I will write myself to sleep.
I will write long, pathetic
poems instead of texts to my
ex. I will write
the novel of my life
instead of asking you
for attention.

I will write
the new bible
on isolation, chronological
volumes
on loneliness.

I will write ten million
haikus before I write
you again.

I will write love letters
to myself until my fingers
bleed, until I
believe them.

I will write the handbook
on neglect, the idiots guide
to dealing with it.

I will write vague
fortune cookies about
self-acceptance and
self-forgiveness.

By the time I'm finished,
I will have exhausted
my depression.

I will write Shakespearean
prose about this
rejection.

I will write suicide notes
on my shield and armor for
protection and I will
save myself with them.

I will write angry, violent speeches
to rally the voices
in my head.

I will write a pledge of allegiance
to myself and recite it daily,
after coffee.

I will pray to the Gods of
"move on," and "get over it."
I will baptize myself
in holy water
that makes me
stop caring
completely.

Holy water, oh well, whatever
move on. Hallelujah.

I will write the ten commandments
on how to be
abandoned.

Kind strangers cannot fill
the hole in your heart.
It doesn't matter how good they are,
how well they respond to your
match-lighting and
boundary-pushing.

Your bridge-burning
and soul desiring, unsatisfied
with the best of people.

You dont even know him.
How could you put him
through that, through you,
how could you try to
catch him in your web
and share your misery
with him. It
ain't right.

And it doesn't help
to have predicted how doomed you both were,
to have noticed right away how it
would end, before it began,
coldly. Without contact.

No hugs or kisses signing this
apology text. No x's and o's at the end
of this suicide note. It was
cold. You are cruel.

Don't ever take a kind stranger
by the hand and drag them into
your life. Don't ever hand
a sweet stranger a broken piece of yourself.
Don't tell them about that piece
of yourself.

You could have been anyone, you
could have been bold and confident
and beautiful and intelligent but
instead you talk like
a 12-year old girl
who is lonely and pathetic,
a human version of an
anxiety attack.

The next kind stranger that you meet,
don't introduce him to that girl.
She may exist, but you don't have to
force people to love her. Love
cannot be forced.

Introduce the next kind stranger to
the artist, the traveler, the linguist,
the lover and be so radiant and so positive
that even the little girl
will start to believe
it.

It all went very well,
it was a terrible disaster.

You looked so peaceful, lying
awake in the dark,
so hideous the morning after.

I didn't want to walk alone,
I didn't want to hold your hand.

I'm in love with you.
You, who I cannot stand.

To My Father

I wish I had never met you
because then you'd be a mirage,
an illusion I created, more handsome,
still absent, but valiant.
Brilliant. The mysterious
dark figure who rode off
on a white horse, the epic hero
who gave me
my nose.

But, instead, you raised me
poorly, as if I were an extension of your
self-loathing. And it didn't work
and you left and I would rather
mourn your death than
eat dinner with you
ever again.

It hurts the soul to be conceived
in hate, veins coursing with accidental
heredity, like the daughter of
a serial killer, worried
I am half you and it's my fault
and I am doomed.

To Myself**

You have been handed lies
like family heirlumes
and they are not your
weight to carry, you have to
give them back.

You are not your father, you do
not have his nose, you are not doomed
and history does not repeat itself.
Unlearn your childhood and
clear the slate. You need to be
un-nurtured, my dear.

You are beautiful and brave
and you change your circumstances.
You run like hell away
from anyone who dims
your flame.
You protect yourself.
You change.

I rarely drink.
I am the responsible one
out of all of my friends, I don't smoke,
I seldom
give in. I avoid temptation.
Thirsty for experience.
Emotionally
sober.

I had a boyfriend, once, brown hair, blue
eyes, who bought me dinner, and spent
the night and
had a toothbrush awkwardly leaning
against mine, who may have
actually cared about me
but showed it by leaving
in the middle
of the night.

I never think about my father,
stopped allowing him to water
the weeds he planted in my brain, now we are
separated by five years like time
is a brick wall and somehow
I am safe.

I have repressed every single one
of my childhood memories, and I believe
if my life ever flashes before my eyes
before I die, I
wouldn't even
recognize it.

The intervention is a blur, I can hardly
make out who surrounded me,
I forgot which concerned expression
belonged to which person
and who it was that said
they just want
the best
for me.

There must be someone
in the infinite cosmos
who wants the best for me.
I love myself.
I am not lonely.

This is a poem for people
who have turned self-destruction
into an art form, who
rip through lives like
serrated knives,
people with
glass teeth and hearts
even more fragile.

This is a poem for the martyrs of
philosophy, who stir madness
like sugar into their tea,
who speak exclusively in
Kafka quotes and
fortune cookies.

This is a poem for lost travelers,
compassless and tired who
walk alone for a lifetime
cleverly disguised as
a single moment.

This is for the artists
who paint entire novels about
confused platonic heartache and
destroy relationships as often
as they destroy canvas,
who start crying if you ask them
about their future, not because
the concept frightens them, but because
it will only ever be
a concept.

This is a poem for the believers
whom I admire, the ones who cut out
bible verses like coupons,
buy-one-get-one-free morality,
the ones who will never
pull the nickel cross
off their necks no matter how
bad life gets.

This is a poem for the boys who always
come back, who never really left,
who sit below me in all kinds of weather,
who hold down my soul,
who are my anchor.

I don't write poems, I write
concussions. Dangerously close
to blood coming out of your ears, straddling
life, don't fall asleep because
you may never
wake up.

I don't write haikus, I write
famous last words. The final exhale,
the precious breathe before
the light at the end of the
tunnel, a tongue deep kiss
with death.

I don't write stories, I write
tragedies like Romeo and Juliet
except a dozen more people are killed
in the cross-fire of
my affection.

I don't write, I ****
the English language.
I beat it into submission with
sweat and strife.
I destroy life.