The difference between us is simply this:

If they were to take all of you.
Distill down the essence of your smile
and the imaginative gears that whir
behind your eyes.
Add to it the bits of you scattered over the years-
your writing and art,
the stories of you that others
hold in their hearts,
and press it
into the pages of a book.

Binding you would form a
monstrous and unwieldy volume,
threatening the life of even the most
robust of coffee tables.
It would be called
“Anthology of THE Girl”

And if they did the same for me,
the book would be considerably
smaller,
and plain.
Titled: “poems to **** yourself to”

Ruminating failures
a blender inside my head  

My mind drips down  
into my hands and  
I feel the grit of regrets  
between my fingers;  
slick like oil  
with flecks of sand and glass  
the greasy residue of every moment  
grimy and sharp.  

The ineffable instant  
pooling on my fingertips;  
when fate’s trajectory skews
and twists along my intestines.
Because I know-
that what I’ve done    
cannot be reversed  
or erased.    

That I have created an apex around which  
history will revolve. A fixed point    
in the vastness of eons from which  
every other thing will spin out.  
A collapsing star- whose dying light  
will shine in the black memory of the sky  
for a million  
million  
years.  

So I sit under a sky full of blown out suns  
and feel the glint of dead lights  
between my fingers.

will you come to my funeral?  
I'd like to imagine that you would.
but you probably won't even know that I'm gone  
until months or years have held me underground

it would be fitting
in some morbid irony
to have our many intersections,
always crossing at bad timings or circumstance,
be punctuated with the greatest chasm of all
the last time that you see me

but at least I won't be there to **** it up
Anymore

I am stone  
impenetrable and rigid in my moorings  
duty bound to be -  
the foundation for feet and  
dreams that stack each brick atop me in  
false hopes that I will withstand time  

the weakness inside me mining out my ores  
each one chiseled and dug out until  
the vein is bled dry  
a cavern made by the relentless drip of everything i am not  
filing the space between my skin with nothing and  
praying that my seams will hold me together  

I am fine

I want it to stop.
not anything in particular,
as if one thing could fill me, or fix me
or glue all the cracks that are leaking me out

I want it to stop.
just everything
everything that's inside me

I feel like a void
empty and full of longing,
and a suffocating panic, knowing it will never stop
that I will never be filled and i will stay like this.
until I'm not like this.
because I am not.

so i think about being not
more than being,
and somehow that seems better
and easier, and hopeful

If only some of those comforts,
in words and arms and love,
spoken over me in memoriam
could find their way to me
while they could still find me

perhaps they wouldn't need
to be said at all

There is a greed inside of me  
an apparition that feeds on pity—  
a desperation that would so casually consign you  
to the same misery  
just so I would not be alone.  

A selfishness that would entwine a piece of me  
so tightly along your threads  
that I could never be unstitched  
from the seams of your patchwork,  
knowing that I could never relieve you of that burden,  
never be more than an incessant itch beneath your soul.  

Because in the quiet, in the dark, I sink  
into the horrible truth, like I am  
swallowed up with the light-  
I will always love you,  
but never love you again.

Because in the quiet of the dark, I sink  
into the horrible truth, like I am  
swallowed up with the light-  
I will always love you,  
but never love you again.  

This unbearable knot,  
assuaged only by the vilest condolences—  
the thought that somewhere,  
you are being swallowed up too.

Why is it the dark thoughts,  
the shadows that hang at the edges of my mind  
that so easily creep out and stain the page?

Though love and joy may be found  
they never seem to draw my heart out into words.  
At least, not in the same way.  

It is regret and misery,  
longing and melancholy  
that moves my hand to compose

The introspections of my afflictions
what could have been or would have been,  
if only…  
if only.  

Perhaps it frees me in some way  
to trap these long lost deliberations with ink.  
With a time and date scribbled down on paper.  
To bother me no more…  
or perhaps, to bother me all the more  

I weigh the merits on my scale.  
To stand firmly on the shore  
or dip my toes into the water  

To let myself sink into that dark place  
to retrieve some trinket from the depths of my soul.  
All the while keeping my head above the waves.  
But what if I tire of treading  
or the weight of love and sorrow pressed together proves too much  
sinking me down below the air  

If I open this door  
what if no one can shut it

I'm sitting here with a razor blade  
that says she's my best friend,  
and her voice is so smooth  
I almost believe her,  
wouldn't you if you were me?  
  
The night always seems to call  
roulette and razor blades into my veins,  
when thoughts of you are knotted in my stomach,  
sour coils of flesh  
that drudge up the darkest thoughts.  
Words that stain the air  
and turn to rust on my lips.  
  
I thought I had finally cast out this craving,  
the hunger running under skin.  
I can see it when I close my eyes,  
the river wrapped around my arm  
trickling down to death.  
  
And the devil on my shoulder  
whispers sweet nothings  
through bloodthirsty lips.  
  
The morbid thoughts shed skin  
and become the virtuous  
in the cover of dark.  
When the mind crosses over  
and wanders into the realms that daylight forbids,  
or daylight forgot.  
  
I'm sitting here with a razor blade  
that says she's my best friend,  
and her voice is so smooth  
I almost believe her.  
She says that she can make it quick.  
Press it down, blade to bone.  
It won't last long enough to trouble anyone  
and neither will I.

I am the silence between words,
the shadow that slips unnoticed
through crowded rooms.
No one looks my way,
no eyes linger,
not even for a moment.

I walk past like a ghost,
my name barely a whisper in the air,
dissolving before it reaches anyone's ears.
I speak, but it feels like I’m talking to walls,
hoping the vibrations will reach somewhere,
someone.

But I am always alone.
Invisible threads weave through me,
tightening as the world goes on,
oblivious,
unaware
of the emptiness I carry.

I am not part of the conversation.
I am the pause,
the blank space,
the forgotten afterthought.
I try to shout,
but my voice only echoes in my chest,
bouncing back unanswered.

In the sea of faces,
I am the one that doesn’t register,
the one who blends into the background,
like a painting left to collect dust.
I exist,
but I am not seen.
I feel the weight of this truth,
heavy in the hollow places inside me.

I am a story untold,
a face without a name,
a heartbeat no one notices
because it’s too faint to matter.

But I keep breathing,
I keep moving.
Because even if I’m invisible,
I am still here,
still waiting
for someone to see me.