Purple sadness
Is the sadness of classical music and
Eggplant sandwiches alone at my desk

It mixes the blue sadness of
Drowning in an ocean
Of salt

With the red sadness of
a fire blazing
In the pit of my stomach

So yes purple sadness is heavy like blue
and hot like red
And it sounds like Mozart
Tastes like fleshy fruit grown deep in the earth.

And it’s empty.
Empty.
Empty.

we play the waiting game
every day it seems
waiting for you to get better
waiting for you to become the mother
waiting for you to make a life that i fit into

i’m sick of being an extra piece
that can so easily be forgotten
or swept under the rug like
dirt

so i’m sorry for being okay enough to let go
when i wanted you to hold me
i’ve waited long enough
spent my entire life in line
now i’m just tired

Mindless bodies,
Crushed against one another,
In a damp metal tube under the city.

And yet,
In a city of millions
We always share this routine

You get on at 168th street,
Exit at 125th,
And we get to spend our morning together.

Faces buried in our magazines
Or ears filled with music
We share this time together

As strangers on the subway
We are fixed parts of each others lives
Even if we never speak

Summers,
even the dew is hot
And it pools like searing wax on the envelope of the morning.

Summers here are always wet.
Whether with rain, with sweat,
or with the dew.

The saturated, heavy, morning heat
Permeates my skin
And chokes up on my neck,
While coffee does nothing to quench my inconsolable thirst.

Faces perched in water
Like tense needles
On the branches of inundated fir trees,

And from the riveted
Mouth of the river
No words are spoken.

Instead, all of the want
Has flooded over her banks
Into the meadow.

All that once walked must now swim against her yearning undertow.

There was one time
I took too many pills
and spent the morning curled up in the shower
unable to move
except for spewing waste all over the communal tile.
I thought I was going to die.

I laid in bed
and considered calling myself an ambulance
but was embarrassed at the thought of my quivering, naked body
lugged onto a stretcher
and carted down my dorm hall.
So I waited around to die.

But I didn't die.
Instead, I made an empty promise to never make the same mistake again.
I don't know who I was making my promise to.
Maybe God.
Maybe my little sister.
Maybe myself.

To the clock and her piercing bell, I am a servant
Eating my supper on paper plates
Crumbs on my tongue like
Fog over the village
While the ticking creates it’s habitual calamity