you are not sure
insecurity imprisons
between doing and not doing
but do not fear
no creative genius emerged
from blind confidence
it is the unsure artist
who tinkers and questions
that creates beauty
and yet
carries on insecurely

Stab a serotonin syringe in my brain stem
          So I play my music louder to ignore them,
          they take turns handling the hatchet
                 as they break my body to bits.

" THEY'RE ALL WHISPERING ABOUT YOU,
WHY ELSE WONT THEY LOOK AT YOU?
  WASTE OF SPACE ****** CASE,
YOUR FRIENDS ARE FAKE
  AND THEY NEED A BREAK
FROM A FREAK LIKE YOU "

                          " Just Stay Inside And Sleep
                              So She Won't Reject You,
          Don't Be Afraid Of The razor blade,
                                  Wounds Will Heal,
                          Don't You Just Wanna Feel...
                                           Something"

" Ha, trying to steel that temper?
    Doesn't your blood boil
       When you see her with him?
You wanna watch him pick up his teeth
            So succumb to the bitterness
                That boils beneath the surface "

            "  maybe things won't be that bad    
     you didn't always hate what you have,
                                               so fake a smile
                     'til it lights up like the embers
                 from the fire that used to burn.
    i remember when i didn't speak in turn
                            when i was the loudest
                        not shrouded in darkness
                                         so i patiently wait
for you to hear my soft song once more.

 After they pillaged my sanity with pills
            And all the voices vanished,
             Left here alone in my mind
      So sedated the surrounding silence
        Contaminates my consciousness
    As I slowly slip into soundless agony.

I’m giving
You a night call,
To tell you
How I feel.

I’m living
At a slow crawl,
Who
Has the shot to ****?

Arms crossed defence,
Haunted
Head
Of dreams.

Standing on the fence:
Faded,
Lead,
Poison-lean.

Blighted youth,
Hidden truth,
Failure to jump…

Cant jump:
Autism,
Pride problem,
No- progress.

Can’t initiate
Relationships:
Doesn’t mean
-Can’t- feel.

Does not mean
I don’t
Need
The same.

Fighting mouth breathers,
At a distance,
Who can tell?

Infected by venom,
Crippled, narcissistic
Venom.

Veins are black,
Self made
Transfusion;
Empathy stack.

Barrier.
A language
I don’t understand,
Barrier.

Never have
Comprehended,
It feels
like…

Everyone knows something
I can’t handle,
Can’t see…

Like I miss
A sense,
Everyone else-
Proficient with.

Like everyone else:
Knows
A secret
That I don’t.

What’s worse:
Is when
I pretend
To know

Everyone
Around
Acts like
I know-

But I don’t,
I never had,
Had your
Super powers…

I pretend
To read
Minds
Too…

I mimic
The language,
The body language:
Eye movement…

Eye brow shift,
Wide open arms,
Pupil dilation,

Shoulders diminished:
Insecurity.
Eye contact…

I can manipulate
These rules
For
My effect.

So I know
Other people
Can do
The same.

Most likely-
Do
All
The time

So how?
Can I trust
A single
Person…

Or what they say
With their eyes,
Maybe I should trust
The words…

ha

my hair is too short
too short to tie up
too long to be free
too tangled to love

my face is too sad
too sad to be bright
too red to be snow
too pale to be light

my hands are too weak
too weak to point out
too small to hold
too tired to scout

My skin is too soft
Too soft to be smooth
Too rough to be felt
Too broken to move

Feel depressed
Take time to myself
Get called lazy

Keep busy for them
Not doing enough

Stimulate my system
Now I’m reckless;
Stop
Energy plummets

Lazy again
Forget things...
Lots of things...
Why can’t you remember?
Am I not important to you??

They’re always angry
Never doing enough
Never helpful enough
They are all that matter

Wait.

What about me?

You’re lazy.
You’re not doing enough.
Get up and help.

I can’t.

Yes you can, c’mon.

I. Can’t.

Worthless.

And now

More depressed.

I have not that divine intercession
to pluck the right word from all been written,
that gifts to few the art of expression,
to write the poetry of the smitten.

I pen verses of no significance
that sing melodies in my ear of tin,
embarrassments to poets of romance
in whose company I wish I were in.

Oh, to write odes to nightingales and urns,
with love as an extension of my quill!
Although I do not lack passion that burns,
I’ve not the talent that matches my will.

Here is another literary blight
authored by one who just thinks he can write.

volume i
A Portrait of My Sixth-Grade Self
___________________­

Eleven-year-old fingers
swollen with baby fat
dig into the gaudy shimmer
of turquoise eyeshadow
encased in its shattered compact.

I apply the pigment,
erratic smudges extending
from my lash line
to just below my untamed brows.

The blue powder accentuates the swirls
of my fingerprints in dizzy figure eights.

But you can't quit your own skin
like you can quit ice skating lessons.

I am in the sixth grade
when the Popular Girls
in my class tell me that,
if I want to get a boy to like me,
I have to change the way I look.

I abide by the rules of the
Unofficial Mean Girl Doctrine:

{no. 1}

I mustn't wear sweat pants,
these sloppy Old Navy rags
that I have owned for three years.

See,
denim is superior to cotton
even though it leaves
cavernous indentations
on my stomach.

Sweat pants forgive
the extra swell of your waist line.

Denim punishes you
for what you don't have,
more specifically
for what you have too much of.

I ask my mom for skinny jeans
because perhaps if I can
shrink all that I am
into this blue, unyielding fabric
I will feel thinner than I actually am.

We buy the skinny jeans from Old Navy.

{no. 2}

My signature high pony tail is
unacceptable.

I should wear my hair down,
they profess.

I am not sure if this is
because of the tufts of frizz
that loom over my scalp
like wasted dandelion seeds

(I wish... I wish... I wish...)

or if this is just a necessary ritual
in the abandonment of my girlhood.  

After I unsheathe my curls
from their rubber-band Bastille,
their trial commences.

My ringlets slither
in hostile circulations,
executing frequent detours away
from anyone who might scoff
at their animalistic bedlam.

If only I could will
my spectators to stone.

Cuz no one ever dared
**** with Medusa
and her curls.

Instead,
I settle for a flat iron.

{no. 3}

Do everything in your power to be
Beautiful
including, but not limited to,
the laws indicated above.

Yet,
despite my grandest efforts,
it is never enough.

I am never enough.

I am the Walmart Edition
of what the Popular Girls
want me to be.

With my gaudy eyeshadow and the
cheap Dollar Store bracelets
that I wear around my wrists,
plastic flowers blooming
upon threaded stems
that nip at the hair on my arms.

One day on the bus ride home,
a boy from my class tells me
I am too hairy.

"Huh?" I ask,
pretending I haven't heard him.

"Nothing," he mumbles back to me.

See,
little girls are supposed to play with
jump ropes and Barbie Dolls.

They are not supposed to
play with razors as they strip away
every misplaced hair on their body
or consult Teen Vogue
for the latest beauty hacks
like they are Gospel.

This year of 2011/2012
has been engraved  into
the historical road map
of my every insecurity.
The legend of this map,
depicted in smeared globules
of sugar cookie lipgloss,
deliver me to my destination:

self hatred.

Mascara stains the
topography of my flesh
in inky, dotted lines

I follow.

I plummet
like the eternal run
in my stockings.

One way plane ride
non-stop
never to return
from this perception of ugliness
and then--

flight


down.