You think you deserve that pain but you don't*

and yet I still turn the dial
in the shower
to make the water
burn my skin

My skull is a compact living space
There isn't much room to house this jungle of jumble
It's too full of empty places
Spaces sheltered in glass spheres
These marbles of lonliness roll around the floor
and around the corners of this maze
never stopping for the silence
Because peace is impossible to achieve
when stillness is constantly attemped
The marbles quiver in themselves
creating a twister that trembles
my temples
They toss information into the different basins of facts
Mixing the senses until a new liquid is created
and poured into a coffee mug
and waits for a slide to throw itself down
So it sits in my head
Until I'm ready to drink in down.

I'm haunted by the ghost I used to be.

My phantom soul lingers around corners,
and is hiding in the even darker corners of my zombie brain
constantly yearning for more and more brains.

And each day that I age,
the person I used to be seems better and better.

I find it kind of funny
          that everybody thinks I am happy all the time

And it's really kind of funny
          that I find myself happiest when I'm feeling deep about life and events and people
          and that the only way I know how to feel deep about these things
          is through sadness

And I find it really funny
         That everybody thinks of happiness as something so simple
         ' I like this a lot. It makes me happy.'
                    If it's all so simple... then why am I still only happy when I'm crying?

And it's a little funny
          That I love to write about things. It makes me happy.
          But everytime I write a word, everything goes dark, and nobody can really see what I mean.
          and happiness is so simple, but all of my thoughts are so complicated.

And I find it kind of funny
         That the only reason I sat down to write this poem
         Was because it makes me happy, and I'm always looking for ways to be happy.
          But this poem about happiness... is my least favorite thing I have written.

And it really is funny
         That I have realized
          ...
         That I'm only happy when I'm sad.

It's pretty **** human,
It's filled with **** pretty humans.

Anger.
Pop up.
Relient.
Shove.
Assertive.
Glare from the sun and a face.
Pat pat slap slap.
Fight through.
Shove.
Climb.
Overcome.
Dump from above.
That's all it is.

That smell isn't around anymore.
I didn't even realize it until I could barely remember it.

It's the smell of the old place I used to live
alone.
The smell of the doors at night
and the corn patties in the cupboard
and the leather sofa
and my old cat.

It's the smell of the doubt.
The lack of the light.
Being stuck in the middle of the tunnel.
The smell of the tunnel vision.
The smell of the fact that it was
midnight after the journey through the tunnel.

The smell of my heavy chest,
that I smelled with my head hung,
nose close to my heart.

Straight ahead, it doesn't have that heavy smell.
Now it smells of ethnic food.
And breath always on the side of my neck.
It's warm.

The smell of trying and failing.
I only smell success from effortlessness.

Your voice
is as if the pebbles in your mouth
are exploding with a citrus ocean,
Colliding with rocks
but falling through to nothing but
a lullaby about wishing upon stars.

and I like when it
sounds like you're crying
but it doesn't want anyone to know

I always thought we sang alike.

They'll tell that you deserve better
and that they'll treat you right,
but this only makes it hurt more
when you find out they lied.

The difference between the sprout and the bean is a golden ring*
"It's a racket."
I really was being a snob

I never lied
I wish you weren't ashamed of me

I wish I wasn't ashamed at myself
for not hating you as much as I know I do
and for breaking my streak

I wish you didn't lie to me
Whether you lied about how much you cared
Whether you lied to yourself when you let slip that you missed me
Whether you lied to me when you let slip that you missed me
Whether you lied to me about her to make me feel bad.

I never lied.
I wish you didn't pretend I did.

"I show her that I love her.
I hug her.
I kiss her.
I tell her that I love her."

I've never loved anybody
I've never hated anybody
but now...
I might feel both at the same time
and I don't know how to handle that

"He has done nothing except make you feel like ******* ****. You are done with that *******. Done."

Now I remember.

But I also remember other things.

I hate remembering

Do you remember me?

I haven't eaten in two days

I think it has something to do with
feeling as fragile as your translucent body
(It's as frigid as one of these ten thousand lakes in December
and makes my heart spasm as I walk through you)

I'm awfully tired
of waking up in the morning
with misconceptions about the sun
being on my side.
It's over my head.
I'm not awake
and it's not morning.

I'm perpetually in mourning and
living at the wakes of the deceased.
The sun is only over my head,
to remind me that I only see darkness
at the brightest time of day.

You made me forget why I hate myself.

I remember now.

My brain is a train that gets off track
I continue speeding on this rocky terrain
but this train has no end
I forgot to build a caboose
and the gears holding my cars together
are loose
And I see all of this and realize
my train is coming undone

At night my dignity leaves with the sun
as hoodlums come vandalize
my train's frail body
But I realize also
the beauty that now covers up
what's rotting apart
The destruction that molds
my train into a body of art.

All I do is try to think of a line to catch someone's breath
Then I realize all I know is the truth
So now all I do
Is hope that a breath is captured
by honesty

I'm Sorry.

When I make my morning coffee
I mix it with tears
They're my secret ingredient

I let them drop
Just a pinch and a dash
and I stir them in with cream

My tears are my morning caffeine.

Writing on the backs
of parking tickets and paychecks

Writing on the back of you.

Drawing pictures with my fingers.

Always an ex
Never a lover.

My fickle dreams
are constantly interrupted
by bothersome hyenas

Staying up late
and knowing you're somewhere close
Dodging looks out windows
causing my neck to writhe
and my high hopes to plummet
when there's no one at my door.

I try so hard
I try all the time
I try
but I don't try to do something
I try to do anything

I try so hard
to be anything
I try to be me
but I'm not myself at all

I try to be different
but not from anybody else
I try to be different from somebody
I try to be different than myself

I try to be honest
I try not to be false
I try to be true
I try to be you

I try to hate you
I try to create you
I try to be different than you
because I try not to
try to be you

I try so hard
I try all the time
I try to decide what
I try to do

I try so hard
to be something effortless

What a waste of time
This was the longest day of my life
There's only a few seconds left on the microwave
Count to sixty
Ready or not, here I come
Another year
Seems like yesterday
what time is it?
What's today's date?
three hundred and sixy five days
I remember when
I wished I was a big girl
I want to go back in time
This is the longest year of my life
Life is short.

Dreams inside dreams
you're here, you're gone.
You're cuddling me.
You're gone here.
You're strangling me.
"Come here, be gone."
Let's stop forever.

I don't need a man
I need a friend
I don't need a leader
I need a friend
I don't need a role model
I need a friend
I don't need a bad example
I need a friend
I don't need a cat
I need a friend
I don't need a teacher
I need a friend
I don't need a hero
I need a friend
I don't need a guardian
I need a friend
I don't need a guardian angel
I need a friend
I don't need a an angel
I need a friend
I don't need a ghost
I need a friend
I don't need a lover
I need a friend
I don't need a companion
I need a friend
I don't need a mother
I need a friend
I don't need another
I need a friend
I don't need you
I need a friend
I don't need you either
I need a friend
and I definitely don't need you
I need a friend
I don't me
I need a friend

There are always those corners
You know?
Where things get stuck.
They stop circling around
infinitely.
Things get stuck in the corners
And they will be trapped there forever.

Memories get stuck in the corners of my mind
and no matter how many experiences circle around
infinitely,
Those memories will always stay trapped.

What's that mess on the floor?


It's the ink from my pen


Well what did you spill it for?


I didn't. You did.


No I didn't.


If you hadn't spilled the ink from my heart, I wouldn't have held the pen in the first place, and nothing would have fallen apart.

I hear in my head
voices calling my name
Some of them are familiar
But they all say the same
I could plead that I'm insane
but all the same
I hear in my head
voices calling my name
Because I secretly want to be noticed
by nobody and everybody
all at once.

I stare at the ceiling
I don't count sheep
I count the number
of letters in your name

I close my eyes
and continue to creep
because it's quiet and I can see
nothing but the insides
of my eyelids and my mind

So I open my eyes, but I put this blanket on my face
and I try not imagine things as I try to sink deep
into my meditative process
but I still can see the letters in your name

1
2
3
4
5

I lay awake and have nightmares
They sing me to sleep.

Things can fall apart so easily
but for some reason things never fall together
They can come together
You can put them together
but it's never as easy as if they were to just fall into place

And things can fall apart so easily
but once they have done so
it's almost impossible to put them back together
The pieces never seem to fit right
and you're reading a manual that some other person wrote
that says they know what they're talking about
but they never really do.

Things fall apart
They will never fall together
You can break them apart
You can take them apart
but don't expect the pieces to ever fit again.

Most people make love,

But I'll always know

I was only made by love

to break love.

We died in your arms.
Let me live in your arms.

Sometimes I wish there was little to say with nothing but time,
but there's so much to say and our time is gone.

Sometimes I forget
that things make
sense, sometimes

I'll often stand and stare
and just look at the road in front of me
feet cemented into the pavement
with those yellow lines that separate lanes
painted over my ankles
like track marks

One of these days
I'm going to have to get a chisel
and start digging my feet out of the ground
Although there will still probably be
those ugly yellow track marks
at least I'll be free
to walk the path ahead of me

I'll be able to finally cross the bridge
that I've been staring at for so long

Maybe one day I'll be able to cross it
without the fear of it collapsing

Until then I'll just run really fast

I'll try to get over it.

Am I a puppet of a woman,
or a woman of a puppet?

One was when we were together after the good days ended
It was in my kitchen
We were both just lingering in Alonedom
and then all of a sudden my head was on his shoulder
and I don't know how we got there
but we stayed there
and it wasn't one of those still embraces
we were moving together in place.

The other was another time
that I cannot mention
without trembling.

Hearkening whispers that remind me of footsteps;
awaiting them to be yours---
I'm ashamed, defeated on all fours.
I'm crestfallen because I'm certain
     that I am devastatingly unsound---
            nose stuck to the ground.

I have a mood indigo so abiding it's embarrassing.
My heart is colliding and subsiding to this pain.
I hear one tick and imagine that it's the lights;
      a plight to know this night hasn't died---
           but it never is one.
I'm pretending its all a burlesque
      but repressing the truth that it never is that picturesque.

It's never a picture show.

I dream unsoundly,
and now my world is despondent and unsoundly.
Here I stand, invisible and indigo.
I've been indigo since "my baby said goodbye."
I'd call myself Ivonne
     but nobody would even care to know.

Nostalgic of the days of
embarrassed faces buried in pillows

I don't deserve

to allow anyone else

to feel undeserving

of me

Sometimes things fit and sometimes they don't
I spend my life trying to put pieces together
and when they don't fit
I just tape them and glue them
and they look a mess, but they hold for now
and that's going to have to be good enough

Sometimes things fit and sometimes they don't
and this time they fit
perfectly.

I guess I like it better when they don't.

The shards in my chest were never whole;
immuned from feeling broken.
They were born sharp and jagged--
ready to stagger through any heart
like a dagger that has never spoken.
History lies within the ground with ragged heartstrings out,
waiting to be found by someone with something to cry about.

My heartstrings are out of tune.
They're often plucked by nimble fingers;
but they don't play beautiful music anymore.
They're twanging and waning,
waiting for nimble fingers to take the time to tune them.
Their melody will swoon only then.

I take this blanket of time and pull it over my head
I wrap it around my body
to hold hostage vulnerability
Right now it doesn't help much
because this storm is too ferocious
and this sheet is too thin to contain anything pathological
But as I wait for this thunder to be over
I hope it won't go under without me
So as I pull this blanket of time over my head
and close my eyes and rock and roll
I sing songs and write poems inside my skull
to drown out the noises of cold
With every note and every line
I listen to the noises cry, until I hear them suffer and die
and I know my cries will suffer and die
So as this blanket rests upon my crown
I feel a chilly breeze breathe through its holes
and know the worst is dead
So as I open my eyes, still raining dyes
I squint at the world that has me curled
I stare up at the sky, craning my neck
I watch the clouds leak onto where my eyes leaked
and tears and raindrops leak together
Because I am one with the world
And as we share our pain
I know we share the sun too

When I was a kid I had dreams I was being attacked by flowers.
I had dreams.
I had dreams.
I had dreams.
When I was a kid I had dreams I was being attacked.

What is it?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Well, I'm not going to tell you because I like to be mysterious.

Numbers mean nothing to me and neither does tomorrow.
Tomorrow's always new to me and I'm always unprepared for it.
But that's spontaneity isn't it?
and I've always wanted to be an anomoly.
It's always new.
It's a new day...
tomorrow.

I was dipping my toe in water that didn't have a temperature. There was a string choking my joints between my toes and where my foot began. It was a weight with a heartbeat. It was alive and pulling me under. And then the weight moved through my body and into my chest and I couldn't breathe... but I wasn't suffocating either.
I could sense black shadows all around me and I could feel my body twisting and contorting itself against them.
Black shadows.
Black shadows.
Can you sense the black shadows?
They live your closet, you know.

Colors mean nothing to me either.
And now the colors are colder and cooler and I'm from a different place.
And all these places I've been:
All the restaurants
the bathrooms
through the doors and windows
to church that one time;
they don't seem important anymore.

And they said it was all my fault knowing it wasn't at all.
They're evil
and selfish
and victims of all the paper filling up their ugly paper hearts.

When I was a kid I had dreams I was being attacked by flowers.
I had dreams.
I had dreams.
I have dreams.
I still have dreams.
I still have dreams I'm being attacked.

She sees him from across the highway
He's looking back at her
one hand in his pocket, the other spanning a wave

So she blows him kisses and gestures her heart
but it can't possibly reach him
because cars and semis stretch them apart

so she spins in circles and sees what surrounds
the sight isn't nice
Because he's not around

she analyzes her chances at dodging a bullet
and admits that they don't look good
But she decides that her happiness will always be worth it

She puffs out her chest and takes in some air
and sees him smirking at her
She closes her eyes as the wind blows her hair

Wind below her feet, she skates across the road
she's never felt this rush before
and faster than expected, across from him she showed

Proud of the miracle that brought her across the highway
She reaches for the hand by his side
But he turns his back and walks away.

The trees in the painting have dancing hands,
        they're zombies for the future.
It's physically moving but I don't know how
        Because it isn't, but it so obviously is.
Neon lights blink at me,
        Singing the buzzing of a bubblegum melody.
Streaming eyes, screaming laughter.
Examine me.
Clinging to your lips like a cigarette.
We're in a perfect atmosphere,
     living in a perfect scene.
You're the king of the Starlite Motel,
     and I get to be the queen.

You walk on tears
like they're made of kitchen floor tiles

You're not Jesus
You can't pull that **** off

You're the protagonist
of a story that makes you out to be hero
by filling the bed in my heart with onyx secondhand exhaust
(it still smells like you)
for my own good
Hoping my life is meaningless
forcing me to hate you and hate myself
for my own good

You're not Edward Cullen
You can't pull that **** off

I hope you still feel almighty and hot
when you realize how honest I was.

In the end all I see is hate
and self-loathing
and kitchen tiles stained with tear streaks