You know that feeling of mild annoyance
when your friend forces you into
watching a video you didn't want to watch
and then an ad plays before it
so you have to watch that too?
That's how I feel about being alive.

Like I don't want to **** myself or anything
I'm just a little annoyed by being here
and having to sit through dumb **** all the time

I popped a new candle out of its glass
flamingo decorated coffin and put it in a
larger once clear and full of wax but now
sooty vessel

I wanted to burn it but I bought it
for my mother the flamingo enthusiast
who has covered our house in flamingo
cookie jars and curtains and little flamingo
wine toppers so I bought the candle
for 7.99 to add to the collection

I knew she wouldn’t care about
the candle as much as the jar it lived in
so I rescued it briefly only to crush its hopes
by replacing it immediately in an ill fitting
***** home where another of its kind
had already died

The problem I face is that this candle
somehow escaped my murderous hands
by burning so incredibly uneven that the
wax consumed the wick rendering it
completely unburnable

I’m feeling a little disappointed but
I suppose congratulations are in order

I wish I didn't have to google you
I would text you but I don't have your phone number
I noticed you painted over the cats on your mailbox
I'll be honest I felt a little disappointed
How's your last year at Harvard going
Does it smell like money and books and black coffee
Do you still write the way you used to
How's your mom
Is your cat still alive
Did you ever lose that extra weight in
your cheeks
Do you remember why you left
You never told me
Do you remember me

I like people from the south who talk slow like
honey pouring out of a teddy bear and into a glass
of tea like your last year of high school slow  
I like listening to things men say to women
outside of bars on Friday nights like yeah  
I’m really into meditation I like hearing
two babies talk to each other learning
how to make sounds into words I like to
lay on the couch and hear people drive
by on their way home to their couches

I like hearing I love you fall out
of someone’s mouth when they didn’t  
really mean it to I like hearing you say it
too I like to hear your voice change depending
on the time of day I like to hear the
way you say my name

Twenty one is the
last age to be excited
about turning

Once you're past thirty
birthdays are just
lying and not getting
presents

This next year is the last
time I'll have to pretend
to enjoy getting older

but it's one day less
than a month away
from my twenty first birthday

and I don't drink

Last night I told you that
maybe someday I'd like to
marry you if that was
ok with you

and then I said sorry
you told me not to apologize,
that the feeling was mutual

Since that moment my feet
have been at least an inch
off the ground,
maybe a foot

You described yourself as
Beaming

I could imagine light shining
from you, gleaming
glowing like through
the ceiling of a
greenhouse

Maybe one full of ferns
and black eyed susan's
for the colors
In your eyes

I think
Maybe
If it's ok with you
we could get married there

We could stand between the
rows of flowers and ferns
and the he light would
fall over us like a blanket
and everything would
smell fresh,
and new
and you would be
beaming

Sometimes at night
when the streets are quiet
I can hear the crosswalk
talk from the stoplight
by my house

Wait
Wait
Wait

And sometimes when
I can hear the crosswalk
counting down
I close my eyes and

I’m on the street corner and
headlights are speeding
past me and my head
is pounding along with
the bass lines
and my breathing
is getting labored
and it would be so easy
but the stoplight is
yelling wait

as if it knows what’s
to come

as if it understands any more
than the thirty seconds
between green and red

Today I went to the ophthalmologist and the eye nurse walked me down the hallway and looked ahead and said jesus you’re getting old. I laughed and said yeah twenty years, and thought about jumping out of the window. My mother wants me to see a therapist to find out why I’m so afraid of getting older. I think I’m just afraid of not having the excuse of being young.

We were driving home from the train station when we saw a truck pull off the road. I could see a dark stain on the asphalt and its body on display in the headlights. I said I really hope that’s not a dog. Aliyah said It could be a deer, so I told myself it was. I’m sorry that it’s easier to lie to myself, and I’m sorry to the probable dog by the train station, and I’m sorry that I care for dogs more than deer. But I’m thankful it was too dark to really see. It’s so much harder to pretend once you’ve seen the red on the concrete.

There is a mocking bird that lives outside my bedroom who does not understand time or common decency. He screams his alarm clock bird sounds at 2am or 8am or 11am or whenever he wants to, really. As long as I am trying to sleep. I feel bad for resenting him; it must be fun to live outside the constraints of time. But it is early and I am tired and I’m thinking of buying a BB gun.

When I was young my mother told me a story of a woman who was eaten by the earth. She was hanging her wash to dry, and was swallowed by a sinkhole. Now that I’m older I’m not sure if it was true, but I think I know the feeling.

There I was,
wearing the earth
strapped to my back
worrying
about the enormity
of it all
the infinitesimally
small

And there you were,
back pressed to grass
connecting the dots.

Today I sat on my bed and
practiced figure drawing
while I listened to amy winehouse
I paused to look at my friend
and she looked at me
knowingly
so I used a charles
bukowski book as a lap desk
to pack a bowl.

I asked my boyfriend what
I should write about tonight
and he said
the passing of time,

I looked up to the clock
hung on my wall
frozen at 2:46
and I thought about the
painting behind the hands
carnation, lily, lily, rose
and the  words behind
the hands in front of
carnation, lily, lily, rose;
the kids don’t stand a chance.
so
I thought about myself

How I should have
been born on april fools
day and how right now
I feel like a troll is holding
me up by my ankles and my
hair is on fire and I have
the words this is fine
tattooed on my forehead
upside down
so the camera can read it
when it zooms in on
my face.

I’ll tell you
about the light

How it spills in
from my ice cube windows
and washes over my bed sheets

I’ll tell you of
the cruelties
I have shown myself
in its absence

How it peers through the shutters
in the morning
and casts itself over me,
with sympathy

How it unveils the room,
the same as always
but my body
so slightly different

How it illuminates the bags
under my eyes
the blankets on the floor,
and the marks
down my spine
my shaking hands
left there the night
before

And if you ask,
the light will tell you about me
who it knows me to be

On good mornings
with steady hands
and rested eyes
and its efforts
to keep me safe
on nights when
I can’t speak or
stand still
to fight

If you ask,
the light will tell you
to wake me up gently;
to show me
the blue of my veins
and remind me that
this morning
I am still alive

Spy Kids (the original)
A 5 dollar matinee with your mom
A box of Bunch A Crunch
Or a plastic sack of
Dip N Dots

Ninja Turtle walkie talkies
Flare denim cargo pants
Bobby Jack zip up hoodies
With blue Fla-Vor-Ice stains
And hide and seek

Now That’s What I Call Music
Volume 17
Playing from a 10in x 10in
Silver box TV
And high frequency noise
To accompany
Akon’s latest bass line

A razor scooter
The foot powered kind
When the Preacher’s Daughter
Has a shiny blue one with a motor

Weeping to Secondhand Serenade
Because your mom won’t let you have
A Wii
And your crush checked “no” on the
Note you gave them last week

Detention after pre algebra
From shooting a girl two seats over
At “close range”
With a hornet
And she was unfamiliar with the school wide
NO SNITCHIN’
policy

The words
Beastly
And epic
Used to describe what your
8th grade field trip is gonna be like

A phone call from your best friend
About finally finding Ben Franklin
In Tony Hawk’s Underground 2

Now
The OK symbol is your most used emoji
There are too many guys with long hair
And beards
White girls all have a weird obsession
With house plants
We’re all at least 50 thousand dollars  in debt
And I think we all
Just really hope Donald Trump
Isn’t our next president

I was born with a spine curved
into punctuation to end all of the questions
I have so much trouble answering

I was given my father’s
rough hands and big knuckles
I use to them hold myself together

I’ve got my mother’s wit
sarcastic, take no ****, I’ll
use it to protect myself from
really feeling anything

I have my grandmother’s heart
bare feet, a strong laugh, and the eternal
desire to make sure that everything
turns out ok, but
I can never quite find my voice like she can.

See I’m always talking
but I’m never Speaking.

My tongue is ****** Doo
when the rug’s pulled away
can’t get anywhere, scared shitless, but
****** if he isn’t trying.

My knees are stained lavender
From falling for people
far too easily

My eyelids are heavy
from sleepless nights spent
counting the reasons I don’t deserve
to get up in the morning
But

My bones are strong
sturdy under my skin
re-grown to stone
from all of the falls

My stomach is full of
candy and grape soda
that’s not a metaphor
that’s just true right now

If there is one thing
I have grown myself
independently
it’s that I am honest.

I am honest
and I am tired
This is the end of my poem.

I drive past a sign every day that reads
DRUG FREE SCHOOL ZONE
And every day I think about how that sign
Is dumb
Because what drug user would stop
Just because that sign told them to
Drugs are illegal anyway isn’t
Every zone supposed to be
DRUG FREE
What a stupid sign

Every day I pull into your driveway
And I look at that telephone pole that
Everyone backs into and I think about
How you are not dumb
But how so many people treat you like you are
Your brain works like a
Beautiful ball of thought yarn that
spins super cool knitted thought scarves
and you never lost your
child mind

Please remember that they
Are not better than you
That your mind weighs no
Less than anyone else’s
That your nicotine fingers are just
As worthy of a handshake
Please know that you are good enough
Know that you are not a stupid sign and
DRUG FREE SCHOOL ZONE
To be frank,
Sounds like a really bad time.

I stole a traffic cone last summer
it sits in my bedroom next to
a mason jar with 25 dollars
worth of change in it
more or less
and a hundred dollar bottle
of perfume

I own 8 vintage cameras
and only 3 of them work

I woke up yesterday at
12:45pm
and I ate 6 girl scout cookies
for breakfast

the windowsill next to my bed
holds a candle that I will probably
never burn
a book that I haven’t finished
a half empty box of condoms
and a roll of electrical tape
because all of my chargers are
broken

today I fried chicken in a pan
and I ate it with noodles
and canned alfredo sauce
and I felt accomplished

today my sister called me
to ask what she should wear
on a date where a man
cooks her dinner at his apartment
I told her to wear jeans a blouse
but I don’t know what
one wears in that situation
because I’ve never been
in that situation
and then I hung up and
watched 2 more hours of netflix
alone

tomorrow I will call my mother
while I walk back to my car
from poetry class
even though I don’t have any
news to tell her
and when I hang up I will wonder
if she notices that I call her
every Monday and Wednesday
around 10:30am

tomorrow at 3 o clock
my phone will remind me to
take my medicine
and I will take 75mg
of Effexor and I will
drink a full glass of water
because I am afraid of getting a pill
stuck in my esophagus

tomorrow night I will lay in bed
and I will have a brief anxiety attack
about getting older
and then I will fall asleep
and have scary dreams about more insignificant things

I.

on december thirty first
two thousand and fifteen
at nine thirty two in the morning
I stopped breathing

the devil dug his cold claws
through the tender skin
of my abdomen and he wrenched

he looked me in the eyes
and he smiled
and I died
at least I wished I had

so many nights
your name floated through my mind
and I couldn’t find why

but on new years eve
two thousand fifteen
everything suddenly
made sense to me

call connor
if only to say goodbye
tell the boy you’re thankful for his time

II.

we talked about you
for all of january
about your smile and your pictures
and I was fifteen again

fifteen and sitting across
a big green table
drinking a yoohoo
and looking at you

and wondering if your lips
were as soft as your hands
and if I’d ever get to know
yours like the back of mine

i’m nineteen again

nineteen and standing across
a room full of people
holding myself together
and looking at you

and wondering if
after all of this
your hands were still
as soft as I remembered

i don't really know how to say this.
but i really want to sleep with you.
sleep with you like wait until you least expect it
and kiss you like a gunshot
quick but everlasting
i want to wrap my legs around you
and learn every inch of you in that way that i've wanted to
for so log
i want to tangle my fingers in your hair
and breathe kisses down your neck
i want to watch you come undone
and feel your heart beat return to normal

and i don't really know how to say this
but i really want to sleep with you.
sleep with you like run up the stairs
and flop down on your bed
i want to lay my head on your chest
and let a wave of sleep crash over us
until i wake up with your arms around me
and your raspy voice in my ear

so i don't really know how to say this,
but i really want to sleep with you.
i don't love you or anything
but i really want to sleep with you.

my most recent bad decision
was to let even a day go by without telling you
that you're my everything
that i hang on every word you say and
i resent every second that you make my heart
beat faster than it should
because your laughter rings in my ears like the
morning after a rock concert
and every time i hear it i can't help the flutter in my chest

my most recent bad decision
is placing sunsets in your smile and
the ocean in your eyes when
i have no right to have put them there
when you have no right to have coaxed me to
even if you didn't mean to

and my most recent bad decision
was writing you into poems that make you out
to be a golden hearted glory
when the true story is a bit more gory
see the sunsets in your smile
are burning holes in my chest with a magnifying glass
and the oceans in your eyes
have been known to drown girls like me

so i'll rip up these words and i'll swallow them down
and pretend that you never happened
that i never saw the sunsets and i never saw the ocean
and i never
dreamt of lying next to you
and watching your chest rise and fall with the tide but
my most recent bad decision
is getting lost between love and hate
between friend and more
when you're sat across from me
talking about something
for at least ten minutes now
and instead of listening,
i've been writing all this down.

husbands get wives
and forks get knives
and we all know the birds and the bees
but there's a voice in my head
that can't be ignored when it says
that there's someone for everyone
but me

i  have you to thank for all of my not so bad days
you aren’t just one person you’re anyone
who can place a little bit of faith in my bones
that not everyone is a ****.
you hold the door for people and you smile at strangers.
you tell lame jokes that make me wish i wasn’t laughing.
you ask questions that i don’t know the answers to and
don’t think i’m dumb when i tell you i don’t know.
you call me nicknames, and give hugs without me
having to ask
you can tell when i’m sad enough to not want to be bothered
and you notice when people get haircuts
you understand what it’s like but even if you didn’t
you’d still listen and try to get it.
you do life right.
you’re the reason for all of those not so bad days.

hi. my name is mia.
i’m 5 foot 7 and a half and i weigh 132 pounds.
i have blonde hair and blue eyes and i wear a lot of grey.
on my good days i’m great
but never quite as great as your average 18 year old
and on my bad days
on my bad days
i’m barely human at all
i’m a bloodless vessel with panic running through my veins
it’s not just your average anxiety
no i don’t have butterflies in my stomach
i have birds of prey flapping their wings against my throat.
on my bad days my heart races like it’s late for the train and
i swear i must be two hundred degrees
on my bad days my entire body convulses
like a demon is fighting it’s way out of every inch of me and honestly i wish it would
just to make all of this go away
on my bad days i pull on my hair and i pick at my skin
because my hands don’t know what to do with themselves
i spend my bad days on the bathroom floor hugging a toilet bowl and
thinking of any excuse to get myself to the hospital
i can’t open my mouth to speak but if i could then i wouldn’t be able to beside between
“please help me” and “go away”
it’s hart to tell if i’m sweating or if i just didn’t realize i was crying
on my bad days i’m 99% sure i’m dying
on my bad days i swallow a xanax with my pride
and the thought that i’m completely incapable of fixing myself
on my good days i’m great
but i still can’t shake that i won’t get better
and i can never have kids because they’ll just end up like me
but who could ever love someone like this anyway?
even on my good days i always seem to be complaining
and on my good days i still pick out my own traits in everyone that i hate
so i’m really never great. and there’s really no such thing as a good day
i only have not so bad days

my brain is the empty attic of a mid 20th century two story owned by a sub par poet

its walls are covered with layers of paint, wall paper, and dust

the floor overflowing with crumpled ***** of paper

its door reduced to nothing but scratches and patches

the floor boards curl up from years of climate changes and leaky roofs

and its rafters squeak and whistle every time the wind blows.

my brain is the empty attic of a mid 20th century two story owned by a sub par poet.

sad, bored, and lonely.

my thoughts are fireflies when i think of you

wandering aimlesly

but bright

and beautiful

nonetheless

a soft glow against the dark night sky

that brings me home.

so i run after it

skipping and jumping until finally

it’s caught between my fingers

i cherish that moment of anticipation

before you open your hands

to find it waiting there

and you can never hold it long enough

before it escapes and floats back off onto the

black canvas of the night

blending in with the stars

maybe you’ll see it again one day

i have a jar filled with eye lashes and 11:11’s i’ve saved up for you

i’ve got a drawer full up with dandelion seeds

i keep shooting stars stored in my lungs for you

and all my pockets are weighed down with fountain pennies

i’m saving all my wishes for you

i once knew a boy who was made of the world

he held sunlight in the back of his throat

and lit up the world when he sang

his eyes were made of embers

and his hair from the stormy sea

his breath smelled of morning dew

and his voice was the forest rising from a long sleep

he asked me to breathe him in

and hold him there

when the world was dark and gray

and when i let him go, he said,

he would take me far away

where beauty and everything are the same.