I've got my fingernails dug into sadness
a death grip around the throat of an unfaithful lover
I will not let go until there is no breath
this is a war and I am foxhole deep
my melancholy prayer to an unknown God
as though there were still someone waiting to hear
as though the end were near
but I'll hang on for all I'm worth
until there is nothing left
but desert blue skies and bleached bones

so-in-time-so-inside or
as inside so in time
the plasma of thoughts far away
there in the spaces without meaning
the sprouts of faceless darkness
and systoles without time
I step from one silence into the other
and unshaped my body sings
I am babysitting my heart while the light loses its weight
on my shoulder
time is a pocket and I can hear only my blood

the luxury of mending this piece with that one
I am so complete when I am my feet
sometimes I don’t need a name
no need for one way roads
when quietly the dark sprouts me
and the days pass
without complaining

baptize me in words full of grace
words like I love you
accept you
believe in you
even when you're ****** up
there's no judgement here
you are washed clean
as far as the eye can see

“How far have you walked for men who’ve never held your feet in their laps?

How often have you bartered with bone, only to sell yourself short?

Why do you find the unavailable so alluring?

Where did it begin?
What went wrong?
And who made you feel so worthless?


If they wanted you, wouldn’t they have chosen you?

All this time, you were begging for love silently,
thinking they couldn’t hear you,
but they smelt it on you,
you must have known that they could taste the desperate on your skin?


And what about the others that would do anything for you,
why did you make them love you until you could not stand it?

How are you both of these women, both flighty and needful?

Where did you learn this, to want what does not want you?

Where did you learn this, to leave those that want to stay?”

--Warsan Shire

you're the lost and I'm the sin
you're gonna do me again and again
like a long, dark night I'll slowly descend
I am your death I am your end

we take one step forward three steps back
and all the while we are looking for ourselves
not wanting to walk as the living dead
like hearts chained to a desk
like those we **** or want to ****
and we wonder why we are the way we are
wanting more than sometimes seems possible
our desperate yawp that we will not settle
for this living death
you will make your way out of the morass soon enough
and all of this will be a distant memory
a mostly pleasant diversion
from the prison of living

Left to wonder where
the feeling comes from

sitting with a turning
stomach, brimming
with last night's
bad choices

I went home
with loneliness again

I wake to see her
turned away from me

Loneliness has been
my constant companion
the one I know
I should be leaving
yet I sit with her in
self-induced exile

I won't ever be
the first to say it
it's in hand and mind
but I won't acknowledge that

where is the voice to whisper
my wishes & give flight
to a fleeting feeling?

where is the softness to soothe
where it hurts?

The stomach pains will go
away as surely as they
will come back again

But my soul suffers open
wound
bitterness keeps sickness
sustained
though more so
I need the assurance
the comfort

oh, loneliness,
your hair in bloom
upon the pillow cases

my frail hands are grasping
onto whatever they can
they are losing their grip
on the tangible

loneliness, my love,
why do you turn from me?

Shaking arms longing for
warm body go unsatisfied
they only hold own weaknesses

they cradle nothing more
than what isn't there

there is a tall boy living inside my chest
he is the fingerprints all over my memories
he's why i stand at the edge of this cliff,
and why the view burns my lungs
he is the reason i breathe
and the reason i can't
he is the answer to every question
and why i'm always asking more
he is the mist hovering over the ocean,
sometimes i can't see him
but i know he's always there
he is the reason i feel small
and why my hands can touch the sky
he is the tall boy living inside my chest
and even death will not take him away

I was born tall and thin
and pink
like a ****** steak.
I cried until I could run
and then ran
like a lunatic,
screaming peals of laughter
and destroying
without guilt
as kids do-

and still I was
skinny.

I was skinny in elementary school.
The other kids took to football
and dirt bikes.
I was still pink
like an underripe
tomato.

I grew up tall and thin
in a world for shorter
and fuller people.
With crooked teeth and
glasses.

I was skinny in middle school.
When the other kids started to build muscle
you could've played my ribs
like a xylophone.
You still could.

I grew up tall and thin
and frustrated
like a ****.
I never fit on public busses
or in the little plastic desks
at school.
My feet stuck off the end of my bed.
They still do.
I slouched and hiked my shoulders up
so as not to obstruct others'
line of sight.

I still do.

I was skinny
when I first fell in love.
What she saw in me,
I can't say.
I was tall
and thin
and crooked
but I wanted so badly,
just for once,
to be the right shape
for her.
She was rather short
and had caramel skin.
We made an odd couple.

I grew up tall and thin,
a square peg in a world of round holes.
I'm skinny today-
a pinkish wisp
with a skinny soul
tucked away behind dark sunglasses.

I was born skinny.
And I'll probably die skinny
too,
and make a tall,
thin corpse
for a much
shorter,
wider
casket.