Your chalky eyes
read my chapped lips
as words tumble from my tongue
like a sickness

Your wryly fingers
Trace shapes against your knee
Like a spider stitching it’s web
And my voice cracks

Your closed lips
sit motionlessly on your face
like art in a gallery
and I am a sellout

Your destructive neglect
Weighs my tireless breath
And I am screaming now,
“I need your help,”

Your eyes glaze over
As your fingers drum
And your lips purse
And I am nowhere to be found

Blue little veins
dance along wrists
and crowd hands like traffic on busy streets,
and I think about your voice
when you’ve just pooled into sleep
and I realize it’s a bit like
the flowing of blood that never stops.
“have I ever told you,” you’d whisper
before dipping your head into sleep like black paint
and I never did get to hear
what never did leave your lips
but still aches within me
like sizzling coal.
the streets are thread
I am trying to sew back together
with stop sings and green lights turning my fingers numb
because I can still feel the poison of your voice in my
blue little veins

I said, “Let’s get out of here”
because I was so tired
I thought I’d disappear
and I knew how much you loved
long car rides in the nighttime

You told me the windows
reminded you of life
with the way the world raced on by
in a foggy daze
and I thought it was strange
you failed to mention
the beauty of the sleepy orange streetlights
on the deserted speedy highways

You told you never loved anything
as much as the radio at 2am
because you knew
there were others like you listening
and you would watch
the road with such an intensity
that I found myself jealous
of those rundown empty streets
and I wondered if I was your blindspot

You told me 24-hour gas stations
were places of magic
because so many people walked in and out
and never looked back
and when I was pouring myself coffee
I heard the cashier tell you
how lucky you were to have a girl like me
and your silence was as lukewarm
to my chest as the drink was to my lips

You told me the other drivers
on the road with you were lost
because they all knew
where they were headed
and had heads full of clarity
but as I stared at my blue veins
on my pale wrist
I realized that I was the lost one
and the miles ahead and behind
us both were nothing compared
to where I’d rather be

You told me the destination
was not what mattered,
it was only how you got there,
and I thought about this
in the messy passenger seat of your car
as you said, “We can never leave

They tell me to let it go
but how can I do that
when it
has latched onto me
and made a home
in my silence

It has started
paying rent
and the fee
is rotting me
from the outside
in

It has started
to scar
and I wish to feel
at least
a little less
like the dog-eared page
of the book
you never finished

It has started
or should I say
continued
to leave me
empty of explanations
and full of hurt
and still
they tell me to let it go

You ask me, “What is the point of all of this?”

And I lean in close, stare into your messy eyes, and tell you, “Darling, there has never been a point and there never will be. You can spend your precious time searching, and mapping out the rules and trades, and protesting the rights you will never obtain, and devoting your actions to their counteractions, but at the end of the day nothing will have changed. You see, I believe everything is better in dimmer light. Lower the shades, flick the switch, fall asleep to the humming of your computer in your pitch-black bedroom. Live in the shadows of the people; watch from the outside; since when has darkness become something to be feared? Breathe in the negative space; exhale the wind you’ve been storing in your chest since the day you set foot on these rocky grounds. Stop believing in the ‘point’ and start believing in the ‘less’. Regardless of where in the world you go, the distance you choose to stretch, there will always be the same things in different ***** environments. And by this, I mean, there will always be a blushing teenage girl in the whims of her own disasters. There will always be the lost people, the found people, the people right there in the in-between bits of the cracks your feet always seem to step on. There will always be the luck lost on the boy without a father, on the artist with crippling hands, on the old woman dying half awake. You will find this time after time, winter after winter. You can try your best to plaster on that dazzling smile, but who said that they needed to see it to love you? You can try to stop those precious hands of yours from shaking, but who said a little thunder isn’t exactly what they need? You can try to find a point to these lives we lead, love, but who said there was one to be found?”

I can only warn you this once:
do not let it slip back in

if you do
it will sink you like a ship;
it will map out your crevices
and tiny little holes
that polka-dot the bridge
of your collarbones
and take hold
and pump sadness into
your shell of a body

if you do
it will bury you like a casket;
it will cloak you
in all of its charcoal warmth
that burns your insides
and shields you from things
you should welcome into
your shell of a body

if you do
it will cage you in like an animal;
it will build its wall
of heavy slates of hate
that blind your pretty
glimmering eyes
and hide
your shell of a body

if you do
it will hit you like a bullet;
it will slam you onto
its filthy gravel
of ugly words that tell you
things you should
never believe about
your shell of a body

I can only warn you once:
Do not let it slip back in

I am a swipe of coarse paint
smudged and softened
by curious fingertips
that shade and shape me
and hang me helplessly
on a wall

I am the color of the sky
when  flurries of snow
sprinkle the streets
with no regards
to the shoulder-racking shivers
they bring along

I am a dusty book
in the corner of the library
with a broken spine
and I lay torn and tattered
from too much use
or perhaps too little

I am the empty shell
of a person
who has been drained
of their butterflies
and want nothing more
than to feel something
rather than an abundance
of nothing
and nothing at all

and the closed lipped girl
melts for the first time
and lets her fingers become
the string that sews up
her opened wounds

she breathes in the morning
air like it is acid
on her tongue
and drowns in the storm
of her steamy shower stream

she aches painfully like
the colorful bruise
on her hip
that has taken
too many hits against
her kitchen counter

she was never in love
and it shows
as her porcelain
eyes gleam
like glass
at the hint of him

her heavy bones
bear too much weight
for her frail
and dainty shoulders
anyway

and the sore-footed girl
drags on like
each day must
and exhales the evening air
like it something
glad to be rid of

You grow bitter with age. Each year, a larger part of you frays away, like the shedding of skin, and it’s so subtle that it goes unnoticed.
        
You begin as fresh the sun rising in the morning - a blade of green grass in the awakening of spring. You’re three years young, full of giggles and scraped elbows. You toddle along with the vague familiarity of living. You dance of your dad’s toes and ride down the five-foot-slide in your back yard. Life is a crumpled bunch of forgotten yesterday’s that blur to this very moment.
        
Time has shifted, but you’re much too busy to take notice. Growing up is a tenuous task. Valentine’s Day passed and you gave out cards to every person in your first grade class. The boy with the round blue eyes tried to hold your hand. You’ve not any time to think about boys, or anything really, for being young is much too momentous in the scheme of things. You’re learning to read and how not to spill your cereal all over the table. You wear your brand new pair of bright red sneakers with your blonde hair loosely in pigtails. On your sixth birthday, you grin as you blow out your sparkly candles, one tooth missing, your mom holding your baby brother on her lap. Everyone is awake.
        
Summer is dawning – the flowers in your front yard are sprouting almost as fast as your legs. The night sky is as clear as it always was, the air as warm as it always should be. You lay where your old slide once sat, now a square patch of dead grass, and watch the amiable stars stay happily in their place. Next door, you hear your best friend arrive home. She’s curly-haired and bright-eyed and wears a lot of plastic rings on her tiny fingers. You wonder why your dad hasn’t been at dinner lately or why your mom takes so many naps. “I’ll always be here for you,” you tell your little brother, freshly five, as he drifts off to sleep. You’ve been alive for almost a decade – don’t you have it all figured out by now?

Life begins to unfold before your innocent eyes. The world is muddled, like a swamp, a spherical blur of smudges and fog. You tuck your long honey hair behind your ear and let out a long breath. Tears well in your chocolaty brown eyes as you stare at your reflection, a shaking hand covering the imperfections of your stomach. You hear your mom and dad fighting in the kitchen - their words vile and cruel. Barely thirteen, and you’re already worried, wishing you could still fit on the tips of your dad’s toes. Metal braces line your teeth, tight jeans slim your legs, black mascara coats your lashes. Who are you? You want to answer, but you simply can’t find the words upon your tongue.
        
It’s your sixteenth February, and you’re so busy trying to be happy that you don’t even see the calendar deteriorate. You keep yourself busy as you grow inwards, like the roots of a tree. You don’t give any valentines, though the blue-eyed-boy still smiles at you when you pass in the hall. Waking up in the morning is becoming unbearable, for sleeping proves a much easier task than being fully ‘here’. With hair chopped short and self-esteem diminished, you don’t recognize yourself. And so, you down your very first shot of ***** and chase it with dusty memories, and chase the next with nothing at all.

Staring in an old photo album, shivers rake through your tired body. Six-year-old you stares back - smile goofy, eyes bright, posing in your old red sneakers. You can’t remember being her. You sit, numb and alone, in your college dorm, listening to your ex-boyfriend’s favorite song. It turned out that the blue-eyed-boy wasn’t interested in you so much as the curve of your hips and the length of your legs. The phone rings beside you, an irritating shrill. It’s your not-so-little brother on the other line, his voice being deeper than you remembered. “Mom’s on her fifth glass of wine,” he tells you. “Dad just bought a new apartment in the city. Things are okay, I guess, but I wish you were here.” Something inside of you snaps as you realize you aren’t there for him like you promised. You have stretched your body like a rubber band, prodded it like cork, and left it in tatters.

The sky is dark - a canvas of navy and speckled light. The aroma of sand and salty water fills your lungs. You lay on a crimson blanket, soft and light, hugging your from underneath. Your fiancé sits beside you, tracing circles in your palm, and life suddenly seems much less clamorous. He proposed to you hours before in the silence of the nighttime. Three years ago, you were ready to let yourself go, until a brown-haired-boy offered you his coat in the pouring rain. Hundreds of kisses later, you’re lighter than air, and you don’t remember exactly how you became so sad. Your brother graduates high school this Spring. Mom began getting up in the mornings - she’s been sober for eleven months. Dad has a new girlfriend that is just as kind as he is. You ran into your best friend last year at a concert. She stills wears a lot of rings and has a lot of freckles. You recently changed your major to Astronomy, in light of a new part of you that is just awakening from its slumber. Somehow, after all those years of feeling as though the world was just a sound to tune out, you ended up here.
        
You grow bitter with age and you also grow stronger. Each year, a larger part of you frays away, and an even larger part patches you back up. It all goes unnoticed, until one morning you wake up and realize that it isn’t so hard anymore. It all becomes worth it.

I mold like clay
in your rough calloused hands
and you shape me
with drunk eyes and fingertips
that **** my sensitive skin
like knives

The snow plants kisses
to the cloudy glass windows
that confine us together
and I tremble with the fear
of being carved
into something I never planned
or wanted to be

My stomach shrinks
and my spine curves
from the harsh conditions
of your malicious mind
that pushes me further
and further
into depths of myself
I never knew
existed

I am hazy over the idea
that once I was strong
and maybe even the kind of beautiful
that blooms flowers
and jumpstarts heartbeats
and makes the world
close its rueful eyes
even just for a little while

You are an artist
with a clear goal and path
and I hope to god
you let me dry out
for I am not
shiny and mesmerizing
like the ceramics that
populate your dusty shelves

I’ve been molded and shaped
and framed and built
by those coarse and icy hands
so that I am no longer what I used to be
but rather a blurry and ugly version
that makes my head
whirl like the blizzard outside of my
window

Not all are ugly,
but many turn heads
as they walk by,
their stained veins setting fire
to your placid eyes.

The drug has laced their blood
with sting and inferiority,
yet their lips ache
from the falseness of
their dazzling grins.

Hush,
the quiet of the nighttime
dancing into your sober ears,
your sober mouth,
your sober body.

The beautiful live drunk
off of the lingering eyes
and whispers,
their legs swaying coolly
to the outcries of society

I have known the inexplicable wonders of water, still and royal,
as it swallows you whole,
the daylight an hour glass on its side /
I have felt the blades of bright satin grass
tickle the back of my neck, whispering,
as the heat of the sun simmers seductively on my skin /
I have seen the curious quirk of your mouth,
eyes ablaze with June, coloring your face fair,
all the questions of tomorrow sinking into today /
I have thought of all the distance,
all of the places lacking my footprints, and my eyes gently close,
my exhale a mere hurricane in my throat /
I have yearned for perfection as silently as I could,
if perfection even exists at all,
and I blur black, disappointed, into the timid hush of summer /
I have done all of these things,
or maybe have done none at all,
because the truth is that one never truly knows
what goes on when the air is warm and tempting -
we’re all too busy finally breathing

We romanticize sadness blindly
even if it is not our intention;
we are programed to believe in the
tall boy saving the girl that is wilting like a flower
and the soft kisses that diminish the hurt.
We believe in the coffee
and the tea
and thick blankets that envelope your cold skin
and most importantly: we believe in the pain.
The truth is that pain really isn’t truthful at all
and it fluctuates like the beating of a heart.
We like to think that one day the sting of our sadness
- which is questionable to begin with -
will  be washed away and replaced with the feeling
of one’s hand entangled lovingly in yours.
Sadness is not beautiful,
It is mostly just sad
And I advise you to erase the somber pulsing of your blood
And soak up the pastels that are hiding in your room –
Marinate yourself in every dip of a cloud
And then baste in the laughter of a pretty stranger.
This is all much easier written than done
As are most things

It is three years ago now that the boy first saw the girl;
She had smiled at him and he melted for the very first time.
He thought her eyes looked like caramel and her freckles like little sprinkles on her cheek.
She thought she could lay forever in the folds of his chest and that his hands were as soft as flour.
The boy realized he used to be frozen and he felt himself thaw each time his fingers graced her leg.
The girl told herself that if she could just stay locked in his eyes she’d make it through.

It is one year ago now that they questioned their relationship;
The girl felt loneliness in each breath she took.
He thought being apart may be good for the two but still kept a framed picture of her at his bedside.
She thought the last time they spoke he’d been too quiet and wondered if she should go knock at his door.
The boy loved the girl and felt himself ache with missing her what she used to be; what was she doing right at this moment?
The girl loved the boy and lost herself in the confusion of it all; what was he doing right this at moment?

It is a month ago now that the boy and the girl went separate ways;
Not a day goes by that they don’t think of one another.
He thought that the girl became too engulfed in her sadness and hated himself for not being able to kiss it all away.
She thought he no longer loved her and cried more than she ever thought a person could cry.
The boy realized that his love lacked the strength to patch up the cracks that blew through her and even himself.
The girl hollowed out but knew it would be okay because sometimes affection and sadness are romanticized in all the ways that make love a staggering piece false hope.
And oh, did they hope.

At age five she really fancied sunflowers
and wore her bleach-blonde hair in pigtails.
She held her big brother’s hand when crossing the street
and he squeezed her little fingers tight.
She smiled a lot and her mother did too
and they both cried on the first day of kindergarten.
Her daddy loved to scoop her up into his arms
and tickle her tiny little feet.
She showed off her rows of baby teeth
and laughed all the time because she didn’t know
why anyone wouldn’t.

At age eleven she really fancied romance books
and let her honey-colored hair fall in waves.
She missed talking with her older brother
and he tried his best to ignore her.
She sighed a lot and her mother did too
and no one cried when she left for 7th grade.  
Her dad visited less and less
and the divorce took its toll on everyone.
She hated the metal wires across her teeth
and smiled only when she had to
because the world was more confusing
than she originally thought.

At age sixteen she really fancied coffee
and hid her luscious hair in a ponytail.  
She forgot about the days with her brother
and he left for college with barely a goodbye.
She cried a lot and her mother did too
and they both couldn’t wait for graduation.
Her father tried his best to be there when he could
and her feet perched in high black heels.
She had perfect and straight white teeth
and forced her lovely smile onto people
that would never really know
what was brewing inside the summer girl.

Lately I’ve been thinking
about the water,
and the way the waves swallow the sand.
And I’ve been thinking
about affection
and the way one feeds from it –
drinking it in, soaking it up,
and then draining it from their pores.
I’ve come to realize the idiocy that is affection,
and that love is the precious moments
that hide under your pillow.
I’ve been thinking that love is
a facade,
and that the sand may, in fact, swallow the waves.