---TRIGGER WARNING: themes related to self harm---

I swear to god,
I'm the 13th reincarnation of Sylvia Plath,
Only I'm bad at poetry.
I write, I hide in my bedroom with the light off,
And I grow a little crazier everyday.
One moment I'm singing a gentle song,
Nurturing the sweet daisies sprouted in my carpet.
A minute later I'm slicing open my forearms,
Cackling and painting something on the walls in blood.
Call 911 and shove the phone down my throat,
It feels good to gargle disappointment.

My writing has evolved over the years:
From naive, soft, and shallow murmurs,
To a steady, dull hum,
Then a defiant yell of a freedom.
However, it's time to enter another stage.
One of scratching, beating to the rhythm of a delusional dance.
It's tainted at the corners like an old, ruined photograph,
With a faint sour smell.
The final stage of my writing has come -
A frantic, hallowed, and deranged wail.
How long until the words I scrawl
Become nonsense?

So stay away,
Don't come through the crack in the bell jar.
Please, I'm trying to suffocate myself,
All in the name of art.
Let me stay in this vaccum of madness,
Pushing and pulling at my mind.
I'm telling you, it's going to hurt if you get too close.
My turbulent muse is ready with a match,
And I don't have the strength to stop her from burning you.

Let me revel in my obsession for a little longer.
My selfishness, my self-indulgence, my depravity,
Or whatever the hell you want to call it.
I know I'm a fool for wearing Plath's wedding band,
And swallowing her barbiturates.
I can't help but romanticize her legacy,
Writing her initials on Wernicke's and Broca's foreheads.
I don't care if I'm a copycat.

I can't stop thinking about you,
And I can't stop smiling.
You're my most favorite person in the whole wide world,
You know that?

You're a lipstick lesbian straight boy,
Who can probably walk in heels and wear liquid eyeliner
Better than I can.
Somewhere on the spectrum of femme and homme fatales,
You're sitting at the mid-point,
Content with being an enigma.
Don't get the wrong idea - I'm not mocking you.
I wouldn't have it any other way, believe me!
Your contradictory mystery,
Setting you apart from anyone I've known,
Is quite loveable, actually.

I'm holding onto the edge of my seat,
Trying to not get lost in your gaze.
Your eyes, warm and bright,
With color exploding from where the iris meets the pupil
Like miniature galaxies.
I can't tell if those explosions are green, gold, or hazel,
Or a mix of all three.
Either way, they're drawing me in,
And tearing down my walls,
Like dimensional space rifts ******* in and whisking
My fear away.

I know, I know,
I give these poems a conversational tone.
It's kind of like prose,
Even if it's too on the nose,
But **** the hoes
Who say I can't.
Cry more.
*** your pants.

So as you can see,
Indubitably,
I love my lesbian boyfriend
More than my heart can bear.
My atriums and ventricles swell
With thoughts of you,
Pushing against my sternum and pleasantly aching.
I keep trying,
But there's no combination of words
That can communicate just how much you mean to me.
So park your U-Haul in the back to the right
When we have our second date.

I guess I'd better clip my nails,
At least two on my right hand anyways.

you call me your light -
breaking through your cloudy days and darkest nights,
and making the sunny days burn brighter.
if that's the case, then you're my light switch:
lifting me up, turning me o-
... okay, that's not the direction I meant to take that in.
i mean... it is tr-
alright, let's just move on.

i'm not sure whether to make this sweet
or stupid.
i guess it could be both? i'm not really sure.
i'd like it to have some sort of flow, though.
i'd like to make the poem poetic.
how am i supposed to make feelings into "art"
when i barely understand those feelings to begin with?

all this talk of "feelings," feelings.
feelings are fleeting...
i'm not playing around with that *******.
i have so much more building up in me
than just a feeling.
what i have, pulling at every muscle in my chest,
is... more like a promise.
a promise to you, and a promise to myself.

but what is that promise for?
what does it entail? what does it assure?
is it a promise for the future,
to press forward together despite the wrathful storms?
or is it a promise for the present,
to keep our palms and arms open
in case we need to fall back on each other?
i don't know - it could be neither, it could be both.
i'm still trying to figure out what the promise means,
and what it's for.

but
there is one thing that's clear to me.
there's one part of that promise
that i'm absolutely certain of.
no need to build suspense...
i'll cut to the chase.

i promise
honesty.

i know, that seems like such a little thing.
i can give honesty to anyone, right?
but when i say honesty, i don't mean the bare minimum.
i'm not talking about basic respect,
and baseline truthfulness that everyone deserves.
i'm not even talking about polite humility,
or standard integrity.
i can offer that to anyone,
and i could give you that even if i didn't love you.

so let me clarify...
this is what i mean when i say honesty:
i'm promising to remove my mask around you;
to let the fake persona shielding me crumble.
i'm promising to let you into places of my conscience
that i don't even know about.
a promise of full vulnerability,
to give you a carbon copy of the key to my being.
i promise to tell you things
that i've never told anyone.
hopefully, by opening up that intimate honesty,
i can support you in a stronger way as well.

there's more to the overall promise, yes,
but i've yet figure out
what each dimension of it means.
i'm excited to further discover that promise
together with you.

wow, i intended this to be funny.
i guess it got real, huh?

Your passion blooms yellow,
Like the smile of a rising sun.
The wind blows, and the daffodils bellow;
They echo a crescendo - their spring has begun.

Their song flows across the ground,
Blooming budding emotions in its wake.
The nectar dampening the soil mound
Has enough oxytocin to make a soul ache.

These daffodils grew over the snow in my lawn,
Melting the cold as their roots gripped the earth.
I kept warm among the blossoms as the hours rolled on.
My mind gradually defrosted - like a cerebral rebirth.

My winter has mostly ended, indicated by each perennial.
I have you to thank for planting the first bulb out there -
Double digging the stubborn dirt, yet remaining congenial,
Despite the unfit sod and icy air.

I owe it to you that I've recovered whatsoever:
My cognitive crime scene, solved with your empathetic luminol.
Perhaps young love is a foolish endeavor,
But if that's so, then I'm the most foolish fool of all.

So I'll unabashedly listen to your daffodil crescendo,
And resonate with the joy in your living rhythm.
I'll plant you some chrysanthemums to match in yellow,
So we can sit together with them.

⚠️Trigger Warning: the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to suicide and death⚠️

When a person dies
of a physical illness,
you mourn them.

When a person commits suicide,
you assassinate their character
and call them
selfish

because their death is a result
of a self-inflicted action.

Because they chose to die,
right?

Because they not only chose  
to destroy themselves,
but the lives of their family and friends,
right?

But
just as a physical illness
turns the cells against the body,

a mental illness
turns the mind against
itself,
convinces it that
death
is the only option.

What you don't understand
is that the person isn't our
killer--

depression is.

---TRIGGER WARNING: themes of trauma related to ****** assault.---

On an evening alone, dark and dismal,
I laid upon my crisp floor rug.
Stomach down, back up,
Thinking about the one I love.
I mused and mulled over many things,
Such as how I cared for her so,
Or when we'd next meet,
And what I'd even say.
As I continued to think and think,
My mind settled on other kinds of things.

I bit my lip; I stalled for a moment.
I hovered a thumb over the enter key,
And with a single exhale released my hesitation.
"How to figure out my kinks," or
"How to ask about her kinks."
I felt like a child, sneaking onto the home computer at night,
And finding a timid sort of delight
In googling "*****."

So I continued...
Taking a quiz here,
Reading a page there,
When something stopped me in my tracks.
Something cold ran down my back,
Like a spectre tracing my spine with a finger -
An otherworldly shiver.
Not a shiver of excitement or elation,
But rather one of danger,
Signaling an unholy presence hanging over me.

I could see them as I glanced up.
His eyes:
Smiling
  Laughing
      Singing
                       Feeding
                                                   Growling
                                                        ­                                       Burning
                                                         ­     Knashing
                                Decaying
        Wa­iling
                                               Devouring
                                                       ­                                       Bloodcurdling
Looking, seeing right through me.
My ceiling fan stirred his viridescent hair;
Pulled at the petals of the rose between his teeth.
His grin grew wider
As the stem's thorns grew longer,
Piercing his raw, red gums.

He came to remind me, it would seem...
Remind me that he still existed.
He wanted to remind me that
He still haunted the sides of my head -
Stirring, kneading my temporal lobes.
Searching the gaze in his eyes, I remembered.

I remembered feeling more worthless than dirt.
I remembered the validation I thought I needed.
I remembered the guilt, shame, and fear.
I remembered feeling like a disgusting, useless ****.
I remembered trying to avoid sending him photos.
I remembered staring at my ceiling,
Sobbing quietly in the night,
Silently screaming within my chest
For help.
To be saved...
By someone, anyone.

But most of all...
But most of all,
I remembered why I couldn't be loved.
Not in that way, at least.
My demon, who for some reason I still cling to,
Reasons that I don't even understand,
Won't allow it.
I blinked, and all but his eyes vanished,
Leaving me with a small thought as opposed to immense fear.
Maybe it's okay that I could never enjoy a partner that way?
Perhaps I could learn to be complacent with that.
Perhaps I could learn to be content with that.

I yawned, chucked my phone aside,
And closed my eyes to sleep.

Will you leave me behind?
My god, will you leave me
even if I bow and curtsy
will I need to prostrate
for you to stay with me?

The apotheosis bites me back–
a false prophet I am called,
but was I really wrong? No.

A saddened god, a distant god.

When my prayers are not enough
and my worship insufficient
for your heavenly affection
to point at my weary head–

A loving god, a god of warmth.

But I keep coming back for more
the ambrosia from your brim,
and daily bread at the altar
(always a little stale).
I know your devotion remains,
its mine the inadequate love.

My god, say, will you stay
even as this fades away,
and a better worship comes along?

Will my hymn be sufficient
for the olympian to remain?

Could it be I kept you here
when you belonged elsewhere?
Is the mountain worth my prayer?

The apple was never forbidden,
It was just out of reach.
The fruit so long hidden,
Its nectar sticky and sweet.
A scripture written
To punish Eve
For a sin that brought civilizations
Down to their knees.
The world’s population
Succumbing
To Eve’s unbecoming,
Sinful silence of creation.
Skin on skin, dark revelation,
Fingers dipped slowly
In glasses of wine,
Pensive *******.
Bottles emptied overnight.
The world’s grandest design,
To make poison out of fruit.  
In church, we wept
For the sins we kept.
Prolonged punishment,
Sacrificial liberty, lightless beacons,
Cages in the garden of Eden.