Little needle face,
With a long pink dress and teeth
Too big for your mouth,
You are but a doll
with a back breaking slouch and
chest made from cotton//

your
Little needle hands
the machine that
stitched yourself
Together, the twine that
holds your heart
In place a
Jagged knot of
Cage and wire.

Little needle girl,
with a button nose and stringy
hair,
Please
***** all your tormentors
The way I could never ***** mine,
And
never grow your body
Back

creation builds houses...
brick after brick,
and
she works hard in the face of adversity.

creation builds a house,
and i build a home,
for tiny children... but i cannot keep them
warm.

you don’t believe me, when
i say that
things are not well... but when
have you ever had an answer,
anyway?

all blank-faced, and
angry...

i guess...
i was meant to be alone,
because
creation means building a house.
and
being someone means keeping it
warm.

Don't make me laugh
you
sick
sack of meat-/rotting
in the city's
yellow
sun... don't claim you
were
broken,
by a boy who never
loved
you,
because it's so easy to
see
why.

The earthquakes are scary
They are weird and red.
They try to pull
down the people from
bed. the people
are crying they
are trying to run.
They wanted
to fly and
reach
the Sun.

will you talk to my corpse
after im dead?
.
.
.

ask me things like how
was your day?

tell me about
each and every
person
youve replaced me with?  

and ill have changed...
you know?

you're so quiet now
.
is what you'll say,
but i won't respond.

and maybe you'll cry?
the way i cried after you broke my heart--
into
p i e c e s

all while saying sorry and
what not?

and will you tell me the truth?
like the old days, when we were
kids

what caused you to do it?
ill think to ask,
.
but wont...

was it me?
or the first night
you went drinking?

or
will you just pretend that it wasn't
you
who killed me?

my throat constricts
.
.
.

and i suffocate on words that
are
on fire.

words that are begging
to be lashed at your face
but lash in my esophagus
instead.

cutting like blades,
bleeding like tears.
it
leaks down and burns my
stomach

and

you laugh,
not taking me seriously
thinking that i wont gag
the next time i think of your face.

don't call me honey.

i want to be smaller.
tiny, tinier, tiniest.

i want to be so small, that
i fit into a jar, and
can hide in the walls of
houses i never called
home,

maybe if i cut out some
stuffing, i will be satisfied.

my back
will slump forward and you
will see my spine, but i
will be smaller,
less open,
less
there..
.

and i will cease to exist,,,
almost
an empty shell of skin and
zipper, collapsed on the
floor, maybe my lungs will still
breathe.:

die, died, will die.
i want to be dead.

Step one starts with forgetting/

you begin by tearing
yourself from the skin they took home in,
disconnecting your arms from their seams,
eating their hearts
and hoping that they forget you,
too

Step two means burning all
ties,
dissolving each memory like the pills
your mother took at breakfast,
how could you have let this happen?

so you pull
their
veins from yours and
untangle what they gave you,
choke down a penny
and hope
that they don't think of
you

Step three is the
detox,
cut yourself open and scrub yourself
shiny:::
unchain your wrists from that dinner table
and hope that his nightlight doesn't bleed
through
that
doorway,

orange was never a pretty color
anyway

Step four is the hardest,
.
when you take a knife to your palm,
and make slits down to your wrist,

when you ignore the beck and call
of memories you forgot you had,
people you realize never cared,
so you take
a drink for those you know you've
long forgotten,

and come clean
to three different people, all the
same and hope the next girl
doesn't know step one....

it never seemed to hurt when you
played it all out in your head.

I inherited my mothers lost tongue...
when she dropped it, i
picked it up.
in it, i found both her
fire, and her hidden words.

i inherited my father's bitter wounds;  
every time one opened up,
a piece of me grew to douse it
in alcohol, and
in tears.

i was given both a lock and a key,
and the need to stitch things
Closed.

...and i am suffocating
under the weight of your words

i ask you nicely to
please stop

you laugh and mock me of
my pain

and when i cry
you look to the side,
pretending it wasnt you who hurt me

stop crying, you ask,
but not nicely
and i have to put a bucket
over a barrel of
T
E
A
R
S

Little blue boy-
don't sleep for me, i
am not
your
princess
decked in rhinestones
that come in
red and
pink,

so kiss your fist and
say goodbye, my
heels just aren't that heavy...

save me in
another
life.

its okay if you
dont love me,
im fine from
the side, only as your
friend, deep in the
depths of
skinny love.
i know im upset,
and i know you
want me happy,
but ****, what would
i give for even
demons to be real,
so i could purchase your love
with mine.

spoiled girls are sad too.

Just kidding,
Sparkles don't heal
My wounds, only covers
Them up, like a mask but
For my heart,
That old broken thing.
Give me credit for trying,
Everyone is different,
Just like filters and sarcasm,
So if my words don't suit your taste,
Just know that I wrote them
With you in mind,
And forgiveness,
Whatever that means.

ive worn a brand my entire life
that’s been
stamped across my forehead.

i believe that
everyone can see it,
painted red with little girl blood.

all my life people have taken chunks
from me, and all my life,
i’ve given people chunks.

i believe that maybe if i were different
i would be perfect.
im cruel, and im sorry.

they say the pretty girl always hides
her true nature
under the layers of her makeup
and beneath her skin,
yet it sickens me to think
that when beauty can hardly be more
than a label stuck on someone's coat,
all the ones that happen to be,
are sad.

beauty shouldn't hurt.

i met a mermaid
once, at
sea
...
as
a little girl:

snaggle-toothed
and salty,
she sang songs in
the
      sun,

and i loved her:

for
her hair like
spun,
         white
                  sugar,

and pearl-fluorescent
skin,

and
i know her song,

a song of seaweed and
green sailors
and the
life
i
nearly
           lived
...


but i was caught,
one day,
in gray hues
                      while i was
basking,
starry eyed,
.
and
almost slimy with
love,

when
         my father found her,
                                            and
.
beat
her
to
death.

happy New Years to
the girls like me,
who forgive and forget as if
yesterday didn't hurt
and tie knots over wounds
like they lace up shoes


happy New Years to
all the boys who still cry
at night, over
their fathers who don't love them
and things they were never
taught to say

and happy New Years to
everyone in between, to those
who can't tell black from
white,
good from bad, and still don't
know
how to dress at night

tomorrow might be better.

i remember them
better than they remember me
i'm sure
my hate like the tip of an iceberg
drifting in the back
of my mind
driving me insane
since it seems like its been
years
maybe forgiveness
however much i hate the concept
is the right idea
when it comes to
their nature,
and my closure.

Too bad
Saint Valentine didn't weep
on the grave
you left in
heaven;

as you were
plucked
from the thousand poppies
of little lost girls
dressed in blue,
white, and
yellow.

and
even now, i know:
(that) you're not from here,
crying pink balloons
and little white
strings-

still attached to your eyes,
they
float right back up
and pop, when
they hit they sky,

and maybe,
maybe
it shows,
you just weren't built for
flying.

i am still my past,
that stupid little girl,
with that stupid knack
for crying,

and i am still her future,
for shes still a little stupid,
and still cries with that
horrible talent for crying,

and i am still alive,
even if im stupid,
even if im crying.

i want to touch
your body
like a man in heat —

rub fingers up your legs .
kiss peach butter lips,
and make you
sing,

i wasn’t made to be in love ,
i think .
.
i was made to be
loved :

like a feather, or
a death.

i will run
my entire life.

we bloom in summer.

words are thrown
the way a machine spews bullets
and stains passionate red,
unlike your parents forgotten love,
screaming only defeat, and that
you were for naught

punches are swung,
like bombs that arent made of fire,
leaving something much more permanent
than ash and tears,  
an impression of what they thought of you

ice cream is dropped,
at a party and on a dress,
as your face flushes with embarrassment,
and while people laugh,
finally understanding why
*you are not the favorite child

i can't believe he didn't love me--

i spent so much time
dreaming of what we
could've been,,, and
what we never had, **

on
those days when sunlight
would pour through glass
like liquid ****** and drown my
mind as if
nothing else existed// i remember..:

how i still coughed and cried;
knowing he gave
me up, as though
the memory of us was just a
vignette...

stained,
fleeting.

i threw my past at you,
thinking you'd understand,
because pain is relative, and
i knew you got that much

but whats been thrown at me,
be it punches, or knives, or
you and
your words

i guess i just put more
trust in the thought
that you'd think more like me and
you'd, for once, have sympathy.

you are so far gone,
that
you might as well be
six feet under...
buried alive
or only half

alive
and still buried...

and i will spit
snot on your grave,
and clog my ears with dirt
and flowers
grown from your decay

say one more word,
and I might choke on
your fire

I have been in love, before --
I think
.
.
.

The kind of love where
Your heart
squeezes
in your Chest
and you
Feel like you're exploding
From the inside out and
You cannot hear
Anything,
Anything at all/but them


and it was real--
I tell myself.
My friends tell me.
They told me.

As real as being young could
Be...
The kind of real you get from sobbing and laughing
While your stomach melts your
Heart and your brain fries to
Bits
.
.
.
From their smile..,
Or their frown.
:(


But
I don't remember crying--
Just forgetting
.
.
.

How
one day my lungs were back to
Normal size and
My brain no longer
Screamed...

And (how) they weren't
in the obituary section
of the news.

i wish i could go back
and savor you;
the sunshine on your face,
as if it were pages of a story,
and the feeling of warmth
like the sun on my back
as i read you like
the comic book you were,
i wish i could start over
so then i could feel
this all
again.

sometimes
i wish that you could see into my mind,
and say all the things that i wish
people would say to me.

and sometimes,
i wish you would figure them out
on your own.

i really cant wait for the day
when someone asks
why im sad, and why
my smile looks too real
to actually be real,
and it's gotten to the point,
where i tell myself
that someone will notice,
and when they do,
ill marry them.

and he was a champion,
basking in the light of
a king and his victories///

lost between two walls of glass
and
an ocean full of something he
(just)
        can't
                quite
                        remember
.
.
.

a spaceship his battleground,
but also his home--
with mornings
consisting of no dawn, no
neighborhood and no blood
shared
between two//

locked up--
with a window full of sky,
and many roads
diverging,

And he cries,
looking at the stars, not knowing
that
the stars cry for him, too.

crystalline eyes ,
in the sun , watch as boys
laugh
at little girls.

transparent
over layers :
hidden by tears , that were
taken
by other devils,

teeth got locked on to
empty shells as
she smiled ,
sweaty
(while he)
took bites
from her kindness given
out of fear

and
punching heat,
they bare teeth at
one another
in haunting calls,
and

i'd hope you know -
that i'm not dumb or
blind
just clueless.

when i was little ,
dad handed me a shovel and
he handed me
a dress.

he taught me how to dress myself
and then how to garden ,

to dig each hole
in soft
           flesh and soil.  

ive grown up since,
gotten taller,
and can hold
the shovel by myself ,

so
i dig graves now instead .

ive saved one for dad ,
                               and ive saved one for me.

six feet deep ,
                        it’s a bed with no blankets
and it’s
perfect ,
and
it’s mine —

and
i want to be buried in a dress
i can button
                     all
                         by myself ,

because
dad also handed me a shotgun.

death is a tiny girl in pink —
with yellow hair
                          and stick legs -

coming out at twilight , she
knocks
on your door with her claws in a fist
                                and
smiles wide at you
from the
dark.
          .
            .

a wolf in sheeps hide ,
but
she is only
a
sheep
          (not even)

and
she wants to hold your hand .
.

prosperity comes in…
prosperity comes…

she comes in...

shades of black and blue,

like bruises
when you hit me and tug on my hair,
and like
apples that ripen and then soften...

dont
get too close,
or the smell of alcohol
will rub onto you, the way
his presence already has.

dont
get too close,
or he'll abuse you
like he does drugs,
and me.

dont
get too close,
or he'll start a fire
in your heart, too,
made of gasoline and
my tears.

there is relief in
such tragedy,
when you're
not the one
who's
suffering.

we live on a dying planet,
where phone chargers keep
us together and
late night conversations
are entirely possible.

we live in a place where
our bodies are made of star dust and
water,
and we stuff ourselves with
toxin covered
pictures, people, words.

there will be a day,
someday soon i think,
when we tear apart our seams
and destroy the only thing that
seemed to bear us,

and we will be nothing but
dead phones and
silent voices.

but
our websites will be somewhere
and
our words will be forever.

she sits at her kitchen table,
skin pink and eyes
puffy
and looks at the print
of her daughter’s
missing picture on the
side of an empty,
old

milk container .
.
.

mommy,
maybe
pick yourself up ,

daddy never cried like this,

how will you tell him that
you lost yourself
in a bottle of
pills like a note
in a
bottle ,

lost at sea ::

?

exposed and vulnerable
i
don’t have healing hands ,

i force delicacy
from fingertips meant to break ,
and
have tried to heal things
i should’ve shot .
                              .
you always felt a bit cold to me
                                     scarred ,

so
i pray to god
that
you never try to tell him
what i’ve tried to
do //

i was holding the rifle
the way i was holding your hands ,

and they were still hot —  

so hot that
now
we are calloused ,
-
love beat me
and then i beat you —

our
hands were burned together .
.
but you smiled ,
                           and
i was the one who cried
                                         instead.

one day, someone will kiss
my scars .

someone should kiss yours, too.

the recoil will always sting ,
and i will always
bruise.
.

i might as well just devour you ,
now that you’ve
                           shredded my stomach
and laughed .
                        .

i never would’ve guessed
that
you
would take
a knife to my heart ,
and then rev up an engine —

a chain.

but
im sick of looking at your face ,
sick of
thinking of you ,

                           and
                                  sick of smiling
from my grave.
.

i guess we can say
you stole that from me too .

but
you are proof ,
that
even demons need to eat —

and this one
is very ,
             very
hungry.

i don't blow kisses,
nor do i send hearts
made of broken paper construction
and lots of missing parts

you want to stick it in me ,,

break me
                open
                         so that i leak .

it's boiling hot,
and
you wield a blade
that does not
cut skin .  

but still i bleed ,
and pick each scab .

i will **** you before you ever see me
open ,
          spread,

beg for me.

i am a mess of
open wounds and
needles that have
never sewn
shut,

and
sometimes i still find
string and knots in (the) places
where
i tried to tug shut-
but ended up ripping
skin,
instead

where:
there's still
salt
from when i tried to cleanse
myself from you,
but
hurt too much to continue,
and left myself
bleeding,

so i'm still here
healing,
letting my veins cry and
my scabs heal over,
with
my a hole where my
heart should be,
and no band-aids to fix
it.

i can’t laugh the way i used to laugh.

not for you ...
and not here...

and i can’t create circles just to
run around in
squares, as if i didn’t give you
a piece of me and then
more than all that...

do you remember how we would
watch movies together,
about girls with white hair who would
go swimming
in oceans made of trees?

and do you remember how you
never used to tell me i was wrong,
back when you still understood that it
wasn’t your
place
to fight me...

because...
i remember that.

sadness has been eating me alive
since before i can
remember —

i was bathed in a blue tub
on a yellow table .
as mom smiled and i laughed ,

and  
i remember
nights  
i was loved ,

but
sunlight still seemed to stream on
brown carpet
or on black and white tiled floor,
as
i grew up , or
it rained ///

and
i remember
each
and every
girl ive been,
crying red
and blue .

always ;
i looked at all our toys ,
high up on our mantel

in yellows, blacks,
and
pinks:

i have grown

and yet ;
i remember
there was
me
.

i had a dream,
we were older---

i was pretty and you
had
become gentle,
and i remember looking
into your eyes and
smiling, and it was a new
sort of
calm,
but it hurt/ because
it wasn't the same,
and i realized
that understanding
is
different from
moving on.

It's as if someone
took a knife straight through
my melted butter heart, and
smeared the blood on a piece of toast,

like the feeling of Ice in a bath,
and a foot sticking off the bed,

its as if I was made of paper
and she was the little one who
ripped me to shreds,
i'm in tears but still she can't understand;

that yea, it's not your fault,
but at the same time,
like bugs in
a trap
you have done me no favors
and I am angry,

was my love not enough for you?

i hope he breaks your heart, and
i hope he breaks it good.