i’m trying to mend many things at once:
myself, my relationships, my environment.
my hands will shake. & i will run out
of breath. i will need to disappear for
a while to collect myself. so i can carry on
again. i will take my time to respond.
thinking about what i say with as much
scrutiny as i can muster, is a taxing task.
i am trying. i am trying with all my might,
with these broken hands, with this broken
body covered in scars no one can see.
with this broken heart bleeding,
to make right what is wrong within myself.
i will plaster these cracks behind this
mask, with your words. forever reminded
of how i can do better. and i will
keep going, with these broken bones.
these chains, i will carry whoever i can,
whoever i can save, the way i couldn’t
save myself. and i will mend whoever
i can, the way i couldn’t mend myself.
with these broken hands. with this
broken heart. with this broken body
with this broken mind. behind these
broken eyes. i have lost too many pieces
to piece myself back together. but i will
try. & i will try to put everyone i can
back together, with the pieces of myself
that are left.
& i will try, to mend what is broken.
even if i can’t be mended.

the sun sets at
four pm today &
here i am again.
reading poetry with
a stolen cup of
wine from my
mom’s cooler in the fridge.
as my cat sits next to me
coaxing me back from
a depressive ledge
for half an hour
as i read & watch
people richer than me
go shopping on the
television.

you kept me company for
a day & a half
and yet
it’s less than 24 hours
later and i want to jump
again.
i can’t tell you my last
words because then
you’ll try to stop me &
i can’t live with that.
i haven’t been able to.
and if i don’t call in-
don’t call back about
that job application
i always let
everybody down.

i wish i had the sleeping pills now
because this liquid courage might
let
me
drown

i’m falling out of place again &
i’m sorry we haven’t spoken in weeks
i really liked that boy i did
& i thought i could have a friend again.
i don’t know.

i’ve been working all week but when
is that an excuse when you’re eighteen?
sometimes i feel i should be twenty-three
barely making ends meat
i want to go to parties i shouldn’t
be at and drink until my heart’s content
and my liver protests
i want to dance all night long under
flickering black light pitch night
(take a photograph through
****** filter lens)
in clothes i’ve never worn before
where i can feel your hands through my
shirt without taking any of it off
show off
i like the smoke around me but never
inside & i think i’ve done enough tonight.
i’m tired.
please come inside.

sometimes i can’t remember what i was doing
and i forgot about the bruise on my neck
you lick slicked polished
and i don’t think anybody here cares
i’m a gas station worker behind the counter
begging for ID’s as cigarettes sit between two still sharp teeth and—
i hope yours never break like theirs.
never rot or fall apart like your mind is already starting
to and the only people who care about the mark you left on me are the
men who want to make their own
as if seeing a consenting form of affection deserves hostility
toward me. but they forget, too, it was your lips
versus my neck
and i once compared you to a vampire but i guess
now it’s true
but i couldn’t resist you
then
and i can’t resist you
now.

let them growl & grovel at my feet.
you grew fangs to bite me and i will
grow talons to claw their eyes out.
we’re all leaving here with marks tonight.

mind boggling the difference between
conceived and reality.
how young i must’ve been
to convince myself to have a mind-altering illness
just to fit an image
just to fit in.

the dark thoughts were only conjuration
and i wasn’t depressed at all
though now i learn that the people
around you can shape who you are
and who you will become.

i aged &
didn’t know hate until
i woke up and met myself.
i slept through the days &
walked along highways.

when i was young it was easy to fake
and make a spectacle of the brain
when people thought they cared because
it was easy. i could still
laugh, and eat, and sleep normally

instead of in class isolated
depressed with a dying mind i
couldn’t comprehend why
it was easy the first time because
it was so much less complicated.

and people only like you when
you’re fabricated but as soon as
you become real the monster becomes
real it’s a conscious decision to let go
when you need all the help in the world

to not let go i was hanging on by
a thread when before it was a rope
ladder but it doesn’t matter when
you decide to make it all a noose &
hope they see you swinging

like it was always a sick spectacle.
people love depression when it’s fake
but the first night you try suicide
always ready to label as ‘bait’
and maybe i’m still not okay

but i’m over it. i understand the difference
between conceived and reality
the only lesson i learned was to hide
just to unlearn again that i can’t
listen. i thought i knew what depression was
at thirteen enough to act like it
and it mattered then more than
my actual depression.

i wonder if people catalogue you
like time in their mind.
if there’s an allotted space for you
hidden between the hands of the clock,
passing by hours without thought
are you sectioned off somewhere
a time of night people don’t go near
the streetlight hits you and i see
you touch you to call you real
the space where you were becomes
smoke through my fingers.
i wonder what time of space you
exist in and
can i come in?

i can’t write
****** poetry
though the lapsing
hours spent
are ***
and you said
it can’t hang
from your rear
view
and that’s how
you knew
that car wasn’t
a cop.
they don’t have
an aesthetic like
you
forgo the
hula girl
there are better
palm trees
than me
with brighter colour
and better design
but you hang me
from your rear
view mirror