This house pulls you in and taunts you away
Drowns you with its quickest current
Dunks you into these cigarettes walls
Takes you to war like the soldiers that came before,
Before your small family packed yourself up quietly
Moved in to be shaken up
Spit back out and swallowed up
The tiles dig into your feet, making you run or stand still
The pipes rattle and sing you a war song
The lights flicker or don’t come on at all

Sometimes I like that best
This house isn’t a home, it’s a burial shroud of the grass never being greener on the other ******* side
You will never get out of this tide

You’d trot up to me like an aged horse
our pasture matted down by our footprints
I’d ask you the same advice I always do
You don’t reply, that’s never the issue

They get jealous and insecure, but you’re nothing more than an old friend

You ever picture insanity?
Monstrosity
Barefoot wineglass catastrophe

I knew he wasn’t a poet, a writer, a prophet or lover in the way he never came back.

When you get the news you may be dying, chocolate doesn’t taste any sweeter.

I craved leaving like the sea begged the shore to come to bed.
I craved not moving a muscle like exhaustion rattled my bones.
For once in my life I was content in the standstill.

And if you lay at my back it’s hard to breathe. Two spines don’t equal out eloquently.
There’s mountains between us, and craters catered to the absence of the words the wind wished you’d say.

He said you have that talent and that baby and you wear it so beautifully. Eloquently, like none of their harsh words ever mattered, like you didn’t scrub away your finger prints wiping off the excess opinions.
Like you weren’t ever crucified for your weight and how you chose to carry it or sit it down when you got weary. Like loneliness was never a cloak you cradled with you. Like quiet was your nature and loud was your opening act. Like people weren’t diving in to receive more and leave you less. Girl, you have that talent and that baby and you wear it so beautifully.

Writing is unpacking, it’s unloading the freeloaders opinions & wiping slates clean.
Writing is packing, it’s loading up the freeloaders opinions & keeping score.

A narcissistic paradise, ink, pencil, pen, choose your weapon.

Mom, such a foreign word
I have one, I know one, I am one
And yet I haven’t begun to understand the meaning

“A burden of joy”
A joy so heavy you have to feel it
Hold it in your arms
Cradle it to your chest
Rock it steadfast to sleep

I don’t feel beautiful. But when he holds me I do.

Your back a map to sleepily tell you how I love you so
Your shoulder blades always a consistent ache
My face finds the crook in your chest
Hallowed out to hold my heart steadfast

I don’t often run into my collar bones
My hands are too busy tugging on the too tight knit shirt
Today I didn’t have to fight the stitching off
It hugged my knees loosely
Enough room for you, me and all the hungry ghosts between us
I don’t often run into my collar bones
Today you could drink from them

When you laughed you took all the air from out of our lungs & for the first time I was glad to see you selfish.

The deepest intake
The shallowest chest cavity
Held nothing for me
Deuteronomy

I glued my legs together with black berry jam
The sweetest spread

Did you become an alcoholic because of a girl or because of the world?
Whatever your answer is, same.

Today I made love to myself with the windows open
The breeze blew my legs ajar
The wind whistled and tickled me all the way to my core
Today I made love to myself with the windows open
Mother Nature called me a *****

Pull at the seams
Knot up your dreams
Pack away the magazines

Your skin a thin sheen, stretched and smacked against your thighs

Your frame a sagging conundrum to be condemned by the click

Weight loss is a huge trick
The more you lose the less you, you are

I stepped off & I stepped out
The curtain closed & I with it
Swept up into the rafters to rest
A melodramatic sarcophagus

Pillowed chest cavity,
Accordion to articulate the pressure in my clavicle.

A firm press to seep out the excess,
To access my insides,
To accept I’ll never be like those other girls.

To drape this weight along my neck, is too much to bare. I’d hand it off to you, but you’re not there.

Atlas

Living on the edge with so many stipulations, suffocating

Nothing mattered, other than the desperation of needing each other.
Just that consummated closeness.
A craving.

I’ve got a hunting dog on my back, he sniffs out my sadness, he’s always on the right track.

Speechless like an undertow,
Barreling towards the sandy coffin you always expected but never wanted to admit.

Breathless like tongue tied gills,
The light ebbing from your eyes, the water is cooler inside.

Lifeless like when he tells you he doesn’t have the capacity to love you but he has fallen for another.

We’re all speechless in this undertow, barreling unexpectedly expecting to be hurt but not quite ready for that sting. I am breathless from tying my tongue with yours every night for months and never being kissed back. I am calm, I am collected, I am collecting myself from you. My life is less without you but I am more.

She said I’ve got a problem with parents
And I said what about when you are one
And she said I never will
And I said you already are

I wanna have enough friends that two people can carry the cake out when they sing happy birthday

I’ll tuck the tears back behind my eyelids.
Keep them closed like the window on the fourth floor my mom always kept locked so I wouldn’t leap.

Your face fell between my thighs, cradled, rock-a-bye, never eat more than you can handle. Always use your forks and knives.

What is it
That noise you make
That soft hum so distinct
So full of distain
Disgust

Prayer

Scorn me, scorch me, sink your suckling teeth into me. But don’t you ever ******* say you love me.

How much of me do you not need?

Because when I offered you accepted everything willingly.

You stuffed your face with frivolity.

Selfishly gulped down my heart and with it my insecurities.

When you were finished, you gave your compliments to the chef and told me you never wanted any of it.

You put your head on my leg, weighing it down. But weight doesn’t make you stay. Weight doesn’t anchor you to the bay. Weight can keep you afloat, lighter than the water. Heavier than the waves. It can keep you warm during a winters storm. Safe from frigid contrasts. You put your head on my leg, weighing it down.

I cut it off and crawled away

I wish your sincerity would reverberate through me, bounce back and clothe you

A clean slate on my wrist. Fall asleep with the fan off, you won’t be missed.

Start again or don’t, breathe again

No, I think I wont

Flightless bird with you, with him I always find the wind beneath my wings.

The orange traffic cones follow me like ghosts, weaving up the highway. Trying to help me get home.

Home is a blurred side eyed view in the passenger seat.

Count the stripes on your back, to equal out what your step dad thinks you lack. To make sure you never bleed out from those masses of granulation tissue. Fine lines to define your worth, girl. To feel the flames lick down your back, to wish for death, to only wake up again.

Isiah 53: 3-7 is *******

And if you’re dancing again, the ghost will follow your foot steps. Clamber up to your chest cavity and dive in. Die in. Die inside. Stopped dancing again.

Something spiritual how a rain coat keeps you warmer than last years winter jacket.

I’m going to love the hate out of you, it’ll pool at your feet and we will kick it away.

Something comforting about how the gears grinds and clicks. Like you’re in control of what happens next.

Hum drum of hookups, silique symphony. A long line of history, bad timing and misery. One night stands and two night bands traveling along my hip bones. If you play me right you just might get an encore.

I started writing but I stopped eating

I’ll share the sunshine with you, even if it’s behind a windowpane.

Are you running after life, or is the after life running after you?

With every tale of a past adventure, you told me how you’re going to leave me in the future.

My servitude to calorie counting. Small bites and bitter ends. Weighed and tried and found guilty of a chocolate demise?

Tap out, tap in, tap into me
Holy water, maple syrup
Geyser of ecstasy
*** in me