Aluminum
Have you memorized your storybooks
How does it feel to catch on fire
You go where bugs go in the winter

Surface waves
How does it feel to be momentary
An oven timer
Or a sparkler

Sidewalk
How does it feel to be cracked open
To bleed to death
Blunt force trauma for 200

Rooftop
How's the autumn
The air's quite nice
But the ending is blurry

Oh winter
How does it feel to melt
To simply
Stop existing

Open ocean
How does it feel to drown
I thought there were bandaids
And you never even saw me

The truth flowed out of me
Like a flood
And everything I've ever said
Tainted with the blood

Every shadow brooding
Silently I
Call to the sun
Open my purple eyes

Strangulation
Seared imagination
The child the child the child
Put down the child

Cast away the child
The prodigal son
Was killed by bears
Hounding sidewalks for nickels

The truth shone from my eyes
Half closed
Half asleep
Half adrift
Not alive.

Something deep within has died
Brittle bones and shaky sighs
Rattled breaths and paper hide

Put down the child
Goodbye

vinegar on your hands
you can't drown the filth
like the cracks in the floor

but nothing is as personal
as paper
and your skin on mine

maybe sometime they'll learn to see
the horizon we are
and the sunrise i've been painting

silver over gold
clay over granite
everything will perish, too

or maybe i'm wrong
the hunger eats my soft insides
i grow plants in the afternoons

maybe someday things will fall into place
just like all the shiny pennies
at the bottom of the fountain

but there will always be thieves
they come in all packages
and your eyes must be wide

to trust is to die
why give the glass to shaky hands
that hold no value in your trinkets

"day three
still no compliance
end note"

"day four
suspect found dead
no foul play suspected."

I am just
Massive corroded batteries
Inside an electric fence
Turned on
Overused fluids and
Exposed wires

Rolling blackouts
Security breach
Franklin and Tesla and Edison
A backbreaking craft
Destroyed without protection or
High voltage

Floodlights on, flickering
Always blinding, green.
Plugged into
An oil slick
Atomic energy
To power the borders

But throw one switch
A primitive word
The prison is powerless
The wires short circuit

The guards
are all
Electrocuted.

Cliche from the gunshot
Blossoms in the morning air
Push away my clouds
Like wind in the fields

Hand in hand up the staircase
When my pedestal broke
You got me a chair
Your rhythmic breathing

Tes yeux comme un roman
Tu dit gentiment à moi
Lavende, le cheveux des enfants
Je dors en tu

La Terre est embrasser les pieds
Pearls on your lips, too
Smashing clocks to sit on sand
And watch the flowers wilt

Sunflowers have skeletons
I hope I rest before you do
Never leave this sidewalk
Pas pour juste un moment

I will be your candlelight
Read your will beside me
Spanish moss to every word
I love you just as much.

the littlest things get to me
things like
when your forehead wrinkled
the gap in your teeth
I was never one to hold a grudge
but I became a monument
the hypocrite.
philosophy taught me nihilism
you were the meaning
every breath taken exhales
a cloud of smoke and
sulfur
deep in my chest is clawing
the feeling
of your key against your car
the burn in your carpet
I wish I could wish you
nothing but the best
but instead I wish
you'd cut out your own tongue
lock yourself away
and stop making threats
see on the inside
we won't miss you
empty threats
empty threats
hypocrite.

The lighter fluid set it off
The moment you and I were set ablaze
And in the haze
Of smokey bars and dreary days

I feel the ashes on the pages now,
The photo on the shelf's been
Overlooked for far too long
And been bleached out by the sun

And fingerprints of long lost children
Are engraved into the paint
You said I was a girl of novice strings
And I was into meaner things

Go on and make it airtight
Lock the door and seal it off
I do not wish to fight the future
Or the things that I was taught

I've lit the cardboard endless times now
Pressed the monster to my lips to burn the
Feeling of your kisses off my aching consciousness

There will be solace in the bathroom floor
She screamed it at his face
And when the house is all foreclosed
He will not miss the empty space

The steel was never sweeter
Now the clocks are way too loud
Turn the tables back three months again
Just where's your safety now

I can't put it down
I can't put it down
I can't put it down

The empty driveway was the prophet
Just like leading sheep to slaughter
When before she kicked the door
She fell like roadmaps at his feet

The sound of ringing makes the paint peel
Fall down into curling hands
I smell the stench of open wounds and overbearing righteousness

It's not far away from sunrise and the
Hole is growing wider
Swallowing the mice and monsters
Doesn't matter who was "nicer "

Palpitations for your journal
It was all a grim facade
Hide the body, make a new sound
Before your ***** hands get caught

Turn the clock back three months now
I can't put it down

5 years in a minute
I can't
Put it
Down

3 months
2 days
1 second

I can't put it down

A time zone
The days tick by
The flights are scary infinite
Minute after minute
Writhing with nerves

A photograph
A memory
I don't care to remember
Lines I won't draw
Jawlines bloodied

A sickness
The cold fingers
Leeching warmth
From my tongue and forehead
The batteries?

A mechanism
The monotony
Robotic fear
Trembling at the fingertips
Cogs wound up

A shipwreck
Thrashed sails
Little pieces dashed against
The cold numb rocks
Consuming rain

A barrel
Made of steel
Hollowed out and rusted
Wind through the holes
An ember

An oil drum
Fragile metal
Skin braces for impact
A fire in my belly
Catastrophe

Teacher who gave up on me
Show me
How to walk again
If I drink the peroxide
Will it open the windows
You and I
We stay up late
Scheming things
Finally alive and
None of them will happen
First things first
The tower has to stand up straight
Like you should be
The linoleum is dusty
And I am here
Despondent
Red hair and white hands
I put the key into the lock
To find the tumblers changed
Paint the glass
Sing the songs to make the
Wooden walls swell
Like the thunderstorm that hit
Just as hard as I did
Every image in my skull
Makes me want to tear
The mice apart
More and more
Day in and day out
I wonder what the sting feels like
A mouthful of formaldehyde
Faulty wiring
Where is the back door
Where will you fly to
Fly
The open air is the only home
But none of us
Can ever reach
What does it mean
To ask the questions this late
After the horses are out
I closed the gate
And set the barn ablaze
Waiting for some moon
To tell me what belongs where
I can't spot the tarmac
Spelling
Spilling
All of this upon the wooden floor
Bleach it
Stain it
Make it into something
That stands taller
Than the grass on Sunday
I can't take the weight
Of these sciences
The ache
Of these eyelids
The bees in my head
Are too ******* loud
And the way your knees bend
Between my teeth
Half hearted
Half awake
Dizzy comes
As dizzy goes

all the days bleed together
long nights and longer mornings
crooked fingers
cog in a mechanism

the balloons in my chest burst
filled with water
popped in the grass
despondent

i don't know how i learned the words
but i heard a princess say
life was whatever i wanted
and i grew up with fairy tales

i want to know
how do birds learn to fly
and what happens
when you die in your sleep

what's the point in a horizon
and why is the air so
*******
toxic

distant planets know my secrets
laments to Saturn
i hoped you would
find your way back home

even the breath to pray
was a ship on my ribs
titanic
drowning in the ice water

we were all told
that the sun had stopped shining
to find our melancholy
stained into the wallpaper

and finally
the heartbeat of the clock
rang out a solid B, Bb
and the second hand stopped

now all the days bleed together
lost nights and no more mornings
crooked fingers
cog in the mechanism.

Love has been nothing
Misconstrued for happiness
I fell beneath the sheets
Again
Boiling over to be burned after
And quickly turning cold.

You cannot miss
What does not exist

Never born
Never breathing

Highways to the west
Cherishing a map

Frame the photographs
December in the morning

The way you wake
Defines your days

Black and grey
Old and rusted

This charade
Open casket

Ignore the empty echo
In your chest

The morning after
The ground was broken

Drowned and dressed
In childishness

Alive not for me
But for him

Dragging down whim
There's enough alcohol

The old medicines
Are filed away

The tire swing
Asphyxiated and frayed

The fibers of my insides
Manipulated sound waves

You're losing your mind
You're losing your mind

The longer the sunrise
The less I can stand

My load is heavy
Where are you, Jesus

My back is breaking
What have I done

Lost sight of the horizon
Planning the painted flowers

Sign in, tell a lie
Cry like the family does

No one learned a lesson
You're losing your mind

after all the time spent teeming
in the closets and the cupboards
i have finally accepted
that the rats are really gone

the scratching in the ceiling
is just my lucid dreaming
i'm pining for a creature
that's never done me good

i wonder if i drank the cleaner
would my mind be shining too
i cannot take another evening
the ants are in my skin

you always did smell like home
i've lived in caves all my life
there will never be an ocean
bigger than this one

if i crack this one mirror
so will my every capillary
my tissues will erupt with
hydrofluoric acid

i'm itching from beneath my skin
i swear it's just the rats again
it's not the whispers that i hear
it's just the house settling

it's all the windows screaming
it's the walls constant staring
it's the floorboards ***** sneering
and the bathtub's overflow

mother always said
i should never leave the light on
yet i've been sitting in the dark
and blinded for four years

the chemicals are in my skin
i swear its just the rats again
the walls are singing of my sin
i swear its just the rats again

my veins are asking for a drink
my muscles scream for me to leave
i hear your footsteps in the hall
shotgun ringing in my ears
you were never even here
you were never
even here
you were
never
even
here

there always comes an empty dawn
when sorry doesn't matter
will not save you from the knife
or from all of the inkblot splatter

on the inside you are whole
and on the inside i'm a shell
and when it comes to caves and houses they don't
get along too well

and you said medicate or suffer was the only
ultimatum
all the simple things you said
strangled bruised it all verbatim

you inscribed it in your hatchet
put it there in chicken scratch
stuck in in the oak tree in the yard and said
you will come back

for it
i feel the time dissolving eating through the floor
as quickly
as my hands can pick up jacks, i cannot
throw them anymore

this is not a game to win
this is not another war
this is all my organs in a jar
for sale beside the door

and you were too afraid to tell me
you were too afraid to see
that the demons clawing at your back
were all brought here by me

and yet i never drew the circle
didn't call them up from hell
i was born with all these chemicals
and drowned inside the well

so put your orphans up for sale
pack up your house and leave this town
for if the dog is sick and dying, it's just
best to put her down

it's just best to put her down.

"Lessen the exposure"
Living under pressure, I'm a child inside
And with playground advice
The battery acid ran into my veins
It bled out in a fit
And I'm bending beneath all the weight of it
I questioned the wiring
And became the monster from the myths
I am a polar opposite
Destructive in the face of blamelessness
Thorough with an exit wound that was never planned
Guilt is in the medicine bottles
Nature is a fickle thing
I am a wild thing
It was all a wild scheme
To pit us all against our instincts
An arena built on etched old bones
And Gorgon's limestone

It was all a straight line up ahead
A straight play I had just misread
I bludgeoned it upon head
And now it's in the backyard, dead.

I am a crooked silhouette
Never arc of the covenant
Sorry for my generator mind
And then a hundred thousand times.

When hell freezes over

And i can’t feel the cracks in the walls
I’m not sure anymore
“These times are the worst times”
And what comes after

What if i don’t want to know
Why do babies die
When they’ve never done anything
The most innocent
This earth will ever feel
Is when it’s reclaiming
The porcelain faces
With eyes closed

Maybe it’s because
The longer we spend waiting
Like opening windows
When it’s supposed to rain
“It gets worse before it gets better”

But there is no contest
It’s just comparison
Plath wrote a novel
About how hard it is to die
Your body doesn’t want to

But your soul can’t sleep anymore
You are tired
From bouncing off the padded walls
Inside your skull
So much it feels like
Your own thoughts have bruises
Concussions within concussions
It hurts to think
The engine doesn’t start

And every day i try to sleep
Except
I’m still awake
Because it doesn’t matter anymore

We spend our time
Waiting out the storm
(Even when it’s in the windows)
Waiting for the sunshine
But all it means is
The storm will ruin everything

And no amount of sunlight
No kisses
No daisies
Will ever make the floorboards dry up
Will fix the ruined wallpaper
No open windows
Will air out this house

Everything settles
Like dust on the mantel
The floorboards pop
Like the elbows of tree branches
Bucking together,
Shivering in winter
The house is restless
But too old to move
Too tired
Too heavy

And so am i.
There’s still something in it
Us
We
And still so empty at the same time.

If the room is vacant
Is it still a room
Or is it a tomb
That’s been desecrated
Put it back the way it was meant to be,
Full inhabitants
The dead haunting both places.

Because i am fearless
To be honest
When you don’t feel
I am plastic and
Tattered rugs in the hallway
I am
Cigarette smoke stains
Nicotine yellow and
Placid green
rotting from the inside out
Like a cavity
You’ve always been too poor to fix
Yet... not an ache like that
Too easy to ignore
And when it’s past the point
It falls out, and life goes on

No

I am a wildfire
Burning everything alive
And too big to put out
Everyone can see it
Everyone’s afraid
The very smoke from my own destruction
Is killing the skies
Suffocating on top of the heat
Like a hurricane, hotter
A god of fifty thousand degrees

And yet... they see it coming
All they can do is
Hope i burn myself out
And don’t take their lives too

And there’s nothing
No open windows
No kisses
No daisies

Can do about it

Pity, little angel
Addicted to placebo pills
Blow yourself up
Or blow away

Or blow them all
Hands and knees for attention
"Too much teeth"
To spit lies through

A dog can smell a *****
We're all animals here
It only takes a chapter
To know the voice of a book

You've been out in the rain
They've told you, too long
Ugly little mushrooms
Are growing in your palms

You put yourself
In the gutter
On the shelf
Dusty and desperate

(And I won't lose sleep
Over burnt curtains
Don't even dream about
What isn't yours.)

All over you like a bad habit
And you were
Living on cigarettes
The way you live on pride
Christmas isn't the same
Just another drinking day
Venus flytrap in the kitchen
The closer you get
The more hungry
And yet
A touch away from death
The softest brush of your fingers
The clench in your teeth
I am bones and empty glasses
Snow on the roots of trees
Damp, despondent
Blank.
Like eyes on the fountain statue
I thought I'd take you to see
It's always about the children
Holding hands and
Looking forward to things
I don't know how
To look forward
Brutality
I can't scar myself anymore
I can't scare myself anymore.
Empty space
In my chest
A vacuum
Mud on the side of the highway
I feel like
If I drink just enough
I'll stay that way
Warm yet slightly empty
Rotting on the inside
Like the apple on the counter
I can't see through the windows
The breath from both of us
Chases out the reality
That's smothering our insides
Like a blanket
In the basement
Ending
So abrupt

Lately I think
It's been hard to function
Because of how bad I miss you
For when the lights looked like white to you
And how silly you would be
I miss your carefree spirit
It's been a while.

I pine for that stupid sweater
When all it did was rain
You held me in the snow once
Do you remember
Do you remember all the breakfasts
Do you remember how you couldn't stop kissing me
If your life depended on it

I guess I never focused on
The memories of yours
They never seemed like they'd go away
And now
The only thing I want
Is to watch you play beer pong that first time
All over again
And to break my charger one more time
To see your sleepy eyes at 6 am

I never got to ask too much
Id only heard the stories
Until he told me everything
He told me how he knew
And that he watched all of us
A God complex, but one we were all okay with
Even though being outside made him
"Claustrophobic"
I'll never forget that line

Not for as long as I live.


Without you here
Things are
Meaner
Things aren't
Quite upright
It's like everyone taped their lives back together
Because they had to work
And didn't have time to really fix anything
Or to go for groceries
Or to sleep really

I know that if I could wish for one thing
I don't even think I'd cure cancer
And I couldn't take the taxes on a million.
Maybe I'm an *******
I'd want to watch you watching people again
I'd want to see the love of my life
Be the love of my life
All over again
From the beginning
Because without you
He's buried under phone calls and worry
I've never seen love before I saw him

And you were honest so I did what you said
I watched his eyes light up for a big hair bow
You sent me messages
At the same time... just to embarrass me
And I watched him tell me all your stories
I remember when I told you I would come over
But I never did
And now I never will
When I owe you so much
And half my future was a gift from you
And I owe you
So much
I owe you
Everything

and yet
I was looking at a few drops of water
In my boat
On the ocean
There was so much more
Than I'll ever know
But for now I guess
We'll have to taste you.
The cigarettes
"Smoother than coffee"
Are a reminder

And I hope you got to meet the god I believe in
Because someday
I want to tell you thank you
And hug you like I never got to
Because I owe you
So much.

We all miss you
so much.

When I'm looking for a home
With you
I remember
I don't want to live
Anywhere

And it's times like this I realize
When I'm
So good at acting
I forgot how to live
Nothing is real

It's nights like this
When everything I should love
Feels like snow
It should burn
It should hurt
It should be something
To feel
But it's too cold outside
And now it's in

I don't love the child
Who used to love me
Or the family that
Always welcomes me home
I don't know
How to hold my pets
The way I used to
I feel like a robot wearing gloves

And maybe someone will
Sing songs to my
Skeleton
A hundred years from now

I've never made an impact
I've never taken a step
And now it's just a treadmill
Cyclical hell
And I want to lay down

I'm tired
Too tired.

Can you not see it in my face
Etched in my hands
Nobody was surprised

How I've got nothing left
Inside
I am blood and paper
Human and irony
Empty basements

And it's moments like this
I understand
That the pills
They
Don't
Work.

You want everything
That isn't yours.
We're patching the ugly pieces
And pasting over the bad photos.
Don't get sad
Get angry.
You're always angry at me.
I'm trying my best.
I'm bleeding from my hands.
If I could cut out any more of me
I'd look like a cadaver.
Maybe that's what I already look like.
I just want you to smile.
I will never be the face you want
When you open your eyes.
Things have been done backwards.
They are irreparable.

I am not the future
Nor am I the past.
I'm barely the present.
I'm a pillow to sleep on,
Not necessary,
Only comfortable.
I know that I can't fix anything.
I'll crucify myself trying.
I wish I was the one you think about
At night.
I wish you wanted to hold me
Half as much as you did her before.
Now the memory
Is here forever
Because of it.
My resentment is lead poisoning.
I think maybe
I should lay down.

I keep trying not to watch
Myself
Eating me alive.
You're mean when you're drunk.
I'm mean when I'm unhappy.
If you look closely
(But not really)
You just might see
A correlation.
I just wanted you to be
The gauze in my chest.
I can't fill the holes,
I was born with these.
There isn't even blood pouring out
Anymore.
The scar tissue happened
So long ago.
There's nothing that can be done.

I'll never be
The first.
No matter how many times
I **** myself
I won't be
The last.
I hear it
When you cough
But it's my lungs that are
burning.
I know someday
I'll open my eyes
And I'll have to remember
How to breathe
With water in my lungs too.

I do not have high hopes.
I don't have hope
At all.
While I stand here
Trying to close
The shutters in the storm
The hail
Breaks all the windows
And I crack
With every
Piece
Of glass.
I wasn't built for this.

I'm not a figure
Even when I wish I was.
I will always be looking from
Outside the window
Wishing I had the money
To truly change things
When I don't.
Even if
I found myself a billionaire
Blood is thicker
Than the layer
Of pennies at the bottom
Of a wishing fountain.

You sit there
Your eyes plastic
Like all the little dolls
I used to love
And I wish I could be that pretty.
Every time
You fix yourself
Onto something else.
I find myself buried
A little deeper in the toy chest,
And you won't remember
My old nickname in a while.
I'm trying hard
To forgive
And accept things
For the ugly way they are.
The more I fight the current,
The more I taste the salt
In the riptide.
I was never
Even
Here.

Why can't you just
Look at me.
She got the last laugh.
She has the permanent reminder.
I am temporary,
The current obsession.
I was never
Even
Here

Who do you turn into
When the mornings lose their splendor
And have nothing left to offer
But another set of steps
And what does it feel like
To breathe fire, so deep
You **** your inner child
Because they shouldn't have to live like this
There's a million reasons why
All the eyes, behind your eyes
Are haunting
You've seen and known
So much
And it's eating you
The way you eat
The insides of your cheeks
When you're too nervous
The way you walk says
"I've drowned four times"
Once in childhood
Twice in the pool, on purpose
And a fourth in the bottle
On top of the fridge
And who am I writing to
What voice am I using
Am I as scared as last time
Am I half as empty
Fill me up with gold
So I can sell out
One last time
And I'll disappoint you then, too
I am in shambles
Wrapped in cables
Freshly broken
Thrown against the tarmac
Taking off to new horizons
In hell
And I can't tell you how it feels
To bleed so much
Your ears scream
For something other than your heart beating
Because you can't stand the sound
Ringing
And when you fill up the tub again
And everything smells like iron
You can't take it
This parasitic body
That you just want to ****
But that means losing yourself
Deeper and deeper
And it buries itself
Nesting
Hiding in your sins
It moves behind your eyes
Everything you've ever done
Wrapped up in a blanket
Pink and new
And you pushed it so far away
But the idea
Draws you back
Like a magnet the size of the sun
Maybe things aren't that bad
Maybe I'm not the medication
And then you ran so far
So far away
Because the thought of being human again
Hurts too much
And now it's just
Grasping at straws
Chasing breadcrumbs
Trying to remember
How it feels to be here
To really be here
Father
Son
Holy Ghost
The trinity to save us
The triage of forgiveness
And yet I can't face them
You can't grasp a white robe
With muddy hands
And so we try to do it ourselves
Hamsters on the wheel
And someday maybe
After years of evolution
We'll figure out
How to get out of the cage

I have become
The queen
Of my own dreamscape
A hell I built
Of myself
And for myself

I have seen the blood
And smelled the sulphur
I have touched the caked on dignity
And erupted from the grave

That I dug for myself
And dig deeper
Every time I close my eyes
The thoughts dance for me
Writhing masses of guilt
And things I pine for
Things I'll never have

Because the time is not now
But when I sleep
The time is right
Because there isn't time at all
And I wish,
if not for this self inflection,
That I'd forget like I'm supposed to

I used to only remember
The splatter and heart attacks
That haunted me
The external demons
That I swore would devour me
Absorb my soul
And burn me alive
From the outside

The dreams that made me sleep walk
But now it's as if
Even in my waking
I am deeper
In my own internal nightmare
A hell built by myself

The new queen
Of all things ****** up
Of broken mirrors
And repressed memories
With every blink I take
I am discovering
A deeper capacity
For longing

And I have opened wounds
I never knew were there
And it's as if
My skin means nothing
Because when I sit in the black throne
My muscles twist
And tear
And convulse while still on my bones

With every breath I inhale
The concrete settles
On my bones
And in my blood
And on my family

We're all in this together
The foundation
Is cracking
And soon this house
Will burn down with me

I dive into an ocean
So deep within the grey matter
I didn't know existed
Things
Get
Heavier
I wonder when I'll crack from the pressure

What happens when
You stay up too late
And your chest feels empty still
You look up by yourself
Into the inky blackness
And see the soul of the sky
Staring back at you
And a million other tiny eyes
Silent
Watching
Wondering about everything
And I can't help but worry, too
While I'm trying to sleep
Of all the little things
Like the day I won't hear
You breathing in my ear
And it cripples me.
I wonder
When's the next time it'll rain
And when my well will run dry
How hard it must be
To start a war
A real one
Among men with guns
And options, opinions
There's a million on my mind
All the time
And I lit the fuse for every one
Sometimes when you look at me
I think I'm dreaming
I used to think our ribs maybe
Were separated sometime in creation
And we were puzzle pieces
Meant to be
In this big picture
But other times
I think that maybe
my heart strings
Are more attached to that
Pearl in the nether
Than the home under me
Or the key in my hand
And it's not your fault
I'm disconnected
Someday maybe we'll visit a tomb
Just maybe
And you'll feel how the wind
Can suddenly rush through
A plain stillness
And how the dust resettles
And nothing changes
The way the emptiness is pressing
So loud you can hear the blood
Behind your ears
And maybe then you'll know
How it feels to be illuminated
Yet dead at the same time
But not for lack of trying
And I think that maybe
We're both the same
An old set of catacombs
That seemingly never intersect
Yet somehow
If there's a shout loud enough
They echo into each other
And the whole place hums
We feel the same and somehow
My soul is still on its own plane
Am I selfish
Or simply nonexistent
And can I really truly
Love from this far away
I think the moon would know
How to love this deeply
Yet spend so much time watching
But I'm so small
And I wonder all the time
If that's something
I was ever meant to fathom

i rise with the temperature
ripples off the sidewalk
like all the pools i've jumped in every summer of my life.

i am 8, and the world is the brightest yellow
video games, family, bike rides
from daybreak to sundown
the smell of the trampoline stuck to my hair
sunburnt skin and grass stains
the thrum of cicadas and mourning doves
in one huge chorus, like the heartbeat of the earth
cigarette smoke clings to everything, but no one cares
saturday nights are when everyone plays cards
and the kids are all together
endless games in the basement, and down the hall

everything sighs.
taps the hurt in its chest.

i am 10
and the summer just means i'm home again
everything is a blue, like the sky above the ugly neighborhood
my knees with little lines on them
from being pressed against the vent on the floor
looking out the window
feeling the dusty a/c
wondering how much more a person could feel.
reading books in my room
listening to the birds, and toddler fighting outside
swimming at the apartments, learning to dive
the Cardinals are winning, with the bases loaded
and i've been reading this book so long
the carpet left marks on my arms

everything waits.
draws a blank.

i am 13.
the summer just means it's too hot to wear jeans
things have been gray for a long time now
the laughter from the other kids
still not quite as loud as the ones in the mirror, or behind my eyes
waking up is like treading quicksand
new school, new things to hate
new things to do wrong, places to be invisible
my island surrounded by an ocean made of black glass
i don't remember what home feels like

everything blinks.
takes a second to steady itself.

i am 14
i couldn't feel the heat if it set me on fire
there isn't color
no black or white, or shades of gray
i've seen the color people see when they go blind
all the organs have left my chest
wind whistles through my cavities, plays on my ribs
just as hollow as my eyes look
no words came out when none were passed to me
breaking the stolen scissors on the bathroom floor
i promised myself i would learn to feel something
but they were blunt
nothing magic poured out of my skin
im not a red balloon, im a tree stump

everything stops.
retraces its steps.

i am 15.
things are just as they were
i am back looking at the sky over apartments
pink hair brighter than the sunlight
but a monster is gnawing deep at my rib cage
my mind says the grass is green
but the world has turned mud brown
the kind that gets stirred up when it thunderstorms
kind of like i do every other evening
over a boy who took my virginity, told me to **** myself
it was my fault when he put fire in his skin
my fault no one loved him
i didn't do enough
i hoped the summer would set me on fire again

everything looks down
forces the recollections out

i am 16.
the summer means weeks away from home
spent drunk with friends promised to the army
the stories and the veil over my eyes, the best team
everything is a sick neon green
i wanted so badly to know what love felt like
to make the green turn into pink
for the clouds to come down and let me touch them
but then i remember its just the acid i did
everything will be gray again soon

everything shuts its eyes
hesitates

i am 17.
the summer is a bluish black
it means no school, no people, the color of asphalt
a best friend i had since i tamed my car
the concept of freedom plays with my hair with the windows down
but i know i'm not going anywhere
suddenly things are eggshell white
the color of the walls in the apartment
i'm always trapped in one of those
there for *** and verbal abuse
hoping i make a better punching bag than a person
i know things are a little better when i play guitar on the roof
and play games and smell like sunburn,
just like when i was a kid

everything cries
wonders why everything happens the way it does

i am 18.
the summer isn't here yet
i dream in flashes
vast blue and green, the day i first got to know you
im not ready to be inside four white walls again
the pink ones exude a comfort i can't express
i feel a silent loneliness caress my ribcage again
and suddenly i am 10
wide eyed and quiet
i push my glasses back onto my face
and hope i get a phone call soon
calculating how to make 3 weeks fit into 3 hours
then giving up on all of it
wanting from a wishing well far deeper than my own
to be able to fly with you to the desert
where things will be yellow again
but i know far more than i did
money and the concept of medication bare their teeth my direction

everything sits.
none of it is worth thinking about anymore.

numbness bites my fingertips now
somewhere in the pit of my stomach
i wrote a note about the memories
and not really wanting to repeat
the summer

When you talked to me
I hope it bumped your confidence
I hope my skin
Made you feel like Adonis
I hope I tasted exactly like
Whatever you'd been missing
I hope my makeup stained your t-shirt
And you'll remember how
You felt when I let you touch me
For the very first time
You'll remember it forever
So help me God

So many years have gone by
But I've been sitting at the table, stuck
Looking for all my puzzle pieces
And it's always incomplete
You took every part of me
And built your life's mosaic
While im left
Missing edges
All holes in the middle


And I hope
The next time you kiss her
I hope it makes you sick
I hope she tastes like venom
And I hope she bites you back
I hope you learn how bad it aches
To stop your own bleeding
To climb out of this pit
Stacked high with ruined moments
Soaked and steeped in blood for years

And I hope
Most of all
You crawl home on all fours
Across miles of eggshells
Like the ones you made me stand on
Every minute
Every day

I hope you someday have to wonder
If you're full of dust inside
And if they ever cut you open
Would you feel it at all?

Because even though
Every day I'm born again
My cells are new.
You haven't touched me.

You still haunt the empty spaces
In the back of my mind
Your fingers wrapped around my veins
And held me down in place
There's a scream in my mouth
And it sounds like
Alexander


And while I'm busy treading water
And trying to survive
There's so many people to talk to
But nobody to listen
When the pieces fit again,
The puzzle is old and bored
And everyone wonders
Why it took me 10 years
Just to lay a ******* outline

The truth is
I've been missing the picture
Since the day I let you in.

Sometimes i can’t cope with the mundane
The abrupt end of it all
Everything stops making sense
I watch my own body from above
So i surround myself with people
Very Passionate People

There are those so drowned in anguish
So doused in dread
They take up the room with it,
Like something between
vinegar and gasoline
There’s weight to the air, like iron
The ache pouring from their skin
Like spores
Taking root in my cracks and sockets
And in my soul
And in my memories
Embedding their nightmares
In between every floorboard
And every time it happens,
I feel whole again

There are people i see
Who’s smiles scream like the sun itself
Their skin smells like honeysuckle
They are always warm
Every breath, every word
Feels like new life
Like dandelion wishes, and soft grass
Kisses on picnic blankets,
Driving too fast
They burn white hot, yellow,
Setting fire to my judgement,
And every time it happens,
I feel whole again

There are those who like lanterns
Burning on a dark road in a new moon
And you’re a moth to their flame
But every word they speak
Whips hard enough to split the skin
Every time your eyes lock
Your body aches, like lead poisoning
Their eyelashes make your bones brittle
You’re too enthralled to tell them that
Yes, you’re terrified
But they make you writhe like a snake
They grip you just as hard
And you like it
They stain your bedsheets
Sickly, rotted green
And every time it happens
I feel whole again

And there are others
Blank canvases
Locust shells
Hallowed out trees,
Ruined by pestilence
Forgotten, left to fester
Left behind generations ago
It’s a miracle there is breath in those bodies
It’s a wonder they have souls anymore
Do they know that they’re ghostly
That they’re in purgatory?
I don’t think they have the will
Still, their motions are effortless
A cotton dress on a downhill stream
Something beautiful, taken so far away
Sunken to the depths, despite all things
And every time it happens,
I feel whole again

The trouble is
In knowing this
Encyclopedia of personages
The yellowpages of my life
I can’t stay vacant this long
There will be color on these walls again
Photos in these halls again
And i cannot choose them
All the people i meet and see
Leave their fingerprints on all the mirrors
Staining what i see when i look for myself
And it seems that
After too long
I’ll remain the marble statue
With a pretty new visage,
A beautiful, distracting mask
Made entirely of
Everyone I’ve ever met

We danced
All through the evening
Now I’m stained with your cologne
I never was supposed to
And i don’t want to go home

See my thoughts are riddled with you
Like a termite, my chagrin
How do i go to sleep now,
I let my deepest worries win

And what am i to do
With nothing left to swoon
I’ve lost my only axis,
A planet with no moon