I have this vintage dress
it's green
Silk
Gorgeous
every six months I try it on
every six months it doesn't fit
this time
it fit my waist
but I couldn't fit my arms into it
I tried so hard I ripped it
You must be thinking
Just buy a new dress
But to buy a new dress is to admit I am me
Not the skinny thing I long to be
To buy a new dress
Is admitting they were right
That he was right
That I am just going to be fat and alone forever
so now my focus
is on making my arms slim
arm fat exercises
googled and practiced
I'm going to fit into that dress
even if it kills me
you can bury me in it
I'll be the thinnest prettiest corpse you've ever seen

I told them
About the hungry and the barren
being I had become
about the not eating
the crying
the ice coffees
the empty calories I had become

The silence in the room was
Screeching
at me
I didn't know what they would respond with
But worse than anything I considered was
The silence
the calm
they responded with
The noise of my sobs
Too loud in this small sunny, peaceful room
I've now ruined

you write to me
about our kids and the hill we live on
you write to me
about the "honey, I'm home"s and soft loaves of homemade bread
about making soup as a family
about working from home living on the land
about swatting hands away from dinner until its ready
about eating outside in the light summer evening
picnic baskets soft glances as you do
homemade jam and uncut meadow filled lawns
and even though we haven't talked in weeks
I see it so clearly that I'm overwhelmed
tears of craving that
of wanting that
of wanting you  
I had forgotten how quickly I bend for you
gentle words about a tender life
I'm bending
so far, for you  

but you leave
long gone
too far to whisper your soft words
I will shatter
like I always do
break in half
even in two
id choose that
id choose life with you
Isn't that terrifying

The way the sun
Shines on the bench in my backyard screams to me
that tomorrow will be better
that but that tomorrow will come
The bench in my backyard
Covered in moss and decay
Stands strong
As time slips around it
Threatens to drown it
It is a wonderful reminder
that i am beautifully breathing
the bench in my backyard basking in sunlight covered in moss
has lived and is living
and reminds me to stand brightly and wholly
Joy is the act of letting happiness in
I speak to the bench in my backyard
I invite you in
It whispers

I listen

Often we experience First Love at a young age
therefore it is underdeveloped
as all other things are when you are young
but with you, our love was never easy
undeveloped straight line love

yearning went past wanting you from across the hall
it was knowing that truthfully I could never have you
no matter how many times you promised otherwise
I must've known you in a different time and that time I'm falling for you in a
Flaming
passionate
enchanting
kind of way
but not here
here I  yearn for you first and last
And you yearn for me
Not at all

Dripping in culture
Drenched in art
You pull me in
With deep thoughts
Ad poems spoken into rose beds
You drag me down
Gently with book recommendations
You drown me
A smile on your face
Rouge on your cheeks
You pull me down into the depths
With a soft, paint speckled hand
You drown me gently with a wink and a quote from a poem
I won't whisper abc to you
I sink into the abyss with the taste of honey and scones on my lips a smile on my face
My breath stops as yours continues to flow lines of romantic letters
My lungs halt with you painting my portrait
in the field of sappy love poems and honey drenched afternoons
You are the nicest sweetest poison
I have ever tasted
I die over and over again in your arms
pulled in by your rose tinted view
Of us

These are the seeds of self-hate
That grew into delusion
The roots of loathing the lack of control
Hating food
was the start
Of hating myself
I ripped down that tree
with my bare hands
tearing and scraping until it was gone
But the seeds
Are still there
And I've unconsciously
Plated them
by talking to you

A charming light chain that is almost not there
with a pendant telling me who to be
It feels like it weighs 1000 tons
Exceedingly heavy
When it's supposed to be thin
I hate it as I hate myself
Sweating encased in tulle
Shoes so high I feel pulled down
I feel like screaming

It's all too heavy
It's not me
My body is too big for this
How dare I think I am dainty
So delicate I could shatter it without blinking
But it adds another 1000 tons
To my already too much body mass

one day they'll lower my large body down
into a church-sanctioned grave
and ill feel like screaming
then too

I met death in a parking garage
Overlooking a quiet capital
I met death behind fences
Through creaking gates
And sprinting across driveways

I found death behind the wheel
Him, in the seat beside me,
Without moving a muscle
He screams
Faster
Faster
Faster


Who am I to deny death
The man I love

Shoes go click-click down the hall
hemmed last week
hair pulled back
lips painted
Skin caked
smile
terrified
feet will hurt
throat will burn
smile for the sake of conformity.  
in the same black dress
in tuxedos
Pretending that we are all not terrified
Pretending we are grown
the perfect kids they want us to be

terrified of fitting in so snug I can't move
making myself fit in now
when I want to leave I’m stuck
suffocated by the actions of past me
so desperate to fit I refused to think of leaving

Do I really like you or the idea of something new
I think love you
Maybe the idea of you  
even if we were not meant to be
please talk to me
The sound of your voice
The only voice I hear
We have communication issues but I only want to talk to you
Maybe it's the idea of you I've created I need
But I can't find it in myself to leave,
Even if you aren't real
I'm falling in love with the way you make me feel

Sitting on the phone with you
Makes the silence feel more like pauses
And less like endings of conversations
Seeing you watch me out of the corner of your eye
makes mine open wider to not miss the beauty of your silent presence
Settling over me like a warm blanket
Sitting on the phone with you not talking is the loudest most comfortable conversation
I've had in months
So comfortable I could slip into you and forgot to speak ever again

I am a once in a lifetime opportunity
And so are you
Despite the odds
I'm glad we didn't miss each other

I guess this is my fault
For crawling so desperately after you
Screaming and begging for months
For you to let me love you the way I needed to
I guess it's my fault
Like most things are
I guess it's my fault for thrusting my heart into your shaking hands
You cannot bear the weight of me
Your hands too weak
For months I threw myself at the only thing that brought me joy
You
I guess it's my fault that I never told you to let go
Your shaking hands claw into me desperately
The way I tried to do
To you

I hope if this goes anywhere
it goes in the direction of change
that at the end of whatever we do
or wherever we go
I hope we are different than when we started
hope we are different people than who we have been made to be up until now
I hope we get to choose  
who we become
and can help each other choose
you might not be a daisy at the end of this my dear but you’ll always smell like them
to me

Forced me into this
Over how I look
Open up my stomach and hate what you find
Don't tell me you can fix it because no one can

The glimpses of a life
I catch between broken windows in this house
Are not enough to keep me happy
Not enough to wipe the cobwebs from the corners of the rooms
Not enough to fix the rotting floors and ceilings
It's not enough to want to stay
But it is enough
To keep me here
In this drafty old broken house
My consciousness has turned into
Aware but stuck
Seeing but longing
To feel

Time in class
moves like molten glass
Slowly moving across the hour and a half
I'm pushing through
when it hits the cold water of attempted concentration
I harden
shatter
quicker then I can expect
faster than I can stop
reheating the shards of broken glass
stings my palms
watching the red spread across my
shaky fidgeting hands
only makes me more desperate
to stay submerged and whole at the same time

My limbs long to stay connected to yours
I think in a different time I could love you
I believe our souls could have loved each other
In another time
If our human bodies and their lives matched
I long for that version of reality
I wish that we were joined like I knew we could be
I long for that version of us
Where our plans line up.
Where we are in the same place in our lives
In that version
I'm already hopelessly in love with you,
It's so close I can feel it,
But sorrowfully, the human agenda doesn't listen to souls.
I wish I could float with you,
Forever.

You fling me
Deep
Into the rose-tinted meadow
That my head-space around you has become
You propel me
Down hillside covered in warm poems
I find myself
Lost
In honey
In daisy fields that make me want to sink
Sink into the ground
Sink into your light glances and heavy thoughts
I wonder much too often
What it would be like to stay lost in you
Forever

Smoke in my lungs  
In my hands
in my eyes
Maybe it’s bad
but it makes the voices a little quieter.
It aches to laugh now
Emotionally
Physically
My lungs are giving out
Without you

you no longer live here
you haven’t been to my house
we have a hard time talking
these are the arguments
one faction of my mind
makes to me
the side of me that makes sense
but the other side can only think
about your smile
your voice
the way you look at me
and I shove down those (facts) feelings
until your smile
and your voice
and the way you look at me
is the only way I ever want anyone
to smile or speak or look at me
it’s terrifying how easily I can push the reasoning away
for (you) us

lights and lighters so bright I'm going blind
you've blinded me  
But I'm beginning to get tired of stumbling around in the dark
I used to use your voice to escort me
But the room ignited  
And you had to leave
To sort it out and save the people you love
And now I'm waiting for you
burned
In the ashes
in the dark
In the house, we tried to build together
I wish the light was gone
So it can't remind me of you
Please rebuild
With someone else