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v Jan 2019
I’d trade a drunken uncle for five years of warmth
For a family rooted in chaos.
Your father recovered
But mine never will  (if I can still call him mine)

Envy is a deadly sin
a gateway drug
An invisible mistress

You have hand painted thighs from a boy who rearranged no
We both know him,
though you have been closer.
(LIAR)
But i'm still a fresh canvas,
Maybe a bit tattered, slightly greyed
But clean of self inflicted hatred.

I've never had to invent my own pain.
I know pre-portioned hatred
Another ******
Food lines
Bottled baths
Gunshot lullabies
Shoestring laced telephone wires.

I wonder how it feels to stand on the edge with everything to live for.
“We” don't do that
(even though I've only been halfway accepted as “we”)
I have someone to take care of.

I wonder if sleeping pills would help me too.
Packaged from white rooms with white lab coats and white skin.

I wish I could hide too
I hate that you don't have to
I hate that you'd abandon everything I’ve always wanted.
v Jan 2019
It wouldn't be the first time you pulled me away
Helped me lose green eyes
Softness
Freckles.

I’d never admit you saved me
From a breathing sunset
From midnight pain
From overdue essays
From idle hands and blood stained sleeves

Two years later and nothings changed
Except maybe you grew an inch
And I have someone new

I still count everything
Kisses throughout commercials
Staining my neck

I stopped to smell your cologne last week
Risked the sales-associate ambush
considered asking about who you've loved since.
Her hands aren't home.

We’re having dinner next week
At a new diner,
Because our booth isn't ours anymore.
And I hope you kiss me goodbye
Her mouth doesn't know me like yours.
v Jan 2019
C
Dry.
Evaporated from murky green water.

I hate it.
I hate you.
How can one person be strong enough to break an iron dam.

Tapes.
I made her seventeen tapes
I made you one too.

Maybe that’s me giving in.
Seventeen tapes for loving her,
One tape for wanting you.

Maybe it’s comfort, seeing my heart in your smile.
Maybe you woke me up.
I’ll preface everything with maybe.

And my god, how your hair turns to oceans
Sobering.
You’re the strongest high I’ve felt in years.
v Jan 2019
(The one where I’m feeling sorry for my cheating ex-girlfriend.0

We met the grim reaper on my 18th birthday.
He arrived to the party, uninvited,
dressed in ribbons
and legality
and student loans.  

Driving a silver Sudan
Eminem turned all the way up,
He hard braked in the turn lane next to us,
Skillfully smirking, words pulled back on his tongue like arrows.
ready to strike.

Bullseye.

There I sat, cross faded in your passenger seat, crying for the 50th time over how Brockhampton is like
The best thing to happen to rap since Odd Future.
Singing “who’s got the feeling” at the top of my lungs.
Happy.

I got a kiss at every red light.
No matter how quickly you turned away

Back then red and orange traffic lights were our dancefloor
We stood glowing in our favorite colors
Making up for every touch we could not share at prom.
I thought “god, if this barres me from heaven I’m already here with her.”  

I’d heard he always shows up at the worst times.
He, the reaper.
He’d really been there all along
In the smile of the lady at iHOP who invited us to church
In the down turned edges of mouths on waiters faces when I say,
“no, sir, we’ll be paying together”
I saw two girls kissing in the corner tonight and I only wish you were here to see it too.
I beg you come be with me.
Careful pitches “See these examples see what we can have”
Blue blood runs dry when their hearts are still soaked in red,
so no the money isn’t worth staying for.
You’re suffocating in red and right and trump signs.

She’s screaming baby, my love, pretty girl,
You are just too far,
and I am just too lonely.
We spent hundreds of days hating ourselves for loving each other.
Maybe we were too busy hating ourselves to actually love each other
She cannot meet me in the middle when she shackled to the start.

She reminds me of the reaper,
He lives inside her.
In the memories of being called a ****** at Christmas dinner.
Between picking out pears in the grocery store.
In the happiness over a haircut.
Happiness from my hands

Our breakup was not clean or neat or wholesome
It was all tears and excuses and hatred.
I still should’ve been there,
You’re the only one who understood how badly loving me hurts
I know it’s hard to love me.
To be good enough for me.
I haven’t figured out how to be good enough for myself either.

We’re Joking about how you mother thought we sat in circles
Whispering secrets, braiding
instead of pulling hair.
Now I watch as you pull yours out
Because ******* it you’re trying.
White people get away with killing kids all the time
Why would this be any different?

I’m in your passenger seat again
Asking what’s wrong, please answer me.
Where have you gone?
I’m pounding on a sealed casket
Pounding on the earth you lay beneath.
She is silent.

We held each other in pools of tears
Repeating that one day it gets better.
One day.
I feel guilty for living that truth
While you are stuck.

Yet still,
I will smile every June 11th
And wish you well.
I hope you’re still swimming
The creek we loved picked up quite the current.
v Jan 2019
Can you hear the sound?
Of heartstrings snapping? It is,
Incredibly loud.

- a haiku
v Jan 2019
If I was brave like before,
before him
we'd lay under salt.

I could replace pain with you
maybe
taste comfort again.

If I could string together letters,
pierce through their sides to
find an adequate picture of you -
press the arrow to knowing,
maybe we'd be full.
at least I’d hold my comfort.
v Jan 2019
MY NAME IS C**

      I GIVE BLOOD TO STRANGERS


I. Imagine a soul so pure.

The life she gives is held in empty fear.

She, fear,
Stands on a ledge,
Looking
down to the river
into the city,
Tracing wisps of smoke.


II. Fear is one with blood.

God weighs the damage.
For what would happen if she is spread too far?
Through the veins of the unholy
And wombs of the profane?  

The light is burning,
Smothering,
Loving.
Through the nourishment of greenery,
falling embers of cigarettes.

The light
melting comedians from cynics,
liberalism from slaves.
(Her light)
Burning girls out of bed after too many pills.

III.

She, girl,
Worries in unison.

She, girl,
Too winsome for words.
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