time builds shutters over the windows of my home
where my neighbors began to form theories of what
happened to that lost girl: “she either has a lot of
skeletons in her closet, or she let herself become one.”

birds can sense the halt of the world,
and the impending destruction. they
began to flock in large hordes as a
whirlwind of catastrophic proportion
made the wood groan and the glass
shatter underneath my hands. my
body looked like i was leaking out
the inside of a fleshy pomegranate
instead of my usual hollow words.
the sky cracked open, revealing the
devil and god having their own war.
was i so narcissistic to believe i could
be like Calypso and detain Odysseus
who already had Penelope?

these damages to my home are meticulously
concealed, as the doctors wire my jaw shut
and sew my tongue to the roof of my mouth.
the autumn sunrise becomes the entrancing
aftermath of a violent storm. the usual gray is
replaces with vibrant hues of glossy orange and
yellow. i am careful not to let my guard down.
autumn looks like a masked intruder who i
would drag into my house, ask them to take
everything i own, and not beg for anything back.
there’s no one quite like autumn.

i would let the seaweed wrap itself around
my ankles at the bottom of the ocean before
i would offer myself the chance to breathe.
however, my lungs begin to get tired.

i have already committed the greatest sin possible,
and i haven’t even grazed the outer skin of it.

he calls me siren
and my brain automatically processes,
“luring people to an imminent death.”
after explaining the definition of a siren,
the man redacted his comment,
apologizes,
going on to explain it’s the way
i am alluring as if that can take
back the moment my ex’s point
a ended up in a girl’s point b.

as if trying to sink my head below
the waves every night couldn’t feed
that animalistic appetite of his.

he calls me siren,
and i can’t help but think
about how draining it feels like
to have the aspiration to sing
but the fear of having to count
my casualties like sheep during
the night. like pills during the day.

we practice open mouth kissing
like you’re eating my words. we
embrace, and it feels like constriction.

i am a siren,
i lure people in wearing a chastity belt
and expect the ship not to sink. most of
these ships are pirate ships - there is
nothing pure about their intentions of
stealing my gold.

we romanticize the flames
as pure light
the choruses
as church hymns
until we are digging sailor’s graves
and watching the flames go out.

i am a siren, and i have not dared
to open my mouth lest i will bring death.

to fall for someone means catching them, right?
like holden caulfield pictured it, there should
logically be someone who can catch the kids who
start to go over the cliff if they’re not paying
attention to where they’re going metaphorically.
however, the rules of love does not play fair.
a lot of times, the catcher in the rye becomes
a phantom limb. everything is disillusioned
and phony, don't let the world try to trick you.

then what kind of ******* am i pushing when
i'm pushing myself towards the cliff? do i
kiss you out of loneliness? do i miss love?

don't let the absence swallow you, or you'll
be riding for a fall—it’s a special kind of fall,
a horrible kind. i'm not permitted to feel or
hear myself hit bottom. i just keep falling
and falling. the moment i turned towards
the cliff, i was letting you crawl into my skin,
and you infected me like a plague so fast
that i could see my vision get blurry from
the sides from running towards that cliff.

all i know is i’m one of the kids in the field
of rye sprinting towards the edge of the cliff
with open eyes hoping the catcher in the rye
will rope his arm around my stomach before
i plummet. the fall i think i’m riding for - it’s
a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. i’m not
permitted to feel or hear myself hit the bottom.
i just keep falling and falling until the catcher
helps me get back onto my feet, however, i can
not pitch the ball and catch it too.

- kra

meeting you was like brushing shoulders with
god – once i turned around to catch a glimpse
of you, i realized it would take a requested but
granted miracle for us to intersect. they say in
euclid geometry that two parallel lines will
never touch despite the fact that they lie on the
same plane going in the same direction. as long
as that plane kept us interconnected, i thought it
would be okay to let you speak words of
resurrection to me. as long as the roses inside my
chest continue to blossom and as long as you
continue to help pluck off all the overgrowth of
thorns, i thought it would be okay to let you see
me for the beast that lies under my beauty. it feels
like i’m getting closer to the truth, but further
from the one that i’ve been looking for. the big
picture looks a lot like manifest destiny collided
with continental drift.

there is something called the bermuda triangle.
this is not to be mistaken as a metaphor for an
unrequited love triangle. a significant number
of aircraft and ships have mysteriously vanished
from thin air, so they have made a name specifically
for the catastrophic triangular death sentence
phenomenon that lies out in the north atlantic
ocean. i think of myself as the one aircraft that
plummeted into the waters early. despite how
long i’ve been flying this aircraft, it’s the turbulence
that puts me at risk for something like this. i didn’t
know being one of many parallel lines would have
a death sentence. mother nature is laughing at me
as i sink, because i’ve forgotten how to swim.

i’ve become a part of the empty space on the plane
filling in that void until you eventually collided
with a perpendicular line changing your direction.
parallel lines don’t get the satisfaction of ever
crossing into each other. they are always at arms
distance. close enough to touch, but not close enough
to feel the ghost of their breath on our cheeks. we’ve
acknowledged that the other exists, but not the fact
that we could divert from our paths towards each
other. loving you was a learning experience. it was
learning that i shouldn't swim into deep waters, but
i shouldn't stand in a three foot pool. this is why i want
to know if there is such a thing as non-euclidian
geometry, if there is hope for us parallel lines that
will never collide with our soulmates.

- kra

the doors are open. there is something you have that
i need. i've been driving since march, taking the
longest route. whenever you get to your final
destination, you're expecting to get exactly
what you drove through heavy rain or
blinding sunlight for. turns out, the shorter
route could have gotten me closer to getting
what i came there for. all of you is taken from
me. there is nothing left for me. the doors are shut.

- kra

once you learn the self-efficient art of
losing yourself to denial, the lenses are
blacked out - replaced by a similar world
to the world before - but easier to stand in.
i've gotten denial down to a science. smoke
and mirrors became something i'm smart
at doing: reflecting, refracting, d i m m i n g
the lights. where is the plan b of denial at?

there is nothing to stand behind. i have
nothing to offer and nothing to give.

i'm losing my obscurity because i'm letting
my walls down around you. what does it
mean to play by the rules when i bend them?

- kra

i think about all the insurmountable times i have
watched myself shave off the bark of my skin
to watch others thrive and blossom violently like
wildflowers and chrysanthemums. i think of how
you have always been a tree – tall, mighty, powerful
- with roots that don't seem to make mine feel like
weeds. teach me, for i aspire to be luminous, tree.
i dream of worlds made of jasmine and honeysuckle,
of utopias devoid of the bark i've shaved off my back.
i dream of sap that feels a little less like magma and
a lot more like maple syrup. i dream of roots that
doesn't feel like granite and completely calcified.
teach me, for i aspire to be luminous, tree.