hold me in your heart
and if you can’t do that,
hold me in your arms
and if you can’t do that,
hold me in your eyes
and if you can’t do that,
please never ever ever contact me
ever again,
as I feel quite fragile
and I can’t even say why
perhaps
my lifestyle can be too vulnerable.

at the desk, applying for jobs
there is coffee in my cup
and paint in the creases of my fingernails,
on the wall, a whiteboard with new song lyrics
and a list
of things I need to buy,
of course, once I have the money to buy them,
which brings me back to the desk
which an empty bottle of Cabernet Merlot
sits with an empty glass
and notebooks and a mason jar
with cloudy brown-red water
from the bristles of my paintbrushes
my coffee is cold
the french press is in the kitchen
but my flatmate is filming in there
so I’m stuck at my desk
with two sips of cold coffee left,
applying for jobs.
I feel very fragile
right now,
partly because I didn’t go to a job interview
today,
partly because I didn’t go to a job trial,
on friday
though I don’t want to be a waitress
and **** modelling for art classes scares me.
there’s a plant on my windowsill
named Lucy
and she doesn’t have to do anything
and there are two vanilla candles and an incense holder
with lavender incense burning
but **** all the things that
"bring peace"
like small plants, candles, incense, crystals and photographs;
I want a healthy and clean life,
so I have these things
part as a protection
from my own mind
but to be perfectly honest,
I’m at the desk, browsing jobs online,
saving them for later into a bookmark folder entitled
"Wellington Jobs"
instead of actually applying.

you’re like an echo,
a pattern on a rug,
a wild rainstorm without the flood


I drew an X and O on a piece of bark 

with my red lipstick but I didn’t have the guts

to put it in your mailbox



that’s a true story

you met a *****

golden smile and legs

when we last spoke, I told you life was absolutely great

dishonesty gets the best of me
when really I’m alone here

trying to scrimp and save

every moment you and I have made

and I could die

that’s a sad story
and a true story

patterns
echoes
come back to me like a boomerang

I haven’t seen you in clarity
in a very long time

you’re like a horse race track
and I am galloping, number 9

running for dear life,
with blinders on the sides of my eyes


running to run, not
running to win, just
running for running
away

I never found it easy to stay
in one place
in my head, even in my heart
they’re fickle body parts

it’s easy to take one step too far away
it’s not easy to stay
it’s easy to regret anything
and I do all of these things over and over again

I’ll probably always thirst for distance
but if you need to,
you can find me in my garden, where I plant
a lot of thought
I’ll always hope that someday,
you’ll recognize your loss and look me in the eyes again

I’m like a hayseed
having a hard time surrendering to the wind
and I could die

still, maybe I am barefoot at your door
while the neighbourhood is asleep
drawing X’s and O’s on tree bark or two stick figures kissing
with sidewalk chalk

I dreamt you were with someone else
you drank lemonade and held hands,
a perfect summer romance

it made me want to die
it made me want to write you a letter and then burn it
but I decided to repress it all instead

I’m sorry for leaving
and then coming back
and then leaving again

and though I only saw you last week,
I haven’t seen you in clarity in a long time

it makes me lonely and when I feel lonely,
I speak to the sky
whispering secrets, you see,
it’s the only thing I can always speak to without lying

the truth is a fierce thing,
like wind can be,
it can be merciless
and I am just a hayseed
having a hard time surrendering to the wind

oh, the truth
it echoes, even in a field

or perhaps
just in my head

you can’t run away from the truth after you tell it to the sky
because the sky is everywhere,
always watching

always listening

always there

and that kind of makes me want to die

if I inch a little closer, it will give me
warmth

I have felt like a million pieces of a human scattered about
in several fields and bushes
like ash floating in the sky
and seashells washed up on the shore

but with warmth,
realness and a true heart is remembered
and the abundance of smeared portraits of 

that sad girl
or that stupid girl
or that crazy girl
or any identity
is nothing more than a pen's strikeout on
a word
that just doesn't belong in
a perfect sentence

please
be tender with me
but don’t let me use you
that’s something I’ve gotten the hang of and readily available people
sometimes shouldn’t always be so
readily available ~
I know this because I’ve often been too readily available
and walked all over,
I think I still have the footprints on my little arrhythmic heart
to prove it —

oh
I’m pretty sure though,
you know,
that we all know what it’s like
to be the plant uprooted from the soil
for the selfish purposes of indoor decor:
it needs
and needs and needs
because self-sufficient roots were cut
and it pleads
and pleads and pleads
*please
be tender with me,
for I don’t know what I am doing here
let alone how to live here in this dark
****** pit you call a home — *

I’ve made a new home for myself
every day
because every day, I am not the same
it’s a constant struggle of
head vs. heart
and
holding back vs. art; &
if I’m going to be honest about one thing
it’s that
I’m completely alright … it’s just,
admitting that means
I’ve got to step into the light
and I’m just so attached to this little plant inside of me
that has been uprooted and abused,
I’m dwelling on mistakes and madness and using
a thousand nouns to fill me whole,
I completely forget that playing the victim makes me sick
and to grow,
all I need is water, love and sun for my soul.

start a poem;
with what?
I choose a word and think: I always start poems
just like that;
I want to be more abstract
and tralala pulchritudinous --
there's a word for you; I used a thesaurus,
how phoney
how transposed and disconnected from my heart
I write

and I know I can do better than that
than this
yeah, I know that
and I'm a strong believer of
art
creating itself
when it's meant to be created
and that sometimes it's just not meant to be
but when there is so much
filling the heart with wistful agony
and agonizing wistfulness,
creating something pretty
feels pretty good; and you'd think
there'd ought to be something
to write about
if I can feel this much inside of me
if it's that heavy...
I guess
what I'm really trying to say
is that
I'm afraid.
but that's not good enough, is it?
I want to write wilting lilies and papercuts
and stubbed toes and a bit of rage and longing, but mostly
I want to write the truth
and the truth is
I'm afraid
that I'm not enough;

but I know, I know,
that's not good enough, is it?