"Would you like your groceries
bagged in paper or plastic?
will you be paying with paper,
Or plastic?"

Rock paper scissors
has been replaced
With something
more rudimentary
But essentially,
Neither have intentionality.

No matter how far you try to move
away from synthetic
you're still drinking out of plastic
eating out of plastic
driving, walking, buying, *******
out mounds of it.
You put your plastic in plastic,
leave it outside
until a man swings by
throws it into a pit
with all the other wasted ****
to exist
for all eternity.

Would you rather melt or burn?
Bankruptcy is a hard lesson to learn
But the ashes of this economy have been
Touted as prosperity
Instead of resigned to an urn
To relearn the transparency
of democracy
As it should be.

I'll trade my plastic smile
For a fistful of paper
I'll exchange it for something physical,
Something bigger
Something somehow better,
Sans the improvement.
The reanimation of the market
Capitalism! Ah,
The dream land.
“Build your monopoly
Crush your enemy”

Oops I mean your neighbor
They're all the same
in this day and age.
Community has been sold
for pennies on the dollar.
Now we’re fighting tooth and nail
To be the one
wearing the shock collar

Bzzzt!
I have the most likes on my photo
Bzzzzt
This minor annoyance
has become my addiction.
I’m shopping and sharing
And living within this tiny television.

This is post apocalyptic
You just can't see it
Because you're living in it.
Things are better, yes
But 6.7% of Americans are diagnosably,
incurably depressed.
37% are oppressed
44%  are over stressed and
81% are in debt.

Let me just say this now
From my white-privilege-podium
That keeps all adverse effects
Of free speech
From touching me

****
YOUR
AMERICA.

**** this corporate greed
that grinds itself down
and repackages itself into
“The American Dream”.

and **** us, right?
For thinking anything here was free.

To the man with the comb-over,
I resent you.
For the way you talk about women,
Speaking of us like property,
For taking away our choice,
Of if we want to conceive.

To the man with the loud mouth,
I ignore you.
For shooting down people’s words,
Putting a lock on their mouth,
And interrupting them with your nasally
“Wrong”.

To the man with the twisted morals,
I abhor you.
For the families pushed out of the country,
By the wall in your heart
And the one you want for your country.

To the man with all of the power,
I fear you.
For the lies you tell,
You reek of deceit.
For how you make war,
Or peace, if that’s what you want to call it.

They say that laughter's the best medicine

They say big feet on man means big ****

They say Donald Trump's going to end the world

They say when life gives lemons, make lemonade

They say hope breeds eternal misery

They say happy wife happy life, happy girl happy world

They say you don't know what you got till it's gone

I say, who the heck is they?

your chest pops out a bit more I see
and you got taller
as you jokingly mentioned I must have shrunk
and while you're at it, you must have got some
while you know I'm left in the dark
and while you're at it, I see you didn't shave...
though you wanted to shave anyway..
someone else must have got your ego up
and while you think you're the victim
don't think I didn't notice
your struggling for words to find me a compliment
while you asked why my hair was half done...it was not, you *****
and...

you're just a cocky little ******* now

"You need to talk more"
They say to my face.
"She needs to socialize"
They say behind my back.
Twenty years I cried over this
Twenty years I tried being better
Twenty years I hated every fibre of my being
Because I was something I thought I disliked.
But you know what?
*******, ******* who tell me to change.
*******, idiots who made me uncomfortable in my own skin.
I make less noise, did you ever think of that?
I don't bug others to TALK, TALK, TALK more.
I'm least interested in the dull details of your lives.
A simple 'Hi' suffices, don't you think?
I have people I adore, friends who are wonderful.
I'm fine as I am. I love myself.
I love being by myself.
I don't need you to tell me how to be.
I didn't ask for your ****** opinion, not at all.
Go jump off a cliff, won't you?
There'll be a little more quiet in the world.

Hello Nicole,

Its been a while since I've thought of your name... Today I read a poem that brought tears to my eyes at the thought of you, but I refused to let them fall.

I am alway's being told to forgive you, by clueless friends and family, that you were young and didn't know any better. But hell, you were old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. Plenty old enough to use some basic common sense. Common sense such as

"Dont leave your 2 year old daughter in the car in the summer for hours on end"

"Dont leave your 3 year old daughter at the park overnight"

"Dont bring your 4 year old daughter to the house of your married lover"

"Dont take your 5 year old daughter to a ******* and leave her in the car"

"Dont allow your ******* of a drug dealer to care for your baby girl"

Last year in total you sent me 6 packages, called 8 times, wrote 5 letters, wrote or spoke I Love You 16 times, and yet not once did you apologize. On the 8th call, you told me you were pregnant again, and it was going to be a baby girl. I cried harder than I ever had before on that one phone call. You asked if I was happy that I would get another sister, and as calmly as possible I told you I hope the baby is stronger than all the rest, and to lose my ******* number.

A total of 4 children, 3 of which you don't even see anymore. You allowed us to go through hell and beyond in your care, only to be tossed away into a somehow even more unfortunate lifestyle. Yet you somehow expect me to be happy for your pregnancy of a brand new lifeform.

The baby is now alive and kicking,  and I heard she looks exactly like me even though her father was as Mexican as they come. I also heard you get ****** when people compare me and the baby's looks.
Good.
I hope she is a reminder of what you did to me, so that maybe, just maybe, you treat her right.

I wish I could say I wish you the best in life, but that would be a lie. I do hope you get better, for the sake of everyones lives around you. It was nice not talking to you again.

No longer your's,
Victoria-Rose

in middle school,
i saw girls obsess over boys
chronicled every detail about them,
drew hundreds of hearts with their names in them
and now i wonder if it was a distraction
to avoid how much they hated themselves.
the ones that obsessed the most
were always the ones who thought they deserved the least.

sometimes, i try to explain my loneliness and lack of a partner.
everyone says that the first step in being in a healthy relationship
is loving yourself first.
i think im worthy, i think im doing my best, i love myself.
and yet, all i think i crave is for someone to love me as well.

i dont day dream about a boy with blue eyes that i can get lost in
i day dream about a man who will smile in the morning just because he's waking up next to me.
shouldn't i be dreaming of a man who makes me smile just by being there?

am i delusional? do i not accept myself as much as i think i do?
have a convinced myself that i have surpassed the self esteem issues that plague the the minds of every other girl my age because my desire to be perfect became so strong that it convinced me ive found self acceptance when i havent?

but if i feel as if ive accepted myself, shouldnt that be enough?
isnt believing youre in a mind state the same as being in a mind state?
so am i just broken? too self involved to ever find love?

i think maybe its that i dont believe in love.
in high school, i saw girls who hated themselves so much that they could not stand to be single.
if they couldn't love themselves, at least they could get someone else to.
and if they ******* love themselves, at least they had someone else that they could love.

sometimes im almost positive i dont believe in love.
my parents got divorced when i was young, dont remember what age.. five six..
i believe that it was the best thing that happened to my family.
i got to see both my parents more since they both valued the time they got with me more.
they were bother happier than when they were together.
but now my mom is an what i believe to be a pretty loveless marriage.
and my dad knocked up this lovely woman and now theyre married.
but i always remind myself that they only got married originally cause she was pregnant.

if we love ourselves enough why do we need the validation that we are enough from others?
why do i have to believe that some one else is so amazing that i couldnt live without them?
why cant i make myself happy enough in this world without someone else doing it for me?

i had this argument with my mom about ***.
she thinks im too promiscuous.
and for comparison, my mom is chill, she's not off base when she calls me out for sleeping around a lot.
i do.
i tell her i dont believe *** has to be intimate.
i dont need to believe that this guy is decent enough to date to want to ****.
i believe we are all human, with innate ****** desires.
i believe we are all human and we crave to be social and i believe *** is a type of communication.

tangent on tangent but back to love.
its not that im not open to it,
i want to make someone happy,
im skeptical of the idea of someone else making me happy.

and now i guess my conclusion is that i dont want someone to make me happy and then leave.
i never put myself out there when i like someone,
i pick people that will fall for me, but i dont fall.
im so utterly afraid of rejection because i believe that i am worth a whole ******* lot, and if someone else cant see that,
then maybe im not.

Don’t tell me you’re open minded
When you squeeze your eyes shut
At the mere idea that you *might be wrong.

i used to write
i'm not sure what made me stop

i suppose maybe it was the small glimmer of hope that began to appear.
the happy smile that i actually felt and not faked for once.
i wasn't sad for a moment
i wasn't anxious
i was simply caught in time

but you could say i'm back
because when it comes to notes, it's real
when it comes to looking back on my thoughts it's real
when it comes to eating less and less it's real
when it comes to crying more it's real
when it comes to questioning my sanity it's real
when it comes to wanting to disappear again ... it's real

hello depression, here i am
ready to be consumed again
ready to get lost in the dark hole that's so incredibly hard to climb out of

i guess i just couldn't stay away
maybe i was meant to be sad
after all, it got me to write again ay?