I'm going to braid my leg hair
and spit strands
into a rope that will take me away from here,
be it through neck or nail.
The pale air claws at the top of my head,
it buzzes in classrooms and snatches at my waist.
We are olives fit to bursting,
cracking the glass and spilling out on the floor.
We are knives too sharp to be held in a bread drawer.
My brain was replaced while I wasn't looking,
with what, I don't know,
but it's something
light, foolish, tired,
and
one year older.

Being the only one awake in the back seat, or the only one thinking loudly,
and in the back of  your mind, sitting there like living weight, you've got
the giant Citgo sign
(you swear you could fit in the T),
listening to passion pit as the golden sun flings itself on the highway,
a construction worker lowering his pants in front of a dumpster,
hearing the sandlot play downstairs as you stare at the dark ceiling,
pizza you ate in the park the evening before now being had for breakfast,
finding out the **** is pro-choice,
getting your shoulder squeezed on a rollercoaster
by a boy who screams like a girl,         
feeling drunk even though you're sober,
running through the dark,
passing trailers with round lanterns lining the tops,
outlining shirtless men and smoking women,
looking in the mirror after swimming with your clothes on
in a hot tub,
and you're not sure if you're
beautiful
or
disgusting.
Yeah, you can sleep now.

why did no one tell me how good lips feel on my wrists
until i cut them?
i
don't have anyone to kiss my scars
for now i just have to settle
for this sinking feeling in my stomach
this creature
scratching inside my chest
and throat
but even then
you can't hold that close to you
at night
it won't stay still
or warm enough

how dare you take that word
and change the meaning of it for me
forever.
who gave you the right to make my heart feel like
spoiled lamb's milk
bloodied grass baking in the sun.
keep my legs crossed, *** down
eyes on the floor

it wasn't even that bad
people have gone through so much worse
terrors unimaginable from this girl
in maine

but ******* if i could rip this iron rod feeling out of my bones
i would

arteries laced together through a daisy chain
and brushing fingertips
throughout an assembly room
of shuffling feet
and sniffling,
ventricles, atriums,
tears running down her face at prime muzzle velocity,
veins spell out what none of us can say,
in this silence that feels like it should never be broken--
how are we ever gonna be okay?

Listening to music is so weird.
sometimes It'll feel like someone is reaching down your throat and scratching at your heart
and you feel the urge to sing so bad.
Other times it feels like someone poured a big vat of honey on you
and the only thing you can see, or taste, or smell or feel is that song.
And still other times
it feels like someone replaced your soul with a handful of peach fuzz
and your eyes with two cold river rocks
and your brain goes into memory mode
like a kaleidoscope of bittersweet and frisson.
and
there's that one song
and then you can't feel anything
at all.

i'm this close to never talking to him again, but we all know
that will never happen,
he's like the three shots of ***** i knocked back on a thursday,
hot and stinging down my throat,
wishing there was someone else there to keep the warmth going.
i ******* hate the fact
that
he's the first one who made me blush,
before then i never had
but all you have to do is mention him next to me in the car
and my face is a bed of roses.
i'm ******* sick of waiting for a message
any sign that i wasn't just a distraction
a mirage,
any sign that this attraction i'm feeling
is worth it
at all.
i hate the fact, even more,
that he is the closest i've had
to romantic attraction that i can hold in my hands.
that my friends can talk about the boys they've gone through
when i've had this rotten apple core sitting in my stomach
for three years.
and the thing i most hate
is the tingling feeling
of having no one beside me at night
even though i'm fifteen
it's so tangible i can bite it.
i know it's cliche, but
i'm stuck in this hole
this garbage dispenser of no good,
and i've never felt so alone.
i need a new addiction,
so maybe it'll be easier
to quit him.

Welcome to the end of the earth
dripping honey til' we die.
Welcome to an alleyway as big as a building,
welcome to a spaceship, floating past personal galaxies,
welcome to a small pond with big fish.
Welcome to where you find out
who you are, and who everybody else is.
Welcome to the rest of your life,
or where you wanna end it.
Welcome to pixelated faces,
melting faces,
****** knuckles
and television screens for heads.
Welcome to pop-rocks crushes,
pink-haired goddesses,
and art of our own.
Welcome to sunlight through your hair on the bus.
Welcome to hell, or high school, you pick,
it doesn't really matter anyway.

Do you remember:
Watching Harry Potter and pretending the characters were our classmates,
while sitting on your couch eating Dominos,
the spices stinging my split lip.
Naming our sleepovers,
E-mailing "Jennifer is tomorrow".
Slurping mint Klondike bars in your hot tub,
Autumn rain pittering from the trees,
and playing truth-or-dare sitting in front of the jets.
Throwing your old toys in the road
and waiting for them to get run over
until my dad arrived.
Videotaping our feet
in the golden light
and the deleting them to save space
Walking to your house after watching "The video" at school
and giggling past the rivers of rust.

Honestly, I thought
we were going to be friends forever.

Sometimes I wonder
what would happen if I
went up to you @ school and said
"You know, I write poetry
about you.
Sometimes I stay up late to do it,
or spend a while perfecting
every
word."
Would you laugh? Poke me
in the ribs?
Or just not hear me, and walk
away,
and I would think
"I don't know what I was
expecting."

Maybe I should worry about
the hole my dad kicked in the wall
and I drew a smiley face on it to make myself feel better
and still it's there after more than five years.
Or that it doesn't bother me
hearing my eighteen-year-old brother cry
anymore.
Or that I don't know how to explain
why I'm so jumpy
and why it's not exactly funny.
But instead I just focus on myself, my mind
sometimes it's easier
to study the storm inside my head
even though
I'm getting
soaked.

You'd better call her before you ask her out and see if her voice is cute over the phone
Sometimes when I  sleep I tangle my fingers in my hair and pretend they're not mine
But not this morning
today I'm content with my fingers intertwined with my own
I'm not lonely, probably because I need to ***.
If I was brave enough, would this be enough?

Perhaps I'm most beautiful
asleep in class,
the blue light of the overhead projector
kissing my face.
When I make my friends shake with
stupid, unbridled, blind laughing,
leaning against the vending machine.
When I tilt my head back
at the good part of a song,
sitting in the sweet-smelling bus seat,
my knees propped up.
When I stay up 'til eleven,
and talk about fourteen-year-old thoughts.
When I get joyfully lost in my own weird, growing-up thoughts,
sitting in church,
and I get startled by the Lord's prayer.

I like my ****** expressions, my bright eyes, my delicate eyelashes, my pale hands, lace veins lining them, and my aching heart.
The pain in my chest
in the middle of a song.
My heavy eyelids.
My light, weighed-down feet.
And my hipbones
that carry the weight of the world.

parties on fridays are the best kinds
because of the knowledge that sits in the back of your brain,
a used lunch tray,
that you were at school hours before,
and now you're here, warm bodies and hot ***** down your throat
making you feel at home.
parties on saturday are the best kind
because in the morning,
you can sit in church and relive every moment
in between psalms.
hymns will come out of your mouth, but really you're thinking
how
did
i
survive
that?
sunday parties are the best parties,
because everyone has this mutual feeling,
of living before the apocalypse, knowing
that tomorrow you will see them in the hall
and have a bruise named after them.

catsong
sunlight can flood in and move out
as much as it wants
but it has nothing on the metaphorical campfire in the clearing of the crowd
dust motes are highlighted through
the prevalent smell of beers and wines
constant conversations
and they eventually settle into a voice
that hugs the space behind your ears
and travels down to your heart, which wiggles it's toes in blood sand
and time is only measured by
an expansion of the ribcage.
i am yours,
you are mine,
you are what you are
and i realize that not every song is a love song,
but there still should be more songs about this.

dogsong
there are certain people that hold your heart in place
without realizing it.
1:02 am
and we are on the playground across the street,
blue eyes in the grey dark and the sky is orange from the city.
snow is falling in cliques of flakes holding each other,
and we catch them on our tongue under the street lamps,
that take them and mold them into fairy dust.
My knees are red and wet, we fall,
we spin on red plastic that i can't name and god takes our heads
and holds them in place for the time being.
we go home singing silently.
3:10 am
and i am convinced i know what true love is,
even though I know at the same time i have no idea,
besides what was held in that room.

music heard through walls,
the smell of sweet grass in the dual air
clicking, snapping, laughing.
it gets worse at night.
i break things
just to prove that i have the strength to;
you should not let me hold you so closely.
colossal,
my teeth are bare
i
don't drink the water, paint this enamel gold,
don't think about the weight of particles on your scalp
the bathroom floor smells like cherries.
i color my scabs with purple pen
and pull on pink, warm skin.
I was already a mess,
i was just a different breed of mess after him.
but control over my own gods
may be the best kind of therapy.

I tried to scrub your name
out of my head,
but all I got was skin and soap
under my nails.

This dream head of mine
is bursting at the seams.
why is it that
I cannot like love songs
or love songs about liking
....
because they only remind me that
the happiness I feel now, is temporary,
like radio waves.
No song sounds the same twice.
If love decides to stick under my nails
and drip through the spaces between my fingers
(where yours fit perfectly)
my brain will malfunction, short-circuit
my hardwiring will misconfigure
and I might mess it up.

My heart is buttered cake
with brown sugar frosting.
It can't take much.
It melts at the edges sometimes,
and there's mold on the corners.
My eyes are made of green-apple jolly ranchers
that are sticky in your hands.
My lips are two halves of a strawberry,
sometimes purple and bruised
like the words that come out of them.
My hands
are made of milk and honey
but sometimes
not
as warm and comforting.
There's apple juice
blue slushies
and hot sauce
running through my veins
and cookie crumbs
behind my brain.
I am a feast
and
not
prepared
for
you.

11-6-14
I saw my name on your contacts list
and wondered how many times your finger hovered over the "call" button.
---
I hope you, or at least someone
thinks at least some things about me are cute
the way my hair sticks up and then flops over when I try to fix it
and, when pinned up,  the way it becomes gradually messier over the course of the day.
When I mouth the words to a song on the school bus,
scrunching my eyes and headbanging,
or when I spin around on my heels, and try to look graceful.
---
Frick, I shouldn't try to write about love, i'm just a thirteen-year-old girl
who grew up on the internet
and doesn't care about the ****** music she's listening to.

10/4/14
Those minutes
those mornings when I wake up and it feels I'm back at day one
and I'm still made of clay, and God himself
took his thumbs
and hollowed out my eye sockets
and never filled them.

(what do I write now?)

My ponytail is brushing the small of my back.
I'm staring at my reflection on the computer screen
and I'm not liking what I'm seeing.

(Stop talking about yourself.)

They say "write what you know", and yet
I can only write about myself.

(shut up.)

Knives. Earwax. Squeals.
What is my life made of?
In a day, I'll be back
at my temple of jitters.
(School).
(maybe there's something wrong with you, the way you brought those glasses to the kitchen,
that you drank the same liquid from, and your stomach
felt like it was holding water bottles full of blood, instead of organs)

10/13/14

Why do you have to make me feel so **** guilty all the time?
When we stood on the grey carpet in Spirit Halloween
the animated screams pushing against my torso
with your gaslighting, my head/heart/hair caught fire
and nobody won.

I feel like I deserve better than this, but what could be better than
these moments?
At least, later, I will have photos to lighten
in my sweatpants
and my designated sweatshirt for when I feel like ****.

And the inside of my mouth tastes like
those screams, from the wrinkled, blackened plastic
and the oil from our un-fluffable bangs.

I know tomorrow I'll be
busy ******* up christmas songs
and leaning on bus windows
and sleeping in the jumpy skin I've built myself
out of bad breath, smudged makeup,
and curly-haired boys,
So I should be grateful.
But when it feels like you've drained bottles of stage blood into my veins
and I am not real anymore
and instead of eyeshadow, my eyelids are weighed down
with toxic thoughts that, instead of coming from my mental lips,
come from your physical ones,
I will not be happy.
I'm sorry.
(You know you had fun. Stop it. You had a hell of a great time, and a bad aftertaste will never get rid of the taste of the absence of loneliness in those pictures.)
---
Me to myself: why are you like this?

(And also, why is it that
you always have more things to say
even when this program is closed
the typing has stopped
you come back
hungry for the attention you'll never get?)

---

10/24/14
I know people will ask
how my right shin got so scratched up and shredded
and maybe I will tell them
It got that way when I crawled out the window
and not that I sat on the bathroom floor
crying tears that felt pink, the way they darkened my face
and I dug my nails into my flesh
and dragged them.

I wish I could do something poetic with the stinging pain, like
cut off all my hair, or most of it
because It made me look like a wild animal, when
I walked, shoe-less, on the streets.
Or I could have scars on my leg, and be reminded
of the pain I inflicted on myself
(and others)
today
---
11-3-14

Oh ****, I fell in love again.
...
Is it love, Or is it
a childlike infatuation
with the idea of a crush
?
Do I have affections for you, or am I attracted
to the idea of you?
Am I just bored? Do I only like that you like me,
that you make me feel relaxed?
Maybe, or maybe it's
the sugar-high-ish, ache-y feeling
I get when I see you in the corner of my eye
or our legs brush up together
(Thank god it's not lust).
---

_
This is the color of anxiety:
Red, like the blood I wish I could expose with a sharp, small movement, but can't, just can't (you can't even hurt yourself correctly. Worthless.)
Orange, like the pumpkins in the halloween store I tried to have fun in, but the snake of uneasiness squeezed my ribs too tight until I couldn't breathe, orange like the light I saw in the middle of the night.
Yellow, like the sunshine that I wanted to run into, but I didn't let myself, a watery color like what my voice sounds like sometimes.
Green, like the leaves on the rock I sat on
when I ran from myself, my house
and cried, cried, cried (once is enough, *******).
Blue, the color I thought my tears would be, but they were just a salty clear, dripping down my face, and changing nothing.
Purple, like the bruises that I don't remember getting, but press on anyway, relishing the pain in a sort of ******-up way, thinking "Whenever, wherever, however you got this, you probably deserved it."
Pink, like the insides, and outsides, of my eyelids when I can't sleep at night, arguing with myself.
Brown, like the dirt that I imagine
cakes the wormlike workings of my brain, in the area where
self-sympathy and control was.
Black, like the centers of my eyes
that I see when I look in the mirror and think
"****, did I look like this all day?"
And, anxiety is the colors in between, too. Navy and tan and white and gold.
Yes, it's all the colors, because it's everywhere, and most of the time, I can't get away from it.
(God, could you've made that any more melodramatic? Yeah, you have dark moments, but you make it sound like every aspect of your life is drenched in manic-depressive bile, which, my dear, is ridiculous.)
---

On my left, the full moon cuts through the morning lavender sky
like a white razor on blue veins,
like a pale fingernail on cold lips,
like a perfect circle rubbed onto a fogged-over, wet window with a thumb.
On my right the sun is rising with angry shyness,
peach, magenta, ruby, pink atop the light teal horizon.
Like a red-haired girl blushing,
like the color I dyed my hair a couple days ago,
like maybe whatever god is giving me a smile or a wink
because I didn't want to get up this morning.

watching a movie in class
and having boys crowded around your desk playing with your hair
and acting like it annoys you
but it doesn’t

window shopping
with a friend
pointing out wishes
making inside jokes

going to Mcdonalds with your grandmother
eating fries like British delicacies
chatting

those days on the bus
listening to music
the sun and bus
yellow
zooming along the streets

lying awake at night
sleeping over
hands being held over the abyss between two beds
swapping secrets
like fisherman trading fish

drawing
and liking it
creating something

and

tasting
something sweet

I have siblings.
Many siblings
who all understand me.
Are we related?
More so than normally.
We are connected in brain rather than blood.
We can read each others' minds
and feel each others' emotions
every tear and sound and smell.
Who are these brothers and sisters?
My...friends.
My "friends" who walk along with me and we swear and laugh and gossip.
My "friends" who know all of my stinging secrets and I theirs.
My "friends" that I eat ice cream mixed with hot sauce and lemon juice with
My "friends that I throw up and cry and sing and dance and write songs and watch movies with.
No,
they're not my friends.
They're family.

Sitting on the oddly sweet-smelling seat
anxiously ******* my oily bangs
song lyrics playing in and out of my mind.
Out the window I see soft brown grasses
and signs for auto shops
and leaves blowing around.
Around me is the hum of younger kids talking about ipods and soccer games
humming half-songs by overrated boy bands and forgotten summer camps.
Drawing is no use, even if you find a pencil it will surely break
wobbling off the page as cracks and portholes pass underfoot.
And I never have any books to read.
So I observe inside and out of the bus,
The only one to see a lonesome deer by the side of the road
or stolen looks by kindergartners.
As graffiti and weeds zoom by outside the smeared glass
we creak and grumble to a stop.
I dig around for the non-existent bus card
and get off my imagination vessel, the school bus.

I'm smiling wider than I can in photos,
probably because of the music playing,
like watered-down honey being poured
into where my brain used to be,
but my stomach still sits
like I just swallowed my own heart.

Even the corner of the heating pad is warmer than what I feel for you.
There's no red-hot passion here, on the contrary;
there is only a numb cold in my chest cavity
a gnawing anxiety and pale
annoyance,
bruised,
which for some sickening reason
I
love.

holding your hand is the only high i need
holding you is better than
the buttery french toast i missed out on last night
the smell of maple and almost thirty voices of teenagers born from Hollywood,
our skin sleek with after prom,
i carved our initials in the table at dennys
my heart heavy and pink with the feeling of being 17 and
hurtling towards the end of everything,
sitting in the backseat and glowing,
holding you
is the only drug i need,
unicorn hooves and clenched teeth,
fog machines and sweetness immeasurable,
emily dickinson sitting in a diner at midnight,
wishing she was in bed
or somehow closer
to you

It feels like I swallowed a bolt of lighting,
like someone reached down my throat,
and pulled out my vital guts,
replacing them with fire and gold.
Guitar chords stick in my throat like the barrel of a gun,
but no hands to contain me.

like
ribbed-knit fabric,
when we put the old ribbed La-Z-Boy out front, "FREE",
and whoever picked it up
has no idea my grandfather died in that chair.
like holding my knees in the hot tub,
quiet, wet, baking tiles,
a certain safety in a room with only women,
and crouching in the water like a boiling dumpling.
shortbread cookies in bed.
mac DeMarco on the way to the doctor's office,
my love for you is so real,
separating from my body in a goodwill,
curly-haired boys and impossibly beautiful girls in the movie theater bathroom,
whipped cream on her nose,
the golden lights of applebee's, and then
like it's all over again.

i am sixteen years old
lightheaded, underslept, sleepy.
chinaspice blocks in the corners of yellowed stairwells,
easter eggs hidden under my feet
and grass squeaking beneath my curled toes.
My chest
feels like an alarm clock silenced one too many times,
a grenade left buried underground for too long,
a dog chained up to a running motor.
My heart is being squeezed by the hands of god,
who can't decide what to do with me quite yet.
so he lets me sit in the oven a while longer,
and while it's nice to be warm around the edges,
I'm not partial to getting
red-hot.

I regret
That I ignored the golden sound of peepers across the street
I regret
That I sometimes stay on the computer too much
a zombie with blue light on her face
I regret
that I don't make those entries in my journal
or draw that idea I got at 2 am
or turn in that essay
But most of all
I regret hating and loving you.
So when I say
"saya, saya tidak menyesal."
know that I am lying.

I think I ought to focus more on
the ones who love me back.

Fill my life with
more striped shirts,
buzzing bass between my ears,
the cold wind hitting my hips.
Vending- machine love and
golden eyeshadow.
Lying sideways on the seat, with my legs against the wall.

My heart lives permanently in my throat,drained of blood and white, veins growing up my neck and drawing out in the shape of words.

Maybe
it is written in the stars
that I will have scars
and bruises
instead of freckles.
But I hope it doesn't have to be this way
because I hate the sound of me crying
and I can't get away from that
when it's coming from my own head.
Maybe
there's a world where I have a better place to curl up and sob
than my bed, or the middle of the floor, or a bathroom stall, or
halfway out of my closet.
Maybe
one day
I will be sure of more than my looks.
And I won't have to hang on to every
bubblegum wrapper
and chipotle menu I ever touch
because I'm not afraid of forgetting anymore.
Maybe
I'll feel like a real person,
and not a cruel animation,
a science project
some higher being got a D on.
Maybe
there's a chance
I'll stop missing myself
someday.

My heart is an empty grass field
except for a pole
whose flag is always at half-mast.

words cannot describe
the surrealness
of discussing the future, holding the future, like a ball of ice
that will pinken your fingertips,
and in the moment you feel incredibly small.
when your heart ******* aches in the most melancholy way,
not sad, just
quietly startled,
seeing love around you, pressing at your temples
white hospital walls,
sore throats,
*** in cars,
passing through the front door at midnight,
cold blankets.
being the definition of a word.
hating the fact that I'm looking back at myself currently, through memories, and that this moment isn't even that good but i'll think it is later.
knowing,
just knowing
everything and nothing all at once,
and the pain of thought.

I keep this notebook in my
lap, knowing
in a second I will have more words
more poems to write
about my crazy life.
About me, and the numerous
Emotions I have
in my 13-year-old body.
I hear the ice machine rattle,
shaking it's fist, saying
"Why are you so full of
poems tonight?
You are no Marzena Sowa,
I don't care if your blankets
look like strawberry jam,
and you are in love with the idea
of a crush,
and the clattering of your
computer keeps you awake,
go
to
sleep!"

dark ultraviolet smoke, haze
the way your own finger pads
graze on the skin of your waist and then lead down to the forty degree angle curve
soft and goosebumped.
The sweet floor,
we're sisters in eye contact when I hug my legs and try to press
the pressure building behind my chest muscles
eyes burning like blue coals and tears fighting,
I re-learn the meaning of bittersweet
as the world crashes down around me
and rose-colored circles are rubbed into my back,
legs and chairs softly shaping me into
a saner form,
whisperings ground me,
and take me back to
the haze,
young and unafraid.

"In only a week, it is."* you think as you ride the school bus home
you picture yourself in that generic black dress,
school-sanctioned, and worn by other girls
who felt the same as you do now,once.
You remember the lights, the praying, the singing,
the dancing to "silent night" and
getting chased in the dark and snow and in a dress.
You worry about getting lost in your music
messing up
as you scoop nutella out of a mug.
You dream about
sleigh bells and bass drums and timpanis
and the awkward looks you'll get from highschoolers.
You hope and wish and blink,
the average girl with her sweater-wrapped heart.

Would the police look
at my dead hands
and say "she never worked a day in her life."
or not?
Or would they just sigh
and wonder
why
I died so young.

They call it phantom pain.
When a limb misses it's owner,
when it stays even though it doesn't.
So is that why
I can barely feel
pads of fingers on my skin,
ghostly palms cupping my face,
nails tracing my lines,
and a leg curling over me?
Do I want to know
who these spirit touches belong to?
Phantom pain,
when something is gone,
but also isn't.

Now all I have left is
water in my ears, heavy chlorine in my hair,
a hangover from lack of sleep, and
"Mama" playing along to the demented viewmaster in my head:
K snorting fun dip from a paper plate and
rolling on the floor with her blue-black tongue.
us running across the train tracks,
nettles scritching my poorly-shaven legs.
And us trying to perform a satanic ritual
in a hotel pool.
Surprisingly, thirteen doesn’t feel any different,
does it?

the math teacher yells, and my shoulders shake
i draw smiley faces on the holes my dad kicks in the wall
you won't get enough of me
until it's too late.
we are the girls with their boyfriend's sweatshirts on their pillow
gloss, legs swish by each other,
everything your mom won't let you buy in the lit-up, pink aisles of walmart.
fish swimming in our heels, and poppy petals fall with our tears,
the fields and forests part for us,
and we don't fear anything but those closest to us.
I'll sit in my room, in flames,
or at my desk in class, soft as beagle ears,
slim,
I think of
you.

Running.
Run across your street and mind
Take your memories cause I don't need 'em
but think of me

Scars to prove it, tears to fake it
Can you read my mind? No.
The time that towns forgot
Running through the street and running quickly through your mind

It's unfair

It's not love, it's just love.
One of many problems, many problems in one
Snipping out the bad parts,
pasting in the worser ones
Running from your problems back into
circle one
waiting for the ax to fall
and cut off my split ends.

tea biscuit madness
running around my yard while sitting in bed
pushing on my teeth hard with my fingertips until they hurt
i hate to say the word "ache"
but my body is a voodoo doll left uncontrolled for too long,
and my seams are unraveling.
my chest is a glass
too small for the rose it contains
and although it's wilting
there's still a crack here and there

and tell me why I can't say "i love you"
without a hot, sick feeling rising through me every time?

tell me why i'm still here
tell me why i still think i'm needed

My definition of safe
is
next to you in the van,
my head is resting on your hip and i'm drifting off
tired enough that my vision is blurring
and my words are running together
and you can't tell what i'm saying,
so you just pet my hair until i fall asleep.
It's sitting in a theater flooded with purple light
i've got goosebumps
and i'm rubbing my thumb in the palm of your hand.
It's watching kids on the swingset going through the cold air
wearin' your sweatshirt and sitting in the grass.
It's sharing ben n jerry's at the gazebo,
the sun brushing its hair on my arms and neck
and listening to drake, with you
it's lying on a bed with navy sheets
in a pile of warm bodies, with you
it's hearing skype beep and feeling like cupid had maybe just shot me, that *******.
It's sitting in a black movie theatre and annoying everyone else with jokes only we understand, with you.
I don't know who my next you is,
but get here soon.

Sept. 29th, 2014
Is combing and brushing your eyebrows in the morning.
It's leaning on the cold car window with earbuds
and as the last notes play, thinking
"Please don't make this a happy song
I don't deserve a happy song."
It's seeing ads for a clearance sale
plastered on a store that almost never is occupied
and seeming to just know that it's
it's subtle way of going out of business.
It's knowing and not believing.
It's breaking out in a cold sweat when you finish a book.
It's wishing I could go home
and lie on my carpet
and peel all my skin off
then crawl back inside
and maybe feel comfortable this time.

These days it's all greasy bangs, candy chapstick leaking onto my skin, and my deodorant sliding out from under the bathroom stall, no more
lorde songs playing from the radio, girl scouts singing in the backseat,
or