like ones

I wished to see

meeting mine

through my face
down my spine

they never did
no matter
the shape
I made

so those before
they watched me fade

I glow now
when ours get stuck

his are the ones

open me up!

she has scars
like stars

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

Two nights ago I sat above the new apartment sign, my naked body dangling on its brick-laid edge. Cramped lights seared the parts of my legs they touched and it reminded me of watching pieces of fish in the oven. A breeze skated across my upper arm and ******, making me cold but awakening warm memories, ones taken from the house in the city that I cannot outrun. The fingers on my right hand prodded a cigarette into the crack of my lips as I tried to remember those four numbers, 37 and 62, and the circumstances under which I had deemed myself happy.

It seemed that we were almost-always-unabashedly *******, or at least I was, but there was that thoroughly **** time-- the night at the lake. Graceless games of Truth or Dare escorted shots of ***** into our mouths and conducted secrets out. Bottles’ tin caps clicked open as we split the clear contents inside, shook the smaller one, held it to the nose, waited for the levels of our laughter to rise like specs in the night sky: Pop, pop, pop! Up and up we went, watching down below, leaving life behind, fading away like the dimmed city stars.

I pulled the cigarette out of my mouth, releasing the white smoke. My mind searched for a time in life when smiling had come so easily, but the answer stayed the same.

Remembers best while the worst falls back. Forgetful Girl, where'd you leave your worth this time? Forgetful Girl, repeated patterns, they won't change your mind. Forgetful Girl, is the pain the only one you won't lack? Forgetful Girl, finding faith at the alter of their eyes? Forgetful Girl, burning your knees hoping they won't lie? Forgetful Girl, always running to the past. Forgetful Girl, it's all the same, close your eyes. Deep breaths.

It pulls me
by the leash
we bought together
some years ago.

Which cuts into
my neck’s thin skin--
            Too tight!
yanking me down alleys,
up cement stairs,
through humid, hot-boy bars.

Even when I see blood
running
down
the cloth,
I refuse to fight back.

That city
trained me
not to disobey.

When I return to bed
on the other side of the world,
there’s lots of sweat
and wonderfully violent dreams
that feel as familiar
as waving goodbye.

Which,
ironically--
           sigh,
my city and I
are incapable of doing.

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.

You are like a ghost now,

a ghost who's just tired of haunting me.

First bitten kisses
that bleeding lip
ashes from our past
in this blanket
I wrapped them up
just to say goodbye
Wrapped up,

just say goodbye

Before you left
you said
please, don't cry
take care of yourself
you'll be all right
You wrapped me up
just to say goodbye
Wrapped up,

just say goodbye

Last ***** glances
from up way up high
you took me up there
birthday midnight sky
We were wrapped up
just to say goodbye
Wrapped up,

just say goodbye

For weeks, which felt like years, that small room was the whole World and every thing in it.
For days, which should have been their own, one linked and looped with the next and taught me to shame the sun.
After one week, I found out that a bed was like an aging body; the more it was used, the more I could feel its once-sturdy frame bend and sag, and the squeaking grew and the metal groaned below my sweating skin.
After two days, I found out that a bed was also the most dependable of life rafts, which safely kept me floating above the forever-blackening sea, where I’d once sworn I’d take my last wet and feeble breath.
While this one-room World swallowed fears and held trembling hands tight, it began to whisper in the night; one wall repeated rumors it heard from its opposite: warnings of the Outside and all the dangers it could bring.
“Those you pass on the road will stare with the knowledge that you are out-of-place, that you do not remember normal,” whispered the plaster on my right.
         "And the many men leaning in to corners of brick could yell or touch or chase, you don’t want that again, not again, right?” hissed the wall to the left.
        No, I do not want any of it, I replied through a hazy dream.
After their whisperings stuck, I discovered that the notion and act of sleep had the ability to slyly slip away, no matter how hard I tried to hold on.
         Sleep. Slep. Seep. Spl. Shut. Shh. Sleep? Silence. Close. Dark. Down…
When sleep became a habit of the past, anxiety became the habit of the present and the terror of the future.
For weeks, which were just one stretch of daylight, I did not know sleep, but I still knew the comforting space of World and the safety the floating bed wrapped around me.
For days, which were wholly lost and never found, alcohol seeped from my pores, while empty ***** fifths created new altitudes of the floor.
For months, which were truly months, I sat in the small World with depression’s darkness, and I found I could live with no real desire to see my toes touch the existent, dreadful ground.

she breaks
boys
accidentally,
easily;
like
she breaks
the spines
of
books.

It's a lot more work than you think you know it is
Living like this
Being her
******* crazy **** who's drunk 362 days of the year
******* dumb sack of **** living in a box
******* bad friend, lonely girl, *******
Gotta pull her while she kicks, objecting to society
"I'm going to **** myself"
Can't. Won't.
"I hate myself."
Not enough.
"I'm a good person."
Try harder.
"I'm beautiful."
Only for a minute.

the jelly's empty jar
the unlocked door's lean
the bed's right side
the bathroom's golden gleam

the open window's draft
the blanket's red stain
the shelve's missing plate
the lightbulb's naked string

the floor's dusty coat
the tv's big blank screen
the night's silent cry
the closet's clothesless beam

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

Life is so funny

because it gives you all of these

amazing, indescribable, breathtaking experiences

surrounded by love

And then you die.

At that moment, the pieces of glass exploding from the windows of her city gently moved backward and glued themselves into their panes. The flames from bursting from buildings curled themselves inward, clearing smoke from the sky, wiping away a soft sun that showed everything was right again.

"I miss you," he had said. "I miss you."

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

there were many long hard nights

you had to remind yourself to breathe


but there were one thousand more nightmares

telling you to hold your breath

Q: When a man chokes you in a crowded bar as he looks past the brim of his black hat and matches his eyes with yours, are you supposed to feel self-hatred?

Q: When a man wipes your tears away with his button-down shirt, tells you it’s all right, and wraps his arms around you, are you supposed to feel love?

Q: When a man sets a knife down, pushes your face into a brick wall and pulls your pants off, are you supposed to feel shame?


A: I really don't ******* know anymore.

As a girl, her hands traced it in the soft darkness of summer
And that was all it needed: the tips of 4 fingers to say, “I will consume you now,
I will overtake your everything, your you.”
She promised and she didn’t know, and it happily devoured her
She was happy, too

As a woman, her hands snapped it in the hidden places of night
And that was all it needed: the evidence of 1 act to say, “I might disappear now,
But I will continue to consume you.”
She felt her old promise, and it easily burned her
But she had been easy, too

It is a shower for one, a leftover shirt, a journal
It is loneliness, cluelessness, a hoping
It is a nightmare, a few blunt words, a knot
It is reconnection, thankfulness, a knowing

It was a day, a smell, a letter, a clover
It was joy, a warm bed, it was a kiss and a day made
It was a basement, a taste, a song, a child lost
It was pain, it was bareness, it was a declaration and tears

It can be 6 years of life and it can be a home
It can be 2,190 days drugged and it can be a prison
It can be willfulness
It can be contract

Yet it remains a system of organs, of muscles, of bones
It is held together with smoke-roasted skin

It remains a collection of memories, of touch, of letters
It is held together with never-ending care

Those happy parts of my life are distant memories
they're so far away
I can't try to meet the girl I was
not even halfway

I used to ask myself which era of my life was the happiest
or most fulfilling
now I only ask myself why this one is so lost

Where have I gone?
I wish I could ask, but I'm the only one who knows how

To help her
find her way back
or hopefully forward

I don't really think

I keep in mind

just how much

you broke my heart

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.

Swallow swallow swallow swallow

**** **** ****.

Come *** come ***

**** **** ****.

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

the knives

in this house

are sharper

since you left

the bed

harder

my dreams

darker

when
I fall
to my knees
in
this emptiness
the loneliness
sounds
louder
to me

it was last night when
the first
favorite memories of you
climbed
into my head.

summer's sweat
above your lip.

subtle stubble
on your chin.

bold shoulders
forever bare
in tattered shirts.

thighs stuck
to ***** bar booths.

and johnny cash
on the juke.

they called us
lovebirds
every night

just because
of the look
in our eyes.

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

I am a ******-obsessed freak. I am a violent-craving ****. I am a drunk-tryna quit, I’m a lying-******’ *****. I’m a taken-cheating mess, I’m a speed-owned shell. I am a crazy-raging ease. I’m a selfish little *****. I’m a drifting-airhead ****. I’m a full-on sack of ****. I am a rotten-pussied tease, I am an all-day-lazy dude. I’m a fowl-mouthed lady, I’m a streaking stripping girl. I’m a pushy-fast-paced date, I’m a no-date kinda gal.

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

Her heart is still half beating, her head repeating, all that way, bordered states, remember perfect days, pretending that he stays? It split, the voice, mimicking his ways, loudly, being carried, tapping, thumping, bleeding, bumping, spitting, screaming, dripping from cracked hands, drowning the faces, once soft, now numb.

This is a place where sleeping is hard. This is a bed, on which, I lay my skull and it opens up, not to soft dreams; instead, to loud, forgotten thoughts. I am thankful for one hour of eyes closing. Two or more, at this point-- four sleepless nights in-- is a ******* blessing. When I open my bedroom window to the sunrise that I raced and beat, the air tastes like cowboys' dreams: all wide and free. It’s baby-blue and almost-purple and a shade of blushing-pink: all the colors that make me feel new and innocent: feelings I wish I felt. I watched my cat sleep by our knees, but she gets up with the sun today, just like me. There is an empty, quiet fireplace, one story and twenty steps below my heels. I want to put a log in and allow my body rest next to its warmth on the floor, but someone has been on the couch since last night. Today is Christmas and I feel lost in thought and wakefulness. Is it okay to say my heart is breaking? Because the stitches are coming out for a third time, and I’m afraid to tell.

When you live below someone
and you both live in a building
built in the 1920s
you become friends
even when you've never met

in those short summer days
i ran away from home
i kissed you in the sunshine
when you were not my own
in those short summer days
you had a mattress on the floor
and the first time i met
your mother was right there on that porch
it hurts too much
to write about it now,
how long you have not loved me
how long since you've known how....

we're fading like the bite marks
i left on your skin

and we're as false as the fibs
you quickly caught me in

letting
go
doesn't
stop
*******

until
there's
someone
to
grab
onto

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

Sometimes, one of us calls the other,
throws a small stone and listens to hear the reply of ancient echoes.

Last night was longer,
about Ginsberg, alcoholic tendencies, the history of us.

He was drunk to the point of almost-constant repetition and forgetfulness, which it seems he always is, I think.

But still, we talked,
because I don't mind.

The bottle makes the truth come swimming out his lips.

"You're so handsome now," I said. Because it was true, he was.

And always was, even back on Myspace,
on back decks.

when i was lost

you taught the trees

to speak

so they could guide me

until

the sun

came up