It's clawing up my stomach
What did I do to myself?
It's in my chest, with a hammer and a drum
What have I done?
It's in my throat, with a cork and a bottle
What am I going to do?
It speaks foul words
Sitting on my tounge and spitting them at you

I miss red
I miss dirt
Getting tired
Getting hurt
I miss children
I miss their songs
Plans changing
Going wrong
I miss the milky way
And the birds
The brand new voices
The brand new words
I miss the heat
I miss the taste
But I'll never miss it here
I'll never miss the waste

My eyes open in the morning
And I'm already in tears
I can't do this anymore
I can't do this anymore
My heart is feels like it's pumping molasses through my body
It's pounding so hard and slow
I don't want to get out of bed
I'm so miserable
I'm so miserable
The anxiety floods my body faster than I can pray that today will be better
God help me
God help me
It feels like there are green needles poking into my skin - everywhere
I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE
I'm only 17
I wake up every morning
Pierced with needles green
Another day of "learning"
Another day of being mean
To keep the people off my back
Get these ******* people off my back
High school is just a pair of eyes
All they do is stare
High school is just a set of lips
All they do is wear
You away
You're nothing but a letter
If you're not a trend setter
We make you wake up in the morning
Already feeling like I'm mourning my own funeral
I walk off campus and my lungs fill with air again -
So rapidly I burst into tears
I made it through another day
I made it through another day
But there's always another one coming

Not enough meds
To deal with the cotton buzzing in my head
Not enough to sky
To lessen the dryness of my eyes
Not enough drink
To quench my thirst before I sink
Not enough food
To fill me up the way You should
Not enough rain
To clean my wounds and end the pain
Not enough of him
Not enough at all

ring . . . ring . . . ring
Please leave a message . . . Beeeeep*
Uh hey, it's me.
So, I just got out of the shower and well . . .
While I was in there, I'd put my Zune on shuffle, ya know, on the dock and that acoustic version of Such Great Heights started playing and I froze - like, just in the middle of washing my hair and started singing along. And then I started dancing, like a slow, spinning in a circle dance, like they do at weddings cause I was pretending it was our wedding. So I was just in the shower, soap still in my freaking hair, dancing by myself like *******, thinking about our wedding.
I don't know, I just thought you'd want to know that. I think that should be our first dance song.

*click

In the Fall it smelled like hickory smoke and rotting leaves and maples
I would stand outside on the cold dry porch, cutting my bare feet on the staples
It reminded me of Camp David, when the fog layed on the water
I was all alone and the weather wasn't getting any hotter

In the Winter it smelled like diamonds and sugar and glacial water
I would run about in the yard, feeling my toes freeze slowly
It reminded me of Leavenworth, when I would get trapped underneath the porch
I was all alone and I carried a torch

In the Spring it smelled like candy and apple blossom trees
I would read poetry on the lawn chair, feeling it scratch my arms
It reminded me of Christ and the blood he must have spilt
I was all alone and it was becoming hell

In the Summer it smelled like fire, cotton candy and beach sand
I would lay on the porch and let myself melt
It reminded me of Roslyn where we wrote our names in charcoal on cliff faces
I was all alone because I'm a girl that someone replaces

I believe her tears would mix with mine
If mine weren't thick and hers weren't fine

I don't care that you lied about not having advice to give
All I need now is for you to give it
Kellie, my heart has never
In all the times I haven't been in love
Been more broken and alone than now
I need you my sister
I need to know the things that I don't
Please don't make me search anymore
I have never needed you more than when
I screamed out to an empty sky
Hoping you would hear me
Maybe you can hear me
Sister, I need your heart
I need you to be vulnerable
I am so, so alone
Kellie, I am as alone as you once were
I need you
I need you
I need you

mnyamata,
it's been 9 months. I'm 16 and you're 17. We've known one another since we were little. Little little. In Sunday school, when you were the angry little boy who didn't feel like he belonged and I can't remember what kind of little girl I was. You say we were friends, I say we weren't. I don't know if either of us really remember. When I was 11, you moved away. I don't remember minding much, apart from missing your sister, who was my friend. You got tall and tan and sweet. I got skinny and tall and smart. Now we're both a little chubby but I don't think either of us really care. Four years you were gone. The day you walked through the doors of my church, I was the first person to hug you. You got home June 16th. I knew I liked you on June 17th. I knew I loved you on the Fourth of July. We started dating on the 28th of July. I was your first kiss on the 18th of August. It's been 9 months. I don't care that I'm 16 and you're 17. I don't care that you're sick all the time. I don't care about anything except the moment 4 and a half years from now when I can be yours officially. I will pinky promise you all my years at the altar.

ndimakukonda

Lips dripping with the blood of gardens, you caught my eye and held it close, like the crying babe I was in my heart. Regaling us with imagined tales of space travel, your eyes turning the chrome color of a sleek, silver ship. You can place your hands on my shoulders, my cheeks, my slowly tanning arms, I am your crutch and you are my captain. You can place your mouth so close and stare at my lips dripping with the blood of gardens, and I fail to accept that I am real to you.

I keep thinking you're lying in the adjoining bed.
That you're sprawled out, tangled in blankets, your hair a wild mess.
I have the desperate urge to crawl over towards you.
To stroke your errant curls from your forehead and kiss your face.
Whisper your name in your ear until you wake up.
To place my head on your chest and listen to your funny little heart, beating just a bit too quickly.
Your eyes would open and you'd be frustrated at it.
But you would hear your funny little heart and know I was there and we'd be okay.

There can be no hell without the hope of salvation
There can be no bliss without the fear of misery
There can be no hate without the promise of atonement
There can be no love without the threat of competition
There can be no peace without the history of war
There can be no war without the intention of peace
There can be no happiness without the guarantee of its absence
There can be no sadness without the choice of its arrival

A girl with a big broken family
A boy with a big broken heart
Once they are thrown together
They can never be torn apart

Anxiety is - waiting for the car to pull up, stomach eating itself away. Every minute needs a blueprint and you twist into one big knot trying to write them all.

Plans move forward
I fight to move with them
Held back by what -
But my own head
I see my children's faces
Flashes, patterns
Today is a fight for them
Knowing they're on their way
Keeps me on mine

After years of being nulled to stone
Blood run dry and flesh gone cold
My words can make me feel so old
But my wounds are always fresh

Why can't I decide?
"Because he's a good one" she said
But I still can't decide
And I'm dying inside
Because no matter how hard I try
I still can't decide
How I feel

I am Mary
Looking upon Lydia with disdain
Oh how I'd love to look like Jane
But truly
I want to be Elisabeth
I am Mary
Waiting for someone to answer me
Oh how I wish I was the same
But really
I want to be Elisabeth
I am Mary
And I try to be the best
Oh how I try to tease and jest
But truly
I only look a fool
I am Mary
Holding myself above all else
Oh how I'm told to be myself
But really
I want to be Elisabeth

They fly
Tires screaming against the wet rocks
You're in that one
And that one
Everyone that passes
I don't recognize my face
I don't recognize these cars
Their faces rust and brown under the sky
My face dries and pales
They offer an escape
And I offer a prison
Is my prison so pleasant, as to persuade you to choose it?
Is their escape into bliss, or turmoil?
They pile in the driveway and rot
I lay on the carpet and let myself my tears melt my cheeks
Am I so hopeless?
Are you so far gone?
This music is all the same
Copied and bought like popularity
I am going to cry today
Is that what I need?
I am overflowing with feelings I can't identify
Thoughts about those feelings
Thoughts about those thoughts
Perhaps crying will empty me
Will I prefer being empty and known?
To being full of something I can't understand?
Is writing the answer?
You are everywhere and in everything in see
She taps her foot and it makes me angry
Is she aware how ridiculous she looks?
Why do I see her this way?
I use my hands for journals
The ink will make me sick
But I need to remember, don't I?
I am disgusted by my desires for fiction
And enthralled and heartbroken over my desires for nonfiction
This carpet has walked under my feet since my feet were small
The stains are mine
The rips are mine
Where I sit is new, but feels old
Your scars are on this seat
Or so I'd like to believe
How can image define us?
It reflects not of who we are
We are all so ignorant of the inside
I cannot quit
I am scattered and lost
Can anyone put me back together?

It is with regret that I gave up on you
And it is with regret that I return

I.
Have you always been this dark?
I asked the night.
There was no reply.
No one is sight.
Have you always been this cold?
I asked the wind.
There was no reply.
It brushed my shins.

II.
Curled against me
All but frozen
Save my fingers, toes and nose and
I knew that you have seen me here
Were you overcome by fear?
You didn't follow me outside
So now, with me, the night
Will cry

III.
Do you know what you've done?
Interrupting my scene
Ruining my fun
This is all about me

IV.
Have you always been this bright?
I asked the stars.
There was no reply.
Just the sound of cars.

We sprawled there
Roots of the galaxy
Tumble dry -
tumbling waterfall
Claws clipped
Digging into my shoulder
Veins of soil on your earthy pillow
Dripping, soaking mud
Every second was a supernova
Burning into life and dying into another
Fever filled marathon -
Digging in the dirt
Hoping to find the treasure box
We know we cannot keep
But we dig it up anyway

If I could have your lips pressed to mine like flowers
Pressed flowers
Pink and silky
Thick and silly
Sweet and milky
Pressed lips
And pressed flowers
He loves me
He loves me not

She smiles at the dark
She laughs at the shadows
She stares at the emptiness
She sings for the hollow
And you think her crazy
She thinks you blind

She talks to nothing
She cries out to the nothing
She holds her hands out to the nothing
She loves the nothing
And you think her crazy
She thinks you lack passion

She reads sensless text
She says sensless things
She beileves sensless things
She writes about sensless things
And you think her crazy
She thinks you lack faith

She dances with the masses
She sings with the masses
She cries with the masses
She prays with the masses
And you think her crazy
She thinks you alone

She may be broken
But she is not the victim
She may be crying
But she is not the victim
She may be battered
But she is not the victim
**A victim wouldn't terrorize

Here I am
Sitting alone
Thinking of your little fingers
Everyone else seems to take them for granted
But I will always love the work they do
Here's to you -
Little one -
I really hope you're having fun
Please don't grow up too fast
But I cannot wait to see the things you do
Here's to you

"Sometimes you treat me with disdain, other times with affection and love, both these treatments mixing in with one another until I can't tell if you're confessing love or hate for me, or confessing nothing at all and I reprimand myself for assuming that anything you do means anything, that the most likely scenario is that I am nothing to you, and then I wonder if I am missing the meaningful moments altogether and all these thoughts and hundreds of thousands of others come crashing through my head everytime you look at me and then once again when you look away, forming this huge, cacophonous, bewildering mass of everything that's happened within the last five minutes and how it relates to everything that happened five days ago and everything one friend has just whispered to me and everything my other friend has confessed and how it all fits together and it's like a puzzle but some of the pieces are invisible and others are far too big to fit and hold very little of the picture and some pieces are almost microscopic and hold the most important parts of the image and there's no picture on the box to go off of, there's not even a box, it's like I'm sitting underneath a chute that drops more pieces of the puzzle on me, sometimes huge heaps and sometime single pieces, so I wonder what I'm missing if I'm missing anything and some of the pieces are from other puzzles so I don't know which ones even matter to me at all, and this is how my head is every second of every minute of every day unbeknownst to everyone around me.

This is how you make me feel."


I'm the worst. I can't control my anger or my thirst. I'm so ******* confused, I might implode. My heart might just collapse beneath this load. No longer understand a single thing I think. Trying to drown myself in my bathroom sink. No longer recognize a single thing I say. No longer think that I can ever find a way. I'm ******* tired of treating you the way I do. Don't know how to love you how God wants me too. I don't know if my sanity I'll ever keep. I'll never know, so I'll just cry myself to sleep.

"I don't tend to use the phrase 'in love'" he said.

I sighed.

"Well, I do." I said sadly. "I'm not anymore, but I was. I really, really was."

He was silent.

"It's so weird to see all this." I gestured to the slideshow of pictures on the screen in front of me.
"This was all only a year ago, and my life is so different now. I thought that this-" I pointed to a picture of myself sitting very close to a chesnut haired boy "- would last forever."

More silence.

"I wonder if he thinks about this. I do. A lot. I don't think I have feelings for him anymore but I still always think about this. We were together from what. . . September 23rd-"

"That's oddly specific."

"To New Year's exactly. And I was still in love with him for four months after that."

"I don't tend to use the phrase 'in love'" he said.

I sighed.

"Well, I do." I said sadly.

We are all addictions
Impostions and
Inflictions
We are all we do and all we watch
And all we drink
We stand apart from other people
In their happy homes
And church steeples
We are all addicted
We are all addicted
We are all addicted
And we know
That there is hope

It was a secret that wouldn't stay secret
That I should have buried long ago
But instead I stayed awake staring at it
Sliding it under my pillow
Seeing you was more painful than I expected
But more painless than I hoped
I slid it out from under my pillow
And laughed, like it was a joke
I never expected to be here
And I know there is nothing I can do
But in my sickness, in my heartbroken state
I know now, I'm still in love with you

I need you not to panic
Not to "nevermind"
I need you not to run away
I need you not to hide
Stop putting walls around yourself
When I need you most
I just need you to talk to me
But you won't

I need you to be here with me now
And not lost in dreaming about the future
So many paths
Will it last
Neither of us can ever know
So please
Stop thinking about it
Think about now
I need you NOW
Not seven years from now
Two years, ten years
Too many tears spent wasted on
Fear of the future
Dear future husband -
I need you to see me
I'm right here beside you
Telling you that we can figure it out together
And you're trying to figure it out on your own
But the truth is
You can't tell the future
She needs you
I need you
I need you to see me
Please ******* believe me
There's no time for worry
Please - stop all this hurry
Just love me and hug me
Wait patiently for me
Don't jump the gun
Or you won't get to adore me
Have patience
Have patience
We can't tell the future
So stop all this crying
And stop all this trying to
Know what God's planned for us
After all
We're just dust
Just love me and hug me
And try not to lose me
I'll never let anything get in between
You and I
And our Father
Who art thou in heaven
He waits patiently for us
While we wait patiently for one another
Building
Blocks
Of
A
Marriage
Need
To
Dry

A recorder?
Or a flute?
A lover?
Or a lute?
A phantom?
Or a trick?
It could be anything
*I created it

5 days
It felt like such a while away
I never thought you would love me this long

The moonlight sliced your face in half
My fingers danced across your illuminated eyelid
You breathed me in -
Every cubic inch of me
As I breathed you out

I lost all thoughts in your perfection
This intersection -
Of my life
Has revealed the right path to take
You asked me what I was looking at.
It's you, it's you -
It's always you
But I was silent
And like always -
You met my silence with a kiss

A soft kiss

That grew hungry -
It ate me alive
And I never want to be digested -
No -
I want to live inside your hungry kiss forever

mnyamata,
I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I make everything such a big deal. I'm sorry that I'm crazy and dramatic. I'm sorry that I bother you about things. I'm sorry I tease you. I'm sorry you don't like the boundaries I asked for. I'm sorry I'm such a ***** to you about it. I'm sorry I have a curfew. I'm sorry that I want it there. I'm sorry for so much, for so many things I really shouldn't be, for so many things I can't control. I'm sorry that I'm sorry. I just feel like I have so much to be sorry for. I love you. I'm sorry for that too.

ndimakukonda

He said bye.
Such a small word, insignificant to me.
Yet it holds my heart in its grip.
He said goodbye.
To me.
Walking out the door, I hid my
shy glances
underneath a sheet of hair
expecting him to walk past.
But he knows now.
He knows.
I made a show of searching my bag,
so I wouldn't have to look at him.
But his voice
carried across the room to me
and only me.
My head snapped up
cracking my neck,
but I felt no pain.
He waved.
With HIS hand.
And said goodbye.
To ME.
I replied quickly,
nervously, heart hammering
inside my rib cage.
Maybe he wasn't talking to me?
I glanced around,
searching for a prettier face
and I found his.
Looking at me.
ME.
He was saying goodbye
to ME.
And only me.
His electric blue
eyes locked into mine,
drawing my face in,
I actually leaned forward.
If his eyes hadn't been soul
deep into mine, I would have
closed them, and breathed in
his scent and his voice.
HIS voice.
For ME.
And only me.
I stared after him,
watching him glance back once,
with his eyes and not
his head, before he disappeared
around a corner.
And it echoed.
HIS voice echoed in my mind,
MY mind.
And I wanted to collapse
on the floor,
in front of my friends,
who would giggle and laugh
and ooh and ahh
but I was alone.
He was alone.
And he said goodbye
to me
HE said goodbye.
To ME.
And only me.

I'm embarrassed
But that's okay, right?
I'm broken
But it's okay
I'm angry
But that's okay, right?

Yes you are
But that's okay.

Just when I feel you gone -
You arrive
Just when I feel you dead -
You survive
Just when I think I'm free -
You're not far
Just when I think I'm me -
There you are

I inhaled deeply, feeling the air rush into every curve of my lungs, strengthened from my cardio and breathing exercises. I pushed the air out of me, tightening my diaphragm. The little puffy dandelion seeds zoomed into the wind, little broom shaped pips spinning through the sky. I could you feel you watching me.

"What'd you wish for?" you asked softly.
I looked at you and leaned in to kiss your cheek. Your thin beard tickled my lips. I pulled away and wiped your cheek off with my thumb. In that moment, every moment of the last year rushed through my mind, every kiss, every poem, every laugh, every movie night, every time I caught you staring, every time I've stared, every time we've started at each other without anything to say besides "I love you", every present, every second, every prayer, every sickness, every thing you've every said.
"I think I need you."
"I love these places. Where I can kiss you without opening my eyes. Where I can see you with my lips."
"I am so infinitely, wonderfully in love with you."

Every tear, every smile, every thing. You were all there was.
You.

"You." I replied.

You disgust me
Your romantic tendency
Is worthless on this tounge
And your heart says swollen
But it's black as the pitch you roll in
Undecided and misguided
You torture her with words
The sweetest she's ever heard
And confused and refused
She lays her weights on me  
Her tears would blend with mine
If her's weren't thick and mine weren't fine

One day, none of this will matter.
Let's make that day today.
I think of you, not your pain.
How you make me painless - loved.
Together.
How you make me fearless.
Your lips on my forehead -
I am safe.  
And we are together.
One day, none of this will matter.
That day is today.
And you are all I see.

There can be no hell without the hope of salvation
There can be no bliss without the fear of misery
There can be no hate without the promise of atonement
There can be no love without the threat of competition
There can be no peace without the history of war
There can be no war without the intention of peace
There can be no happiness without the guarantee of its absence
There can be no sadness without the choice of its arrival

She writes like she's mad
Though she's not, she's just abandoned
Since the day this began, several choices she's been handed
On this trek through this war, she so longs for a companion
All decisions lead to the same place
All directions will lead to his face
She's fallen in the middle of a race
And there's blood streaming down her face

Everything's
Ripped paper and
Damp cheeks
I think I loved you cause
Your whole body shrieks
"I'm alone"

Everything's
Sparkly lace and
Blonde hair
Brunettes don't belong anywhere
In a world that screams sunshine but
Really means nighttime and
My time is crying to God

Is there a way
To get away
From a world that is dying to say
"You're not enough"

Everything's
Romance
****** and lust
I'd run away but
My bike's caked with rust
So I'm stuck

Everything's
Lovely ladies gone wrong
I used to be silent
Til I wrote this song
When everything's ***, drugs and money
Will God break a twenty
While everything slowly erodes

Can I be free?
Will I ever be me?
Stuck in a world that is trying to be
Someone else

Mnyamata
I'm not promising you I will marry you. I can't promise you that. We could break up, meet other people, things between us could go wrong, one of us could die or move away. **** happens. So when I say I'm going to marry you, I'm not promising. I'm telling you that I believe I will. That I want to SO badly my heart breaks every night I fall asleep without you. That I will do everything I can to make this last at least 3 more years until we can legally belong to each other. When I say I'm going to marry you, that isn't a promise. Those wedding vows I wrote a few months ago aren't a promise either, they are a rough draft. In the way that this relationship is a rough draft for a marriage. We can't promise to marry each other, we can just wait and wait and wait and wait. And then we can marry each other.
And maybe 3 years is too soon and one or both of us won't be ready yet. Maybe we'll need more time to be separate together, to be individuals in love, before we become a unit. Maybe. But maybe not. I can't promise you that either. And you can't promise me anything. Maybe we'll get married, maybe we won't. Maybe it'll be in 3 years, maybe in 6. I don't care. As long as God does what he wants for us, and we do what He wants for us, I know we'll be okay.
I desperately want to marry you and I'm going to try my hardest to make it happen, but I can't promise you it will. But that isn't a bad thing.

After all, I can promise that I am wickedly, pathetically, outrageously in love with you.

Ndimakukonda

And we fight
But it's alright
Because we both have tears to shed

And we fight
But it's alright
Because we'll fight until we're dead

A million thoughts inside my head
And none of them are kind
A pretty head atop my shoulders
But not a pretty mind
~
How pretty your eyes are
How pretty your nose
How pretty your legs'd be
If they remained closed
~
He may love me
But he doesn't know me
He may love me
But he doesn't show me
~
How can God be bigger than this?
A throttled cry
A bitter kiss
How can God be bigger than pain?
God doesn't speak
But here speaks pain again
~
I want to go to Africa
But why?
But why?
Because I've no right to cry
While they die
They die

mnyamata,
I'm sitting here, face sticky from dried tears, face aching from smiling so hard, staring at the beautiful 2 dollar earrings you bought me at a garage sale today. They were the first things I saw when I walked in and I eyed them and mentioned that I liked them and you just pulled out your wallet and refused to put it back when I kept asking you to. They're cheap, not real diamonds, but I think they're beautiful and I'm glad you didn't listen to me when I told you not to buy them.
Driving home tonight, I was the happiest I've ever been in my life. I felt like a freak, grabbing your arm and shirt and face and smiling until my cheeks started shaking. I am 16 and you are 17 and I am 99 percent positive that I will be marrying you. I am too painfully in love with you to ever recover, so you're stuck with me.

(p.s. - we should've gone halfsies on that typewriter)
ndimakukonda

To friends I'm a confessional
Someone to hear their prayers
To men I'm an object
They look when I go anywhere
To Mom I am a project
Something wrong to fix
To Daddy I am beautiful
He loves me without tricks

Anxiety is - feeling like you might have a heart attack at 19. The tightness in your chest confuses you and surrounds you.

Anxiety is - feeling like you have to *****, every minute.

Anxiety is - showing up late to work everyday, because you cannot . . . You simply cannot make yourself get out of bed. You're paralyzed.