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.

Sometimes
i feel as if
my thoughts
eat me
alive,
as if
they are tearing
apart
grey matter,
popping
brain cells
like pills,
getting high
off me
and the nights
i can't sleep
and the nights
i lie awake
and the nights
i am alone
and the nights
i am too quiet
as my
thoughts
throw extravagant parties
behind my forehead
and invite all their friends,
who bring their friends
and their friends
until my head
is a head
of raging thoughts
that dontcantwont sleep
so that
i dontcantwont sleep.
They keep
knocking, banging my skull with their fists
they keep
pounding, bashing my head with their screams
they keep
my eyes open
so that i can watch the floorboards creaking
so that i can hear the shadows pirouetting off my wall
so that i can smell the rustling in the darkness
as if i am the one ecstatically covering myself in angel dust
and not my thoughts
as if i am the one speedballing too fast, too fast, slow down
and not my thoughts
as if i am the one flying, crashing, idontknow, too fast, too fast, slow down
and not my thoughts.
They won't let me sleep
Just let me sleep
let me sleep
and you can
tear apart
all the gray matter
you want
and you can
pop
my brain cells
like pills
but
just
let me sleep
let me sleep
Just let me sleep

please.

Dear Someone,
You wouldn't understand me
if i told you
i'd rather sit in the company of myself
and
i'd rather sit with ourselves than myself
at the same time.
You wouldn't  understand me
if i told you
why i avoided the school cafeteria
(i never had anyone to talk to)
why i always have a book open even when i'm not reading
(note to self: when alone appear as if you're too preoccupied to speak to anyone)
why i don't go to parties
(because won't my alone-ness, with-no-one-ness, loner-ness be more obvious?)
You wouldn't understand me
if i told you
i wish i didn't know what feeling alone in a crowd was
and i wish I didn't feel so distant, so not-part-of-anything
and i wish i was somebody
and i wish i knew why I always take that back.
You wouldn't understand me.
You're someone, after all.
From,
A No one who's trying to stay a No One and become a Someone at the same time

you look like the aftermath of smudged letters and blurry words
after your tears are done smearing the ink into illegible cryptics
and after the ink is done twisting itself into something ugly.
you look like the tally marks on your wrist
after you've hidden them behind long sleeves
and they still bleed.
you look like you've been wearing an mask for far too long
and after you refused to let the sunlight in,
fed the flowers in your eyes too many salty tears,
they started to wilt—
dandelions, roses, tulips, lilies, forget-me-nots—
you just let them all die.
you look like you given up, closed down
tucked whatever was left of your flower bed somewhere dark
so you could pluck their wilting petals, watch them deteriorate.
you look like too many empty bottles
after you've lost yourself
and after the ***** is strong enough to wash away you
and bring something else.
you look familiar—like I've seen you before—
though you're not you.
you look like a vague face,
someone else and I know that person.
you look like that person
you look like her
you look like *me

There was a poem I wrote before this one
I wrote it somewhere between midnight and morning,
you know, the place where the tides are too heavy
they're cement,
too blue
they're black,
too sharp
they're knives
and you can't help
but drown.
The place where I sank into a well of words and emerged
as black as every single one of my demons.
You know, the place where the feelings come out
and where there is no delete button,
no escape plan,
no Plan A to begin with and no Plan B to end it.
I poured everything onto that poem,
every **** feeling
and every horrible thought that had the audacity to come true.
And when I realized what I had done,
I took that poem
and I burned it—
every drip of ink
and every drop of emotion.

her breath colors the winter air gray
not the ugly kind of gray that winter snow ages into
and not the kind that's pretty either.
it's the kind of gray that's too fragile for time to sustain
it's the kind of fragile too light for scales to hold
it's the kind of light that wants to be lighter, that wants to be weightless
it's the kind of weightless that only knows bony arms and hollow cheeks
and it's the kind of bony, the kind of hollow, that turns ribs into cages
and cages into prisons for hearts that want to be—
not ugly, not pretty, not fragile, not light, not lighter, not weightless,
and not even bony or hollow—
but just
*be.

i think i’m starting to hate writing.
i think i’m starting to regret the nights i stayed up
trying to find the right word
for the right sentence.
i think i’m starting to grieve over the trees i killed
so i could spit out poems
and then throw them away.
what good has it done besides leave me
with endless lines of dissatisfaction
and baggy eyes?
what good has it done besides isolate me
and force me to spend my waking hours
in solitary confinement
within my own sphere of words?
and all it's given back to me is
a crowd of imaginary friends
i only know how to speak to
through ink.
i think i’m starting to loathe these so-called “friends.”
they were only inky caricatures i wished into existence.
when i poured my heart out, sobbed into their pages,
because writing is “therapy,”
all they did was stare back
and let me inhale more ink
and exhale more words.
but they didn't warn me when i inhaled too much
and let the ink overflow my lungs,
clog up my throat,
bleed everything over in black.
they didn't warn me when the ink started
killing me inside out.
i think i’m starting to hate writing
for
i have become a corpse,
slumped over my desk
—decaying,
as unfinished sentences leak out of my mouth
and bleed past my ears,
cascade like tears
down my cheeks
but i,
i am only trying to read the missing words.

I think the words have left me.*
they've crawled out my ears
and pooled in my eyes only to spill
down
my cheeks,
and drip down my chin only to splatter
against
the page in black blotches
that mean nothing.

'and' was a continuation
and so you loved that word and hated endings
and you let your fingers weave the word over and over,
(delicate hands pressing them into your skin
as if to ensure your immortality,
push away whatever time wanted you to be, but the sun rose and set
and nights were only dank reminders of morrows after)
and besides you seemed quite tired as if you'd been holding the stars
in your arms for far too long
and they didn't even bother to shine for you

                                                      you look like loneliness has taken its toll

and your legs, weary with time, couldn't hold you anymore
and let your body collide with stardust
and the tips of your hair brushed the page that teemed with life,
that filled with doodles and words and and and and and and

                                                        you look like 'and' has taken its toll

and your eyes were dark and sunken, empty black abysses, eclipses
that stole the sun
and your lips were chapped and cracked, a jagged strip of the Milky Way
and your cheeks grayed and faded, stars that had lost their shine
and your stomach caved in on itself to let your rip cage and hip bones protrude (because it loved them both but they were too infatuated by your skin and clung to it like it was life after an ending)
and your skin was a painting, a Starry Night, and you were Van Gogh
(except you carved with knife and colored your blue skies with red stars)
and your eyelids were drooping, full moons falling into perfect crescents
and your lungs were containers without air,
galaxies without solar systems

                                                        you look like you're dying

and your fake smiles and midnight tears were like meteorites in the sky,
they were like comets, falling, falling, falling,
falling from home,
falling towards stone cold ground.
and the saddest part was,

*they never got back up.

Urge
to throw myself across the finish line
let in envelope me in arms
cold as death
let myself curl into a ball
in that dark, vast space of unconsciousness
where I will be,
undoubtedly,
forgiven.

Train take me away
so that reality dies
and everything fades to nothing
but a blur of faces
and places I've never been to, never will.

Just take me away
so that I won't have to face
Tomorrow.

the words hide between the lines
i can't see
none will appear, none
will grace the page
only splatter red paint
onto the ****** canvas—
where i have bled out my soul, my heart,
my flesh and bone—

and for what?

the heat melted off our layers
of trust and skin, stripping us
naked and vulnerable,
scared and suspicious.
the summer peeled us apart,
cast us strangers.
*Who are you?

I cut myself open, peeked inside
to look for remorse
but found none.
You see, it was empty.

as if I had hid under the covers,
forgot to breathe
so that all my insides strangled
and only remembered how to die.

your sky was a catastrophe.
not the inky black type and not the somber gray type either—no,
those were too cliché for you.
your sky was a shade between blue and gray,
the color of dejection, of loneliness
for it was only a shade in between.
never a whole
only half a mind,
and half a soul.

Darling, you love the word "ok."
you're floating in a sea of "ok"
you're drowning in a sea of "ok"
you're dying in a sea of "ok."
You sleep in your coffin of "ok's" but it's ok
because you've ok'd everything to numbness and you've ok'd everything
to stop the bleeding and you've ok'd a noose around all that hurts.

But darling, you hurt.

I woke today
tired, worn, drained
as if I had slept to the point of exhaustion
only to wake to an even deader city
for all I saw were zigzag avenues
and twisted streets
and broken boulevards
that led to nowhere
but dead ends.