"always wanting to be touched.”
“Please make me feel beautiful. I’m
begging you.” He choked me. Killed
some part of my torso. It was
important, what ever it was. Because
now everything is different. I’m so
sad. I can’t breathe. How am I
supposed to breathe with a broken
torso?” I’m not. I can’t.
I won’t.
I just want to hold your hand while giving you a black eye.

I just hugged Zoe and I saw her hickies and wanted
to kiss her lips over and over just like the day
we got high and danced underneath moving lights
and she was in my tutu and her blonde hair
felt right tickling my face and the boy
who is supposed to love her didn't notice
and it made us laugh and laugh because
if we didn’t laugh; we would have cried.

Why do we love to leave behind bruises
on lips and necks and arms and eyes
and teeth? It hurts but no matter what, no
matter how much I crush my teeth together to
hide my yelps, it always turns into this
beautiful, beautiful mark that doesn't want
pressure and looks like a sunset borrowed
it it’s colors because no one, not even
a bruise, wants to be ugly.

and then I realized:
it was never saying goodbye to the place,
it was saying goodbye to him.

There are no easy answers
To the questions I am posing
Luckily I am ambitious
Once the fire’s been kindled
I can burn down forests and cites
Igniting the world I inhabit
Brightening its universe
But no passion has tickled the flame lately
Just mundane, passing urges
Gone far before flint can strike metal

I like to wear big hats
and old, funny shoes.
I stand in front of the mirror and  pretend
I am Daisy from The Great Gatsby
and I say
"Tom,
I do not love you,
I do not love you,
I do not love
you."
Then you call me.
We see a movie and eat Chinese food
Because you say you like
sweet and sour
pork.
I never liked the
aftertaste.

The night I convinced myself
I was tied with ropes
to the demands of others,
and I could only
cut myself free,
was the night that began
                           the free fall
                               of my own perpetual
                                   freedom.
     When I realized I could
do anything I wanted
behind closed doors
because there was absolutely
no way anybody could restrain me.
Unfortunately, as the world
sometimes decides,
the things that made me happy
were the things that made others upset, uncomfortable,
disgruntled them
because they could not see
the beauty I did
in a collection of scars
the storybook on my body
in the smoke rising from my lips.
The things that made me free
also, are killing me.
But no one can seem to see
the absolute romanticism
in the control of my own death,
                                           freedom.

She calls is jesus,
I call it chemicals.
Her enlightenment
reached in a book
of unknown origin
Sunday rituals
that remind me of
a sinister cult-like
mindset.
She has faith
in something intangible,
unprovable,
full acceptance of not knowing
Her god is an excuse.
My enlightenment,
a yellow glass design
the science behind
a lighter,
and the earth in my bowl.
A tiny blue, orange, yellow
pill, whichever is
most pertinent.
A tab, a stem, a cap, a line,
close my eyes and see
my own god in the patterns
of my enlightenment.
She calls it jesus,
I call it chemicals.