these four chambers idle inside my ribcage
is the devil's drumset. oh, does he like the
erratic melody collapsing into weak thuds.
2. shapeshifting is new to me. as a chameleon,
i adjusted myself to your brightest ebbs and
your darkest flows and attempt to maintain
my true form. it's harder than you think.
3. the sun gave me his hands and it became
harder to hold onto you. you became the
ocean and suddenly every ocean evaporated.
all the sea creatures started dying and all i do
is leave people rubbing aloe vera on their skin.
4. every inch i get near you is getting me nowhere.
if i put down measuring tape between the gap
between us, the number of miles between us
will consistently stay the same.
5. shhh. let's be quiet so we don't wake the
monsters. let's tiptoe to somewhere quiet.
6. let's burn the evidence, let the smoke,
embers, and ashen dissipate and spread
itself out. let the ghosts be hidden in the
dead hollowed trees and splintered roots.
7. you see right through me, a window
less house groaning as the second story floor
caves into itself, without sympathy

- kra

why is it that home doesn't have a official plantation
for my heart to grow? when all i want to do is expand,
i shrink to make room for the negativity and the shadows
of me are becoming more relevant than my actual self.
i sleep out in the foyer of every person's life, where
god forbid i open their doors because i'll leave them ajar
when their wounds are at their deepest. i'll be the fish
struggling to adjust and train their lungs to breathe with
no water. i'll be the person, struggling to breathe thirty
feet under water without an oxygen tank because i fell
in love with a mermaid, and ariel has already made a
deal with ursula for another. here's to my 21st birthday
coming up, where the first three shots will have your
name written on the tiny plastic cups. here's to you,
suiting up in your best attire for prince charming.
here's to the home i have, where home is not exactly
home and smiles aren't always that honest.

- kra

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?

~
1. between my bones, my words, the circumference
of my shadow direct to my body, there is a weight,
the chasity belt hanging from my limbs apologetically
as to say, 'this shame lingers longer than your smell.'
2. i enjoy the way you are like blueprints, nobody
has claimed rooms in your house because you
belong to yourself. i bet it's lonely being you.
3. do you see parallel to death like i do? although we
are perpendicular, we only cross once. we don't bend
our backs to glance at each other, and being me, i feel
more like i am forty than twenty one these days.
4. get drunk if she's not there. your muse is more than
a muse. they are a personal matter that should be your
personal matter, not anybody else's. make yourself happy.
5. you smell like ******* LAVENDER LIKE A SCENT
ONE DIRECTION CAME OUT WITH AND I AM VERY
ASHAMED TO SAY IT, BUT I ENJOY THE DUMB SMELL.
6. you are split second decisions, camera flashes, a car
crash, an impulse that cannot be shaken by force. you
are more kinetic energy than potential energy.
7. turn me into trash because you create art from it.
8. you are the chaser drink after a ***** shot, and
also the ***** shot. i don't understand it either.
9. time is definitely not on my side, but the tragedy
seems to be on my side constantly. fall out boy should
name a song after my indefinite existantial crisis.
10. metaphors are annoying, like bribing you to be
friends with me for some stupid pissy reason like
seeing you smile, you know, something dumb like that.

- kra

nobody understand me because i hold an umbrella when
the sun comes out, my pupils could never settle out to the
light because it would hurt my eyes like a lightning strike up
close that came and went in slow motion, and you are like
quick lightning bolts in a tiny droplet in my memories, but
you are a boom of thunder that lasted longer than the seams
that stayed together within myself, and i stayed in the warm
comfort of your arms until i was eventually choked to death
without realizing this was a recipe for disaster, escaping you is futile,
you are an omnipresent ghost that will haunt me forevermore

- kra

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.

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

_                                       ~                                   _
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.

i was born to love madness
because i am madness

- 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've given birth to a inhumane creature
breathing in mustard gas, breathing out fire
touching everything with hands like lightning
a wilted flower that surrendered to the deep cold
shredding hearts like paper with an unshakable anger
smelling fear in you, never letting myself get near you
delicate and proud, like a rose, you glisten and i rot
how can you fix something that's almost irreversible
how do you reverse a cycle that's been going for months
i'm blending into the wall of the past regrets you created
masses of failures you've been through and threw away
but i never left, i always kept my promise to you
i have to lay your face
                                       to rest
                                                  to rest
                                                           ­  to rest
                                                           ­             to rest
like a recording, playing over and over like it's taunting me
like a ghost that's been locked away, ready for the haunting
but i can't do it, dreams interrupt and ravage my troubled mind
desolate in my own mind, and i'm sleeping in this prison ward
harvest the love from my heart and unshackle my bones from this room
i've illuminated in my faith and rose above the fervent grudge i've held
detritus strikes at the dawn, and turns the moon into a cold glare
and i know i stare but you were the first beautiful thing i ever had
and i know you don't like me, but can't you stare back and see the beauty
i'm not the monster you believe i am

-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

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.

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.

each time you revisit,
it's less common
and more erratic.

showing the amount of bravery i do, waking up each morning and
wishing that instead of writing sonnets at night, i would be blacked
out on the couch, i find inner strength. in twenty nine days, i'm afraid
of being an alcoholic and living a life where i am half alive. are these
sonnets the things i am missing or do i just believe in their half-hearted
attempt of covering the truth? i am hating these things about you all over
again, like you were the reason behind the bloodstains in the bedroom and
the reason bleach won't remove these stains. as i saw the wall between us
start crumbling, it solidified itself all over again. i am sick of the red pepper
i attempt to fling into your eyes, blow back into my own face narrowly avoiding
you. all over again, i wish to apologize and come to terms with my small existence.

- kra

there is the first type of quiet we both know: the
comfortable quiet where we are enjoying the
others company, and the only noise in the room
is the faint sounds of us taking turns breathing.

then there's the second type that you experience
when you are on an elevator with a stranger who
peers over at you as the floors rise. it's the most
uncomfortable quiet that fills the air like smoke.

we are only acquaintances to the last type of quiet:
the type where you finally understood the pain that
i've been going through. you saw right through me.

"i don't want to make friends here anymore because
like you said, i need to put my priorities first. i'm
leaving and maybe i won't come back, maybe i will,
but all i care about is your happiness, even if it isn't
with me. you have two amazing people in your life,
keep them close because someday, they will be gone."

- kra

maybe i grown accustomed to candy coating everything
i touch, especially the truth. but this comfort you provide
is so false and unpredictable, it makes me uncomfortable
and puts me on edge, like the seconds before pulling the
trigger on russian roulette but hear me out, you will never be
above gravity or a example of a tyranny figure, you will always
be skin, flesh, and bones but you hide your skeletons in
my closets and the dreamcatchers don't catch the darkness
the right way anymore, but i am the gasoline and you are
the fire starting in my bones and rushing in and out
of my life like waves on a shore, and i wish gravity
would hold you here but i tore your entire world apart
and i left you to put pieces together and i left a part
of me with you, and i wish i ******* didn't.
i wish i ******* didn't leave a part of me with you.

- 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

"only feast on what is absolutely necessary.
do not substitute. stay content with the cycle."

did my mother know i struggled to break this
cycle, that being a herbivore was necessary for
my healing process? being an omnivore and
substituting you for other things always left
my stomach an empty void that could not be
filled with temporary smiles. i haven't quite recovered
from the last time i indulged on you as a guilty
pleasure. but what does that even matter to you
when the necessities to you do not involve me?
i will not be thanking for anything at the table
because i'm not sure if i can handle thanking
god for someone who is only a hovering shadow
upon me who doesn't remember my own name
unless she is sitting at the table along with me.

- kra

my mind is an infinity with depths left undusted like
an old library of memories. each book has a specific name
of singular people who has come in contact with me.
some books are coated with dust and probably will
be left that way. my handwriting has gotten sloppier
over the past few years and i don't blame anyone for it.
these hands waiver terribly like the few seconds before
a storm. somehow, i imagine your library to be a pile
of books  strewn haphazardly all over the floor. some
spines are worn out but you still turn the pages. there's
a few books that have been set on fire and burn marks like
cigarettes pressed onto sidewalks. there is always a
few books left open, but i'm sure you forgot my name
and left me sitting on the floor for a while like a gardener
who let their roses wilt because they forgot about their
passion. passion does have a breaking point.

- kra

five years ago, when we met, you reminded me
of vanilla milk. without all the artificial chocolate,
you were an unpretentious, simple, clean slate. to
let you slither down my throat was a facile task.

today, i have to worry about you in the way i have
to watch what i eat, to make sure it doesn't have
milk in it because of my lactose intolerance. i've
been without you so long, taking you back into
my system again is like trying to shove toothpaste
back into it's bottle, it's nonviable and useless.
milk has become my worst enemy, and i've grown
fond of the taste of chocolate over vanilla. and to
let you slither down my throat again proved difficult
because it was like asking someone with asthma to
run a mile without an inhaler. i've had to take special
precautions worrying about you, even though the
things that bother me now, shouldn't matter. and
this way, i've grown accustomed to drinking soy milk.
it is a substitute that gets the taste of the bile, of the words
i am desperate to say to your face, out of my mouth.

- kra

people's eyes are like constellations, wherever you go
they will be there during sunlight and sundown,
picking out flaws like they pick out food on menus
finding the crack in the liberty bell, finding Venus de
Milo’s lack of arms, like flowers, we wilt without
rain, and we are so ashamed of being imperfect,
but why do we run from the rain? can we not accept
reality and believe fantasy is a much more powerful
sense of comfort than believe in the bizarre judgement
the earth has provided for us, the most grandeur
hearts are the heavily scarred and bruised, because
what are we without our flaws? we aren't boring.

- kra

i was born in the wrong season because spring
never grew anything of importance out of me.
meeting you, i felt something growing inside
of my chest. it was that gnawing feeling you
get when you're hungry or a complete mess
for someone who won't close the distance.
but it seems to me, we never even reached
spring. nothing ever grew from my palms,
nor did the distance between us close it's
gaps. now i am learning to grow roots that
have no correlation of the composition of your
dna. any territory where i'm prone to being
hooked, line, and sinker shall be detained. my
chest can grow it's own garden, where it is not
interdependent of the soil, of the sun, of the
water, and my god, growing in this shade is
taking it's sweet ******* time, isn't it?

- kra

like morse code, you were a code of dots and lines nobody could ever understand
nobody could ever navigate your mountains, valleys, forests, roads, and oceans, even
with help with a map or compass, you're an incomplete equation that can't be added up
a static signal, an unknown error, a dark secret that flourishes under pressure perhaps
it's hidden in the background story, covered in a web of lies and coated with grime
filled to the brim in an air tight cylindrical container with your charming vices
white lies become obsidian walls, obsidian walls become a prison for you, a bird
unable to fly freely and scream it's sorrows to the sky blaming shattered ruins
and broken homes and unquestioned scars to whoever decided to create us
absolutely exhausted of unrequited answers, these questions give no solutions

- kra

today, you questioned me why i can't believe that i am vital to any equation
but that's just the thing, i need other people to validate that i am important
because i can’t do it for myself, i'm nineteen and already breaking down into
the components that created me, the dirt that failed to turn into a garden
weeds entangle around my body and dogs chew at my skin with knife like teeth
shooting up nirvana into my brain like opiates and spitting out black tar-like goo
it only looks black because my eyes are closed, i can't see how red the water is getting
drowning in my own thoughts, i can't be kept under an oath to stay quiet
how i'm this backwards concept of happy yet sorry for how i came out is beyond me
my understandings is this, life isn't something to be romanticized nor to be loathed
don't have feelings, any at all, and you'll do just fine in this narcisstic society


- kra

be aware of the fist fights in your prison
yard because you will notice that you are
fighting against me. excuse me, but there
is no excuse for dragging me along an long
winding road and abandoning me at your
expense. be aware i am only human like you.

be aware that i have memorized in detail
the wavelengths of your shallow breaths
the difficulty of closing in onto you because
you were my butterfly hiding it's wings.

be aware that some people don't see the
marks on your back that i made, but i
realize how painful it must've been when
you basically handed me a knife and told
me to cut your wings off. i regret that still.

be aware of the love we used to share, like
my heart was a shoebox and you were an
entire store's worth of shoes. figuratively
speaking, you became a worm hole for
every sinking feeling in my chest and i
let myself drop into this wonderland where
even the walls lie to me about happiness.

be aware that somewhere a groundhog is
burrowing a hole to hibernate for winter.

be aware that you are my winter season,
and i am burrowing myself into everything
else to distract me from the thought of you.

- kra

you are a acute demonstration of smoke and
mirrors, and every time i happen to miss you,
i remind myself that even the trees with the
most amount of leaves could turn out to be
a dead tree in the middle of winter, butterflies
decorating the bare arms of the tree. even if
you are dead, you still cover yourself in gold
tinfoil & refuse to admit it's anything but gold.

you are an acute demonstration of the planet
enduring mass extinctions in these cruel ways to
die, and you manage to still look healthy on the
exterior, even when we have collided in ways
where you are the drunk driver and i was the
victim. i know you don't remember that long ago.

you are an acute demonstration of reminders
that somewhere a family is falling apart, a
child is ending up an orphan, a white lie that
turns itself into a lie. you are a reminder that
bad things happen to good people, but that
even good things happen to bad people.

you are an acute demonstration that i am
flawed, i am going through major bug fixes
constantly, and never do i find the time to
fix them. clocks are ignorant of me and cut
me off exactly the way you did it.

- kra