The parasympathetic nervous system
is responsible for regulations
unconsciously transpiring
within the organs and
the glands of
the body.
Such as:
urination, salivation, digestion, defecation, and
lacrimation
(noun. ‘the flow of tears’. Latin.
from lacrimare (‘weep’) and lacrima (‘tear’).
It’s why I cry
even when I don’t want to.
You are the parasympathetic nervous system.

The (ortho-)sympathetic nervous system
is responsible for the mobilization
of the fight-or-flight response
and constantly maintaining
homeostasis within
the body.
It acts
rapidly, enacting an attempt at stability and
the necessary and critical ability
to suddenly escape
on pulsing legs or
cling to survival through
brandishing adrenaline-doused knuckles
and dilated pupils.
It’s why you live
even when you don’t want to.
I am the sympathetic nervous system.

The parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems
are two of three essential nervous systems which
compose the autonomic nervous system
(a part of the peripheral
nervous system)
that manages
involuntary
functions of the body. Such as:
swallowing, perspiration, arousal, breathing, and
heart rate
(noun. ‘the speed of the heartbeat’.
usually expressed in beats per minute. mine speeds up when I see you).
Individually these two systems oppose
but compliment
each other like our hands do—
pressed together and omitting equal force;
veins meeting
at the fingertips and throbbing at the wrists
but running amuck on our respective digits otherwise.
You are the invariable and unspoken reminder to
breath,
love,
sweat,
and live.
I am the sudden snap of reality always aiming to save you
but grudgingly willing to fight you and
ready
to
leave.

From the deepest lower half of my brainstem
and from every nerve
in my cycling body,
I’m sorry.
From all of my chromaffin cells
and from the truest parts of submandibular ganglian,

I am sorry.

Sorry.

Not for the bruises inscribed in my knees at six years old,
or gravel-shaped cuts dotting my palms
after being kicked off my bike like a rodeo bull,
or even the sliver of a scar on my right index finger
from closing it in a van door when I was seven.

No, I have no remorse
for the innocent;
not a twinge of sympathy regarding the unfortunate results
of relatively harmless careless actions
and playful worth-it memories.

I’m sorry for the other things.

I don’t mean running
or swimming
or dancing
until the soreness embedded itself in my muscles, my
heart racing, pulse pounding
in my ears.
I don’t regret that.

I’m sorry
for the other things.

I’m sorry for hating you.
I’m sorry for all of the
preening and plucking and
shaving and waxing and
hair burning.

I’m sorry for the countless repulsed glances at the spot
where my stomach puffs out
and all of the daggers I stared into the place
where my thighs meet.

I am sorry for getting slashed at
by the perfectly intact glass
of the bathroom mirror, for feeling severed,
just by seeing its reflective surface.

I’m not sorry for taking up space,
but I’m sorry I ever was.

I am sorry for
switch off the light,
lock the door,
the scratch of fingers in my throat
and the starkness of the cold linoleum floor
routines
I practiced because I loathed
the way you curved
and the fatness of my pseudo-waist.

I’m sorry for falling into patterns of self-hate
that I aimed at you. Patterns
not unlike that of an alcoholic,
commencing with afternoon drinks or slightly restricted meals
and ending with wildly depressing stories to tell
and crying on stranger’s floors—
but there is no Lackers of Self-Esteem Anonymous,
no chips to collect
for every time I tell myself I’m beautiful
or, better yet, value more
than my appearance.

I am sorry for thin red lines that ran deep into my wrists
and I am sorry for the faint-inducing heat
that followed,
caused by the oversized and long-sleeved sweatshirts I hopelessly donned
to cover you up.

I’m sorry for discarding that one dress
(that you looked stellar in, by the way)
because I had degenerated into such an unhealthy
and addictively abhorrent relationship with you
that I feared
even the slightest tightness
in my attire.

I’m sorry for habitual body monitoring. I’m sorry
for using my fingers to count calories
and not positive attributes. I’m sorry
for all of the aforementioned repugnant routines
I’ve picked up over the past few years,
whether I’ve stopped them or not,
I’m sorry.

I am.

So, body, when I say
that this is an apology note,
I don’t mean I’m sorry for  the time
I skipped salad and went straight to pizza,
or even the countless dinners when
I put an extra brownie on my plate.

No, I have no remorse for that.
I don’t regret that.

I’m sorry for hating you.

But, like a sinner coming up after sinking
in a blessed lake of holy water,
I am ready to fill my lungs with new breath. I will repent
with the radical act of self-love

and I promise that I will treat you better.

I am a helpless hopeless witness
sitting idle on a courtroom bench
as if in church
kneeling backwards beneath slanted
   stain                         glass
                     light
with my hands clasped tight
and pressed neat against my forehead
but there is
no
one
to pray to when
there is no faith;
I am invisible in the eyes of a clairvoyant god.
My heart beats rough
almost
p
  o
    u
      n
        d
          i
          ­  n
              g
straight out of my chest
to the beat of the grand judge's gavel.
"Guilty,
guilty,
guilty,"
they chant, and
"Selfish,
                selfish,
                          ­    selfish," too.
"We find the defendant cowardly."
They never even put me on the stand.
They will not sentence me to execution--
          for that would be too kindly.
I am destined to a life
of praying for death without parole
and                                     folding
a plethora of pervasive glances
tightly between the
         lines
         on
         my
         palms.
They shoot their looks from
                       all
    different
                                          angle­s,
                      and
even with this accumulation of grayscale smoke above my head,
I
can't
escape
it.
After every much belittled blink
they taunt me with another slice of glass
that scrapes off my skin cells
         one
                 by
                       one
and leaves my body hair in a standing ovation
pulsing with anticipation--
           but they never draw blood. A cruel
and unusual punishment.
At confession I can never find the breath to reveal
the heart I've taped to my chest to keep from f
                                                               ­                a
                                                               ­                l
                                                               ­                l
                                                               ­                i
                                                               ­                n
                                                               ­                g
or the soul in my hands that's been
              crushed
between sweaty fingers.
How can they punish me when I am already a walking jail cell
with skinny white lines for bars on my wrists?
I am to repent until I am no longer human, but here's the thing--
             I never was.
I am much

much

more.

To me,
you have always been a reflex
as natural as
vomiting, coughing, and sneezing
(albeit more pleasant—
sometimes).
Somewhere in my medulla oblongata,
something
is telling me to love you
but I suppose that something
might be tainted by a ghastly neurological disorder
because this
just isn’t working out.

Mania is red ice cream
blurring my vision in sugary swirls
and decorating my stoic kitchen sink
in rainbow sprinkles
chocolate syrup
whip cream
because I can do anything
Until I'm left with the ache of empty bowls
and nothing but cold, cold
cold

If I was a work of art I'd be a poem
but just a blank white sheet of generic notebook paper
and you would be a symphony
which sounds pretty beautiful
but I never really liked Bach and
I never really liked Beethoven and
I never really liked Mozart and
I never really liked
myself

but
ohmygoddidIlikeyou
like Da Vinci liked Mona and
Dali liked

l
o
  n
   g

d r i p    i n g
          p
brush strokes depicting surrealist scenes and
Picasso liked Cubism and
Van Gogh liked his own ******* sadness and a tub of sunflower-yellow paint and that girl
he sent his neatly packaged and not-so-neatly severed off ear to

though
I suppose
artists are supposed to hate their art
with a burning self-depreciation sort of self-determination or
at least that's what I got from
Plant and Lydon and Cobain and
every other shooting star rock-and-roll phenomenon with their name engraved on a plaque somewhere
and a drug problem that procured a thousand cigarettes now just as burnt out as they are

but here's the thing
you aren't my art
you
are a breathing
walking
talking
self-portrait that sputters to life every morning
with an accent on each note

like I said
if we were art
you would be a symphony
but the orchestra
is crescondo-ing to no end now and
quite frankly I am tired of all these high-pitched violin marcatos and
I am losing myself in the repeats and
I am just wondering when the fine will come

like I said
if we were art
I would be a poem
that was just an empty piece of drab old paper
much too conventional and clean and
empty
to be appreciated
but
I guess a beginning in the form of an empty sheet of paper is all
Poe and Frost and Plath and
Auden and Silverstein and Dickinson and
Shakespeare and Bukowski and Cummings
had in common
anyway.

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

I love the way
you spit me out like
chewing tobacco;
I hope
I rot
your miserable jaw
and you never kiss
another girl
with your swollen tongue
again.

i don’t want to analyze poetry
i don’t want to sit at desks
i don’t want to forge meaning
from a void
                     i do protest
i want to rip apart my flesh
and feed my friends the
        tattered
                      bits
i want to rip apart my friends
and feed my flesh their
        hurried
                      quips
i don’t want to analyze poetry
i don’t want to stick band aids to my words
i want to destroy the cage of resolution and unleash the dying
fleas
         and i sure as hell don’t want
         a dependable rhyme scheme,
         either.

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.

Oak tree
You are brooding
Exponentially grand and simply looming
At the edge of the yard that lines my childhood home
Fading into the tree-tinted horizon
One with the picture in which you paint
You
Are not a focal point
You are more like a subtle brush stroke easing its way into the foreground
But you don't mind
Oak tree
You are patience
A hundred years have touched your membrane
Stiffening and caking it in
The wrinkles of an old man's skin
Somehow still soft
Somehow still able
To reach into your moss-covered heart
Nestled neatly within your wood
And find the bravery to reach out
With winding branches
Providing the birds a place to nest
The squirrels a home to burrow and
The termites a space to feed
The worms make playgrounds of your roots
Oak tree
You have no eyes
But I know a small part of what you've seen
The burst of spring in the warmth of slanted sunshine
And the near suffocating scent of
Blossoms, seeds, and
Sweet struggling saplings
Life
Death
The stifling absence of birdsong
And presence of snow
Crumbling leaves
Rotting trees
Ice sleek to the touch and the barren shadow
Of being alone
Oak tree
Through all of this
You grow
In pursuit of the sky
You live with the will the pulsates straight up through your roots
And radiates to the end of every one of your golden branches
Oak tree
I can only hope to pick up a fragment of the wisdom you emit
As I ponder your existence
In the shade your glorious leaves provide

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.

i was born with broken bones
and sunken dna with a built-in carrying capacity much too small
for all the struggles
and the questions
of the world.
i am fragile i am limited
i scream every time a skin cell dies and i
was born
with soup for brains and runt nails that grow much too short
for all the questions
and the struggles
of the world.

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

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

Snow seeping softly
Dissolving to a rhythm
Returning to spring

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

The fluttering breeze
Gently begs the trees to dance
Smells of sweet blossoms