Cosmic projections underlying in spaces
as warm sunburnt bodies move together across the floor
purple lights in neon glow attached to the ceiling,
mind spinning with the fluorescence.
And youth- your mind is spinning with how young you are
only seventeen
you carry the burden in your stomach the sadness on your shoulder.
You are much too young to have abundant regrets
to be living yet dead in a bitter grave.
Wrong choices overlap each other as the grave gets deeper- I know that sometimes it feels hopeless.
Banter with old friends about the aliens and rehab centers, the girl who taught you four square teaching you how to torch the end of a crack pipe.
Cycles of the same tornadoes, dreams of constant death,you’ve seen your best friends dead body more times than you will admit. Yet they’ve never imagined yours, or imagined you, or cared.
The rose colored glasses are ripped from your face given to the other unsuspecting girl who will walk the same journey I did with him.
One-sided friendships get lonely
lovers are no longer loving
and the pino has run out.
The purple lights manifest into messages coming across the lifeline simulation- Give up those who have fallen silent, your mission is not with them.
The mission is uncertain
get a man to prison
to watch a wild orca
have a family
but the process is daily.
My mission right now is to live freely let my hair grow and stick my head out the window singing Janis Joplin tunes on the 105.5
The aliens come through once again to extend long hands and acid tabs offering insight into treasures unknown.
Time capsules I have yet to bury.

The great thing about cycles is you can stop them.

God bless the children-
As they step off the school bus
To a soccer ball, summer camp, popsicle joke stick.
Bless those who return home to empty refrigerators-
Static television and *****.
Bless the airplane rides, holding onto the edge of a seat
landing into a world where their body-
is no longer their own.
Daytime heat rising off the road
walking barefoot from the community pool,
still an aching between legs.
Bless this sky, the grass, God Bless America
And the fireworks that set fires in our bellies
Unforgiving.
Bless lightning bugs making stars in a starless black sky
Waiting for the moon to move from behind the sheet
Guide the blessed children
home
summer camp
soccer ball
heaven.

i look back at the girl i was
when it happened and
darling, you were so young
you didn’t deserve to be treated that way
or to have to grow up that fast
i wish i could’ve protected you and
told you that you were safe
and that you didn’t have to
destroy yourself
because you didn’t want to be in
the same body he touched

you thought you carried
your faults on your skin
so you tore it open

i was a body hollowed out
a skeleton with shattered bones
he ripped off my wings
and emptied me of all light
now all you’ll find
is black paint in careless streaks
across my weary heart
tired of beating

a ***** rotting thing
held a lighter to a match
not as smart as you might think
so i burned
and returned
to ash again

i remember this in little flashes
noises, smells, words
hit my brainstorm like lightning bolts
and take me right back to
a frightened little girl
blurred visuals projected
like a picture show i didn’t want to see
and i freeze
catatonia

my senses swarmed in radio static
and nothing around me is real anymore
not that the broken memories
of buried innocence in an unmarked grave
felt any more concrete
i can hear my panicked
heartbeat thumping like thunder
in my chest while thoughts
run wild through my mind
reverberating around my brain
until they whirred enough
to release cacophonous screams

is it too much to ask to forget
these little incendiary flashes
because they burn me from the inside
and turn me back to ashes
but memories don’t work like that
they don’t dissipate or shrink
no matter how hard you try

secrets turn to cement in my lungs
and i’m drowning in them
suffocating, coughing, wheezing
every time i try to speak
i choke because it’s not over
unless he says it is

to be polite
i keep this twisted sickness inside of me
but i long to cut myself open
and rip the tangled mess
of trauma from my chest
throw it down where everyone can see
because i’m so tired
of keeping this in for so long

i’ve only ripped myself open
to know it was real
because i’m just a terrified child
but the world doesn’t stop
the natural progression of
a child with secrets
to an adult with depression

no one cares
when they see someone like me
hunched over her own bleeding guts
splattered on the sidewalk
apologizing to pedestrians
about her own carnage
because she didn’t mean it
as a call for attention

but god, i wish they did
if only the world would stop for a moment
so i can collect these thoughts
and piece them together in way
i can explain why
i’m bleeding out in front of you
and ask for you
to reach out your hand
and rescue me
from this unrighteous ruining
and help me rise from these ashes
6/22

I fiddle around with the truth in my hands
trying to mold it into a shape I can stand
(that isn't age 7 when I didn't understand)

I look up and say with a pensive sigh,
"I've never made love to anyone,"
because that is no lie

but I promise myself, there is hope for a body profane as mine
a ****** I will be! and I'll make love for the first time-

to a lover, to a tender hand,
to another boy and not a man

in the queen-sized bed, on the soft white sheets
intertwined and in love, our bodies will meet

It won't hurt like this forever.

I am but a collection of parts
To be assembled or disassembled
Per my makers' activation.

An oily doll-like machine
Tightly wrapped with
Remaining layers of canvas
Stretched too far
Made too thin
Passively cornered and controlled
An animated object
Waiting for its next order.

Breath in......
...Breath out......
......Please forget.....

Valves open and close without purpose
Packed into an unorganized network of cogs and gears
Dusted with a putrid rust
Covered in slime and mucous.

A trail of blood and sewage left
In my wake.
The only mark of an existence
Slowly fading from relevance
Like a stone cast into the ocean's depths.

Time suffocates
With nice words and empty promises
Bidding me to winch my memories
Into nothing.

What does this mean?
...Can't remember.........
......Why can't i remember?

I lie now
In my mechanical grave
With Stitched eyes
With Stitched lips
And no sunlight.

My sensors will relent
Even while they beg
As my battery slowly dies.

Maybe then......
I can finally sleep without reliving
The legacy left
By my makers' hands.

If they don’t believe you
they don’t deserve to
be apart of your story.

You shouldn’t have to explain
yourself.

The flowered bed sheets of the motel where we lay
he showed no mercy on the Atlantic coast
used me again and kissed me.

I only remembered the oceans roll
and the visions of a unshaved beard,
the feeling of dread when he locked the door and unzipped his jeans.

Sandcastle fell over
and the sharks swam away
watching the walkway from the motel bedroom,
waiting for him to come back an let me out.

This is a ****** of a child's innocence and he held it over the seas the shadow of my life changes into bone
until my ****** becomes a whole other being,
so powerful it gave me an STD at the age of 11.
Thoughts are doubled in my head and the dark air has no name.

I call out for who may be there but nobody answers, only the step-step-stepping of my uncle coming in the motel for more.

Purple aftershave on the corners of his lips, hairs trimmed and a gloss over the skin, peeking through the surface. Mirror ***** streaked with water a damp towel hanging over the basin.

I saw him in town today, standing on the street corner with his hands in his pockets waiting for the cross guard to let him walk. I ran so fast that the temporary glue I used to piece together major organs so that I could live, but live without emotion, grew loose. I put myself together again with washi tape from my kindergarten backpack. Placing them over the cuts his razor left between my legs.

I told myself that I would always be me before I remember that for 3 years I was yours. But right now the skies are grey and the scent your aftershave stings my nostrils. You made me kiss you on the cheek on the sickly smooth skin, you made me grow up too fast.

I set the closet where he kept me on fire with myself inside of it, deciding to burn with the ******* house instead of watching it from afar.

Knock on the old wood he opens the door to a room filled with smoke.

With our heads over the starboard of the boat trip we took taunting tropical storm Fay on the port and our dresses in the wind.
He watched from the captain's chair, pistol in his hand. Salty seas hinder our vision of the man in the watchtower turning him into a blur on the vast expanse of grey skies and rotting wet wood.  

Angry crew-children with their bodies touched, banging on the stained glass door to his room where the little girl looks through the marbled blue with tears on her cheeks. Laughing at the confrontation, sent back to work.

Gathering lobster and lost time, both of them scream in the boiling ***. Escaped breath from incestuious embraces return to lungs and we find out that we can scream too, the boiling *** is overturned dripping off the starboard where we stand.

Lightning bolt touches the flag above his head causing chemical reactions to develop into a spark. Flames at the back engulf the wheel the children blister their hands grasping onto the lines as Fay rolls through, lightning after thunder rain never ending. Chaos perspiring on the ship he calls the battalion to secuestrar the children.

The battalion is overturned at the punch, bruise left on grey skin. Captain blubbering with lies the fire heat on his back. Rotting wood is burning, we cover our noses with bandanas and letters marked for Groton. The tide rises waves overtake the port, splashing onto the starboard where the victims jump into the black water uncertainty chilling them.

Swimming to Key West with the dolphins on our back the fiery ship burns in the distance the captain tied to a chair of ******* and lines untouched, denying allegations until his heart is charcoal and all that's left is a charred body smelling of ****** and aftershave. The starboard side is empty causing imbalance to the ship.

Dripping tears and sea water, walking through the streets, we lower our bandanas and hold the letters close to our hearts. Searching for the sun that will lead us home.