Reading bad poetry,
writing bad poetry,
existing as a subpar slice of
unemotional prose.
I'm a singsong
last-ditch singalong;
ding-****-ditch me,
***** me out.
Slice me up and
lay me out to dry.
I cut onions:
I don't cry.
You ignore me:
I don't mind.
Remember me
as a sad story and not a person.
It'll be gratifying,
albeit dehumanizing,
patronizing,
but at least you'll be sympathizing
as I'm unsurprisingly capsizing.
Right now I'm realizing
that I wanna be the hungry waves
and not the sinking ship;
the sharp harpoon and not
unfortunate Moby ****.
I wanna be the brick
instead of the window pane;
I wanna be the ****** sword
and not the bleeding slain.
So the inferiority complex that's been harrowingly ingrained
inside of my needlessly idle brain
can ******* once again,
because I'm gonna be the poet now,
not the reader, page, nor pen.

time heals all wounds and i
overestimated the process
as a straight progression
of burn to scar
but i don't feel stronger bruised, stuck
messy fleshy **** up
hurts to touch
trauma reopened and stitches split
some days gashes slashes rips
some days smooth skin
i want to get over it

don't lock my car when i go to the lake
talking about hell with people who believe only in heaven
stars twinkle in the sky
flowers in their eyes
lying on our backs in the water
side by side

i don't lock my car when i go to the lake
we lay in the water, bodies warm, safe
we talk about heaven and God and man
bellies up to the world, our backs in the sand
i remember the clouds and ripples on skin
father, son, and holy ghost within me
i don't know what to believe except for everything
i am calm and there is no storm

god please guide me i am trying to be less messy but i am writing with a shaky hand

You are running through the woods
and the simple act of breathing reminds you
that you alone
are not whole.
You have a gnawing urge
a shaking, painful need
to intake breathe. Your lungs
are hollow and you cannot exist
without the aid of the thundering world that surrounds your body.
Leaves rustle at your feet but there is nothing alive within them;
it is spring, but still early in the season,
all of the branches of the trees hang limp and bare and gray and cold.
Everything is quiet
and only slightly sweet smelling--
you are reminded that your life,
however vaguely synonymous with your soul,
is the fire of a candle
goldish-yellow
fragile
flickering
and nestled tightly between your vital organs,
sprouting delicately out of your aorta,
and homed only by your ribcage.
You probably think that it is an overly generic metaphor,
but I am going to use it anyway.
You are reminded that although this earth takes in the carbon dioxide you exhale and in return seeps life into you
at the pace of a heartbeat,
one sudden violent shudder
could take it all away.
And I don't want to be alone.
I am reminded that this poem
is supposed to be about you.
But hey,
who cares,
I'll take everything sweet and powerful and pretty and deep and
spin it into something of a self-portrait.
It doesn't matter how messy or wordy or nonsensical it is, I can just slap an Instagram filter on it and call it good.
Because according to people who aren't us,
that's what my generation does.
But I do not think that technology is shameful.
Maybe the internet gave me Stockholm syndrome,
but hey, I don't care,
I like it.
I do not understand the resent towards everything modern,
like:
selfies,
iPhones,
social media,
the polio vaccine,
the spread of legal marriage equality,
or the continuous, grappling, and rejuvenated fight against institutionalized racism
(something our predecessors never could quite stomp out).
We are a candlelight
that can never be put out.
God graced me with 20 million nerve endings
(I know because I googled it)
and a whole heap of flickering atoms
running from my fugly toes to the tips of jittery fingers
so that I may feel
and express myself.
I'll be ****** if I take that for granted.
This is the New Romanticism--
penned out with two hammering thumbs on a touch screen.
Hell, maybe I'm the new Nietzsche.
Everything that I can experience
has the potential to be beautiful.
From pointless technological meandering
to the raw and flourishing earth that brushes up against my skin.
It is all worthy of note for it comprises the miraculous euphoria that is human nature and
human life.
Maybe everything that I write
and feel
and think
and experience and
believe in is all petty and for naught
because I am a teenage girl
and nothing but.
However,
the universe at chance collided altogether in a smash to bring about a world that sustains my very individual personal life,
and mankind created laptop computers,
so if even miracles are possible,
I'd like to be a little more optimistic than that.
But this isn't a poem about that.
This is a poem about running
and breathing and living
through the woods
with you.
Not escaping, not fleeing, just running
and believing and being.
I think we're going to make it.
I think we're going to make it just fine.

Most of our cells
replace themselves
when they die and maybe
we should do the same.
Cut your hair short
and dye
it
whenever you feel sad.
Peel away the foil strips
and every layer of pigment;
imagine heaviness leaving your body,
become lighter
like each newly bleached strand.
Run your fingers through it
in the shower
however many times it takes. Know
that the chestnut locks
he balled in his fists with a sickly smile
are no longer yours.
They are sitting idly in the trash bin.
They are whirring down the drain.
You are standing idly in the shower.
You are staring down the drain.
You have surreptitiously
(and repeatedly, nearly religiously)
scrubbed your body clean of each
and every
remaining cell
that didn't die of natural causes
and then renew itself
in a way
you couldn't yet.
This skin is yours
and yours alone now.
This skin is wet.
This skin is bare.
This skin is yours.
Bang your head against the bathroom wall.
Feel the lights flicker away.
Encourage the neurons to flicker away.
Brain cells are the only cells
that last a lifetime without
replacing themselves.