i.
my tounge got stuck to the pole when i licked it,
just like momma said it would.
and when i played with those matches
my fingers had to be bandaged, they were so red and burned.

ii.
this could be a poem about the savagery of nature, the pain and the love the wind and the fire that is inherent on earth.

iii.
instead it’s a poem about people, because they always touch things they shouldn’t.

iv.
i touched the flames, and the man touched the girl when she hadn’t wanted him too. all i ever think about when i hear that story is that i wish she had something toxic in her veins, some poison to melt him to nothing.

v.
god should have made girls deadly if he was going to make monsters out of men.

i.
between adjectives and history, math and PE, school never taught us that colors lie.
welcome to your new education.

ii.
yellow is a happy color.
in school they teach us about vincent van gogh, and how he ate yellow paint because he thought if he had a happy color in his veins, he would be happy, too. the paper-girls who exercise fake distress think that’s romantic. it’s not.

iii.
secretly i wonder if i washed out all my tears and replaced them with acrylic, if i opened up my rib cage instead of my broken bleeding heart they would be only yellow.

iv.
yellow is the color of broth in aphabet soup, you make for me when i am sick. today i’m not sick, i just couldn’t bear to go to school- feel the stares of all the golden children on the back of my neck.
you are nowhere to be found, there is just the yellow broth beneath the letters in my soup. i can feel it staring up at me and now i really do feel sick.
there is only yellow.

v.
yellow is the color of the record you play when you don’t want to talk. you turn it up so loud that i can feel it in my bones. i go to my room and shut the door just a bit too hard, where yellow sunbeams light up my room like lasers.

vi.
i am conflicted.
yellow lights up the world and sunshine lights up my body. i used to think that’s romantic. it’s not. yellow is supposed to be a happy color. the broth in my soup and the record you put on and vincent van gogh play in my head like mice when the cats away.

vii.
i wonder i can falsify to prying eyes that i love sunshine because i am happy.
i wonder if i can prove to my dying mind that i love yellow because it is a cure?

vii.
i wish inside of insides, i was full of sunshine.

i.
sometimes i think a lot about what i do not understand

ii.
you’re at the top of the list.

iii.
maybe i like that, the idea of trying to figure you out. i used to solve rubix cubes over and over. i wasn’t fast, i took my time, trying to understand where all the pieces would go to make it whole again.
you’re like a broken rubix cubes- impossible to solve, but people try nonetheless.

iv.
i’m not going to pretend i didn’t hope that i could finally figure you out, simplify  your complexity as easily as arthur slid the sword from the stone.

v.
maybe it’s not “i do not understand.” maybe what i should say is “i don’t know.” does anyone know, really? can anyone solve the puzzle that is you?

vi.
maybe i don’t want them too.

vi.
i guess all there’s left to say now is sorry.

you’ve got it all wrong, momma.
flaunting your grief,
striping that poor sycamore down to a ghost off tree.
we revel in skeletons,
and find the clean lines
that divide
what is right and what is wrong.
sensous and economical,
the dead sing us songs i am learning to answer.
you would never understand the appeal
of power.
am i a hypothetical to you?
bow to me, forgotten godesss.
broken girls find solace in persephone.
i’m learning new words like pomegranate,
a word you can **** on.
pom- thick, round, bittersweet bulge.
e- the one you slide over to get to gran,
a slow swelling, cancer or the rose.
finally granate, stones stopping your heart cold.
pomegranate, a word you spit out, seeds sticking to your teeth,. don’t you see i never could have stayed?
you only want gods who water your crops, who let you bow beneath their thrones, if you do so quietly.
i want my own throne, and i want to be loud. i want to disscus the fulitlity of existence, the burden of immortality.
i want a life like my dearest pomegranates,
bittersweet and complex.
in short, i left for a reason.
i am not your daughter anymore.

she
           wanted         to        

                        wander,    

               but               could
                                        not             even
fit               through    


                wonderlands door

and
she                            began
                        to                 wonder

                 if          impossible           things


really were
                                  impossible.

and the pain says, “i have come for you.”
and in your heart you know it’s true // how could you possibly ever recover from this? and you say, “you are too blinding// i don’t want to look.”
but you can // stare lady death straight in the eyes and take away her power.
“you cannot hurt me // i am lighter than air.” but you see // she can (because you’re dying, my friend) but instead she will kiss you instead of stab you // because death takes mercy not on the strong but the intellectual // and if you understand you are free.

your soul is a wall of pain // folding in on itself // your perfectly numbered reality slipping away.

and death says, “i have mercy and i have fire.” you pick fire, for the flames in your chest and the flames in your head // turning your heart to ashes.

your soul is a wall of thorns. the pain says “what can i do for you?” and all you want it to do is take you, take you instead. but you do not say that // because death has no power and your hands are your own.

you say “nothing. this is a dream from which i know i will wake.” // your heart is a wall of storm clouds, and the thunder offers to lend you its strength. instead, you lend your shoulders // and your hands.

life shivers // melts // moves on (and it continues without us.) and the pain says “i have come for you.” in the heart wherim a strangers words lurk // a conquered promise of more time lies // not of comfort but hope (and you learn to understand the aching of your body.)

stars are lost to deep space, and caught in the obliviousness of it continues to fade. and in one thousand years she will walk the place where mother nature has taken back your bones // and you will understand.

but we will never understand death // because within each lifetime, each year, each day, each breath granted we are taunting her // asking for her to come shrink our infinites to nothing.

and it is this affliction that shows us nothing is born of soil and space // that the leisure of thought cannot conquer her.
when you die // you escape this laybrinth of suffering (which is the reason for death, the kindest angel of them all)

and you look to this all encompassing pain // and say “yes. let us embrace as equals.”

Golden child,
Lion boy;
Tell me what it’s like to conquer.

Fearless child,
Broken boy;
Tell me what it’s like to burn.

ˈaNGɡər

1. and your eyes light up sky blue, sea blue doesn’t matter what kind of blue because you’re shooting bullets from your mouth but they just ***** my arms.

2. i’m floating above you, electricity waits at the back of your tounge and with every word you throw at me like stones i just get lighter.

3. you’re yelling  and crying and shouting all at once, mixing up the sounds of the rain with your voice. i just lie on the ground eyes crystallized toward the sky like i am asking god himself to shield me from your rage.

- persephone 2018

ˈsənˌSHīn/
Noun

1. And you can feel it on your arms, in your hair and in your soul. perfect soft light filling the air with a sweet hum.

2. you can remember the feeling but can’t conjure what it feels like. Something you aren’t nostalgic for until it’s happening.
Chase it into the horizon. Never come back.

3. Replace the stars in your head with it. let  it fill your mind with dreams of fairy tales with happy endings and wildflower forests.

ˈpridē boi/
noun

1. The world is not a love poem. When people think of you, they think of all the stars in your eyes. How they want to see space through your perspective.


2. They love you, do they do not know why. You are polarizing but with two broken halves. They feel butterflies of great endearment fluttering in their stomachs, the kinds that strangers might call destiny. the love of the curious for the curiosity.

3. Roses and dandelions. The air smells like fresh milk and lilac perfume. When we think of you we think of Their words, that seem to come through the mist. All those forgotten flowers. What was allowed and what wasn’t?

4. Electricity in your veins and stars in your eyes. Do you miss the wind or do you miss the flames? Maybe we’re all cabinets of wonders.

nāl/
noun

1. Click clack, click clack. Her long pointed fingernails are painted red. silk red, strawberry red. Maybe their painted with paint, maybe their painted with blood. They knock on your door. You know about the poison in her polish.

2. The final end to your books. A period to finish the rambling sentence that was your existence. As we place you in your metal box to rot nobody weeps. The final nail in your coffin goes in sideways.

3. nobody stays for the reception.  as you are lowered she throws a rose. It matches the color of her fingernails. click clack, click clack. We pile dirt onto you. So much dirt. I wonder how you will get out now.

kəˈlamədē/
noun

1. Watch the wind swirl the ocean waves into big, reaching hands. Only have you ever seen this in your imagination. Thousands dead, cities destroyed. Laugh in the rubble of your apartment building.
You will never recover from this.

2. Taste the earth as you never have before. The air is quiet because it is waiting. your heart beats much to fast for the calm before the storm. Offer the woman lying in the wreckage a cup of tea in what used to be your kitchen. Run, run, run. It's too late.

3. Is it all in your head? open your eyes to find the soil perfectly intact. You'll never know what's real and what isn't. All the people carry their grief with them alongside their umbrellas. It's still raining.

ˈhəkəlˌberē/
Noun

1. instead of lipstick drink in the blood and let it stain your skin. Don't tell anyone the purple hue of your lips isn't from face paint.

2. Run in the fields like you have never run before. Gentle, gentle. The brambles will scratch your skin.

3. Return with cuts and tears in your flesh and fill up chocolate domes with the crushed bodies. Lick your blood stained lips and sell your candies to tourists.

ˌäkwəməˈrēn/
Noun

1. Fill your pockets. Can't you help but think it matches the blue of their eyes?
it litters the beaches of your old hometown. Forget about suspicious coincidences and run.

2. the ocean is to misty to reclaim the fruit it had beared. Eat the gemstones like ice. Won't it make you young?

3. They speak to you in the trunk of your car. Remember that not just any rocks match eyes so perfectly. Think Insanity. think destiny. throw out your torn dress and join the sea.

/lamp/
noun

1. Light up the room, light up your words. flick that switch and watch all candles become obsolete. Turn it off as you leave the room. You don't want it watching.

2. Listen closely. The gentle hum of electricity waits in the dark. tap your fingernails on the delicate porcelain. Wait until you can no longer hear the noise.

3. Yellow. Can light age? Catch it all in your hands and wash your face. Pretend you didn't see the shadows in your room. Pretend you didn't see the figures in the mirror. Tick tock, tick tock. you're late for work. Turn it off.

/silk/
noun

1. Promise the wind and the moon that you will be there. They will be waiting. Touch the fabric of your dress over and over in your nervousness. Watch the ends fray.

2. Days pass. Nights pass. The wind and the moon continue to whisper among themselves. Feel the light of the stars. Doesn't it feel familiar? Touch the braids in your hair over and over. What are you missing?

3. delicate. wish for all things blue and white and red. Pretend you can't hear the voices that have come. they are still waiting.

you had oceans in your eyes and stars inside your ribs, they knew that they could never keep me from finding you. a universe in your head i begged for stories of the stars, all i wanted was you. they knew this was coming.

2. they tried to stop me from loving you as a child tries to stop the tide coming in, eventually the waves knock over your sand castle. they tied me up and taught me for a long time why you were not allowed but even i have secrets.

3. when they loosened their grip for even a moment i was free, and freedom tastes like apple hair detangler  and golden spray paint.
your hair held the stories of cities and your lips help the souls of millions, they knew that stopping me was like stopping the earth from going round the sun.

there’s so much i want to tell you//
(i’ve been thinking about you)
can’t get you off my mind
(never thought i would love you)
i’m too young to tell you the truth
so instead i’ll pretend// i’m not interested
(when really i’ve never loved somebody like you)

e·lec·tric·i·ty
əˌlekˈtrisədē/

1. i want you to promise me that when you fill your veins with ice water you won’t ever forget. till death do we part.
2. im knocking at your door and you’re there, your eyes a peculiar color of green. you hold my hand and fire comes down my arms in waves, it hurts so much but i would never dream of taking my hand away.
3. pulses of white hot lighting electrified your tears. running down your cheeks they seem to glow. this is the moment, you are the moment. paralyzed, i stand in front of you, you are the magnet and i will spin You. together we light up the world like firecrackers.