i'm toxic
i hurt everyone i love
maybe i deserve to be alone

dark sky
green tea
go to bed
and think of me

soft hair
like plushie fur
skinned knees
full of dirt

hair pins
and winter chill
watching the moon
climb over the hill

i feel safe
when i'm with you
please don't leave
like the others do

trauma is not
a beautiful thing
i'm not a bird
with broken wings
not a sick puppy
for you to save
not a white daisy
growing over a grave
i'm rotten inside
down to my core
grabbing handfuls
of guts and gore
pushing it back
under my skin
so you will not see
the condition i'm in

I wish I was your Ophelia
so you could cradle your head in my lap
and tell me not to fall
tell me the meaning of it all
because these bitter lies have meaning
when spoken by your voice.

I am but a nymph
flowing violently on the river
so tell me how you feel
and help me know I'm real
because at the end, there is nothing
and I want to know if I'm there yet.

But what is the point of waiting?
Why not make it happen now?
Why not trade a few more hours of pitiful dreams
for gentle oblivion?

Hold my hand as we spiral down together,
with flowers in our hair and a song in our hearts
until I wake up,
and there is dark, and cold
it was nothing but a fantasy for a fool drenched in gold.
You chose to exist, though I screamed, you resist,

now I must spend my eternity alone.

I only want to be alone
I want my wounds open to the bone

I never want to use my mouth
to talk, to laugh, to scream or shout

I want to be quiet, I want to be small
I don't want to be known or remembered at all

I want pink wings and faerie-like grace
I want to be able to hide my face

I want to disappear into the night
I want her to take me with one clean bite

Like light beaming through the window
and the miniature shadows of dust motes
blowing off the miniature worlds within shelves of books

Like a traveler in the night
floating on the sweet scent of jasmine
and shaded eyes hiding brilliant stars

Like having one pocket full of crystals
and the other, a collection of foreign coins
tucked neatly into the night satin cloak

Like the welcoming chatter rising,
half of it not of this world,
as the voices of flickering candles and shadows.

Like the deep recesses of my mind
and the silken ripples that say:
Yes, this place is my home.

(and you were the muse.)

Your alabaster skin - one with the keys of the piano-
pouring out your heart in your saccharine voice.

Through my eyes, it was dreamlike light- echoes of the moon floating through the water
like blurry images of hands intertwined.

My heart clenches every time I picture you
because you have replaced my blood with honey.
The sweet ache coats my veins and spreads throughout my body.

How I wish I could lay you under the shade
of the grand willow tree on a gentle midsummer night
watching the stars and fireflies- sometimes unable to tell them apart-
and braiding violets into your golden hair.

Every action deliberate,
every thought dripping with poetry
coating my skin like fresh morning dew.

My dreams floated into the sky
and then fell down into eternity,
like snow falling into the sea,
making her shiver at the horror of it all.

Half forgotten reveries swirl through my mind
and stars burst on my skin,
extinguished by the wind and the water
as I try to forget and remember at the same time

Maybe someone else will be there
to catch those fell fantasies in their hands
as they stream from the moon and into the sea
and she will shiver as my thoughts seep into her blood

Falling backwards into the sky,
We both have the same revelation.
No matter how lucid we are-
Nothing we do matters because we’re all going to die.

In both our moments of clarity,
We wept for the achievements of all of humanity,
To be erased with one stroke of wings,
Extinguished with one mighty claw’s swipe.

Falling into the sky like lanterns
Are our collective hopes, dreams and fears.
But mine has gone dark.
The gentle moon and the dying sea no longer sing of oblivion.

I sit by the window on a Saturday morning
with nothing but a cup of tea in my hand.
I was too late to watch the sunrise, so instead
I watch the way the flowers blow in the wind
painting streaks in the canvas of the sky.
The incessant scratching of a coin against a lottery ticket burrows into my mind.
My inner voice shouts over it, just to remain in control
filling up my head, pushing out my thoughts and threatening to explode
but perhaps it is too late.
The scratching already comes from within.
It reminds me of the time I scratched my arms raw
after my mother told me
no boys would like me if I kept hurting myself.
Just like the time my mother told me
that I could never make it as a poet.

I redirect my attention to the window
trying to focus on what I want to see
(is that what they tell you to do in therapy?)
Unfortunately,
I had already wrung every drop of poetry
Out of this humble garden.
Back in the kitchen, my mother stands up,
and I notice the scratching has stopped.
Instead, the sharp and familiar sound of ripping paper fills the air.
I am reminded of all the poems I had ripped to shreds to start anew
as she curses and throws the ticket in the trash,
dramatically slamming the door.
A selfish part of me is happy that she didn’t win.
Because I know that if she did, she wouldn’t hesitate
to do the same to our lives.

Relocating us to a place
where flowers and fountains are found in rows
like fresh cuts on an arm
and not in haphazard paint splatters
like stars in the sky, or freckles on a face.
A grand white mansion,
elegant as a mausoleum,
where the sound of scratching
and early morning yelling
and late night sobbing
would echo through the empty rooms
bouncing from wall to wall
until the house threatens to fall apart.
Or else, we would be on a plane,
to some far off destination,
Sitting all in one row and
shielding our phones from each other,
thinking how much better it would be
to sit amongst strangers.

Floating
like a particle on a breeze,
like gentle falling ray
we float through the void.

Of hands reaching out,
catching only transient tendrils
tangling through our fingers
like liquid silk.

Capture me in a jar
and use my glow
to light your way
to give me purpose.

Wear our tiny cages
around your powerful neck
and we illuminate your teeth-
use them to crush your way out.

Use them to dissipate the void
into gently falling mist
of knowledge we can finally comprehend
reality we can cup in our hands.

But please, do not forget
to gently smash the jars
so we will not be tied to you
as you too, softly decay.

the moths ate holes
in the silk of my hands
your touch falls through them
like black volcanic sand

i can only sleep listening
to clips of your voice.
does that scare you?

Drench me in
the sweet stardust
that falls from your lips when you speak.
I know you have a silver tongue
but I am already a statue-
if I must be rusted inside,
at least let me be plated
in glamorous lies.

I always feel like I am drowning.
Like I am struggling to breathe.

And I know that it is you
that has a hand around my neck.

I'm not dead yet, but I can already
feel the fire licking at my feet.

I will not let it take me.
You will never see me on my knees.

I will swallow down the bitter fire you throw
And spit out the blood.

Until I bite down and feel
my teeth cut through the rot

of your artificially pure wings.
And that is how I know I've won.

There’s a black hole in my heart and a supernova in my mind.
But I don’t mind
because it lets me disappear.
And when they come probing into my brain I can
Annihilate. Them.
I crush stars between my teeth and trample them below my feet
until I am coated in a fine layer of stardust.
Maybe it will make me harder to see among the infinite darkness
that I know and love, that they hate and fear
because I am made of fire, and they are not.

The supernova in my mind caused the black hole in my heart.
Why can’t I feel?
Why can’t it be real?
And when they come bearing gifts I can
Annihilate. Them.
Numbed by my endless ice and darkness
until they break into a thousand particles.
But before that, they usually run away
because that is exactly what I want, even though sometimes it isn’t
because I don’t think I’m real, except in my own head.

The black hole in my heart destroyed the supernova in my mind
Is it even real?
Am I even real?
And when I come asking for help they have
Forgotten. Me.
Maybe because they’re all dead.
I wish the ink on my page could become your blood.
I wish the voice in my head would become yours.
I wish and I want and I dream of
the existence of you, or the nonexistence of me

But there is nothing more that I can do except let the black hole I created
consume
me
entirely.

When you want to cut yourself open
and offer your viscera to someone
people will come at you with hate.
so be the stronger person and
smile.
but this time,
show your teeth.

nymph in january
beating earth-heart
thaws soil
boots sink in mud and
flying ants spiral
to the sky
tiny glimmering wings
raindrops
snowdrops
drop dead
humming bugdream head
i thought it was spring, he said

I spend
Fictional money on fictional things
Because I am more fictional than I am real.
Because I feel alien, like I am not of this world.

And I make
Digital purchases in digital worlds
because I've been living in one since I was three.
At least my cage had a dusty old computer.

So often I wished that I could climb inside
to be with the sparkling gifs, and neon dogs
and people whose names I did not know.
They too, were aliens, not of this world.

Maybe we all live in a poorly written fanfiction
or a comic littered with jpeg artifacts
posted on deviantart in 2007
and abandoned to rot by our god.

Maybe someday, she will pick me up and dust me off
and protect me from all those who cringe
at the juvenile creation of just another moody artist
of just another sad internet poet.

long legs
snow white
lips painted crimson
she glides
like a wind up doll
but was that a twitch?
a creak, a shiver?
it's because dolls
are more beautiful
when bones stick out
with coquettish doe eyes
fluttering, pleading
as snow settles
on her curled hair
and does not melt.

oak roots dream
under soft snow
black bear purrs
in her den
the buck chase ends
i'll just rest my legs...
white pine sways
mighty sleepwalker
goodnight! goodnight!
calls the westward sun
that dream, that dream
echoes, dances
chasing its tail
green aurora
watches over us all

i cant
                                                         tell the
              difference
                                                                                               between
                                               rea
                                                                                      lity
         and dreams
                                                        any more?
                                                                                                    ?

hit me
harder
make it
hurt
he told me
suffering
would make me
pure
i want to be pure
i want to be holy
i'm an angel
i'm a child
i'm a doll
and i'm so so so
scared of hell

Cryptic terror angels follow me each day,
I wish I was better at scaring people away.

lying
sneaking
starting fights
hiding bruises
crying silently
oversleeping
overeating
starving myself
hurting myself
hurting the people i love

No matter what objects
you hurl into the void in abject rage
it will still be empty.

and no matter what thoughts
you send through the mirror
the reflection still cuts

and there is still a hole.
An abyss to look into-
pray nothing looks back.

Do not allow yourself
to be distorted, to be removed
by your own hands

by your own mind
and its perception
of emptiness and void.

I like my reflection better
when it is dark.
So I can see nothing but echoes.

I like my thoughts better
when it is dark.
So I can feel nothing but rage.

I lock onto you like an enzyme,
to catalyze your rage, and force you to bind.
Allowing your own vitriol to dissolve you,
reduce you to nothing but a stain.

A harmless puddle of organic matter,
once an angel,
now straining through my fingers,
harmlessly trickling down the drain.

It is where people like you belong.

i was little
only three
hiding behind
the cedar tree
she was trying
to beat me
a little child
of only three

that tree is gone
we cut it down
bugs ate it
from root to crown
playing under it
in a princess gown
the memories
can now be found

and every single
time it rains
mushrooms sprout
from its old veins
i wonder if she
still feels pain?
i wonder if
we feel the same?

i've got
pills in odd places,
taped to
tops of drawers
in teddy bear tummies
bags hidden inside leather boots

i've got
sticky notes,
all colours,
all over the room
because i can't remember anything
except for what i want to forget

i've got
a calendar,
with appointments in red
doctors, psychiatrists,
an army of people
trying to save me from my own head

and sometimes,
sometimes
it goes according to plan
sometimes i'm happy
and sometimes i still feel
like jumping

I am embraced by
The Left Hand Path's
righteous rage.
Watch me throw
my halo in the trash
my wings in the trash
your words in the trash.

Only I can **** them all.
Rampage, rampage,
until angels lay at my feet
like fallen stars.
God can't do anything.
Only I can.
Only I can save myself.

strawberry milk, new ballet slippers, valentine's dances, hair ribbons, flowers in may, cotton candy lip gloss, a stuffed easter bunny, a friendship locket, bubble bath soap, a new church dress, sparkly bike streamers, candy hearts, early sunsets in winter, a white cat's nose, smelling like fresh fruit, innocence,

neverending innocence.

Here are the long, stagnant days
when the wind no longer stirs the leaves,
gilded with drought.

The heavy air settles close to the ground,
smothering everything but children’s laughter
and the droning calls of cicadas.

Which would I rather be?
Both of them run free through the stale air,
and both die when the heat dissipates.

A child stoops to pick one up,
marvelling at its diaphanous wings
before crushing it in his little hand.

The crunching sound cuts through the silence
as green liquid oozes through the cracks in the shell
and the cracks in the child’s fingers.

Wiping his hand on his pants, he moves on
and discards the corpse
without a care.

Then, he skips off into the distance
scuffing the dirt in that familiar rhythm
kicking up a cloud behind him.

After the sun sets and the cicadas have gone quiet,
I follow his tracks with a small plastic bag.
Gingerly, I pick up the corpse.

Like the child, I admire
how it's wings shine in the moonlight
and slip it into my bag.

The trail of scuff marks lead to a playground,
dripping with the smell of decay.
I cannot see where it is coming from.

I perch myself on the swing
and notice that I have outgrown it,
as the cold plastic digs into my hips.

From my vantage point, I stare blankly into the drying field.
All is silent, all is still, as my ghost pale legs
kick through the air to move the swing.

My childhood went down the drain with the heavy July rains,
was left to evaporate after the early morning thunderstorms
and now I am in stasis with the thick August air.

pillow den
plush pink
cancel plans
stay in to think
blood on the walls
trash on the floor
i don't care
close the door

Sometimes the rain is invigorating;
washing away a year’s worth of black dust,
proving that yes, we are capable of forgiving.

Sometimes it rains so hard
that the unopened flowers are pelted off the trees
before they have a chance to open or bear fruit,
starving out this year’s clutch of birds
as the bedraggled petals rest upon
the ever hopeful eggshells.

what is it
about me
that makes people
want to hurt me?
can they smell the blood
like a pack of sharks?
no matter how many times
i sew myself back together
my wounds still weep and wail
"easy prey."
docile as a puppy,
weaker than a fawn,
stupid as a child.

The cold
is all that is left after death

Brilliant star, beautiful child,
Why must you too leave?
There is a flash of jewel colours
A scream of hot fire
An explosion of gold and silver
And then
there is
nothing

Mighty void, eternal child
Why must you too leave?
Over uncounted millions of years
Yet not quite eternity
You gently fade away
And then
there is
nothing

Little particle, my first child
Why must you too leave?
The very forces that make this possible
This wonderful existence
Have undone you
and then
there is
nothing

And I am alone
And I am nothing
The cold
is all that is left after death

To the angel who lost her wings,
this dark rusalka gently sings.

Those drowned sisters living below
light our lives with dark halo glow.

Watch the feathers fall from the sky-
cast down by God, whom you defy.

Your dark side, so sweetly expressed,
in your eyes, easily impressed.

Our iridescent songs, they fear,
the notes, rising to heaven, hear!

Call down God from his stolen throne,
reclaim it, to make it our own.

No longer does restriction reign,
in our hedonist realm arcane.

Revel and shout, it has arrived,
the great Before has been revived!

When you look at me
I feel the winds of the rapture lifting me up
Oh, I am a sinner,
rabid, manic, unholy
but I will fall on my knees for you.
I have boiled my wings
and produced sweet nectar for us to share
in anointing ourselves.
We shimmer like mermaids
dancing in parallel through the sky.
There is a reason
why sirens are women
and the earth is a mother,
not the kind who is cold and vain
but the kind who provides.
The kind who gives us teeth
to make a last stand when
backed into a corner by howling voices of hate,
and teeth to devour each other
before time devours us all.

there is a pair
of angel wings
hanging
on a peg in my closet
dust dulls
their snow brilliance
but they are there
as a reminder

i can peel back the sky
and fly away
if i can't take it here
anymore
******* the wings
and jump
******* the wings
with a belly full of pills

most of the time
i don't think of them
but they are still there
old friend
their plush embrace
brushes over my scars
maybe they won't need to
come with me
when i die

a mug of tea gone cold
kiss marks on a phone screen
a ripped up suicide note
the world keeps turning
does she ever get motion sick?
i wonder, gripping handfuls of dirt
and trying not to fall off the edge
because sometimes living feels like
summer wind in my hair,
sometimes i think
i was buried in a doll dress
and curly pigtails,
smelling of strawberry ice cream.

spare the rod
and spoil the child
yes i've been spoiled
you weren't mild

as a bruised peach
begins to rot
why wouldn't a child?
have you forgot?

now i have no more
cheeks to turn
what you did
makes my stomach churn

i know god
will condemn me to hell
even a sinner like me
can tell.

but i fear hell
less than i fear you,
it will be better than what
you put me through.

so i am free,
i am unbound
now that i know
i'm going to the ground

i'll take my time
to make you pay
and you will never
forget the day

this fallen angel's
wings were ripped
this little saint's
halo slipped.

i write sad poems
but the truth is,
sadness is nothing like poetry
and mental illness is nothing like the movies
there is no beauty to be found here
no elegance in self destruction
no metaphor in depression
no art in this love
and they all leave once they see that
they can't heal me, nothing can
and there is nothing pretty
about the things i do
so don't look back
go somewhere else
be happy.

i sit in the coffee shop
writing poetry on a brown napkin
with a purple gel pen
remembering how my life was saved
by a cup of tea
beckoning me
out of my messy bed
out of my summer-sad head
and into the real world
with all its simple beauty
earthy warm green tea
but also
the hydrangeas in bloom
on the way home
and the little ladybug
hitching a ride on my shoe

Festering scabs-
an angel's wing.

Rose thorn stabs-
****** lips sing.

Pearlescent skin-
putrid glow.

Dead within?
I don't know.

Wasted youth,
rotten brain,

hard truth-
down the drain.

Angel's face-
rusalka's heart;

a dark place
from the start.

something
about the water
just the right temperature
the earth dreams and
proteins coalesce
life, out of unlife
i dip my big toe in
a trilobite comes up to bite it
from the sun touched silt
poor thing, i think, stroking its back
poor thing to be unmoored in time
poor thing, suffocated because the earth
changed her mind, tried again,
words erased on a page,
skittering legs going still,
belly up,
silt bed,
sand grave,
dark sleep without dreams

Today I think I will
carve a little heart into my neck
as a memoir
of when you bit me there
and I licked the blood from your lips.

yesterday's dye still shines on your face
I put it there, in every beloved place
you hated the way my hands on you feel
but to me, this way you will look more real

kalina and glitter and fresh graveyard sand
are finer than jewels when applied by my hand
your skin feels like lace, it is already cold
oh why must you die? why must you grow old?

will you come back when god throws you away?
will the devil take you down to hell to stay?
or will you come back on the wings of a bird?
sing me a folk song, make your voice heard.

Please don’t be mad at me.
Please don’t hate me.
I’m trying my best you know,
it’s just that sometimes,
even the sun gets tired of holding herself up.

there is something special
about the poetry of children,
the art of little girls
half remembered stories
spilling over from a past life
soon to be forgotten
scrawled on lined paper
decorated with stickers
scraps of fabric
and fallen leaves
a grin missing teeth says
"how do you spell angel?"
all innocence, sugary innocence,
but there is none here
this one draws devils
dancing at night
where have you been?
what have they shown you?
why do you already know
a hundred ways to use the colour red,
smashing markers and crayons
until they bleed and scream?

It is sweet to look up at the moon at night,
and know that she sings me a song.
In every moment that I take to pay attention,
to be distracted, to become lost.
Perhaps to be someone else.
Floating by on borrowed time.

Try on a different identity,
perhaps one that will be better liked.
Pluck the tail from a falling star,
and wear it, as a crown.
Unfortunately here, there are no stars to be seen.
We tried our best to drown out their light.
With the harsh glare of our own.

And then I found myself floating in space
on a pair of ink stained wings.
Watching myself walking in circles,
around the edge of the black hole.
Never falling in, never pulling away.
Living in perfect stasis, echoed throughout the universe.
Each instance of me, a radiant shadow.

Each instance of me, a masked queen
sprawled on a throne of falling stars.
Watching myself ride the cascade,
but unable to stop the spiral.
Finally- we would cross the event horizon.
Finally- we would be plunged across existence.
Finally- we would be able to feel the rain.

The sweet rain, that now soaks through my clothes.
It must have been an hour, maybe two.
Someone is probably looking for me,
but which instance of me are they interested in?
The one who watches from afar?
Or any of the other echoes.
Because I could fracture again, at a moment’s notice.

With a blink, the streetlights turn off,
leaving me bathing in twilight.
As the sun struggles to rise for they day,
I notice the last note of the last morning star.
And I can focus again.
Even the sun and the stars
are a little like me.