Outside my window, there is a bird
melting,
dripping from the sill
onto the cat waiting below,
feathers congealing in a tattoo of wings
across its shoulders
while the little claws tangle in its twitching tail
like burrs,
or perhaps just a reminder
of where you draw your strength from,
trailing behind you like empty cans
tied to a wedding carriage,
and tipping red and bitter down your throat
from your wine glass
as her father twirls the bride across the dance floor
and you wonder
what good the memory of wings does.

I spent my fifth grade year in school in my fourth new district
writing timed multiplication tests while blood fell from my nose
in hot fat drops splattering my papers,
a rusty brown organic counterpoint
to the red ink of my teacher’s note
“Emily- see me after class”
and my stomach dropped faster than the blood
or the bobble-headed Care Bear that my Social Studies teacher
threw out the window during class
because she once mentioned that she hated Care Bears
and so we covered her room with them.
I spent my fifth grade year at home in my parent’s bed
with blankets tacked over the windows and towels stuffed
into the cracks under the doors
while my parents tiptoed through the kitchen
and I dug my chewed off nails into my scalp trying
to claw the rot and smoldering ash out of my head
and flinched at every creaking floor board.
It was an old house.
The mourning doves called sycophantic dirges every dawn
(and noon, and dusk),
and I grinned when the dog chased them off to hide
with the one-eyed tom in the barn.
I tell you these things not to make you feel sorry for me,
but because I am confused how I can feel sorry for me
and yet miss that time so much.
In the end, I am left only with the firm conviction
that timed tests are every child’s bane,
and mourning doves are just country pigeons.

you always complained
that you were a dandelion
in a garden of roses,
a pest, a **** --
something unlovable.

and maybe you weren't perfect.
maybe you were a bit
rough around the edges
with a crack
here or there.
maybe your seams had come undone
and, if you still insist on being a flower,
maybe you had lost a petal or two.

but what you failed to realize
is that every rose
has thorns.

so maybe they didn't have
as many cracks as you,
as many tears as you,
as many rough edges
as you did,
but god,
they were nowhere near as pure,
nowhere near as lovely
as you were.

we wish on dandelions, dear,
because we trust them.
nobody's ever wished
on a rose,
now have they?
no.
they're too afraid
they'll get pricked,
stabbed,
betrayed.

so maybe you were
the dandelion
hidden in a garden of roses.
maybe you were the outcast,
the misfit,
the odd one out.
maybe you were just a little bit unloved,
and unfairly forgotten.

but what you failed to realize
is that i would have gladly picked you
over the brightest rose
in that silly little garden.

(a.m.)

You see, I want a lot,
but verbalizing
is Vulnerability
and in my head
Cynicism is stronger
than Idealism,
always the big bully,
always laughing in its face.

[Don’t laugh at me.]

You see, I want a lot.

I want art -
all kinds of art,
and not just art,
I want "bad" art,
made with good – the best – supplies,
And I want it up on the fridge
because look,
we made it,
and that means
everything.

I want homemade zines –
Happy zines and sad zines,
food zines and PATB zines,
and everything in between.
I want homemade patches,
homemade clothes,
homemade food.

I want poetry
and essays
and writing anything at all.
I want nice journals
and nice pens.

I want music -
I want to walk into rooms
filled with instruments.

I want nature.
I want Beauty
in all the small things.
I want flowers.
I want a garden,
I want it to be alive with things
all year round.

I want a nice kitchen.
I want herbs by the windowsill.
I want good meals.
I want meals we ****** up
[because we don’t bother with recipes]
but try to eat anyway.
I want frozen pizzas and slushees
and too much candy corn
when it gets to be fall.

I want days of too much coffee.
I want London Fog days.
I want rainy days and
“A handful of puddle”
on repeat.
I want days of lying in bed doing nothing
whether or not we’re sick.

I want travel.
I want days of wandering around cities,
getting lost and
letting our feet
find the way home.
I want unplanned adventures.
I want abandoned rooftops
I want heights.
I want intuition.
I want Hope.

I want friend therapy.
I want solitude.
I want connections.
I want trust.
I want closeness.
I want safety.
I want stability.

I want Honesty.
I want vulnerability.
I want communication.
I want patience.
I want consent.
I want accountability
I want active listening.
I want remembering boundaries and triggers.

I want love -
any kind of safe love:
I want all my friends
to be my significant others.

I want shared meals,
shared feelings,
tea parties and tear parties.
I want good days,
and I want bad days -
the calm and the storm.

I want to lay down my arms,
once and for all.
Call a truce with myself.

I want to look upon
the wreckage within me,
clean it up the best I can,
let the broken parts heal on their own
accept the parts that don’t,
and build a Home within my heart,
imperfect as it is,
so it won’t matter
where I go or who I’m with.

I want to say,
“I am not Afraid –
of my parents
of the expectations of capitalism
of the Future,
of growing old.”

I want to say,
“Yes, there are unknowns,
yes, there will be fear,
but I will be Okay,
I do not have to die
because others did before me.”

[I want to say yes.]

I want to say,
“I do not have to prove anything
because the right people will understand,
and those are the people who matter.”

I want you near,
and if not near,
a voice on the phone,
synchronized meals,
these things will do
in the mean time.

Drag me out of bed for cookies,
let me be sous chef,
Kitchen kitten,
familiar,
scientist ****** wife.
[If you must call me that.]

You see, I want a lot.
And Idealism
is sometimes all I have
To keep me alive,
a wildflower that won’t be killed.
And if you want to know the truth
I don’t want to **** it -
I don’t have the heart.

[Don’t laugh at me.]

There comes a point as you sit there
trying to untangle your fingernails from between your teeth
as your leg bounces at a million miles a minute,
and you think Jesus Christ how’d I get here?
Shadows on the screen and a pinch with spreading cold
as you nearly shake yourself off the table,
you clutch at the cage on your head
and breathe deep.

This is more than “block” or “hide posts.” No, this is permanent, this is calling it Quits, this is “we cannot be civil towards each other after all, we cannot bear to even potentially see each other on our newsfeeds.” Unfriend. We are not Friends. We are Over. Unfriend means “out of sight, out of mind.” Is it a feeling of relief at the finality of something that wasn’t working, or a sinking feeling that yet another relationship has gone down the tubes? Probably a sick combination of both – unfriend means you’ve both finally called a ***** a *****. Given Up. “…I am done trying to be friends with you,” written in the Final message. Is anything really Final? It’s hard to know. Human relationships are messy. We try to cut people off when they hurt us. Unfollow on tumblr, block phone numbers, delete them on skype, unfollow on twitter, but sometimes we run back to each other when we cool off, despite ourselves, we think, no, it can’t be The End, it can’t be Unfriend, we had things in common, we had something, surely it can’t be Over. Can't we try again? But “Every new beginning come from some other beginnings end” as a song goes, and some endings are necessary. What we don’t want to admit to ourselves is that not everyone is a Good or healthy person, no matter how many chances you give them. And maybe some relationships are doomed from the start, maybe it really was your fault and you are just “incredibly selfish,” maybe it was their fault, it was probably everyone’s fault somehow or another in the end. There is a drop down option on facebook called Unfriend and when it’s finally utilized, no one really feels good about it. All it means is that it’s time to move on, once again. Find someone new. There are other fish in the sea.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

I consider words,
dwelling
on how they move
your tongue
and shape
your mouth.
How the word
“snarl”
pulls your lips back
to bare your teeth
and leaves your jaws
agape
just so;
how the word
“whisper”
starts off soft and blunt
and hisses on the ‘s’,
pouring out of your
mouth like smoke.
I think of the word
“love”
and how it drops
smooth and round
from the tip of your
tongue,
like a stone falling into
a pond,
disappearing at once
and leaving ripples
in its wake.
I think of the word
“hate”
and how it makes you
square your jaw
and wrinkle your nose,
and leaves your tongue
pressed flat
to the roof of
your mouth,
like a viper
rearing
to strike.