's a lot like finally watching the sunset
in all it's chromatic glory.
All the while inquiring whether that's really what orange looks like...
and wow, I'd honestly pictured blue so differently.

Completely lost, yet totally found.

Float on the grass,
sun streaming through eyelids.
Draw the blinds,
still looking up.
For a moment,
those tree branches look like clouds,
their leaves starkly white.
Red looks like sin.
For a moment,
I can understand why
Eve did it.

I don't know how to care less.
I don't know how to expect less from myself.
Cicadas borrowed my pores
the last 17 years
and now they're uprooting,
stealing any semblance of calm.
I've always written off
that crawling beneath my skin
as anxiety plucking veins, but
all this time I've been a home
even though I have no home.

I can't afford to not know.
Every indecision costs me $30,000
and a lifetime of debt.

I wish I could burrow,
borrow someone's pores
and pretend this solitary confinement
is actually a warm hug
from my favorite sweater
that I don't even have to wear
a shirt under,
because the itching never bothered me.

The stars might look like
milky bones from afar.
Or glowing tennis *****,
still clutched in owner's hands
while the dumb dog
chases something hidden.

Did he stick his head
out the window of the spaceship?

Tongue out,
howling.

Did he know the hole
he had dug
was his own grave?

I hate when owners
pretend to throw a ball,
only to hide it behind their backs.

The dog trusts you.
The dog loves you.
The dog loves life.
The dog doesn't want to die.
The dog doesn't deserve to die.
The dog doesn't care about exploring space,
it just wants to find that ******* ball.

I could never hate
anyone as much
as myself

I took a nap in the woods,
letting blankets of leaves
drown sinking stones
in my stomach.

I almost caught
a gust of wind:
spilling through cracked fingers,
simply sticking to my hair.
Palms open - arms outstretched
I shook hands
with nothing,
its weight crushing
me.

Tripping over pinecones
with blue stained eyes,
air suffocating between
shoe and concrete.

Bird skips up a tree trunk
singing to the sky,
catching wind under
its wings.
Palms open - arms outstretched
carried by nothing.

Every single night
like clockwork...
staring at eyelids
sealed shut.
Crypts for restless crickets
praying from 2 am to 6.



Air thick
suffocating between
sheets and mattress,
stones sinking.
Palms open - arms outstretched
begging for nothing
in particular.

Just sleep.

So I took a nap
in the woods today
Palms open - arms outstretched
suffocated by nothing,
hugging air
like the stuffed animal
I grew up with,
painted with prideful grime.

I went and took a nap out in the woods,
and let a blanket made of leaves drown me
with sinking stones of nothing, ravished sea
descending towards a stomach, betraying deeds.

I almost caught a gust of wind, maybe
spilling through cracked fingers, escaping- seen
near spying hairs, then simply sticking here.  
Palms open - arms outstretched.
I shook hands with nothing, its weight crushing.

Tripping over pinecones, understood
by suffocating air between my foot
and strewn upon the concrete: you
mistaking it for woods that we once knew.

I saw a bird skip up this dying tree
singing to the simple sullied sky,
catching wind under its broken wings.
Palms open - arms outstretched
carried by nothing.

When every single night, this clockwork chimes...
simply said I can’t meet my own eyes
for fear of crypts where restless crickets lie,
their ceaseless praying stretching on
till dawn.  

Air thick
suffocating between sheets and mattress,
stones still sinking, carelessly caught by
Palms open - arms outstretched
begging for nothing in particular.

So I took a nap out in the woods today,
my palms open - arms outstretched
suffocated by nothing, but the hugging air
like some stuffed animal I grew up with,
painted with prideful grime.

I went and took a nap out in the woods,
letting blankets of leaves
drown sinking stones,
settlement in my stomach.

I almost caught a gust of wind
spilling through cracked fingers,
sticking to my hair.
Palms open - arms outstretched,
I shook hands with nothing.

Concrete dreams flood
grooves of the brain,
thick in my mind.

Skipping up a tree
sing to the sky,
catching wind beneath wings.
Palms open - arms outstretched,
carried by nothing.

Every single night this clockwork chimes,
crypts where restless crickets
pray from dusk to dawn.

Air thick,
suffocating between
sheets and mattress
stones still sinking.
Let me melt, sink simply.
Palms open - arms outstretched,
begging for nothing.

So I went and took a nap out in the woods,
mistaking trees for friends
and wind for food.
Palms open - arms outstretched,
suffocated by nothing.

Hugging air,
thick in my arms
like the stuffed animal I grew up with.

Stare at a television for too long,
and you're sure to find it becomes a difficult task...
training your eyes to adjust to reality.

This crisp world morphs into a mirage,
seen through the revolver of a machine gun
infinitely strobing between what is and should.

Like a child trying to blink back tears that seem more like a tsunami.

The **** finally cracks.

Reminiscent of those summer days spent at the pool,
staring at the world through a rippling glass wall.

I've always been interested in new perspectives.

So I won't **** myself

As dusk sets on this pasture
somehow a burger wrapper manages to find its way back home.
This sense of vapid euphoria sets in among the cows,
as they all gather to greet their brethren...
So different in form,
yet it's as if the farmer never took him away
in the first place.

And as I sit at this desk
under a parade of fluorescent lights,
I can't help but be ushered down the hallways of my mind.

Life cycles, yet is a burger any less of a cow?

Now I can greet the trashcan with a new found sense of kinship.

Ew.
I wrote poetry about you.

My room smells like a funeral.
Suffocatingly sweet
stuffed with well wishes
but I never heard the penny plop.
My mother never let me drink her special juice.
Pants around ankles,
crying in the garage because
she just couldn't make it to the bathroom,
could she?
A child isn't meant
to change
her parents'
diapers.

She bought me a bouquet of flowers,
a peace treaty lined with thorns.

I often think upon my funeral,
and I have a suspicion
it would smell a lot
like this.

I don't know what we are
and I certainly don't know what we're becoming.
All I know is that you have her,
and really... that's fine.

Really.

I'll sit here, relishing in our 4 hour text conversations
trying to decipher where exactly we stand
until I finally realize it doesn't matter.

At least we're standing.

Foreign flecks float past pupils.
Disappeared plodding pastimes
lost to careless childhood.

Venetian blinds slanting goodbye.
Concrete clings to temples,
eyelids vacuumed shut--

Tired.
Tire treadmarks track testaments
to this languid laziness.  
Spitting passion flakes into melted butter
hardened in the fridge

Let me melt.
Sink simply.

Poressely placing precedence,
burdened backs break
under pressure of
heavy nothingness.

Apathetic apples plucked
just out of reach.

Follow those foreign flecks floating
in your peripheral.

Daunting, Doting,
Don’t

Give up.
Look up.