if i give you a poem

know that i split open my scalp
and tore apart the pink matter
know that i crept far back and dug through the crevices of my brain
know that i stumbled into the dark, groped for words that stuttered when they tiptoed outside
tread lightly on them
for they are just learning to walk

know that retreating is addictive
and i am a creature of habit
know that camouflage is not always my forte
and i am better at hiding
know that i am ashamed when you look at me
and see
that my sky is always pink, my grass always lavender, my sea always crimson

know that i am ugly
and that i have tore off my face and rebuilt it so many times
i hardly recognize myself
know that my insides are clogged
know that my lungs are stuffed with shrapnel and my heart is bursting with debris
and that nothing runs through my veins

know that this is all i have left
this thing,
falling out of my chest, spilling over my lap, collapsing at your feet

know that it is yours now

do what you will.

i hate these poems
they're all sad
but they always come back home
and i'm a sucker for things that stay

sometimes
just sometimes
i wish i could throw up my heart
that ******, throbbing hunk of raw flesh
and hold it in my hand
feel for any emotion
and throw it at the passing cars
and my heart would bounce off the pavement
or skid over the gravel
or splatter across someone’s windshield
or pop like firecrackers under someone’s tire
or maybe i’d throw it so hard, so far,
it’d soar into the summer heat and hang--suspended--
before plummeting towards the earth,
and smashing through someone’s roof
and plopping itself into some quintessential, two-kid, two-parent, white-fence family’s dinner
and maybe the four would devour the thing like a hog off the roast
and celebrate their civility
or maybe the parents would scream in horror and shoot the thing
or maybe the kids would find it first in their backyard and burn it to win the science fair
or maybe the dog would find the remains and wet its muzzle in the thing’s blood
or maybe the snooping neighbors would find it first and feed it to the chickens
or maybe—
or maybe it wouldn’t really matter what happened to my heart.
i never felt anything with it anyway.

darling i'm drowning
but so are you so let's sink
and die happily.

I really do offer you my apologies, Esther
for I killed her.
She was a poet, you see
and she made you fly
jump
leap
she made you  f e e l—
love, anger, hate
and all the sadness in between
blue, red, black
and all the purple in between
she made you  f e e l
euphoria, heaven, hell, misery
she made you  f e e l
GOD.
she made you
GOD.
So I offer you my apologies, Esther
for she left you—
like one of God’s abandoned creations
empty, blank, lonely
and all the confusion in between
she left you
crying, silent, sobbing
and all the screaming in between
she left you
ME.
I’d offer you my condolences
(you haven’t felt in a while)
but I doubt you’d take them
after I dragged her carcass from under my bed
and stuffed all-nighters back into her eyes
and pumped ink back into her veins
and wrapped castes of crumbled sentences around her bruises
and she was still dead.
So I offer you my apologies, Esther
for I killed her.
She was a poet, you see,
and she made you
ALIVE.
and left you
DEAD.

I offer you my apologies, Esther
for I had to **** her.
She was a poet, you see,
and she was consuming you,
corrupting you,
turning you inside out,
b a c k w a r d s
so that
when you screamed,
your mouth let loose a torrent of letters that sprayed the walls in ink, left them soaked for days
and when you cried,
your eyes wept love letters in Shakespearean verse and suicide notes in Hemingway prose
and when you sang,
you did so sporadically, your voice breaking—into irregular cadence and—rhythm—in the middle—of your—sentences—
and when you were silent
it was because you were too busy pleasing her, dreaming up things that didn’t exist, obsessing over some poem that wouldn’t let you sleep.
And so I had to save you, Esther
she was turning you into a poet, you see,
and I had to save you.
I’d offer you my condolences
but I doubt you’d take them
after I wrapped your poem around her neck
and tore out her inky guts
and gouged out her sleepless eyes
and shoved her under my bed
so that I could smell her carcass as I slept
and know you were saved.
So I offer you my apologies, Esther,
for I had to **** her.
She was a poet, you see, and she was killing you.

sometimes i wonder where she went, that girl. who used to love to dream and read and write and draw, who was so passionate. i wonder why she isn't here with me now, where she went, if she went anywhere at all. if she eroded away with time and if i might find her sediments still somewhere, being tossed around in the waves of my mind. if she was startled from that dreaminess when the alarm clock woke her because she was only a dream, if she ever felt tired enough to go back to her old self. sometimes i wonder if she died, if i missed her funeral, if she even had a funeral (and if she did, who would go? she didn't have any friends), if her body is still rotting somewhere in the cracks on my skull. because that's where she's fallen—in the cracks.

i think about her too often. I am too caught up in the past and future, i don't even recognize the present when it's staring back at me in the mirror.

the words have left me.
i am so lonely without them.
i am so lonely without her.

i write her obituary over and over in my head but none of the words sound right. she was great, she was awesome, she was more than that. she was a dreamer, an artist, she was more than that. she had thrown her head into the sky and rejoiced to see it floating amongst the clouds. no, she was more than that. still more than that.

because i miss her.
i really ******* miss her.

i've said this to myself so many times they're carved into my skull, tatooed onto my lips, blackened my teeth with their ink. i've said it so many times but it doesn't bring her back. i miss her more but that doesn't bring her back either.

i should use my time resourcefully and try to find myself while she's gone but i'm nothing without her. without her i'm just a headless body navigating the streets of newyorkcity at 3a.m. i get lost when i'm alone and i can't stand it. i am a simile without the adjective, just two nouns that don't know what to do with each other. i am getting lost now, writing this.