A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't

What if
I had fallen to my knees
On the cold parking lot concrete
Tears washing over my cheeks
And cries no one should ever have to hear
Bellowing out from beneath my ribs
Screaming at the sky
Looking up at your face
Forcing you
(and everyone else)
To see me in this godforsaken state
Of absolute chaos
Heartbreak
In it's rawest form
What if I had begged you to stay?
What if I'd told you I can't do this without you?
What if I'd told you how much I needed you
What if I did anything other than fighting back the tears
Maybe for myself, maybe for you,
Mostly for the crowd of people gathering
Saying their goodbyes
Anxiously looking around to bear witness to everyone else's reactions
And I didn't want to be that girl
That girl who falls to the ground
Kicking and screaming and crying and begging
But what if I was?
What if I was any girl other than the one I pretended to be that day
The one that held her tongue and kept her mouth shut because she knew the second she opened it to speak she would sob
The one that wrapped her arms around you for the last time,
and the one that let go
The one that couldn't bear to watch you walk away
So she kissed you goodbye
Got back in the car
And drove home
What if i wasn't that girl who didnt allow herself to completely fall apart until she was alone in the privacy of her own home?
What if instead I'd made a scene,
Doing what everything inside me so desperately wanted to
Grabbing hold of your hand and refusing to let go
Losing the facade of confidence
The charade of strength
But I'm not that girl
And I never will be
So each and every time you leave
I kiss you goodbye
I unclench my fists and retract my anchors
I untether my heart from it's human home
And I put on a brave face
Maybe for myself, maybe for you,
Or maybe
For that girl.

After years of aimless wanderings
Leaving behind the cities of midnight revels
And the fevered journey in metro rails,
I am back at the land of my people.

Wherever I went,
Under which ever roof I slept,
I had carried my land,
As a jewel in a casket
And ensured it rested safe
Ever under my pillow

As I moved with aliens
Unable to merge with their cultural mores,
I saw my land glimmer in darkness
Like a dew drop on a moon blanched leaf

When I sweated in the blistering sands
A patch of green landscape, like an oasis
Wafted me in a cool embrace
Then dreams poured in like star light
And I wandered in the meadows of my youthful love
My heart struggling to forget old longings
And memories lashing upon me like tidal waves

Pursued by that inalienable shadow
Suddenly being born in flesh and blood
I hastened to the streets of my youth
With hopes galore and plans vivid

But alas! There is none to recognize me
Oh! I am a stranger here
An unwelcome stranger among total strangers
Now I wonder which is truly my land?
The one left behind or the one just landed in?

Oscillating between these two worlds,
My fractured identity looms large
With worms of memories wriggling in my flesh
And a myth suddenly dying in my brain

When you kissed me
Everything changed.

I know how that sounds.

But before I existed somewhere else
Swathed in my chrysalis
terrified of what I might be if I ever dared to leave.
To tear down that last protection.

Because no one had ever asked for anything more than my words.

I’m sorry I couldn’t seem to fathom it had been real.
I suppose that’s what happens
when you spend so much time believing
that no one sees you.
Transparency in my chrysalis
that you were breaking through.

Your lips on mine,
Promising
that you could like every part of me.
That you did like every part of me.
And not in spite of who I was, who I am.
But because of who I am.

When you kissed me, everything changed.

I couldn’t hide anymore.
I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t feeling all of the things you were feeling.
I became a kind of vulnerable I had never been before
and somehow
I was not afraid.

I was safe with you.
Your lips,
that whispered all of my favorite words and sang all of my favorite songs
and taught me to tell a new kind of story
one where I could say “we” instead of “me”
without ever worrying that you would leave me standing alone.

Your lips,
A kiss.
and fearlessness.

For once.
Fearlessness.

When you kissed me, everything changed.

rewrite my name

In whatever script suits you.
Twist the letters
Distort the consonance
until the whispered sound that turns my head
begins and ends with you.

Scratch your fingernails over my mind–
make it skip like a broken record

drown me in your words.
let them overcome me
I want all that I hear and breathe to be

The sound and smell of you.

rewire my heart
to beat along with the rhythm of yours.

I want the parts of me,
definitively mine,
To melt and mold with yours.

So that I might know you deeply and entirely.

cut me down to the bone
look at the spoiled, sick
pieces of me.

and ask me
what went wrong.

I’ll show you the invisible scars
the footsteps on my heart
the fingerprints on my wrist
the scalding burns that scathed the neurons in my hippocampus.

Slice me open.
navel to nose
and walk away with bloodied hands.

I’ll keep the scars and scratches
and turn my head to the tune of your name.

I begged you to come in
to read me like a book
to feel the touch of my skin
to taste the promises on my lips
and whisper them back to me.

You did.
and more.

You cut me open.
Did everything I asked of you.
Read the pumping blood in heart
like the code of my DNA.
Looked to the blue and red twisting of my veins
traveled those lines to find me
like following a road map to the place
Where you could burrow deep down into my mind. My heart.

And keep that space.

I branded your name there.
The image of you.
Your back.
The outline of your shoulder blades through your t-shirt.
The way you look with your eyes closed.
Like you're trying to shut out the world.

and me.

Wishing I could be a part of it.

Wishing I could take up the space in you that you took in me.

Wishing you counted on me
like I counted your heartbeats as you slept.

That our hearts molded together like I so dearly believe they should.
That those words I wrote on that empty
Lined page

That they were wrong.

He doesn't love me.

I don't know what I did.

I asked you to cut me open.

Now I'm trying not to bleed out.

I would give myself away
as I so often do.

crack a smile
shed a tear
laugh abrubtly
or sit silent

Always with my heart on my sleeve,
where I have made a spot for it.

I would give myself away.
everytime.
if the person I am yeilding to is you.

And I will not hide anymore.
So that maybe
Maybe
Maybe we will teach each other
the serenity
In loving someone who let's you keep your heart on your sleeve
So they might see it.

So loving,
just loving
might come with less questions

I cannot give you serenity,
but if it meant you might find it
for yourself
I would give myself away.

For you,
I would give myself away.