Woman is a title that comes with too many consequences shoved into the spaces between each letter. I have worn it proudly, not fully understanding the heaviness it carries, or exactly what it means. I still don’t.

Summer camp teaches me how to shave my legs when my mother neglects to. I am eleven, with hair on my skin barely long enough to pull out when my bunkmates coach me on how to erase it. "Boys don't like girls with prickly bodies," my counselor tells me confidently. I soon understand that to be woman means to be bare, stripped, and clean, always. Being woman means catching the changes of your morphing body before anyone else can point them out.

I am raised to keep secrets. We call the parts of ourselves that we aren't supposed to talk about private. I learn to be silent in more ways than one.


Haley is my best friend. Together we uncover the mystery of womanhood untold. She loves a boy two years older than us and gives herself to him in his parked car outside her house during one of our many sleepovers. I listen as she confesses the details to my eager ears. We learn more about *** from each other than we do health class.  The information given out is too much and not enough at the same time. We are taught enough to do it, but not enough to ease our unknowingness.

Condoms are given out for free. Tampons are not.

Virginity was a concept we were told to maintain from early on. At 14 I want to get losing it over with so I do, with a boy two years older, in between his childhood sheets. I am high enough to blur the details, but not high enough to forget it happens.

I learn how to cauterize undesirable memory with substance, the way too many women do.

When a sophomore girl comes to school with a broken face, everyone is quiet. We all know about the fight, the pushing down the stairs, the bruising that swelled violently like her love for him. "I think he's even hotter now," I overhear someone say.

The first boy I ever love treats me like ****. I let him because that's how it works in the movies.

I love a straight girl with curly brown hair and a smile too much like summer. She kisses me and then tells me about whatever boy she is pursuing that week. It confuses me to no end.

Mia meets her first love when we are 17 and gives him all of her too soon. When he dumps her, I come over ready with a box of popsicles in hand.

We play with Polly Pockets well into our teenage years. The dolls live out dreams impossible for us to reach.

I realize vulnerability is not an option, but something we are born wearing.

A friend shows me how to keep my keys peeking through my knuckles at night. I hold them through scared fingers as I navigate the side streets necessary to get home.

Mom buys me glitter covered pepper spray, "because it's cute." I know her unsaid words and what she really means. "There are too many bad people in the world to not be cautious, you can never be too careful."

When a girl I don't know well is attacked in a back alley by strangers, we sit nervously the couch and talk about the terrifying reality, how bad we feel for her, and how awful it must be to go through something like that.

I call my best guy friend immediately after someone I know takes my body without permission. I explain the details to him of what happened, still shaking from the shock of it. I wait for his response, hoping for open arms ready to hold while I shatter. He sighs and says, "you should have been more careful." I don't counter. I shower three times in a row, tuck myself into the same bed where it happened, and pick up the cracked pieces of myself in the morning. I tell no one else after that.

**** is the punch line to too many jokes.
I don’t laugh.

In an anonymous thread, I read as people discuss the topic of ****** assault. My eyes lose count of how many times strangers say, "just because you regret it, doesn't mean it is ****." I have seen doubt ******* too many faces hearing the stories of survivors with dull eyes from telling theirs over and over again to people who will never believe them. Their truth is taken with a shot of uncertainty.
They ask, "Why survivor? Why not victim?"
They say, “It doesn’t **** you, you’re not a survivor.”
I want to answer that survival is a choice made in the aftermath of destruction, that we either chew our way through the broken glass or swallow it whole, letting it break us from the inside out. I want to say survival is not as simple as we didn’t die. Survival is consciously refusing not to.
Instead I say nothing.

I know girls with too many piercings and tattoos because they had run out of room on their small bodies to let out any more anger. I watch darkness fill their skin with its reminder, young girls who know pain all too well.

A man on the street calls out to me. I shake my head quietly because I'm afraid of the bomb my response could set off. I have seen too many ticking men explode for me to want to fight back.

I learn about abortion when I am too young to understand it, too self-centered at the time to try to imagine the fear of unwanted growing inside of her. I have grown to understand the importance of choice.

A guy tells me that if a woman has *** with more than five guys in her lifetime, she's a *****.

Someone I hook up with shares with me about how his friends audio record their girlfriends during ***. He laughs, I shudder.

"Guys don’t like it when.."  is a tip I hear almost daily.  

School dress codes mark my shoulders unholy, my shorts too miniscule. I am sent to the principal's office in 10th grade when I refuse to change into a top that doesn't show my lower back. I ask what my body did to have to learn this kind of shame. I am suspended for the rest of the day.

Beauty pageants teach me that perfect woman is exactly what I am not.

My ex boyfriend calls me a ****.

My other ex boyfriend calls me crazy. I’ve learned that crazy is synonymous with “she had an opinion that did not align with mine.”

In my college lecture we talk about the origins of hysteria, remembering how women in history had their voices twisted into insanity. I think about how often “calm down” is used as a modern-day-tranquilizer.

Us weekly tells me every week, in one too many advertisements, how to lose weight.

My campus paper posts an ad for breast augmentation deals. "Get spring break ready."

The size of my chest is too much a reflection of my brain’s capacity.

Being woman means too much in a language I do not fully understand. It is skin and bones, it is raw and blood, it is a mouth filled with words unsaid, it is fear and worry, it is an unspoken connection between us all, it is 75 cents to a dollar, less for those of color, it is censored body, it is *******, it is being too much to handle, it is being equated with less, it is we are the same but we are not treated so, it is we are human in a world we call man’s, it is we have been struggling under the waves for centuries, it is not drowning, it is still swimming, always

I cleansed the knife
you stabbed in my back
and cauterized
my bleeding wounds
with it.

Sometimes I flip through picture albums,
to remember the days,
a familiar face.
They are kindling for my wavering fire,
anything to keep the flame alight.

Hot coals singe the ends of memories,
cauterize them before they bleed away.
What I would give,
to breathe that days air again.

here’s the damnedest thing about “hopeless romantics”:

they’ll splinter their own bones into kindling
to build the fire that warms you,
as if putting a match to their insides
might cauterize the wounds
left behind by the greedy lovers and too-rough hands
that set their hearts to bleeding in the first place

you see, the poets spared no pains when they dubbed
the especially romantic “the hopeless”

they are hopelessly betrothed to the warfare,
the burning insanity
of a soul madly in love with love—
the way the heart rages against the brain.

I was rudely awakened in a strange but curious daze
from the pungent smell of scorched flesh.
I could hear the treacherous screams ricocheting all around me.
Only able to squint,
I noticed there were peculiar, lithe shadows motioning for me behind the radiant haze.
To the best of my recollection,
I cannot recall my sudden arrival nor my invitation.
I asked myself, what...am I doing here?
As I slowly gazed around the room,
I noticed a ghostly figure approaching me.
It was a woman…
A woman of beauty came to me.
Suddenly I was mesmerized.
When I caught her eyes,
she cauterized my wounds from all perpetual, impending doom.
I softly asked her if we had met before.
She smiled and gently replied,
...."yes."

mime,give me flowers in the dark
paint me a picture of gods
make me someone holy
when im dead i hope you cauterize the hole in your chest
sorry about the mess we left,sorry about the apple tree,sorry about the taste in your mouth
i hope its not too bitter for you
is this the part where i apologize for ripped sheets on a bed that never belonged to me in the first place?
sorry,sweetheart,sorry that i wasnt the right narcissistic ***** for you
is this the part where you mutilate a french love song?i hope it all works out for you
i hope you find an ax buried in the coffin underneath the apple tree
i hope you use it to demolish my house,i hope you find my corpse
and i hope you cauterize the hole in your chest

1.
there's a gun in your hand that doesn't belong there, a windmill where your heart should be
painting on the inside of someone else's skull screaming "i don't give a ****"
did your voice break? OH MY GOD YOU DISEASE
YOU GREAT UNDERESTIMATER, YOU FILTH
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TURN A PERSON INTO A JACK-O-LANTERN
scooping out seeds for your masters degree
"new advances in science every day" can you smell the ink drying on the back of your wrist
ghost stories arent the same thing as ghosts
"why do hospitals think white is calming" and other laments
sorry, i mean bulletholes
sorry, i mean manmade caverns, tunnels built for metal to crawl its way out of membrane
question: what kind of science experiment requires a human corpse
answer:
answer:
answer:
you will never understand the answer to this question.you will never understand why someone stands up in their seat, screaming "i don't give a ****"
its raining outside.its raining outside.seven of your family members are lying in trash heaps,limbs discarded
and you don't know this yet
but it wasn't my fault.it wasn't me this time (stop looking at me like that
tail clenched tight between your teeth
you smell like a swamp,oh god)
choking to death on someone else's blood: typical.you're a cliche
this has happened before, hasn't it?we were murdered before,
but you don't remember that, or you do but youre pretending not to.tend to
your wounds, lick the blood.
papercuts are a gateway drug
you used to be something pretty.shiny and unkempt,
pretty and a ***** kinda clean:i wanna rip my own throat out
carve triangles in the pit of my stomach so
at least part of me will know how to smile.
clawing at yr eyes like itll make the flies go away
its in their nature
god,what kind of monster are you
what kind of beast.
everything you know up in flames:wither
do you know how fast human bodies decay?welcome to wormfood.welcome to paradise
coughing up tar and feathers "you came prepared"
for what?for an execution?happy doomsday
punch the wall.rub your knuckles.try again
make it bruise
****** and mangled, paint chips cutting off your circulation
YOU JUST NEVER KNOW WHEN TO QUIT DO YOU
youre so kind.thanks for everything,thanks for
the hollow chest,thanks for
****** fists
(you knew this would happen eventually
can you even take a punch?can you even take a punch?)
severed conscience, or whatever it was.
"No One Will Miss You Anyway"
is that what theyre saying?
your nailbeds are sticky
soda and something sweeter and dirt
you had so much to live for,until you didn't
(isnt that what they all say?god,youre such a cliche.)
found dead or dying,isnt that how it goes
no one just drowns
"we have reason to believe--"
you can hear every star dying,all at once
kneeling in front of a toilet that starting to look a lot like you
theres a gun in your lap and a bullet in your head and you dont know which one to trust
this isnt your fault.this isnt your fault.
clean yourself up,god youre disgusting.
how to say your name without choking on it
holding hands with a girl you never met
isnt this what its supposed to feel like?arent you supposed to feel full?
emptiness is your native language.the hollow space in your body echoes back at you
chimneysweep swallowing dust clouds,brushing their teeth with acid and magellanic galaxies
JUST STOP, SHUT YOUR MOUTH, GOD IM TIRED LISTENING TO THE SOUND OF YOUR SCREAMS
paranoia is smooth, blurry around the edges:
its not your fault you couldn't meet a deadline.

2.
war in your sheets and the soft folds of your belly
(and in the soles of your feet
i feel rough ground, rocks pricking into your skin
do you smell blood?)
not quite human, but vampires havent scared you for years
"**** me dry" can you taste it yet, can you feel the fear crawling up out of your stomach
your throat is so empty, a cavern without bats
stalactite secrecy pooling at your feet: this is what it feels like to be alone
sorry about the mess we made
sorry about the paint on the walls
scrubbing glitter into your arms,rubbing skin raw and red
arent you pretty? arent you pretty?
tombs cracking, mausoleums wishing for more graves to dig
havent you robbed enough for one lifetime
write eulogies for people who havent died yet,this is your calling
arent you pretty?
WHITE NOISE ON REPEAT, 10 HOURS
boxed wine stinking up the trunk of your car
(well,that and something else)
dont feel sorry for me darling
you say my name like it’s killing you,and maybe it is
thanks for the flowers and the card,what kind of greek tragedy is this
are you tired? are you tired?
what a spectacle
you,lying on a bed that doesnt belong to you,dying without permission(How Rude!)
dionysian struggle,and look,now the wine’s spilt over everything
i told you this would happen
what a pretty train wreck you are!2:30 am,still alive,
god youre bleeding on everything,how rude.how rude.
heart cut out and beating three thousand miles away under your mothers bed
oh,sweetheart
YOU KNEW IT WOULD END LIKE THIS,dissociating,can you feel the earth bend away from you?
what a demon
crust,mantle,core,screaming at the sight of you
when was the last time you believed in magic,hands on thighs
walls of the abandoned building screaming back in your face
(“i don’t give a ****” like someone can hear you
like someone cares enough to listen)
a broken Bic lighter/someone else’s EpiPen/a ****** handkerchief, shoved in the pocket of a jacket you dont remember buying.
wrapped up like holy things and you think maybe they were one time
“******* with no end” god youre so cool arent you?how edgy,how punk.how grotesque, the mess on your hands.
shouting your **** streak in the dead of night
is that supposed to impress us?are you putting on a show?Holy Prophet
here to forgive your sins
a woman sitting across from you is bleeding and you imagine swallowing her hands whole
“just let them win this time” how sweet of you,how kind!
this isnt my fault.this isnt my fault.
im just a corpse,remember?i hope you regret every part of this
i hope you choke on her fingers and i hope you die
MY GOD IT MAKES ME LAUGH
painted in the image of god:how funny.how sweet.what a nice thought
you called me a weapon like it was supposed to mean something
like it ever did

3.
mistaken king centuries old stepping on Holy feet
(can you see him?pressed up against the grass trying to disappear
god, what a ******* poseur)
frostbite kissing you,what a nice sentiment
crying with joy as it curls around you
“you just gotta be numb to it, you know?”
please marry me, oh god, i’m in love with you
my heart beats thirty feet out of my chest when im around you (that’s what love means, right)
you feel it ripping you apart,glory
smell stardust in the air and then stomp it out
it never mattered that much anyway,or at least that’s what
you tell yourself
you move like it’s your death wish, like “better here than somewhere else”, like
they taught you how to bleed in all
the right ways.on cue. on cue.
broken telephone wires/that Bic lighter, again/a pile of pumpkin seeds digging
into the palm of your hand
How To Cauterize An Open Wound
torn skin, and blood, and maybe some of your intestines, too
stick knives in your stomach(look, we match!)
there’s still a gun in your hand and it’s smoking and you don’t remember firing it (but that’s
okay, isn’t it? this has to be okay)
you built a shipyard in your ribcage,sent sailors off
to die in your throat
choking on a swarm of ******* bees
youre so cool arent you?youre so cool arent you?
you feel the ***** coming up ten years before it actually does, feel your stomach
bloating,the stench of it all
terrariums bleeding onto the streets, how ugly.what a putrid sight.
youre missing teeth,mouth gaping open
stubbed and ****** where nothing new ever grew in,
don’t know know that hate breeds hate
precious metals ooze off your tongue, join the parade! fall into
a stupor,
collect your wits and die,just die.
“i’m sorry for your loss” written on twenty different greeting cards, did you
think i wouldnt know it was you?
i bruise so easily and you know this, even with a gun breathing heavy against your ribcage.lace spiderwebs
around your neck and pull them tight this time
lighting fires with one hand,putting them out
with the other
YOU’RE SUCH A ******* MARTYR
YOU GRANDIOSE *******
your shoes are too tight, your toes are turning blue,
and i’m still in love with you even though
i don’t even know who you are anymore
god, im a cliche
does that make you happy?
god, i hope it does
you tell me, “poems are supposed to have a rhythm”
smiling like i just said something funny
i’m sorry about the dead flowers.im sorry about that night in the living room.
sorry for the things i said.
the feeling of being in motion/radiation vibrating across your tongue/a handful of snow
listen to the church choir singing--
in. out. dead. it wasnt your-slash-my fault
you say it outloud:
“your-slash-my”, the only way you can tether yourself
to something else.
someone is digging into the small of your back (ill
give you a hint:its me)
can you feel the talons? you take off your clothes, press
your body to the concrete
let the frost build on your spine,your fingers,your
legs
kiss the spool of ants where your ear used to be
swallow hard.
o, songbird! o, thrush!
the mellow winter calling (your mouth
curves around the word vociferous like you cant breathe without it--
this was always my favorite part)
“who told you the ending” and you say
god,  i just knew.
holy, holy, holy, swept off the palm of your hand like dust
rusty spoons and nails And Other Artifacts pooling at your feet
***** with revenge, or desire, or both.
[ SEVEN HOLLOW CHAPELS SINGING ABOUT LONELINESS ]
dont bury this too.not the bibelots, not the science experiments, not the smoking gun
carving itself into your palm
you will forget the ships on the horizon, the feel of someone else’s stomach beneath your hands, your tongue, your skin.
all these things, too: she said.

We are laughing while passing a bottle back and forth between the two of us
Our breath reeks of nicotine vapor and the remnants of marijuana mixed with whisky
I down half a bottle of Maker’s Mark and you ask how it is I am able to do so with such ease
I tell you it isn’t difficult and it isn’t
I want to add that swallowing bitterness is much more pleasant on one's own terms but I do not say this part aloud
Instead I act like my insensitivity to alcohol is a skill not relevant to a family history of addiction
Built from uncles and fathers using liquid as a method to cauterize open flesh
A mechanism of numbing that has been passed down for years as casually as a recipe
We keep our secrets tacked onto hard labels and the inner caps of beer bottles
We antique our inheritance with the reminder that it has always been this way
This ability to drown myself under the weight of high content is nothing more than expectation
I make wine to water the moment it reaches my tongue
I convert drunken slurs to a language understood
I know sour breath more than I do mild
I didn’t learn drinking from beer pong and taking shots
I didn’t learn how to from games at parties and competition
I didn’t learn it as an activity or an outlet, I learned it as a habit turned routine
I was introduced to liquor with the same hand that walked me to school everyday
With the same lips that kissed me goodnight
This comprehension for the intoxicated soul is as engrained as my predisposition to become one
The only thing impressive about this relationship with alcohol will be how I choose to survive it,
Not all of us have.

leaving you didn’t feel how I thought it would
someday maybe I’ll let go of this half assed serendipity
if I broke your heart I’m sorry but what else could I do
my hands are tied against this brick wall this music in my ears almost makes me think
that someday all my ends will be tied off
(in the meantime I will wait and unravel)
if you ask me what I want I won’t have an answer
if I tell you the truth there is some part of me (all of me) you’ll have to let go
tonight I will paint myself into the highway and try
to hold on to these silver strings that haunt me in the night
I am a mesh of fraying edges of threads unfurled
as I tumble through these stagnant streets their weavings come undone
you should know by now not to believe me
next time I tell you I met the sky leaving you tell me I’m full of it
leave me instead
because until I’m drowning in this deep blue horizon I know
I’ll never feel like it’s over
(I should know by now I’m not enough for this)
they say inside me is a swarm of locusts they talk about me like a tempest
(I should know by now this life is bitter and I’m too ragged
too much) I’m sorry if I broke your heart but what else could I do
tonight I will sit quiet
and the night will bear down upon me while I cut the calluses from my fingertips
these sheets are stained with blood my hands are numb and treacherous
maybe someday lightning strikes will cauterize my mouth and
tonight I will paint myself into my bed posts until I can let go
there’s a whole world outside and it’s vicious
you can say I loved you as long as it means I broke you too
I was born into scrambling hands too rough too tired to be untouched
as I stumble through these dying streets my insides come undone
(I should know by now I’m too rugged, too much
the wake of my body will tear this turf asunder)
I’m sorry if I broke your heart but what else could I do
maybe someday my acid tongue will cauterize you
maybe this low key atrophy will simmer long enough
to bring me full circle
you should know by now not to believe me
and I should know by now what’s real

Poets, like doctors, know the anatomy of suffering... tearing the paper with rusty carving knives...

We see scarlet scratches and eggplant colored bruises on every square inch of foolscap... we open scars with words... stainless steel scalpels which we never sanitize...

We perform open heart surgery with blunt instruments... We cauterize the wounds with coals of Fire...

We are civil war sawbones, removing the gangrenous leg to save the body... Carrying out our task with whiskey bottle anaesthesia.

So have a care... The Doctor Is In.


SoulSurvivor
(C) 5/30/2016

you need not ask me who i am fighting for
my dear, we know the outcome.
i transformed from victim to victor
and still, you see me wounded.
Bleeding from seemingly self-inflicted injury,
it was you who held the knife all along.
Cuts will cauterize,
scars will form and hide behind my sleeves
the same way you mask yourself in alcohol
and kiss anyone you see.

and now i dont even ******* know how to care for myself because i was never told this could happen to me,
i wasnt supposed to get sick. i wasnt supposed to get sick.
all my clipped nails, my chipped teeth piling up like letters at an empty house,
spilling from the mailbox, a papercut waterfall.
the car sputters & stops. the pen scratches without ink and i try to read what a different version of me wrote,
what a younger self thought was poetry.
my mouth is empty but my pockets are full -
pepper spray/my tía's ring/a lighter i never use.
a lighter kept for strangers, for burning dry leaves, old letters,
my own tongue because blisters make it feel fuller, less hollow.
skinny lips, strong teeth, black tongue sharp and sleeping.
never had a cavity.never broke a bone.bandaging my feet before the blisters form, what do i do now?
you took my hand.
you took my hand.
you took my ******* hands. in a california summer,
dry golden grass like a wildfire dare, you said please don't leave me,
it's drought season and i'm choking on my spit,
you're taking all the rings off my fingers. you're swallowing my tía's ring.
does it taste like her cigarettes?does it taste like my sweat?
ive been thinking about you, you've been on my mind:
how do you burn a sunken bridge?
its broken but the the pieces lie heavy below the water,
twisting the current.
how do you open a letter five years unread?
avoided/ignored/forgotten as it slides onto the floor.i'm so afraid that ill never respond,
lay here till i petrify, a living thing turned stone.macerated in my own ******* self-pity,
dripping blame from gaping pores. you did this to me, you broke me,
you poured lead in my ears you left me deaf and afraid, i just want to feel absolved,
it's not my fault im sick. its not my fault i cant fix myself, its not my fault i dont try -
to try and fail is worse than to surrender before it starts.
excise the shame, cauterize the wound.call it a battle scar,
a mark of bravery and survival,
not a coward's brand, not the mark of cain.
killed your brother. slaughtered your counterpart, your mirror image,
an alternate you where you made different choices,
the ones that made you a good person and not a tumor,
bloated scourge in what could have been a healthy life.
empty fortress decayed behind the walls, i didnt build these to keep you out, i swear,
i just wanted to flesh myself out.
boundaries building up an empty breath,
making me appear more than i am, feel greater than i could ever be, but when you get inside there's nothing.
that's not my fault.thats not my fault. some people are born forests,
vast expanse of redwoods, moss softening the air;
some people are born exhales.
breathed out and dissipated.  
less than a lack.taking nothing; making only a still room,
stuffy air encased like innards; its funny how just a sigh can make me feel like im faking it
even though im the only one there,
even though i can still feel the ache in my skull,
eyelashes stuck to the palms of my hands.how does it feel not doubting life?
how does it feel to know in five seconds, air will swell your chest again?im on unsure footing,
a crumbling ***** (i know its just me.i know im being paranoid,
chill out you said i held my breath while you climbed dont fall dont fall oh god)
when did this happen?who poured fear into me like
swampwater in a wineskin,
never feared falling when i was young.
i just want to not hate myself but i guess thats a pipe dream,
******* stupid, ******* useless ******* incorporeal ******* fake laugh when theres no one to hear,
fighting spiders for the right to sleep. (do your friends know youre a liar?
******* traitor, dropping love from burning hands: your silver tongue is tarnished,
youve been vomiting again,
stomach acid eating your throat from within. can you stop?)i just want to stop.
theres a ******* burning sun in my chest and god i know i should feel lucky but i dont wanna ******* live i just want to SURVIVE,
what ******* good is living if i just burn myself out by the time i reach 25?
im scared to die but im ******* killing myself and i cant ******* stop,
i just want to sleep but theres still a bite mark on  my wrist from my own ******* teeth there are so many people i feel sick,
they talk so loud,
i feel like i could ******* disintegrate
******* degrade into dust please i just want to leave but i dont want to be alone, let me stay dont let me burst,
i want to be so skinny my bones bruise my skin,
i want to be so strong i could ******* rip myself apart, dont lie to me.
dont love me just sit next to me touch me tell me im alive.
im alive, right?im real im here im not a dusty phantom,
gasping ghost ripping oxygen into incorporeal lungs,
god i want to SCREAM just so i know im not ******* DEAD past the skin is there any sensation past the surface
i want to wear my ******* throat raw tear my muscles to shreds to know i can feel something that isnt shallow surface nerves, PLEASE!GOD!
make my lungs burn make my bones crack i want to feel something that i know is REAL prove im real prove im not an empty shell please im still alive but bites dont go past the skin,
i want to see my ******* heart pulse like the realest part of me,
proof i need proof i want faith i want to believe in unproven things, how can i ******* believe im real?
im ******* faking it just like everything else,
bluff till its true but i never ******* learned how to be TRUE I NEVER LEARNED TO LIVE PAST THE SKIN and if you peel it back all you'll ******* find is
rot,
gangrene, necrotic flesh and electric fear, dont ******* touch me i feel like i could ******* explode,
i feel crushed compressed into a space too small for my body and itll crack any second.
please ******* punch me in the gut. please ******* crack me open i dont ******* trust myself to keep my heart beating,
please rip it out im ******* faking it!!
faking laughs for an empty space faking fear for phantom spiders and thoughts of death, im ******* faking it but how do i ******* STOP
I DONT WANNA LIVE LIKE THIS BUT IM SCARED TO ******* DIE

I still deny the rules and social ties of citizen spies

that i televise by shouting chanted anthems into the sky

yet to comply with the codes of conduct i defy

as you synthesize the number and size

i am careful not to compromise the lost light within my eyes

my cold gaze reflective of your demise

and i

scrutinize them until they realize they're being penalized for the lies

until maggots monopolize your corpse through your cries

until pulled away by the hissing of shadowed flies that fly into the lost light in my eyes

until my pupils cauterize

locking you inside

institutionalised

and i

am imprisoned in a prism of realism

as anti social collisions have me pulling my soul through verbal incisions

seeping radioactive emissions

from the legions of religions

from the season of rhyme without reason

failure to pay darkened tuitions is now treason

as catastrophic cataclysms lock me away in my primal visions

my verbal inflictions as though holy missions to infuse friction

smashing through my divided contradictions and feeding my addictions

good riddance

There is a place she used to occupy; physically, emotionally...spiritually....

I've learned what it means to be in true pain.
I know, again, the ache of true loss.
It nips at my heels where I run,
And surrounds me close as I lie awake in the haunted hours of night.

My fingers remember the soft curve of her hip,
My cheek remembers the warmth of her skin against mine,
My arms remember the need to pull her ever closer;
My heart remembers molding to hers....

Now that reassurance is a ghost, a haunted memory.
Let me count the ways...shes's left a gap between myself, and myself.

I cared more than you understood.
I sacrificed more than you ever saw.
I bled more than I ever told you.
I wept more than you ever heard.

But now I'm just a memory; the action of the reaction doesn't add
Up to the sum of my failures when "broken's" not easily fixed....

You'll always fill that hole; physically, spiritually...emotionally.

Twisted corpses
Of loves long gone
Call from across the room
As I stare
And stare
Until my heart breaks in two
Unable to glance away;
Unable to meet your gaze.
You're such a shapeless shell
Of days since past,
Having lost your substance to time
And belittled feelings
As I stand
Motionless,
Petrified.
I am but a pair of eyes now,
a shattered soul-
Still hoping,
Still wondering
If all I ever loved was a lie,
A cruel farce you'd never admit.
I cannot bear your cutting words,
Your effervescent laughter,
As you live a life renewed;
As I linger,
Wistful,
In your wake.
I'm bleeding inside,
These wounds too fresh to cauterize,
Your vision too much to bear
In the aftermath of our destruction,
The clanging bells of calamity
Still ringing in my shellshocked ears-
I struggle to find meaning
In the caustic remnants
you left me to puzzle over;
The scattered pieces of reasoning
That will never add up to a whole picture,
A sane answer.
Scorched and hollowed,
I can't bear this sight any longer,
As my heart smolders with hatred
And thoughts of revenge,
Consuming me
As though I were tied to the stake
That you deserve to burn on instead.
Come now,
Let's end this-
This dance of charades,
This play of puppets and toys-
I'm not your plaything anymore,
And I deserve the happiness
That you sought to steal for yourself.
Come now,
Let's accept it,
These sad monuments that you've erected
From upon your mighty throne,
The confusion you bestowed
When you left me all alone.
After all,
Fate had no say in this,
No approval to grant,
To this end-
You and I both know
You only have yourself to blame.

“Let it go,” he said.
So I release it all slowly,
like those 99 red balloons that saved
our little misled souls on bad teenage days.
Release it, and watch it float up and away
in 99 different directions,
in 99 different shades of ruthless red.
Let it go, and instruct yourself
to set fire to any and everything
it’s ever touched.
Burn the bridges, scorch the paths,
cauterize the arteries that
pumped warm blood for its purpose.
Set the fires, and let the light
from the florid flames
illuminate the corners
of your newfound smile
as you watch the embers
dance themselves
into white, meaningless ash
above your head.

"plan a" was to be cordial:
you said, "coexist."
we toasted with our cappuccinos,
"to coexisting," before replacing our masks.
smile. wave. be polite.
I suppose some dozen missteps by me rendered this plan
useless.

"plan b" is much harder.
put your hand on the table.
the knife comes down, quick,
press the hot metal to the wound.

amputate. cauterize.
use your friends as a tourniquet,
like the one I've been twisting you into for the last year
and a half.

I never wished for my feathers
To catch fire
Unsure of who made me
This way

Losing my brilliance was never
My desire
My finale was
Excruciating

Someone once told me
That fire heals wounds
"To cauterize is to
Stop the bleeding"

This new discovery
Completely consumed.
Becoming anew
Was intriguing

The time then came
For the heat and the haze
These moments both petrifying  
And exhilarating

I touched the dark
Before I embarked
Forming from embers while I
Remembered

I am reborn

He wasn't always this way
A life  of smoke and ash.
He's A burned house
Only ash remains.


" He wasn't always this way"
I declare.
Not knowing his past.
But knowing no one starts like ashes.

No one starts like the ruins of his old home
Which was burned down
While his mother was still inside
No one starts like his mother ended.

He wasn't always this way.
Now he lives in ashes.
He lives for smolder. Lives for smoke.
Lives for ashes.

With every cigarette he has
Every drug he sells.
He lives in smoke.
Smoke and cinder.
His teenage lungs up in smoke.
His brain fiery addicted.

He said he didn't care.
A life in smoke.
A young life... tossed before the flames
Consumed

They lick up his soul
Relieved
He is.

Cindering, smoking
Smoldering.

Burned.


Cauterize the wound.
Obtain life again from the ashes
That were the death of you and your mother.
Like a Phoenix be reborn from the rubble
Smoldering and roaring
You are a beautiful flame.

Obtain beautiful flame.
Not searing flame
So I then I won't have to say
He wasn't always this way.

toothpicks
won't pick
the ****
from out beneath your gums

nor will
denial
cauterize the memories
off your nerve endings

Push away, push away,
I'm just residue of cosmic rays.
Aurora leaks through magnetic cracks,
riding backs of solar winds.
Poke holes in the cellophane,
**** in the sunny dust;
universe can fill me up
but it's never quite enough.
My skin is bored and leaves me,
my insides throb without their shell
my mind's a traitor and defeats me
dressed like a heart, grey matter swells.

Plasma swimming, again
aimless, still seeking; charging
pent-up venom, radiation
singes the surface as my fingers explore.
If I can't feel your magnetic field
pressed against me, like the moon
I will bury pieces below your surface,
little pockets of cancer,
warm and unflinching.
Then I'm gone again,
gone to lay dormant
in the interplanetary medium:
undulating electricity,
sparks of stars to cauterize me to you.

exhaust pipe dreams, gas encrusted
diamond rings
"maybe you're just taking it too personally"
words sharper than the knives
the edges perforated and willing

how can i not take something personally
when you are talking to only me
I understand that you don't know
who you are
but that is no excuse
to treat me
like a speeding ticket
you forgot to pay

i locked you away in my filing cabinet
after today
because not only did you
cauterize your fingerprints
but you erased your
name from my skin
it's like
you weren't here at all

finally we are no one
i am sitting in a room
plastered with
humans
yet
i
feel
so
alone
singular atom
one strand of DNA
not enough to
make anything
do anything
be anything
you made me feel everything
do something
and i did one thing
and it achieved nothing
second hand
counting backwards
cranking it's hours
until there is
only minutes
but even then
it's still 60 seconds
and each tick is a bomb
that has yet to detonate
if you leave
i will detonate
but you can't stay
or I will tie my body
to yours
and throw us both
into the water

letting the sharks
dissemble us like
an assembly line caught
in the VHS tape rewinder
film strung by branches
that I used to call home
shopping carts are the
planters to these trees
and sometimes in the
dirt I find reasons to leave
but you stomp them
out and they
starve
empty
and you look at me
but there is no remorse in your eyes

every 28 days,
the human skin replenishes itself.
my hands are tired of building new homes
on top of old eviction letters.
I am aching for a body
that treats me like a cure,
and not the disease that needs it.

I live as a counterfeit version of myself;
I am a kleptomaniac who steals the breath
from people that would have found a use for it.
tell me how to refund
what I didn't buy.

my veins are a breeding ground for despondency,
my bones a shelter for malaise.
to try to be kind to myself
is to cauterize a wound
after the infection has already spread.

I'd rather be the bad guy in situations

of indignation when the mistreatment is

misinterpreted or fleeting

I'll greet salt in your chest that would cauterize

but ostracize when your brine-blood boils to thaw

my cold heart on contact til it expands and contracts again

in blind hope of seeing something new but I won't

wound you

Maybe if I just stop trying
I'd finally do
All the things I've said I've done
All the promises I've made to you

Maybe if I just stop thinking
I will realize
Too Much thought lays waste to words
And true intention cauterize

Maybe if I just start beleiveing
In something less
I will find peace inside
And live without the stress

But what if I just stopped breathing?
Doesn't that sound great?
I couldn't even question why
There would be no debate

762

The Whole of it came not at once—
’Twas ****** by degrees—
A ******—and then for Life a chance—
The Bliss to cauterize—

The Cat reprieves the Mouse
She eases from her teeth
Just long enough for Hope to tease—
Then mashes it to death—

’Tis Life’s award—to die—
Contenteder if once—
Than dying half—then rallying
For consciouser Eclipse—

I have spent a lifetime
Healing the people that hurt me
In hopes that without their pain,
They will not need to inflict it,
My suffering should not be medicine,
My sadness should not be a cure,
Do not tell me I do too much,
I've scarred what you left bleeding.

Heart beat,
bruised bittersweetened, bent;
passion’s capillary action
relaxes then contracts again-
a seed beneath,
muscle fatigued,
toils and spends;
roots, a web of arteries extend,
branching tree stemmed,
leaves shedding red oxygen;
veins shredded to the thread,
frayed strands bleed,
unweave and unhem;
rivulets spill, unquenched,
hemorrhaging hands,
their fingers search to mingle, blend;
a crimson cardiac attack, defend-
for a moment, pressure wavering, suspends,
then pulled back, we cauterize
and mend our loose ends;
every line a vine of growth we tend-
surrounding blossoms rose gardens.

People are like chocolate.
We're all essentially the same but we have some differences.
Some are dark chocolate, white chocolate, or milk chocolate;
And no I don't mean your skin.
Some may have peanuts, caramel, cherries, or peanut butter inside.
We all have different experiences, thoughts, ideas, and personalities.
We all share most of the same ingredients and feelings,
But understanding something you've never experienced is always hard for humans.

Many people suffer from the addiction of adrenaline,
Those who love that fire that erupts from their skin when punctured.
This is one of the hardest experiences for others to understand.
The chocolate is a symbol of our sweetness - our happiness.

Those who are free come in lovely boxes with pretty designs.
They're decorated and packaged gently in a little bed.
But others, come wrapped in sharp and painful foil.
The foil represents our pain, depression, anxiety;
Anything that could lead to those ugly lacerations.

We hit ourselves, split skin, and burn ourselves to **** away the sorrow.
We cauterize the outer layer that engulfs ourselves to reveal our happiness.
But that happiness only lasts for a little while.
When a wrapper comes off a bit, you find a way to cover the whole.
And our melancholic shields cover that bit of joy up.

What some may not realize is that depression really is like wrapped chocolate.
If you try to slice the wrapping off, you will cut the treat.
If you burn the wrapper, the sweetness will melt away.
If you hit the foil, you've destroyed the beauty inside.

This is what happens to us when we give in to our despair.
We think it's helping.
But all it's doing is killing the beautiful person inside, who we are.
Destroying our outer skin pulls us deeper into a coma like state.
Where we're forced to drown in our mental wounds while painting pictures on our skin.

All you need to do is reach out a hand.
It might take a while for someone to notice you.
But someday, someone will reach back and intertwine their fingers with yours.
You just have to be willing to not put your hand down.

Find something that will keep you going.
Your pet whom you love.
A younger sibling or nephew or niece who look up to you.
A passion or dream you want to chase after.
The best thing to do in your darkest hour, is to look ahead and find something worth seeing.
Whether it's something so simple as having your favorite food on the weekend.
Or something as big as saving the world.

You don't need to do any of this on your own.
Just like with different chocolates; not everyone will like you.
But you will always have people close to you who love you.
And they are all that matter.

So don't damage yourself.
Don't try to peel the sadness off with a knife or fire.
Find that someone or something that makes you happy.
And the sorrow ridden foil will fall off all on it's own.
Or that someone will pull it off for you.

It will be okay. I promise.

(By Brook Ilges and
Sverre G. Holter)


There's fire in it. Chestburn. Lungs
And lava, heart in heat; blood
Boiling. When I move,
Steam escapes from between
My ribs.
They cage a dragon's mouth.

Our edges cauterize
Unable to stabilize this searing
Electric firestorm
We coalesce into colors
Streaming through our nerve
Endings
Pulsing the rhythm of ages
Into the space between our gazes
Your scalding hide sets us apart
A rough reminder of the scars that
Stitch beneath

Sometimes.
Sometimes I find myself.
Sometimes I find myself
Biting down on
Whatever is left of myself
After the vulcano sighs and
Withdraws its black; its
Ashes; its pieces of planet's
Core, just to hold onto
Something with
Something.
Sometimes I wonder if
The memories of surgical
Sutures are all that keep me
From falling apart.
Take my mouth; I'm saving
My hands for
My heart.

Darkness falls, low light lingers
I trace the confines of your cage
The lock rusted and still
A key exists, the heart resists
Too damaged to offer naught but numb
Cutting through pumice walls
Fiery thorns thick, penetrate with ease
Such paltry designs of recovery
I'm fading fast
While you still burn.

And while one of us fades burning,
The other burns fading, and all is as
It all should be, as two stars
Decide not to form a solar system, but
Instead to brush themselves into a painting
Of a dream that a child that has yet to
Become just dreamed; awoke from
And whispered: "I want them to
Be my mother and
Father..."

They never should have let me out of the box,
these harnesses are coddled in rust and will never do,
I nearly have an arm free now.
Tis the bloodlust,
the ever recurring,
I cauterize so sickly raptured and recoiled,
vile animal reveling beneath fang and flesh.
Tis the beast wrought beneath this parchment bearing,
what is left of mortal means
as the morals feast upon the limbs and lungs of one another.
Ever screaming,
my memories wrench and tear,
torn in ribbons splayed from lung to tissue.
My demon slaughters the remnants packed and hid way
in corner and shadow,
ideals and sockets of life scratch and rip
across the flesh of the air as their lungs flood so violently,
doused in creamy blood liquid.
I die so sullenly,
so intrepidly,
dripped in god’s sunlight beams,
bathed in crackling spine and broken butterfly wings.
I writhe not in brain fractured grenade shrapnel,
not felted amongst iron clad bomb shards,
I lie so serenely,
stomach basking in sun beam,
I bite and suckle upon such succulent fruits of flesh,
human meat and such soft hips of lustful imps,
so untouched and littered in my most precise of bite marks.
I stake claim to the everest of fiendish hues,
chains so kin to my sins,
mind so ravaged in demonish,
all thought is mother to acts so sickly in hellish cravings,
I seek no retribution for ideals so crimped and carved through my bones.
All is relative to one’s fiendish benevolences.
I take care to ratify my most ancient of antiquities,
the very blood line that so racks this mortal sense of the human reality.
This evil is ever bearing and eternal lasting,
nor it’s will softened.
Shackles crease and crinkle
so fondly with every sickly furnished breath.