a myriad of gears perpetually in movement
feeding the wolf with lust-filled eyes
of the ****** desire he yearns for. i recognize
that i am not the only rabbit he has trapped
between his jaws, and fall into the repetitive
cycle again. this time, the wolf does not
recognize that - as a cog in the machine -
i can crank in reverse. the disconnect
has the features of his face faded into
something unrecognizable, yet i feed
the wolf, satiating his hunger for another
day to pause the disonnance of my brain.

you can't break my ******* heart if i
choose the option to not open it at all.

- k.a.

when did the green shrubs
clustered haphazardly in the earth
the flora and fauna
patched in the dirt
the gray croncrete slabs
right beneath my feet
cumulate into violent crimson
tints right before my eyes. when
did i start seeing the bloodshed?
when did the violence of earth
familiarize itself with me?

- k.a.

when immobile, the butterfly looks like a fall leaf
like an incoming winter killing the trees,
laying to rest the foliage,
however
when in flight, everyone can distinguish it's
vibrant colors that makes it beautiful.
whenever you're stagnant, you only see
the ugly side of yourself. when in flight,
you see what makes you worthwhile.

suppressing our misgivings,
we grabbed the plump scarlet
fruit out of the hands of the tree
it was a rule: do not fall victim
to the tree in the garden of eve.
however, the snake was a charmer
playing the flute and coaxing me
out into the world of temptation
the apple, the craving
me, the instrument
the snake, the peer with many ways
to pressure. inhaling the enticing
scent, my stomach purred in
anticipation. mouth meets red skin
and yellow tinted flesh, mouth meets
a three headed serpent hiding within
the apple, who told me, "this is your
fate." he took me as his dinner, and
i came out in pocket-sized pieces.

- kra

he said, "tell me about your history"
because he knew i loved history
and how the chronological events
turned into a collection of memories.
what i wish i was told was that
some parts of history was blacked
out; redacted; forgotten; thrown
aside; history doesn't always tell
you the truth, so who are we to
believe in false prophets?

when i told him about my history, he
believed i would succumb to the past
just like everyone before him.

the past is not the present
the present is not the past
i tried to make him remember
but i forgot my past trying to
make him recall the present and
that's the thing about history.

you can't undo history, which
could be the beauty and curse
of living. history is the ghost
of my past, visiting me before
sleep, showing me how much
more beautiful the world would
be if i joined the nonexistant entity.

i believe in the propaganda of the
ghosts telling me i'm better off
becoming a part of history.

my job was to purify the zones, full of spectres and creatures
grotesque in appearance. it was my goal to stabilize the rocky
ambience and translate the cuneiform inscriptions scratched
into the walls to maybe understand how to get this situation
into a chokehold. once walls full of color, i came back to a black
and white slate. loving someone - i realized - shouldn't have
been a purification process. but as the first of four elements,
it's an important element. because without love, people could
lose their will to exist and self-terminate.

once, i told you i was scared of the dark,
and you promised me, for now on,
there would be no more darkness.

it all went wrong. i must forget about it and dream sweet dreams.
it was what you would have wanted for me. you wanted me to
see the world in color, but all i could see was the bloodshed.
hence nothing remains except for my regrets.

you began shaking the snakes out of
the trees in the garden of Eden, i did
not realize it until i noticed the
whispers in my ears grow quiet. the
river underneath the bridge still runs
red from the blood spilled the day you
passed. i remember the sincerity you
spoke of - a false prophet. i didn't care,
i just wanted to find some sort of peace.
i wanted the rivers to run dry, i wanted
a drought, i didn't want to see the blood
shed, but i stared death in the face.

it stares back sometimes.

the mountains, covered in salt, recede
over time from the acidity of the rain
it's a gradual decline, eventually the
mountains will shrink due to erosion
the tree branches are like arms:
reaching towards the mountains
wanting to scale the giant
wanting the same power
the trees are depression
the trees are getting in the way
all i see are the branches, and
i don't have a scythe. no longer
can i see the brilliant skyline. the
sun doesn't peek through the trees
anymore, and i am afraid of the dark.

using a blade as a writing utensil
and your skin as the parchment
you wrote my name in scarlet,
a permanent reminder of what
could have been, what should
have been. it's like carvings
etched into a tree, but if it was
axe wounds. it's like the tree falling
in a forest metaphor: it makes a
sound. you make a sound.

i hope someone finds your fallen
tree. from your trunk decay, i hope
they can grow a garden inside of you.
i hope their thumbs are green so they
can cultivate art from the wounds i
will do nothing but open. i hope you
can see the flowers bloom inside you
one day. i may never get to see that
day. that's okay. i need to bury the
hatchet before i swallow the bullet.

she must be the perfect 1950's housewife,
wearing her rogue lipstick upon her chalky
foundation. every weekend, your wife cleans
out the closets filled with the skeletons you
bring back home. i wonder if her motherly
instinct kicks in, if the warning sirens ever
go off in her head when you come home
smelling like a one night stand. i wonder
if she ever sleeps in the same bed as you,
and i wonder how much the kids gather of
your relationship with him from arguments
behind closed bedroom doors.

i wonder how much of her smile is false
advertisement. i wonder when she will
finally have enough of his white lies.

to own up to your crimes,
first, you must admit to the jury of
the candles lit that burned bridges,
let's have a drink for your children,
innocent, untainted, left in the dark,
unable to see the fires their father
left behind. how do you not smell
the burning embers on him? how
do you not smell the offal?

in the absence of hope,
there was women,
and that's how i will begin my revolution;
i'll create waves so strong, ridges form in
concrete stone with power-hungry women.
i will bring my strongest army, all the artillery
i can wield, if only to feel safe again in my skin.

the pink skirt she's wearing
the pink peonys braided into the
curls of
her chestnut hair
the pink on her cheeks
and on her lips as she looks at me,
startle me. there's something in her
eyes when she looks at me, like i'm magical,
but that's her, shimmering in colors
that don't even ******* exist.
there's something magical about her
that brings both chaos and stillness to
my world. she's the still before the
hurricane,
and the hurricane itself.

manifest destiny? i'm trying to.

how do you make our sin feel like
******* *******, like i'm in suspension,
i am floating,
i am intricate,
i am beautiful,
but i am wrapped up in ropes
bound to you like the fool i am,
playing with matches between the
trees and scrubery like i have mastered
the art of convincing myself that i can't
possibly start a forest fire. i pretend like
i don't see that subtle movement of you
taking off your wedding ring and hiding
it underneath your favorite hunter's cap
i pretend i do not feel the blood
between my thighs and
pooling in my mouth

in visuals,
your eyes
like green seraphinite
your smile
like the white gates to heaven
your arms
a plastered ivory with constellations of red freckles

my hands
covered in third degree burns
from the last time i was touched
my mouth
saying the wrong things
at the wrong times
my eyes
they're exhausted but
they are always looking
at you.

you are a motion picture &
i never want the story to
come to an end.

g.a.
swallow the blood of the covenant
between you and the lord, they said,
but the wine tasted too sweet. the wine
tasted like a cancer that i had to wean off.

t.h.
fall out boy should write a song called
"welcome to your own personal hell",
and it should tell our story of betrayal.

t.p.
the silence is a loud house guest. i could
not sleep at night because of it. your hands
felt like i was grabbing onto stones, onto
something hard and unfamiliar.

j.s.
i swallowed my words, which replaced my hunger
aches. while i grew skinnier, you swallowed your
animalistic tendencies through another.

m.t.
do you ever feel afraid of not fitting back
into someone's life like you used to? but
i learned that once something is broken,
the cracks will still remain.

n.d.
a time bomb
t i c k i n g
tick
tock
tick
tock
every time i spoke, it sounded like a threat
but nothing i could do would calm him.
i made sure i was at a safe distance
before the explosions happened.

t.r.
an eye for an eye
an ear for an ear
you ruined me
so in turn
i had to ruin you

c.h.
the words you spoke weren't enough
for the green grass on the other side
to look like a crime scene. kind words
do not bring back dead people. kind
words do not pay off jail bonds. kind
words did not stop depression.

r.m.
there was something so captivating
about taking you off the path of salvation
of maybe being your calypso, but penelope
had other plans for us.

a.a.
i want to build a fire from the ashes
the other lovers left behind. i want the
tragedy to fertilize a garden from your
chest, to crack you open painlessly.

you came into my life like a comet,
like a ball of fire, like something
beautiful that i want to put my faith in
and also perhaps set fires inside me.
and maybe one day, i can stunt your
doubt and block it in it's tracks.

i want to persevere
through the trials
so this yields a fruit
that nobody else could create.

this is a storytelling of two
fantasy worlds, similar to
the sun and
the moon
types of symbolism often
included in novels like ours
are airplanes, birds, the galaxies
in the sky, or the freckles dotting
your skin. to close the distance
between these requires great
effort, but good things like you
are well worth the wait. "stop bringing
in the sky", i say, "the sky is falling for you.
you must let yourself trust that this
fog won't cloud your judgements."

the daffodils you helped grow
led us through the gloomy fog once,
so please place your trust in me
and the daffodils again.

can i trust the hands of the clock
to protect us? or is time punishing
me with an fruitless love for the sun
while I am the moon?

in retrospect, the banging in the room could
have been mistaken for an escalating argument,
or even something more passionate,
but it was my deafening heartbeat,
as loud as a car crash, over and over,
in my dreams, i hold the paintbrush
and i paint
your sunset eyes,
your sunrise smile,
dimples like valleys,
our worlds lie on this parallel plane where
our strings cross once and don't meet again

that must mean you're a muse
or a tragedy waiting to happen,
so it's losing the fear of falling
so it's falling in love
so it's understanding myself through you
so it's understanding you through the window
rather than staring at you through a mirror

my trauma home looks like
a blighted ecosystem
thriving with atoms that
name themselves anxiety
name themselves self-doubt
name themselves a graveyard
where no hole is big enough to
hide the defecation, the diseased,
the gap between these ribs.
i want to rip myself open
with alcohol,
watch my body coil up like a snake
watch myself come undone
watch myself spill secrets
in *****
like alphabet soup but thicker.
the spiders look enlarged, enraged,
enveloped in their webbed paradise
waiting for me to land on sticky skin.
the sharks find their next prey by blood, but the only way i will draw blood is by biting my tongue too much.

i am the femme fetale who
doesn't see the lights of the train
but lures people towards the tracks
i am the siren who doesn't know
her singing creates destruction
ensnaring victims with her voice
i am the whirlwind that creates
sinkholes with warm words
soft embraces, gentle whispers,
i am the quiet
before the explosion of a grenade
i am the explosives
but i look just like alluring magic
when you sink down here,
pitch black becomes your muse
instead of the kaleidoscope you
seemed like you were expecting
you swallow me, all warm words,
all soft embraces, all gentle whispers,
but embracing me is like a car crash
where the impact may be fatal

we share saliva like secrets between friends,
taste each other like the appetizers before the main course,
**** frantically like rabbits, and the lights still stay off when
we make love.
it’s not until
her name
spills
from your tongue as we make love &
i have cottonmouth.
you don’t apologize either.

i write love songs for you in the sand, but high tide
always dissolves my words by sunrise. the hazy sunlight
floats through the early morning window, and the ghosts
invite themselves into my home and inside my head. i
have to ask, is it love if I take you, or is it love if I set you
free? my words become meaningless if my mouth can’t
keep up with your insatiable animal instinct. is this
the only way i can separate you from calling me a
friend, by separating my legs?

Odysseus was washed ashore on this island like a
beached whale, homesick and yearning for hands
that my hands could not fit. he coughs reaching out
for a savior, and water drains from his lungs like he
kept the whole sea – undiscovered - inside him.
sometimes, i have
dreams about drowning.
sometimes, i end up suffocating because
i know Odysseus is not mine to drown in.

“Promise me that this crime of passion doesn’t
find it’s way to Penelope,” I beg for mercy.

“Home is where the heart is – “ Odysseus stubbornly
reminds me, “—But my home does not look like Ogygia.”

It’s always a fever: hungry, insatiable, shameless passion.
when the lion is fed his meat and he cleans the bones,
it is time to move on. the lion can distinguish the elephant
in the room, and swallow the prey until one of us feels
absent and you end up full. what is beyond the veil might
leave us homesick. i take a swallow, and pour the rest
down the drain.

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.

5/18/16
14 days -
"empty love" is a boarded up home flooded in
and drowned out taking all of the things that
makes a home a sanctuary. it wilted the rose
petals, it left the house barren and heavy.

5/19/16
13 days -*
i'm as sober as i've ever been, but the
line still is blurred for me. my toes are
pushing the limits, touching the line,
daunting, taunting, flaunting, *wanting.

5/20/16
12 days -
what terrifies me is that you don't make
me feel like all the lights inside of me are
turned off. something in me comes to life.
it's the whiskey burning my throat, it's the
burning in my heart that collapses the days.

5/21/16
11 days -
something is ripping apart inside of myself,
it is the collapse of everything i've ever built
carefully placed up a house of cards only to
watch myself fall. i am not a good person.

5/22/16
10 days -
i hear the police sirens every time i catch a glimpse
of the white light of euphoria. it is actually the
lights of the oncoming train. it is death.

5/23/16
9 days -
human hands are always covered with bloodshed,
from hearts they've ripped and torn. we don't see
it because it's washed down the drain in the morning.

5/24/16
8 days -
sixty days since we talked. at seventy one days, we
will finally meet for the first time. you will see my
skeletons, the secrets hidden in my ribcage. i love
you so much that it lights my veins on fire.

5/25/16
7 days -
we are large demons hiding inside tiny bodies.
this rib cage is much too small to hide all of my
secrets. all of my deceit lies here rotting, growing
until the stench of curiosity becomes unbearable.

5/26/16
6 days -
this dense ache is becoming so heavy, but i would
still chase the sun even though all i can do is feel
her shine through parts of me every night.

5/27/16
5 days -
on the fifth day in our favorite game, a severe storm
happened. today, a severe storm happened. this is
only the beginning of the storm on north carolina.

5/28/16
4 days -
dare i say i will let you pull the switch and
drop the guillotine, because i trust you that
much more with letting me die. frankly, i
have no intention to continue to live.

5/29/16
3 days -
this might be the occasion that my lust will
burn at it's peak. somehow, i am trying to
find ways of smothering that smoke signal
that many people can't see from miles away.

5/30/16
2 days -
where the light is at, that's where i've always
pictured you. where the darkness exists, i'm
neck deep but still trying to swim towards
that light. everything seems to shrink lately.

5/31/16
1 day -
there is floundering in floral and foreplay, and
a beautiful disaster in the eyes of shakespeare
and hamlet, we are two created equals with
the idea that burning will keep us both safe.

6/1/16
0 days -
these thorns are tearing through my skin,
emptying out every single secret hidden
in my bloodstream. hopefully, none of
those secrets have your name on it.

- kra

our favorite game starts with the introduction
of an hurricane. usually storms are depicted in
dreams as sinewy turbulence swelling up, a rough
beginning, and the ending result of the story is
where something is lost. the storm takes something.
mother nature will not give mercy to the kindest
of us humans.

the safety point is a lighthouse, that promise
of light at the end of the tunnel. i have always
stuck to the shadows instead of reaching out
towards the light, stuck with the desire and
fear of change, but you shot out like a startled
deer. you – of all people – bring color to the
chiaroscuro painted world. i – of all people –
stir up storms in people and seem to leave
behind only wreckage and skeletons. there
is a light shining through you which careens
through my skin instead of ricocheting off
of me.

our wavelengths mimic each other some days,
but i have a storm roaring through my skin that
i’m afraid to let anyone get a glimpse at. if
my exoskeleton ever was torn down by anyone,
the storm would remember to bury me in the
remaining rubble and shrapnel left behind.

mother nature will not scare me anymore,
and i will start at ground zero and build
myself upwards towards cloud nine and
beyond. something is lost, but there is
always something gained from loss.

- kra

things have become sentient, lively, breathing
lately - blossoming violently like wildflowers
and chrysanthemums - suppressing the never
ending void sitting in my stomach. things like
anxiety haven't disappeared - like the green of
jealousy - like the green of sickness that i get
when my best-friend complex comes into play.
i have been having trouble developing myself
into a home. instead, i've been lighting forest
fires watching these trees transfer over into
death. i have been dependent on lighthouses
to guide me to safety. there are people i ask
for to guide me home, but they're in the line
of fire. it's between one important body or
thousands of bodies. i have not been able
to grow enough to avoid choosing mind
over matter. things have become harder,
suffocating, and more complex lately, but
i'm finally whole. for the first time in my
life, i'm a butterfly. of course, this always
comes with a price - with chained feet.

- kra

“you can't go home,” said thomas wolfe, “back home to the
old forms and systems of things which once seemed ever
lasting but which are changing all the time.” but...here i am.
i've shattered that idea like expensive broken china, like the
mirrors i shattered within the 72 hours of being back here in
texas, the state of volatile weather patterns and skeletons i've
hid in the toybox in the attic upstairs. he said, “i can't go back
home to my childhood.” thomas, i have retained memories
like these and kept them hidden in the jewelry box along
with the lock of my hair i cut with scissors purposely when
i was seven ******* in a bow. i've uncovered artifacts from
my past, refuting your statement. thomas said, “i cannot go
back home to aestheticism.” as he believes the small-town
image i exist within will shapeshift at will and without
hesitation. another thing, he mentioned, “i cannot go back
home to one's youthful idea of 'the artist' and the all-sufficiency
of 'art' and 'beauty' and 'love'.” landmarks still stand out to me.
the bridge connecting both parks nearby my house overlooking
a large lake at the peak of the golden hour is sufficient enough
for art. it is sufficient enough to be considered something of
beauty, that needs to be captured. it is sufficient enough to
remember i've loved and lost so many things on this bridge.
thomas said, “i cannot go back home to the father you have
lost and have been looking for.” but thomas, i have recently
faced my dad with red glazed-over eyes, and he has always
been looking out for me. he has always shone a beacon
towards me, yet i've been so terrified of following the lights
in fear of losing my shadows. you told me, “i cannot go back
home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden
for you.” all i have been doing is surrounding myself with
people who can help me, save me, and ease my burdens.
and i can't help but notice gaps in these moments when
you say, “you're back home to the escapes of time and
memory, but katelyn, remember, the old forms and systems
of things which once seemed everlasting are rapidly changing
all the time.” and i notice the large gaps like amnesia blackouts.
sorrow can handle long distance relationships, but i can not.

i'm starting to believe in the theory that i'm
a ghost. now i've become desensitized to my
footsteps aside from being drunk, and who
knows if i'm making all of those sounds up?
it's all starting to sound like harsh noise.

people have started to be scared of getting
close to me, because they've felt how cold
the air around me is. i've practiced covering
for my demons, but now it's getting rough.

i'm starting to lose sight of why i'm here
because people are losing sight of me. i
am a chameleon. i disappear, and no sane
person wants to look for the lost ghost.

the people who do not see through me paint
smiles on their faces, and pretend i am not an
open casket funeral. my cries for help become
blurred by the river of denial they drown in.
the longer you keep your eyes open under
water, the more it burns. the longer you wait
for the buzzards, the more likely they'll come.

the longer i wait to bury the skeletons under
my bed and in my closets, the higher they'll
stack. i need to erase all of those skeletons.

i need to begin erasing myself.

- kra

_                                       ~                                   _
1. you have taught me to feel insecurity about
entering relationships if they're not godsent.
2. why do you tell me that i'm pushing you
away when i have never tried letting you in?
3. stop tracking me. stop following me. leave
me alone. that's all i've ever wanted from you.
4. we started off strong, and ended up unkempt.
5. you damaged my lover, damaging myself.
6. take off your lack of pride before clothes.
7. something flipped, maybe it was you.
8. don't add fuel to a dying flame, *****.
9. now i can see how you're vexatious,
a human equivalent of a loony bin.
10. i'll give you something to gossip
about, you stuck-up *******.
11. in fact, i don't kiss and tell, sorry.
12. you just kept on ******* pushing me.
13. why can't you just leave me alone?
14. you remind me why i've become
so repellant towards the human race.
15. no offense, but you're not my type.
16. i wish for you a lifetime of failed
relationships and bad karma.
17. don't get angry at me because you
couldn't get your feelings reciprocated.
18. you never understood me when i
had told you how bad it gotten.
19. how low can you actually get?
20. can you take a ******* hint?
21. i'm thankful i wasn't manipulated
into having a baby with you, honestly.
22. things were too awkward for us,
we were strangers in love at times.
23. it never seemed like you were
easy to please, but i couldn't run.
24. glad i dodged that bullet with you.
25. keep on reminding me how much
of a **** up i am, and i'll ******* leave.
26. the part that wouldn't let me get close
to you was the fact i was entirely two-faced.
27. you can shove your judgemental fingers
up your whale looking flabs, sick ****.
28. don't think a ******* $20 blowdryer is
enough to buy my love, step-******.
29. there is always a brick wall between us.
30. now you're patrolling me on here?
31. things never come to a close, and that
also applies to how our story ended.
32. you made out with me, and left me
broken in the end. should've known.
33. i'd like to shove a bar of soap so far
up your ***, you hypocritical mexifucker.
34. you hurt me so severely, making the
rest of the numbers look like my friends.
35. how dare you make my brother try
*******, you crack-headed *****.
36. you are a familiar comfort, but that
doesn't mean i won't put up my walls.
37. both of us have terrible secrets, we
are very good at being hypocrites.
38. i don't like people who **** others.
39. we were the ones who vandalized
your mailbox that one summer night.
40. you were the first girl i've kissed,
and the first person who flipped faces.
41. wow, did you really exchange your
girlfriend to my boyfriend for me? ew.

they consider this constellation the closest one to
earth, easily able to be seen by the naked eye. it
illuminates vividly, a composition of splattered
hot blue on a black canvas. or to our eyes, white.

the first time i noticed the star cluster, my eyes
started to unconsciously look for it every night.
when i first looked through a lens to view that
constellation, it surprised me that it wasn't white
stars after all. in fact, it was a deep ocean blue.

that's why you can't tell me that i'm like the sun
because even though i shine visibly and keep you
warm, my touch is white hot. it's safer if i can see
you and know you're safe, rather than touch you.

- kra

six months pass, my mind is on the sun and
you are the moon. there must have been a
solar eclipse event i wasn't prepared for,
because that's a sign the world is ending,
and god help me, my world is falling apart.

six months pass, and it's snowing in the
middle of july. that was foreshadowing
of the storm i would come to experience,
so i watched from inside as the snow piled
up, burying me under layers of her icy stare.

six months pass, and i have learned to see past
this dystopia you have given me a hand in
building. next time, drop bombs, not hearts.

- kra

when i look at you, i see varieties of magenta:
i see blood-stained bedsheets, martial laws,
lack of leverage, pale skin with blue veins
popping out in a coquettish manner, flames
spewing out from lava, fault lines, the first
chakra located at the base of the spine, a
constant threat of losing choke hold on the
utopia i've built from scratch, horror movie
shrieks, regret, so much regret, panic attacks,
faces red with tears streaming like waterfalls,
and the ultra violence one of the seven deadly
sins bring: wrath. what i don't admit is that,
even when i look at the thing i fear the most
in the eyes, i see the passion, sensitivity, and
love that have shriveled up and died from time.

- kra

first impressions are always a joke. even lucifer
had fooled everyone at some point. that's why,
don't forget that even the wolves are trained to
act like lambs, where fangs are concealed with
candy-coated charismatic words. the fluidity of
their tongues carry deceit. their bruised hands
may look like burdens they've had to carry, but
everyone has their share of demons. they have
experienced the transition from innocence to
corruption, faced it with gnashing teeth. these
self-proclaimed heroes are nothing but drawings.
seasons change, so does the heroes. like the
quote goes, you either die a hero, or live long
enough to see yourself become the villain.

with this message, i will proceed to betray
everyone i ever loved. i am in perfect
symmetry with my eradication.

- kra

i am hopelessly enchanted with the ghosts
hiding in the attic, the dilapidated dust-mite
covered picture frames, and the plastic worn dolls
wearing their frilly dresses. the things that are
endlessly fascinating that wash me offshore, i
battle currents to find them. i am humbling,
yet i have a strong lack of courage. the words
i want to say become dust mites, float away
into the air, and meet another mouth distant
from mine. the attic becomes an abandoned
studio, where the beautiful things lie alone.
my hands yearn to meet with the ghosts.

- kra

there are ghosts in the last home i lived in.
there is war, bloodshed, tears stained like
red wine on white rugs burned into the
blueprints of the architecture of this home.
children's laughter rings through this hall
way, but these walls know only stories of
my fingerprints leaving deep impressions
on the people who still live in that home.
this laughter is starting to sound almost
menacing, accusatory, a sound i'm starting
to dread. everyone acknowledges the ghost,
but they tend to avoid talking about it’s
presence. those windows know nothing
but rainy days, stormy nights, blinding
sunny days, and the sound of my voice.
if they're lucky, the people who live in
that house can hear my voice, even if
they're forgetting how it sounds.

i'm forgetting how nice it sounds to be
acknowledged, not as an impression of
an apparition burned into the walls.

- kra

every ***** and deadbolt securely fastened in
my chest was unlatched, unscrewed, unfastened,
like a brassiere, yet it was also captivated by you.
for so long, i was simply a crane building towers
around me but you saw more use in me. turns
out, that use was also used to manipulate my
inner chords. no matter how long it took me to
write the musical notes, the harmony i once knew
was becoming weaker and weaker. at the time, i
should have known there was only static noise.
there was only brick walls and towers, only screws
and deadbolts securely fastened to your chest, only
a harmony i can't find the right notes to hit.

- kra

this house is a cage for the deceitful lovers
and a loony bin for the normal. to call this
a shelter, protecting and comfortable, is
laughable. this house was made out of
all skin and no bone. the notion of losing
yourself to these white lies, to see yourself
put on a face unfamiliar, is a tragedy. i found
skeletons in the closets and blood coming out
of the bathroom sink faucets. i found black
widows underneath mattresses, scorpions hiding
between folds of the covers i sleep on. to feel
the opposite of reassuring in what plays itself
to be a warm house, is terrifying. i plan on
turning white, becoming the very lies so they
become true. the destiny of my lies built a
house of sand, and i’m being slowly swallowed
whole by the sands. i hide behind eight masks,
all to cover up my seven deadly sins. there is
unrest in this house. a monster lives here, i see
the blood everywhere i look and the scratch marks.
why does the monster only attack me and leave
more unnecessary scars? why does he make a
home in this house, put on my face, and walks
around like the floorboards aren’t the same quick
sand that dragged him into its grasp?

- kra

stand by and listen to the jaws of this shark with
a vocabulary like a diamond - sharp and clear.
pity only yourself, you fickle & futile tyrant.
you stand for nothing and fall for anything,
and ride your bike on expressways as if there
is a bike lane especially reserved for you. in
this food chain, you are nothing more than
plankton while i am the great white whale,
casting a large overhead shadow over you
always leaving you on your tiptoes by the
boundary line. in this lane, i'll be the one
to forget my seat belt as i run you over.
somehow, i loved that selfish part of you.
somehow, i don't love that part of you, and
would love nothing more than to obliterate
you from my past and from my memories.

- kra

when the words stuck in my throat mature
slowly like honeydew and childish adults,
that's when a line has to be drawn. when
words are lodged in your throat, not by
accident, that's where the line has to be
formed. when the scars of their words
leave you bottlenecked, trying to find the
words to express the vagueness of that
empty feeling, the line has been crossed.

- kra

no longer will i glaze my eyes over the world in
monotone colors since all the colors were drained
from this memory. no longer will i sit back, watching
someone like you play favorites and pity the scars on
my legs. no longer will these mountains be a prison for
me. no longer will i let a person imprison me who leaves
me uninhabitable in the end and reopens fresh wounds.
i will surpass you one thousand times over, and play god.
for now, i am broadcasting in god's place since i was
tricked into thinking someone like you was my savior.
i will become the omnipresent regret and the everlasting
guilt. i will leave you aching, hungry, wounded, lost, and
alone. no longer will i be the roadkill, i will be the weapon
but no longer will my body be used to hurt another.

- kra

to own the parallel structure of your house, i would
have to peel my own floorboards back, tear them off
like day old bandaids, and install plain oatmeal colored
tiles to lose the meaning of myself. i would restructure
the blueprints of the hallow home of my chest, and leave
no room for any florescent lights. the darkness can’t dim
the fact that i am brimming with regrets and questions
that are quickly turning rotten. the answers are losing their
meaning. coming face to face with the wolf, the dread i
used to get as the sheep, it’s losing its meaning. when
i repainted myself, there were still parts of you lying
around like loose hairpins, but i’m leaving no room
for the loose hairpins. the fear i had turning on the
florescent lights, of seeing my hands painted red
with blood i didn’t know i spilled, was becoming
a learning experience. all this time, i've been seeing
you in my ideal vision: sturdy like steel beams, but
there has always been that marshmallows and tooth
pick-like foundation you've been keeping up around
me. i can't see you as parallel structures anymore. look
at me. did you ever actually look at me without disgust
of the blood i spilled, and tell me things with honesty?

14 days before -

they say one day, you will have to face your
fears otherwise they may become triggers.
there will be places you won't want to visit
because you will end up looking the thing
you fear in the eyes. to get over fears don't
happen overnight, yet placing myself in
positivity is something i fear the most.

13 days before -

perhaps the mountains are getting taller, but this
city is turning into nothing more than a prison.
this city is starting to lose it's vivid orange hues,
and it's evaporating into the sky into a dark gray
cloud of fury and resentment. this wanderlust is
not healthy for me, considering i lose interest in
everything. getting scorched by the heat like this
is becoming something like torture.

12 days before -

regret is remembering something with
the aftertaste feeling of loss and sorrow.
jesus christ, trying to get to know you was
like studying for a test of an entirely
different subject than the material i'm
learning now. even being left with the
aftertaste of something sour, it was the
closest to the truth i've ever discovered.

11 days before -

on my 21st birthday, i found out about your true
wolf-like persona, of those piano-like fingers
being sharp claws that always had me in a choke
hold, and i let you sniff out my vulnerability
without questions or concerns. now why did
i not leave for the paper towns in the first place
when my gut was screaming about bad news?

10 days before -

rain, rain, can you please go away because you
are making me worry about the silliest things
like how i called myself rain on a hydrophobic
world. brain, brain, stop thinking right now
about the silliest things, you have no need
to stoop to this level of sheer anxiety.

9 days before -

i will not be a prisoner-of-war, allowing you to
torture me with sweet lullabies of safe comfort
words, anymore. i would rather you pull the
trigger, since you were a step too late to fix
the fact that you became my trigger. i'm my
own harriet tubman, finding paths to get out
of this slave-like existance you call friendship.


8 days before -

i am determined to make something of myself
because being pliable and rubber-like just made
me deformed to you since your hands weren't
exactly careful with me in the first place. i am
determined to wash myself clean of these sins,
rid myself of the detritus, and make the sun shine
right out of the very *** i wished you kissed.

7 days before -

i will continue to grieve of the afternoon that
we poked fun at mormons because i've realized
you stooped me down to their level unconsciously.
i'll be blunt, this distance between us is only growing
wider and wider and i hope whatever was between
us will end up tearing in half when i'm unreachable.

6 days before -

when everyone sees you explode into a flurry
of fireworks, the way i will see you is as the
father of all bombs, where you will evaporate
everything i've ever been familiar with right
from my very eyes. to think i gave myself
third degree burns to give life to dead things.

5 days before -

The words I couldn't vocalize
The thoughts I couldn't accept
The memories are piercing and heavy
They're becoming stiff, and like lead

4 days before -

i heard the water company nestle is using the
reservoirs of california to make bottled water,
leaving california in it's worst drought in years
and i think of how you used me just to get to
him and how i chased you down state lines
and how i ran for the hills once you left me
in the worst drought i've had in years.

3 days before -

to survive, you must become selfishly inclined.
nobody will warn you of the dog eat dog world
as a child, so you have to run on the course
natural selecton provides you. mother nature
is a real ******* in the way she disguised her
colors as fall, when she is always artic winter.

2 days before -

run from the predators. don't let yourself
be swallowed by the building doubt in your
tummy. although you are small, your existance
is wider than you think it is. you can expand
yourself wide enough so you are not the victim
of mother nature's cruel & unusual punishment.

1 day before -

i have loved and lost, but never once forgot the
places i once fell in love with, with the rolling hills
and valleys and the thunderous roar of billowing
dust storms. the planes are at seven and the trains
at eleven, and i nearly forgot about how i used to
live in the quiet fortress of my forgettable town.


0 days before -**

i want to ask the passengers on this plane
what they're leaving for. maybe vacation,
an adventure i'll never know of, or perhaps
they're running from the truth of the matter.
texas seems like it's going to welcome me with
warmer arms than arizona has done in months.

to watch myself shrink down small enough to enter
into the crack of your doorway made me realize a
lot about how i stretched myself out just to have
memories that were almost phantasmagoric. the
beauty naturally made way for the beast, letting the
claws grip her by the throat. it was almost like wild
flowers shedding their petals for winter. it wasn't
a choice to place myself behind the barrel of the gun.
it was a matter of being a martyr, just to live with
something to believe in. now that i think about it,
the signs were all there. the gut feeling of uncertainty
always sat in my stomach uncomfortably even when
i sat her down, told her how important i saw her, and
she lied straight to my ******* face. it was a matter of
not seeing what was always there behind the scenes.
when i met you, i had that same phantasmagoric
feeling about you. not for one second have i ever
doubted you, nor have i doubted every single time
i got to see you. that was the big difference. i've
been reaching for things that are dead for so long,
i've forgotten how to be alive. thanks for being a
teacher of sorts, to teach me how to live again.

HAVING DREAM CATCHERS ABOVE MY BED
AND CONTINUING TO HAVE THESE NIGHT
TERRORS IS IRONY BECAUSE YOU ALMOST
******* CONVINCED ME THAT YOU WERE
THE EXTERMINATOR TO THOSE NIGHTMARES
BUT GOD, WAS I DEAD WRONG ABOUT YOU.
YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE THE INSTRUMENTS TO
RECREATE ANYTHING GOOD IN MY DREAMS
ANYMORE. FRANKLY, ALL YOU ARE ANYMORE
IS THE TRIGGERS TO MY NIGHTMARES. THIS IS
WHY I DON'T BELIEVE IN FORTUNES, TAROT
CARDS, SPIRITS, AND MUCH LESS, GOOD LUCK.
NO DREAM CATCHER CAN FULLY REMOVE THE
SCARS YOU'VE LEFT IMPRINTED IN MY MIND.

whenever somebody reminds me of you, i consider how our roles
were like margo and quentin from paper towns. you loved mystery
novels so much, i'm sure you became one yourself. at one point, i
wholeheartedly believed you were this unattainable celestial being
completely confined in your paper skin. then i realized something,
do you remember that day you called me your best friend as a joke
and the same day, you talked so much **** about me? it made me
realize you were right. you are a part of the ****** people living in
their **** houses burning **** to stay warm, since you like to talk
****. what was i expecting? of course, you're a high schooler. to
think that before my 21st birthday, i was quentin in the way i
admired you from afar, idealizing you as a god and dismissing
everybody else as animals. i preferred to let our paths cross in
my dreams. there were many times our strings crossed, separated,
and then came back together. although i don't have the drive to
chase you across border lines, i would skateboard miles after miles
of desert terrain just to have that opportunity to see you. realizing
it now, being friends with you was a ******* trap. to portray myself
as someone you would prefer to be friends with was difficult, since
you didn't really seem to like anybody all that much anyway. our roles
were strictly platonic, but the days stretched out seemed almost phantasmagoric. our strings that were knotted together so tightly broke
through and through, and none of us would have expected that i'd be
wanting to drive across border lines to stretch the distance out between
me and you, kind of like the way you stretched me out. as i'm slowly
undiscovering you, little by little, i'm realizing the way you think about
a person isn't the way they actually are. people are different when you
smell them and see them up close. now i'm addressing everyone that i
previously ignored because of you, and dismissing you as an animal. i
would rather live in my paper house than have to live with your ****.

- kra