i.
this a song hell bent on ruining your life. i sing these notes in place of screams. you hear this symphony and assume its for someone else. someone with a backbone of razorblades and scorpion venom hands. but its for you. the boy splitting his nicotine lips into a leer. the boy with a tongue in the shape of a noose. the boy who scorched me to the bone.

ii.
two years older with a body the size of jupiter. i was venus. the stars burst inside of me when you shoved your hand into my orbit. this bedroom floor is a solar system galaxies away from the one you and i run in circles in. in all this confusion i wonder who is the sun.

iii.
everything was cold. december painted us white, left us with cinder block hearts. you drank coffee in the morning. your warmth circled me and I desperately wanted to turn the AC up. but it was winter. a time for decay. isnt this fitting.

iv.
you laughed. forced me to fit into a joke that carved me into an ugly thing. your hands were not meant for art. when you touched me sirens exploded.

v.
fingernails in flesh. four letters being torn from my throat and shoved into a poem. ive written about you before. you are the big bad wolf circling me, snarling at me. i am the prey, gutted like game. you ate me for dinner and threw out the leftovers.

i.
how old were you when you first discovered your heartbeat? when you opened your rib cage to reveal the carnage? how old were you when the vultures circled the roadkill of your wrists? when the sun kissed fire into your eyes? when you shriveled up and died?

ii.
the epidemic got to me before you did. i peeled every layer of skin back for the mirror. there are rubies under my skin. sealed into the flesh of who i am. did you notice this when you took the meat cleaver to my skull?

iii.
when you said ‘never’ i assumed you meant in a week. instead it happened in a day. a flash of lightning. a carton of blueberries. eating dark chocolate on your back porch. you never told me you liked them bitter. you spat out the sweetness of my skin and your saliva burned a whole in the pavement. summer was always my least favorite time of year. now i can’t even stomach winter.

iv.
i forgot how to weave metaphors into tapestries to hang in museums. you have that power over me. the only beautiful thing about you is your frame. i carved it into the statue of David before you could say no. you hate the vain. thats why you hate me. i never tire of looking at what you made of me. i never tire of painting myself into depictions of the Birth of Venus. you only ever called me Venus between the sheets.

v.
if you saw me on the street, would you remember me? would you remember the fly trap curls luring you in? a weak man and a pink skinned temptress playing doctor on the bedroom floor. would you remember the gray cotton ******* you ignored? the blue bra you threw out the window? would you remember the thicket of hair? the violins singing harmonies in the background? would you? would you? would you?

And the cracks in my armor
Bloom like sunflowers.
They’re letting spring in and I think
I’ll be able to breathe again soon.
I don’t know how long winter really was
And at this point
I’m not concerned

Because the air is sweet.
Everything tastes like honey and milk
And I swear
My veins are petals of
Forget-Me-Nots picked in a game of
He loves me not.

Persephone walks with me.
The grays are blues again.
The skeleton trees scratching the sky
Bare fruit once more.
Heavy pomegranates and raspberry melodies
Swirl a vibrant red
Behind my eyes.

April kissed cherry blossoms
Into my bloodstream.
My belly is full of watermelon seeds.
For once
I am welcoming spring
With open wishbone arms,
I don’t even mind the bees.

This guy on Tinder calls me ****.
My skin rolls with repulsion.
You see,
I hate the word ****.
It sounds like a sixth grader
Hopped up on hormones
Made it up to be funny
And I deleted all of middle school
Out of my memory.

I say
‘**** isn’t a word I’d use to define me’.
He asks what word I would use.
I say
‘Weird Hot’.
The fine line between
Tastefully quirky wrapped in cute
And downright strange.
The type of strange
That leaves you with only two friends,
An X-files Poster,
And a cardboard cutout of Harry Styles
That is riddled with
Purple kiss marks.

He says
‘You are weird.
And hot.’
My skin rolls with repulsion once more.
I don’t want him to think I’m hot.
I want him to think me weird.
I want him to tell his friends
“Yo look at this weird ******* tinder.
Her bio is
‘HELP IM STUCK IN A FORTUNE COOKIE FACTORY’”

But no,
To him I am hot.
To him
The quality doesn’t matter
As long as the packaging is pretty.

This pregnant moment,
This long stretch of heavy silence
You and I created
With sweat soaked skin and
Serrated smiles
Is the only thing i have left.
This bundle of forget-me-not,
Lavender sunrise,
Wake me up when the storm hits
Ballroom dance of a relationship
Is what keeps the
Monsters under my bed at bay.

You kissed violets into my hips
And lifted all the
Ugly out of my heart.
You wrote prophecies with your tongue
And let them soak
Into my bones.
Because of you
I am holy.

Because of you
I don’t remember December.
Because of you
Memories of April and May
Play behind my eyes
Like a never ending showreel
And you’re the star.

I don’t want to write poems about other boys.
I want to be pure,
I want to be rung out of the past.
I want your lips on my stomach,
Your hands on my waist,
Feeling the dip of softness,
Feeling the jagged edges of my ribs
Beg to be touched.

I want you to swallow me whole.
Let me be your Jonah,
You can be my whale.
I want my veins to run red
With 4 letters.
I want to wear them around my neck.

This pregnant moment,
This lilac infused euphoria
Keeping me from jumping
Is the reason
Your arms are my safe haven,
Your bed is my home.

I had a dream my teeth fell out
And I woke up talking.
My tongue was thick cotton
And my throat was clogged with ghosts.
I’m always choking on
Bad dreams and lies
Woven like forgotten scripture.
I wish I could repeat the prophecy.

My head is heavy with all the verses
I’ve made for you,
All the carefully crafted stanzas
That I want to write on your back
With my fingernails
While you whisper prayers of ‘yes’.

I want you to paint the Renaissance
With your teeth on my neck.
There is no room for impressionism here.

You turn my
Starry nights into starry days.
You keep me in a starry haze.
I never want to eat yellow paint again.

I never give him a name in my poems.
He is always “Him”,
Always a personification of a
Smothering darkness closing in.
On a bad day
I see nothing but black.
On a good day
He is a dim border
Making it only a little harder to see.

On a dim day
I can wake up and take a shower.
I can present my naked body to myself.
I am not a Renaissance painting.
I am not pink and soft,
I do not have flowing blonde hair
Tumbling down my back,
But he still picked me to play his
Mona Lisa smile.

On a dim day
I can read on the bus.
I can ignore the *** holes,
The bumps in the road that remind me of my skin.
The skin that was touched and burned,
That scraped against the ridges of his fingerprints.

On a dark day
I take more than the recommended amount of pain killers.
On a dark day
My spine curves into the golden ratio,
The perfect submissive pose.
On a dark day
His hands are my hands,
Slippery with butter and calloused from his car.
On a dark day
I am a gutted museum of trauma.
I am cigarette ashes.
I am a tongue tied convulsing mess.

On a dark day
I am fifteen again with cracked collarbones.
On a dim day
I can’t even muster up enough thanks
That he left me alive.

I imagine my death a lot.

I am 28 years old
With two poetry anthologies
And a novel out
Living in New York City with a
Husband who doubles as a musician.
No kids,
Three dogs.
I laugh so hard I combust into nothingness
And my husband writes my memory
Into a song.

I am 19 years old
And looking over the edge of a
Casino building in Atlantic City.
Just last week a man
Flung himself down onto the ghost streets
Because no one told him
There’d be no gun in his game of roulette.
He had to take matters into his own hands.
The rain washed him into the ocean.
I hope it does the same for me.

I am 60 years old
And living in the New Mexico desert
Just outside of Roswell.
I look up at the night sky and
Hunt for UFOs.
I am yelling at the clouds
‘Just take me already!
Take these withered bones,
Take this soft skin!
Find me a new home!
One where I fit in!’
I have a heart attack just as they come to collect me.

I am 18 years old,
A sad girl from New Jersey.
A sad girl who grinds her teeth into stardust,
Who plays with the frayed ends of existence,
Who smiles with fury.

I imagine my death a lot.
But you see,
I’m dying.
I’m dying dying dying dying
And you are too.

There is no need for imagining.

I walk into the thrift store yelling at my mother,
which is terrible because
1) I’m yelling at my mother in public and
2) I’ve always hated people who yell at their mothers in public.
But she just won’t stop
Dissecting every part of me that I hate,
Every part that is stripped bare for all the world to see
But is still somehow secret.

Somewhere between 12 year old me
With her short blunt black curls and bruised knees
And 15 year old me
With her blood shot eyes and broken back trauma
I’ve developed a habit of stuttering my words,
Of letting anxiety snake through me like
Early on set rigor mortis.
Somewhere things got seriously ****** up.

How do you tell your mother,
Who birthed you who raised you who loved you,
That you can’t talk to strangers
Because you once got too friendly with a boy
Holding garden sheers,
A boy who clipped your wings and left you
On a bedroom floor?
How do you tell her
Your poems aren’t just statements,
They’re stories?
How do you tell her
You’re like Sisyphus with the boulder,
Like Prometheus with the eagle?
How do you tell the truth?

I walk out of the thrift store quiet.
My mother doesn’t say a thing.
On the way home
She takes sharp turns and hits the brakes.
Hard.
My stomach churns.
This is my punishment and I deserve this
For yelling at my mother.

Another year older with a bullet between my teeth
And I never thought I’d make it this far.
I remember being sixteen and
Shedding tears of joy,
Shouting in pure rapture,
‘I’m alive! I’m alive!’

Another year older with a bullet between my teeth
And I am nine years old again
Staring up at a Monet,
Then a Van Gogh,
Then an artist I don’t know but love dearly
Because you have to love dearly
Before you can hold all this art
In the fractured mirror you call eyes.

Another year older with a bullet between my teeth
And this is the happiest poem I have written in awhile.
Tomorrow morning I will wake up
And I will be fifteen again
Sprawled out naked on the chopping block
Like fresh shot game.
But for now I am Cinderella dancing at the ball,
But this time I am my own prince,
This time midnight doesn’t come until I say it can,
This time there is no ugly stepsister
Or glass slipper
Or pumpkin shaped carriage waiting outside.

This time
I’m another year old and there is no bullet.
Just me and the clock tower
Singing out a sweet spring tune.

Every time he looks at me
I see cracks in his eyes that remind me
Of the only word I’ve ever truly known:
Hope.

He is so prepared to lay himself out at my altar,
Plunge the dagger into his ****** chest,
Bleed onto my statues.
I will not,
I can not,
do the same.

They call me monster behind closed doors.
How can I do that to someone?
How can I let them yearn and pine without giving them a chance,
A chance to be the apple to my eye,
the moon to my tide,
and every cliche in between?

He thinks I can just kiss his scars away.
That my bruised and swollen love can heal his hurt.
But I can’t be his savior and mine.
I will always come first.

She is making love to the music,
She is making love to the stage.
She is blue and purple and red.
She is a lipstick stain,
A songstress,
She has aged a hundred years.

Her voice rings out,
Clear and soulful,
Over the static of the others.
The microphone is her battle axe
And I’ve never seen
Such a beautiful fight.

There’s cuts on my knuckles that I don’t remember getting
And a hole in the wall hiding love letters inside.
I lay in the middle of a sea
Of broken records.
Tears shed off my cheeks like chips of paint.
I am manic,
I am antidepressants.
I am dry heaving into the fist sized hole in the wall.
I am falling asleep
And I am never waking up.

There’s a dominance in his hands.
He has more power in one knuckle than I do in my whole body.
I hang on his bones like stretched out clothing,
He has lost a lot of weight.
I pray at the altar
Laid out at his feet.
I wash away the blood and drink
From the bowl.
He presses his lips to the back of my neck,
Sings me a lullaby.
I don’t understand this power,
This black magic.
My heart is now kindling.
He warms his dominant hands over my smoke.

I’m trying to kick this bad habit,
This lazy habit,
This lay in bed all day,
Drink nothing but spit habit.
This nonexistence habit.
This nail bite habit.
This cry for no reason habit,
This cry for every reasons habit.
I’m trying to twist this bad habit into art.
I’m trying to drown this bad habit in poems.
I’m trying to drown myself in poems.

This bad habit is me,
I am this bad habit.

It’s the hardest to break.

My fingers weren’t made for fixing things.
I am an object of destruction.
Don’t get me wrong,
I am not deadly.
I’m a vegetarian, I recycle.
I just break everything I touch.
I am a backwards Midas.
These mausoleum museum hands
Are what destroyed Pompeii.
The Roman colosseum crumbled under my feet.
I rip every heart I hold
And bite every mouth I kiss.
I am a benign hurricane.
I cause enough damage to inconvenience you
But not enough to **** you.
I am messy and dangerous,
A giant desperately trying to be gentle.
Proceed with caution
Because i cant fix what I break
No matter how much I would like to.

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.

Lip locking over the fishhooks in our cheeks.
I would have bled for you
Even if you never asked me to.
You love feels less like torture
And more like a special type of ****,
A type that transcends a fleeting ****** high.
You keep me high.

We are poisoned harpoon heads
Biting into each other’s flesh.
We are swords clashing in battle.
We are refracting magnets,
Opposing armies holding atomic bombs
On our tongues.

My ribcage is Hiroshima.
Your hands are Nagasaki.
When we come together we make Chernobyl.
Your radiation setting my broken bones.

I just can’t get enough of your
Post apocalyptic voice singing funeral songs
Over the snapping of embers.
Your teeth clacking together like wind chimes
Reminds of the steady pop-pop-pop of machine guns.
Your eyes are the barrels of snipers.

We love in red and black,
Black and blue.
We love in cracking knuckles.
Scars like constellations telling lost stories in the sky,

You reminded me of a vampire
With the way you licked the blood from my lips.
You told me I was the sweetest thing
You’ve ever tasted.
A raspberry in a basket of blackberries.
We just can’t shake this red and black haze.

Remember when you tore my vocal cords
Out of my throat with your teeth?
Remember when I screamed horror movie
‘I love you”s into your mouth?
Remember how it echoed until you swallowed it
Along with my bleeding heart?

You left me ****** and broken,
Do you remember?
Do you remember your baseball bat arms
Breaking my ribcage?
Committing the burglary?
Do you remember the lacerations?
The scabs blooming in the shape of chrysanthemums?

Our love is a car crash.
Crazy and messy and deadly and sad.
But we just can’t look away,
Just can’t walk away.
Our love put me in the hospital
And I’m happy to pay the bills

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.

It’s the gutted smile
You threw down on the table
The day the love of your life found
The love of their life.

It’s the anxiety
snaking through you in public spaces.
Strangers’ eyes carving you clean.

It’s the leather jacket
You bought when you were 15
And refuse to take off even in the summer.

It’s his calloused and grease stained hands
Exploring the winding hills
Of your new body.
Scenes from ****** play in your head
As he tells you
You taste like strawberries.

It’s the scorpion sting you iced with snow.

It’s a deep churning in your stomach.
They kind that only appears
When you forget to take your medicine
And you didn’t notice until about 5 minutes ago.

It’s the Atlantic City skyline
Blazing a depressing neon
Over the rest of South Jersey.

It’s trying to write poems out of license plates
And getting into an accident
When you can’t find a rhyme scheme.

It’s scabbed knuckles and
Bodies outlined in scars
Colliding in a ****** big bang.
An entire world unraveling like a red carpet.
We are silver studded starlets
Sinking our heels into the softness.
We are gods.
We were made for this.

I found him rummaging through
My ribcage at three in the morning.
When I asked him
What he was doing
His hands melted into red.

Later,
I found him again.
This time I watched like a vulture
Perched on the cliffside.
His fingers tickled
As he combed through the carnage.
The strings of gore
That protected this vessel.
His fingers curled over the piece of coal
Holding the place of my heart
And he pressed it into a diamond.

He left with a whisper
Pressed to his lips
Like a sweet summer kiss.

Only hours passed before he came back.
This time my heart was a bomb.
Colored wires tangled with my heartstrings.
It was hard to tell which
Belonged to me.

It took only 14 hours
For me to explode.
The steady ticking should’ve warned me
But I was too wrapped up in him,
Too focused on the red warning light of his eyes,
Too busy humming funeral songs
Over the noise
Vibrating through my chest.

It was like fireworks going off during daylight,
Like stuffing confetti into a taxidermy lamb,
Like pressing the detonate button
Before the building has been evacuated.

This time,
When he left,
He took his fingerprints with him.

When you look me in the eyes
Loneliness unfurls inside of me
Like a scorpions tail
And stings the soft belly of my heart.
A deep pain
Spreads throughout my body,
Clutching my bones,
Taking me hostage.
I feel my heart swell.
It’s much too big for its cage.
It’s the bird screeching protests
When you try to put it back in.
The sweating begins almost immediately.
I feel like I’m melting onto the dirt road
And you,
You are laughing.
Your smile splitting your lips,
Your teeth snapping like claws,
Distracting me from your molten black eyes.
I ***** my loneliness.
It dribbles out of my mouth in red ropes.
You are already scuttling away,
Already moving onto the next threat.
As I watch your eight legs
Carry your shell of a body away
From my shell of a body
I remember why
I’ve always been afraid of scorpions.

The opening and closing
Of the would’ve been casket door
Reminds me of the window screen
Holding on by hope.
The cold skin just underneath my fingertips
Reminds me of the cold breath
Of wind that swirled in behind me.
It was only October.

Our mother yelled.
She scolded you at your one moment.
A pure moment.
A moment to be completely and utterly
Yourself
Shattered by a concerned chorus
Masked with annoyance.
I picked up the shards and
Dragged them across my hips,
Sharpened them on my bones,
As they dragged you to the car.

There was no time
To break it to me gently.
No warm hugs awaiting at the door
Or tear stains taking pity on a 12 year old.
They took you away.
Your eyes as big and bright
As snow globes.
I watched the glitter pour down your face.

They sat like vultures in their plastic chairs.
We still have no idea
What they were waiting for.
Maybe they were waiting for you to break the silence
Like how you broke their hearts.
You look at me
Like you’re not sure why I’m there.
You hold my hand
And I feel the sadness
Leaking out of you in black rivers.
This is the curse we share.
They patched you up well.
You can almost not make out the stitches
The pills forced into the pit
You call a stomach.
You whisper a song so soft
No one but me can hear it,
"Never die, never die."

When I looked upon Persephone
Lying next to the Styx,
My heart crumbled into pomegranate seeds.
I dug them out,
Smuggled them past the spaces
Of my ribcage,
And handed them over.
She swallowed them whole.
They took root in the pit of her stomach
And a branch grew out of her stained mouth,
A fat pomegranate at the end of it.
She plucked it before I could,
Pressed her fingernails into the skin
And squeezed.
The juices ran red like the Nile down her wrists
And I felt the twist of a knife
In the center of my chest.
She smiled.
Spring blooming from her throat.
She had left
Before I could wrap my fingers around her sunshine.
In her place
She left only three
Pomegranate seeds.

When I was six years old
My father let me watch the Omen.
For the three months that followed
I was convinced I was the antichrist.
Every morning I would stand on the step stool
In front of the bathroom mirror
And scour my scalp
For the imprint of 666.
Not even the devil wanted me as his.

For years I thought I was adopted
Because my hair isn’t straight like theirs,
My skin isn’t clear like theirs.
My legs stretch like sunflower stalks
While theirs wilt
Like tulips after spring.
It turns out
Genetics is a lottery
And I did not win.

My body is 90% wishbone
And 5% muscle.
I can’t do a pushup
But god am I good at daydreaming.
I run out of breath after walking up a flight of stairs
But my spine is made out of wind chimes.

My mother once told me
I was the easiest child to take care of.
I didn’t cry, I didn’t scream.
It wasn’t until I was 15
And leaking novocain onto the kitchen floor
That my pent up music
Shattered the wine glasses.
I cleaned every bit of crystal up
And no one knew about my symphony.

I wear my secrets like shawls.
Everyone compliments the pattern,
Ask if I made them myself.
I say “a girl I know helped me.
She is the reason I am where I am today”.
They ask if they know this girl
And if she can make them one.
I say, “caged birds don’t give free birds directions”.

I lay in the bathtub
And push my head underneath.
I listen to the steady ticking
Of the bomb wired in my chest.
Its only a matter of time.
Run. Take cover.
Leave me to the ashes.
Maybe we’ll find out I am a phoenix.
Maybe we’ll find out I am just another girl.
Another swan feather kissing the river.

Maybe this will be a wakeup call.
Maybe metaphors aren’t band aids
And maybe stanzas aren’t gauze.
Or maybe god really does exist,
His home just isn’t in the clouds.
Maybe I am god.
Maybe god is home and I am finally home.

They look at me
And they see a blank face.
They see a mind like a blank slate
Ready to be written on
In permanent marker.
They don’t see someone else’s writing
Already there
In perfect cursive script.

You see, people don’t talk to me.
Whether its because my lips
Are normally sewn shut with my own heartstrings
Or because when I talk its a jumbled mess
Of nonsense about aliens and feminist politics
I don’t know.

You see, I think a lot.
I am chock full of socialist propaganda
And love songs about front teeth.
Arrow heads of conversation starters that
Never make it past my lips.
Memory disks with scratches that distort the image.
Sock drawers overflowing with symbolic syllables and similes.

I think about the fist sized holes in living room walls
And the love notes hidden inside.
The songs sung in lieu of apology.

I think about my teeth cracking on
The dentist’s wedding ring.
The opening and closing of the storm door and my mother
Saying “good god we need to get that thing fixed”.
Fainting in the shower.
The angry purple bruise that blossomed
Like jasmine on my arm the next day.

I think about my bones
Cracking like wooden wind chimes slamming together.
Wishbone hearts being snapped in two.
Eating nothing but salt and razor blades.
Stomach acid tearing through everything and anything.
The alleys between my teeth.
The hornets locked inside my mouth
Stinging my gums.

I think about Allen Ginsberg tasting his first sin,
Sylvia Plath kissing her children’s foreheads,
And Maya Angelou speaking again.
I think about Anne Sexton
Tipping the bottle back
And Frida Kahlo falling in love with herself.
I think about the poems being
Forced fed to me and
I don’t mind at all.

You see I think a lot.
Questions like wasps swarming, swarming, swarming
Around my skull like a hive.
You see this is unexpected.
A mute girl isn’t supposed to think so much.
A mute girl is supposed to listen
What will happen to me if I don’t listen?
Another question to add to the list.
You see I am not a blank slate.
I am a tattoo parlor wall
And a message board.
An online forum.
A dream journal washing up on a Jersey shore beach.
You see I am not clay.
I’m not even marble.
I am art in its purest form.
Untampered and untouched.

I read a lot of poems about other people's mothers
And wish they were about mine.
But you see,
My mother hates poetry.
She doesn't understand it.
She doesn't understand how the words
Bend around my lips,
How pen plucks the cello strings of my throat
And plays truth like a song.
She doesn't understand the papery wings
That erupt from my shoulders
When metaphors are all I have.

But you see,
My mother loves words.
My mother taught me
To always carry a book with me.
Because of her
My handbag is a mess of
highlighted verses and underlines chapters.
Because of her
I know how to watch my tongue.

My mother never went into detail about her childhood.
At least not around me.
But every once in awhile
I'll catch her recounting a story of her mother.
Her mother who smoked cigarettes
And set a place for Jesus at Christmas dinner.

My mother knows when to fight
And when to keep silent.
That is one trait I didn't inherit.
I am stubborn like my father,
fiery and temperamental like my father.
But I will always have a heart like my mother.
Always be wrapped in an empathy
So tight that its easy to forget
Sometimes we can't breathe for everyone
And sometimes we need to breathe for ourselves.

Every Christmas Eve and Easter
I go to church with my mother.
Now, I am not a religious person.
I stopped believing in this god the day I learned
Abraham almost killed Issac,
Moses was never pure from the beginning,
And Eve did nothing but share,
But my mother loves Jesus.
When I was 15 my mother read the bible.
When I was 15 I needed her psalms most.

Whenever we're in the car together
She leans over and pokes my thigh.
When I roll my eyes she says
"Some day you will miss this"
And I can't help thinking she's right.

My father fancies himself  comedian.
So every night at dinner
When he launches into his act
My mother and I speak through our eyes.
Our eyes that are not unlike matching puzzle pieces.
My mother and I have our own language.

I'm writing this poem for my mother
Even though she hates poetry.
Hates the way I strip bear,
The way I open my ribcage for people I've never met.
Hates the way my similes only make sense
If you squint your eyes
And tilt your head to the right.
But you see my mother loves words
And my mother loves me.

Girl
I was brought into this world
Covered in my own mother’s blood.
Soaked and glistening
Under the florescent lights.
Red dripping onto the linoleum floor.
Metallic scent intermingling with antiseptic.
My vocal cords were the first things to come in.
My screams battled my mother’s.
My screams shattered the doctor’s ear drums.
Years passed and I learned how to be quiet.
Years passed and I stretched.
I was a bulb planted in a field.
I was tended to the same way the girl next to me was,
But I didn’t grow quite right.

Fire
I swallow hot coals
Like some swallow gum.
They stick to my insides for 7 years.
For years I was convinced I was water.
Fluid and easy.
Fluctuating between a trickle and a storm.
But now I realize
I am fire.
Flames like tongues enter my slacked jaw.
There is no easy way to handle me.

Myth
When I was a child
My father would read the Book of Revelation to me.
While most little girls got
Goodnight moon, goodnight stars.
I got the ***** of Babylon.
I was built by stories.
Armored with words dripping from
Ancient people’s lips.
By the time I was nine I could
Recount the abduction of Persephone
In less than twelve seconds.
Because of Persephone
I will not eat pomegranate seeds.

Skin*
Do not be fooled by the softness of my skin
Or the white of my pigment.
I am not a diamond, I am not a ruby.
I am flesh, I am human.
I am wrapped in a body that loves me
And I will love it back.

He told me he likes Bukowski.
That was the first sign.
You see, boys who like Bukowski and me
Don’t get along.
You see, Bukowski and me
Don’t get along.
I’m a Sylvia.
I’m an Anne.
A Maya and a Virginia.
You see, I am well versed
In death and silence.
You see, I have no interest in
Alcohol and misogyny.

He told me he likes The Smiths.
Now The Smiths
In and of themselves are great.
I’ve always been a fan of melancholy,
Of heartbreak.
Now The Smiths
Who have been morphed into this
Pseudo intellectual mirror are not my thing.
You see, boys pin me to a pedestal
For merely knowing who Morrissey is.
You see, I don’t care if
Dying by my side is such a heavenly way to die.
You see, I don’t plan on dying with him.

He told me he drinks his coffee black.
That would explain
Why when he kissed me
I tasted nothing but bitterness.
That should have been a warning.
You see, I need a little sweetness.

He told me he smokes cigarettes.
You see, cigarettes remind me of my father.

He told me I’m not like other girls.
As if other girls are a disease.
As if I am this magical creature.
This manic pixie dream girl with wings.
You see, there is nothing special about me.
I am me. Simple.

I told him he was a sad boy.
A boy who pretends like he’s wrapped in barbed wire
But is really a caged petting zoo animal.
A boy who will smile like he has a secret
But really has nothing to share.
You see, sad boys drink whiskey.
To me, whiskey tastes like listerine without the mint.
You see, he tasted like whiskey.
You see, he reads Bukowski.
You see, he listens to The Smiths.
You see, he drinks his coffee black every morning
And smokes a cigarette on his balcony
While reading the newspaper
And listening to a vinyl record.
You see he doesn’t love me.
He loves the idea of me.
He loves the idea of sad girl.
You see, there’s nothing romantic
About a boy who thinks romance is a Hemingway novel.
You see, I hate Hemingway.
You see, sad boys and me don’t get along.

And if i still hate myself
I will stop talking.
I don’t mean my usual silence.
My tight lipped, teeth glued silence.
I mean no hummingbird song
Or political speech.
No proclamation of apathy.
No growls of hunger.
I will clip my vocal cords
And learn the words to a mute poem.

And if you still hate yourself
We’ll forget how to sleep.
We’ll let it collect in the corners of our eyes
And lie awake
And lie through our teeth.

And if I still hate myself
I’ll swallow broken glass.
You’ll think its candy
And I won’t correct you.
You won’t know until you are
Called into the hospital at 3 am
And I’m called into the red sea.

And if you still hate yourself
We’ll sit in your backyard in July.
We’ll catch frogs and butterflies.
We’ll drown in our sweat.
I know how much you hate salt.
You know how much I hate heat.
We’ll call it masochism.

And if I still hate myself
I’ll tell myself I love myself
And the little lie
Will wrap around me like
A security blanket.

And if you still hate yourself
We’ll go to a lot of parties.
We’ll drink our own weight.
I like soda,
You like *****.
Either way we’ll both need
Our stomachs pumped eventually.

And if I still hate myself
And if you still hate yourself
We’ll join hands in church,
We’ll pray to Baal.
We’ll open ourselves completely.

i want your sunday mornings.
your “comeback to beds”.
your burnt tongue tip.
coffee breath warming cheeks.
i want your arms around my waist,
a special kind of straight jacket.

i want your sunday afternoons.
a midday trip to the record store.
a woman passes through the aisles
and tells me how she loves our love.
how young people love
with a special kind of fire.

i want your sunday evenings.
i want to soak up your anxiety in my bones,
hold both our traumas.
go to bed before the sun goes down
and make love.
a special kind of *****.

i want foggy mornings on delilah road.
i want your volvo swerving into the marshland.
i want your special kind of goodbye kiss.
i want your goodbye kiss.

And the spiders will never stop dancing
And I am twelve years old again
In the summertime
Dragging sharp objects across my hips
And pen is just not the same

And I feel the stares
Of all the people
And I feel my blood rouge my cheeks

And I am fifteen years old again
In the wintertime
And the bedroom floor feels too familiar
And I’ve been sleeping for fourteen hours

And my lips are always chapped
And he looks at me like I’m a diamond
And he’s a pretty good actor
And I crumble under the weight of his eyes
Which are not unlike diamonds

And my hand begins to cramp
And the spiders are taking a break
And their little legs still move
And I don’t know where this fear of centipedes came from
And I am a gutted pumpkin,
A Jack-O-Lantern in June

And my hair is turning white
And I can see my breath
And he stares at me like I’m an anomaly
And I am anomaly
And my ribcage is broken
And there has been a burglary
And my stomach is being pumped
And I am lying on the shower floor
And my head just missed the edge

Hold me to the river’s floor.
Let the mud tangle into my hair.
The brown hues match.

Strike a match and set me aflame.
My bones are firewood.
My blood gasoline.

You hold the keys to Heaven’s gates
And I am dying to get in.
Please let me in.

Open my ribs like French doors.
Play my heartstrings like a cello.
Let the music travel up my throat.
My body is a symphony
And you are the conductor.

My back is a blank canvas.
The lashes from your whip paints
A sickly picture.
Liquid fragments of myself
Melt down to my thighs.

I am a lavender scented candle.
You are the ever burning flame.
You ignite my bones.
Send heat down my spine.
Reduce me to a burnt nothing,
A clump of purple wax.

Blue veins criss cross in pale wrists.
Translucent skin shining
Like diamonds in August skies.
You are a child born from summer.
A peach plucked before harvest.

We don’t know how to love
Without brandishing our swords.
Scarlet drips from the sharpened point.
You are the ruby encrusted in the hilt.
I am the silver blade.

We run through no man’s land
Into each other’s arms.
Leaping over minefields and barbed wires.
If we should have a daughter
We’ll teach her to love like war.

All I know is
Teeth pressed anxiously into bottom lip.
All you know is
Goodbye kisses
Presented as reminders and post it notes.

We are an eclipse.
We are the solar system.

Pelvic bone to pelvic bone
We are fused together.
Some type of warped conjoined twin syndrome.
Chin to chin.
Lip to lip to lip to lip.
Our lips are touching but we are not kissing.
Cheek to cheek.
Fingertips scarping against fingertips.
There’s a theory in physics
That states
You are never really touching anything,
Only the space in between.
Sometimes I think we are the very definition of this theory.
We push closer
But we never touch.
I cannot feel your kiss pressing up against my neck.
I cannot feel your teeth tugging at the skin on my collarbone.
I cannot feel your saliva intermingling with my own.
You are sitting next to me on the couch
But I do not feel
The bend your body makes.
I do not feel the dip of cushion.
Your hand is nothing more than
An anchor keeping me grounded on Earth.
We are perpendicular lines
But it feels like we’re parallel

I write a lot of love poems
Even though I have never been in love.

This is the irony I brush my teeth with.

I bruise easily.
This is seen and treated as a curse.
They think I am an anemic girl.
They think there is something wrong
With my inner chemistry.
They have thought that since I was six years old
And refused to read.
Now I bury myself in books
And poetry that tastes like dirt.

Winter was made for people like me.
People who feel
Personally victimized by the sun
And can’t breathe
In the still, stale heat of July
I always seem to swallow
Ice cubes the wrong way.

I love so fiercely,
So fast.
My love can ignite candles
And start brushfires.
My love can fill oceans,
Lunar craters,
And you.
I spend my love
Like a first paycheck from a first job.
I love recklessly.
I love openly.
I have not had a real boyfriend
Since the 8th grade.

I complain and complain
And complain.
I hate people who complain.

I only open my wrists metaphorically
Yet these scars
Stand at attention like
Soldiers whose minds are still at war.

I think my fingers are bleeding
But there is no way to know for sure.
I am blind
But like Oedipus I have sight.

I brush my teeth with irony
Because its the only thing that has
Ever been able to polish
Any part of me.
I brush my teeth with irony
Because without this irony
I am just another girl
Who can’t breathe without assistance.
Who can’t feel without being told what feeling feels like.
Who can write sonnets
But doesn’t know what the **** Shakespeare is talking about.

And this,
This is the irony I brush my teeth with.

I want blood on my knuckles.
I want blood painting pavement.
I want teeth falling to the ground and
Twinkling like wind chimes.

I want breath barely passing through lungs.
I want bruises mirroring
Inky fingerprints on a criminal record.
I want concrete on my tongue.

I want to destroy.
I want to be destroyed.
I want my torso to be the Roman ruins.
I want my hands to be the Mayan remains.

I want explosives hooked up to my jaw.
I want fingers on triggers.
I want nervous sweat.
I want fight or flight.

I want fight.
I want gun powder and knives.
I want fist colliding with face.
I want hospital bills and ambulance sirens.

I want violence.

I am freezing
And you are burning

Icicles forming on the inner corners
Of my eyes like lost sleep
While a fire rouges
You’re skin

You are the hot stove
I was always warned not to touch
I am the lost ice cube
You kicked under the fridge

Maybe we should get a little closer
So I can cool you down
And you can warm me up

I am a girl cut out of marble.

He is a boy made of copper.

I am a girl so starved
I gorge on air.

He is a boy with a belly full of
Unlucky pennies.

I am a girl with a mouth full of hornets.
They sting my gums.
I talk around the swelling.

He is a boy with wooden legs.
I wonder how he doesn't splinter.
How he doesn't burn.

I am forged from fire.
My lungs blacken and
My skirt billows like the smoke
Coughing out of a chimney.

He ripples like water.
He is always moving.
He walks like ocean waves
And I am pulled into his tide.

He is the boy on the moon
Throwing his fishing line into the sea of stars.
Somehow he catches me.
A black hole amongst galaxies.
There is no way this can end well.

I am a black hole.
I swallow.
I take.
I never give back.
I hope this won't be a problem for the boy on the moon.

He is a ghost of kiss
Still pressed to my neck.
A reminder of what was.
Of what could be.

I am a phantom
Wallowing in this mortal plane.
I am a black shadow.
The thing you see out of the corner of your eye.

He is a boy with a tongue so sharp
It could be used as a sword.
I'd follow him into battle.

I am a girl with a wild mane
And a tamed heart.
Looks can be deceiving.

He is a boy with teeth made of honey.
How did he get so lucky?

I am a girl whose most prized possession
Is a scuffed pair of boots.

He is a boy who is more metallic than sweet.

I am a girl who was not made to be touched.

He is a boy.
I am a girl.
Sometimes we intersect.

My heart has deflated.
My heart has turned to a black and limp
Pebble in the belly of my palm.
My heart leaks juices
That remind me of meat.
I'm a vegetarian now.

The valves on my heart don't work anymore.
This much I am certain.
My heart sits in the makeshift oven
My ribs act as.
No longer a cage, no longer bone.
Just an oven chalk full of gas.
Will you brave the heat?

My heart was once a peach.
My heart is now a rotting plum.
Mold colonies take refuge.
I have named each spore.
Narcissus is my favorite.
He is green while the others are gray.
Its almost ironic.

They want to pickle my heart in a jar.
They want to inject me
Full of formaldehyde.
They want chemicals trickling out
Of my ears and open mouth.
My jaw slacked just for this.

I am lying on a surgery table.
My heart is about to be taken out.
I say goodbye to
My dearest, oldest friend.
I hope I can see it fossilized
And put in a great display case in a great history museum.
Everyone can marvel
At the heart so black, so flat, so burnt, so dead
It nearly exploded in a girl's chest.

I do not remember the steady pulsing.
The steady pumps.
The punctuations to each second.
I do not remember the flutter.
The skips.
But most importantly
I do not remember
The rotting.

Gardenias used to grow
In the spaces between my ribs.
I read online
They symbolize joy.

Daffodils are the poster child for chivalry.
Thats what you showed
When you opened the car door for me
And offered a smile
As delicate as a flower petal.

That night when you opened your arms
To reveal plastic daisies
Growing on the inside of your biceps
Lavender clouding my mind.
I picked each blooming stalk and
Placed a bouquet on the window sill.

When you kissed me
I was an orchid.
You had mistaken me for a red rose.
You bleached me until I was white.
In the morning,
You tried to paint me yellow.

In the morning
I was a chrysanthemum.
In French class we learned
You must never give them to someone
When you enter their home
Because it is disrespectful.
Because they symbolize death.

The gardenias turned to brown and
Decaying stems were lodged in between my teeth.
All I see is lavender
When I look at a man now.
For a year
I cut up daffodils in my bedroom and
Hoped you would drive by
And look up at my window.

Did you clip the daisies off your body?
Did you offer them to someone else?
Did you brag to your friends
That your garden
Is much bigger than theirs?
Much prettier?
That all the flowers in your garden
Only bloomed because you have a magic touch?

Now I tend to hydrangeas.
Now I water irises.
Now I am a peony.
Now I own a diary full of pressed magnolias.
Now I leave forget-me-nots on your doorstep and
Hope you know who they're from.

There's comfort in bleeding ink.
There's home in an empty page.

Every word is a heart beat
Punctuated by the steady pump of truth.
I feel the knot in my stomach
Come undone by the poem's end.
The conclusion.
The final thought.

Sometimes the words
Don't taste right in my mouth.
Words like "ethereal" and "champagne"
Sometimes taste like burnt toast.
Sometimes they shrivel up my taste buds.
Words like "juxtaposition" and "moist"
Sometimes taste like sweet, sweet strawberries.
Though I am uncertain,
I still place them on my waiting tongue.

The curve of a stanza
Always reminded me of
The curve of a lover's back.
A soft bend.
Purposeful and precise.
This is the only love I have ever known.

Sometimes I can't differentiate
Between ***** and closure.
Both sneak up on me
When I finally put the pencil down.

When things become too much
For my broken wings to handle,
I am reminded
There is an "I" in "suicide".
When things become too much
I gargle saltwater
To replenish my eyes.
I reapply the mascara.
I take an aspirin.
And I find comfort in bleeding ink.

1
The other day I saw a picture of you.
Shirt buttoned up to your throat,
Pants cutting off the blood circulation in your pelvis,
Shoes shining brighter than the north star,
And a smile being pulled across your cheeks
Like an archer pulling a bow string.
I smiled back at my computer screen.

2
I’ve listened to this album at least 30 times.
I own three versions of it.
UK deluxe, US deluxe, Target Deluxe.
Everything about you is deluxe.
Your eyes, your voice, your breath
As it passes through the microphone and into my ears.

3
I believe in fate
But not so much in destiny.
I don’t scream at my reflection anymore
And I’m described as independent.
For the most part.
I’m a pretty trustworthy person
And I promise I’m not that desperate.

4
The music ripples through my veins
As I whip my curls at the mirror.
The hairbrush pressed against my mouth
And I repeat the lyrics that roll past your lips so smoothly.

5
I can almost feel your arms
Wrap around my waist before I go to sleep.
I had a dream
You and I were together
And you were happy
And I was happy
And everyone was happy.
But I know if my dream became reality
No one would be happy.
Jealousy would taint the spit on other girls’ tongues
And the distance between
New Jersey and Australia is too much.
Even for me.

5
I can almost feel your arms
Wrap around my waist before I got to sleep.

5
I can almost feel you.

5
We have the same eye color.

6
We have the same hair color.

7
I am just an insecure girl.
You are taking over the world.
You are stepping in the soil of every state.
And you won’t look at me
Longer for three seconds in the New York City heat.

8
I never thought I would be one of those girls.
One of those girls
Who latch onto a boy’s identity,
Not knowing his soul
But knowing his spirit.
I’ve seen you three times.
You don’t even realize.
I try too hard and I’m convinced you notice this.

9
You are nine months older than me.
In your eyes I am just a baby.
My cocoon of pictures of you is the womb
I am being baked in.
You won’t follow me back on twitter.

10
You are just my celebrity crush
But you have such an impact on me.
Go back home.
Let me rest.
Go back to bed.
I’ll have that dream again
And I won’t speak of it
And no one has to know of this
Pathetic excuse for love I carry in me like a dead fetus.

10
You are just my celebrity crush.
It was never supposed to go this far.

10
You are just my celebrity crush.

10
You can never love me
The same way I love you.

Step One: Dress for Success
Dawn yourself in armor each morning
Spikes and studs
Headbands and helmets
Strike fear into every man’s heart
And look good while doing it

Step Two: Be a Lotus Flower
A rose, a lily
Be a venus fly trap
Deadly nightshade
Lady Macbeth said it best
“Look like the innocent flower
But be the serpent under it.”

Step Three: Always Have a Perfect Manicure
Sharpen your nails into knives
Slit your attackers throat
With just one swift movement
Of the wrist
Walk away with the blood working as polish
They won’t be able to tell the difference

Step Four: Smile
Never let them see you crumble
Never let them see you for what you are
Human.
Put up the walls
Man the cannons
You’re no longer a girl
You are a castle
And they want to storm you

Step Five: Be Polite
Swallow the bad words that want so badly
To sting that *******
Who cut in line at 7 Eleven
Suppress the rage that makes the blood
Under your pretty skin
Rise to your cheeks.
Instead, when he’s not looking,
Slash his tires in the parking lot.

Step Six: Stay In Shape
How else are you going to be able to survive
When the apocalypse comes
And its only you left

Step Seven: Focus on Your Education
So when the boys at school
Groan because they have to work with you on the English project
You can spit out verses of Shakespeare
And Frost
And Plath
And make them shake in their
Khaki shorts

Step Eight: Don’t Forget Where You Cme From
Don’t forget the hours
Your mother spent in labor
Pushing you through heaven’s doors
Don’t forget the women who came before you
The women who have tried so hard
To be the perfect girl
To collapse themselves into paper
To roll themselves like dough
Don’t forget those women,
Those girls.
Don’t forget to kiss your wrists each night
And say thank you to the stars.

And the cigarettes paint our teeth yellow
Like the coffee and tea
We bathe our bones in.

Poems scrawled out in chicken scratch
On snow white wrists
While the spiders under my skin dance
A forbidden 8-legged tango.

Scars paler than my pigment stand out on my thighs
That are not unlike thunder.
My ribs press up against my torso,
A jail cell.

Once again the panic sets in
And I am taken hostage.
It feels as if my lungs took a voyage on the Titanic.
I named the left one Jack,
The right one Rose.
The right one always lives.
The cold creeps in
Followed by shouts from the audience
“Theres room for two on that door!”
But its too late.
Good ol’ lefty is already gone.
Sunk to the bottom of the ocean
Along with all my journals.

The teenaged feminists bare their fangs
And I smile.
So happy to see solidarity.
Blood drips from their teeth.
**** the pig.
Slit his throat.
A female Lord of the Flies.

He smiled at me from across the room.
Or maybe he smiled to the girl next to me.
She is prettier than me
And probably smarter
And easier to deal with.
I am stubborn and
She looks like the type of girl to lay down her guns.
I have got to stop thinking this way.

Metaphors and similes unravel on my tongue.
I mumble into the microphone something about
Not knowing what I should be feeling.
Should I feel happy
Because I survived while others,
Who have gone through way worse,
Are stuck under miles of dirt?
Should I feel empty
Because he took the very last of me
And he doesn’t even care?
Should I let the apathy set in again
Like rigor mortis?
Should I
Should I
Should I

I have got to stop using repetition to fill in the empty spaces
Between my words.
And I have got to stop staying up until 3 am
And complaining about how no one will love me
Because I am so difficult
And stubborn
And indecisive
And anxious
And ******.
And I have got to stop tearing myself down
Like a once beautiful, now broken building.
I write about self love a lot.
I should practice what I preach.

Where was I?
I don’t even know.
All I know is
The spiders have broken out in a full on dance battle
And the cigarette smoke is curling
In my one lung,
The one named Rose.
And my feminist friends eye my hairy legs
And whisper about ******.
And the solidarity breaks apart.
And my scars start to tear open again
And oh no,
There goes a spider.
And the boys make fun of my thighs
And I shatter like the glass I am

And I open a new journal.
And I write another poem.

I wrote a poem about you.

I compared your smile to the stars.
Your voice to music.
I spat out every cliche I could think of.

You were a knight.
Tall, broad shouldered.
You wore silver and defended my honor.
I dreamt we rode off into the sunset
On your white steed.

I was a princess.
My legs stretched for miles
But still you made the journey.
You ran your fingers through my hair
And by some miracle
The knots didn’t claim you as theirs.

We kissed in the rain.
In the backseat.
Under water.
On my doorstep.

We ran through a field into each others arms.
On a beach into each others arms.
Through an airport into each others arms.

We carved our names into the old oak tree in my backyard.
We shared a milkshake at the 50s themed diner.
We dined on red roses and red wine,
We dined on steak so rare the juices dripped from our chins.

We were in love…
Or so I thought.
Because when we tried to turn my poem
Into reality
Reality spat me in my face.

The rain water tasted bitter on our tongues.
The backseat was too cramped.
I just couldn’t hold my breath,
And my dad saw us on my doorstep.
He saw everything,

I tripped over my own feet.
The waves took you before I could meet your arms.
And we delayed people’s flights.

The oak tree in my backyard had to be cut down.
The milkshakes were sour.
I got drunk on the wine and you were allergic to the roses.
The steak was raw and rotting.

You weren’t a knight.
You were a boy.
I wasn’t a princess.
I was a girl.
We should’ve kept it at that.

The air conditioning is on and
It makes the hair on my legs stand up.
Old women wrapped in tradition sneer at my
New age, new wave
Style of living.
Boys like girls who keep their mouths shut.
Who sew their lips together with choruses of
"Yes dear"
"Anything for you dear"
"Whatever you say dear".
Boys like girls who know when to put the pen down.
Who don’t play with words
The way babies play with rattles.

In the winter
I’m told I have the perfect body.
In the summer
I’m told to cover up.
My thighs roll with thunder
And wave like the ocean.
I spit blood onto the hot pavement
Next to the cigarette butts and newspapers.
Girls don’t do that.

Girls shave
And cook
And clean
And purse their lips when someones mean
And keep their curls under control
And don’t bite their nails
Or eat too much cake
Or say no.

And when the air conditioning is on
They don’t shiver.
They don’t feel their natural armor
Stand up to fight.
When the air conditioning is on
They smile
And say “thank you” to the sun.

When your finger twitched on the trigger
Were your eyes glued to the
Rose blooming in her chest?

When she pulled her golden hair
Back into a ponytail
Did you wrap it around your fist?

When she refused to pull her lips back
And stretch her mouth into a smile
Did you feel the windshield of your heart break?

Do shards of glass
Ever float up your throat?
Do they every mix with the bile?

The day your name first passed
Through my lips
Was the day the fear became real.

I compare my body to art to make myself feel better.
These aren’t stretch marks, they’re lightning.
These aren’t acne scars, they’re a Jackson ******* painting.

——————————————————————————————

Theres something crawling underneath my skin.
I pick at it with
Nails bitten down into nubs.

——————————————————————————————

Some days the girl
Who stares back at me in the mirror
Yells profanities and insults
And my last wall of defense comes crumbling down.

—————————————————————————————-

I’m a *****.
Cold, aloof, alone.
I keep my teeth bared.
I keep myself locked in a barbed wire cage.

——————————————————————————————

Self abuse is a tricky topic for most.
We all want to love ourselves,
To open our arms at the end of the day and
Cradle our inner children.
But the second
You open your mouth and
Let cartoon hearts fly out of your throat
You’re branded as “Narcissist”.
So instead,
We scold ourselves.
Whack rulers on our knuckles
Until the blood comes bubbling up.
We pinch and tuck and tease
And swallow bullet sized pills
And spew our lunches in the toilet bowl at school.
And we cling to this hatred
Like a baby clings to its mother.

——————————————————————————————-

I compare my body to art to make myself feel better.
All Mona Lisa smiles and pearl earrings.
An interrupted girl.
I compare my body to art because
I’m already a critic.