I attend college in an apocalypse
I'm planning for a future that doesn't exist
Paying these grandiose establishments
So they can give me a piece of paper
A modern day participation award

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.

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.

you've been so strong for so long.
I can see the ivy growing
on the walls you've built around yourself-
roots deep in self-preservation
and stubborn leaves stretching
to the alabaster sky.

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.

have you written my name
in the margins of your notes
yet?

(not that I have or anything.)

it's just that I keep thinking
of your smile and
the way you wrapped your pinky around mine
when we promised to see each other again.

there are some things i can’t write poetry about

the nights when i stare into my reflection
and don’t recognize the face i see

the times when i feel like i’m moving at a different pace than the world around me

the moments when i’m surrounded by people but i feel so alone

when my heart beats out of it’s cage and i think i might die any minute

when i feel so hopeless that i can’t help but throw my head against the nearest surface

when i sit down in the shower and let the water caress me in ways no other person ever has

i realized that i will die before my younger sister
how do i write a ******* poem about that

it’s my birthday in about a week and i didn’t think i’d make it this long
i don’t know if i’m happy or sad about it

so some things can’t be written beautifully
or i haven’t processed them enough to string them into stanzas yet
who knows

I can fill my own shallow grave
You always said I was too vain

But you are too bland
With the vanilla ideals you seem to depend on

So I can't sit here, and watch you do it
Although it would provide some entertainment

Once, I was agile
And I spun webs of golden lies

I was a spider in my nikes
With eight shining glass eyes

Now, I lure you down to the reservoir
Where I'm face-down in mud

I did love you, truly
I just must have loved myself more

Write a song about me.
Illustrate me in your novel.
Remember me.

i would ask you for a simple “i do”
if that’s all i wanted
but there is no certificate
or ceremony
that could weld my soul to yours
fuse together the aura of you and of me

i would hand you my heart on a plate
let me birth your offspring
give me your every morning, hair messy
i need your each night, teeth brushed
you are my water
my air

marriage holds no candle

nights seem to pass in a blur
i'm still awake and pleading
come home, my heart

and a twenty years long melody
plays in my mind on repeat
come home, my soul

at 3 am, time moves different
it's the hour of hands-and-knees groveling
come home, my spirit

There are bugs in my ears again tonight
And they sing me to sleep
With their chirping

They tuck in
To rest inside my mind
And nibble on my brain when they get hungry

i am a liar

do not tell me otherwise-
because i may have lied to you
i have lied to you
i will lie to you.

i am a liar

this tongue has never spoken words of value
only biting retorts hidden
by a convincing smile

i am a liar

these little white lies consume me
they turn me black
they burn

i am a liar

my heart screams
i do not want to lie any longer!
i can not stop

i am a liar

stay away
you will get burned
your heart will scream out
too

The sun was blackened
with snow, and the valley closed in quietly
with humming,
quietly as an hour of prayer.

There was a time
When each voice, each note
Carried on the wind as if
It had sprouted wings and flown away

And crystal water rained down
As confetti
Decorating the air around us
And sprinkled onto our hair and lashes

But I am alone now
Surrounded by flurries
Hearing nothing but the monotonous droning,
Trapped in this globe

Humming becomes deafening
And ice curdles my skin
Grey clouds have overtaken the sun in the sky
And you are gone.

mama made me
i guess that’s true
but what has she made me do?

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

She swims in tumultuous
water that churns with the tides
of melancholic rage

I scoop her in cupped
hands and drag her weary body
past the rocky shore to the soil

in the rich dirt I dig
a hole big enough for her corpse-seed
and plant her.

I am an anxious gardener
I ration my Sad Water carefully
and search the ground for decay

her roots grow down without
my eyes preying upon them
in damp dark clay.

growth is a slow moving practice.
I hope she becomes a tree.

inside me there is
a red piece
and a blue piece

the red protects me like
a wildfire
but it burns and destroys the beauty around me

the blue grounds me like
a puddle of water
but it’s heavy when it pulls me under

i am water
i am fire
and i am constantly drowning and scorching

from inside out
my blues and reds
are labeled by others as crazy

lifetimes
of being plastic,
used and thrown away.
repeating the process

over and
over and
over and
over again.

discarded to
the nearest metal can (not even recycled!)
when i no longer serve my
fleeting purpose.

now
i am shiny and
washed by gentle hands and
placed on soft towels to dry

disposable cutlery
no more!
i am now
silverware

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.

you fell asleep on my chest
and it scares me how much
i want you to stay

i like finding stray brown hairs in
my bathroom sink or on
my couch or under
my blankets

little reminders of
you brushing your teeth or
you sitting beside me or
you kissing my face

the words sting on the way down
burn my throat
like tequila without a chaser
and slosh in the belly of my soul

"I don't want you anymore"

awaken the dull ache
salt the wound that never heals
but like rain on a cloudy day
it's a familiar feeling

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

Mind like an acrobat
She sways precariously back
and forth with the constant influx of travelers
Who never seem to stay more than a night
Part with their cynical phrases
And compare her to a trapeze

Her skin holds decades of atrophy
Harsh marks inflicted by others, and by herself
They pattern her complexion with their marred strokes.
If she existed only in oils and stretched canvas
Painted by Van Gogh himself
She would be a masterpiece.

Even imperfections in the sky
Draw weary eyes to gaze upon them
Amplified in the freckles on her face
Pinpricks on the vast unknown
Flaming ***** of unfathomable chaos
Look like stars to the naked eye

Mind like an acrobat
She sways precariously back
and forth with the constant influx of travelers
Who never seem to stay more than a night
Part with their cynical phrases
And compare her to a trapeze

She is the calico feline that hides
In the woodpile for fear of being known
The nights have long since turned frigid
The aroma of death
Is what gives her away
Too late now to be saved

Imperfections in the sky
Draw weary eyes to gaze upon them
Amplified in the freckles on her face
Pinpricks on the vast unknown
Flaming ***** of unfathomable chaos
Look like stars to the naked eye

so tell me
when the lights burn low and the music fades
do you still like who you’ve become?

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

if this was a suicide note
i would say i’m sorry.
i’d fill the holes of my broken life
with flowery words on paper.

if this was a suicide note,
i would ask for forgiveness.
i’d beg that you wouldn’t think too hard
or be burdened by my passing.

if this was a suicide note,
i would spill all my secrets out-
like milk on a table.
i’d tell the truth
and i’d bare my soul that has long since gone.

if this was a suicide note,
i’d let you in.
like the children who long to return home once the sun has set,
i’d let you in.

but this is not.

so the holes stay empty,
the milk in its glass.
the children play on the streets in the sun.
and i am still here.

my head overflows with a never-ending inundation of thoughts racing through
blurring out reality with their parallax motion
and drowning my ears in doppler

mother shelter
her roof caving in
the wind creeps through the cracks in her walls

father shepherd
his flock astray
all the stars in the sky could not convince them to return

when will i know
when to be ready
to say what’s on my mind

i whisper it into my own ears at night
i want to scream it from the roof

but my lips remain shut

i block out your voice

it is nails on my chalkboard ears

when oceans have dried
and dry, cracked dirt
lines their empty craters,
i will stop loving you.

when the scorching sun ceases to burn
and Earth has been
plunged into eternal darkness,
i will stop loving you then.

when there is no world turning
no sun rising
no waves crashing
upon rocky shores

then
only then
will i stop loving you.

it creeps
under your skin
sinking in to the depths of your weary pores
and shrinking
under layers of itchy fabric is the way
your mind believes it will survive

that empty
numbing
cold
has made home in aching bones
and running noses
and brittling skin
and drying lips