I wasn’t crying.
I was hydrating my grief
from the inside out.

He said, “You’re not dramatic. Just detailed.”
I said, “You’re not cruel. Just consistent.”
We called that a compromise.
(or else a hostage negotiation.)

There’s glitter in my carpet
from a party I threw
to prove I wasn’t waiting on him.
I wore white.
Not bridal,
but still white enough
to make someone feel guilty.

I lit sparklers like sirens,
toasted survival.
Nobody clapped.

I collect apologies I don’t want,
write scripts for confrontations
that end in standing ovations,
then lose the footage
in a hardware crash
I secretly caused.

I take the stairs two at a time,
just to feel something chase me.
I text “I’m fine :)”
like it’s a safe word—
to keep the spiral
polite.

I rehearse the voicemail
he never left
like it’s Chekhov.
Like if I say it right,
the gun goes off
and I disappear
beautifully.

At the end of the dream,
he’s always wearing my hoodie—
saying something tender,
just slightly
too late.

And I wake up
with eyelashes on my wrists,
thinking—
Maybe I am the problem.
But God—
you should’ve seen the poems.

I was supposed to be somewhere holy by now.
Twenty-eight, maybe.
Soft-eyed, loose-shouldered,
eating cherries on a porch that faces west,
“I trust the sky not to drop me.”
“I haven’t wished on a coin in months.”
Instead, I’m awake at 3:47 a.m.
Googling “What does it mean to feel inside-out?”

I keep finding pieces of myself
in weird places—
a sandal from eighth grade
in my mom’s basement—
a song I skipped for years
until it wrecked me—
now it’s the only sound I can breathe to.
A fourth grade diary entry
that ends with:
“I think something’s wrong with the air.”

I think something’s wrong with the air.

I was so sure by now I’d
quit making altars out of absence,
retire from bleeding for the line break,
know how to hold still when people love me.

I thought I’d hear God more clearly
and panic less when I don’t.
I thought I’d be done
being undone
by
a read receipt.

/ Then the break. /

And yet.

I flinch at compliments
like they’re coming from behind me.

Sometimes I still check
if my name’s spelled right on things.
I still rehearse
what I’ll say in case I’m asked,
“So, what do you do?”

(I become.
I break and unbreak.
I drink soda in bed and call that healing.
I make it to morning and call that enough.)
I keep living like the soft things won’t leave.

There’s a version of me
who doesn’t bend into a wishbone
for every boy with a god complex—
and a version
who flosses because she thinks she’ll live
long enough
for it to matter.

There’s a version who never had to explain
the scars on her thigh.
A version who didn’t stay
just to see how bad it could get.

I keep dreaming of her.
Not to compete—
just to confess.
Not to ask forgiveness—
to give it.

She sleeps through the night and means it.
She makes plans and keeps them.
She doesn’t exist.

So I just keep writing toward something
I’m not sure I’ll survive.
There’s a version of me
who didn’t touch the red button.
Didn’t ask.
Didn’t hope.
Didn’t write any of this down.

(a poem in six stained glass windows)

I. BECOMING

I used to flinch when someone said
“You’re gonna be big someday,”
like—how big?
How loud?
How lonely?
How much of me
do I have to lose
to be loved that widely?

I kissed a boy once
just to see if I could still feel small.
I could.
then I wrote about it,
rhymed tongue with undone,
called it healing.

Some nights I Google myself
with the same hunger
you search a symptom.
Just hoping it’s not fatal.
Just hoping it is.
Just hoping there’s finally
a name for it.

My digital footprint is a shrine
to girls I outgrew but never buried,
their teenage poems
still written in Sharpie
on the back of my ribs.

My first book will ship with
a hand strung bracelet that says
“I survived myself.”

II. PERFORMING

Every time I tell the story
I’m a little more clever,
a little less heartbroken,
a little more
dangerous,
a little more wrong.

I have a bad habit
of leaving confessions in comment sections—
breadcrumbs on the internet floor,
for anyone sad enough
to mistake me
for a map.

I used to rehearse goodbyes in mirrors,
just to see if my eyes could lie
as well as my mouth did.
They could.
They still can.

They called me brave
for saying it out loud.
But I only said it
because the silence was louder.

The secret to staying soft
is deleting the parts
where I’m anything else.

I write best in hotel rooms
because they feel borrowed, too—
because no one expects
the towels to stay white
or the girl to stay quiet.

III. DISGUISING

“SENSITIVE” was printed on my sweatshirt
the night he told me
I hurt myself through him—
at least now he can’t say
I never gave a trigger warning.

Half of my closet is clearance rack chaos,
the other half is second-hand salvation—
each hanger a theory
of who I’ll be next.
Sometimes I dress like the version of me
I think he could’ve stayed for.

Every good body day feels like a plot twist,
like God gave me
a guest pass
to precious.

He said I was too much,
but whispered it like praise.
Now I underline his fears
in neon.

Some nights I still wake at 3:14
to texts I dreamt he sent—
all apologies
and no punctuation.

I screenshot compliments
like they’re prescriptions,
take two every six hours,
pray my body doesn’t reject them.
One day, I’ll ask the pharmacy
if they carry praise
in extended-release.

Every dress in my closet whispers
“wear me to his funeral,”
but he keeps refusing to die,
so I just overdress for brunch—
and sit facing the door
just in case.

IV. SEARCHING

I footnoted the grief.
Added asterisks to all my ‘I’m fine’s.'
Even my browser history
reads like a ******* fire.

My greatest fear isn’t that I’ll fail—
it’s that someday I’ll win
and realize the trophy feels
exactly like loneliness,
but heavier.

I read horoscopes for signs of relapse,
Googling “Do Libras experience nostalgia?”
at 5:15 a.m. like a drunk astrologer
pleading with the stars
to cut me off.

I used to edit Wikipedia pages
for characters who reminded me of myself,
changing their endings to
“she survives,”
“she gets out,”
“she burns the diary.”
They banned my IP
for excessive optimism.
I took it as a compliment.

V. RECKONING

The girls who follow me online
all think I have answers.
I don’t.
I have questions in fancy fonts
and delusions of grandeur
dressed as advice.

My therapist asks me to describe “progress,”
and I show her unsent messages,
leftover pills,
and a notebook filled with
poems written in my sleep—
and one that woke me up
Screaming.

Some of you highlight my breakdowns
like they’re quotes.
I get it.
I do it too.

VI. ALONE

My brain is a group chat
of all the selves I've ghosted,
texting in all caps
and sending GIFs that scream,
"Remember when you thought you'd be happy by now?"

If this poem goes viral,
tell them I made it big.
Tell them I got loud.
Tell them I wasn’t lonely.
Just alone
by design.
Like all cathedrals are.

someone i loved was once concerned
that i'd get used to her nakedness if we spent hours and days like that
and that i'd stop being charmed by her but
that was not true.
the charm was in the oblivion she wore to her nakedness as each day passed
a quick turn, a shimmer, a shiver
i wonder if someone would ever want that of me

ah draw the curtains, i would rather not be seen at all
than be seen seeing, seen wanting

truffles and waffles
never had them,
diabetes is **** poetry to even the diabetics
it's just decay and i don't know what i taste like
i would love for someone to take their sweet time and taste me
and tell me something nice though
i can appreciate it even if i heard i tasted like lava
or mud or swamps
or coffee or blood or rust

i am not picturing you coming over with a box of truffles and waffles
only for me to tell you i can't have them one more time
and you were upset

i needed words first you know
"you did too much today, didn't you? again?"
"i want to read something you wrote?"
"i want to read you, can i read you?"
"can i eat your insides?"
“can i keep running my fingers through your hair until you sleep?”
“can you cry away all your pain while i hold you?”
“can i ******* so you forget the dread that weighs on you”

ruffle my hair and maybe i will fall asleep
do not strangle me for calls i forgot to return
because i will always do that
i must
i'll write love poems when i wake
and like i once did before
remind you that your lap is clouds pillow
i mean i know
that you do not know
how to make me feel those slippery chaotic feelings i make you feel
but do not love me like i do, i might hate it, love me just how you do
don't shy though
do not hold back, grab me, ***** me
or lull me, whisper to me, stab me maybe
how is all and any of that hard
do you like me more when i am insufficient?
for i can light myself into silver flames to do better
but i am tired

so let me just sit for now
breathe,
but i am afraid to knowingly breathe
what if i suddenly don’t know
what if i only can knowingly breathe
and i forget to


i like the windows open but i like the curtains closed
i like the curtains lifting slightly in the wind
i like the little i see through them than when it's open
i'd rather watch the world out as the curtain lifts for a few seconds

but the time i thought this was it
wasn’t then
it was during a **** nap and this one i loved was having a good nap
her hair under the noisy fan kept brushing at my face
but i didn’t move
now it is a fading memory and i still don’t move

ruffle my hair,
i miss being touched, caressed.
not callously although that felt good too
when there was none
i selfishly yearn for you to be selfish about me
because what if selfless love does not obsess you enough
i desire not the selfless love that in its selflessness is willing to let go
possess me kindly unkindly

forgive how i drape my existence with a contradictory me
both, both are me pleading

but i know not of this world
i have to pay to ******* myself?

where are my butterflies?
i want to tell them i am sorry,
have i been too loud, too dark?

i want to be the strings you pluck to feel things you feel
i am okay being locked in the cupboard or the corner room as well,
just keep me
even when i can’t give you those percussive pleasures
i'd have faith in you that there is more that could pour out of you for me
and when you pour endlessly i'd stay


so while being smothered i also wanted them to ride me,
unhinged, ride my face,
so unrestrained willing to use me and not hold back
they could not be any more real than then
so unrestrained, perched on my shoulders
the ******* blooming into flowers
the throbbing pearl inside of their lips i could hear and feel

and the marked moments of how i rejoiced too
while i sat on my knees and ate their lips
as they peed on me
i would look up and i saw they want it
and they wanted me to tell and i wanted it too yes
because i could be the only one they can do it with too
i felt special
and it felt good, yeah

and i liked being smothered under them
giving them all the power over me,
i thought maybe that made them feel good about themselves
and so they'd love me because i never could love myself
how selfish of me

don't give me the crap about i have to start loving myself
truth is
it is your excuse to not meet me where i am
and if even there is reason and rationality to that principle
**** i have tried and you didn’t give me nothing then
you called me a worm under your shoe

worm under a shoe,
does it coil up,
does it fit into the crevices and around your feet
what if it found a little cozy home around the base of shoes
and took itself where the shoes went
with you

anyway
a friend once told me i am fine with everything
so i wrote a poem about how i want someone to
lay together and decay together with, a poem
that no one read so i had to pay for someone to read it.
******* four lines
and i had to pay in hopes someone would soulfuck me enough
just once
ah no i wanted more than once

rubble, not that kind
seeing as to you reading
what
i
wrote,
you'd be surprised
it is not a weary writing about a weary life.
i can see you think that
haven't i told you to think that as much as
i have told you not to
or not, maybe you got so much molten erupting self inside you too
that you don't think about me at all
even if i use a lot of i
don't pity me
for i shun myself ten times as much
just so it does not weigh on you
anyway rubble, yes, what kind though
the laundry done looks like rubble
that is the kind of rubble yeah
as a kid i used to bury myself inside of it
not to come out though,
just to stay in
i wanted to be under, it was quieter
the world smelled clean, safe, moist
is that how it ought to feel
i loved women who made me feel that way,
a mix of slightly damp, slightly dry,
smells of the sun and smells of wetness all the same
they were also always heavier than me but they did not like it
i wanted to get fat for them so they will like me
but when i did get fat
i was ugly and sick in ways they never fetishized so i kept loving them skinny
because i always anyway loved like i was starving
they complained i am too lean for them and maybe that is one reason they didnt like to be seen with me
for cameras that is
in my memories they marked the images though
of me worshipping them
the slaps, the spits, the spats,
i felt oh you poor thing, i can’t help you, but i tried