https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k39eiQnym2I

watch my poem i won my local poetry slam with

whether you think adam and eve were human bodies
created by the hands of an insurmountable man or
collections of stardust created by the most
beautiful explosion there's ever
been, i know that when they were first being taught to taste
language they were shown a picture of me in place of the words
'natural disaster.' it's not my
fault i burn down every
building i touch. girls try to
save me and boys try to
change me but it's all just dust in the
end, i'll always go to bed smelling like
smoke. sometimes
i imagine myself as the lost rings of
neptune, floating
aimlessly in space, being as bright as the corona of a cracked open
sun, but everything always ends in
damage. meteorites are bound to
shoot from my trembling hands like
lasers. i once had a
boy who was the most exquisite
galaxy i'd ever
met and the minute he
kissed me he erupted like a
volcano, like
everything i'd ever said never
meant a thing. at his
funeral i cast apologies his family's
way by means of making
magnolias spring up from beneath
their feet. when people
die, the universe grows a
garden up to them, their souls floating in outer
space, using the tears of their
loved ones as
nourishment. cry for me. please
believe me, i didn't mean for katrina to
happen, and i'm
sorry sandy was a result of my
stomach flu. the
earthquake in los angeles this morning was my
fault, i'm sorry i can't keep my hands in
control anymore.

love will start out by igniting fireworks in your ribcage and leave you feeling like a gunshot aftermath

dear girl who kissed the boy i love: i hope you found the spot that makes him laugh, i hope you found god in his ******* hands

satan dwells
within my head
he will not rest
til i am dead

evil is a little boy in a black
hood trying to be
good. do you ever think about how many
tears the mother of the
devil has cried? not all the planets in our known solar
system could fathom that kind of
treason.

being home alone at night is my achilles
heel. perhaps we were meant to splinter like
this, he thought when he took his last
breath. perhaps
we were made for
this, and nothing
else.

when he says he
loves me, i want to dip him in
chocolate. when he says he's leaving
anyway, my eyes burn like they've been soaked in
bleach. come, baby, let me straighten your
spine, let me read to you the novels of your
fingertips.

some things, i guess, are doomed from the
start. some countries don't have words for
'all right.' some people never stop
bleeding.

to whoever loves him next:

1. he always refuses to believe that he has beautiful hands. hold them as much as he lets you and don't let him forget it.

2. when you have an anxiety attack or simply just a bad night, he most likely won't try to help you. this doesn't mean he doesn't love you.

3. remind him ever day that he sounds like wind chimes in a blizzard.

4. he acts much older than he really is sometimes. this will trick you. when you get mad at him for doing something stupid, remind yourself how young he is.

5. he likes it rough but please be gentle with him.

6. when he gets so angry it looks like there's fireworks shooting from his fists, do the opposite of whatever he tells you. he'll melt into you soon enough.

7. on the nights where he refuses to let you touch him, keep far away. trust me.

8. don't ever let him see how sad you are. he'll leave.

9. on dates he'll ask other girl's their names. ignore it and remember you're the one he's with.

10. if he doesn't feel like hanging out, don't ask him twice.

11. do not ever, ever take him for granted, no matter how young he acts or how many times he throws his fist at the wall. he is so ******* beautiful and you might not realize it until you lose him.

12. when you lose him, you will cry, you will try to die. everything inside of you will shrivel away.

lately I've been spinning in
circles and counting calendar
days like your kisses, you don't
know what I've been
up to, last week I went to my own
funeral.

everybody was dressed a hell of a lot like
me, all black and black and
cobwebs, crying into their
hands so hard it seemed like a collective
effort to break the world
open.

you weren't
there, I touched everybody's
face but you weren't
there, it took me only two
minutes to figure out where you'd
be.

her hands were gripped around the back of your
neck like a noose, lying in your
bed, still covered with a ton of my stray
hairs that had fallen out last
time you swore you'd try to be
gentle.

when she said your
name i imploded in on myself like a chemical
war, all the bones in my body trying to get
out. did you tell her you loved her,
too?

I took some of my stray
hair and stuck it to your
back, if she took as much time on you as
I did she'll find it soon
enough, and I hope she
does. I hope
she breaks you. I hope
you wake up and she's
gone so that you know what
hurt tastes like. I hope
you lose her as quickly as I lost
you, and you can't drag yourself out of all the
rot she leaves behind on your bedroom
floor.

I hope she doesn't go to your
funeral, because I sure as hell am
not.

there’s people whose dads don’t even know their
face but that doesn’t change what i
have. that somehow doesn’t lessen the
blow. that’s
nice you got bit by a
shark and all but nobody ever asks me about
my scars, the ones you can’t
see. i try to take
baths to feel
whole again but the water hits me like a
fist when i drop down too
fast, like all the hurt in the
world never meant
anything. i guess what i’m trying to
say is that i love you, i love
you, and i remember the
night you punched my name into the bedroom
wall because i tried too hard to
save you, i tried too
hard to **** the poison out of
something already
pure. i guess
i was hoping you’d question how i could smell a broken
bone from three miles
away, how i could find bandages in the blackest
dark. i guess
i was hoping you might end up saving
me, too.

when the lighting shatters every last thing you ever thought you needed I'll be here, I'll still be here, my hands wide open like they're soaked in blood, I will pry every last tendon from my bone to prove to you I know what hurt looks like, this, no: this, is not what they call getting better. sometimes our hearts beat for no other reason than they don't know how to stop, sometimes people turn away and leave and never come back and we don't know why, mother, can you hear me? you said there'd be days like this but you never told me how to handle them when they turn into my every day. remember that one time in December? when you finally realized I might need some help or I'd die younger than our dog? I was upstairs contemplating killing myself and you were downstairs screaming about ***** dishes. this is not healing, I'm not going to pretend I know what that is, but I know something's changed, the stars aren't telling me to self-destruct anymore, and that's gotta count for something, right?