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I liked that crowded bathroom
we smoked in,
you held a joint between my lips and asked me to
exhale out the window
into the soft wooden fence between
us and the neighbor’s house. The walls
of that crowded bathroom
were pink
or lilac or something – I liked them
as you would expect,
but I don’t exactly remember
them. I remember my body feeling like too much
because the space was small and I am not;
my skin seemed to billow
out like tulle
to touch yours. Your dad gifted us
two different joints he had been saving for a
while, saying one was better
than the other but
he did not know which was which. In
that crowded bathroom, I looked up at you and
you looked down at me
because we knew
we had just found the better one. We kissed
then walked
out the door, saving half for later.
 Apr 2015 Reece AJ Chambers
Emma
I was 6
when my best friend  
left me sitting on the trampoline
as he ran to play with someone else
and I cried and
I was shattered

I was 10
when my parents told me
their marriage had run it's course
but things would
"stay the same"
but I quietly cried and
I was shattered

I was 13
when I first left a scar
on my own body,
hating who I had become
and as the blood dripped
I didn't cry but
I was shattered

I was 14
when my own mother
acted like our relationship had run it's course
and she kicked me out
and she never said sorry
and I tried not to cry but
I was shattered

I was 15
when I realized I was a different
because I liked the girl in my math class
who looked like she could make flowers grow
with her smile
and people told me it wasn't right
and "why me?" ran through my head
and I was scared
and I cried quietly and
I was shattered

Now I'm 16
and I've never had my first kiss
and all my friends run around kissing boys
like we're all gonna die tomorrow
and date guys for fun
just for something to do
and I wonder what's wrong with me
and I cry and
I'm shattered

I'm 16
and school doesn't come easy
like it used to
I was honor roll
and I skipped a grade
and I was a "star student"
because I knew how to make essays flow
and solve that simple math equation
or know the president's order
but my brain's fried
and all the motivation I had has disappeared without a trace
and my dad yells at me for my falling grades
and I don't cry but
I'm shattered

I'm 16
and I smile to avoid the constant
"are you okay?" and "what's wrong?"
because my head is such a mess
I don't even know what's wrong
as I dig a little deeper
and watch my skin drip red
and wonder where I went wrong
and I hold back tears and
I'm shattered

I'm 16
and I'm trying to be happy
I'm trying to be happy
I'm trying to be happy
and I can't cry and
I'm putting myself back together.

-e.w.
I wish you bent spoons.
I wish you 3 a.m vibrating headaches.
I wish you salty fish eyes wedged between toes.
I wish you one broken ear bud,
A late bus,
Perpetual goosebumps rolling over skin.

I wish you holes in your favorite shirt.
I wish you bitten tongue.
I wish you panic attack,
Burnt toast,
Hot water scald.

I wish you nothing but bad poems.
I wish you crooked teeth, cracked smile.
I wish you spider legs.
I wish you broken *******.
I wish you scratches in all your records,
Even the ones you don’t like.

I wish you weak coffee
And weak bones.
I wish you lipstick stain on the collar of your work shirt
And her perfume starting a windstorm.
I wish you hell like fury
From a woman scorned.

I wish you mismatched shoes.
I wish you gutted grief.
I wish you clumps of wax when you
Desperately need a candle.
I wish you undercooked meat.

I wish you bedroom floors and popcorn bowls.
I wish you see my face
Every time you run your ***** hands
Down her clean body.
I wish you choke on that feeling at the back of your throat,
The one that reminds you of guilt.
I wish your fingerprints would melt from my memory.

I wish December to finally end.
She is blue raspberry slushee tongue
Meets feminist rant.

She is Moon Pie wrapper personified.
She is purple lipstick stains on wine glasses
Filled to the brim with cranberry juice.
She is three cats, one bed.

She is a scratch in your favorite record during your favorite song.
She is bubblegum bubble pop,
She is the definition of hypochondriac.

Curiosity didn’t **** her,
She killed curiosity.

She is dry heaving into the toilet bowl,
Claw marks on the inside of her stomach.
She is naproxen sodium
Swirling down throat,
Gagging up bullet sized pills.

She is the other side of unrequited.

She is no ones favorite poem.
She is her own favorite poem.

She is perpetual headache.
She is screaming for justice.
She is the jersey devil episode of the X-Files,
In other words,
She is a hot mess.

She is nature walks cut short due to laziness.
She is laziness.
She is lay in bed all day,
Drown in the sheets.
She is too many books, not enough time.

She is funeral song at a wedding.
She is dethorned rose, declawed cat.
She is waking the dead.

She is a renaissance painting come to life.
Botticelli would cry if he saw her,
His Venus,
Splashing in the water.

She is Jezebel mourning Ahab.
She is Jezebel being eaten alive.

She is ankle deep dimple.
She is never could quite get the words out.
She is lip bite, blood drip.
She is covered in bruises and she likes it.

She is listerine flavored whiskey,
She is a shot glass of formaldehyde.

She is an oak tree,
Thats what her sister tells her.

She is the x on the back of an 18 year olds hand.
She is conspiracy theory.
She is playing possum.

She is change the subject.
She is cry when being yelled at,
Cry when no one is looking,
Cry when everyone is looking,
Cry because theres nothing else to do.

She is leather jacket in july.
She is crop top and mini skirt.
She is lullaby.
She is dancing to the Law and Order theme song.
She is 8,000 tweets.

She is see how long she can go without talking.
She is goes so long without talking
That now she can’t talk.
She is novocaine needle pock mark.

She is her own mythology,
Her own god.
She is fire breathing dragon.
She is knocking on god’s door
Until blood erupts from her knuckles.
She is asking why.
She is Persephone feasting on pomegranate seeds.

She is two siblings in the hospital.
She is “call if you don’t feel right”.
She is disassociative personality disorder,
At least thats what she’s convinced she is.

She is anxious laughter,
Anxious smile.
She is sewing her lips shut.

She is only 11 Instagram likes.
She is learning to love herself with the lights on.
She is sleep to much,
Sleep too little.
She is curl on cheekbone.
She is protruding rib bone.
She is hip bones cutting glass.

She is Lilith saying no.
She is leading the serpent to the garden.

She is vegetarian on moral grounds.
She is not telling her doctor she is a vegetarian
Because what if its bad for her?

She is fate and destiny making out under the bleachers.
She is making nooses out of ****** strings.
She is choke on your own saliva.
She is burnt tongue tip.
She is puking in the parking lot of her dentist’s office.
She is a 1997 themed mixtape.

She is a stanza curving like a lovers back.
She is chapped lips.
She is brick through the window.
She is suffocating on suburban ideals.

She is Anne Sextons ***** bottle.
She is Maya Angelou’s silence.
She is Lucien Carr’s ****** knife.
She is Sylvia Plath’s last manuscript before
She stuck her head in the oven.

She is three am,
Get out of bed.
She is snow in september.

She is poetry.
She is poet.
She is music in fingertips,
Songs molded from simile.
She is metaphor flavored kisses
And a witchcraft tongue.

She is a girl crafted of stories.
A collection of make believe.
She is breathing passion.
She is daughter of nothing,
Lover of everything.
She is afraid of scorpions.
She is the venom.

She is a violin heart screeching out its last note.
kissing him was like licking a battery
static electricity when you go down the slide on the playground
I want to be the cigarette between his fingers that he so politely asks if he can smoke
he has a darkness, but I like that
I have a darkness too, but he likes that
(my glasses fogged up when his tongue was in my mouth on the park bench in the middle of the rose garden as people around watched with disgust)
-
My apartment still smells like cigarettes from Saturday
when a couple girls with crop-top ambitions
drank themselves through flip cups and through guys’ eyes
who purposely landed on their belly-buttons.
I might have stood on the couch to sing that song,
but I’ve fallen for you all wrong. After another remix,
everyone left and we played footsies while leaning
in the doorway of my bathroom, the wood trim chipping
but your smile brightening in the yellow overhead light.
And I promised I wouldn’t find myself
come Monday morning sitting here with my knees knocking,
and knocking, and knocking themselves back into my brain
that keeps reminding my heart that we expired last season,
and that it’s just too **** late.
I promised myself I wouldn’t wipe my tears on my sweatshirt sleeves,
or run my toes on the tile, or breathe in another toxic pack
of what I essentially believe is you. You are the *** I pour myself into.
You are the chance I keep giving myself seconds of.

I know I shouldn’t have separated myself that quickly, or without notice,
but honestly I didn’t know how to attach myself to someone
unless it was delicate and barb-wired together. I’m sorry I ******* it up,
back then, before the mess, wherever you’d like to pinpoint
the blame on our timeline
but you are the only chance I keep giving myself seconds of.
So I’ll distance myself between my body and this frame,
cut out text-message screen shots and paste them to my frown
so maybe I can remember what it was like to smile
without ******* cigarette smoke between my teeth.
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