there is no such thing as an antihero,
only a villain
who has found an exuse,
an antagonist who can speak more prettily than
all the others
who can lie holes straight through
the hero's
heart,
find their place in the universe
and blot it out on the map because
the universe
does not tend towards anything
but solitude.

you will find yourself all alone.

you will find yourself all
alone
and you can snap the neck of every doll you own but
despair will never be anything more than
an unrequited love, an
attachment that you never grew out of, a
high school crush that you stapled to your heart so as you grew it was like
a gastric bypass
you cannot hold as much love in your heart
as your mother
said you could
but you can kiss and sigh and with every moue you'll wonder just
why
your chest feels fit to burst when you get any deeper than
touch
heart fit to rupture you are the main villain
of every book
i've read
the antagonist in every story you are
the angry girl whose doll parts
lay in pieces
at her feet
whose bomb will detonate if you get too close
{the character i could relate to the most the character i hated the most the character
i talked to whenever i could and
memorized every line to replay, god
i hate
the way you speak
and i want
to hear
it more}
i ripped out your staples and added my own.
{despair will never reciprocate but
i understand you i
do
because we are the same and i hate you because
you hate yourself
and i could give you nightmares every night and
listen to your motives
every
morning
'people are disgusting'
you said
as if it was
a revelation}
you're not ****** up, just out of luck
because four-leaf clovers can't survive droughts.
you are seventyeight percent water
and every drop you spent on
drowning
the background characters
and every doll on your bedroom floor
{i love the way you cry when you laugh because every time
i hope
that one, that one tear
is the final drop wrung from the shroud
of a sailor a burial at sea
and you will crumble
into
dust}
you angry girl your eyes
are a yellowing bruise on the storyline
your backstory is a rash
on the protagonist's hands
and all your inner demons told you you were not alone but
you explained them away and
appeals to pity left you empty.
i will rip out all your staples i
will make you
seventyeight percent
saltwater
my heart is a mirror you can find yourself there and
reassemble yourself
from all your broken parts
i will be the blueprint from which
you rebuild
yourself

{a story is nothing
without
a villain}

you're a cns depressant i
knew from the moment i met you cause
i remember tasting you before:
the bottle of white
***
i stole from my mother like
fire and bitterness and
damp cloth across my mouth
drank you dry and
felt a little less volatile
fire fighting fire no room for hurt when i can just
lie here
and count every eye as it closes i
am argus:
all-seeing, hundred-eye
and everything i try to protect
is stolen when my eyes
close
{scatter my eyes on feathers
and never let them shut again}
deep draughts of you i
remember
your taste
and the way my skin buzzes and mind numbs
when you burn my throat.
you're a cns depressant and i,
the loneliest child on the west coast you thought
the california scene
was supposed to be
brighter than this
but i've lived here all my life and let me tell you:
every morning is
chill grey skies
and fog
that tastes tonic
without the gin, or
to put it differently:
everything i don't need not
fire just
damp chill
{i'm starting to think that
every california love story
is set in death valley because here
the ocean is cold in the height of summer
and the streets are empty at 5 am when i decide maybe
i should stop
writing
and make sure the world is still there}
and for me,
a child
with an empty bottle
and an empty room,
you were a monster
that i prayed i would find beneath my bed
you are a fugue state i dropped into willingly you
let me forget
that the water is cold
let me forget that this life
is the least compelling plot I’ve ever read
and i’m tempted to skip to the end
golden state fugue state in death valley sunburn girls
shed their skins like snakes and i
lust after empty husks
but i grew gills when i tried to drown in the bay i could
never be as hollow as that i
bite my lip and hope i'll bleed this time
instead of just aching
{no more aches just fire and fog if
i bleed
catch it in an inkwell you know
black ink
is worth more than my blood
send my letters to the red cross and spill red across the pages}
no more aches just fire and fog i
always liked myself more when i was on a stage
hope this story will skip to the end
cause i don’t think I can take another apathetic word i wish
this narrator
had drowned before her gills could form
but i feel a little less alone with my hand around your neck
you’re a cns depressant you  
held my hand as i burned
you made me a chain of four leaf clovers and i swallowed every one i think
you made a bad decision
when you chose to help me survive

only dead boys hold insects like they're something
special
only a dead boy would let a mantis in his heart and
preying was always a better descriptor
because hymns burned in my throat and
i scratched a cross into my palm but i was never lucky enough to scar
but
oh, dead boy
bug lover
enduring a thousand lashes to save the soul of a beetle  -
i'll help you peel off all your scabs to make sure they scar
thick tissue skin memory sometimes you think scars are the closest you'll get
to a wedding ring
you're a suicide king i think a kingdom of hearts was never the safest place for you i
don't think you understand the way your subjects' hearts are strung because
entomology entomos everything you love is cut to bits
and on the fourteenth of february you told me
the only purpose of a flower
was to hold
a spider
inside
and i guess that was why you painted all your walls with roses i
hope your garden  smells as sweet
covered in your misfortunes
only a dead boy would let
a praying mantis so close
to his neck
oh, you freak. disgusting.
i ate the last one that let me this close.
you told me {if i die
leave my body
in the forest
by
an anthill}
maybe you don't realize we were doomed from the start or maybe you're just naïve but
honey you're a dead boy and
corpses don't fall in love.
[you're so genuine it hurts and i think
i could teach you how to be a fake -
nobody likes an honest man
i could teach you how to hate the world but you said

{the only one
i hate here
is me}]

freakish child.
all you see in every rorschach is mantes and
decapitations and
wedding rings you are an aberration,
suicide king entomologist your throne room
was full of termites.
with hallowed cheeks and hollowed churches,
i will assure that you scar
dead boy, if you die
i will put maggots
in your chest

he only wants you in the way that means
he can wrap himself around you like a cocoon to help you
change you'll be
a butterfly
something different from what you are which is
flawed so flawed i don't want to touch you don't want
to talk to you just
write poems about the way your hands fist in the pockets of your jacket
i hope you'll go with him because
no matter how many poems i write about the way you
hurt and hate and hope in helpless hollows i know
it'll still burn
like a rope you tried to catch when you fell but
it just caught the skin of your palms
[please don't ever open my notebook you
look at it sometimes when i'm writing i
don't ever want you to see the way
i romanticize
your pain it's not
beautiful or poetic it's just sad
i wish you were happy but i just keep
writing poems about
your misery
and when you surface when you emerge from your cocoon i will
write odes dedicated to the selfishness
that would keep you hurting so i could
feel something when i look at you]
he only wants you in the way that
stitches want an open wound and
i know you want to be mended but no,
no,
nobody can fix you but you and they,
they will try but just
stitch embroidery
into your back
you are the seamstress and the shredded quilt:
you can stitch yourself together you just need to find the thread
and love is no substitute
for a sharp needle.
don't unclench your fists for
any lover who promises to
fix you
don't shotgun old wounds like thick smoke
if they promise anything more
than to hold them
in their
lungs
until the pain eases
just a little.
he will cocoon you
and let you out confused
and hurt
and hating yourself because you didn't change
you are
not
a butterfly
you will not wake up beautiful:
just learn to be full because the end of the word
is all that matters
and the last words of a relationship
are the most honest.

when you stitch yourself together
i will wear the rope that caught your palms like
a silk collar
pour your perfume like lighter fluid
and burn my notebook
and hope that no one writes ballads
to your clenching fists
again

if you were comatose i wouldn't worry so much**

everything i write i write for you so when you read this please stop and
close your eyes and
notice me leaning against your back and reading over your shoulder sometimes i
reread my words and try to imagine how you feel when you
read them
but i read them and i feel so empty i hope you don't feel the same because
people have told me i made them cry but
i find that hard to believe when i just make myself
bored
just know i'm curling around your feet i'm hoping my words will help you when you want to hurt
i'm hoping you know i wrote this for you because
i know you read this in the dark in your room in solitude with
the light of your screen turning you
pallid and blue but
you know
blue is better than red
black words on a white screen i read once that monotony is ataractic but it
just makes me itch and
i hope i'm an anomaly and you're part of the norm because i don't know how to make you feel
something i don't know but
i'm trying everything i can
i want you calm i hope my words can be
a soporific for you they say
that you're not alive unless you hurt unless you never stop moving but
in that case maybe i want you in a coma because
i saw what
being alive
did to you
please sleep they say it isn't art if it doesn't make you
uncomfortable if it doesn't make you itch but
artistry was never in my future anyway i just want you to have my words when
you want to test your nerves to see if they're
picking up any signal at all because
your emotions are flatlining but maybe the physical sensation's still there and
you are so ragged and i hope i smooth your edges at night when you can't sleep and you seek out
the light that makes you pallid and words
written just for you and
maybe that night you won't
itch so bad
i wrote this for you because i know when you're alone with pallid light and music you
want to hurt but please
close your eyes i'm right behind you i'm
leaning over your shoulder and trying not to cry because
you don't need another burden cause
all your thoughts are
the heaviest material on earth but i can make it better
i can make my words meaningless enough that they can lift you up just
a little more you
don't have to stand on your own my words can hold some of the weight because
maybe you grew up too fast or maybe not at all cause
i can tell your body is far too heavy for your heart to support and
sometimes your hands are too far away for blood to reach them
cause a pulse can only do so much and
sometimes it feels like simply living is another type of malaise but
maybe i can ease that just for the minute it takes for you  to read this and
close your eyes and
feel me against your back i
just make myself bored but maybe i can help you
i hope my words are so monochrome they help you sleep
i hope my words are so empty they're like
air sacs to help you stay upright  i
hope nothing i say resonates with you because
the world gives you enough to swallow you don't need one thing more
my words can be your sleeping pills
i wrote this for you so you could sleep easy tonight
and i'll hold your hand and hope you don't dream

roll with the punches baby try not to shatter while you wait to
feel it
it might take a while for every synapse to come alive but
i promise you'll feel it in the end
light up like a christmas tree with every nerve impulse 100 watts your body
will light up the room.
you cast shadows on the moon and i wonder why
is it so cold?
(this wasn't what i wanted when i picked up a pen,
but it seems
like every poem becomes part of you
your blood runs in these pens and i can't help writing about you and your
talus -
that word means both
jagged rocks when you look down from a cliff and oh is this what you want
and the bone of your heel
that you grind into my chest and ****,
i think
that sums you up
pretty well.)
because your sparks were always the best thing about you,
when you short-circuit and sputter and all your lights flicker your synapses
have more life than they know what to do with
roll with the punches and cradle your cheek and be grateful that
at least you didn't crack
because electricity and water don't mix and you've killed enough sharks
in your lifetime.
you don't need another funeral on the mind
when you're still watching the procession
of your own -
(or maybe it's just a fantasy
which is
more likely than not,
you were never able to face that talus
at the bottom
or your christmas lights sputtering and
stopping) -
you watch your own funeral and breathe and i
pray
to god for a miracle
because your measured breaths are the saddest thing i've ever seen because i know
you're just breathing by eights

[eight protons eight neutrons eight seconds in and out
atomic number eight processes to stay alive]

the periodic table hung on your wall like a map of the world you
breathe by eights and i pray harder and breathe ragged you were always more measured than me like
you're morse code and i'm an earthquake
you're heart rate and i'm arrhythmia
you're chemistry and i'm alchemy and you disprove me with every breath
you the child of bright mathematics i crumble in your gaze
but still you short-circuit and i stroke your hair and breathe ragged while you sputter
your synapses can't hold all your life so i'll conduct the overflow
ground your talus in my chest and i will take all your flickers for my own.
it might take a while
but you'll feel it
i promise
because it's not so cold with your short-circuits in my chest and i bet it's not so numb
with my pens scratching your arms
you light up and i wonder how you can breathe so steady
with all this smoke
in the air
(i was breathing  ragged already but you said asthma suits me and
i guess you're right because
you were always the one with all the elements memorized while i
struggled to remember that air
could be something other than
painful)
you short-circuit and i stroke your hair and pray
for your numbers to add up
this time
and you sigh and disprove me
again
because i only live in your flickers and sputters and my
ragged breath
and i pray you will flare brighter light up stronger because
when you feel that punch
i can't conduct that impulse.
roll with the punches baby you'll feel it i promise it
just takes a while
breathe by eights keep that heart rate steady
you imagine your funeral procession and sputter
i breathe ragged baby i will take all your misfires
and write odes to your sparks
just be ready for that feeling when it hits.

i spent a year as a ghost and when the equinox came i choked on every sunset i had seen and passed out in your attic, i'll just wait here until you realize the chains don't rattle anymore and maybe you'll wonder what happened to that unwanted guest or maybe you'll just be thankful it's gone, maybe my ectoplasm will drip through the attic floor and into your bed and with  a passenger in your dreams they'll be even lonelier than before i'm sorry i keep corroding a hole in your heart but i can't help the way my ghost-self falls and when it's gone altogether you'll be a ghost of your former self, walking in the shell of your life glazed eyes glazed words glazed world a ghost with a body is the worst kind of all cause they never fade away to heaven they just linger and linger and linger until they ROT and you can't forget that a ghost was there not with that body on the floor and could you have helped them it's hard to tell you never were an exorcist but maybe if you tried hard enough you could have put some of your life in that body or just ripped the ghost free and ended the misery, heart corroded through and i in my ectoplasm will wait in your bed wait for your shell-body to give up the charade each night and with my arms holding you you'll be lonelier than before - i spent a year as a ghost and cried over your bright eyes every night, i spent a year as a ghost but now, i the ghost of a ghost and you the living ghost in a breathing corpse, we're a modern romance horror story of the eternal kind, and when your heart's corroded through i'll hold you so tight but for now i will wait in your attic, putrefying ectoplasm and bitter sunsets, i never felt this much when i breathed and now it's caught up with a vengeance out for blood when i have none to spill i'll just lie here and choke and wait for this to pass this will pass this will pass this too shall pass, you move below and gam zeh ya'avor i pray this for you that your bitter life shall too pass, i spent a year as a ghost and watched you moan every night i spent a year as a ghost and watched you curled up on linoleum the only thing i could do was sink inside and try to absorb some of what you felt but i think all i did was corrode you further, i'm sorry i'm so sorry that my body is acid and my arms just eat you through, i tried to be your friend but i just made you lonelier your dreams are so empty when you're held by a ghost, they say you only dream of people you know so it's no wonder you dreamt of nothing everyone disappeared so fast it was hard to believe they'd been there at all, a mirage a puff of smoke you never really knew and that fled when it got ***** and dressed in all the white clothing you owned you laid on the bathroom floor and breathed smoke you laid on the floor and ground your knuckles into your eyelids as my ectoplasm dripped into your open eyes and cupid was a demon that ripped at your chest and laughed cupid was a demon and you brought that demon to your bed again again i cried i cried and you bled from all the scratches in your chest and s i g h e d, cupid hissed snarled bit but you know everybody has their flaws closer so much closer you held and cupid ripped though to the other side i told you i told you so but you just sit on your bed with your back against the wall and your hollow torso bleeds you sit on your bed eyes blank eyes glazed and bleed and i drip in your chest, i tried to warn you i tried but now i'll just lay in your attic and wait because the chains don't clank anymore to give you some kind of company in your empty house empty life, maybe you'll notice and here you can find me - the floor of your attic was always the closest i could get to heaven.