My entire childhood contained in a Disney princess gift bag
Torn and overflowing
A relic from one of my replacements

I don't know their names  
Her do-overs

New children cancel out
Old mistakes

She sends me photos, report cards, awards  
Proof that I existed
In a time before I crumbled
Before she trampled me

I wonder if she terrifies them

There is a Mother construct in my mind
Born of tender moments witnessed
Of hallmark cards
Imperfect but striving

Maybe she loves them
Some way she couldn't love me
A constant reminder of the man she threw away
A life that brings shame
Locking away the proof
The photos
The same place she kept her heart

We've both moved on, now
But I don't mourn her
The loveless ruthless mother

I mourn the construct I imagined
That I never knew her tenderness
Never heard those words

My body is not the same
It hurts and I can't sleep long
I remember I used to sleep for days and days
Couldn't wake up if I wanted to
Dreaming vivid and wild things
I'm not sure when that stopped
But I don't dream anymore
And I can't sleep
And this body hurts me like I'm some kind of plague wreaking my havoc on its soft pink home

Other people see only what I let peek through.
Small bits,
The false bottom
Tidying the Dark.
I risk too much in showing.

Yet, somehow,
Despite my efforts,
You startle me.
Glimpsing, somehow, by sheer luck or will or oneness,
That which has never been seen before.

Amazingly,
Miraculously,
Terrifyingly,
You don't look away in horror or shame.

And I begin to unfold.

And you with giant scissors ceremoniously releasing me from myself.

"I'm past the point of caring"
He said it so casually
The way you'd ask what's for dinner
Not really caring for the response

"I know. You have been for a long time," I said, equally as casual

Each witnessing, for the last however-long, the slow decay of our love

Personally, I mourn for us
Every day

The kind of mourning that hits between thoughts while folding laundry or sipping tea

I won't cry for us, I'm past that now
Not past caring, I may never be
Just this side of broken
Where I know what's coming but I'm prepared
Bracing myself for so long

As they make their way down my limbs
Trailing closely the paths my blood takes
Hardened from years of misuse
A map showing where I've been

And in the shower they disappear

Overshadowed by plump blue pipelines
Having healed
Tempting me to be imperfect again
To build more railroads and enjoy their ride

Little condo close to campus
With a jail cell of yard in back
Listens to the ocean before sleep

Occupied by more than things

Conversations set to wine glass and silverware symphonies
Fat cat soaking up sun
Carpet smells like possibilities and red wine

But the patch of grass
Guitars we played
Closed doors
All hold a secret
Carefully hidden in plain sight

The birth of the death of my twenties

Where

Indifference finally wins and
Self preservation packs a bag
Warm nothingness filling it's place
And settling in for a long stay

Fast friends
Make for faster allies in the
War against ourselves
We stood united
A secret club where
Self-consciousness
Isolation
And defeat
Tied us together
Limb to limb

You were different from me
Going deeper than I ever would
Finding enlightenment in
That warm bath that followed the
Silver spike into our skin

You awakened over and over
Until it was finally enough
To release you from this incarnation

Untying your limbs from mine
Leaving our secret club
Leaving us to fend for ourselves
And wonder
If you meant to ascend

Sometimes it's almost how it used to be
And I forget about the question I'm too afraid to ask
We can go for days like that
Until something lifts and I'm right back here
Angry at being alone
Frustrated with myself for saying all the things I want to say to you inside my own head
Over and over
Conversations with hypothetical you

Is it wrong?
That the only thing I want for my birthday is either
1) a loaded gun or
2) to BE as loaded as the gun mentioned above?

But maybe there is a third, less fatal option.

To slowly, deeply,
Slice tiny rivers into flesh.
In an effort not to conceal the pain in me,
Rather to transform it.
With a feeling so physical,
So visceral, it won't be ignored.

I think about these things in reverse succession.

First the blood, seeping out of my veins, Messying everything,
Yet making tidy my brain.

Then the blood. A shooting star. A plume rushing in, and then pushed back into its place.

And finally.
So finally.
The one deed that can end all the others before they begin.
Saving me the shame of acting as either a foolish schoolgirl, or a selfish ***** Only thinking of this moment.
And how best to stuff the screams back into myself.

There's just something about lately that feels so terribly out of place.
Like I've been transplanted into someone else's everything.
Her body
Her thoughts
Her affairs.
Different from the mundanity to which I had grown so accustomed.
Perhaps exciting
Mostly terrifying
Like picking up grains of salt,
I may never understand.
Never finished with her.

She'll make her escape someday
From the pain of loving someone she sometimes hates
A rumbling volcano ready to go off at any random thing
Any random moment
His negativity lurks about infesting her at regular intervals
Whenever he's near

Except
There are instances when he shows himself to her
The man he was
Before the stress and the chaos devoured his goodness
Leaving behind this hardened carcass

She glimpses his humanity
His compassion peeking out through a caged heart
Momentarily, then gone

Those moments become farther apart

So she packs her baggage, carefully, and  prepares herself for the day when she's had enough
When she finds herself ready
To be rid of the fire and the uncertainty of living on tips of toes

Then she'll make her escape


Someday

I wish I believed in god. I could use the comfort, the certainty. I'm tethered to the earth in exactly one place. By one person alone. But the slack keeps coming. And in spite of the loosely waving line, I can see it starting to fray, as if stretched taught, until I'm out here all alone hanging onto this world by a single strand. I imagine the line god uses to keep hold of you can withstand much more than this.

She's a page out of a book
She's not real
Her words are so carefully chosen they fooled you.
She's all smoke and mirrors.

She's waiting for someone to read her story and be compelled to believe in her.

She's a ghost.

Now you see her. Now you don't.
She lives inside your blind spots.
Falling away when no one's looking.

But if just one person would hold her gaze.
If you'd just look a little harder and stay awake all night.

Maybe she could be real.
Maybe she wouldn't hate herself anymore.

If you love me, love my darkness.
Love my tears.
Love the hate out of my skin.
It leaches, slowly, from my pores.
Every time you won't touch me when I need it most, you push it back in.

It's hard not to feel worthless when you don't exist.

Your anger cuts me deeper each time you explode and I meet your ordnance with my Nothing.  Maybe I'm the shell that contains your spark. Falling silently to the ground each time your weapon fires. A small shining reminder of the violence of space and sounds.

The heart that's sitting in my chest
Grows a little heavier with each breath
Falling down from its high place
Past my kidneys in a race
To see how far it can-will fall
Cause I don't need it anymore
I have my lungs
My thumbs, my spine
So I don't need that heart of mine
Just let it tumble, rock and row
Then fall out from me 'neath my toes
I'll step right over my stone-heavy-heart
Just happy it gave me a new fresh start

Feels strange. To read words I wrote as a child. To look at the pictures I drew.
Affirming in a way. That this person I am now isn't a recent construct. That even when I was young there were things, grown up things, that plagued me. Traversed my thoughts. My schoolwork. I can watch as the report cards and test scores decline from the highest place. Down, down. As this well of feeling begins to swallow me up. Isolate me. Comfort me. Always alone with my thoughts. And my thoughts always move towards this wholly dark entropy. My singularity. I can never escape. Until there is only one thought. One desire. One need. To see red trickle from my skin. Emptying. To confirm that I'm still here and to toy with the idea of disappearing altogether.

Sunrise leaves you asleep
Me nervous at the imminence of what the day brings

Silence where there was none
Empty spaces gently cradling deleted joy
Waiting for life to begin again

But this place inside me that once held our future feels
Small and
                  Far away

Falling
Tumbling
Endlessly
Down

I'm powerless to halt its descent

So here I am silent

Wanting to ask if you still love me
Terrified I know the answer

I feel like you don't like my body
I wish you'd touch me like I touch you
Caress my skin and tell me I'm soft
And beautiful
Spend more time looking at me instead of you
I avoid the mirrors
You love them

And I love to laugh
Our little jokes
But there are times when I feel all that fall away
When it's just love and lust
And nothing's funny anymore

Then something happens and I know
You're not in the same place
Or if you are, you're too afraid to stay there

Sometimes I feel like everyone else likes me more than you do
And I wonder how that's even possible

Why can't I ask for help
I never have

And look how well that worked before

I know that I should
To change the pattern
Trying not to fall into myself

But I won't

Your eyes were mostly closed
struggling to stay open
To keep from falling up or falling down
You were ***** all over from travel and your always-the-same clothes

But I didn't mistake you for Nobody
There was a light in those mostly closed slit rolling eyes, easily missed
sparkling at me like so many yellow glow lights through ***** city windows
Something so beautiful in your solemn self destruction

So I rubber necked at you
watching every minute of your wreck
Searching you out when you were gone losing yourself again down the hall of locked doors
Tiny black-hole pupils in those slit rolling eyes
same sweat filled long sleeve shirt
same baggy jeans with cigarette ash woven into the leg
And that shaky half-smile hiding your truth and my corruption

I want to rip your heart out
I want to stuff it in my chest
I want to taste you everywhere
I want to see your thoughts
I want to hear you laugh
I want to be your everything
Every which way till it hurts
Until you find me
And I've made my home
Caged inside you

Maybe it's nothing
Maybe you're just toying with the invisible girl
She doesn't quite exist until you touch her
Until you face down her demons eye to eye and tell her you love her then
When she's alone and broken and disappearing from this world
Will you grab at her ghost like it was your last breath
To keep her from whisping away

We were soldiers in our own war. Fighting every day to stay alive. And Despite all odds,
Despite the casualties,
Despite living a life knowing we shouldn't survive,
We did.

Now we're each a reminder to the other of the horrors we faced. Things you can't un-see. Moments you can't un-live.

I wonder if you can look at me,
Really see me now and not then.

Were it not for our service together,
I'd be a different person.
I know that.
Perhaps no better or worse.
Still seeping rage- transposed to longing.
And the absolute lucidity that this life I've made for myself is broken.
Despite my need for un-brokenness.

It's all enough to throw me back into the arms of war. Comforted by the warm tenacity of survival.
The relief of contemplating a singular goal.
And the knowledge that there truly is nothing else out there for me.

But, for today, I resist the call
Yet leave my rifle half cocked, at the ready.
For tomorrow may be different when it comes.

The interesting thing about life is that in the precise moment where you delude yourself into thinking you've decoded but a morsel, tragedy or mortality or some other lucid moment will strike and your so-called understanding of this mystery is likely to be turned entirely on its head. Flailing, blood rushing to its indiscriminate face. An etch-a-sketch whose treasure has receded once more.

And, for another (but not the last) time, the possibilities and choices and paths abound. Carving a labyrinth inside your striving mind. Hungry for the finish line.

Is it wrong to feel again?  When it's been so long I had almost forgotten the sensation. When life swells and fantasies play like an all day matinée behind taught eyelids.

Pull the curtain closed, let no light escape. For the last time a passerby wandered in, ticket in hand, the film presented an ending much different than the times before.

Does everyone have these terrifying moments of lucidity?
When that stranger catches you in the mirror
And holds you there as if to say,
"Who the **** are YOU"

And you realize in that moment
In that gaze
That all of you-
Who, and What you are-
None of it has been a choice.
Not yours anyway.

Because this person
Who lives in the world,
The one glaring at you now,
Doesn't reflect who you feel you are.

And the weight of the thing leans into your chest until you're forced to look away.
Head between your knees, fighting for breath.
Fighting for control of this bag of skin and blood and consciousness.
Not because you want to.

It's easier not to fight.

But the guilt of surrender seems too large
So you thrash about always in your head
Beating that stranger down.
Until you can look up, ******, without flinching.

I was all but snuffed out
Barely smoldering when you fanned my ashes
Blowing gently across the face of me
Conjuring smoke
Letting the flames lick at you and dance
Calling me from beneath the fire
And showing me your beautiful spark

I smoke alone tonight
Just the snow geese and me

I should turn out the light
And finally go to sleep

But you're not here
And it's cold inside my bed

You get up early
I come home late
I shouldn't worry
everything seems great

And this feeling I can't describe
An Emptiness  
And so I hide inside this dream
My new life
I made you up
You're not alive

It scares me more than you know
When you're not around
I just want to let it all go

So I get drunk
I get trashed
I drudge things up from my own past
Inside my head
I can't win
If I go out
If I stay in
Disappear to hide my sins


Who am I if no one knows
Things I have done
Lengths I will go to

The toilet's running again
And my hair's still running thin
This hat just doesn't do much to
Cover my sins

And the needle that I crave
Stares back through my memories
And tells me
She won't do what I need

But if you'd show up
To my little house tonight
I swear I'd shut up
And just enjoy your light

Maybe I could finally sleep
If your arms did cover me
I'm hoping for a dream inside a dream

8 minutes untill I go to bed

8 minutes  
You won't show up

But if you did
And I wasn't here

I'd never forgive myself

8 minutes and I could breathe again

8 minutes of Joy
And Love

And you understanding me like no one else does
6 minutes and I give up

Oh god please come home

I can't do this alone

I just don't want it enough

I wish for pain
I wish for sorrow

Make my gut turn this way
Or that
I don't care if it hurts

I don't care to borrow enthusiasm
from these walking ghosts anymore

These ******* sheep
And me with my bow

I won't go
I won't go

I will love you for years like you said
I will grab on and never let go
I will be yours completely
Always
All you have to do is accept me

Just don't judge me
Don't put your **** on my shoulders and call it mine
Don't ask me to lose myself and call it supporting you
Don't cuss me out and tell me I'm worthless

Ever


It's not a lot to ask
And it should go without saying

But sometimes things start out on uneven ground
And just get worse with time and worry
Until there's nothing left of you or me
But these twisted conversations, if you can call them that

I didn't want to talk about it now
I know where these words will lead
It's already late and I have to get up early
And the last thing I wanted was to be so sick about it that I couldn't even stay in the same house with him tonight

But he insisted
And I can't ever change his mind

And that's how I found myself at a coffee shop at 3am tonight
Wishing I was somewhere else
Wishing you could hold me in front of this fire
And rock me to sleep

I feel like it's not fair to let you love me

Like I'd be taking something from you if you did
If I give in

I know it takes two
But I have the burden of knowing
And what I know of this world doesn't lend itself to love

There's no room for it
Not for long anyway

So let me hold onto you
As much as I can
Before you go by my wayside like the rest

But wayside you must go
Cause in the end
I'll never trust that you love me
And I'll never trust that you'll stay

I know down to my bones that I'll always be alone
So your eyes do nothing for me

And that universe that I see
That looks the same as mine
Is a reflection
It's exactly what I need

Smoke and mirrors every time

There are two of her now

The one who smiles
The one who laughs

She's so cute if you don't know about her past.

But she's a fraud

She lives a lie
She hides another version inside herself

The truth never comes out
If you don't speak up

Dear god it's terrifying.