I have cried more times this January than I did in 2017 collectively

Six word story

My head feels like it’s holding a $100,00 vase that weighs 100 pounds with my slippery butter fingers and I haven’t been to the gym in weeks and my arms are getting tired

And if Were being honest I could build an empire from all the red flags you've tossed my way. I always catch them and tuck them away - Hand dye them and stitch them new names, new patterns, they're anything but wrong.

You never felt wrong

daze
smooch
custard
sauce
cocktail
soup
pie
****
blood clot
dewy
wanderlust
blaming things on "society"
lima bean

I could throw up

everyone deserves forgiveness - but I thank every star in the sky you slammed the door shut on my fingers

( they told me she was toxic )

and I wrapped them up but I still would have let you back in,
played any song you liked honestly.

( and you didn't deserve that kind of generosity )

she moved to that island she always talked about and sent me a letter this morning that I didn't have the courage to read. If she asked me to knit her one more **** sweater for the windy nights I thought I'd *****.

( freeze )

I cannot write if I am not in love and it is so **** annoying.

I believe in beautiful things
I believe in change

she liked to steal old matches
her soul drenched in Santal
thoughts deeper than the canyons,
slurred in her sozzled calls

with rose gold colored eyes,
she grabs your rusty match tin
but if you hand your heart to her
you won't see that again

she hides in her rose bathtub
silk bathrobe, as expected
builds castles made of bubbles
and hearts that she's neglected

electric lips drooling the words i can't swallow,
technicolor thoughts too far for me to follow

& How Surreal Is This

One hand on the wheel, the other holding yours ///
I remember being in third grade trying to read your name tag on the corner of your desk in home room the first day I saw you actually
Fast forward 14 years old when you kissed me in my kitchen that summer night after catching fireflies and no one could slap that grin off my face

Here we are, Christmas Eve, and it's like nothing's ever changed you told me; you're the one thing that's never changed  

And I just couldn't stop laughing- eight, twelve, seventeen, twenty three.

So he grabbed my face and slurred something along the lines of if we made it to 26 without a family in our near future we'd have to make one of our own and ****** you know 15 years and 6 jack & cokes later I wasn't about to turn you down.

( & i've always loved that **** dog of yours )

two thousand nine hundred and forty six microscopic tiny shards of glass stuck in my hand is the only equivalent feeling to hearing your name

six months later and i keep finding hidden pieces in my palms

/ just when i thought my hands were numb i saw the silky red dress i wore the day my hand hit the glass and all i want to do is throw up

six word story

homeless and happy surpasses crying in a Ferrari any day
- if you've got a voice ******* use it, never be a **** robot work horse
- corporations will only swallow you if you don't put up a fight
- Republicans aren't a myth and anything is possible if your president is a reality tv star
- you create your own universe! poison only enters if you let it!
- nothing beats a secret pen pal, long live snail mail
- cashmere and friendship is Gods way of saying you'll survive winter

I think I am on my feet again for the first time in a long time since Le Brain Destruction of Spring 2016.

sweet tiny nothings;
visual haikus

the heart thumps louder
lungs clinch head spins

Roanoke is like webbed toes; really weird but in a way that makes you wanna cough or throw up if you look too close

the sweetest angels and stars all came together and stitched together every blade of grass on our front yard,

/// wait scratch that; that isn't even remotely accurate ///

this house has seen tornadoes larger than any human eye could ever fathom; sunken heart aches in the living room and mood swings lingering on the chandelier

July 27, 1993 I was born down the street from where I'm sitting right now

This home embodies everything i am made of; it watched me grow little by little unlike the plants in our front yard that never could

i had a panic attack in this room at age 6 when i realized my dog, Goliath, would some day die and it was inevitable. What a weird thing for a six year old to be thinking about-

that same burning grows in my chest when i wonder what will be the defeat of this house one day

six word story

( i sat in my shower and cried for two hours and i'm the cleanest i've felt in a while )

this heart led a simple life;
not too many visitors. you could even call it lazy;
i heard about a month ago she let it crawl into the
master bedroom, shriveling into the fetal position.
it built a fort of egyptian cotton sheets to live under;
protecting itself from all the ghosts and monsters that
like to lurk around the hall ways this time of year.

doesn't sound like a bad idea

you know she feels like she could collapse;
a house of cards waiting for a child to
sneeze and she quietly self destructs at her
own tempo, a golden castle made of
all your expired dreams waiting in your
laptop's trash cash waiting to be right
clicked and vanish. silky words slip out
of her mouth before she can even hear what
they're screaming these days and when
she look in the mirror she couldn't tell
you who's teeth she's brushing really

you've got a million little stars in your heart and they're all twinkling at me tonight, smiling watching us dance on other sides of the planet singing the same melody we wrote so many moons ago

Il a dit, "au debut t'etais belle"
- C'est bon de te revoir, répondis-je.

reprends moi. Je veux parler français à nouveau Je veux boire du vin et danser toute la nuit avec toi. Je ne pense pas que je t'ai jamais vraiment laissé partir. Vous avez toujours été avec moi.

I can't write the way I used to;
can't think quite the same either

time scares the **** out of me-

you think you know someone
and then they become the old
pal who forgot to call the past
three months.

i just want my bones to collapse like
a folding chair; throw my white flag
as far as my limbs will allow and my
skin seeps into this burnt orange knit
wonderland of comfort that keeps me
sane and commands the sun to get lost
when he tries to yank me back into
reality ;

trains

trains are so **** stressful

i had no idea how much i'd learn to dread
their midnight cries two octaves out of my
singing range; they climb in my ears and
tell me to get lost- go back where i came from
cause I'm not cut out to run with these girls

and the biggest part of me wants to yell back
fine!
fine.
alright;
to the mountains i go

"Cheers to Lukie!"
We slammed our beer bottles together, I felt uncomfortable that in a tipsy spontaneous moment he'd yell that, I let it go.
"To Lukie!"
He yelled again and Lukie's face came rushing back into my memory; no ones supposed to die when they're this young.

I realized perhaps he wasn't in the wrong- keeping his spirit alive and present. I've been gone all these months but no one at home has forgotten him; he's not a name to keep tucked away on the bottom shelf. He was our friend. I knew the kid. It's surreal. He was kind, I don't claim to know him like the bunch who surrounded me in Salem tonight by any means, but I knew him. I've been to his house, I know his family, I understand. He was upbeat and in my experience with him, he was never anything but a fun time; he would've wanted us to celebrate I'd imagine.

"To Lukie," I said back.

a durable foundation creates a tall tower;
unfaltering in it's demeanor, anchored at peace.

why do we under romanticize stability?
building a house upon the waves knowing it's a
ticking time bomb before cascading our living
rooms into the ocean to sink beyond our reach.

i don't want my knit orange blanket under the water,
or to feel the roaring sea salt overflow my lungs ever again.

but i get it; wanting to wake with sun kissed skin and
dust the sand off your cheeks while cotton candy skies
shine into our eyes bringing a brand new day to us.

(having *** in the sea could cause a UTI, sand is unpleasantly itchy, and boys are poison, *******. take a shower and go home.)

and if you tried to kiss her,
she'd grown so hollow she
could most likely collapse.
a small concave girl with
nothing but words that roam
inside of her lungs.

there is no age in which a mother forgets her child;
i think their heart beats connect like SONAR

the child types furiously in one room as the mother
tosses and turns hearing each letter as loud as a gun
shot

my hospital band keeps sticking to my arm
and i can't  uncross my legs

she stuck the needle in the arm and missed
gave it a kiss, tried again as the arm bled red

perhaps it may look wrong;
the spots on the arm or the grin on the face
both similarly misplaced causing confusion
to their reader- context clues please read closely
or you may not pass the final exam

there is a point
where your legs will refuse you

your mind with lose you
and disagree with the words you write

your palms will ease;
slowly the tension slides off of you

as you wake up
in a purple nightgown delirious

you'll run and knock at the door of your bad habit
to find he has moved houses, and you don't remember
his phone number

4 a.m. your mind is clear
a new head sits upon your shoulders

pressure
pressure
pressure
pressure
in the mind
on the thighs
in the lies
on the eyes
in the wrong
on the songs
in the *****
on the bruise

she's simply done with false and foreign hands,
guiding her where they please
shaking her at the knees

"knit me a sweater so tight
i'll throw up all his poisons bites"

- she'd been filled with lies, flies, purple hair ties
a common mistake making friends with a snake

everything tastes vanilla,
what's the point in having a favorite color?
she's got thoughts and legs longer than pi,
and a bite bluer than her latest depression
but she always finds you down there in that sad valley-
doesn't she?
singing on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and

how does one get a wink of sleep
when at 11 am tomorrow morning
i'll be sporting the latest hospital gown
being picked apart like a game of operation
while i'm high off who knows what they put in
those **** needles that knock you straight
to counting multi colored sheep

i used to be curious, full of questions
always wandering what more i could
possibly soak in like a sponge,
knowledge is power they said.

it's probably killed 7 of my 9 lives,
turned teammates into mazes, lovers
into strangers, pandora's box laughs
in my face every **** time.
(so i'll be careful with these last two lives)
quite frankly i'd like to wave my white
flag with knowledge- my bones are
too weak to fight you any further

i know what hanging on looks like
avoiding red flags so large they could blur your vision blind

i wonder if people were as uncomfortable as i am right now knowing you're holding onto something fictional

and she's burning a **** hole through my skull with the glare she's shooting at me sharing innocent eye contact with him; I'm the last girl she actually should be worrying about- but i've been there, territorial when you start to catch on that the ground beneath you is falling right under your feet

i'm so sorry
i wouldn't wish that feeling upon my worst enemy;
realizing what gave you joy was never even real

God is good
- Happy homes make happy souls
- For a wound to heal you have to quit touching it
- Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn / all things grow
- Do not ******* forget who kicks you while you're down  
- The world will continue to spin if you are failing world mythology ****

toss turn toss turn toss turn
weight wait weight wait weight
push pull push pull push pull
go stay go stay go stay go stay
fingers throat fingers throat
oh please stay five more minutes
turn the sun switch off and throw
your blue blanket over my eyes
i am drowning in a sea of sheets
and thirty eight daily battles but
you took away my anchor so i've
drifted off the grid with no boat
water lungs water lungs water
water lungs water lungs breathe in
sink sink sink sink sink sink sink

if you see something say something
if you break something fix something
if you hurt someone apologize to someone
if you love someone kiss someone
if you rip something tape something
if you question something ask something
if you hate something do something

but sometimes things are easier said than done and i'm so emotionally exhausted i could collapse and evaporate; but i'm an ***** donor it's alright take what's left of me

empty eyes and little lies
i used to know your name
little talks and skittle walks
i hate these kind of games

savannah's dead it's in my head
maybe i'm to blame

my thoughts tangle and slide down the small of your back while i can't help but laugh one more time because i just can't stop looking at the way you smile back at me when i can't keep it together because you've slapped the most unattainable grin onto my face

but my senses will give me that dreaded early wake up call and I know you wish I'd just push that snooze button one more time, and truly i'm sorry that my heart was thrown into his old smoothie blender and you're left trying to clean up this mess of strawberries and morning sunshine licking what's left off your finger tips

your fingers tips they run up and down my mind
i can't resist the way your words melt down my spine

i want to have mugs. mugs from places i've been and i can make coffee in the morning and go back to my room; where my name is on the lease and  can call it my home. i want plants i want books i want things that aren't essential to living but make me happy- three more days until I retire from being a gypsy and can find comfort again and I couldn't be happier to call Brooklyn home.

I read something along the lines of " all I know is this: I have many wounds but I still stand on my feet" a while ago and it's still stitched to my mind.

actually i lied to you, that one time in my car when we were having a happy morning on our way to go swimming after we got coffee, you asked me if i listened to classical music and i told you i didn't-

and quite frankly i'm listening to classical music this very moment trying to think of a poetic way to phrase "i wish you were in my bed making out with me right now. that you were here sliding your fingers between mine as we were talking about anything, maybe just talking **** because you like that i'm nice but that i'm not actually a nice girl."

it *was cute that you were so particular about dental hygiene each morning, even the time you made my gums bleed a little. ( i say *was because who the hell knows if we'll look at each other like that again now that times past ) maybe it's not something i'll lose sleep over while you're down south but i'm absolutely curious what part of your memory you file my name under. i wonder if you think you've got me all figured out or if i'm a puzzle of the ocean on a blue day with 10,000 pieces to you.

- sorry i called you weak that first time you slept over, kind of

And when the sun comes up I hope it's my face that greets you, my touch slipping back into your memory and like a bad dream you wake up and remember what you broke. A house full of mirrors you walked in like a psychopath with a baseball bat; swinging and swinging and swinging. I can't change what you've done here and i cut my hands on all the shards of your mess trying to make sense of it all. But I'll wrap up all the wounds and grow stronger. I'll watch flowers grow out of my shoes and find my back. Because I know if a drop of memory floats into my mind at night I pray you can't fall asleep because of the roaring thunderstorms of my laughter, the way I'd kiss you like we were the only ones on earth and now all you've got left is yourself and the ugly truth that wraps around your neck and slowly suffocates you as each lie comes to the surface and people whisper each one to someone else. Because I know if people look at me with the slightest glance of pity I pray their glare cuts you like you cut my trust in so many different ways.

I can't fathom how you get a wink of sleep at night if my mind tosses and turns like this.

the glass is half full and it's full of the cutest red wine, so fine you would even spill it on my white couch and call it art -
red has always been your favorite color
i see there's flowers sprouting out of your shoes again and that grin is slapped back onto your face; so perfect i might even kiss it
perhaps right? why not

My truest self is June, 2014. I've just returned from France and I'm excited to simply wake up each morning having no idea where the **** I'll go with the rest of my life. I have no job, no real priorities, just curiosity. I'm still a ******. I've never told someone I loved them. I've got too many black clothes in my closet and I'm convinced I'm the long lost southern spice girl. My hair is ombre and I haven't cut it in three years. I gave my friend Sydney my shoes because she needed a pair. I listened to Sylvan Esso's new album in a bathtub for five hours in a hotel room in Marseille- day dreaming about all the different people I could pretend I was that day. I hadn't lost anyone before. I was writing beautiful tangly words everyday. I was no one's but my own. everything was going in my favor. I was happy and far too curious for my own good.

But curiosity killed the cat, and here I am on my ninth life walking on egg shells trying to keep it all together.

you've ruined songs, you've ruined restaurants, you've ruined the striped shirt i used to wear on happy days. you're the stain on a white couch i can never remove and will always despise

I couldn't help it; it spread like wild fire, clenching my chest and burning my lungs with the overwhelming anxiety that you've blossomed into the most monstrous thing I've ever encountered