we played like children
on borrowed time—
fingers flying across foosball handles,
ping-pong bouncing between
your laughter and mine.

after supper,
we’d sneak into the library,
to the back, past the board games,
where a dinosaur waited
to beat me, again.
the librarian smiled.
we smiled back—
but we were never that innocent.

between the shelves,
you’d look at me
like hunger dressed in human skin.
your hand found mine,
and the air cracked.

i thought of kissing you,
of not stopping.
but my ribs still ached
with someone else’s name.
and so—
i stayed still.
i stayed safe.

later, by the bricks,
you found the space between my thighs,
and i followed you
through a rusted fence
into the school yard
where we looked up
at the stars,
and said nothing.

you leaned in.
i leaned back.

because no matter
how loudly
my pulse begged
for your lips,
my heart was still
a house in ruins.

what better day than today--

I can't sleep and I can't
stand the daisy bushes at dusk with their
orange glaring eyes glaring
at my fingers turned robot joints back when
they used to--

feel differently
and I

swear I
haven't changed so much and to
prove it I'm trying to dig the eternity out of
algae green and deep walnut irises stranger
and stranger with spoon shovels made of
shallow questions and polite interest without
getting so bored or
wishing I was--

what better day than today to die

I've tied the limbs of my
spirits and monsters alike into knots and
dizzied them in labyrinths of my own muddied judgment
paved with crushed clocks and compass needles and
they are all so far gone, I am
untethered--

even far from my dear music and poetry--

my soul is already split like colored mosaic glass, each of
a thousand fragments not just belonging but
borne out of some piece of art that will long outlive me, so
anyone that minded could
easily piece me back together in death

how I wish that death were the end,
the end, and not a passing over into
some other unknown rumored to outlast everything,
what more terrifying than that and if
I believed there were a true end I might have sought it
much sooner--

what is left for me to do but
papier-mache my body with my old poetry like a
sarcophagus absorbing the things I
trusted to hold me so much closer

when the rains come
tell them,
tell everyone,
to get an umbrella.
____

it's a field
a beautiful field.
green and green as far as the eyes can see.
It is quiet
and swaying,
and naked.
Wonderfully naked.

I am also naked.
and i can feel it
like worms, digging
within the hollows of my chest.
It is an uneasy feeling.
one that brings my knees to my chest
and binds it all with my arms.
It makes me want to eat myself
and swallow,
swallow till all that remains is teeth.

I am naked
but the grass I sit on is soft
and the sky has a mouth
that he uses to talk of storms.

I am naked
reciting the Psalms of David.
dwelling in the secret place of the Lord
abiding under the shadow of the Almighty.

The suburb’s still a skeleton
but now I wear its bones.
I was backlit,
bored,
all drywall and divine punishment,
first names shouted through screen doors,
ceiling fans spinning
someone else’s damage.

I kept saying I'd leave.
I kept writing it down,
spending my stories on soft drinks and scar tissue,
but
there’s a difference between
nostalgia and necromancy.
Between naked and naive.
Between full of stars
and just
falling.

We said forever
like it wasn’t
a curse.
Like it wasn’t
already dissolving in the pollen.

I wrote hymns for mouths,
sloppy as mascara in rainlight,
that made meaning feel like a dare:
the emotional oversights
we let ruin us twice.

Flannel soul,
face like unfinished business.
He touched me with all the guilt
of a borrowed god.
Begging,
but never burning clean.

A slippery little eulogy
sprinting toward a dawn already
in someone else’s rearview.
He didn’t kiss me,
but he almost did.
And I’ve been sick about it
ever since.

An ode to night
that chews at the hem
of what we thought we were.

Being here now is
already retroactive.
Already haunted.
Intertwined
like seatbelt bruises.

A small canopied disaster,
still posing.
still pretending.

I was a rooftop girl,
and I meant it.
Which is worse, I think,
than being believed.

The sky never answered,
but I kept
sending poems.

The suburb’s still a skeleton.
I’m just better at burying
what I mistook for light.

I expected it to be gradual,
Like feel every day of my life,
Watching the sun rise then sets,
But then I become 25,
After a nap the length of my childhood.

Once upon a time I was guided to walk,
To learn in school with a teacher,
With classmates to learn with me,
So I learned better through them,
With some friends I had fun with.

I used to write so much,
A lot of thoughts with little words,
So smart, so creative, so brave,
But then I got here,
Barely spilling time to be me.

Why do I feel so empty,
When I have a life so full.
A love strong to waive my mistakes,
A home to keep other worries out,
And a job to do that pays well.

I travel and dive to the oceans,
I drive to the far high roads,
I fly to more islands,
But then I go home and think,
Why am I still sad?

Maybe this is growing,
The uncomfortable phase of consciousness,
When you think more of the things to do,
Than just doing it,
Always with fear of getting it wrong.

Because for the first time ever,
You are alone and fully responsible,
For your whole being,
And it is scary,
Growing up is scary.

there will come a time, my friend
where you’ll look back on that
road full of bumps and potholes
whole, being able to look in the mirror
and see yourself, not shame, not despair
just you wait

We said we’d never stop believing
in fairies,
in kindness,
in return phone calls.

We swore we’d never
become like them.
The adults
with milky eyes
and calendars
and knives
they only use for mail.

You said we’d grow up
but stay soft.
Like peaches.
Like lullabies.

You pulled your own tooth out
in second grade
just to see if the blood felt like something.
It didn’t.
But you didn’t say that out loud.

I held your hand
and told you it meant
you were brave.

You said the tooth fairy would bring you
everything you circled
in The American Girl Catalog.
You got two dollars
and a cavity.
Welcome to Earth.

I still have some of my baby teeth
rattling around in a film canister,
in the same box as my First Communion Dress
and my Princess Diana Beanie Baby.

I thought I was just saving pieces.
I never knew which parts of girlhood
were meant to be disposable.

As if saving them
meant I hadn’t lost
the rest.

I remember when the world was a honey *** —
sweet and endless,
when the biggest worry was a blustery day
and whether Piglet would blow away.
The sky was wide, and the ground was soft,
and the trees whispered secrets if you listened long enough.

Back then, I knew the Bare Necessities by heart:
A river’s hum, the sun’s warm kiss,
feet splashing through a world that never asked for more
than laughter and a little bit of wonder.
Baloo taught me how to sway with the breeze,
to let life be easy —
but no one told me the breeze could turn cold.

They don’t warn you when the Hundred Acre Wood starts to shrink,
when the trees lose their magic
and just become trees.
One day, you wake up and Christopher Robin isn’t coming back —
and you realize you have to be him now.
You have to pack up the toys
and leave the forest behind.

But I miss the forest.
I miss the rustle of leaves that sounded like adventure,
the way a cardboard box was a pirate ship,
or a rocket,
or a house where everything made sense.
Now my ships sink in student loans,
and my rockets crash into expectations.

They said growing up was an adventure —
but no one said it was like Shere Khan waiting in the dark,
all teeth and waiting for you to fail.
No one told me the man-village had rules:
Wear this. Be that. Don’t dream too loud.

But sometimes, when the night is quiet,
I hear Baloo singing in the back of my head.
Sometimes, when the wind shakes the trees,
I swear I see Tigger bouncing through the branches.
And I hold on to those echoes,
those soft, honeyed memories,
because the world gets heavy,
but childhood taught me how to fly.

So maybe I’ll keep a little bit of the forest with me.
Maybe I’ll hum the Bare Necessities when the bills pile up.
Maybe I’ll remember that a blustery day
is just an excuse to hold on tighter to the ones you love.

And maybe, when the world says grow up,
I’ll whisper back —
“Oh, bother.”

Blue stares at me in a crowd,
Seeing a blue that I knew lightyears ago.
Well I'd be ****** here you are again,
Offering me entry into a home I once knew.

Now you are smiling next to the window
Of the house we shared.
New curtains droop down next to a figure
The figure of evil.

Leaving you behind, a wave washes over me
Of sentimental longing or wisful affection.
Craving to have had won you,
To have saved you from the evil you are still so drawn to.

It's just that the moon is full,
And I hear a voice on the telephone that I knew lightyears ago.
Flicking the switch I cut out a part of myself.

The hurt of it ripping me in two,
The moon phases and I swim up, meters of blue still above me.
Stroke after stroke I rush to breathe.
Year after year I still pine after it.

Now I look out of the window with curtains that droop,
That droop down next to me
Throwing a dim light on a double bed