I.

i cut
my hair
i moved
away i
hid all
my life
and still
you find
me in
my dreams

II.

thirteen years
later trust
is still
a four
letter word
and i
don't drink
milk i
can't look
at Innocence's
face on
the carton

Her smile is beautiful
but it trembles ever so slightly
so that you can hardly see it
an autumn leaf, in the middle of fall
deciding whether or not to break from the branch

Her laugh is tentative
deciding whether or not to really let go
and her laugh is shaky
a small accidental vibrato in her throat
that catches its tremor ever so slightly


And her words wash over you,
accompanied by the cool breath of Altoids
and a leaf of the iceberg salad that she had for lunch
(no dressing please)

When she walks into a room
the air stills
not because she holds presence,
but merely because she lacks it
a rippling shadow that's gray and silver
against the dark ebony of the chalkboard

Her shoulders are ***** and upright
stiff and still
like a solider's stance
when standing at 'attention' in the middle of a battle
with the same dead expression
of seeing too much
that you want to go blind because of that
with the same stiff arms
that grip a pencil tightly
so that the whites of her knuckles are prominent and jutting
and you fear that the wood will snap under her detached temper


But her tears are not beautiful
because frankly,
sadness is not beautiful in itself
when it's on the page that you're reading
further ahead, maybe
but not in the present

And this is a girl who strives to be normal
without even looking up the definition
who eats skimpy iceberg salads at lunch with friends who all

have pizza and fries  
who constantly buys Altoids so frequently that she has a whole

box in her room full of empty tins
who is more aware of herself than anyone else
and this is a girl
who is insecure
A girl who loves without return
A girl who can laugh and cry and be just fine the next day
A girl who swears on a god that she doesn't necessarily believe
A girl who feels something when a boy smiles at her just the right way
A girl who is you

we laid on the bed and didn't touch.
i wanted you to hold me but i was afraid you'd catch this disease i have, apathy.
insomnia and heartache are synonyms,
you told me.
everything looks different in the dark.
you think you know your heart until the blackout illuminates a new one entirely.
i told you i was afraid and you wrote a lullaby down my spine.
that's not right.
everything is different in the dark.
you didn't touch me.
i forgot you didn't touch me.
the loaded question was on your lips as i pressed mine to yours. bang.
kissing doesn't count as touching but you stopped me anyway.
it was raining cats and dogs and you told me to lighten up or it would never stop.
i choked on your tongue and you called it a laugh.
silence is an accent i wish more people had.
you didn't say anything.
you didn't touch me.

you are my Brutus and I love
you more with each blade you slice into
me
23 stab wounds later and I am
made of wax
no longer bleeding or beating but
approaching thermosomatic phase transition when you
burn me alive
strike a match on my cheek light
a cigarette stub it out
my torso your ashtray, my heart a candle
lit vigil
burning low to ignite your frozen ire
I love you classical I love you Brutal I love you Antony
asleep in my tomb I love you buried under
municipal concrete I love you Amontillado I love you simultaneously
Héloïse and Abélard
I love you Delilah and I love you
you
let me count the ways
a six-sided die comes up 23
but my chest is already split open and you forgot
to feed the dog
give me public indecency and walk away
it's not your job to fix every schmuck who comes along
with a missing heart on your
beat

i jumped off a cliff but i didn't hit the ground
i must have caught the solar winds in a nice place
cause i was snatched into space off that cliff on that day
so i reached for the stars and the stars reached for me
and the sky fell apart and all things turned to dust
but still i was there turning dead and dry
no matter how i tried- i couldn't make myself die
so i shriveled into nothing and grew back more and more
forgot planets and worlds as new suns grew once more
my hair turned to stars and my skin turned to fire
but even those lights went out- after time
and i was no more-
and very gladly so

we need to stop cutting for the sake of cutting
and remember how beautiful
memory loss is.

i'm writing this letter for you.
you in the other room, i hear you through the wall,
talking
to yourself,
telling yourself secrets you never believe.
i have some i'd like to spill,
but every time i try,
the walls soak them up like
white cotton and
black ink.
i'd like you to hear something other than your own voice
and maybe you can hear me when
you read.
you brought me here.
took me with you when you left like
a trinket,
a memento of home,
something to hold in the night when regret is like
a knot of snakes
in your gut.
ibd driving you
to tangle limbs with another;
a facsimile of love
driving me.
i think now it was less love and more addiction.
less love and more stockholm syndrome,
a disorder i cultivated
to have a reason to stay with you, with you,
the most beautiful sledgehammer
i've ever seen.
euphonious dynamite.
you are thumbtacks in my eyes and dry clouds above my desert,
you drop through me like lead:
you are a pneumatic drill and i
am a porcelain doll,
a quail's egg
you shatter me and i know
i never had a chance -
who bets on a dead horse?
who spends all their faith on a pantheon
that rots as they watch.
you desiccate me decimate me and i let you.
you are a world war in the body of a girl,
and i am naught but
cannon fodder
and cotton mouth i read you poetry but the walls swallowed my words
and all you heard was breath
(isn't that enough that should be enough,
a gust of wind
a breeze;
and the spirit is nothing but air,
pneumatic:
cavitied and consecrated.
the walls swallowed its manifestations,
but you
felt my spirit on your skin)
but i am not
enough
you are tire tracks on my abandoned road and you
brought me with you whenever you ran and
never believed me when i told you that
(not every problem can be solved with a map
spread on the dashboard).
you don't care about solutions,  
though,
just avoidance and denial and
distraction,
you treat every vagrant
like god in disguise
you take every hitchhiker into your heart and carry them like tumors,
infirmity is contagious.
a gift the bodies share.
from you i received
an atrial septal defect;
a hole in my heart,
leaking  blood.
from you i received dysthymia and
a martyr complex.
from you i received knowledge:
[one: nobody is strong,
but some have reinforced their bomb shelters
with their own bones.]
[two: a baby doll, baby girl
thick wrists,
sick recurring pain in the form of mirrors,
bathroom stalls and naked form]
[three: a gasmask can't protect you from the poison in your veins.
believe me,
i tried]
[four: the gaps between your bones
will one day be filled
and you will feel whole]
[five: the blue lips of a deep sea diver
should not be idolized.
the only surgeries you perform should be on your own heart
so you wound no one but yourself
when your hands
shake.]
[six: i tried, i promise,
i tried,
i tried]
you are false sermons and i am a believer you are thumbtacks in my eyes and lightning flowers on my back.
when i perform self-surgery,
i will bisect my heart

take it with you when you run
i will stay behind
and speak to the walls.

it's cold outside but my kitten simply radiates heat
if only she would be useful and stay on my feet