i keep on checking,
and yes -- Life is
still moving on --
<Time heals all> like
they say, and they always have been
saying and like I always have been
reading, and i read --

my therapist reminds me
i'm not a mind reader.
it's lost in translation,
the words get twisted
and they lose their meanings.

i try to feel it, blindly,
the bumps
and the textures
i guess my best but i get it wrong?

a miscalculation, jumping to
or from something im not
quite sure i caught the name of--

so i read on.

no one knows i almost drowned this morning
no one knows i fought the rolling waves
no one knows i faced a torrential downpour
im drenched in it i can
feel it but no one else can
no one knows im soaked
head to toe
no one knows im covered
with the droplets,
cold when
the wind blows

alice fell down the hole again,
where the clocks don’t tick or
move past ten, and it’s only
then when
she realizes
that she’s been falling.

alice fell down the hole again,
and the spiral starts to begin.
she looked around and quietly mused
im lost again, im awfully confused.

alice fell down the hole again,
in the story that never ends.
she hit her head and cannot tell
which way is up, which way is down.

alice fell down the hole again,
this time, she wasn’t sure she’d call it falling.
her head felt strangely clear now
as she got used to being topsy turvy.

and when I stopped looking in mirrors it just
started seeping through all of my other
reflections I cannot just see them
I know “don’t believe them” I
try not to hear them
but it brings me back
to the same feeling
that I thought I left behind
or buried in my own mind
somewhere
i can’t find
the solid footing, the candy coating
wish I could pause it, im exhausted..
im still here

one of those days
where everything I say comes
crashing out like waves
and comes together like glass,
shatters, too fast, too loud,
salty, unforgiving,
pouring over people, and
i can tell they all hate it.

knees to chest, chin to knees,
chunky knit sweater scarf patrolling
my peripherals when i want to see
your expression from the corner
of my eye; it starts to slip my mind
and i am a horse with blinders, i am
looking through a window’s blinds that
draw vertical shadows like a maze
out of the morning sun.

you give me the glasses to peer through at you
but then we are laughing like nothing happened,
undermining what happened because nothing happened;
and i open myself to you,
flow like fast lava, molten hot and rushing.
swallowed by my own thoughts until i can’t see you again,
until i can’t see anything-

saw you walking around the other day,
with arms outstretched like wings,
with dark purple eclipses under your
eyes like bad makeup from falling
asleep to the sunrise again.

and i’ll tell you, “you seem tired,”
and you’ll tell me, “i am tired.”

over circles of coffee mug stains on
white, white sheets of papers to
read, Times New Roman burned into
the backs of your eyelids so hot it stings
when you take out your contact lenses.

and i’ll see you now, in a new light-
still halfway shrouded in shadows, you
are like an unfinished rubik’s cube;
i try to put red and red together but
each turn only reveals more colors, more
pieces to collect before i can solve
your puzzle.

she soaked up their hateful words
like droplets of rain falling
into open wide
eyes.

her thin spine straightened,
extended notch by notch.
stems grew in-between
spaces once expansive
with loneliness. leaves
sprouted,  facing up
like palms reaching
out towards
the sun.

the seeds of bitterness
sprouted into vines
that curled around
her legs and burst
flowers from
her skin.

resentment grew into
fox gloves and freesias,
forget-me-nots and
the occasional flax.
venus fly trap for
a mouth to catch
the judgments
where

they will be digested
slowly, but surely,
as she keeps
growing
and
growing.