nimble hands knit quickly through satin and sun–bleached linens
poking and pulling on hundreds of fine strings
find comfort and closure in tight fitting mittens
who’s corners and ridges so carefully sewn

children braiding red grass in the garden
an old woman resting her body at dawn
i owe these my life– these small, simple moments
that bring warmth to my skin when nothing else does.

I look at you
and dream of sunflowers
because you told me once
that home was where the sunflowers were
and I’ve been awaiting summer since then.

i never bought the whole dark academia thing.
sure, ****** and drugs and *** are torrid and dark when you're from a rich family,
when you've never woken up to the news of your childhood best friend being shot to death,
when you haven't seen your family and friends fall into the seductive cesspool of opioid addiction,
when half of your class was pregnant by the time senior year rolled around.
the academic upper class thinks what working class kids go through is sexier when the backdrop of the overdose is chandeliers and silk,
instead of a small town parking lot at 3am.
my aesthetic reality of academia is scholarships, it's leather jackets and nicotine addictions
it's having the only fifteen-year-old car in the campus parking lot and hoping to find a plug before the first week of classes.
it's not sleeping between work and class and partying. it's being the only one whose dad isn't buddies with the guy giving me an internship.
it's lonely. it's the crippling loneliness of not understanding upper class social cues,
it's reading crime and punishment in the slivers of time between work and work and class and more work
and emphasizing with raskalnikov so much it makes your teeth ache.
it's coughing up blood.
it's having health insurance for the first time in college and still not using it.
it's drowning, it's fighting, it's violent and heroic and painful and
never knowing
if you'll actually
make it.

Strawberries fields
Pastel flower bloom
March April May
What did you do?
Honey bee sting
Love bug flu
Tie dyed blankets
I’m not over you
Green Grass blades
Cloud like zoo
Sweet oxygen
Lollipop ooze
Finger paint me
Like the sunsets do

Watermelon
Swallow seeds
Spring, Summer, lucid dreams
Fighting demons
While I sing

Sunburn hypocrisy

you made me believe in love a g a i n,
despite all of the danger lethally submerged in the bottom waiting to resurface,
despite my movements of cautionary measure in this dance for two,
despite the clear tell-tale warnings

you made me believe in love;

only to prove all the impending signs of doom
and my doubts right
only to have made a fool of myself
and develop a surreal hatred over it

only to serve as a reminder-
that i'm not cut out
for silly little intimacies,
called love

There is something undeniable about this new aesthetic:
Barefoot and barely presentable
as I slow-dance in the kitchen at 3am
Nobody but me, my shadow and a gentle grey kitten who patiently watches me pour another cup of coffee.
I stir in cinnamon,
a taste that's heedy and all too sweet against the roof of my mouth.
So strong it makes me want to gag,
and yet I sing under my breath:
old tunes I have no business remembering
and lullabies brought to me on the wind
[singing] all you have is fire
-and the place you have to reach.

My mother wanted a girl she could put together like a jigsaw.
A girl who would sit still and patiently endure
the effort it took to construct
the perfect plat, perfect updo
perfect winged eyeliner, perfect blush
perfect poise, perfect dress,
Perfect daughter.
Instead she had me
a muddled and confused thing
with a tangled mess of curls and eyes that couldn't quite look away.
Something with ***** fingers that knew the give and take of every leaf and blade of grass
something that couldn't sit still on creaking church pews
because for all the beauty they pursued, she'd seen the unmatched grace of rolling thunder
and the indisputable life of the ocean.
While other girls watched the boy chase the girl to a perfect kiss
she worshiped the women who took up their weapons and refused to keep their peace. - A child raised on a steady diet of Victorian poetry, Greek myth and poison. Stitched together with images of Artemis, Scottish women and a heathenish name.

My mother would lead me in prayer each night before bed, hoping against all hope to change what was in me. But my father made me wonder if I could be a knight one day, taught me to sing their vows of honour and justice during those ungodly hours when sleep was far.
The hours when his blood called to us both in its ancient tongue. The hours where his stories became my Bible. The hours when the smell of lemongrass and rain filled the house.
The hours when I would be barefoot and dancing in the kitchen
Barely presentable yet undeniably free.