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.

anger burns so deep within me ,
i dont know where
it stops .
               .
                .

god told me there was a mistake
when creating
you

(and he whispers when he lies)

so
look me in the eyes next time --

tell me it's not painful .
.

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 would **** for you —
you know ,, ?

stain my white dress in red :
for
you .
                     .

blood dripping down a
knife
i would swear i never
held
.

but
they would end up catching me
of course ,

they always do —

and
the devil would sneer
,
disappointed ,

lace dress tight —
her lips curled in painted pink ,
when everything seems
so
h o t .
           .

because
               she knows
that
while
i would **** for you,
i
would never,
                       ever
die.

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.

i.

ill snap the necks of everyone
you love
like little birds
outside a
nest

ii.

god held my hands as he plucked me
from the sky ,
and told me i was no longer
an angel .
.

iii.

i pop pink pills from pink
bottles , and
set things on fire.

you dont look me in the eyes
anymore ,
even though i smile.

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 dream we live in a different life ;;

you are pretty
and i am
young

and i stare into your
eyes and you
look me all over

almost . .
like i am food .

but you do not eat
me

frankly :
you never could
.

i wish i was who i wanted to be,
. . .
technical problems .

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.

your taste lingers thick
on my tongue,
like the wedding cake
placed before me;
half-eaten, and
mostly smeared,
as i think of what
he could've done for me,
but didn't

i beg for other people’s *** stories,
because i am broken and unloved...

and when boys snarl,
                             i feel alone, although
i know that they are just laughing...

and
i’ve found that womanhood is
half shame before everything else,

so i can only notice how
other girls wave their successes above my head,
as though being ****** is a prize and being loved is an end game,

that screams GAME OVER in bright red.

i will take my silence over your lifestyle any day,
despite the fact that i still cry when you leave.

i don’t trust you with myself ..
anymore ,

unfurled -
the ocean laps at my feet
as you wish to
gaze upon girls ...
—
all
perfect flowers .
                            .

you say that you understand , and
that you hate it when i do that.
.
but i think you’re drowning ,
and i guess ,
this means you don’t want saving ...

do you think —
you’ll still love me ,
even if i make
your face bleed all blue?

you tell me that i’m wrong,
in a way that should make me feel
stupid.

i feel angry instead.

i want to be loved so bad

it took a long time to feel okay again

no one in the world is as nice as me

you have so much love inside yourself
one day ,
you will only ache

you turn
your brown glass eyeballs in fountain blue,
as you have no more tears
left
to cry.
.

i think, one day,
a hole will open up inside you
but physically —
you will bleed .

who tore you open?
i want to ask—
and who will sew you closed?

you pour all of your blood into someone else,
.
and i touch each wound.

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.

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

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.

why are the walls always blue...
in the places where it hurts to be?
in the places where i watch
a little girl you grow up through pictures of
a little happy family in
a house that’s big and round...

who am i in this story?
.
trailer park trash assuming the role of
dignified enough to be
in that house...
with a kitchen island,
and a garden, and a beautiful, bright blue
fish tank...?

*******.

******* for having what i wish i had
when i was small,
when my parents first cracked my head open,
and accidentally filled it with illness and
bugs
from our gross, apartment floors...

for i did not grow up with a happy garden
or through pictures that mommy
keeps on her wall...

if you are unhappy, i must live in ******* hell.

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 .
.

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.

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.

he came crawling up the street
like a nightmare in a human body*
grabbed her arm, and while
paralyzed with fear,
*she forgot to run

congratulations,
you are unloved;
undissolved in a world you
watch through glass.

and once again,
you are nine; in the bathroom,
on that floor, as
the blue tiled walls reflect,
and replay
over and over and
over,

and
you wish that
you never truly woke up, from
the strange mix of dream
and reality you
succumbed to long ago,

like a princess, at
rest;
wrapped in thorns

maybe
you'd never have had to pack
that sleepover bag every time
he made you cry,
.
leak

even as the tv still played
cartoons, snot still
ran, and you still
bled (and left).

i wanted to give you everything ,
and ended up giving you myself
instead —

and i
called it giving myself up the only way i knew how ..

with
little wounds you can’t even sew shut,
but
id say you didn’t even try.
.

words can mean so much,
and still you zipped your lips tight —
and decided ,,

that love is simply ***.

you forget me, equating me to some image of
me,
a dead body —

and
leave me to burn , like when i cried all
those
little rivers
that you did not even see ...

guess you’ll just have to be locked up,
with the rest of them

wondering why —
like most people do,
why is she so angry?

still,
your punishment
will be torture,

and finally you’ll know —
just what i went through ,
for you
.

did you cry as hard as me ,

when you broke me
on the floor
that night ?

heaving chest ,
i screamed and screamed
and hoped
you'd see me
on that red
red carpet ,
heaving .

i bled for hours thinking
you'd notice and
sew me up ,

as you always do ,
.
did .

but you have never felt the way
i felt ,

and you didn't .

i.

i told my mother the other day that i
have decided to be kind,
to love those
who love me (for no good reason)....

and because of, i want to take you in my arms
and hold you so tight
that the world cannot get in.
.

ii.

you are dressed in white, like
an angel, and
when you sleep, you murmur and
when
i watch, you smile
instead of howling, and i wish

that you were that peaceful when
awake.

iii.

you are growing up, and i
watch the way you forsake your mother
and i watch the way
you puff up your chest with lies and then
cower when you see me ....

you are not innocent anymore, and i cannot
hold you to as such when
you hide behind a hood of your parents
protection.

iv.

your brother does not love me anymore,
and frankly, i do not care.

but you cannot see the stab wound, so
still, i am angry.

v.

i don’t think she loves her best friend anymore,
i don’t think she even loves me.

but how can you tell someone to cut a
piece of themselves off when
you won’t do it for them?

when you don’t even have the right.

vi.

i read a poem today, it was about war
and it was about foxes,
and
i thought of you again...
my fox,

you are a violence...
and a lover.

and when i remember how you cut me,
i remember why i have to cherish what i have.

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 put my hands on your throat ;

veins pumping red
like little boats
inside the storm ,

your hands tangle around me ,
they grasp, tug, hit:
and this is a fight that
i am losing.

outside, it snows ,
and my pink skins flushes red
as you have burned me
from the inside out .

everything becomes white , when
you touch me
for the first time ,

and then i cry when you hit me .
.

we kiss.

i pull up my pants -

leg, leg, zipper,
buckle
.

the room heaves with me ,
a breath released
and a mind
unclear :
.

i don't know if
he made me bleed,

i don't know if he
even
would .
.
.

the sky looks yellow
as he walks me home,
but it's not:

it's blue
and the wind stings my
cheeks
.

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.

You pretend to zip your lips like
there's even a secret to spill,
as if i couldn't pry open
your mouth like a four
day old rusty paper-
clip
off an
empty
          manila
                     folder