the October wind whistles through me, reminding me of the many holes that have formed. I'm a chandelier of hair and bones.

Tragic smiles and detached
frozen shoulders,
moats defending castles made of a billion grains of sand
This rainy season has left you miraculously
dry?  
And for what?
The only points you proved
were those that top the
bitter spikes that lance from your heart.

Though California's fall has yet to arrive, my chest has yet to thaw.

I’m scared of permanence

Of any form of an ink stain on a white linen shirt

That no matter how hard I try, the scrubbing I do

Will not disappear, will not fade

One day I will come across a stain that will ******* me

And as I attempt to rid it, it will damage me further

This shirt I wear, lies lightly on my skin. A second skin.

I want to be involved yet fear an embrace

Or rather, confuse being held to being held down

Wings being clipped, screams that fall to deaf ears that cannot hear because what I fear doesn’t exist…

The fear keeps me from playing the game, yes,

But can it keep the game from playing me?

Gas tank never completely full
Dishes unwashed
Time and its manifestations
Is the affliction that plagues any millennial
She is present, and waiting
Ready to peel her skin at a moments notice
Rhythmic finger tapping on a diner table
Sipping iced tea and always looking out the window
Neither down nor forward, just up
While uncooked ham
In the form of a human sat opposite her
“I wish others cared” she sighed apathetically
“I wish other scared?” he inquired. He knew that he heard wrong.
“No, I can make that happen already.”
A pause swallowed them both
“I’m leaving”
“Why?”
She answered, her countenance
An opened Venus fly trap
“I’m hungry”

i can make one bottle of beer last hours
From cold to lukewarm
My *** settling into a state of what I call
Perma buzzed
Wussy sip after wussy sip
Perplexed looks and slights from friends
It serves me right to drink so slow,
Evading the glass bottle bottom but
I guess I want to be able to hold onto something so much,
It warms up to me and serves me well.

~

Right now, I want to be buried in a house of lavenders.

what a strange quiet house I'm in
Where i can't even hear myself think
Bottle after bottle and the silence ensues
I am alone here, and I will be alone here
For as long as the vacancy in my chest
And the absence of my mind
continues

~
I want a house overrun with lavenders for my children to play with.

Take the smooth out of the mouth and place it into hands

of those who hold

sheets messed, lips pressed

feet walking, slightly depressed

tracks in a barren land of snow

snow as white as our intentions, as blank as the path we follow

look back, see tracks

they don’t tell me where to go

the wind blows, hair sways

i look back to the most golden day, sky was pink

flushed with the rushing collision of two

walking, following, leading

back to lying

sheets messed, noses press

fingers strumming the skin, sensations like

trapped reverberations

louder than the silence of miles

warm wine flowing through my body
(Cabernet being ironically the same color as what gives me life)
directed me to my room
at approximately 11:25 pm that Wednesday.
A light in the left corner painting a pleasant and inviting
gold
I tumble into my queen bed
laughter airily escaping my lungs, exhalations of exhilaration
Ruffled a string of words into a message.
Borne of unadulterated joy and hopeless seclusion,
radiation from my center came out of my fingers as
"**** me like the angel I am. I am true beauty and divinity and deserve to feel like a goddess"

Angel sits on her bed talking to her boyfriend, they’ve dated for two months and he says that’s enough.

“Ang think about me, think about us, do it for us”.

Angela is hesitant but her gaze remains fixed at the ceiling lamp, a moth in a trance

Keeps bumping into it making audible clinks

Angela opens her mouth slightly, hesitantly

“Where are you, Baby, I’ll come to you right now.”

“You’re gonna do it?”

“I’m ready, yes. I trust you and Love You with my heart Baby.”

“That’s what I wanna hear, I’ll leave the door unlocked. You are the Best.”

The call ends and the screen on her phone goes dim

It was a breezy evening, Angela decided to dress appropriately

One arm through the sleeve, then the other, then one leg through the pant, then the other

Shoes, socks, watch

Appropriate

Lock the door, hop on the bike, which she learned to ride

At nine years old, the crux of her life, a little later than most

She learned to go fast at ten, to catch up

A left at 11th, and straight down three blocks to Baby’s place

Illuminating the whole street at 12:00

The door was unlocked like he said and she entered like she said

“I’m here, are you ready?” “Yes, please go ahead.”

Angela had never done this before but she loved her Baby so much

So, she started with her hands by making a slight incision at the webbing between her thumb and pointer

All it took was a slight tug to peel off an inch of her skin, and then more, and then more and then more

Until her whole left hand was exposed to the elements, to Baby’s great delight

“More”

She nodded with a slight smile on her face, and began to scrape off the rest of her arm

Muscles and tendons revealed themselves, twitching slightly as if surprised by their own existence

“Get it all off! Stop teasing! I love you, I want more!”

Baby laughed and Angela made sure to laugh louder as she tore away to reveal her deltoid and her pectorals across her chest

Next her stomach went, then her crotch, her skin making hollow thuds on the floor whenever they fell

She wasn’t very neat but after all, this was her first time.

The frenzy of the moment left Ang breathless, so this is True Love she thought, blood and mirth

Baby held her all night long and traced his fingers across each strand of tissue, not afraid

Angela could feel every individual filament in her left arm tense and flex and squelch to supply her livelihood, their livelihood

And she smiled for herself, the greatest sacrifice she could give, and all for Baby

tearing herself apart made her feel complete!

How can it be that
a melody can make you feel like you belong
and not, all at once?
I find myself in a composed dissolution
The world can stop, and the ground below me will give way to
the sudden awareness of a sensation
that is similar to being lost in your own room.
Suddenly, this "place" seems very raw
Things inside you open up  and makes distinguishable
where you are
where you've been
and where you've yet to be.
And
Sometimes people are like that.
Your eyes are where I am
Our fights are where I have been, time and time again
and finding peace with those two rifts is where I have yet to be.
Glaciers could snap and crash with volleys of icy hell fire
Soberly frozen earth could nick my cheeks and arms
and my cold skin could remain as tout as a tuned string instrument
ready to produce sound
But,
turning inside myself, searching for a bridge to this rift produces a silence so deafening
I can hear the humming of stars

Splits ends and a raging wildfire
Connected by a general lack of control (and dryness)
Are carrying on with such a rage untethered
While they sprout and exist, they give me a false sense of
Dominance
Every bit of hair and skin on my body gets to be there on my word
And as I play God I put all my effort
To pluck out the ones that deserve to suffer
Exposed spots and thinning hair, dilapidated as scorched earth
I know now how God feels his work is never done
In his image, I destroy to create

I weigh a little over a hundred pounds
and some say, I do not weigh enough
my steps do not sink deep enough
“You weigh nothing”
“I could just carry you around”
Someone could easily lift me
When I’m carried,
Suddenly, weights combine and their footprints become more
defined
But it’s not my steps, I do not leave anything behind
And I think
Not enough of me exists
To make an impression

I’m a breaker, at best

and at my worst, I’m broken

I can still remember the pauses

after every word that was spoken

my room is dark, I don’t quite feel alone

I don’t really miss you like i thought I would

~

My hair grows long, I think I can breathe easy

Yet sometimes, when I feel you round, I get queasy

No, I wouldn’t miss you if I could

No, but you definetely should

My drive to school consists of winding roads and wandering eyes in this town of autumn.  There is a layer of undeniable honesty to this season, as if the world at this time has nothing to hide. Something about the fiery death of the maples down Laurel brings life.
The chill of the crisp blue sky is palpable from behind dusty glass windows, and zephyrs that threaten needles across your cheek rustle the bones of bushes with no urgency at all.

I think it's been a year since I took that road trip with Trevor. How lucky am I that was able to experience such serendipitous, powerful love.
The sun setting in Big Sur was every color imaginable, and the beach we stopped on was too real to even describe. I feel so lucky. I keep crying.
It was better than anything I could've ever come up with, because it was real. It was nice. I couldn't even allow myself to feel happy, the floodgates were open and joy just poured out of me.
That was 1 year ago today. My hair is longer and splitting in all different directions, and I'm beginning to notice how dry my skin is. I don't really take my tea with sugar anymore and I'm worried about how big my **** looks in most pants. I water some plants every day and I get to live in a tiny yellow house. I have lots of friends that I'm extremely grateful for that like ***** and **** and nothing and everything in between or around. My flight back home this morning was short. What can I say, I don't want to talk about it.

A little song bird is in my heart and every once in a while I let it sing as it catches on fire. Meanwhile, I think I'm slowly learning how to pet cats. They've got a little scruff around their necks that one can knead and grab.

I got everything I've ever wanted

August is the twilight of summertime
the nagging sensation of things coming to a close
tugs from the collar of your shirt, downwards
until it lifts itself up with your shoulders
wrapping its arms around your neck

You were my butterfly lighting
sighing, with your eyes
500 miles of space between us and and
nothing could separate you from my thighs.
That same tongue that loved me
transformed itself to a poison barb when he was
"too tired to deal with this right now".
I drowned in the fluids of your lungs
when you became sick of me.