You’re haunting me
Rattling my bones with such a sweet song
The melody is setting my spine in a way
that causes my teeth to ache  
It’s the first taste of devastating paired with final notes of irreparable

I have your memory
Buried underneath my bed
slipped between folded up t-***** and double knotted
into the laces of my doc martins
hidden yet taken with me everywhere I go
It’s gonna end up driving me mad if I let it  

You’re haunting me
Yet here I am trying to exorcize my past
sinking my memories of you
right back into your dusted bones
I have you rolling over in your grave
Assured in your afterlife
this secret and I would go quietly into the night
Only I came back screaming

(my knuckles are skinned to the bone)
(but I will keep fighting. I will keep fighting)

I hear you singing in victory
Can you hear me
Answering back

- A secret for the night

If I go to a party, and see at least one girls ***, that day will be my best day of that season.

I’d drink myself to the point where the toilet could be advertised as a painkiller. But **** standing up, It’s not that I don’t trust my aim, I just like to keep things as clean as possible.

I often find myself apologizing for actions the morning after inebriation. It’s weird. I’ve grown old enough for understand consequences but not enough to try and and avoid them.
Old enough to regret the relationships I’ve destroyed then still find time, to break down a few more.

I’m still scared of commitment. I’ll spend 2 years learning to love all of your facets and flaws, but spend so much more of that time looking for a cause.
Exploring why I bother to love anyone when I feel so insecure. You’re affection may grow but I’ll never feel sure. It all becomes a chore. Asking you to outline whatever good in me you thought you saw. But sometime or later I’ll be asking for a redraw.

It’s a funny word ‘insecure’. It’s funny that even with all the nightmares we’ve been through. The experiences we’ve accrued. The places we’ve had to get to, Your deepest fears will always be about you.
You and your expectations you feel you must attain.
You and your image you present to those who judge.
You and your aptitude for keeping those you love happy.

Even now. I’m only saying this because I’m scared I’m far too immature for life I lead,
and I know anyone else in my position would want to hear these words.


Mistakes are as natural as breathing.
With both it is imperative that at some point you must let go. You must exhale and exorcize what is unnecessary from your body. You must learn to forgive yourself.

2. Unsurity is the siamese twin of certainty.
Before you come to a decision you must be comfortable in the knowledge you will never know what the future holds  but if you ever want to move forward, it requires that all important first step... so put your best foot forward.

and 3. Bolster yourself. Be proud in the understanding that your 2 feet hold a place in this world that no else can fill. That everyday you live is your opportunity to bend the universes will. That live may not be a continuous thrill but boy is it scary!
You have a lifetime of wishes to fulfill.
So settle down. Life is a series of small discoveries. No one expects you to find everything.
All we ask is that you don’t ever stop looking.

i.   on our first date, you ask if i want to learn how to fly. guiding my trembling fingers over the yoke, you introduce me to an old friend, a mechanical anatomy you’ve had memorized since you were sixteen. the first time your hands leave the two of us alone, you watch my terrified eyes and laugh. flying is the easy part, you say.

ii.   there was a time when explorers would name new lands after people they loved instead of themselves. somehow i’ve never found that idea comforting. it worries me that places out there exist that can wear my name better than i do. on nights when you’re gone, i spend hours trying to picture what an island looks like when it smiles.

iii.   even as she was bathed in the icy blood of a dying vessel, rose sang a love song to the stars. when i think of romance, i think of hands that dissolve into air so that hearts have to sprout wings just to find each other on the way down. i think of ships of dreams and flying machines.

iv.   these days, i have stopped waiting for the silhouettes of planes to paint demolition across the sunset. when i’m lonely, i play fleetwood mac records and spin around the apartment until i exorcize all the ghosts. i try to convince myself that when loving rhiannon, no one gets to win.

v.*  on our last night, i ask you what the hardest part of being a pilot is. you unstitch your eyes from the cerulean-sewn skyline and look at me. *landing, you say. your hand feels warm in mine.

Roaming this empty street
I'm one with the darkness around me,
I don't feel scared,
it boosts my  confidence, I'm self aware.
My combat boots won't give in
through all storms they'll resist,
the trees dance with the breeze,
the streetlights shine and fade.
Your silhouette walks by my side
a hurtful scar of the past
a ghost I won't exorcize,
you became a part of myself.

fruit tastes better forbidden
i can't stop myself
i'm breaking all these promises
like a ******* animal
i'm writhing
squirming
a seizure of ***** pleasure
torment!
demons dance around my head
like flower girls
splaying the ground with sin
i'm a ******* animal
thoughts pulsing
a constant state of primal ******
controlling me
like a leash
dangling meat in front of my face
somebody purge me
exorcize me from this
and distill the evil
and cast the black water into the sea

i beg
for my
catharsis

She held him by the neck and never let go
Turned him inside out with liquid sorrow
She loves, she loves him so much
As much as the others that made her blush

She sings her lovespell all around the mansion
Calling ghostly figures to haunt their passion
She laughed, and held him closer
When he spilled black ink to exorcize her

All around and underneath
My soul is blessed by your kiss
I ran so far from my home
For a fleeting sense of bliss
And everywhere you followed
Carved your name into my bones
My heroes could take us down
You and me both, underground

Well he just needed something to get high
Because the scars on her wrists made him cry
Disease, never get sober
Fear the silence that makes us remember

Every night the mirrors shake, the heart aches
They're smiling bright because it all looks fake
As good as it gets, alright
But when she dies, he'll die by her side

All around and underneath
My soul is blessed by your kiss
I ran so far from my home
For a fleeting sense of bliss
And everywhere you followed
Carved your name into my bones
My heroes could take us down
You and me both, underground

Bittersweet, you are mine
When you die, I'll die by your side
I will take you underground

I pin the anemic bodies
of poems
to the bed of palm
like they are cadavers
waiting to be
d  i  s  s  e  c  t  e  d.

This is the
only
way
I know to
make sense of things,
each enjambed line
a heartbeat closer
to understanding this
sadness
(or letting
go
         of
it).

I gawk at the contents
of the shelves
that live amongst the
curdling strips of wallpaper.
Yellowing mason jars,
each containing some
tragic specimen swimming in  
formaldehyde tears--
Plath's last breaths;
Sexton's paper cut fingertips;
Van Gogh's severed flesh.

The sight of this
ghastly collection
sends the scars on my wrists
into a spiralling ache.

I once made the mistake
of assuming poetry
would instantaneously
exorcize the aching--
it only brought me closer.

But I must remember
that bleeding is the last stop
on the route to mending;
it's gotta hurt
before it can heal.

So I write,
bear the sting
of these words
as they stitch together
the tattered patchwork
of my heart;
until the scars meet
at the pinnacle
of my anatomy,
crisscross,
bright constellations
flowering from the darkness,
starlit tulips
that shake the
sorrowed dew drops
from their rain-torn petals,
celestial hieroglyphs
waiting to be read--
This is your history;
not your future.

Peter (my bf) is coming to town - tonight. I’m breathy with excitement.
My energy is so sick. “Someone scrape her off the walls,” Leong remarked, as I bounded out of my room this morning.
Lisa winced, holding her hand up, as if to block the sun, “You never smile in the morning.”   “And she’s humming,” Sunny observed.
“I’m not,” I started, then after a pause I amended, “yeah, I guess I was.”

I’m not just happy, I’m some new kind of happy. It’s been too long.
I’m swinging a school’s-out, pre-Christmas, free iced-latte vibe.
I’ve been on the busiest stretch, clearing my schedule. I have to define my thesis this semester. Argh!

But I’m ready for some bf fun. I’ve changed my sheets, hidden the general mess and God, even vacuumed.
That’s very un-university-like behavior - believe me.
As down as I was last Friday night, from tanking that quiz, that’s how up I am now.

Speaking of that quiz, the only way to deal with a fret is to exorcize it, defeat it, vanquish it. I stalked the TA after class last Tuesday, finally cornering him, like a wounded animal at his desk.
“I tanked last week’s quiz,” I admitted, which sounded way more whiny out loud than it did in my head.
“Vionet, right?” He’d asked rhetorically, already clicking his keyboard to bring up the grade sheet.
“Are there any extra cred..” I began. “You got an 88,” he interrupted me. “Yeah, but,” I’d begun again
“That’s a B,” he’d deadpanned in a low, ‘why do I have to talk to idiots,’ voice.
“Yeah, but,” I’d began freshly, only to be re-interrupted.
“A weekly quiz,” he’d said, “like a hundredth of your grade.”  
“A B,” I began, shaking my head side to side in a ‘no’ way, but I’d smiled ingratiatingly too - I was going to win this guy over.
“You’re way too tightly wound,” he’d snarked, insensitively.
I opened my mouth to speak again when he said “OUT,” twisting his head to nod towards the door.
“You don’t,” I began, only to have him give me a teen-like, wide-eyed look as he nodded again at the door.
So, I flounced out, giving a silent voice to my indignation.
Bureaucracies.
.
.
Songs for this:
Take Off Ur Pants by Indigo De Souza
Kool Thing by Sonic Youth
.
.
Our cast
Peter, (My bf), is a bearded, 27-year-old from the sage hills of Malibu, California. He’s 6’1, too thin, his jet-black hair is perpetually uncombed and his skin is pale from over exposure to fluorescent lighting. He earned his PhD in Applied Physics last year and now he works for CERN in Geneva. He’s smart, quiet, awkward and he can be too serious. I’m unreasonably cRaZy about this guy.

Lisa, (roommate) 21, my bff and Manhattanite ‘glamor girl’ (who’d bristle at that description but it’s hundo-p true.) who grew up in a 50th floor Central Park South high-rise. A (pre-med) molecular biophysics and biochemistry major.

Leong, (roommate) 21, a ‘molecular, cellular, and developmental biology major,’ is from Macau, China - the Las Vegas of Asia and she’s a proud communist (don’t knock it til you’ve tried it). Growing up, I lived in Shenzhen China (about 30 miles from Macau) we both speak Cantonese (maybe why we were paired?) and we're able to talk a lot of secret trash together.

Sunny, (suitemate) 21, a (pre-med) molecular, cellular, and developmental biology major, is a cowgirl from Nebraska (seriously, she has a quarter horse and barrel races). She’s an outspoken fem-facing ladies-lady.

Your author, a simple country girl from Athens, Georgia is also a (pre-med) molecular biophysics and biochemistry major.

When I was little I was afraid of ghosts
Back when they were only misplaced shadows
And creaky floorboards
I was not prepared
For the ghosts made of flesh in blood
That hide in the corners of my mind
Even if I could exorcize you
It would be more like an eviction
I'm as much yours as mine at this point

This wretched woman's time had come
To reconcile her sins and pains  
Her own blood had become her cage
As spirit dripped from her sweet frame

She yearned to reach out and adore
To exorcize her scarlet foe
And find a rare and blessed relief
That only this man could bestow

Her breath in gasps, her heart aflame
She gently negotiates the crowd
Until she spies salvation's form
His garment whiter than the clouds  

With secret prayer she extends her hand
And gently grasps his flowing gown
Desperate that he does not
Notice her and turn around

For this moment she has lived
Enduring lonesome misery
Till hope appeared in prophet form
And a promise that could set her free

But as she knelt with hand gripped tight
The garment's owner sensed her touch
And turned to gaze upon her plight
And stooped and smiled and raised her up

His face ablaze with love and joy
Her spirit soared and her heart did swell
As he praised her courage and her faith
And told her they had made her well

The Christ had conquered blood and pain
And other times the sightless eyes
Had calmed the storm and eased the rain
And even death his will despised

He taught patience and mercy true
To trust in God to set things right
And forgive those who learn to hate
And cease from anger and it's fight

He made no riches, nor praises sought
But humbled he at others feet  
Rejected men's sad power games
And thus selfishness did defeat

Today this world acclaims his name
And sings his praises publicly
Two billion followers know his words
And call us “Christianity”  

Yet, if this world's “Christian” lands
Are grasping Jesus' garment tight
Then why is peace so far away
And nations ready or the fight?

For not prince of politics is Jesus Lord
or king of fury thus unleashed
But for grace and God's own glory
Is he the blessed “Prince of Peace”

I’m still running on
Yesterday’s priorities;
Seeking prizes that,
If I only I took the time
To think things through,
Revaluate my situation Properly,
Don’t really matter to me anymore.

I’m still caught up in the
Want of yesterday,
Driven by desires
Well past their sell by Date.

The insignificance of Bygone yearnings
Haunt my todays
Until I exorcize them
Screaming
Into faded memory,
File them away
Marked ‘Insignificant’,
‘No longer useful’.

The thrills not fully sweated
I have never been here
This is my first time, see

What is love? This is a new town
I am not used to roam
The calm separation...cutting slow
If cutting at all!

Is kisses all our bond?
It is bond enough, is it not?
Is there anything broke
we haven't spotted?
A low tide taking my soul

I think sometimes I am about to break, to faint,
to fall
But it's just the shock
of life to those who died once

[Old bitter wives tales baffling my ears
They feed on and feed all of my fears
**** them, set them free - exorcize these tears]

I fear what things might mean
I fear everything, no matter what it is
I fear, I fear, I fear
Most used verb by me!
Grow strong, grow tall like a tree
Only that way you'll be free

They say trials and tribulations make for virtuous men,
and whatever doesn't **** you makes you stronger.
The more damage the world dealt, the more pain I felt,
the less I said, the closer I am to dead.

I'm restrained in speech. I'm not one to teach.
The pain I bear is not something I wear.
I wish it would cease, wish my mind would ease.
Wish I could openly speak about this disease.

I try to look up, but have no one to love.
Poetry is hard for one who rarely sees the sun.
I have nothing to say except good day.
And goodbye. I lie about being ok. I actually cry.

Am I forever alone? Sure. I don't desire a partner.
All my friends are dead or inside my head.
This life and this world make me want to hurl.
All the while my enemies dance and twirl.

But there's a glimmer of hope that is not lost.
I bet on it long ago, and haven't yet lost.
My hope is with the father, son and holy spirit;
I pray they can exorcize me of all these foul demons.

For there's a war on, that very few can see.
It's a fight for the souls of people like you and me.
And I sense evil in all people, it just takes time.
I prefer to be alone, what's mine is mine.