The cloth tears
shredding
dust unfurling
circling towards the ground
glinting as the sun slices through the shades
burning on each fleek a final glow
a most mundane silent explosion

The universe tearing apart
scattering the stars at high speeds
rocks tearing through black
turning into space sand
things becoming smaller
So minuscule there’s no word for
what is more minuscule than quarks

It’s contrary then  
That quiet even exists
day after day certain things I feel I’m owed
a sense of guaranteed control over my destiny,
when all I am is the shrapnel of the stars
collected together in a precarious cluster
a mathematical anomaly of particles
that settled together
blindly believing they’ll never fall apart.

On the phone we’d walk and talk in circles
Repeated conversations
Patterns on my rug worn from our talking
You taught me a life lived right will circle

Memories working out of order  
psychic dream senses in waking life,
stitching back together to make a web,  
Somethings have more than one context
But the synchronicity will only comes to those in rhythm

To seek out the motion, careful attention must be maintained:
A book will come back twice if it’s supposed to
One mention of it, you might let it slip your mind,
But then will come a coincidence so strong,
you’ll know it was supposed to be read

Without the dedication to trust a great doubt sets in,
the web so carefully spun begins unspooling
tangling into a knot wound so tight
It will leave in it's place a black hole
this is where I titer
between the point of falling in,
or dangling along the lines of the knot
trying to detangle whats left of the web we created
I am dancing around in different directions
hoping we’ll pass again in sync

Today was pink
You’ve left me that colored message before,
Between hazy grey sleep and wake you whispered:
Look for the extra color

Dying hydrangeas left one branch vibrant
It was blush

A plane flying passed a blue cloud,
blinking electric pink flash in the sky
Pink goggles on a lawn in October
I wondered if it was you,
I whispered:
Show me the impossible, how about a pink leaf?

Three paces ahead the underbelly of a red leaf
I plucked it from the ground
It was pink.

The veins of my eyelids
a sharp toned red
transforms into a blinding white
my eyes swivel to peak at the sun

I want the light to seep into my bones
longing to instead be a plant
slowly photosynthesizing

It would be easier perhaps,  
to whisper sweet nothings
to the wind
rather than tightening my throat
strangled by my human body
the grief never quite leaving my lips

Shadows cross my bedside  
shapes of blowing leaves tumble over
as the sun turns her head west
I watch the flurries of colors pass by

There’s construction on the way to therapy
I detour my own way
Ignoring the glaring orange signs
I know better I think

Swerving in and out of neighborhoods
Not paying close enough attention
I’m keenly aware of bikers, animals and children in yards
I fear being the driver

I don’t know where I’m going but I end up at the office anyway
Twisting and turning until I just
Arrive

I tell her
I’m sorry but my thoughts won’t be linear
My brain is no longer working
Or at least not working like it was
Before things were logical,
linear
Straight
Frustratingly narrow
Packed up into wooden boxes
Splintering my hands when I try to move around

Now things are split open
Wrecked into a circle of pulp,
strips
sharp edges
disconnected

My thoughts roll out in many directions
Following things that are folded
Slinking
Out forward and backwards
And ultimately ending up back
Inwards

I know there’s no signs I can follow
I’m under construction
It will be a long time until
I see a freshly paved road
With a street and no bumps

I’d like to be a natural girl
aesthetically home-grown
A DIY princess
Instagram goddess
Externally signaling I’m internally pure

But I’m not.

I’m sharper
Internally slicing and picking
Instagram ghost
too lazy for a consistent aesthetic
Dreading attention

Yet I’m afraid of being forgotten
While equally terrified of the spotlight
an in between
Inner ego fighting the fact
One day I’ll die

What’s curious though,
Is my digital life may be buried
Long after my ashes
An Internet branded shell
Of who I once was

Two white candles
I light each night for you
one matches your favorite scent
a lavender
the other, plastered with a photograph
of the three of us

It took three matches to light four candles
and when even that wasn't enough,
I took the red advent candle from our kitchen table,

It bled onto the white candles
passing along the flame
seeping into the wax
splashing onto my blanket
oozing into my journal

Now when I go to light the candles
they burn the wax now orange
and I drip
until I stream
and pour
longing
as these candles bleed

no
I
actually
don't

If
my
angsty
poetry
is
annoying

then
just
don't
follow
me.

That It's never good enough.

         That I can't do

                  That all of this means nothing


I can't sleep

          because I don't want to get out of bed in the morning

                         Whats the point right?

That I'm so weak

         If I was strong this pain wouldn't consume me

              I would just keep going

I mean I do keep going

        But I also keep breaking

               because I'm faking

                          that I'm not terrified about where my life is going.

I love you as a friend
I love you as a daughter
I love you as a mother
I love you as a lover
I love you as a person
I love you as a brother
I love you as a sister
I love you as a father
I love you as a companion
I love you as a husband
I love you as a wife
I love you as a son
I love you
   I love you
     I love you
please tell me each day
it's something we all should say

Summer evenings I going walking
people reunite on porches
parents take their children to the park
and bugs seep out from cracks in the ground

lighting bugs glow
sparse floating sparks
gliding past my little park
the one that I never sit in down my block
because children play there

when I have the courage I like to wave
the children shriek and run to the iron fence
pressing perfect pudgy noses through the bars
sticking small dirt covered fingers out trying to reach me
I gently wave, tightly smile and shuffle on
fast walking to my home

laughter carries in the wind after me
I long to pause in the park a moment longer
but if I stop for too long
I’m afraid a lightning bug might land on me

They say, the dying are greeted, by their mothers
She comes for them at the end
Her love reaching further than bookends
Loving before, when you’re but an idea
A single cluster of cells,
Pregnantly waiting,
For birth

You came into the world quickly,
Precariously, the way you moved in life
Your pace blazing—light speed  
A glow that burned from the beginning

You were likely, the first person I ever held,
Me being too little to hold onto anything much bigger
But of course I adored you right away,
Right from when I first held you,
You made more than a daughter

You left the world quickly too,
during the month the sun burns the hottest,
August sweeping you into the air.
So I wonder, who came for you?

What I like to imagine,
and most desperately hope,
Is that you were greeted by a softness
A loving net cast by our grandmothers
Rocking you slowly
Pulling you back into our linage

They come to claim the carcasses
whispering sweetly underground
tentacles returning energy back to the earth
******* and spitting
pumping their wisdom into the dirt

Swaying slowly craning their heads towards the sun
These humble creatures in clusters dot the wooded bog
their work mostly undetected to human eyes
speaking in ancient languages and casting spells
carefully tending the land,
keeping the peace

mushroom mediums
between the living and the dead
pulsing with fungal renewal
holding the power
of natures neural network  
a vast information of knowledge  
unknown

reoccurring nightmares jolt me awake
sleep deprived, I scroll through my phone seeking interpretations
this always leads me down a narrow spiral
a dearth of knowledge littered with lies

I fear most of all the devil, death and bugs
the devil because I’ve been told that I’m ******
death because it is coming to claim all the things I love
and bugs because I’ve lived through too many infestations

But last nights dream was different
I dreamed of beautiful bugs
a swarm at the peak of a mountain
moths swirling around the place that I might summit
a glowing moon, light blue and eerie
snow slowly melting
the air a tentative dusk

Fluttering at the center around the moon,
the red eyes on their wings flashed me a warning
I drew closer

so close I could hear a chitter
a shiver went down my spine

but I walked on
shielding myself through the swarm

a moth separated from the group
approaching me
I began to panic,
worried it would hurt me
fearing that its small yellow tongue might lick my feet
that I would taste the fur on its wings
that we might consume each other

I ran from the swarm down the mountain
down a dark path leading me back to reality
but when my eyes swiveled back open
and my face bathed in the blue light of my phone
I wished that I had stood my ground

what would have happened
if I greeted the moths,
continued to up the mountain,
and bathed in the light of the moon
joining the moths in a dance

The minute I knew
my breath left my body
sending part of my soul out to search for you

before she said the words over the phone
my heart raced
my throat closed
I sputtered with questions, trying to make action
when deep down I knew
that nothing could be done

my interrupting pleas blocked her
I wanted the words that came after to never come— and when they did
there was nothing

A tiny infinity
Folding itself into a tiny ball
instantaneously weighing heavy
becoming a singularity
time and physics changing
Unraveling around
bursting into surreal ribbons of time—that I wanted to stab
to pin you back down to earth

I confronted the stars to demand a bargain with the universe  
of course they responded with an indifferent silence
my wish goes against the laws of physics

So instead, I bare my soul
throwing it over the event horizon
to speak directly to you:
come back to me
come back to me
come back to me