As I kid I watched in wonder at the sight.
The shining goblet of Grape Juicy Juice,
Candles, flags, robes, and glorious gold-tipped bibles.
I loved the songs, the community, and the people.
Faces and arms raised to press up to the sky
Like they could literally feel the hand of God.
It was everything I'd been missing at home.
It was home cooked meals, smiles, and togetherness.
It was leadership, mentors, and pop rocks.
I joined AWANA at age 8.
We read the scriptures, played games, ate snacks,
And enjoyed the bath of warmth that God's love gives,
With the intensity and guilelessness that only kids can have.
There were no difficult questions and everything had an answer.
Until I got a little older.
The questions got harder and the words got harsher.
My mentor, Denise, loved me. I know she did, in her way.
But she didn't understand why my family never came with
To church or on my spiritual journey.
It was my responsibility to save their souls form eternal hellfire.
"Don't you love them? Don't you want them with you in paradise?"
Of course I did. I tried to tell them
But their expressions were condescending,
Like they knew something I didn't about the world.
But God wants to save them. God loves everyone.
Or does he?
Slowly there was less talk of love and forgiveness
More of sin, atonement, and apologies.
"You lied to your mother, Victoria?"
She rapped my hands with the bible
And looked down at me with disappointment in her eyes.
"You know God wants you to be sorry, but it's not enough."
She drilled it into me in increasingly violent ways.
The manifestations of my sins and their atonements became more.
More physical and more mental.
More and more rules piled up.
More and more sins piled up.
More and more lessons and meetings occur between us.
I read the entire bible. I memorized verse after verse.
I became passionate about helping others,
But instead of soup kitchens and fundraisers
We spent more time outlining everyone who would burn.
Gays, feminists, other religions, different denominations, Me.
"You don't deserve God's love and yet he gives it to you. Are you grateful?"
"You can't preach or teach, you will find a man one day who will help you."
"Hold out your arms."
Until one day found me sitting on the edge of my roof.
Wondering what it would be like if I was in hell.
Wondering if I was gone would anything be different.
Wondering how I could prove myself.
I climbed back in through the window and picked up a hammer.
The one my dad used, but never to fix things, before he left.
I laid down on my bed and slammed it into my ribs
Once. Twice. Three times.
Tears ran down my cheek
while I gasp quietly.
*Is it enough yet?

I broke my deep plum plump up lip gloss container today.
It was just long enough to fit in my hand and stick out just that little bit,
And just thick enough that when I gripped it tight
and slammed it into my thighs over and over and over
it left pretty pink circular marks along the cellulite.
Those marks gained in number until I was staring,
breathless and trembling, at a bruise the size of a softball.
I took another breath and hit myself one more time
and the plastic broke covering my hand and leg
in that dark purple colour I would see in a few hours
but in a much more lasting shade this time.
I threw the gloss into the bin inside the bathroom stall
wiped the mess up with toilet paper
and traced the bumps beneath my skin
Mad because I had to punish myself, but also
Mad because my brain told me I deserve it.

The scene was casual for its inhabitants but an unholy terror for his eyes
A carnival of violence and debauchery, ages 18 and up if you please!

Walk on in ladies and gentleman
You’re just in time to watch the show!
This circus is rated F for *******
And now its time for the new act.
Watch as the young thing we call
Serotonin Sam battles her demons
Armed only with her blustery attitude
And a .44 mm Magnum

Terrified, he stared on as she lifted the gun and pressed it to her temple
Her face was placid, serenely calm through one exhale and an explosion

When the smoke cleared the carnival disappeared
Replacing his fantasy of wild music and colors
With the faded pastel reality shrouded in darkness
She wasn’t gone quickly, she just became less
With each self-destructive move
She lost another piece of herself
And now instead of a vibrant girl
He listened as a ghost began to speak

“Can’t you feel me,” she whispered?
I came here to breathe words of derision in your ear
Take stock of where we are and react
Just like the sweet little boy you are

Give me your innocence, not much but it’ll do
I need it to lighten my heart and empty my brain
I’ve never had the will to do so much penance
I’m doing my best impression of oppression
And fertilizing the weeds that strangle you
I’ll need to drain you dry of wholesomeness
Come on babe, escape with me

“This isn’t you!” He screamed while the carnival colors and sounds return
Everywhere he looked he saw a different fun-house mirror version of himself

He turned and ran as fast as he could
Tripping on bags of peanuts, discarded prizes,
and popping a lost bag containing a lonely goldfish
He keeps running until a curtain smacks him in the face
And the scene is the same.
But he’s the one out there now.
How long can he regale the crowd?

The most comfortable and easiest relationship
I have ever had is with my own self-loathing.
It’s almost natural at this point to expect failures.
The whispered criticisms rise in my mind,
A crescendo of hatred and mutiny,
Quieted only by the sound of my door opening.
Soft footsteps shuffle across the carpet and ***** clothes
Stepping over unfinished homework
And an unraveling purple blanket made of yarn.
The din in my mind reminding me of faults,
Failures, stupid conversations I have had,
And every insecurity my subconscious can think of,
Stops completely as I feel the bed dip beneath your weight.
I wait, as still as I can be, for the feel of your hand on my hair,
Brushing it back, out of my eyes with a smile.

This one is for the doctor who called me “delicate”
I think I missed that word in the thick textbooks about disease I’ve seen
This is for the lab technician who lost not one but two vials of my blood
Because I really wanted to help that new nurse figure out veins again.
This is for the stupid slogans on the walls
A fichus with the word peace under it, I'm cured.
This is for the geriatric room with the low table they always put me in
An arthritis patient means elderly woman, right?
This is for the negative tests and endless questionnaires about my health
Checking how often, how severe, and how much I care.
This is for the four empty orange prescription bottles sitting neatly on my desk
Red pills, and yellow pills, and white ones, oh my!
This is for the loud groan of pain in the morning I make before I even wake
Because why shouldn’t my roommate wake up when I do?
This is for the symphony of my cracking joints and creaking bones
Because violently trembling when you walk up stairs is so very ****.
This is for the manic googling at 4 AM,
Does this symptom mean anything? Is it just a quirk or side affect?
This is for WebMd, bless their hearts,
Who think that sniffles mean polyps and headaches mean cancer.
This is for the flights upon flights of stairs I climb each day,
Cats are considered ****, is panting like a dog?
This is for the cramping and shaking hands everyday
Because as a writer and artist I never even use them right?
This is for my mother
Who’s waited patiently with me through every doctor’s visit
This is for my best friend Lauren
Who missed three classes to take me to a clinic
This is for my nephew
Who is too big for me to pick up without grimacing now
This is for the wine I drank
And the bedroom basement I climb out of
And the backpack I heave around
And the school lunches I leave in toilets
It’s for the nights I have to stay in and the ones where I make myself leave
Because the only thing tough enough to stop me
Is me.
And I’ll tip my hat to myself for putting up such a good challenge.
It’ll just make it even more satisfying when I knock it the **** down.

I’m more like a flower than a person.
I’m wilting, losing my petals, drying up.
I’m in a vase with others, and they seem to be doing fine.
They are blooming in vibrant shades of pink and red
With proud leaves catching the sun from a window near by.
They let off fragrant fumes to passers by
And everyone stops to look at the gift nature has given.
But then they notice the small dying flower near the back
And think, that should be pruned out
It would improve the over all look of the arrangement.

But maybe I am run away with this metaphor.
I am more like a china doll than a person.
I am fragile, painted, and stationary.
People see me and they know I have no real purpose
I cannot be played with, like other dolls
I cannot be taken around the world as a child’s companion,
I must sit preserved on the safety of a high up shelf.
A toy for children that can never fulfill its purpose
Because to do so would break me.

Or maybe I am more like the old pictures of an ex
The ones you keep hidden under your mattress.
I am only viewed and handled when you are lonely,
When no one else is giving you attention I am your last resort.
But when you look at me you remember why we no longer see each other
Why I am a memory rather than a lover.
I am too much work to be anything other than a smile
One that says things used to be good
But now call for us to be apart

Possibly I am like a song you have heard so many times it makes you sick.
The one you used to love, played over and over when you felt blue,
But eventually you realized my lyrics were contrived
And my message irritating, my beat not that catchy.
When you hear me now you think, ugh, more of this?
You still know all of the words,
You just wish that you didn’t, because my song means nothing to you now.
My beat is a reminder of a phase in your life,
One you don’t wish to revisit.

I could be more like that hamster you got in the 8th grade.
The one that seemed adorable with its fluffy hair and tiny nose,
Until you realized how much work I am,
How our relationship was one sided with all the work falling to you.
Cleaning my cage, feeding me, bathing me,
And doing everything you do for yourself, for me as well.
And it just wasn’t what you signed up for,
So after a few months of boredom you let me die,
And held the little funeral for appearances sake.

I am more like my illness than I am like a real person,
Or at least at times it seems I am to you.
I need more help than most people,
I can’t go out all the time like most people.
I need rest, and need breaks, I need a helping hand
To prevent my body from falling apart.
So I think maybe the metaphors are pointless,
Because you are tired of me complaining
And you aren’t listening to me anymore.

Blackened and blued flesh fades to green and yellow
but more will bloom beneath the skin soon.
Bruises from crazy nights out with strangers and *****,
or wild nights in with new friends (read: not yours) and ***,
and I never know when they appear, but I watch them disappear.

Nearly clear ***** lines the bag in my trash
with paraphernalia of alcoholism littered on top.
Bottles and cans and disposable $1.99 shot glasses
layered between Chinese take out and a broken six inch heel pump.
The smell might bother me if I was home more.

I haven't met the mornings for coffee
in what seems like years, instead I stumble inside
lay on a stained mattress surrounded by clothing
and sleep it off. It used to be different,
but without anyone to stop me, why not live it up?

There is no reason to slow down any more.
I have new friends and new hobbies
and I've nearly forgotten your face now.
So why should I stop, when my new plans
The ones without you, are going accordingly?

There is no real problem with enjoying my youth,
and if you disagree let me take you out with me.
You're the one who told me to grow up
when I said, "I love you." and if I choose not to,
I'll leave you at the bottom of whatever drink I choose.
There's no real problem with enjoying my youth, right?

I fell in love the way only a young 20-something can.
So completely and so fully that it encompasses your whole being
and grabs your heart with a fist the size of a watermelon
squeezing with the strength of a horse
one in the last leg of a race to prove it's worth to the stadium.

Your heart was not seized with mine,
and you stared into my eyes feeling empty- both in reality and inside.
You brought apologetic smiles and guilty shifting eyes
to my swollen heart like a paltry offering to an angry god,
One who has already scorched the earth.

I love you. And you don't love me. And you don't love yourself.
And inside your body are piles of self-loathing left like laundry,
you won't let me in to clean or organize your mind, heart, soul.
Inside my body are piles of hurt, sadness, and anger,
but you can leave them be, leave them for me to heal and cry over.
You don't have to help me or even let me help you, just let me love you.

If the stars burning the brightest die out the fastest  
I think I’ll live forever on the edge, right at the precipice
Where the sense of success is too sharp to be sweet.
Moving my feet in place with no imagined progress
Picturing eternity here, with you and I entwined.

Forever at the brink of ******, still and staring in the street
While lives like asymptotes and moves like glaciers meet.
Denying myself the satisfaction, the decadence
Of falling. Falling and flying, crying to know I’m alive,
Realizing exactly how much there is to do before the end.  

Like stagnant waters running deep and hot
Slow down with me and feel this bright tension
Feel that intense stillness right before you get caught.
I’m melting your moves to molasses,
Become a statuesque beauty with me wrapped around you

Like ruins of old cities and the ragged edge of a canyon
We’ll be perfect and timeless in our immobile state
Never changing, perpetually frozen and preserved,
Never reaching the point where any motion brings the end.
We can stay at the top and never fall down if we don’t even breathe.

I’m naked again, why I am always the naked one?
As I shift back and forth and listen to my joints pop,
And feel my muscles strain and spasm like an internal tick tock
Measuring how long I’ve been sitting here with each twitch.
White paper lining is crinkling under my ***
And all I can think about is the number of *****
Of all shapes and sizes that have sat here before I did,
Waiting for the doctor to come in and interrupt
Me reading all about how to tell if I have a hernia
Or looking at a distended bladder diagram.
“Hello miss, what can we do for you today?”
Oh I don’t know could you maybe give me my pants back
And pretend I’m not the thousandth **** you’ve seen this week.
Just some stripped down body you examine like a mechanic with an engine.
I watch as she catalogues the winces and delayed reflexes,
Searching for sensitive points and any patch of skin
With the telltale rough marker of Auto-immune.
The medication conversation lasts a while,
And she mixes up a new cocktail for me for the fifth time.
We talk about my life habits, “I’m totally quitting smoking.”
But I’m not. I febreezed myself before I came in.
We talk about how my body is doing like it is separate from me,
Like it’s some entity that ruins my day and hers on purpose.
It is always the same ****. I can practically quote her.
“Well, the test results were inconclusive.”
“Another cautionary breast exam.”
“Lets try the strength test again.
Are you even trying today?”
I am, and I can tell she’s worried, but in an abstract way
Like you’d worry about whether or not war will break out in Dubai.
It’s always the same scene, and I am always the naked one,
Whether I have my clothes on or not.

I could feel the gentle snag of my bathing suit bottoms on cement,
Enjoying the sliver of shade against the afternoon sun that’s offered.
All six of us had been running home ready to change and watch cartoons,
Until labored breathing slowed you down. I stayed to keep you company, and
I watched and waited while you fought your feet back into their bracers.
Pretty, purple, and pink; they fit perfectly into your shoes, swim or sneakers;
Without them your painfully high arches would end up broken or bruised.
I turned away to stare down at a pair of black men’s dress shoes with worn laces.

I stared down at those worn laces wondering why they were so old, and
In those impeccably new black patent dress shoes reflecting my face.
I let my eyes slowly drift up the length of this man, every inch a new perspective.
I couldn’t understand where he’d come from or what he was doing, and
What’s his shirt say? We won’t learn more cursive until next year at least.
I’m cold. My eyes are no longer straining against the sun. Goosebumps erupt.
I’m snapped from the retreat into my mind with a sound it couldn’t mask,
I looked to you, then up to his hands brandishing your bracer, I’d heard it crack.

I took stock of my surroundings to figure out why my mind had shut down,
I was fully awake and racing to catch up, to rescue us, to find a solution.
You can’t defend yourself with a broken bracer and your swimsuit on the ground.
I pulled my suit into place, armoring myself against him, and tried to think.
Before my mind was made up I felt my foot rising to kick, hoping to catch some *****
While you bit his arm with the same ferocity you generally reserved for your teachers.
You spat out his blood and what looked like some flesh with a maniacal laugh
While I grabbed your arm and dragged you away from him and back home.

I will keep you; stuff you in a corner of my mind
Wrapped tightly like a Christmas present
Hidden as badly as my mother used to,
Like putting them on a top shelf will do.
The memories are dear to me and near to me,
But I refrain from examining them just yet.
I will leave them secluded and ostracized
Like the kids who play Dungeons and Dragons,
Like the girls who wear boy’s t-shirts,
From the clearance section in Wal-Mart.
Eventually I will be able to dust them off,
Take you out of your mental Auschwitz
Where I’ve thought, even if I tried not to
That maybe I was wrong about you and me.
Maybe my constant rambling, like the announcers,
The ones in Airports, repetitively shouting
Rules! Regulations! Announcements! Things!
Maybe that really got on your nerves.
Maybe things were always imbalanced and awkward.
I’ve built plenty of utopias in my mind,
Ignoring the reality of a situation until it ends.
But I’m not going to know for a while now
Whether or not I was right and you were wrong,
Or I was wrong and you were wrong.

I remember it distinctly
That feeling under my nails
The tearing of skin as I ripped away the tape
And shredded the sheet of waxy paper
That separated me from the seeing everything clearly
And living in the world fully with everyone else

I remember the demolition vividly
Where I screamed and kicked at my self-imposed cage
Desperate for an escape from therapeutic exile
“It’s for your own safety!” they cried dully from the other side
I remember purposefully ignoring them
And even making a ****** gesture

I left and I left with haste
I didn’t stop to admire the splendor
Or even discover color again
Walking out into the real world with no film
I took in a deep breath of reality
Alone and alive and free at last, once again

Now, though, as I remember the paper
That sheet that veiled me, or was it protecting me
I remember the outside
It was scratched and mottled and ****** up beyond all saving
And I think about my new face, my new expressions
And I see a reflection of others and choices I didn’t make

I’ve become things and done things
Things you couldn’t tell your mother
Lost my chance to run for cover
So come on down the liquid sings
My warmth is like no other

With a flick of my worn down lighter I ignite my last Marlboro
The noises echoing from inside my house fell like a pulsing beat
I lay back, dried grass pillowing my head near a rabbit burrow
Pulling in a deep breath of smoke I hold in the menthol treat

My mother’s shrill laugh trills out and shakes me from my reverie
I really must rejoin people; leave my place in the clouds at night
But just for awhile I stay and let my bones soak in the lunar energy
Before I leave I memorize my connection to nature, my place in it’s light

Inside those walls my relaxation slides from my body, gently numbing me
Creating a world in which I’ll never feel panicked or elated
They live within my bubble of joy, I console them, and they are free
And never have to live with the knowledge that I’m sedated.

I can feel warm blood drip down my muzzle
Painting my fur with that gorgeous crimson
There’s nothing like the fresh ****
That snap and crack of bone and cartilage
Taking down the prey and owning their body
Opening them up and watching their eyes fade
Until it’s just me and dinner

The chase isn’t the best part
The best part is when you pounce
When you know you are going to win
Because the predator inside has to
The call to run, to feed more, to ****,
It’s what makes a wolf, what makes me powerful
The thrumming in my veins that says
I was made for this, was made to hunt

Racing through the forest
My muscles tensing and relaxing as I run
Faster than anything else in here
I can smell every little bunny and squirrel
Shivering with the knowledge that I run this place
There is no escaping me, no way out
And I will always find you

Irony of perception and existence
The supposed gift of humanity
Able to live with and without meaning
A drone with the capabilities of a king

Feels more and more like a curse
Like an ant who saw through God’s eyes
Viewing every beauty and terror and complexity
If only for a short moment

Then shrinking back down to carry sugar
But always remembering the sight
Moving saccharine treats wearily
With the heavy burden of knowledge

Which bred distaste for simplicity
Which bred scorn for complexity
Making life on either plane a cross
And one he must bear alone

I'm splitting at the seams and bursting out of my own body
but I don't feel like a butterfly escaping a cocoon.
My flesh is ripping apart as fat fills up my every available space
like a child blowing up a balloon until it pops in his face
Angry red lightning bolts appear to try and hold me together
This female mockery of Zeus' power won't keep me from exploding
I could take my athame and cut those crimson valleys in my thighs
deeper and deeper until there is no cocoon to break free from
my bones will escape and dance in Diana's fields
before cracking apart and showering each gust of wind with dust

What I want from you,
what I need to see and feel from you
at this moment,
isn't what you'd think.

I don't want to hold your hand, sharing a book in the other
while we read Frost or T. S. Elliot.
To be embraced, to breathe you in like the scent of home.
To **** all night long and not stop even after I can feel shivers wrack your body.  
Because none of it has ever been real.
Not for you.

You lied to me.
Not with words but with your expressions.
Your silent smiles,
your quiet support was a safety blanket,
ratty and warm with age.

Your eyes pooled with compassion,
you brushed my hair back held back the loneliness
when I lay on your bed shivering with fever.
But on another day, when I lay there resting and well,
you told me to get out.
To leave you alone and stay away.

You exiled yourself
and punished yourself.
Buried your body and mind in your work.
And when you ripped yourself from me
it looked effortless.

I want proof you aren't a robot.
I want to rip at your skin with my nails, really dig in,
to prove you can be hurt.
I want to pry that grin from your lips,
and wring blood from your lying mouth.
I want to press bruises into your skin,
But this time not with my kiss.

Now when we come and go
From each other's lives and from each other's beds
There is warmth, comfort,
But at the center of what is and what will be
nothing is there.
I'm reaching across a gaping void while you watch
and apathetically reach back
without really trying.

I was pathetic
I knew it and so did everyone else
I tried too hard and wanted too much
To be liked, appreciated, noticed, or even spoken to
I could practically hear the internal monologue of the people I talked to
“God why is she here?” “She never shuts up!”
But I could feel it, deeply and vibrantly; I could be a great friend
I had the potential! I knew I could do it.
Until finally I met someone who genuinely enjoyed me
Someone who thought I was smart, funny,
And his eyes didn’t glaze over when I talked
And I did talk, endlessly about things like comics and books and cigarettes
I can still remember the beginning of that instant camaraderie
Its painted with the electric blue of his band t-shirts
Stained with the heavy scent of his grape cigars
And dotted with trips out on the town
But the universe must know about me
Because on a balmy summer night, right after the start of the school year,
Like the one we’d met in a year before
He was electrocuted, fell fifty feet, and announced dead on arrival
And even for someone who’d be friends with a girl like me
That seemed like overkill

The dawn of a new day feels suspended
In time, and glues these eyes like sandpaper
To the light. But my day hasn’t ended.
I grip the grass and wait at the suns leisure.

Breathing deeply I find myself just waiting
In the noon-sun with my skin pink and warm.
All of the weight from before abating
Like with each breath I exhale a small storm.

I want. I wait. I writhe among the weeds.
This morning is mine to use as I please.

He used to hit us.
Not too much though,
Only a little.
I was too loud.
I took up all the space.
He hated it.

I’m still loud now,
But it’s different.
Now I know why
The words still spill out
Even when I’ve nothing to say.
I remember that feeling
of a chain on my voice box.

I still jump at every loud noise, they seem to follow me,
Echoing around the streets, screaming at me.
But it is that fear of the unknown keeps me safe, sharp.
And when a hand grasps my shoulder on the sidewalk outside a bakery
I snap. Pull and twist it behind their back, forcing them to their knees
Before noticing it’s just Andy, but I still don’t feel too sorry. I can’t.
He should know better that to sneak up on me like that by now.

I pull at this skin and globular fat that clings to my bones
I rip at my brown locks like I’m weeding a garden
I scrub my skin till shallow crimson rivers fall from my flesh,
Brush my teeth till the red seas part my gums. Not still, but now.
It makes it worth the past, if you can improve your present.
If you can mature enough to realize that what happened,
Happened for a reason, one you’ve plucked out of your life.
Or one you’ve learned to embrace and apply with confidence.

I’ve seen you twice since it happened
And each time you looked away so fast
I thought your neck might snap,
Like my face burned your retinas.
Am I so disgusting to you now
That the sight of me turns your stomach?
Am I so repulsive to you now
That sharing a space induces nausea?
You looked at me, in that brief moment
Like you’d look at a piece of road ****.

The words “I love you” scared you
So much so that you left my life entirely.
When I spoke those words without thinking
I didn’t know this would happen
That you’d pretend we never met,
And when you saw me on occasion
I’d make you feel so sick.

I told you it was fine, I was fine.
I could be your friend no matter the circumstance,
But the horror you felt at the mere idea
That I wanted to be with you
Ruined and overturned our friendship.

I can feel my heart-rate skyrocket
every time you touch my hair,
and every time you laugh at my jokes
it beats hard enough to burst.
And when you're gone you occupy my thoughts
whether I want you to or not.

Each time I feel a blush rush to my cheeks
or my hands tremble nervously,
I feel that flurry of school girl emotions
followed by a sick swooping feeling
deep in my stomach and up through my chest.
And its all I can to not to get ill.

You don't want me the way I want you
but its enough, more than enough for me,
and more than I ever thought I'd get.
I could never be mad at you.
The more I see of you the more I like,
whether I want to or not.