thank you
for loving the parts of me
i have not learned to love yet
thank you
for holding my broken pieces together
even as my rough edges scrape against your own
even as the softest parts of you
are rubbed raw by the parts of me i could do without

i am sorry
if sometimes i do not tell you i love you enough
it is only because i love you so much
and so deeply
i forget it needs to be said, because loving you is so much a part of me
i forget to tell you how i love and appreciate you
the way i would forget to tell my lungs or legs

i am trying to be better for you
until i can be better for myself
until the waters of time have worn my rough edges down
to sea glass smooth and shining
until the parts of me i could do without
fit neatly into the mosaic of parts i could never do without
and then all you will feel when you touch me
or hold me
will be the softness of my skin
against yours

1.Remember the past
Remember home
Let memories burn holes in your heart
Scars wander your skin like stars
Veins filled with poetry
Bleed words from your lips
Filling your mouth with broken glass
Spit out your feelings
This is the good kind of loss

2. Soft mouth full of marbles
Shaking hands full of water
Anxious heart full of feeling
Broken fingers full of stories
Everything spills over eventually

Stop treating your poetry like bleeding
It does not empty you
It is your blood trying to be sweet again
It is your heart trying to be bright again

3. Do not stop turning ugly hurt into delicate poems
Do not listen when they tell you your pain is not pretty
Wrap your words in gauze until they are as soft as the flesh of your throat
Tie ribbons around your suffering if it makes it easier for you to look at it

4. This is more than poetry
This is survival

do we ever see the world
in an undiluted state?
i walked through the city streets today
and saw the world double blurred
through the haze of rainwater on my glasses
and the clear bubble of my umbrella

do we ever look at things
and simply see them, without an established frame of reference?
is it even possible to look at something
and see it as it is and not through the telephoto lens of the life you've lived?

does it matter that we look at the world
and can only ever see the things we see?
'is your orange my orange' sounds like a silly absurdity
a quirk of language and the subjectivity of human thought
does it matter there's no way for us to know the answer?

everything we see is filtered through the lens of the lives we've lead
your experiences color your vision like a pair of tinted glasses
my orange will never be your orange
the same way no two things ever truly touch

when you take someone's hand, your skin never really touches on an atomic level
when you look at the city streets blurred with rain you don't see the same thing as the person standing beside you
the important things are not the not-truly-seeing or the not-truly-touching

the important thing is that humans will always try
i will always try to see your orange
i will always try to touch your skin

i have a weird relationship with death
when i was 15 months old i was diagnosed with a rare cancer of the retina
and when i tell people they always say the same thing
oh, i'm so sorry
and i tell them don't feel sorry for me feel sorry for my mother
feel sorry for the woman who watched her infant daughter get cancer
only to get it herself 57 years later
my early life was a blur of hospitals
because the thing they don't tell you about cancer is that unless you die
it's never over
every bump, every mole, every headache, every pain you think
is this it?
is it back? is this going to be the thing that kills me?
but i never really knew death outside of cats and grandparents until college
i never had a friend die in an accident, never had anyone die who wasn't old and expecting it
until my mom's best friend died of internal bleeding of the esophagus in october of 2011
and in the end i think that's what caused my own internal bleeding
not literally but metaphorically
because anxiety and depression and ptsd all feel a lot like slowing bleeding to death from the inside
everything draining away in silence leaving you empty and hollow
until one day you are simply no longer there
on the same day three years later my father died
and when i tell people they always say
oh i'm so sorry
and i tell them don't be
as far as i'm concerned my father died five years ago
the last time we spoke i told him i loved him
and i don't know if i meant it
or if i did it because it was the right thing to do
then two months later my grandmother's friend died
died of cancer to be exact
the thing that could have killed me
the thing that could have killed my mother
i spent four hours in a room with his dead body and i have never felt so much like death was staring me in the face
a tiny specter in the corner whispering
this could have been you
this could have been your mother
i have a weird relationship with death
as a child i refused to go to bed without saying good night
because i was afraid i'd never wake up and would have died forgetting to tell my parents i loved them
i am not afraid of dying
i am afraid of living without people
i am afraid of leaving people behind
because i have been left behind
and it's hard to patch up gaping wounds with butterfly stitches

dear father

when i was six years old i used to play doctor on you
with the medical kit the doctors gave me acclimate me to being in hospitals all the time
now i'm 21 years old and you're laying in a real hospital, dying
leaving me again
you used to be someone i looked up to
but you took that person away from me when you raised that bottle to your lips
when you raised your voice to me and said things a father should never say to a daughter
things no one should ever say to anybody

when i was 16 we kicked you out of the house
and you left us with a pile of rubble to build into a life
and my heart and soul and brain are full of shrapnel
the bits and pieces, sharp and biting are shaped like words
they are are shaped like 'fat' and '****' and 'stupid' and 'never amount to anything' and 'no better than me'

when i was 16 you made a choice
you made a choice that hating yourself and getting drunk was more important then your family
more important than me
i've never heard anything so ******* pathetic in my entire life
than to never have the ***** to get better for the people who love you

when i was 19 my mother got sick
and you dealt with it like you deal with anything
you got drunk and made our lives miserable from hundreds of miles away
even then everything was about you
everything is always about you; your problems your ****** childhood how terrible you think you are how awful this makes you feel

**** your problems
you had 53 years to deal with your problems and you didn't
and now everyone else has to deal with the aftermath
like an island full of land mines so no one knows where to step
you took your problems and used them to abuse everyone else and never took responsibility
and you never will because dead men can't take responsibility for anything

did you really need to take one last thing from me?
you took my childhood and tore it to pieces
you shattered my self esteem, destroyed my sense of worth
you took the person i called my dad away from me
and now before i have a chance to come to terms with all the things you did
you drink yourself to death

i can't confront you about the things you did
it won't mean anything when you don't even know what day it is
do you even remember speaking to me the other day
do you remember i'm still mad
do you even remember all the awful things you did to me

call me spiteful but i'm angry you won't have to live a long life remembering the way you abused me
while i am forced to remember it every day
every time i look in a mirror
every time i cry about something that 'doesn't matter'
every time something is just a little too loud

how come you get to ruin your brain and ruin your body and die and forget everything
and i have to live every day remembering
how is that fair
how come you get to make yourself the victim when i'm the one fighting to survive

how dare you
how ******* dare you
the audacity it took to do all those things to me, and then drink until you forgot them, and then drink until it destroyed you
one more awful thing on a long list of slights you and alcohol have enacted against me
couldn't you have at least not done this now
tracy died three years ago the sixth
how could you ******* do this to us
especially to mom
weren't you supposed to love her?
are you even sorry?

how am i supposed to mourn someone i haven't had the time to forgive
how am i supposed to mourn someone who died a long time ago as far as i'm concerned
how am i supposed to feel when you're dying and taking all my options away from me
one last time

there is no excuse for the things you did to me
there never were and there never will be
and i will probably never forgive you for them
and now i will never forgive you for dying before i had a chance to heal
and for taking any chance i had to tell you how much you hurt me away from me

i will try to mourn the man who drew dots on softballs so i could see them better
and let me draw on his back and put bows in his hair
but it's hard to mourn someone you buried more than five years ago
i had to tell myself the old you was dead to keep myself alive
i don't know what a difference your real death will make in that endeavor

how is that even half dead and hundreds of miles away
you're still ruining my ******* life
and hurting my feelings
i would feel better about your death if i knew it would take away your voice in my head
but i know that it won't

if you ever get better i hope it's with the knowledge of all the pain you made me suffer
i hope you know what you did
at least then both of us our miserable

i told you i loved you when i talked to you on the phone but i can't sign this letter with a lie,
your daughter

when i was a teenager i fancied myself an adult
even when i was younger than a teenager
11, 12, 13 years old, barely not a little girl,
i thought i was a grown up
because functionally i was an adult
i came home to empty house and cooked for myself, cleaned up after myself, did the dishes while i was still afraid of all the knives, did the laundry when i was barely tall enough to reach the bottom of the washer

And at the time, i thought this was a good thing
i talked about how mature i was, how together i was
in high school i was all about how well prepared i was for life because i already knew how to cook and clean for myself
i already knew how to care for myself

and then i went away to college
and at first i was fine, i was right, i could look after myself
i got good grades, i cleaned my dorm room, i cooked myself dinner
i was functionally and legally an adult
and then my mom got cancer
i was 400 miles from home and my mom got cancer and i didn't want to be an adult anymore

suddenly i was nine years old crying alone in my bed
except i couldn't cry alone in my bed because i had roommates
so it was one am and i sobbed on the porch being careful not to cry out too loudly because i was afraid of what the neighbors would think

when i started going to therapy one of the first things she said was that i was a parentalized child
that's someone who, as a child, was forced to act as their own or someone else's parent
a psychiatric diagnosis of 'she just grew up too fast'

i grew up too fast and now i'm twenty one years old and trying to remember how to be a child again
but i can't remember something i never was
i feel like i'm trying to hold onto water

there's a part of me that's young and scared and a part of me that's old and fakes being well adjusted
and for a long time they coexisted
not in harmony, just in separate parts of my brain where they couldn't see or speak to each other
but now someone's gone and introduced them and they won't stop fighting
the screaming in my head is loud and never ceases and i'm never sure which one of them is winning

i have to learn how to be a child and be okay with crying and asking for help with things i should know how to do
and i have to be an adult and be responsible and wake up on time
and i don't know how to do all those things at once
because as much as i like that shel silverstein poem, our ages are not pennies in a bandaid box
i can't be seven or twenty one based on when it suits me
i do not know how to reconcile the warring parts of me

my mother lived through cancer
and i haven't spoken to my father in almost two years
but i am still dealing with the shrapnel that's taken the place of the blood in my veins
and if anyone tells you that growing up quickly is a good thing
that it will make you well prepared for living alone
don't listen to them

i listened to them and now i'm twenty one years old and i can't go to the doctor without bringing a teddy bear
and i can't sleep without a nightlight
and sometimes i even drink from sippy cups because i find the familiarity soothing
because the little girl inside of me never learned to be an adult
and the adult that made itself my skin can't remember how to be a child because they never were one
i am two separate halves that cannot figure out how to be whole together

your life is a building with a hundred stories and no elevator
you have to go to each floor before you can reach the top
if you skip too many stairs you might just fall down to the bottom
and i promise
there is no shortcut worth dying for

There is a cage around my heart
Made of rose thorns
They do not touch the muscle
That thrums fearfully in my chest
But only because the proximity of the thorns
Make it too frightened to swell as large as it could
Or should
I am afraid to breathe
Or feel
Too deeply
For fear the thorns will lodge themselves inside my heart
And never let go.

My daily life is a practice in moderation
And careful measuring
Of how much I can breathe
Feel
Speak
My existence is a study in control
And management
How many breaths of ten does it take
To slow the frantic beating of my anxious heart
How many tapping fingers does it take
To quell the urge to drive my nails into the soft skin of my arms
Like the thorns that threaten the exhausted muscle I call my heart.

I am the product of war
Waged on my home soil
The forest has been burned to the ground
Leaving nothing but stumps
And burnt top soil
And thorns
There might be rosebuds somewhere
Among the thorns
But I am afraid to prune them away
They dig into the bones of my ribs
The top of my lungs
It would hurt if I cut them away.

It is said that burnt soil is the most fertile
But I don’t feel like I’m being re-born
I feel like I am nothing but burnt branches and scarred flesh and thorns
If I clean and trim and prune them away
There will be nothing left of me
Nothing of who I once was
Or who I might have become
Sometimes I cannot feel my heart beat
Beneath the cage of thorns
I am afraid  I might have died
That my heart may have ceased to beat
While I was too busy being afraid.

when i met my first boyfriend i was a gaping wound
my personality was the hole my father spent years drilling into my chest
he was dating two other girls at the time
we all knew we were all okay with it
i didn't like it but i kept at it anyway because i needed someone
anyone
to tell me things about myself i could shove in the cavernous chamber of my empty heart to try and stop the bleeding
that isn't to say i didn't love him
i loved him even when he fell asleep without saying good night
even if i hated that
i loved him when i shouldn't have
i stayed with him when he cheated on me because i was so afraid no one else would ever give me a second glance
and because i thought i loved him i did things i wish i could take back, that leave me feeling alone and scared and violated

when i met my second boyfriend i had a crush on somebody else
and i was a scared little girl, far away from home and missing people i could never see again
my personality was a time bomb, ticking ticking ticking it's way to mania or depression or anxiety which is a lot like a little bit of both
the wound in my chest had closed all wrong and the skin was uneven and grey
i held both my hands over the ****
until he pried them away gently
keeping me distracted with conversation about books and off handed compliments

when i met my second boyfriend i was scared because i could never figure out exactly what he wanted
or what i was doing with someone so clearly out of my league
i loved him before i noticed that i loved him
and it hit me like a ton of bricks the first time i saw him
when i opened the door and the first thing he did was open his arms
and i was terrified because i am gunshy in every sense of the word
i don't like loud sudden noises and i don't like loud sudden emotions
but he was gentle even as he touched all the rough edges of me

when i told him i loved him for the first time i said in the typographical equivalent of a whisper
knowing he wouldn't say it back
but he did
when i called him my boyfriend for the first time i'd already been in love with him for months
when he tells me i am beautiful i have trouble believing him
but i paper my body in his words like wallpaper bandaids hoping they will cover up the scars that just won't heal
when i say his name it rolls across my tongue like rock candy; sweet and rough and permanent
when he tells me he loves me, even if he says it ten times a day, it is as new and wonderful as surprising as the first time
when we fight, after we make up, he says i'm sorry, even when it wasn't his fault
and when he looks at me, it's a little easier to keep my hands away from the scar across my chest

today my therapist told me that i'm depressed
and i wasn't surprised and i felt almost
vindicated
like when i dislocated my knee and spent months yelling at doctors
no no can't you see
something's wrong i can't walk right
it hurts to stand
it hurts to move
and then when my physical therapist finally figured out what was wrong
yeah it ****** to be told my legs were ****** up
but finally somebody SAW
somebody GOT IT

after i had surgery to fix my knee, it got worse for awhile
but now it just comes in waves
my bad days are a lot like my bad knee
some days i only remember there was ever a problem if i see the six inch scar on my right shin
but some days the pain makes it so i cant walk down the stairs of my apartment building
some days i don't think a single bad thought, and i can almost forget everything that happened
but some days my anxiety is so bad and i'm so depressed i can barely breathe

my knee surgery was three years ago and i still can't run a mile or walk down stairs without feeling  pain
i try to keep that in mind when i remember how long it's been since i finally got away from my father but it's hard
it's hard because everyone can see the scars on my leg and say
oh what happened? are you okay?
no one can see inside my brain or see the surface of my heart and say
oh god, what happened to you?

so when my therapist told me i was depressed
would it be crazy if i said i felt a little relieved?

it's hard to believe
that the world could keep spinning without you in it
but it's spun completely on it's axis
not once
but twice
and i must be off balance
because 730 days
feels an awful lot like yesterday

I was talking to my therapist
About how much the two sides of my brain hate each other
About how scared and alone one side is
And how bitter the other one is that she had to be the one to do the growing up
And she told me that every time I hate myself
Every time I think how stupid I am for crying over dropping my hairbrush on the floor
Or over the death of a loved one
How ridiculous it is that I miss my boyfriend after talking to him ten minutes before
Any time I think anything negative about myself
It's like giving my father a high five
It's like telling him he did a great job when he set out to **** my head up so badly
That even years later I can't even think his name without feeling my entire being freeze up in terror
My father is like a snake and his words
His words are like venom that creeps through my veins paralyzing everything I might like about myself
For every time I think '**** I look good today'
There are a thousand other days where I heard his voice in the back of my head
Shouting all the things that have ever been wrong with me

But I'm done high fiving my father for making me hate myself
I'm replacing the shouts he left reverberating in my brain like an echo chamber
With the things my boyfriend whispers to me in the morning when we wake up
Because he thinks I'm beautiful before I brush my teeth, or do my hair, or drink my coffee
And I will replace them with the way he says my name when we have ***
Like I am a gift unto this world
Instead of a misbehaviour

When I walk down the street and a man calls me 'Sweet ****'
With his wedding ring clad hand resting on the rolled down window of his SUV
I am supposed to like it
Fat girls should be grateful someone wants them, after all
Women should be grateful for the attention of strangers
Women are taught to be sponges
Domestic and silent and absorbing the words of men around them
If a woman talks 30 percent of the time
A man will feel like she is dominating the coversation
A man calling a woman 'baby' on a street corner is a compliment
But a teenage girl saying a celebrity has nice eyes is fetishizing
Men are taught that they are the default mode
While women are taught to make room
Men sit with their legs spread and elbows out on subway trains
Women tuck their ankles together and rest their hands in their laps
The great crime of patriarchy though
Isn't the way it affects how men feel about women
But how women feel about women
Like every great dystopian novel on the planet
We are taught to hate ourselves and hate each other
Because that will keep us distracted from the real problem
The richest woman in the world  makes one sixth what the richest man makes
Girls are still afraid to speak up in classrooms from first grade to PHDs
No one listens when we start talking
So we start screaming
And everyone just tells up to shut up
And stop being so **** sensitive

You read a book once

About a girl who woke up to rose tattoos

Blooming across her hips and thighs

Like real flowers

But when you look down at your own hips

The only things blooming there are fat dimples

And the bruises you gave yourself

Like a replacement for the wounds he never gave you

But you almost wish he did

You are splinter in my heart that won’t come out

Nagging nagging nagging

Especially on night like tonight

When it is hot and still and half dark

Like the summers we spent wasting time in the square

And everything smelled like rosemary bushes and lemonade

And the street lights made you look electric

Like the day you shocked me

And left me burning in your wake

People like to look at girls
Swathed in shining fabrics and shades of pink
And imagine they are weak
I have one thing to say to that
And it is
"*******"
As my polished nails curl into a fist that breaks your nose
And the thorns on my flower crown cut into the flesh of your throat

How astonishing
That something as small and feeble as the human heart
Encased in a cage of muscles and bones for its own safety
Can reach out across hundreds of miles
To touch another of its own kind
Give all it has to give
And continue beating

When she puts on her powder blue skirt
That drifts on the breeze like flower petals
She feels a little bit like Alice
Wandering but not quite lost through Wonderland
And if she hides her green eyes behind pink glasses
Cat eyes dark enough to hide where she's looking
She feels a little bit like Weetzie
Too strange for people to notice she's not quite beautiful
And if she wraps her arms in the woolen grey cardigan
Not quite long enough for her to nervously tug at the sleeves
She feels a little bit like Luna
Strong enough to be caring without getting hurt
She isn't quite sure how to be herself yet
So she takes bits and pieces of other girls
Stronger, lovelier, more confident than her
And sifts through them
Like racks of pretty dresses or lipstick colors or sunglasses
and tries to figure out who she really is.

I have spent many hours over the years
Staring sadly at pictures of girls with delicate pale skin
(Much like mine, but without stretchmarks or scars)
Who wore soft, flowing dress
And high cut shorts
And flower crowns
And lamented mentally the fact that I was not small
Or delicate or sprightly enough
To wear flowers crowns and pastel dresses and golden sandals
And I have spent many an hour soaking myself in the sadness
That who I feel like inside and how I feel I have to express myself
Because of my size, the width of my hips, the set of my shoulders
Were not things that matched
But I am trying my best to remember
That the bulge of my stomach
and the thickness of my thighs
And the stretch marks trailing over my skin
Do not make me unworthy
Of dressing delicately and femininely
And I am just as much allowed
To wear gauze and flower crowns
As the next girl

If I believed in god
And I thought it would fix me
I would get on my knees each day
And pray
But as it stands
The kind of worship I do on my knees
Would hardly be accepted as holy by any god I know.
It doesn't really matter to me
because the last time I believed in anything other than coincidence was so long ago I can't remember
And if I'm on my knees
I'd rather worship love than absolute power.

Sometimes I wonder if believing there was a reason
Would make me any better
If thinking someone made my father spew those venomous words
But at the end of the day I'd rather my father be responsible
Than an invisible man who lives in the clouds, too cowardly to show his face
To the people he is hurting each day in the name of faith.

Because why would you put your faith in something invisible
That takes away your loved ones and gives you cancer to challenge you
When you could put your faith in the childhood best friend who makes you laugh
Or the mother who helped you survive cancer and high school and abuse
Or the boyfriend who bandages your old wounds with soft words and whose fingers make you feel like flying?

God is intangible and thus can never die
but God is intangible and thus can never touch you
He will never hug you with the wrm arms of your best friend
Or stroke your hair with a mother's cool hands
Or kiss you warmly with a lover's lips.

So I will worship the way I want to
And the way I know how
With eyes and hands and lips and hearts
And mixed CDs and letters and messages sent in early twilight hours
Because why would I worship anything other than the people who have held and loved me as I find my way out of the dark?

Tell me you're empty all you want
That all that's inside you is a darkened void
I won't believe a word you say
Because I've seen you laying in the dark
Half asleep as you whispered in my ear
And I've seen you in the half light of early morning
Filled with the lightness of sleep

You can't be empty because you're overflowing
With the thoughts you can't find the words to voice
And with kindness and wit
And day dreams and patience and love

You always tell me how you love balance
And your favorite colors are black and white
You think you feel too little
Well I feel way too much
We can find away to work things out
If you let me be the yin to your yang

You're the first to say that everyone has their damage
I'm broken, you're empty
And to borrow your words, there's poetry in that
Because if you look close enough
I think you'll start to find
Your broken, jagged pieces fit perfectly in mine.

I wish some trace of myself could linger on you
When I'm not around
The way lipstick lingers, pink and soft, on a soda can
Even after it is thrown into the trash

I wish I could leave some mark on you
Indelible but unpainful
Like grafitti on a wall
I was here

When I ran my hands across your skin
I wish it smudged and stained us both
Like ink
Or graphite

When I trace your shape with my eyes
I wish it left tracks
trailing gently over your skin
Like veins, soft and purple

I can feel your hand in mine
But I cannot see the gentle dents of your fingers
Pressing into my palms
Like the void left in your pillow when you rise each morning

I remember the feeling of laying beside you
But I cannot see the lines of your sheets
Pressed into my skin
Trailing like ribbons

Everyone who says words don’t hurt

should spend a night trying to sleep despite the itching rash on the back of their neck

that formed because they hated themselves so much their body had an allergic reaction

like their skin was a suit that didn’t fit right over the bumps and scars and welts and bruises of hundreds of terrible words

singed and beaten and cut into their skin out of the mouth of someone who was supposed to love them unconditionally

don't ever let them tell you monsters aren’t real

monsters are real but they aren’t dragons or demons

they walk around in the skin of your father and spew fiery hatred from their cavernous mouths without ever laying on hand you because oh no

that would be too easy

a bruise will fade in time but the scars on your mind from every awful word he ever pointed at you tears at you worse than a bullet from a gun

it’s shrapnel of the soul, ripping you apart from the inside every time you move or think or breathe or speak

sometimes i wish that he’d hit when i was 13 instead of calling me stupid and fat and ugly

because one fist to face and he’d be out on his *** where he belonged

instead he just made it so poetry is a from of physical therapy

where you cut yourself open and bleed words from your soul

like a desperate snake bike victim draining poison and blood from their veins

and at night you lie in bed and listen to the quiet beating of your fragile swollen heart

still here, still here, still here, still here, still here

you dont know if it's a reminder or a threat anymore

living is too hard but you're too weak to die so you suffer through every day

slowly and without confidence that you can make it through another

and like a person sent to war you think it's over when you get to leave the trenches

but you're wrong

the battle wages on in your head for years

none of your wounds have a chance to scar and heal as they get ripped open over and over again

you spend your life running confused and scared in a haze of blood loss

until finally your legs give out and you can't run anymore

and when someone tries to offer you a hand and pick you up

you're gun shy

it's okay, it's not your fault really

to others the world has been an oyster but to you it's felt like an iron maiden

but your comrade persists and pulls you gently to your feet

and tries to wrap your soul in bandages of pretty words

and bits of wisdom you need but don't want to hear

you try not to let them unravel, you know it would hurt him, he was so careful in not grazing the raw parts of you when he put them on

but sometimes it just happens

so he holds your hand and wraps you up again and lays beside you at night

listening to the quiet beat of your fragile, swollen heart

please stay, please stay, please stay, please stay, please stay

if you looked at my shoulders and my wrists
and how broadly they are set
how far from delicate and fragile
or if you looked and the thickness of my waist
and the heft of my weight
i doubt you would expect me to be this breakable
i certainly didnt
the truth is i dont really know if i am
im too afraid to let anyone close enough to try
the last person who molded me in their hands like clay left gouges where my organs should be
and a dozen half moon scars on my arms
and i am afraid to let anyone touch me again
even if they claim its to smooth out my cracks and gashes
im trying to seal them up myself
but i cant reach them all
my arms are only so long and when i try to reach the deep ones
the shallow ones crack open again
i dont know if i was poured into the wrong mold
or just made of the wrong clay
maybe i just got broken and glued back together wrong
i wonder if any of my pieces went missing

I am not a diamond
I am not glistening, not desired by many.
But I do think I might be coal
Seen as useful by some
*****, disgusting, polluting by others
And if you put me underground
The weight of the earth pressing in on me from all sides
Just maybe I could be something pretty, wanted.

Maybe I'm like black coffee
An acquired taste, not enjoyed by many
One even myself cannot stomach.
(What does that say about me?)
And I desperately fill myself with words and pictures
Soft and beautiful like gossamer and lace
All of the things I am not
In hopes that I will be sweet enough to drink.

Perhaps I'm a portrait, all broken brush strokes
And darkened shades of pthalos
And the voice drifting past say how beautiful it is
And how they can't wait to see it when it's done.
But it's already finished
They simply don't like to believe something that dark and eerie and broken
Is not a work in progress.

I guess this is just my fate
to be surrounded by people waiting for me to become something more than I am
Something less dark and broken
Something more delicate and beautiful
Something sweeter.
But they'll all leave in time
When they realize this is actually who I am
And that I'm not unfinished.

Remembering you were once just beside me
Is like the cut on the roof of my mouth
From eating too many tootie pops
It stings
But it is also a reminder that once
There was sweetness

it's never going to be easy to be four hundred miles from the first home you ever knew
and it's going to get harder when your mother gets diagnosed with cancer
and her best friend is dead and can't take care of her
and you can't take care of her because you're four hundred miles away
and you shouldn't have to take care of her because you're a scared 19 year old kid
but you will anyway because that's just how you operate
take care of everyone else forget to eat don't cry don't you dare ******* cry realize you haven't eaten since breakfast and it's almost midnight drink too much coffee lose sleep
but if everyone else is okay you'll be fine

and it's never going to be easy to be who knows how far away from the love of your life
the person you want to hold in your arms at night so maybe
just maybe
you can cry just a little and let go just a little and stop pretending you're okay and just hurt for awhile because for the love of god you're only 19 this isn't fair  and everything ******* hurts and you're mommy is sick and the closest thing you had to a second mom is dead because she drank herself to death and you can grin and bear it but you're not okay and nothing else is either

so you sit on campus and pour out words so you don't pour out tears
and your fingers are chapped and cold from the breeze off the ocean
and the breeze used to feel like home but now it's just cold and you wish you were warm at home, home home your real home, with your mother and your cat and the things you've seen every day since you could see
your eyes and nose are red and you don't know if it's from crying or the cold and you type so hard you forget to breathe
and all you want is to go home

but instead you close your eyes and scrunch away the tears fighting their way out
and you shove your hands inside your absurdly oversized sweater inbetween bites of the vending machine chimichanga you inevitably burn your mouth on
and you **** it up and tell everyone you're fine and go to class and get good grades
because if everyone else is fine
you can be okay for a few more hours
a few more days
a few more weeks
however long it takes

(but just because you do it doesn't mean it's easy)

I wish I could sing for you
But my voice is as rough as the canvas I paint on
And my medium has never been vocals
I have neither the talent or lung capacity
I am not rhythmic, simply loud.

I would write for you
But I fear I have already sent too many words your way
And you will begin to believe
(However truthfully)
That words are all I have to give.

I would paint or draw for you
But the lines produced by my clumsy, ringed fingers
Would never measure up to the delicate lines
Your hands trace into my skin.

I would simply show you I love you
By holding your hand
And brushing your hair from your eyes as you snooze
But you are too far
And my cold arms could never reach you.

I will offer you all this regardless.
My voice though it is rough and shaking.
My words though they are overused and ocassionally pretentious.
My artwork though it will never be as beautiful as your hands on my skin.
Myself, though I am cold and far away, graceless and indelicate, lost for words, and rough and broken.

I offer myself to you, broken pieces I may be, and I am yours to take or toss aside.
(Though I hope that you will choose the former)

I want to be fluent in you like a language
I want to roll you across my tongue like a Spanish R
Feel you catch in my throat like a French E
I want to memorize you like an Italian sonnet
And recite you like Shakespeare

I love you
I wish I didn't feel so prohibited
from saying those three words to you
that you were close enough I could whisper them with abandon
instead of typing them out anxiously
and with much trepidition
I love you
I wish you were here so I could tell you
I love you
And I could trace it onto the bare skin of your back
Whisper against your lips
Shout it from rooftops
murmur it against your ears
I love you
But I am not supposed to say those words to you
So I won't
I will write them out instead
in this poem I doubt I can bear to show you
And I will say it a hundred times in my head
Never once speaking it outloud
I love you
And simply hope that someday
I will be allowed to say it
and shout it from rooftops
and trace it into your skin with my finger tips
So often it becomes a permanent part of you and I
the red string of fate
magic
faith
whatever you wish to call it
I want to tell you so often
And so much
You could never begin to forget it
I love you

I imagine you are tired of me writing you poetry
and I understand doing so with such frequency
is bound to diminish its effects,
if it had any to begin with.
But the problem is that I have yet to tire of you
or the rock candy taste of your name on my tongue
rolling and jingling and solid.
And I have yet to tire of the ghosts of your voice,
cotton candy soft and sweet in my ear
as I slip away into sleep each night.
And I have yet to tire of the faint memories of your touch
that leave my skin buzzing like effervescent soda,
cool and refreshing and familiar.
And I have yet to tire of the last lingerings of your scent in my sheets
the sweet cinnamon sweat that clings to me bed
like a bittersweet cloud.
I am sure by now you have tired of my words
but I will give them too you anyway,
because I have yet to tire of you.

I wish I had enough words
The right words
To write a love poem about love
I wish I knew enough beautiful words
Enough dangerous words
Enough stupid words
Enough ecstatic words
To write a love poem about love
But alas I do not have the words
To explain the beauty of giving yourself to someone
Body mind and soul
Or the danger in surrendering so completely to another living being
Just as falliable as you are
Or the stupidity in opening yourself up
To the possibility of the worst pain you were ever feel
Or the complete ecstasy
That comes with the reckless abandon for yourself that love brings along
But I do not have the words to explain all that
Because I am merely human
And while loving is the most human thing of all
To describe it is so far beyond the realm of human comprehension
Because part of the beauty of love
Is that it is never the same for any person
Or between any two people
And no mere mortal could ever hope to understand
Something so varied and divine
So I will not write a love poem about love
Because I do not have the words
And I will not seek to understand it
Because I do not need to
All I need
Is to feel it.

you are a poem
and you are made up of every word you have ever said
or written
or thought
you are a poem i have only been able to read a small part of
the words in your stories
the sweet words you wrote me
everyday conversation
you are a poem
and you are also poetry
your words
your movements
you told me once you were the definition of average grace
but you my darling are poetry
your hand on my chin as you kiss me
the scrunch of your eyes as you laugh
you are poetry and you are poems
let me read you a bit longer
that is all i ask

lying on my back in the warmth of too early southern california morning
in a too empty bed that smells like memories
breathing slowly as I watch the moonbeams shine through the blinds
beams of light jittering slightly on the ceiling
and all that is missing from this moment
is the familiar purr of my cat in the corner
and the feeling of another's heartbeat under my chest
why do I crave domesticity the way I do?
is it because I come from a broken home
and desperately seek that which I never had?
is it because I watched too many movies
and read too many fairy tales?
or was i simply always meant to be this way
craving simple touches and the sound of your breathing
the way some people crave gin and cigarettes

I have given myself to you physically
I have given you my most precious gift
Not my body
But my words
I would give you my heart too
If I thought you wanted it
Or perhaps in has already slipped away
Seeking you out against my will
Utterly disregardent of the fact that you may not want it.

I apologize if my heart has found its way to you
And I do not blame you
If you do not wish to keep it safe
For my heart is lonely, stitched loosely and confused
And I would wish it on no one.

Perhaps I have given you too many words
In hopes they will give my heart something to stumble over
But my words may serve the same purpose
Of scaring you away.

But my words are more resilient than my heart
And they can take rejection
My words are braver than my heart
But they might just be more foolish
Marching blindly and fearlessly into a place they may not be wanted.

I can still smell you
In my sheets
In the sleeve of my shirt on the side that was nestled beneath you
In my pillows
Traces left behind
After the title wave of you.
If I close my eyes
And think hard enough
I can still feel your hand
On the back of my neck
And your lips on mine.
I can try to summon
The feeling of your beating heart beneath my cheekbone
But it has faded too fast
And grown too faint.
I try to remember the heat
Of your skin sliding along mine
And the sting of my skin
In your teeth.
This tidal wave of you
Has come and gone too quickly
Leaving me alone
In the wreckage of its wake.
I am left with just enough vestiges of you
Your scent
The ghostly touch of phantom fingers
To remember you vividly
And miss you eve more so.

I'm not sure what to do with this piece of ribbon
from the corsage you gave me
do you know you
sister
you were the only one to ever give me a corsage
and now I have all this shimmering pink ribbon
and a clump of dried sunset roses covered in glitter in the trash can
I thought about lighting it on fire
but I'm not sure if the flames would cleanse my wounds
or burn them
My body can't take anymore burns
You did that well enough yourself didnt you
sister
burned me inside and out with your words and your actions and your lack of words and lack of actions
you always told me you would chase me
if I left
so why wasn't I allowed to chase you
did I stop being important to you?
Is that what happened here?
You don't need me anymore so you cast me aside
like the others
Were you jealous I left and you didn't?
Angry I didn't take you with me?
I hope it's the latter
Because while your anger might hurt
it's your apathy that will **** me.
Please
tell me what I did wrong
why are we broken
and why won't you let me fix it
sister
Sister what am I supposed to do with the pink shining ribbon from the dead orange roses
I guess it's none of your concern anymore
Our friendship is as dead as those two year old roses
should i burn it the way you burned me?
should i throw it in the trash the same way you so carelessly tossed out a decade of friendship?
No
You are the destructive one
sister
Not me
I do not yet know what I will do with this ribbon
but I will use it the same way I use my pain
I will use to it create something beautiful

it is late
but not that late
and the wind blows against the side of the house
and the rusted metal eaves creak with the weight of their age outside my window
and i think that i might like to lay beside you
and listen to the world outside
while the wind howls and time streams by mollasses slow
and you will keep me warm
and i will keep you warm
maybe we will watch childrens movies
and huddle together like children frightened of the wind
and maybe we will fall asleep
and maybe we wont
it has been so long
since i was able to feel familiar with someone
but i think i could feel it again
with you

I want to hold you so closely
so intimately
my scent lingers on you
the way the smell of fresh coffee
haunts the halls of my home all afternoon
I want to kiss you so deeply
you still taste me on your tongue when you sleep at night
the way the taste of my morning coffee
clings to the roof of my mouth till well after mid morning
I want to touch you so often
the ghosts of my fingers fill your dreams
the way the feeling of sand and water
fades slowly from your feet for the rest of the day
I want to affect your very being
so my sould lingers with yours
twirling and twining and twisting together
like the strings of balloons
floating into the stars

My heart is like a locket
It is delicate and ornate
and slightly too big for the gossamer pink ribbon in hangs from

It shines brightly when the light hits it
but just easily is cloaked in shadow

It is delicate and easily breakable
Hinged
But whole

My heart is like a locket
with a picture on only one side
I am there
and I am whole and I am okay
I am not incomplete with a picture beside me
I still shine in light and become lost in darkness
I am still too big for my pink gossamer ribbon.

My picture does not need a companion
but she would like one
someone to share the fight to keep the ribbon taunt
and to smooth her frayed edges
and bent corners.

She has been there awhile
just like the locket
hinged
but not broken.

Slip into the empty space beside her
I think she has forgotten she is beautiful
slip into the empty space beside her
next to the hinge of my glistening locket heart.

sometimes
it seems like things are finally falling into place
only to fall right back out again
but sometimes
things we like fall apart
so even better things
have a chance
and a place
to fall together
and some mornings when you wake up and everything seems dull and brown
remember brown is just all the colors
mixed together
so put on some rose colored glasses
my dear
and filter out the cheerful reds and pinks from the muck of life
and remember that life is like a puzzle
and you cannot force together
two pieces that do not fit
you just have to look until you find the pieces that do
and hope they haven't been swept under the carpet of time

Do you ever lie alone at night
in an empty house with nothing but the sound of your breathing
in and out
in and out
in and out
to keep you company in the still dark night?

Do you ever notices how your breathing
so alone and loud in that silent room
seems like the loneliest sound in the world?

And do you notice
once you relaize how lonely your breath is
that you are lonely too?

That you yearn to feel the touch of another
fingers ghosting down your shoulder
caressing the knots of your spine
the beat of another heart
the rustle of clothes as they shift beside you?

I am used to being alone

I need no one
but it does not mean that from time to time
my breath
my body
my very being
doesn't get lonely from time to time
for the touch of another.

For a simple twining of fingers.

For a twining of bodies
a twining of minds
a twining of hearts
a twining of souls.

(Do you want me
like I want you?
Do you want me
at all?
Is your breath
lonely too?
Be careful how you answer me
for I am clumsy and quick to fall.)

I want to be a part of someone's story
That’s all really

I will settle for a page

A place in the acknowledgements

A chapter would be nice.

I don’t need to be a main character

I can be a silent member of your Grecian chorus

As long as I am included in your story.

I will settle for simply being a part of someone’s story

But what I really want

Is to inspire someone to write their story

Or change what is already written.

I want to deeply affect the narrative of someone’s life

Stories are not monologues

They are dialogues

We can learn from each other.

Love is like allowing someone to co author your life

And that’s all I want really

I want to be a part of somebody’s story

I want to help somebody write their story

And for them to help me write mine in turn.

I imagine the Egyptians felt about deaths of loved ones a lot like we think about autumn
It isn’t a passing
It isn’t a loss
They are just waiting for them to bloom again.
Plants are a fragile thing but maybe they aren’t as fragile as we think they are
Just as we are often not as strong as we think we are

It is easy to break a person
Especially one who does not want to be broken
Because they are the ones who will fight the hardest and tire quickly
It is much harder to shatter apathy than passion

Then there are the people who want to be broken
People who drink their own pain like water
Or maybe something more toxic like bad wine or good coffee
The people who look at their bruised arms and see lace
Instead of burst blood vessels

Some people need the pain to know they can still feel
They would rather feel agony than feel nothing at all
Some people need pain to create
Pain can be the paint in an artist’s brush, the keystrokes of a writer’s fingers

Some people feel pain because they are afraid to feel anything else
Happiness fades, contentment stagnates, but sorrow is a constant companion
Sometimes I worry
That I am one of these people

I spend my time reading, writing, inhabiting the minds of others
The stories of others
Because I am afraid to look my own story in the face
And see if I like the direction it has taken
Sometimes I live vicariously through the stories of others
Because I am afraid of what will happen in my own

I am trying to be passionate without being breakable
And I am trying to enjoy my water as well as my coffee
And I am slowly learning that I cannot write my story, it must write itself

Inevitably pain is part of every story
Including mine
There will be heartbreak and there will be bruises and there will be hairline fractures, cracks, fissures, schisms
People will leave, be it by death or by simply walking away
But every moment of pain is simply an autumn
A winter
And in time everything will bloom again
Stronger and more resplendent than ever before

The hose snakes, benign and cool, over the fence and into the yard
And water pours soundlessly into the familiar dirt beneath the dying dragons
It wets the burning asphalt
And it is the smell of the hot asphalt and cool water that is home
It is also the half a dozen strawberries dripping with cold tap water
It is the scrape of sunwarmed pavement after dark on bare toes
It is the sunset that makes the trees glow every different color
And the distant headlights swooshing in the dark of too early morning
The tap of fingers on keys in the between of today and the next
The scratch of paper and pencil and the smudge of a ***** palm
The sticky childish joy of ice cream
There is also the promise of crumbling leaves
And rain tapping on the roof at midnight
And wind gusting through treetops and hair
And the constant threat
Of impermanence

I realize it is a silly thing to cry over
But the end of a love that spans a decade is something to be mourned
And as this draws to a close I can feel myself breaking
You have been my childhood
You have caused my tears
And you have kept them at bay
You have taught me to believe in myself
You have shown me the value of friendship
You have kept me safe when I was in danger
Simply by allowing me to return to your pages
And when the credits role I will raise my wand not just to impart those beautiful words
Mischief Managed
But in honor
and in mourning
And in celebration
of the truest friend anyone has ever had

My heart feels too big in my chest
And I cannot see straight anymore as one day blurs drearily to tomorrow morning
Everything closed in for so long
And now I feel it slowly drawing open with all the ominous anxiety of a prey bird's claw
As everything finally opens up and blooms I am shaking
The opening happens too fast
I can feel pieces of myself yanking away
Hairs on a band aid
My face is hot and my arms are cold
There is so much to move towards
But so much to leave behind

There was a child went forth every day,
And everything she heard or saw, whether it was perceived with love, dread, hatred, pity…became a part of her
And it may have faded away in moments, or lingered with the day …or remained for years on end, caught in the web of her mind.
The voices became a part of her
And the broken glass and the splintered wood and the tear streaked faces and more than anything else the shouts
The sharp words and the words that weren’t words but blows and the words that turned to shrieks and the words she blocked with her hands and the slamming of the door… and the words she wrote in her journals… and the sobs coming through the crack in the door…. And the desperate cries for help she stifled with her narrow white teeth… were all a part of her.
And so were the laughter and the marker scribbles and the days at the flea market and the dinners in the living room
And so were the picnics in the yard and the games of t-ball, all those were part of her too, but there seemed much less of that.
And her friends began to dwindle one by one, as she grew older
And as she grew older it all grew worse, former friends gave pointed stares and words that stung like poison darts
And everything was closing in, the house, the town, her own emotions
The shouting was worse, the glass wasn’t broken but instead held poison that made the house stink… the stench of sterility and morgues and slow but ceaseless destruction
Her own father slowly filled her soul with a treacherous ocean of words and tears and memories and mistrust, he let her down again and again and again, he watched her fading and helped her along… whether he knew it or not
The man was still breathing, still had a beating heart, but the father was long dead, shredded to bits by his own words and the broken glass and the splintered wood and bottles of poison
The girl was fading swiftly, blocking off her door with silence and books to hide behind
They never questioned the self inflicted bruises since she was clumsy anyway….the dark circles beneath the hollow eyes were never commented upon, the silent tears were never seen… hidden behind glasses and too much hair
She was silent always, not agreeing nor disagreeing, simply hiding.
If she was quiet no one noticed, he didn’t notice, and if he didn’t notice, the words couldn’t hurt
But she wanted to cry out, scream, fight, her head was shouting that this wasn’t right, aren’t fathers supposed to love their daughters not make them bruise their arms and hate themselves? But her heart slammed no no no he can never know how scared we are.
So she bit her lips because bleeding was better than crying and no one noticed the swelling and everyone told her how happy and perfect she was… she faked a smile and bit her lips again
And every night she went home to slamming and shouting and words that bruised like punches
Fat, ****, stupid, useless, worthless, no better than me… the shadows of insults floated behind her eyes, under her skin, manifesting in tears and dark circles and scratches and bruises
She fought and she fought as he tore her apart and every night she stitched herself together
Washed her wounds with her tears and tried her best to sleep.
The shouts and poison were gone when the father left
Leaving the daughter bruised and bleeding and broken and hurting where no one could see
But she stitched herself together
The wounds have time to heal now.
The friends she made would give her new words, the drawings would let her take out her pain and her anger on something other than her skin, the words she wrote were the shouts she never allowed herself
The insults are still there, she has not forgiven the father but without him she would have no pain to pour onto pages like blood from a wound that has yet to scab over and scar, but now there is the laughter and the hands to hold and the new words that remind her of the new memories of grass and sky and smiles and effervescent voices
These are a part of her now too, and they are the things that have kept her going,
And they are the things that will keep her going and going, into a future he claimed she’d never have.