I use a whole bottle of shampoo everytime i wash my hair
Scrubbing my scalp until it bleeds
Red running down my face

I use a whole bottle of shampoo everytime i wash my hair
Spraying my hairspray and dry shampoo after
Perfume fills the air

I use a whole bottle of shampoo everytime i wash my hair
Picking up the strands falling out
The shower wall filled

I use a whole bottle of shampoo everytime i wash my hair
Hoping when she grabs me in for a hug
I no longer smell like home

I use a whole bottle of shampoo everytime i wash my hair
Looking in the mirror hoping to keep her out
But realizing i'm just like her

her way of venting is unique
other than poems
which is pretty normal
she thinks

while showering
she sits down
puts some background beats on high
and sings her heart out
it’s all improvisation
but it helps
a little

tonight
she sang of hurt and
staying alive
for her friend’s sakes
but never for her own

is she ok?
she doesn’t know

A tiny trickle of sand
passing through
the fingers of your hand
that's an hour
just a shower
of amber grains
what remains
of a once mighty boulder
much older than time
it has heard midnight chime
many times
the tick tick tock
of the clock of eternity
and now it embraces modernity
slowly wearing away
day by day
hour by hour
as a shower of sand
in the palm of your hand

A soft glow in the air
Precious droplets of clarity
Rainbows
“I can’t believe this happened 3 days in a row.”
Lovely and kind nourishment being spread about

Singing birds and
Howling children
Obviously we can’t treat mother nature this way
What do we do?
Even if she cried tomorrow, we wouldn’t
Really understand why she’s
So unapologetically beautiful when she’s sad.

it’s been years, and I still scream
halfway through the night.

I still wake up drenched in sweat and tears,
feeling his grip around my wrist.

when I take a shower,  I find myself
still trying to scrub him off me.
I’m still trying to erase the
cigarette burn on my right hand,
the one he gave me when
he was drunk and angry.

sometimes, I scrub my skin until I bleed. not intentionally, of course.
I don’t want to hurt myself.
I’ve hurt myself enough over the years,
and I have the scars to prove it.

all I want is to scrub him off of me.
I want to feel clean again.

but no matter how raw I scrub myself,
the fingerprints and bruises still linger.

yet i stand again alone and cold
watching
an onslaught of angry wet bullets
pummel my peanut-shaped torso

if every midnight a new ghost
was born to loop again through my day
all my naked peanut-shaped torsos
would be standing here
too
all my red veiny feet burning a hole
through the white ceramic floor
and thousands of the same absent brown eyes
watching
– only a few
seeing

all my fingertips work in sync
rubbing face cream into
millions of layers of sticky skin
as our gurgling stomachs tie themselves into knots
and we record in our dejected minds like abused children
shivering in the corner of our skulls

the sickening feeling of
being both
perpetrator and victim

Kissing your door knobs
Trying to find your light switch
When I am with you I am home
As soon as I come in you strip off all my clothes
And let me know I am welcome here
When I am with you I am an unlocked door
Anything that is mine is yours
The currents
the drapes
The window into a past from which I try to escape
When we step into the shower
And wash the world from each others backs
I want you to be the only thing that takes their place
We lay in bed and hum like microwaves
Till ceiling fan finally falls asleep

A shower does not melt away my stress,
it is my mask of fake joy
that I wear throughout the day
travelling down the drainpipes instead.

With the streaming water falling upon me,
my tears are not lonely—
but without the warm embrace of this water,
I do not feel real.