Joy

is hard to define

So don’t.

The daggers in your voice
they're the reason I fled.
No following me;
you stayed snug in your bed.
You stabbed me with my own
most shameful secret
when minutes before,
you promised you'd keep it.
I ignored all your calls
the words rang in my head
I don't think
I will ever
Forget what you said.

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

white delight is a hard train seat, a ***** shirt, and used dishes in the sink. it is hot water in a dark tub; the animal in your arms; the empty bottles over there. white delight is pure and quick but also slow. it shows up late and stays, most times, too long. white delight is the taste of bleeding lips; it is the sound of a voice whispering a name. white delight is a family's past and a greeting's future. it is the feeling of hands on skin in bed. it is the twang in the truck; the distance of cities; the beating heart of every lover ever loved.

On hot nights


he dreams of me


Holding his heart


in my hands

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.

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

My ugly came
when the struggles leaked out
and turned white skin
to a canvas of punished pink lines
It came with the baby, too soon too abruptly
but when baby came out
it only went deeper
My ugly came
when the city showed us that not all who walk near
have pretty intentions
It came in a bottle, labeled and dated
in each tiny pill I pushed down my throat
My ugly came
after all the love left, as if it were the only one
to come back
After my ugly came
with the world and its harshness
it showed me
such beautiful sights

She

is a song he plays with closed eyes,

heartbreaking and angry,

volumes of many shameful pasts

singing through her chest.


She

is a book he reads with open hands,

her stories scrawled into skin,

like a braille

only he can speak.


She

is the box in which he keeps his heart,

****** and beating

trusting that it's safe.

When we were young
you held me up
so high
I couldn't see the ground

But I had been buried
so long
it scared me
to be close
to the sun

11 pounds lighter. 3 shades more red. Dreaming of something opposite of death. Really sleeping again. Running. Showing teeth. Using my all-time-favorite pens. Listening loudly. Slowly moving in to the world. Feeling skin. Warming my cold hands. Reconciling with the body. Complimented. Coming. Reassured. Sorry, but for once, not for myself. Watching someone watch. Thankful for this life.

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 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.

I come here to ******* and cry
where it is silent and loud at the same time

the porcelain statues watch and release temporal tears
in a painful response
to my nonsensical quivering of the mouth
and squinting of the eyes

there it is again
that baked salt
on the roof of my mouth, the ends of my fingernails

It almost came last night,
but I stopped it with a breath before it got close
to ruining me again

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

there are boys
whose names
i don't remember.

not because
i can't,
only because
i don't.

there are boys
whose names
i can't forget.

not because
i don't,
only because
i can't.

suckin’ down cancer

thinking about thoughts

being drunk
and sad

always so secretly sad

Carousel
Slow down slow down
I can't keep up my strength
On and off and staying here
I have no time to waste
Yet I'll stay and swing and listen well
Faster but I will fall
Hang on until I can't no more
Spin me through it all
My bones are weak and I'm afraid
I'm gonna hit the ground
Carousel
Oh carousel
Make me lost not found

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

I ride the backs of rumbling bikes
and drink ***** in my bed.
Or play the same dumb songs
so I can speak the past.
I change my yellow hair
to red
in moments that sit still.
And I sometimes enjoy acid
in the tall grass
holding blue wolves.
I rip apart the drawing
because it stares too long
and tape it back together
but he never comes.

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

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

I liked biting his perfect skin.
I liked being able to look at the purple and red marks and the feelings they induced.
The feeling that he was mine.
That I had damaged him that way.

I once watched people walk into a hole filled with water in the ground.

Someone told me they were washing away their sins, but when they came out, they looked the same.

I didn't bathe in a hole
but today I look different.

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

when he kissed me it felt like a plea. i could taste the ginger in my throat. when i kissed back it looked like a mountain. A certainly steep one i once hiked in oregon.

the freeway was loud, screaming below their feet, truck drivers at 80 and up, the west coast late night norm. higher decibels made them feel more properly hidden taking bumps from the bag, and she sniffed in and thought of how she wasn't expecting this night, but she was lonely, hopeful, a wreck. he sniffed harder and he tugged down on his hat, realizing just how unprepared he was for the way she looked at him.

For years I begged
universe and god:
Happiness.

I forgot its warm embrace
the want to get out from under the bed
the courage to put bottles down

Today I beg
myself:
Acknowledgment.

I ignore the cold world
that held me so tight
the way it taught me to be

She thinks

she can wear those things:

Delicate.

Like nothin' *****

Ever happened.

Sweet things remembered go

sour

in the now.

Dragging pieces from you     s l o w l y
that you once
       choked
down     somehow

Didn't they look soft
when they lit up your world?
The way their budding promises
came to your lips unfurled?

Like dandelion skeletons
                        slipping             through the wind
Sweet moments that
built you a
home

Dance
v
i o l  e
n t
in the end

we walk around with lips pulled tight
because we are living in darker light
we press our bodies, dying and thin
into fear and sadness, let it come in

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.

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

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

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

"Airing our ***** laundry."

"No one likes you anyway"

"Attention *****"

"Selfish little *****"

"Stupidest thing I've ever been a part of"

"All my friends say you're crazy"

"You just love confrontation"

You asked me not to air our ***** laundry
So here it is
As clean as it was
The first time we met

you
are   beginning
to be                    
                                    gone.

i open your
door and i  expect
to
                                         cry.    
but  nothing            
                               ­      comes.

you
are    starting
to                        
                                        fade.

my love

you
are   beginning
to
                                         end.

i did not know you
as the kind of man
to see
bleeding holes
and sing loudly
of defeat

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.

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 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

Love came easily to me

it was never sparse.


That's how


I touched so many others

trying to break your scarce heart.

There was a scarf over his open eyes and her stomach seemed emptier than the icky yellow walls of her new apartment. A bottle being kicked outside echoed glassy sharp sounds, hard against cement, and it was probably 11:47 am. Staying awake for 48 hours was harder than she remembered, but not harder than she realized. It was the same for staying faithful, although, that wasn’t really true.