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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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’m a creature of habit
I’m a chameleon that only blends
Into one scene
A horse with blinders on either
Side of my face
Throw me off my orbit
And we’re all ******

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

1
Stop biting your lip
Your blood is meant to stay
In your body
And carry oxygen
And kiss your bones
It has no place on your tongue

2
Breathe
1 2 3
Breathe
Don’t be afraid to let
Your lungs expand
Don’t be afraid to calm
Your nerves
Pop a Xanax and you’ll be fine
You’ll always be fine

3
When you feel the gut pulling
Desire to kiss a boy
Kiss him
Kiss him before he realizes
What a mess you are
Kiss him
And then break his legs
Remind him you are a tornado
Wrapped in skin
And your kiss
Just blew him away

4
Always fall in love
With strangers
Lose yourself in fantasies
Featuring the people on the bus
Or in the mall
Smile at them so they know
They’re infiltrating
Your dreams

5
When a guy catcalls you
Kick him in the teeth
Show him the hair on your legs
Shove your emergency ******
Down his throat
Say no
You are not a dog
You are not a prize
You are a goddess clad in
A leather jacket and
Motorcycle boots
And goddesses do not accept
Catcalls

6
Wrap yourself in poems
Hold them close to your heart
Hide them in your pockets
Let them spill out
Of your mouth
In times of stress
You never know when you’ll need them

7
Never wish for tragedy
Just so you can have a reason
To be sad

8
When the poetry stops working
Go to therapy
Follow the advice
You’ve given to so many
Other people

9
Swallow that lump in your throat
Let it dissolve
In your stomach acid
You will not cry
You will not break

10
When the boy with
The beautiful smile and the
Even more beautiful voice
Looks at you for the first time
The world will stop
You will only know his eyes
When they pass over you
To the prettier ******* your right
Do not take offense
Your time will come

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

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.

You are a poem.
I am the pen that slashes the page.
I am the blade biting into skin.
You are the scar.
You are 8am phone calls.
I am 3pm slumbers.
You are a stake.
I am the flames,
The witch burning beneath them.
I am an unfinished story.
You are an encyclopedia.
I highlight every word.
Together we are a dictionary.
No one touches us.
I am a garden of only weeds.
You are the thorns on a rose.
I am crushed daisy petals
Laying at your feet.
I love you.
I love you not.
You are the stray wire
In my favorite bra
Stabbing my breast.
You are the sun warming my cheeks
With a careful caress.
You are a poem.
I am the pen.

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

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.

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

If you ever feel sad,
Look down at the belly of your wrist.

Kiss the veins
That pulse and jump underneath your skin.

Remember that no matter what you do
Your blood will always flow.

Your body loves you,
Love your body.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Boys don't like girls like me

Boys don't like girls
With frizzy hair
And red velvet tongues

Boys don't like girls
Who wear heavy boots
And leather jackets a size too big
With pins pushed through the fabric
Declaring their beliefs
Like picket signs

Boys don't like girls
With outie belly buttons

Boys don't like girls
Who shop in the men's section
At thrift stores

Boys don't like girls
Who shut themselves in ivory towers
And refuse to let down their hair
Because they're too afraid

Boys don't like girls
Who talk to plants

Boys don't like girls
Who pick the pickles off
Of their cheeseburger because
They believe its the best part
And you always save the best for last

Boys don't like girls
Who carry trauma on their backs like boulders

Boys don't like girls
Who don't know how to kiss
Without leaving
Blood stains on your lips

Boys don't like girls
Who write love poems for themselves

Who practice archery and witchcraft
Because it makes them feel stronger

Who dance in their kitchen
To the music of popping popcorn

Who shy away from touch
Because to them it feels like acid

Who have stretch marks and cellulite

Who'd rather stay at home with the dog
Than go to that party

Who have ice in their soul

Boys don't like girls like me
And I'm trying to be ok with that

My mother gave birth to a carcass
A corpse who
Ages and grows
But does not breathe
Because the dead can't breathe

I am rotting from the inside out
First my heart will go
It will blacken and crust over
Become the stone that sits in my belly
And pulls me under
Then my tongue and teeth
They will fall out
And fill bathtubs
Blood will come trickling after
Then finally
My lungs will collapse
Like a crystal chandelier
In an abandoned opera house

I will cradle the broken pieces of myself
And I will cry
Because only my eyes seem to work
I will open my mouth
And try to breathe
And only dust will escape me

Tongues tied into knots
Like cherry stems.
Sweetness exploding,
Creating a big bang of flavor.
He said I taste like green apple candies,
Smell like coconut chocolates.
Lavender icing coating my lips
As if it were meant to be lipstick.
Sunflower seeds for teeth.
Slit my wrists
And call it strawberry syrup.

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.

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.

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.

You push your fist into your mouth,
Bite down on your knuckles.
Your teeth glued
To your tongue.
Taste the salt of your blood.
Jaw ******* shut.
You swallow your
"No's"
"Stop's"
"Don't touch me's"
"Leave's".
You swallow your voice.
He gnawed on you.
Nothing more than a dog's bone.
The squeak in your chest burst.
You're just saliva
Hanging off his jowls.

My wrists bleed out cosmos
Supernovas and galaxies
Rest in my bones
I’m weighed down by black holes
My scars connect
Like constellations
Mapping out myths on my skin
I have comets
For eyes
And space debris
For a heart
Gravity has long let me go
Now I float
In an empty outer space

I’m not a talkative person
In fact I have sewn my mouth shut
To keep my thoughts
From spilling out
With the force of a fire hydrant
When I do talk
It’s in mumbles and murmurs
I let my words run together
I don’t even remember the last time
I finished a real sentence

Poetry runs through my veins
Every night I unzip my forearms
And let my blood
Spill out onto paper
I’m sorry I can’t bleed for you

I’m selfish
I take, take, take, and take
I buy myself Christmas presents
Birthday presents
Because I ******* deserve it presents

Grace never came easy to me
I stumble over my shoelaces
Like I stumble over my words
Thank god none of you have a pet fish
Because I would probably
Break the bowl

Cigarettes
I don’t smoke them
But **** do I find them attractive

I think bruises are beautiful
Purple, blue, and black splotches
On pale skin
Soreness when you press your fingers
Into them
Give me bruises
And I’ll give you kisses

Your eardrums can and will shatter
Under my screeches of rage
I don’t always scream
But when I do
I turn into a ******* demon

I wear granny ******* casually
Because being comfortable
Is more important
Than being ****

Every bouquet you give me
I will keep
Until they are petal-less
And brown
They will sit in a vase
And decay
And I will use the scent
As perfume

I have a skinny waist
But fat thighs
I’m a size nine
Please don’t buy me size three jeans

Most people’s voices change
With puberty
My voice changes depending
On who I’m with
When I’m with you
My voice is deep with a sarcastic tint
When I’m with your parents
I sound like a ten year old boy

I have a cranberry juice addiction
That’s getting out of hand

Sometimes I break under
Magnifying glasses
My heart drums behind my ribs
There’s a reason why
They call it a cage

I’ve read Catcher in the Rye
Five times and I still
Hate Holden Caulfield

A good day for me
Is finding socks
Without holes in them

I don’t plan on being
A mother
I can’t give you
An heir

My heart explodes
Regenerates
Explodes
Regenerates
Explodes
Explodes
Explodes
Regenerates

I love myself more
Than I could ever love anyone else
And I’ve yet to find someone
Who understands that

He asked
"Are you afraid to die?"
And I just
Shook my head no
I'm afraid of people
Forgetting me
And of getting my tongue
Chopped off while I'm asleep
But I'm not afraid to die
He asked
"Do you believe in God?"
And I just
Shook my head no
I believe in the
Kindness of strangers
And in the ghosts
That haunt my attic
But I don't believe in God
He said
"You must be crazy."
And I just
Shook my head no
And watched him flounder
In his fear and faith

It’s been a year
And I still don’t know how to feel.
Sometimes I feel elated.
Out of all the girls,
All the plums,
I was the ripest, the juiciest.
I spread across his tongue
As a smile spread across his lips.

Sometimes I feel empty.
Like he had
Taken away a part of me.
A certain innocence
So rare, so valuable, so hidden
Not even the best criminals
Could steal it back.

Sometimes I feel fragile.
My bones replaced by porcelain.
They forgot to wrap me
In bubblewrap.
They forgot the
Handle with care sign.
I shattered at his feet.
I crunched under his boots.

Sometimes I feel depressed.
Any light I had
Has darkened.
Any fire has
Been snuffed out.
I am nothing more than smoke.

Sometimes I feel tired.
Like it takes too much energy to live.
I’m not strong enough
To live.
To push through.
My organs are too heavy.
I am too heavy.

Sometimes I feel happy.
When I forget about that night.
When I forget about the bedroom floor.
The popcorn bowl.
The army of whispers
Assaulting my ears.
When I’m alone with a book
Full of poems.
When I shed this skin,
The one with burn marks and
Moth holes,
I’m happy.

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.

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.

I’ve always been
A sensitive person
Say one word and
I shatter
I’m made of porcelain
And glass
There are cracks
In my armor
That match
The cracks in my nails
Please don’t break me

Out of all the gin joints
Classrooms
Bedrooms
Ballrooms
Hospitals
Temples
Minds
Spir­its
Hearts
You had to walk into mine

Cranberries** drip juice like
Blood. I squeeze them between my
Teeth, like a guillotine.
Unrequited love in the form of
Stretch marks on my thighs. My dog
Collar is starting to choke me.
Glass litters the floor to the
Trophy room. He says I am a
Charity case. No one wants me. Point me in a new
Direction. I am running out of
Time. I am running out of patience. The ground
Shakes as I reach for the front door to my childhood
Home. I want to go home.
Hunger never felt so good.

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 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.