A drink in one hand, and your hand in the other.
Smoke curling out the car window like a
secret ribbon.
Songs filled with passion and anger
blaring through the speakers, soaking in my ears.
Your words spill over the music, riding the melody
like a passenger’s seat.
Stories and anecdotes just to pass the time.
Pointless conversation has never meant so much
to me.
Hands squeezing each other just a little too tight,
Not daring to let go.
Pass the blunt, and watch me inhale. I feel your
Eyes like a kiss.
Soft, tender, full of light,
with hunger and urgency underneath.
You make sure to keep my stare as I pass it back.
Eyes flickering to life with each ticking second.
I don’t even realize I’m holding my breath.
Holding my breath for you to break the stare,
To kiss me hard,
To say you want me,
To seize my soul.
And I would give you my all, the best of me,
Though in pieces.
I would let you break my heart, would
revel in the exact moment it shattered,
For no matter how brief or fleeting the time, my heart was
carried and loved by your hands.

You saw the nightmares alive in my eyes.
You saw the terror, the wonder, the magic all die.
I couldn’t tell if you had burned them or broken all of the promises my devils had spoken.
That fear, that beauty, that moment in time,
it was my wanderlust, and backbone, and spirit, and sign.
And I told you, I told you that I wanted it back, but it was
too late to grab them out from the black.
So I tipped up that bottle and I swallowed my guilt, and prayed to the room as it started to tilt.
Then we gathered my insecurities and left with your plans
of mountains and divinity and lovers holding hands.
My breathing was shaky, my eyes full of tears. You held me and loved me and wiped away those years.
They put signs on my back, saying “broken, but here”.
And I reached for the wheel, though I was too drunk to steer.
The crashing, the glass, the slurred, frightened screams.
I wonder if smoke can freeze, and if it can,
I’ll call it dreams.

I wanted to drink until I forgot
your scent lingering on my shirt when you would hug me.
I wanted to drink until I forgot
all your empty promises and bitter words.
I wanted to drink until I forgot
your cold gaze piercing my back when you said to leave.
I wanted to drink until I forgot
those apathetic eyes and self-righteous taunts.
I wanted to drink until I forgot
myself begging you to let me cry in your lap.
I wanted to drink until I forgot
how many times I apologized for my abuser's actions.
I wanted to drink until I forgot
the sound of my own voice.
I wanted to drink until I forgot
the sight of my tear-stained face.
I wanted to drink until I forgot
the scars branding my body with "failure".
I wanted to drink until I forgot
you were my mom once.
I ended up drinking myself to
death.

I have no power here. No voice. No reason to continue fighting.
I have very little memory, actually, of what it was like to care.
I try to rejoice in my numbness: celebrate the dulled sounds, flat images, and jaded feelings.
The expression I wear is emotionally ambiguous at best,
Though I do not look sad. I plaster on my smile, straighten the edges, and clean up any smudges you might have left behind.
I use drywall to build my body each morning. Carefully construct a pair of arms, legs, *******, eyes.
When everything is finished, my sins are shown as an imperfect body, reflecting my imperfect soul.
I still look in the mirror, look into my dead eyes, and feel remorseful for the girl that could have been standing here in my place.
She may have been beautiful; unfortunately, she had nothing to protect herself with.
Though the process is trying, I know I must do this every day.
I do this every day so I can face you, and your omnipotence, and your destruction.
I do this every day so I can love you.

Just one more cigarette.
The smoke helps me breathe.
The nicotine clears my mind,
Gives me some room to believe.
So just one more smoke tonight.
I don’t really need it, but it can’t hurt.
Besides, I’ve been feeling kind of anxious.
My temper’s gotten short, my words, curt.

Just one more drink, I guess.
The ***** keeps me numb.
Don’t want to voice any real opinions.
Let’s keep conversation dumb.
So just one more shot tonight,
Then I’ll try to get some sleep.
It’ll help keep my head heavy,
Along with all those secrets I keep.

Just one more argument.
Yelling keeps me grounded.
I like to see that vein in your head.
Hurtful words keep me well-rounded.
So just one more fight tonight,
Then I’ll sit and cry alone.
Put some ice on the swollen spots.
Just look how much I’ve grown.

Just one more superficial cut.
The blood reminds me I’m alive.
Hiding them is like a game.
They give me motivation and drive.
So just one more scar tonight.
Like anyone actually looks below my head.
Like anyone cares if I’m even alive,
But just one more smoke before I’m dead.

“I ripped these out of your symbol and they turned into paper.”
The words that once read new breath into me now fall just short. They
sink and sag across the pages, lost and wandering without a spine to keep them upright.
Does the value of that symbol become so diminished then? Why, yes.
Yes, it does.
The papers that flutter presently across my floorboards belong nowhere now. The pages might as well be empty.
Without “before”s and “after”s to them, every startling sentence and promising phrase holds nary a glance of the eye.
Listless, meaningless, and inconclusive.
Such a pity.

Money makes the world go ‘round.
When I see my future, all I can think is
How far I'm going to go in life.
It doesn't matter
Whoever stands in my way.
Without a second thought of
Doubts or second guesses.
There's no time for
Dwelling on the past.
My mind is only
Set on one level,
One single gear.
I've only ever been expected of
Success and excellence.
The money you make is the equivalent of your
motivation and drive.
Who even cares about
Material things and superficial desires?
I've helped turn the world into
What the future needs.
Now I see, love is
What makes the world go ‘round.

My dearest Ana, so small, so frail,
Your security reminds me I am strong.
The wind around your frame, a song.

My dearest Ana, so cold, so pale,
Your cheeks, sad caverns, are hollowed.
Your words of prayer and wisdom, followed.

My dearest Ana, so thin, so weak,
I long to feel your light caress.
I do not fear your constant presence, I obsess.

My dearest Ana, so somber, so bleak,
Too much weight I struggle to bear.
I cannot cry: my tears are all but air.

My dearest Ana, so bright, so pleased,
You beat the odds, and proved them wrong.
You kept us in the dark for this long.

My dearest Ana, so dead, so diseased,
You’re rid of sin. Your soul is chaste,
All because you gave up your gift of taste.

Beyond every whisper of doubt,
And far past each pain-soaked shout,
Your shape, your shadow guided my way.

“Sing me a song,” I mumble,
Despite knowing you’re far too humble.
In spite of that, you sing anyway.

Your sarcastic humor and quick-minded wit
Made loving you too ****** hard to quit.
For my every “*******”, you counter: “God bless”.

Your voice shapes words I’ve longed to hear,
All while placing my heart upon its bier.
You’ve forced my hollowed soul into regress.

My minutes with you fly into the past.
You think quick, play hard, and live too fast.
And every night I’m alone, tears fall till I sleep.

Maybe I’m young, and adolescently naïve.
You’re throwing me a bone I’d beg to retrieve.
My faith in us takes form in a leap.

It’s exhausting doing this ridiculous dance,
Knowing full-well you won’t give us a chance.
“Just let me love you” is all I can say or think.

The slightest breeze, a calming zephyr,
Is enough to send through you a violent tremor.
You kiss my mouth and beg me for a drink.

Chest to chest, you hold me still.
Move my body, bend my will.
Still, your efforts go to waste.

The faintest touch, the smallest bite,
Shifts my cheeks from pink to white.
I kiss your neck and beg you for a taste.

A tangle of limbs, sweat, and screams
Make up our web of wet, sinful dreams.
This passion, desire, is too strong to ignore.

Yet, afterward, when our breathing is stable,
A lit cigarette still burning on the table,
I tell you this is different than before.

I said it was ***. You said making love.
I said no regrets. None you could think of.
We agreed that this was just for fun.

Color creeps in your cheeks. You make my head swoon.
It all looks so romantic and simple with the moon.
Tell me: does it look this good in the sun?

"We took such care of tomorrow, but died on the way there."
We planted so many new trees, we forgot to stop for air.
I can't remember what your voice said, but I know that it was bare,
Because your words could always find me, yet they couldn't reach me there.
I always feel the way my tears drop when I wear my smile for you.
You'd always compare my legs to new trees, and my breathing to morning dew.
I can't remember every tear I've shed, but I'd name a few for you.
I'm scared to leave my life behind again, but I know you want life anew.
I'm sorry for every time that I cried, for I know it gave you strife.
My heart may stop beating tonight, but I've been dead my whole life...

I never claimed to be an artist. That’s why I always turn down your offers of color.
I can’t create the brilliance in the world that I so appreciate.
My mind’s eye sees in black and white.
The only colors I can muster are the grays distilled from my soul.
If you could stand audience at my autopsy, you would see more than an abused liver and polluted lungs.
The room would be overtaken with the stench of rotting monotony.
No wonder you’ve always said my kisses taste so bland.
Who could help it with eyes like forgotten puddles and hair the color of sand.
I’ve always known how my legs jiggle as I walk, and of the constant slouch in my shoulders.
My only fault was believing you every time you told me I was something special.
After all, what could attract a flame to an ember?

Maintaining that faux image.

    Live up to society's expectations.

Have *** and be ******.

    Don't have ***, but act like you do.

The boys set the bar,

    We want to reach it.

We wear make-up because it will

    Make us pretty.

We dress **** because it will

    Make us hot.

We want to have *** because it will

    Make us normal.

Does pop culture have the right to

    Tell us what's normal?

If we do not measure up, then

    We will put on a show if we have to.

We hope we look approachable so

    Then boys will talk to us.

But we have to say no and stay pure so

    Then boys will want us.

We are supposed to understand the

    Mixed signals and popular beliefs.

We must ignore our morals, yet claim they

    Are what we live by.

Pornorgraphy, '*******', and risque magazines all tell us that

    Guys want us to be a certain way.

We are supposed to turn ourselves into

    What they want,

And accept that that

    Is all that matters.

Still running on empty.
A stomach grumbling is my applause.
I’m starting to see some changes,
But not enough to cover the flaws.

No one has noticed the loss,
The sharpening of my frame.
Bones more visible than before,
But not enough to cover the shame.

I feel my thighs touch
With every ******* step I take.
I only feel ugly now
When I remember I’m awake.

In a world desperate to break me,
And being smothered by those who “care”,
I will refuse to be controlled.
Like a tree, I’ll live on air.

Like a flower, I’ll feed on sunshine.
Every “no, thank you” is really “yes, please”
Because the tinier you make your waist,
The weaker you make his knees.

I know that I’m stronger than food.
Eating or crying is now allowed.
Don’t stop until you’re empty.
Don’t stop until you’re proud.

The skies reek of a certain vastness,
one that can be tenebrous and gloomy, or lustrous in its omnipotence.
I gaze up at it sometimes, letting thoughts scarcely run through my mind.
I let my eyes consider each color on the horizon, and
become confused and fuzzy as the light fades, stars igniting into focus.
At times, the trees can become one with the sky:
their branches reaching into the Heavens, hoping to pull out a piece of the celestial.
Rustling leaves blot out burnished stars.
You may think trees only grow so tall for the stars, their lovers. The starlight
quenches an Evergreen’s thirst that rain cannot.
Under a thick blanket of moon and dim, every sound gets much-deserved attention.
My ears catch crickets singing of desire, or wind fondling the tops of trees.
Yet, as the sun follows its arduous ascent into the fragment of sky I’m gifted with,
another dawn takes place. A dawn of realization.
The beauty that our world has seized and evolved with will always
go unappreciated.
Strangely, the evanescence of a human life is expected, mourned, and understood.
However, the pulchritude of the world shall always be a mystery to one person or
another.
I will forever live in awe of this planet, and in fear of the surrounding universe.
Power pulsates from the earth, shivering the planet into seasons and disasters.
It has always been, and will forever be.
And yet, the world cares so little of me.

I can hardly see the stars anymore past all the airplanes.
I remember just last night I mistook a satellite for a meteor…
You believe you’re seeing something extraordinary when it’s actually a trick of the eye bestowed upon you by your own kind; therefore, they are tricking your mind.
If seeing is believing then we’ve all been deceiving with each flick of the tongue and each strain of our lips.
It’s like the sky is viewed now in strips, and the seasons come in drips. I long for those aesthetic drops.
If my fingers could brush the treetops and whirl them into a braid of branches, twigs, and leaves. See the pine needles thread and weave.
The forest would shiver down into its roots just as the barrel tremors once the hunter shoots. That spray of bullets moving faster than life.
It’s almost as though that hunter has trifled with time and Mother Nature’s clock. We’ve only got so many days left in stock. And I can see now how that’s so difficult to conceive.
The end is that painful reality we all would rather not believe.

I used to consider chapstick makeup.
I used to consider using conditioner “doing my hair”.
Now it takes me 90 minutes to deem myself acceptable enough to show my face.
Where did that carefree attitude go?
It used to be that the lengthiest part of my morning routine was brushing my teeth.
Now my makeup covers scars as well as blemishes.
Now calories are not something I’m studying in a small elementary school classroom, but deceitful numbers that bury themselves into my mind and thighs.
The beach used to be a safe haven to splash into and gasp out of.
Now I dread the idea of squeezing into a bathing suit.
I cry at my reflection and shout expletives at the scale.
I starve just to keep my demons at bay, and cut as a peace offering.
I use Percocet as an anesthetic for the pain of waking up in my bed everyday.
I wish I could say I used to make love, but since love was not used to make me, how could I?
I reach out to those ever-growing shadows and I cling to the corners of remembering.
I do not fear death, but I fear the memory I leave behind…

I stare at my mirror every day.
Every ******* day.
I smile into.
I shout obscenities at it.
I cry on my floor, desperate to avoid it.
Every ******* day, I walk past it, tell myself to take a single, quick glance.
One glance becomes an inquisition upon myself for all my flaws.
One glance ruins my entire day, brings me to tears.
My mirror hates me.

I stare into this woman every day.
Every ******* day.
I smile back at her.
I take her complaints in stride.
I search for her face when she hides, and listen to her cries beneath me.
Every ******* day, she gives me a double-take, as if to find something new.
The screams will always continue,
And the tears will fall, despite my efforts of honesty.
This woman hates me.

Fill me with music.
Let me brim with your melodies, and cry out lyrics.
Taste the guitar’s strings on my tongue, feel them strum your body into ******.
Fingers pressing against my keys, lifting vibrations from the very base of my core, and coaxing them from my mouth.

My torso acts as violin, and your lips a bow. They leave me humming for you, deep and legato.
Your tongue flicks against reeds of sensation. Punctuates key changes and where your instrument shall come in.
I, the band, is directed by you, the maestro, until you are ready to finish our song.

I feel the heat of your symphony radiating into me.
I sing soprano only for you.
Together, we are an orchestra.

What am i even here for? am i
A warning, since i cannot be an example? such a
Waste of a pretty, blonde girl. my mother dreamed
Of one big, happy family. too bad i’m not
A part of it. i guess when
Life knocks you down, stay down.

And my dreams always turn into nightmares where I wake up just in time.
Now, you can call that unoriginal, but you know I got those from you.
You can claw out from my throat all those words that you know I could never say.
You want “I’m sorry”s and “please don’t leave”s.
You wanted what my dreams always could’ve been.
And I wanted what you’ve seemed to find in everyone else.
You see their talents and the irritating quirks you turn into personalities.
You find their whispers of helplessness or longing grasping at your ears at night.
I then realized how eager you were to be there for everyone but me.
So all of my broken sobs into pillows, all my muffled and drunken cries, those screams you never got to experience, those are for you, my love.

You were right there. Standing,
hands in your pockets, like nothing could hurt you.
Defiance palpable in the air you breathed.
Your back straight and your eyes so skeptically open
that if I didn’t look closely, I’d swear they were closed.

You were so close. Leaning,
skin warm with stories, close enough to leave me trembling in your wake.
Rebellion rocked in the earth around you.
Smoky breath and chewed-raw lips, and your
smile could never quite meet your eyes.

You were so tired. Listening,
mind open and walls up, always listening for pretty words.
Confidence almost shaking now in your bones.
A head full of curls, and a mouth full of codes
trapped so solidly as to not tarnish your tongue.

You were so alone. Talking,
people constantly surround you, about stories you never want to forget.
Rich, devilish words seasoned in your descriptions.
Your voice stimulates my mind’s starving curiosity, and  
your hands could carry me home.

You were so lost. Running,
middle fingers locked in place, toward everything that scared you.
A bark of contempt for anyone in sight.
Always the question of: Could you say you used to make love
when love was not used to make you?

You were so broken. Tearing,
with wings of gold, through the waste of the human life.
A force so unstoppable it weakened my heart.
Your soul was on fire, and in the midst of the flames,
I saw you. You were never meant for here.