my head is often riddled with tastes that never quite reach the tongue,
tastes of tapping fingers along the crystallized blue. no one ever thinks
to check the mind of the depressed after the first smile.
i like to think that i am the next sylvia plath.
i may be no poetic genius but i’ve crawled under the house and seen
too much too many times to count.
sometimes i pray that i never live to hear the next morning song, or that
i am haunted by something other than daddy’s heirloom as i do at every
waking moment. i compare my veins with plath’s as every wrong
breath is taken, and my amygdala can’t help but formulate my anxiety
into tastes that never quite reach the tongue.

i know i am not sylvia plath.
i am not brave enough to face the queen of the underworld
and so take on the persona of lady lazarus. cowardly,
i cannot bring myself to set fire to my lungs
so all i can do is lay back and let the birds catch the worms,
leaving messes that keeping me from staying clean.