When they tell me
"we understand"
I take them seriously
because they will always
be under
the impression
that they know

I’m angry
At everything and myself
I don’t wanna do this **** anymore
This being anything and everything that is involved with being alive
It’s too hard and I give up
I’ve watched so many people just skate by
I continue to watch people do nothing
And have everything
While I do everything
And have nothing
I am bitter
I am hurt
I am mad that no one was there for me
That no one can take care of me
Besides me
I am outraged at my upbringing
Because it’s led me here
It’s brought me over five years of therapy
Countless tears
A level of pain to parenting
And
I’ve lost so much time
Time spent in agony just because I’m alive
So yeah
I’m ******* angry
And trying to be more mindful
Isn’t going to help today

and i’m swallowing each impossible love
and letting it fill my stomach lining.
i have touched this ****** with shaky palms.
i have taken my fill,
i have loved, lost, loved, and gave birth to a body i never conceived i would.
i have been in my own company
each night with stacked dishes and undone laundry
and puffy eyes that cannot seem to shrink.
i’m swallowing each sweet nothing as if it belongs to me—as if you belong to me.
through flesh and blood, i see your insides.
they are living. your aura. the soft delicate smooth manner in which you exist.
i live to see the sunrise from your bedroom window in a nightgown,
observing whole towns awakening
as our hearts have never known another
as clearly worth living for.
we are alive and i’m swallowing each emotion
i forced myself to deny.
i breathe what i feel, i am what i want, i am wanting
and oh dear, there is nothing wrong with that.

Lysol the package

Packed and shipped by robot arms

Now close the front door

my father hasn’t been himself,
i’m piling clothes on each shelf
while the cold is attaching its lifeless embrace around my thighs that are too big
and a stomach too normally abnormal.
i write about living,
i try to live for writing;
always end up living for nothing.
maybe the ache seems like a home,
or a house
i just passed on the open road.
constantly familiar since a younger version of me
opened the vault
and it slipped out.
my eyes haven’t watered the flowers underneath my bed
since the summer came and went.
love came knocking at the front door;
the latch wouldn’t open up.
now every car makes it look as if it’s him behind every wheel.
i pass that house with a sore throat—
a lump in the back,
something’s unraveling inside of me.
i am neither tall nor strong,
every sadness almost takes the breath out of me
and i haven’t been like myself,
but when have i ever?

I'll hand over this flower,
Any day, any given time.
To remind you with,
The Magnolia in my name.

And,

The Magnolia in my hand,
A gift for yours to take,
The symbol of our tomorrow,
Our forevermore.