Are you smiling?
Or bearing your teeth?

When you laugh
Sometimes I wonder
If it’s with me
Or at me

You say you
Are too busy
That we wouldn’t work
But I call *******

If you really loved me
I wouldn’t be left
Tugging
Your leash

I pick up
The broken pieces
And do my best to fit them back
Where they used to go.
They seem
So ready
To fall out again.
I glance at my reflection
Wondering why
I don’t recognize myself.
Maybe it’s not
The mirror
That’s broken.

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot
Bouncing words and blades for two
“I’m rubber you’re glue”
How much longer till we’re through?

Breaking bones and grinding teeth
Clenched jaws with fire beneath
Tempers rising with the heat
Rock won’t stop until you bleed.

Rumors splashed across a page
Filled with malice, filled with rage
Money floating to the stage
Get the paper, make it rain.

Cut them down with dagger smiles
Ignore the wounded battle cries
Metal words until they die
“Stick a needle in your eye”

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.
Look what growing made us do.

I
am the crumpled up
rough draft girl
in the wastepaper basket
corner of my mind

she is the file
I deleted
after too many red lines
changed her meaning

this is not my final draft
I will throw myself away
again soon

I worry that
I may be
An electron.

The negative charges
Are building beneath
The shield that I choose
To call my ribcage,
Painting my lungs blue
And weighing it
With my mistakes.

I cannot exist alone,
All too willing
To give myself away
To anything that somehow
Makes me feel whole.

I’m sorry
I couldn’t tell you sooner,
But these problems
Can’t be solved
With science.

I know you think I’m mad at you
Because I stayed silent when I dropped you off at your house
But if I’m honest
I knew I’d either cry or scream
If I opened up my mouth.

Mad? I wish I could be.

I know you think
I’m counting down the days
But I’m just trying to make
The days count.

People tell me
45 is so young,
Why would I want to believe
I’ll be gone by then?

I say
It has taken me 18 years
To get where I am.

I’m afraid
Of what will happen
After 18 more.

There's just something romantic about cornfields and 3am
Maybe it’s just the optimist inside of me
But the stars are shining so bright tonight, don’t you think?
They are so bright, the sky is so clear,
and I can feel your hand pressed against my side,
attached like a name
Maybe you’re afraid of the cold too

It was cloudy, the light on the edge of the horizon
Polluting the stars, they weren’t that bright
I feel you pull my body away from me
It’s so strange to feel warm, to feel anything
You embrace the cold

I cannot save you anymore than I can avoid becoming
The same sky I stare at

The breeze dances across my stomach as you bring me closer
Eyes staring into a cold sky
As you listen to me ramble on
About where the big dipper should be
If the stars were bright enough to see it

I am-
sugar sweet stuck-
On the idea that something
Is better than nothing

Reach down and wrap me in celestial bodies
I imagine the warmth of stars,
Standing under a blanket of constellations
Fireflies dance on my fingertips
As if stellar incarnate
This interstellar silence surrounds me
And for the first time in a while
The universe is okay

Grip my thighs
The way you grip the steering wheel
And let’s go for a ride

I am three
and the grass beneath my feet
is young too
there is wind
and a bird song
and I am happy

This is me deciding that I am with it
My arms are the ocean
I
Am the sea of troubles
Biding my time at your feet
You crush sand dollars but
MY
Currency lies in unopened love letters and notes made of sand
This love falls apart in my hand
But I am birthing Venus
And this sea foam curls with my lips
I have snarled
And produced Beauty
My palms forgot how to smooth glass
And the water is glittering with fragments of you
But do you dare dive deep enough to see that you haven’t touched me?
I will not return whats left of you to the shore
I have taken whats mine and like I did with the foam like I did with the glass I will do to you
Turn something ugly into poetry
The ocean isn’t forgiving so thank god I am not that.

Silence
The anguished aching
deep
Inside my soul

Rest
The breaking blows
Hiding
Within my heart

Cease
The rolling thunder
Echoing
Throughout my brain

Leave
My heavy heart
And
Let me be.

And I spun and I spun and I spun
So out of control
No rhythm
Short. Choppy.
It lasted so long, so quickly.
I don’t know what happened,
But I saw it.
Even though I didn’t.
My car did pirouettes
Down the embankment
Until it found a spot to rest
In between two hedgeposts
And barbed wire.
They say your life flashes before your eyes
In moments like this,
But for me,
It was moments I wouldn’t ever have.
The things I wanted to accomplish,
The people that I loved.
It was heartbreaking.
When I crawled out,
No different than when I got in,
I laughed with tears in my throat.
Today, the world is the same,
But I will never be.

Does your kiss
Still taste
Like everything
I drank to forget?

Let me tell you about love
It’s not kissing and missing
No letters on parchment
And valentines gifts
It’s curled up beneath the stars
With your closest friends
Making wishes and resolutions
And telling secrets to carry always
You cannot break this love
It is a memory, a moment
Friendship
It is the greatest love of all