It was some saturnine tradition. We were always watching the sky whisper, a summer storm chanting to the sleepy lake. Sing me to darkness, a soar towards death, frantically grasping beneath a blue spring, your mother, and his arms. I didn’t dare look. Peeking between fingers. Gasping and heaving, the sun set below to the places even you can’t see. The sky became blankness, a space that fills and leaves you empty. It consumes you, starting from your toes – pins and needles – past your shins, your wrists, your cheeks, and finally over your head.

Breathe easy, I am here.
But what have I become?
I am painted over,
Discarded, caught between your mattress and sheets.
A part of the monotony
Trapped in your cacophony

The cure, now the cause
No time to pause
My flaws – you’ve changed
Or have I?

Count them.
Each second clings
Sticky, like the mud that you
So desperately scrubbed from your skin
Sore, like my heart, arms folded
“I’m cold” across my chest

It’s something
I feel
I
should
know
how
to
fix.

But I don’t want to let go.

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.

so maybe it’s the way she stares
and sighs that your eyes
are like galaxies

like you’re ******* poetry
like you deserve it
like you’ve reserved it
and have been waiting for so long.

for all this time,
i’ve been blind
saying i’m high
when really, i’m not even a little bit high

hey,
this is for your own good,
they say, i have delusions;
but trust me, if i could, i would.

i would, i would, i would.
if only i could scream,
then i’d show to me
that’s not what you really mean.

because what you really meant
wasn’t to rouse my pent-
up feelings that were suffocated away,
released in the fray
of the moment.

empty envy
is probably the most unproductive
feeling i could admit.
but as always
i take what i can get.

plucking the petals,
he loves me, he loves me not.
and then there were none.

Words are supposed to free us. But I feel trapped - my thoughts cannot be expressed through writing. I feel like I’m being suffocated, buried underneath emotions I’m supposed to feel, underneath appearances I’m supposed to keep, all whilst striving to create beautiful combinations of words in my mind. Why should we connect our energies, wasting thoughts, faking tongues with meaningless conversations and shallow understandings?
I’m covered in ugly curtains. My room is too cold and smells like you and I am nostalgic, I am forgetful, I am lonely, I am bitter. I am always holding my breath.
I don’t ask for much. Car rides with the windows down and I can’t see with my hair in my face and the air is cold and it smells like cigarettes and it feels like it’s four in the morning but it’s still 6 PM. I’m only looking for the people whose dreams always glow together. And I’ll stand there quietly until I can close my eyes, puff out my chest and somehow slide myself inside the niche that I so desperately want to belong.

Some things I cannot resist; I blame my own self worth.
I got shot in a dream once...it didn't hurt.
The apple is never as sweet
as the whispered words that slither out of your mouth.

Still moonstruck, still insane,
You throw me straight into the flame.,
and I like the burn
enough to go back for seconds.

Because even though I don't owe you anything,
I feel an obligation, like muscle memory
it falls out my open mouth, gasping
to remember the last few fragments
of the nightmare you woke me from.

So here's to biting off more than you can chew,
and having no regrets about finding yourself
cracked beneath the covers, and disarrayed
among the reflections of mistakes already made.

Maybe I needed this
reality check. I'm on my own, I know.
The temporal frustrates me, the birds
fly south for the winter, I fly...nowhere.
Permanence is a dream as fleeting as
its own contradiction.
It makes no sense, but what did I
expect from you?

Do you remember the nights
we laid across each others ankles
to see if either would break under
the weight of the other?

These fractured bones
don't mean a thing. (promise)

I never knew anything was wrong
Until everyone started giving me sympathy.
I was a little girl with blinders and two
Doll hands that clasped over my ears
As they screamed and kicked
Through doors and laptops.
Now, I keep them tied
Above my head, arching chest out first.
This is what you left.
This is why when you leave, I wrap my arms
Around your waist,
But I never say I love you.
This is why, when I talk to boys,
I don't see love until I know
Where their hands will fit into the puzzle of my body.
I never thought I was damaged until I saw
How the other girls can pick and choose
And reject warm chests so casually, and
I realize that I am greedy.
This wasn't an issue while I was strong,
But I couldn't lie to myself for that long
And there aren't enough body-sized indentions
For me to give my weight to.
I never thought I would be bitter for all these years
Until each day, I never went back.

Today, something new-
I didn't dream about you.
*coeur pas entendre

the days you couldn't get out of bed
were the days he was full of birds
in his stomach; fluttering wings and
sharp beaks pulling for validation.

and the hummingbird in your heart never stops going off
when you've trained it this well, because even a bird
can fall in love with its cage
if it's beautiful enough;
stockholm syndrome in its raw disgust.

impulsivity never came naturally
for him, perfection was
his answer to thoughts smelling
like recycled air and suffocation.

but you,
you would rip all the sheets off
and you could always tell when there was something off
when there was something i've lost,
and never knew that it was you
growing around my bones like moss.

or maybe more like poison ivy
by the way you expected so much from me
and i couldn't stop the both of us
from falling off the rollercoaster you
refused to get off of.

so now that i know,
i won't let you become my demise
because a ******* once told me;
"Anticipation is always stronger
than surprise."

he told me that we were
as crossed in the stars as suicide love;
and to be honest, it's starting to feel that way.
that day, Hope, I couldn't avoid her-
clutching only to find her bleeding out
on the bathroom floor.

this is how it always starts.

and here i am again,
feeling inadequate about my poetry.
my words are lined like trees: unforgiving,
wooden.

what if you could see me now?

now, with a purpose. i know i make
you nervous.
i remember when you told me you feared God
and i used to think you were so **** poetic
looking at me, so **** pathetic looking at me.

he told me he was addicted.

the way people can be addicted
to sadness is like how the body tries to maintain
homeostasis. but for me,
the potential of change ignites in haste, yet-

i am sick of recycled air; i am sick of the taste.

i could say i was sick of you but
we both know that'll never be true.

there are too many disgusting things
about human beings, i know,
and i am
still young.

crushed lips and bruised hips
have faltered me;
i once thought soft flesh was beautiful
until your skin grew rough
around
the edges.

so maybe now
i am just used to you.
like how i always reach
to the right of the sink,
except
there is nothing
poetic about
the orientation of your bathroom.

after all, we spend so much time in there;
me kneeling over porcelain judgement,
you sitting
and watching
me, too familiar now to hold back my hair.

too familiar now,
you know me so well,
i can no longer be
that ethereality
that floats in your dreams
and keeps you happy.

there is something disturbing
about being around someone who
can see all your human flaws:
skin too fair and unbrushed hair,
lying to say it's better this way.

it's better this way, they like to convince you
that it's true or maybe they just want to prompt
acceptance but
why should i settle for
less than perfection
of something i've dreamt of
my entire life?

this isn't poetic.
this isn't beautiful.
stop kidding yourself,
you are
only human.

i know
that it is easy
to feel mediocre
and alone.
but at 30,000 feet
the world is so small
that you can count
the waves of the ocean on your fingers.

do you know
that it is hard
to let you see
what i've found?
breathing is easy
when you are above the clouds.

our love is trapped in the clutches of time-
seized in a moment,
lost in my windpipes,
i am busy catching your breath.

we can cut through the atmosphere.
meet me by the moon
to listen to the morning murmur.
i can only offer you so many escapes.

it's too hard to fix you.
why shouldn't i hide
if i am the bad guy?
and all you want to do
is say goodbye.

i etched eternity into your cracked skin.
i traced familiarity into your bruised bones.
but i am not a savior
nor an angel, it was
merely good timing.

atlas did nothing to deserve this.
even the divine must suffer
even the divine must fall
under the weight of the world.

all we have is each other.
asphyxiated and astringent,
each kiss is an exchanging exhale,
and our lungs convicts.

we'll dig our way out together.
i have only hurt you in secret.
i have only hurt myself in stupor.
but i tried, at least i tried.
i am trying.

because
when you asked me
why i wasn't depressed, too,
i couldn't come up with an answer.

clenched teeth like yikes
like as if you already know my type
like as if you can already see right through me,
a glass door, transparent like
how i've always dreamed.

thunder in my stomach reminds me
of the thunder in my thighs
i close my eyes,
pretend i'm having an MRI
(mind over matter)
and maybe it'll calm me.

and would you be proud of how i cope?
like yo, this **** is ******* dope
just take a little ****
let it fill you up with the hope
you'll find in the smoke

that exhaled out my lungs,
disappearing like
a poem i have to hide
from you.

but you don't think this is poetry
no, no-
this is just me talking
(to myself)

Let me write you into a fantasy,
spin your fingertips through a maze,
weaving the freckles on your arms into
the things that you crave.
The frustration will shatter
like the plates you have always secretly wanted strewed
across the kitchen floor.
Glass dust rests
in the creases and,
though you warned me to wear shoes,
remain endlessly embedded in my heels.
I will lift up my legs and let you see,
to try to catch a glimpse of your own reflection,
the sparkle past your eyes that match the glint
of glass in my skin.
“See?” I would say,
arms tight around your chest, eyes
clenched shut buried
in the damp nape
of your neck.

Let me become your time vessel.
Rewind, two years,
you are still you and I am still me,
pressed up against the corner
of one of your kitchen counters.
Your ghost whisper lingers
in my ear,
“You’re giving me goose bumps.”
I will bring you through time,
jumping moment
to moment,
a rush of feeling settling in
the pit of your stomach.
You are blindsided,
tangled in the clutches of each second wasted
and ignited into gray ash.
When I am your time vessel, those seconds will be collected
and stored, so you can replay them over
and over and eventually
you will understand
the implications,
you will find the meaning,
you will learn to be happy again.

Let me count your bruises.
Red-faced and breathless,
you push the world away
only to fall back into the carpet again.
Each exhale jagged but controlled,
a bead of sweat forming like tears
against your wrinkled forehead.
An instant clouded by exertion, hearing nothing but
the sharp intake of breath.
I will lie next to you with my hair
above me, hands cupping ears.
And as you lift
your shoulders
off the ground, I will count for you.

My dad used to tell me
That waking up in the middle of the night
meant missing the old house that we once lived in,
although I never remembered exactly
the bricks lining the windows, or the carpet
I set on fire when I was six.

I don’t know what I was thinking back then.
I can never remember too much of my past.  
The trees, and the bees, the fleas on my neighbor’s dog:
All memories buried, gathering dust, hidden in the fog
of the here and now. Like a haze, it filters through my vision
and I am not fast enough to see anything as it flies by.

I remember the bird that you caught in your hands, the flapping wings
and the sound of its echoing rang through the cul-de-sac and my ears.
I remember closing the glass door on your fingers, and I remember how I cried too.
That night I tried to talk to you through the vents, like how we used to, like how
we combined our efforts to catch a glimpse of real magic, of Santa Claus,
of me by your bedside but you thought it was a dream.
We dug up rocks, and sticks, and hid in the shed that broke my front tooth.
And that wasn’t the last time I’ve bit my tongue.

I said, “I did it on purpose,” but I lied.
I didn’t know what it meant back then and
I wish that you would believe me. I wish the memories stuck,
like the pieces of tape you pressed against my skin,
preventing the fake wounds from reopening.  

Can you see me now, in your lucid dreams?
Or am I just a shadowy figure floating between scenes?
Excerpts of memories will find me like déjà vu.
And when you’re thinking of me, know I’m thinking of you.

I.
doubt
is how it starts,
staring into the scars of empty promises burned
into my undilated pupils.
it tasted sweet, like candy- actually, literally, it was candy
dissolving into crystals on my hopeful tongue.

II.
forty five minutes-
potential energy forming kinetic energy overflowing
through my veins, i couldn’t feel anymore-
my toes were tingling
like flaming icicles against my skin
but at that point i was too abstracted to notice
such insignificant physical impulses.

III.
my short term memory is ****.
forget everything, forget which buttons to press.
forgetting feeling
never lasts forever
for a reason

IV.
no substance, no meaning, i guess
i’ll get there, but i’m making progress
by even thinking at all, it’s just a
feeling. an experience, no different
from any other besides its potential but
i am still undecided on how to approach
any of this. disappointment cannot
be avoided sometimes,
only quelled.

V.
mary jane gives
a two and a half foot long kiss;
i can taste the smoke on your lips
as if they were my own, as if i were the smoke
itself, existing only in wisps
that you blow out your mouth.

VI.
i can’t begin to guess how it will end-
since sleep is just like giving in.
twelve hours without boredom is
something that i am addicted to; they are
like day dreams, my eyes were open
wide and unblinking but i swear i wasn’t trying
to see.

Homeward bound, I am
perpetually spinning in this
smoky, laser-filled dream
of emotions.

The affinity tasted like
cranberry ***** straight
from a she-devil’s raw lips.

The melancholy unleashed
defense mechanisms in
my taste buds.

Skepticism played like
pointy, nonmusical harmonies
cramming into the cracks
of my mind.

Driving down this same latitude,
only full-length roads ahead, no grocery stores,
no gas stations, dark pavement on-repeat
like tribal drumming.

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

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.

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.

i can see my muse when i close my eyes,
hidden and tattered, fallen behind
some amorphous blob of human pride

sleeping with a corpse,
it’s too late to find
something that warps
with my mind

america, land of the free,
where your dreams fill up to your knees.
****, that’s a little too deep for me.

i mean, i guess i’ll always just be ‘okay’
because if we all stand up
then we’re all the same anyway

it’s never been this hard to keep up appearances.
you aren’t supposed to forget how to ride a bike.
and i can’t have out of body experiences
because i never quite know what i look like

Please understand.
I am someone who started with a plan and ended
with a mission; I have seen you in your raw beginnings
and I hope I won’t live to the day the sun expands and expands
until it bursts into a million little pieces and takes
you with it.

Treat me
like your lifeboat. It is
not my job to cross-examine your every
move yet the woodpecker
in my heart frantically rattles away
when I am unaware
of the places you seek
to find refuge: a blue hoodie understands you,
acts like armor to defend you. And who am I
to take that away?

I have to take things away, I am
trying to shape you with these hands,
hands accuse you and choose to
make you do things that will at first
feel like whiplash. It is involuntary, a
knee-**** reaction, but I promise you,
I will make sure it all ends okay.

So let me help you.
Closed eyelids cannot read thoughts.
And rejection still stings even if
you expect it. I am not supposed to
understand you, I am out-dated,
like the mix tapes that still speak to me.
I reach out to unblinking faces and
disappearing validation. I leave my
arms in case you fall.  

And aren’t there times when
I’ve tried and tried, and want to
pack my bags and leave it all behind?
Never finish the laundry, put the dishes
aside, stop counting all the hours all the time,
rest these weary hands, and learn how to fly.

But patience
is a virtue, and I’ve had my time.
Now it’s yours. You are ivy, I am
the fence you grow around;
I will bring you closer to the sunlight
and keep your roots in the ground.

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.

I remember the day
That I fell in love with you.
Like the sudden, soft realization
Of that first raindrop when it lands on your face,
And you look up to the sky,
And you think to yourself,
“Oh –
It’s raining.”

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

Waterproof eyeliner is a shield, soaked
black hair, like charcoal, pressed against
frozen numb ear lobes, holding in place water-damaged plastic buds,
once blasting melodies of black and blue emotion,
with hands clenched in fists of futility.
The jagged edges of her beauty have
the ocean boiling again, and the clams
spat out bursts of fire.

It was a late weekday moon,
the beach was silent but the sound
of their heavy breaths swooped across the sand,
and their laughter rose like the waves.
“Killin’ that bottle to get smashed.”
She was convinced so eloquently,
before downing a gulp of bittersweet liquid
before drowning in a gulp of bittersalt sea.

Sarah Rose Sedwick.
Swallowed by the waves.
The icy Pacific Ocean water
claiming territory
in her lungs,
dark, salty deepness chilling to
the core of her soft bones.

A memory is written
on a clean blank sheet.
Nothing now but
a paper boat
in the wind.

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.

intoxicated,
in toxic, aided by the
complicated
mass of excitement,
stinging indignation,
a spark of skepticism,
a spider that crawls up your neck
whispers tiny white fibers in your veins,
spins a web inside your brain.
the ability to change has always been hard
nothing can stop the lightning from striking
the sky – a blue so
beautiful, even in the implications of how
i can’t comprehend the emotions that follow me,
crawling in the shadows
darting, sparking, when i look behind
it’s never something i can quite find
on my own, on my phone, checking, checking, checking
what time is it? what time is it?
when is it supposed to kick in?

even skinny girls
cannot avoid the pressure:
think thin, think thin, think-

You tell me how you float in your dreams, falling asleep at the foot of other dreamers, and how you leave, tip-toed, back to your own world.  You tell me how your life isn’t real – how it can’t be – not yet. You’re twenty three years old, armed with a short haircut and a ukulele, plans of the west coast. You wonder when your life will begin. You tell me about the way you yearn. How you crave the real. Harsh wind against cheek, passion enveloping your nerves until you can feel your body explode with anticipation. You are moonstruck, dizzy with lust of reality, delirious with the call of dreams. Too impatient to wait, too forgetful to begin. But one day, you will wake up to the water poured over your head that clears your eyes. And you will take a step and the sun will be rising and you will realize that you are ready to sing again.

I.
you’ve never felt
this small
before and you’re not quite sure
where to begin.

II.
“we are only a blink
in the timeline of the universe.”
our existence, our planet
is turning every minute.
i drag my feet walking
down side streets.

III.
tick tock, tick
tock.

IV.
so maybe you think
time will pass in an instant,
but on my cosmic calendar
we’ll be together
for weeks.

V.
i am stuck in a moment,
your being is all i need.
your existence is greater
than you think; more than just knee-deep.
and my heart swells with the space
that you occupy.

VI.
you tell me life is fast --
faster than cooking the ramen noodles
we used to eat together in the park
on Sunday afternoons -- faster than
anything I have ever seen before -- faster
than I can comprehend.
and what’s the point
if you can’t stop
and smell the rose bushes?

i picked the thorns off for you.

VII.
i am trying to find you,
blinded by the miles between us.
and i feel vulnerable when i can’t see.
and you feel as numb as a dozed
off limb.
but even the feeling
of pins and needles will subside;
blood flow returns, like i will
to you.

VIII.
you are not a cosmic insignificance.
you exist in so many ways—
do you really think i could so easily
forget the taste
of sweetness?
you make
vinegar taste like apple juice;
i drink cup
after cup.