my chest has become the home of a one-eyed boa.

when I was a child, this serpent was a child,

but now my vivarium has become exceedingly small

for this great snake as it grows and stretches my skin.

I am not elastic.

and as the mid drift coils around my black cavity chest,

part slithers up my throat,

causing me to gargle and choke,

silencing me into silence,

while the remaining 1/3 slides through

a short tube to my stomach.

I am nauseous.

this is the feeling when your boy

is playing soccer

and it’s all you can do to not think of

how he smells like grass and sweat and soccer

and how you would love to wrap your fingers around him.

and for a severed second

I am waiting for nachos.

and for a severed second I thought I was a warm, golden tortilla chip

that someone would want to crunch in their mouth.

This is the feeling when he gives another girl his jacket

and walks her to her car

and she compliments his eyes

and calls him by the nicknames you thought

were yours.

and for a severed second you think

of all the reasons you know you are inadequate.

like brown eyes withholding the freckles

and like the fact that you can’t command

your own skin or the way that it tears.

I am not stuck in a rut.

I am the grand canyon,

stuck in myself

without any water to drown myself in.

I am not made of acne,

I am a pimple.

and i’m every pimple

on all the faces

of my lovers who gave up trying or let me sink quietly

into the background as

doe-like females sauntered into the fore-

I am not a spot

I am a speckle that rides on the backs of spindly spiders

I am orange. I am poison.

I am not the geese but the pond.

*****, overgrown and stagnant.

she is his rock and his river

and I though he was mine.

The door and the doorway
form a cocoon around my
fingers and this metamorphosis
is still lovely because instead
of a butterfly I get bruises.
and white hot knuckles.
and a raspy throat when
afterwards I asked myself where
the air scampered
away to I think it’s hiding
under my bed and in the
piles of clothes that I
left on my floor because
every time I tried to pick them
up
I picked
up
the phone instead.

Don’t talk to me as if I’m
the last string holding the
tag on your bed sheets together
hile telling me that
I’m the last string keeping
you away from a 200 foot fall
while you’re bungee jumping
how do you expect me to
snap you back in place every time
you wander
I am not elastic.


it isn’t me that turns your
words into cobwebs in this breeze
I’ve heard everything you want to say to me
1000 times before
at least
give me a square of time
for my own thoughts
to act as a feather duster
in the attic of my mind.
to clean up your cobwebs
where you nested once,
you lay your eggs inside of me
and there are 2000 tiny animals
ravaging what I was saving for us
what’s left of my mind
I have a bottle cap and
a glass heart that you
copped from DC
you’re still running
and these bottles of vicodin
and oxycodone are chasing you
but you haven’t yet realized
that you’ve already tripped

that's kelvin.
27.3 minutes of silence on a park bench.
following the same conversation that ends with
you're changing.
when did i smoke?
i always ******* lie.

and sadness is not the forest but the axe.
it isn't your locked door but the stairs or the hallway.
sadness is the butterfly and the windshield colliding
and telling yourself that you didn't see it hit or hear it quietly thumping.
it is not  sorry feeling, it is guilt.
sadness is the building and the wrecking ball
and sometimes i'm both.
it is my cold nose and toes,
but i am not a blade of grass or a river,
i am the dinner that gave you poison
rather than another notch on your belt.
sadness is not black and white,
it is a monotonous topaz.
sadness is 7:30 after 27.3 minutes in which flies
were more alive than i was.
27.3 minutes of disappointment,
of don't touch me,
of i can't see
every sporadic, insignificant thing is making me want to holler
and tear out my hair.
and withdraw into myself but
27.3 minutes of silence
does not allow for this.
instead i became a blinking statue
and the color turned from a yellow to a green
and suddenly i was being reached for,
but the hands were moving half in slow motion and half in apathy.
i don't think i wanted to be rescued.
i'm not a ******* damsel, or
at least that's what i thought i was telling everyone.
i can't think through that feeling
this feeling.
like 3am when all your friends are high and you're not.
like 3am when you remember you tried to give a *******
in the woods
while your phone was ringing
because you haven't shaved and they tell you they're disgusted.
and keep talking about it as if they didn't know you were talking about it.

because this may be my very last breath
my fingers are curling around a match box
and I set myself on fire
but only on the inside and
I want all of you to know that you are
flint
or matches
of kerosene.

you are ravenous.
I can ******* self-pity
when you tear my skin apart
in the hallways.
sometimes I pull my sleeves
to cover my fingers becayse
before you know it, they will
rip your eyes clean out of their sockets.
yes, I see you staring at me
like i’m the reason you gained
10 pounds this semester,
or the reason you failed that test.
I don’t care if you think
my teeth are crooked.


I am not a zoo animal, keep your
grimy paws off of me,
and don’t speak to my as if
i’m the ants crawling on your countertops
while speaking to me as if
I just gave you the only thing
you’ve ever looked at more closely than
you’ve been looking at everyone here.

I used to like you a lot.
i don’t know what ******* happened.
we’re children and you pushed me off the swings,
off the playground,
out of the park.
And now my best friend only wants
me for what i can say about you,
you sea urchin.
bouquet of prickling spikes
piercing my jagged rib bones.
rip through me,
feasting scoundrel,
you *****, you fox.
you viper.

wipe her from my soggy slate.
dinner plate? it’s empty.
everyone is the garbage disposal,
grinding my teaspoons of self-worth
into dusty pieces. i am the garbage.

and i never pegged you as one
to leave me in a  
dark parking lot,
shadows curling their bony fingers
around my purple lungs,
but she found you making love to
him in the same car we sat.
the bull frogs saw what you did.

i’m warning you to stop pretending
like you’re still a fawn.
a doe-like female.
i can see through the speckles
on your face
and your mixed tapes.

i don’t have heart left for you,
you ******.
kneel in front of his  knobby
knees. beg,  
*****.
muck him up and then
lick him clean,
feline.
slink past me in the night,
in the broad daylight.
you are not a spy
i can see your arteries.

why is it that I am constantly

at the other end of leaving?

in the position that nobody wants to be in.

staying must be hard when

a knot of razors is asking you to stay

I don’t blame you, I only blame

the molasses ache in my gut.

i’m sorry i’m **** a ******* Debbie downer.

you made me this way with

your machine gun-clip mouth,

yes, sadness is unoriginal.

I can’t be the talking doll among your china.

for every night we giggled on the floor
and every cigarette we smoked in your house without your parents knowing.
for kissing one person good morning and another good night
and every yearbook scribble about living together.
for matching haircut,
for matching eyes,
an every freckle on your perfect body that i told you drove me insane.
for every lunch you ate on the bathroom floor.
for every person i told you were a dropout.
and every minute i spent yelling about the jellies in the sea where you got stung.
for being into typewriters,
for being into talking,
and ever golden lock of hair i pointed out,
for the things you wanted added and
for the things you wanted removed.
for the holes we put in our bodies
this is just to apologize.

"i'll love you until that balloon deflates"
a 3 am lie.
pining over old prom dates,
trying not to die.
don't act like we're first mates.
stop making me cry.
devours. he satiates.
i'm grasping air, i'm a shallow sigh.

once i punched myself in the face
so that i would have a bruise,
because i think bruises are
nice and maybe a little badass,
but then i realized
as people asked me what
hurt me
that i was neither nice nore
a little badass.

My tongue is severed
Cut up.
Taking down all the pictures of the people we used to be;
Pictures of people I’m not even sure I remember.
Skin prickling.
Tear it off.
I tried to pick the clothes from my
floor
But I picked up the phone for about the thousandth time.
Voicemail.
You’re letting me waste your time
And by the way you’re living,
I’m sure you don’t have but
About a pint left.
And I’m knocking on all the doors
And no one is answering or at least
The ones that do frighten me.
I can’t ask them for their sugar,
Or even find my voice
I think I lost it somewhere between
Does he still love me and
Goodnight.
Too bad the ones that always appear welcoming
Have sharp claws rather than
Soft underbellies.
Sometimes when I’m cold they offer
Places to nestle inside of them
But instead of comfort
They maim me with their
Dry-ice smirks.
It’s always the ones who
Think they know what it’s like to be told
I’d rather sleep than talk to you.

I don’t think about you
when I’m trying to sleep
when the bed is too hard
when my limbs are too heavy
It’s only days like today
When you take off my
Clothes
And kiss at the marks on my body
Like you know how they got there
or why
Like you didn’t spend 10 minutes calling your other girl names about
The marks on her body
Like you know how they got there.
Or why.

Our time together consists of
sleeping
and *******
And I’m not too fond of either
Or the fact that you left
Me in a parking lot alone
To go see her

I am not the other woman
I am supposed to be
Your sunshine and your
Clementine but I guess
She is your grass or
At least she gives you
Enough of it
It doesn’t help that she’s
******* your brother
Why do I have to hear about
How upset you are over that?

Remember when you told me you liked BIlly Holiday?
i could never find that song.
i thought it was leaves
maybe not or at least
i haven't found it yet.
what the **** is that song, it's driving me wild;
i still haven't found you either.

someone please touch my thighs. i'm melted ice cream. the ugly
*******. please wreck me. life on repeat.
chips, chips, chips.
don't ask me to DC. that's our spot. stolen hearts in
the metro. on the freeway.
run, run.
trains. sloppy car ride. you can't ******* drive.
earthquake. you're lying to me.
18th birthday. sitting ducks. *****. triangular windows.
fragile. ****.
hiking boots pinch my toes. i've never been hiking. biking.
shorts.
cartwheels on stage. peel your eyes off of me.

something about starting
sentences and stories and
stanzas with
today
there was an ex friends and
and ex boyfriend.
hello!
but they had different faces
and they didn't know me.
this happened
more than once.
remembering.
shame people are seldom
who i think they are.

i want to be someone's prom queen, princess, precious.
doesn't anyone know that i want to be told i'm going to be great?
i don't have any energy left to spend and i think that i've been
spent on. the view from 4 feet under is at least better than
the view from 6. that isn't a promise.
i've been sitting in the shower and still there isn't any
reception. i think that we're losing service and i'm not sure
what we're paying is worth it. in fact, i'm ready to give
up but i think that you're quietly holding fat.
and it takes two to let go.
our hands are sweaty.