there is
a           mess
about her,

fluttering
towards  open

    space.


writhing

below pale
skin,

refusing to sit

so structurally,
so secured

in flesh.


wildly
           bending
and      swelling,


becoming

the
           savage


she so calmly
swears

isn’t there.











*-MJS

I didn’t want to leave the small room where our memories tinted the pallid wall
or my bed with the comforter that sent me dreams of you
tapering my legs, the visions pulled up and through

or your long veins that wrapped around me like a spiders silky coffin
holding me until the bad dreams were forgotten

the black and shy-green feathers watched us as we watched them
they spun and spun and blew in non-existent wind

I liked our late night paper plates and milk stained cups
I couldn’t ever get enough

I didn’t want the yellow shine to leak up my walls
but the sun came like clarity

and I realized a world outside my bedroom called

*-MJS

I Fell In Love With A Lie.
I Will Admit That Now.

Bravely
And Boldly
I Will

Step Out Into the unknown.

I Will
Push Hard
Enough To Break
My ******* Spine

I Fell In Love With A Lie.
I Won’t Continue To Fall.

she has scars
like stars

too many to count
but enough to tell stories of the past

pinning wine bags to the walls
another pair of puckered lips waking me up at 4am
coming home to *****'s dry pint
surrounded by pieces of my soul embodied
arms that go numb under half a night's sleep
bodies that move into each other,
unaware of boundaries
british accents, slapping and fapping
kissing secretly by a coffee ***
a dark room with that wonderful young sting
and grit of alcohol
on top of alcohol
on top of lemonade
legs kicking up, world upside-down
the consistency of blurred laughs, real laughs
the feeling of a girl or a boy
the warmth of being on someone's mind
this is happiness
this is what i've looked for
last year, summer, for a long time

when i was lost

you taught the trees

to speak

so they could guide me

until

the sun

came up

Such a serious bird you are

with the premeditated patterns of a hawk

decisions made using wide eyes and fixed pupils

But I think underneath, you’re a pelican

the kind I’ve seen on cereal commercials

You’ve just taken a roll in the dirt

and it’s covered your color

So soon I’m going to bite your straight-lined wings

and show you what it’s like

to free fall

White line, bare bridge, small talk, smoke.
Two nights, bloodshot, park bench,
toast. Dead girls, dead rose, swing set, laugh.
Our clothes, this day, street kids, trash.
Bed time, still strung, sit still,
move. Your arm, my mouth, my goal,
proved.  

Inhale, late bar, clear ****, down. Breathe out,
too much, cut’s blood, brown.
Thigh highs, hide thighs, bad mood, ***.
Taught tongues, dark room, light sleep,
none. No sound, turned down,
sharp teeth, moan.
Long lies, said truth, ropes tied,
known.



**This piece is a mimic exercise based on Saeed Jones' poem, Thralldom II, from his book, "Prelude to Bruise."

I want to lose two pairs of black glasses and my shoes
I want to tell the delivery boy that I don’t care how much change I get back
I want to ice the back deck and wet the chairs
I want to break a futon; feel taco-like
I want to paint my body, my friends body
I want to construct a bed in the laundry room with silk sheets
I want to neglect the shower for three days
I want to climb a roof and get lost in a corn maze
I want to leave my personal belongings in a plastic bag
I want to walk alone two miles to get a hot dog and meet a ***

we want to step in leaking toilet water
we want to play hide and seek in a dark house, discover an attic
we want to drink veggie burgers and wash them down with milk
we want to find a hat for a pickle and for one day wear only vests
we want to tailgate for napolean dynamite
we want to stay up late sitting on the flip side of windowsills
we want to spill everything and learn how to jump cars

they want to save taco bells hot sauce in paper bags
they want to build a fort with a closet door and some hooks
they want to dance all night, create a star shape with their legs
they want to “whod I come with? Ladies…!” just like rosie the riveter
they want to walk around telling the trees to be quiet
they want to move a couch to the from lawn and reside

*-MJS

I waited
for what felt like a day
in a glass room with skin-colored curtains
things going in, things coming out

He came in, panting hard
and kneeled beside the cold table where I sat
Face reddening in the cheeks
on the nose,
just like mine

When I told him,
two tears fell out of each his eyes
and I thought
I was made
of stone

He carried me through the wet April snow,
put us in a cab
and took me home

There was a bath running
and steam on the mirror

I got undressed for the third time that day
and sank
into the hot
white bubbles

He held my right knee
with his left hand
and told me
we weren’t going to school tomorrow

does it happen in silence, with no one noticing until the time is up, or does it happen so loudly all other worldly sounds drown out?

does it go quickly? or slow enough to hurt for years?

does it leave behind hints of its sweetness, between the pages of books, woven in with the sheets, slipping through the saddest of dreams?

when love leaves, who does it leave behind?

In my broken boots
Walking through the dead red trees
With plastic bottles of eight dollar ***
That polaroid is all I have left

Walking through the dead red trees
I think of the ***** girl, the burnt house
That polaroid is all I have left
We only kissed because you looked like him

I think of the ***** girl, the burnt house
That place is not what it used to be
We only kissed because you looked like him
Well you left me just the same

That place is not what it used to be
With plastic bottles of eight dollar ***
Well you left me just the same
In my broken boots

*-MJS

I have not absorbed this part of my life in a long time
at least it feels that way
The unripe orbs of nostalgia have been
betrayed like myself
regretted like you
and forgotten unlike us
So easily bruised
Lost but unwanted, always tracked
on the screaming suffering, rip-cycling
ledges of cliffs
of that once famished mind
The night at Red Lobster
The hospital
The round about and confusion
They weren't famished
but we were

*-MJS

I forget your soft pulling mouth and below
the luring grin it holds

Your all-browned features,
and the way I drown in them

Prickly bubbles, breaking with warmth and steam,
splashing my insipid shins

Icy tree tears cuff below our newly sunburned eyes
onto the lips of my collar bone

I forgot how my underwear detained the chemicals,
took to the pool as blood takes to white
and became soaked
mopping and sticking to my skin

The furthest tips of my silver hair
like a mirror to the stars, curling on my shoulders

Now I get the shivers, I can remember those

But I forgot the senseless talk of the universe
we sat under and looked up

The winter wind scratching our bare summer thighs
and the crisp smell of your mother’s snowy garden  

Feet cold, they turned hot and carelessly running
to the playground illuminating the black, I forget

It was careless because I was with you
your russet body holding me in,
our toes always just gripping the verge

Undisguised

*-MJS

Life is so funny

because it gives you all of these

amazing, indescribable, breathtaking experiences

surrounded by love

And then you die.

I once dated a man,
no—a boy
who took a bath with me.
While we soaked
he said,
“Vaginas are gross,”
and I never stood up again.

acid: four times
breaking bad: three times
cried: six times
drunk: fifteen times
embarrassed: six times
****(ing/ed): thirty seven times
hate(s): seven times
idiot: three times
****: three times
lonely: five times
love: nine times
sad: four times
***: five times
trust: three times

August 28th, 2012- January 27th, 2013


*-MJS

He pointed at trees
telling me their names
so I looked at him
like I saw
the future.



He puts his fingers
between
gum
and
lip
all the way down the throat.



His hands rubbed
my dead heart
pulsed
the sides and now
it sings
like it's in the
******* opera.

My voice had been gone since September
(I remember the last days of when it was still intact;
I could use it, but it was damaged
It was the sound of peeling an onion,
Cut up, choppy, and coarse)
I eventually got sick of the struggle
So I let it go

But the other day, I called for you
And speaking is coming naturally again

It’s true; I do still love the sound of my voice
But it also brings with it a weight—
The chains on my ankles
(The chains from you, the ones
That starve me from my silent freedom)
They fade in as the hushed fades out

And I remember why I let my voice get lost

*-MJS

It was just that one day and every day following that I wished more than ever that he was real. Where the **** was he? Sure, I didn’t expect him to crawl down from the building next to us the second I saw the knife, but it was definitely within the “This isn’t happening” part in my head, as I was dragged into the garage and pushed up against the brick wall, that I think he could have managed to creep up and punch that guy in the face. And the stomach, or throw him into the black truck that I was next to. Why wasn’t he showing up? Everybody gets one, right? Why wasn’t this mine? Why did he always show up for Mary Jane? Everybody got one I thought. Even after it was over and the fear was gone and the shock flared through my body, charging me almost to the point of vomiting, I still wanted him there. I've never been so ******* disappointed.

Being human
the ability to regenerate
body, spirit, mind

Every seven years, I've heard

There she goes
she was strong, she was different
She was She

Through the pain and ecstasy
itching to get out, fighting to be let in

We expand,
minds somehow allowing us to forget
the knife, the black coat
sounds of running through an inch of snow

We move past,
letting ourselves live

And some days freeze up,
where it is said
that time stops

And I think about the way
I've moved on

without the sound of rain she is lazy. without the taste of *****, she's

awkward. without a tan, too pale; without a page to turn,

lonely. without a song to hear she is calm. with no party, she is her

own. without a shower, she's disgusting. without blindness, she's

cute in those glasses. without food she looks like she should eat,

and with no lover,

she is sort of lost. without a smile, she seems depressed. without

kissing she is ***** and with no bra she is a ****. without laughter

she is bored. without the ability to remember, she is thankful, as well

as naive. without the ocean she is suffocated, with no future she is

trapped. and without hope, she is most hopeful; without herself, she

is a shell.

I cleaned today and un-tied a simpson’s themed scarf, a belt, and a checkered shoelace. I had to cut the shoelace with scissors though because the knot was too tight. When there isn’t rope, other long things we keep around the house, like these, become rope, and are used to hold my legs or wrists in place, usually both.
I organized my nightstand drawer and sorted pills by color and size. There were some really, really, small purple ones that fell out of a broken bottle. There were three gigantic ones that my doctor told me to finish, “even if it didn’t feel like I had an ear infection anymore.”
I washed my sheets for the first time in weeks and when I carried them down the stairs I could smell their stink. I get sweaty in my sleep even though the nightmares tapered off months ago. At 3:07 last night we woke up because we thought I wet the bed, which I do from time to time, so it's hard to tell the difference.

Three nights before
I was the girl with the ***** mouth
You kissed
Sloppy and fumbling
I let your muddy words in to stain my mind
The taste was pure and your backless eyes
Intoxicated me more than my drink

You were just a hollow silhouette of a boy
But I couldn’t see in the dark

*-MJS

I tried to fill my holes with the appendages of others' bodies and at the time it was unclear but nothing was working. nothing. holes were still holy as ever-- just more noisy. loud. like one of those naked embarrassed stuttering confusion howls. and it was all a sound we all made together as I forced our jaws open just to watch them kiss and move. just to see my own civility get lost among the skins.

The way you look at me always ropes me back in
I try to stand on the other side
Avoiding your deep eyes
but regardless of how much I push
you pull
and i'm next to you
on the couch, on the armchair
I can see you watching me
yeah, I saw it all night
It's like there was no time lost
I feel like I'm 19
I realize I miss you
Your long lips, thumb following their lead
I thought I would die
Waiting to feel it all again
But I haven't died
and the chance never came
and I wait for a hard push
Against panels on the side of a house
For my legs to curl
as I'm lifted up
and we are secretly in love again
For a few drunken kisses

1.
Did you
ever
think of
me
as
a happy girl?
Or
was I
continuously
such a
sad
and desperate
thing?

2.**
Is it
still true?
What
you
wrote that day
about
me
being brave?

I have used you as a weapon,
and I have used you as a gift

For retribution,
for adoration

To give pleasure,
or bring pain

Behind a ***** dumpster,
the back seat of a dark green car,
on the loose lid of their old washing machine,
the crusty crack of an overused couch.

In several steaming showers,
and in several sultry beds,
bouncing on a trampoline,
lying pants-less on prickers in the woods.

****** up in a festival tent,
the floor of a motorcycle trailer,
under covers of a comfy bed,
in a white-walled hotel room.

To bring pain,
or give pleasure

For adoration,
for retribution

I have used you as a gift,
and I have used you as a weapon

You’re A Cool Girl
but there is a point
this weird point where i have feelings
i've been used and walked on
i can usually expect it

after your hand on the bottom of my soft-hole sweater
above my tailbone
your winking eyes
feeling like a princess (that i've never been)
you pulled my chair out
we had *****
in the dark

you pushed me over and kissed my mouth
I Love That You Exist*
and then you left
without a third thought

There’s a tapeworm inside me
I’ve tried to get it out for years
everything I put in, it eats up

I tried to drown it with *****
and tire it with no sleep
and cut it out with another’s love

But I’ve realized it will never leave
because once you get your first tapeworm
it stays with you

So I’ve befriended it;
when it’s hungry, I feed him,
when it’s sad, I rock his sorrows in my warm belly

Maybe someday it will leave
but I fear that day
I’ll just begin
growing another inside me

Let me in
Up the stairs
The cold hall and through the always-opened door
I'll sit myself far and try to look pretty
Into your mouth and down your lungs
Let me know the air you breathe, like I used to
My mouth will move, too
Our sounds will mix and harmonize
In the exact way you don't want them to

suckin’ down cancer

thinking about thoughts

being drunk
and sad

always so secretly sad

i found your bicycle key,

iron black rusted

heavier than ones I own,

a nice weight to my frame

i was going to toss it,

along with other older things


of
                                                           ­           here


but it looked at me through stain,

like the way i saw you leave

i'm not sad yet,

i know i will be

so i’ll keep it around my neck,

the part you said


tastes sweetest in your mouth

Sometimes, some days, like on a train from New York to Waterbury with a crying baby, or on your lap in a taxi driving to the apartment, I can see you staring at me in a way that feels like adoration, and it’s something I now have that I’ve always waited for.

Usually I write when I am sad; that is my inspiration, like your writings about death, and that’s it: the secret to writing is depression, sadness, loss, pain-- isn’t it?--and you make me want to write, but I can’t because I haven’t been sad, I’ve been content in this healing process, while the scar on my right cheekbone fades from swollen red to flat cherry, my mind fades from paranoid-obsessed to tranquil-normal, and you are a large part of that softening.

I want to write about us and you and this new chapter of my life, but between our little dates and tear-filled laughs, I can’t seem to find the time, and I’m so thankful for that and you and me, and my strength and your understanding, like yesterday, when we laid like hibernating caterpillars in our floor-bed cocoon, watching the full season of that show, followed by another movie, and yet, more television, and then slipped into bed, where I'd hoped you’d take my clothes off, and you did, in the dark, in my ***** cat-**** blankets, you lifted my Alex Grey shirt off and kissed me, pushed my left knee far away and it slid across the white sheet with a sound that made me want you more, your touches were, as always, so soft, as was the way you licked my bottom lip like candy.

I love that you do things that I am too shy to do, I’ve never had this before and I love the way I can make you laugh until you cry, and of course, your hair and big color shifting eyes and soft lips, and your slender fingers and the way they pluck delicately while your voice is quiet, giving me chills, which is why I am saying I am not sad, I am not feeling pain, I am feeling the lust and joy of healing and normalcy, I am feeling you and me and us and my new life outside of what I had known, just two months ago.

At 4a.m. when it goes quiet
it’s just the chimes and me again
and I feel how lonely they must feel
calling and singing
with no one awake to hear them

The only dreams I have consist of pain
skin, stomach, palms, face
I can't sleep

And I know the only person
who could make me feel okay
would only be capable of doing that
three years ago

I know you
probably better than most
You bring me tears on Sundays
Self hatred in the mornings
You corrode my liver
And shame me with embarrassment
to a point that makes me wish I was dead
You are degrading
And hating
And sickening
But one of the truest friends
I have ever known

The realization that the notion of change means nothing, brought in by tears at the exact magic stroke of midnight in Donald Trump’s New York hotel, Manhattan. Bookstores buying everything in sight to build an impression, being calm being calm, loving hands are held. Seeing winter trees so quiet in such a small mulled-wine-man-made town, searching for dead women down the curves of subdivisions in the dark. Waking wrapped inside scratchy childhood blankets that kept me awake last night, kissing that face near running hot water, shivering legs always trying not to be heard

Is it the red crescendoing of trees lining the icy lake?
Or the pebbles popping under the rubber wheels of my old car?
Is it the warmth of picking up wool scarves from their summer cocoons? Being shaken out and wrapped around cold necks?
Is it this lower state's familiar weather, blending brisk wind with bright sun? The way it heats the second-floor windows in the frigid mornings?
Is it the scents of sage and roasting meat floating through the door, welcoming me home?
Or the mismatched pairs of shoes kicked under the hallway bench?

It might be this last bit of Cabernet slowly tumbling to top my cup, or the ceaseless squeak of my childhood bed.
But yes, something calls me here, back to the beginning.
Back to the autumns of our home.

For the past seven months I’ve been crawling around on my hands and knees, blindfolded, with cotton in my ears. My movements have had no real direction, I have gone where I felt pleased to go, where the ground that touched the bare skin of my knees and palms felt somehow softer or more interesting. And yes I was blind, and no I could not hear; it was all done by heart.
Some choices I made were complete mistakes, and these wrong choices of direction led me to sharp floors which happily left my body bleeding, without bandages to stop the draining, and it weakened me.
But some places I wound up were surprisingly wonderful. They brought me laughter, ***, adventure, trust, new companions.
I’m in one of those places now where the ground is soft and it is calm, which I am thankful for, but it is dull.
I go to sleep almost every night unconvinced, unhelped, wrapped in sheets of ice and misinterpretation. I want more emotion-- the sting of rejection or the dizzying effects of nervous stimulation when taking a chance on a half-stranger at a party. I don’t want the same dry kiss placed perfectly on my bottom lip day after day. I want the kiss of someone who is dying to touch me, to make me smile, to see something new.
I want to know I have the freedom to swing one way or the other, even if I might end up bleeding. No sight, no sound, no sureness, just me and whichever way I choose to crawl in that moment.

on what is now
i guess
a sunday,

i miss you. truly. painfully.
i wonder if you miss me
or if chicago has birthed
enough girls
to keep you
entertained
or maybe
interested

maybe
what i miss
has been dead
for quite.
some.
time.

about a year.
and a half. maybe
more?

and still,
through drawn-out-
annoyingly-long days,
which feel empty
without your presence

i miss you;
your shedding brown
on my shower walls,
twisted in the brushes,
static to my white sheets.

warmth
god that warmth.
i'm telling you
it's hard
to come by.

and jesus christ
your eyes;
so green,
and grey,
and blue,
like two planets i studied
through a telescope
that i never figured out
how to read.

i miss your like-hands
on my shoulder blades at night,
their grip on the
(to me)
terrifying
ground-shifting
bus ride
in the mornings.

and

i don't remember
your kiss,
but i bet anything
i miss that too.

In the morning
There was blood in the bed.
I thought maybe it was a dream
But then you're awake
and the sun is bright through the blinds
and your heart is still shouting his name.
I wish I could say it wasn't real.
I wish it didn't hurt today,
Saying I love you.
But truth is a starved dog
Just off its chains.
Can't ******* wait
To sink its teeth
Into anything that thrives.
It's gonna clench its jaw
Until you're blue,
Right when you thought you knew everything.
And you'll be left
Sleeping with eyes open
Because you were wrong
To think
You had it so good.

The time I saw New York
I cried
I cried for all the things I could remember
in a thin burgundy slip on some empty set of stairs

It was two minutes before midnight
“A New Year”
Something I wanted so much to be true
but I hid my face and wept

When I saw
that all the young girls and old men
in fancy clothes down below
didn’t disappear
or move or change

Instead, danced in circles
mirroring the portraits of my shame

Spinning
around and around,
Stuck in their own involuntary pulls
of gravity

locusts and loud crickets splay
soft songs over hot swells

a banjo strums
its twines of moss
snap the frail shell

its conjuring my missed sounds
they go faintly past my ears

I'm bright circles inside rotted wood, cut open on the edges of your mind

Endlessly talking about rebirth, waiting for spoken word

Cold days, dark nights, I'll stay in place

Footprints in dirt forever will be mine

Did you know to settle me before leaving me to die?

Taking all my warmth away so you could stay alive