i want to smash plates
but i can't do that
i cant betray the image of the
perfect daughter
the perfect sibling
the perfect child
although i am far from perfect
and everybody knows it
even you know it
but i still can't smash plates
maybe it’s the curse
of the eldest daughter
or maybe
there is something
intrinsically wrong with me
because i don't remember
when this started
or if there was ever a starting point
i don’t remember what shattered me so badly
that i wanted to shatter the world with it

The thing about loneliness is that it is familiar. It is the one constant companion that I have had for my entire life. Empty words, empty words. Like the feeling of a kiss’s remnant long after its companion is gone. It isn’t electric static but it is the feeling of right after you get a static shock. Like the pang of a ghost pain that leaves you questioning whether it really hurts. Is my pain tolerance that low? Generations and generations of pain and trauma and a little bit of friction in the air is what brings me to my knees; but maybe it is like the tension between mother and daughter. Like mother and daughter.

words moved me, and
God
i wanted my fingers to blister and my
bones to ache
but my mind withers and my heart breaks
i swallowed ink and still i couldn’t
make the words flow like they used to as if
almost as if
they refuse to

i feel like i drank too much coffee.
just a side effect of my heart strings pulling
trying to find you, even though i was the one who dropped you off
at the airport.

i got home feeling cracked open
no coffee spilled out
just 'i miss you's and lint

you left a t-shirt for me. i wanted something to smell like you.
i fear i will never wash it again

sitting in traffic staring
at a horizon of red
thinking of her unintentionally

i dyed my hair again
taking comfort in being able to look different
looking different than when i fell for people that were just shells
of bad decisions and ****
people that gave me goosebumps because they were so cold
but i used to mistake the chills for butterflies

i've been worried about repeating myself
cycling around my bad habits
like i'm on a ferris wheel that doubles as a perpetual motion machine
but i haven't texted her in a few weeks so
that must be a good sign
still

i listen the playlists i made when i was so busy over thinking i didn't have time to do my fvcking laundry
i wore her sweater for days on end and i hummed those songs under my breath
and now the melodies just remind me of how starving i was
laying in the bed of nails i made for myself
and they remind me of her. always her. and how she never gave a **** about me, but somehow taught me to give a **** about myself.
these stupid, beautiful songs remind me of how much i pretend to hate her. and they make me want to write poems about the idea of her again
even though i swore i wouldn't. on several occasions.
and so this poem isn't about her, or the idea of her, or the stupid playlists i was obsessed with when i called her mine

this one is about the horizon of red
as i sit stuck in traffic, staring
blurring my vision on purpose
as the crimson lights move at the speed of my slowing heart
trying. trying. trying.
trying to forget about her, as i think of her unintentionally.
trying to live in a world where people don't always mean the 'i love you's that so carelessly drip from their open mouths.
trying to care about those people anyway and pretend that i don't.
trying to love.
trying to love myself.
trying to write more poems in the first person as a form of self care.
trying to figure out if that counts.

trying to not be so fvcking lonly all the time.

you’re maple syrup in my pocket
the aftermath of a sweet meal i knew
i shouldn’t have had
now you’re stuck all over my clothes
saccharine mistakes dribbling down my fingers
you’re maple syrup in my pocket
and everytime i try to wipe you away
you find another way to get in
and now my tears are sticky and sweet
oozing down my chin
dripping onto the linoleum floors
maple syrup on my shoes
i can’t escape you
a sticky footprint beneath me wherever i walk

day by day you consume me
piece by piece i am more
maple syrup than i am myself
who i was before i met you
before i devoured the sweet meal
i knew i should not have touched
however
i am being consumed by you yet you are being consumed by honey
and i suppose honey and you fit quite well
but i am just a wooden spoon you use then turn away from
but because you are maple syrup
and you are so sweet and lovely and golden
and ever so sticky
all your unwanted and used parts
cling to me
pieces of you forever lingering
in my pocket