Submissive my body tender and weak.
Closer to death my body must be.

If I must attest then it's fluids at best.
Submissive my body the pain and the rest.

I should have known from the jump, for I had not been foretold.
Steer clear of its wrath, it's no common cold.

The fight continues, the world on a spin. God speed to you and this ibuprofen.

in my sweaty palm, melting
is medical-pink candy coating.
the pieces click, clack, roll around,
and the generic sugar tastes sweeter
than ever, sweet like a fever, sweet
like smiles under the concrete bridge.

tastes like sweet'n'low piled high in one-
dollar coffee drained in two seconds,
like buttercream frosting smeared
across your arm. tastes of the indoors,
of doors shut, of stale snicker-doodles.
it is sugar that tastes like promises gone far.

when i swallow (that is three, four, twenty more)
i can taste it in the pit of my stomach:
sweet, sweet candy coating masking
the poison, the anodyne, the analgesic—
candy coating to cover all the little scars.

My foreign friend once went through my bag and found a bottle of ibuprofen. She said I wonder if these are her anti-depressants because if so then they're not working. Once my friend, excuse the bruise, my friend thought the rope in my room was meant for a noose. Once I regected food all day and so she spooned the meal to my face. She said "good girl" when I made myself a sandwich. She used to cringe every time she saw my ****** up wrists. She said her dad ******* when she was a kid and once she took a pen to her own skin. She said you know that feeling when you throw up ice cream? and I was the only girl who got it. Who really, really got it.
So, I remember sitting in the park by the waterfront smoking flavored cigars. It's starting to get dark and your leaning on my arm. I wanna split a cigarette but you're saying how I always get the filter wet. You were both the hardest and softest girl I'd ever met. We got our cards read that weekend. The tarot lady said I'd fall in love, I said bring it on. Well, I remember nights in a used hotel room, wound up on the bed was the only time you let me hold you. I used to give you chapstick every time you asked for it. You said you only missed me when your lips got chapped. and those days we weren't friends were the worst ones that I don't remember too well. I forgot how we both pulled the devil when we got our cards read. What I remember is that you were there for the worst anxiety attack. It's still funny cause you're the only one in the room who was scared. And the next day I'm dead inside and somebody's in my ear telling me about how they're making an effort to be friendly and I'm the problem, I'm not reciprocating. You ask me why I'm wearing a hat, It's so I can hide my shame under it. Today I don't have a voice, I can't talk. Can't say what I'm upset about. And I remember somebody telling me that if I thought happy I'd be happy which lead to break down sobbing in the bathroom and you came in and talked me out. You never blamed me, never thought what happened to me was my fault. And you listened to me spew about what it's like to have no friends and to hate yourself so much. And you didn't ask questions... you just loved. Loved, loved, loved. So much that I saw it building up in myself. That first jump into the pool in our sweaters and sharing showers and drying in the sun. Listening to you mumble in your sleep, combing through your hair with my thumb. And you said the first time you saw me you thought ****! Another girl that's too pretty. I think we should still be... lying on a sun lit deck. You're reading my books, I'm wearing your shoes. We should still be out on the lake, eating lunch in one of those big red canoes. We should still be jumping off the dock, yelling when the fish swim near us. We should still be up on a hill where we can smoke and watch the sunset fall to dusk. I should still be waking up late in your tent and stealing the blankets. We should still be up all night talking politics and arguing semantics.
So yes, I remember lying in your arms those last few nights while watching shooting stars. Those nights I wished so long and hard to never feel lonely again, I realized this summer that's my biggest fear. And this summer! This summer I feel healed! You bandaged me up so the good bye was rough. I felt like child peeling old band aides off.
Before she left she told me what I needed to fix about myself. In our soggy t-shirts, we have our toes diped in the water. She grabs a pool noodle out of my hands and as she bends it in demonstration says I have no back bone she can take whatever she wants, she can just have it. I'm too flexible. But she opens up, tells me about the guys she's ****** and how she's never really been in love. She tells me about her girl crush. She says if I'd told her I'd loved her first, "like I SHOULD have" then she'd of been crushing on me instead. I just wish I could have been the one to drop her off at the airport. I helped her pack her bags and watched her slam the car door shut. It's different when you're forced to be apart, she didn't have the chance to make me hurt. I count the miles that seperate us. Guess I'll just love her from a distance.

Not eating chocolate covered cherries and strawberries and lychees and onions and chillies and grapes and marshmallows and turtle meat and cake and shark bones and oysters and camel and beef and beef with dog food and rabbit fur and smarties and skittles and twine and rope and yak and buses and buffalo and authors and novels and chipping containers and bicylces and emus and penguins and polar bear slippers and darned socks and stewed lobster and Darwin Deez and get well cards and ibuprofen tablets is fine with me.

she was in love.
she was in love with a boy.
she was in love with a boy who didn’t love her back.
she was a beautiful girl when she was sixteen.  she was the most insecure girl you’d ever meet, but you’d never know because her award winning smile hid all of the insecurities. black curly hair, olive skin, beautiful big brown eyes, cherry lips, and naturally aligned perfect teeth.  she knew she was beautiful deep down, although she hated to admit it, because of an unfortunate series of events that occurred in the past.  she was the happiest girl you could ever meet, or at least that’s how she came across.  she acted as though nothing was wrong, when in reality, a lot was wrong.  she knew her peers thought of her as a person who tried too hard to be different, but that’s who she was.  she was different, and she knew it.  
he was a breathtaking boy when he was 16.  he was just as insecure as she was, but you'd find it hard to believe, since he was so picturesque. blonde hair, pale skin, pacific ocean eyes, bright pink lips, and very white teeth.  he didn’t know he was breathtaking, because of an unfortunate series of events that occurred in the past.  he always thought of himself as a person without a place, even though he believed everyone had a place in the world, he just hadn’t found his yet.  he bottled things up inside until they sunk low enough to go out of view, until he forgot about them.  he knew he had a place, he just didn’t know where.  he was different, too.  just as different from everyone else as the girl was.
she told him everything.  more than she told her other friends. more than she told her best friend of fourteen years. she didn’t know it at first, but she would fall hard for him, harder than when she fell off her longboard the first time.  just like that first fall, it would hurt.  it would make her bleed, and it would transform her.  from it, she would become a better person, and definitely a more cautious one.  she wasn’t aware of it yet, but he would change her in two ways.  for the better, and for the worse.
the background knowledge of this tale isn’t important.  all that needs to be known is how she has now fallen in love with him, harder than she’s ever fallen for someone.  however, he’s since moved away.  how far, you ask?  3,000 miles across the ocean.  her love for him has grown dramatically since this, and she’s told him, but he doesn’t feel the same way.  he’s said it straight to her face, on multiple occasions.  to directly quote it, “the feeling is there, but it just isn’t prominent.”  naturally, this kills her inside. the hardest thing to endure is watching the one you love, love someone else. in fact, this makes her want to curl up in her comforter and cry, and hopefully never come out.  she loved this boy, and she loved him completely unconditionally.  no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t get him to see her that way.  the only time he ever takes any interest in her is when she’s undressed. she would use her body for love, and he used love for her body. she was blinded, and she didn’t want to see him using her, so she refused to believe it.  she’s confronted him about it, and he’s said he isn’t using her, so she was convinced he wasn't, mostly because she could never make herself believe he was lying to her.  
he knew everything about her.  he knew her full name, which not a lot of people did.  he knew about her past; the past that involved a small wrist and a large blade.  he knew about her future; the future that involved a small apartment in new york and a job at vogue. he knew about the husband, or wife, she wanted, since she was bisexual.  only he knew that. he knew how much she loved him, as well. he was well aware of that, but obviously he didn't know how much it would **** her inside to know he didn't think the same of her. he didn't think it through. if he did, he would have saved her a lot of pain.
she was sitting in her bedroom one day. she was thinking mostly about him. she kept playing the sweet things he'd said to her in the past back in her mind, and suddenly she found herself smiling and feeling warm inside. she loved him. she loved him more than anyone she'd ever loved before. just as she was thinking, he messaged her on facebook. her heart fluttered, she couldn't wait to see what he said.
"i have to talk to you" his tone was stern, which somewhat scared her, since he was never sincere like this.
"okay sure, what's up, deary?" she always called him deary, it was the most natural response for her.  she was trying to lighten the mood a bit, as well.
"as you know since i've moved here, my feelings for you have somewhat gone away. and with that being said, i've found somebody."
she could've sworn she heard her heart fall down to her feet and break into one million tiny pieces.
"you have a girlfriend now?"
"yes."
she logged off of facebook without answering his message, and went to the corner of her room where a tiny piece of her carpet was cut into a square and ripped off the floor so it could be lifted up. she lifted the piece of carpet up to reveal a bag and a blade. a tiny plastic bag, and a tiny metal blade. a tiny plastic bag that had an assortment of different pills in it, and a tiny metal blade with dried blood tracing the edges of it from her past. the pills were things such as ibuprofen or acetometaphine, and the blade was a replacement blade from her dad's razor, since his was sharper than hers.
her past wasn't particularly something she liked to remember. she had once been suicidal. she had cut herself. she had intentionally burned herself. she had snapped a hair tie against her wrist during school. she's tried ending her life with those same pills. she kept them there if she needed them.
as of right now, she needed them more than ever.
she opened the bag, got two bottles of water, and began to swallow the pills. one by one.  as she swallowed them, she found herself taking the sharp piece of metal to her wrist.  she caressed it gently before dragging it across the noticeable scars, going deeper and deeper with each ****.
after about thirty five pills and twelve lacerations, she began to get terrible stomach pain, and her blood wasn’t clotting any longer.  she strayed away from her wrist and moved down to her hips, her v-line, and upper thighs. she could feel her demise coming, but she wanted it right then.  she didn't cry as she threw the pills down, her heart was too heavy, her body too frail, that she couldn't produce the tears, even though she wanted to.
twenty more pills.
three more cuts.
five more pills.
two more cuts.
one more pill.
and just like that, she was gone.
about an hour or so later, her mother knocked on her door. she made sure to leave the door unlocked so her mother wouldn't find her and be angry. her mother hated when she locked her door. she walked in, and once she saw her daughter laying on the floor near the piece of torn up carpet, she collapsed to her knees over her top of her. she noticed a small paper laying next to her body. she unfolded it. on it was this:
"you know, it’s funny. now everyone will care. now he’ll love me. if you all had felt this way when i was alive, i wouldn’t be dead."
it’s almost like she knew her death would be one of the biggest news highlights of the year in her small town.  it’s almost like she knew photos of her would be everywhere.  it’s almost like she knew her suicide note was going to become the most viral thing to hit the nation in four years.
her mother had no idea what that meant. she couldn't think anyway, for her teenage daughter had just mutilated her insides with common household drugs.
with the little energy she had left in her body, she stumbled downstairs to where the telephone was. she dialed her husband's work number, and was completely hysteric when he answered the phone. he told her to calm down, so she tried to. when she finally stopped crying long enough to get words out, she told him.  he said he was about to leave his office. he didn't care about anything else in the day, he just had to get home. he had to get home to see his little girl for the last time.
her mother told her friends, and the entire town was a complete wreck. memorials were hung everywhere. pictures of her death note were posted in newspapers and on street corners. a segment was even on the news about her. she had never felt loved in her life, but when she died, everyone turned into her friend. girls who called her fat and ugly in middle school said she was beautiful.  boys that called her obnoxious and annoying said she was fun to be around.  teachers who told her she would never get into college and didn’t have a future said she had her entire life ahead of her.  just as her suicide note said, if they had all acted this way when she was still here, she wouldn’t have left.
the boy messaged her one day, wanting to tell her something again. when she didn't answer, he sent her another message. he obviously hadn't looked at his facebook news feed in a few days, considering everyone's status was about her, and there were pictures of her everywhere; pictures of her and her friends, her and her beloved cats, or her alone.  looking at the pictures was painful for everyone, since her beautiful smile was only lived on in the pictures now.  her eyes sparkled in the photos, but not as much as they did in real life.  now, the photos were all that was left.
he sent her another message, saying this:
"well if you aren't going to answer me then i guess i'll just tell you. i broke up with my girlfriend already. i realized a few things when i was with her. she isn't you. i love you, i really do. i hope you can forgive me and i hope we'll talk soon.  bye babe."
he only called her babe when he felt closest to her.  some days, where they would flirt a lot, they would both feel warm and fuzzy inside and completely loved.  neither ever admitted it, but they both knew exactly how the other felt.  among the pet names and multiple kissy faces, they had great conversations.  they were so open around each other, neither of them had ever been like that with anyone else.  she knew she was made for him, although he didn’t realize it until after it was too late.
after he sent it, he decided to check his news feed. he saw the pictures and status messages. he couldn't believe it. he didn't know how much he hurt her. he killed her inside so much that she actually killed herself. he was the one that always made her feel better when she was feeling down. he's the one that got her to stop hurting herself. she told him once that she was going to stop for herself, when subliminally she stopped for him, because she knew he didn't like it. she didn't think he could ever love her with the cuts up and down her arms, so she stopped making them. she was alive because of him, but now, she was dead because of him.  he gave her a reason to want to live, and a reason to want to die.
life was still odd for him after her passing. he'd think about her often. she would come to him in dreams. he’d listen to her favorite song, which was one of his favorite songs as well, called “i wanna be yours” by the arctic monkeys.  he introduced her to the arctic monkeys, actually.  he never realized how much the lyrics meant to her, the more he listened to them he recognized the relevance of them.  he's sworn he’s seen her on street corners in his city. he knew it couldn't be, but every time he thought he saw her, tears would well up in his eyes and he'd have to turn around and go home. he didn't speak to anyone, nor did he tell anyone about her, especially not what he felt for her. everyone would think it was out of pity, pity for her and her death. he regretted making her feel worthless when he told her he didn't love her, because he did, and they both knew that.  she always knew deep down there was more feeling to it than he said, but she couldn't get past him saying those things. and that's why she killed herself.
years passed. he never found anyone, and she decayed in the beautiful tiffany blue dress she wears for eternity. it would've been her 25th birthday when he first went to see her at her final resting place. there was a photo of her on her stone, one of the last pictures ever taken of her. his breath was taken away by her beauty, she had the same warm smile he remembered when he saw her the last time. her eyes bright with playfulness, and her cheeks round and rosy. he could still hear her laugh. it was almost contagious. he was in love with her all over again, and she wasn't there to tell.
although, she was there. she heard every thought inside her head and saw every emotion he was feeling. she regretted her decision. she hated herself for not being patient and not going with her instinct. now, they could never be together. they were made for each other, and they both knew it.
he flung himself onto her burial site, weak at the knees and tears down his face. he missed her just as much as she missed him. he regretted never kissing her when he had the chance. he wanted to take back every time he ever told her he didn't love her. she took her life because of those things, and he was too pessimistic with the thought of "i'll never see her again" stuck in his head that he couldn't hear what his heart was saying.
he never married. he continued to visit her, almost every day. he couldn't stand to not see her, even if she wasn't there. she visited him every night as well, just to watch him sleep. she still thought he was the most breathtaking boy she'd ever seen. and she was just as beautiful as she was before. just as beautiful, and just as breathtaking. just like when they were 16.

"Everyone knows you wake up at 5, drink some water and take some ibuprofen"

.a grand biblical event could be happening, it could very well be happening... but then you could be like me, treating a toothache with cloves... sieving through the smiths' oeuvre (because when it came to 1980s music, it was always about the cure and depeche mode)... or getting your anaesthetic watching stockholm requiem... robotic or perhaps just zoological swedes treating the case of: unwanted... like a heart-attack is merely a murmur... i imagine the germans in concentration camps being burdened with their trained sadism... sickly sweet from the crescendo of inhumanity... anything but this swedish anemia... this "supposed to be human"... perhaps it should be called the Moebius-Stockholm Syndrome... no... i have no impeding wish to go back to visit Sweden... i'm sure to find more water in a rock... i'm sure to find more sunsets if i were to go blind... come summer and the air would drop temperature come the desired hours of the spectacle... i quiet fancy the nazis to have been burdened with too much of life, the mammalian hot-bloodedness... i can almost imagine them being unable to bypass their erectile-dysfunctions with those deeds of theirs... than these ivory pickles of men... not even an event of biblical proportions would wake these people if their thespians are so... morbidly without a grace of a statue standing over a grave... the facade of flesh... when i can peer at a necro-associated-sculpture and pave my way toward "imagining" something intent on life within it... if the swedish thespians are so... less rummaging... i can't quiet imagine the real-life swede... perhaps they're just autistic? or... let's be kind... solipsistic? well... if only being invaded was something of a cure... as Knausgård mentions... i wonder why there's this sudden rise in scandinavian romanticism: genesis... i would rather trace a backward "plan" from sanskrit and to the great mother siberia... daydreams and ineffectual markings of... these days words of most importance are more ascribed to... the sort of paper you will not write on... escape from sobibor... i can imagine being exhausted by having to perform so much sadism... rather than, say, calmly brewing a cup of tea... it must have been so tiresome to be trained as monsters... of course: exceptions... it's just tiresome through-and-through... buying mania... for shoes... for umbrellas... for obscure details that might allow any general improvement of life... singing lazily as morrissey... did... if the man is to become a pariah... hell: not as bad as a persona non grata: the guns of navarone only come out with the proper latin... the concentration camp "workers"... the salt-miners of the *****... of no affair to make a sympathy... but if you've just watched a swedish thespian production... in unwanted... stockholm requiem... more like a Moebius-Stockholm Syndrome... you'd turn to watch something of something clearly tortured... by torturing... from above: crisp clean napkins and all those anecdotes over dinner while ingeting champagne in flutes... there's no need to make this "look" good... this is still about morrissey, though... tired of the cure and depeche mode... the current craze for biblical sized proportion of events... apparently it's true: absolutely everything is MADE IN CHINA... well... at least no one's dying with boils, spores... weird mushrooms growing out of their armpits... or the leprechauns of leprosy taking a bite... point being... i don't think this current state of affairs proves that my fellow man... could stomach... very little these days... then again... i could get away with this: humanisation of concentration camp guards... because i feel completely robotic having watched swedish acting... i'm looking for the most worthwhile available alternative... when you can't just pet a cat... as william burroughs noted... you can keep a cat, feed it, pet it... but at the end of the month you need to gauge its eyes out to enter the ᛋᛋ... so uber... by the way... why is there no D in armanen runes? hard to make sense of a future language of: the man in the high castle with only 18 letters... that's 4 short of the hebrew alphabet... clearly *******... 24 in greek... 23 in roman... 26 in modern english... 41 letters in the glagolitic alphabet... yes: graphemes and all - all those diacritical passions... 32 in modern polish... early germanic had 24 letters... but the armanen runes? only 18... *******... so much for ***** von List or what the third ***** germans read... the wrong sort of neopaganism: esp. if you're about to... ******* about 6 letters... you can't exactly have a language with a bare minimum of... 22 letters... which is a lie... ha ha... the hebrews have 27 letters... but their vowels are like diacritical marks elsewhere... "hidden"... it's the basic prefix rule of o(mega) and e(psilon)... or for that matter a-lpha and b-eta... well... there's the ******* siamese adams (א) and (ע)... b(ב), g(ג), d(ד), h(ה), v(ו), z(ז), ch(ח), t(ט), y(י), k(כ), L(ל), m(מ), n(נ), s(ס), p(פ), ts(צ), q(ק), r(ר), sh(ש), "t"... so that's the ******* siamese adams and the timmy and timothy t(ט) and "t"(ת)... but there are five over letters... kametz (a), chirek (i), tzere (e) cholem (o) and shurek (u)... although... they're not treated as letters... but akin to the acute diacritical mark when s becomes ś... or when a c grows a cedilla and becomes ç... or when an A grows a tail and becomes Ą... in hebrew that's already exposed... sh(ש)in is a caron s (Š)... and ch(ח)et is a caron c (Č)... no... if you're looking at hebrew as i am... gobsmacked... because they're playing crossword puzzles by merely writing... how their vowels wear niqabs... and are "not included"... you can't have a functioning civilization without a bare minimum of 22 letters... which is a lie... the hebrews just treat their vowels are diacritical markers... they have 27... the standard was given by the greeks... 24... and of those that are, 24... you could say... ΦΘ: phi and theta: F... OΩ: omicron and omega: is that pop and ****? equivalent? there's you real 22 letter alphabet... which includes all the vowels... ξ(ks), χ(ch), ψ(ps) - otherwise the letter that makes π a patent surd... so ψ is the aesthetic variation of σomething else... only differentiated when written... not necessarily when spoken - so you could technically... let's leave it at that.

they're saying about ibuprofen -
whatever the science: how the virus is latching
onto it and is sustained by it -
quack-theory or a barking up the wrong
the tree -
                    last time i heard an ibuprofen
is best for a toothache -
                  if only life... could be more monumental
that living through this mass hysteria:
or lack of it thereof...
       with this most irritating pain -
          this loose filling... there's a pandemic raging
the supermarkets are running out of bread...
there's no sugar and no flower...
       no bread: no circuses of a football match...
no real gambling involving 22 ballerinas,
horses or dogs...
                                  and here i am...
more bothered with a toothache...
                           what remedy, what remedy?
last time i heard...
                   they use a base chemical ingredient
from cloves for all the anaesthetics in dentistry...
last time i heard...
   if you put a clove on the ill tooth...
                       gently bite down...
                    one down... slobbered...
                 the saliva will open up the remedy...
from this humble clove...
         well... so much for merely culinary
purposes...
                                   indeed... a toothache
lessened... by a clove...
                        now for that whiskey disinfectant
to wipe clean the mouth...
         then some cheap ***** mixed with
aleo vera gel for that oh so precious disinfectant
that... evaporates when smeared onto
the hands...
                 i could be making money from this...
as i heard: bottles are selling for 60+ quid...
n'ah... i like being integrated for my already
miniature role of self with... integrity...
the knitty-gritty of honesty...
                                    who would have thought...
that cloves can alleviate toothache;
after all... there's that whale that swallowed
Jonah to fish for... in this current climate:
      of cough sneeze and woozy;
better still... an oeuvre of the smiths...
           because i never really got into them...
now's a good time like any other...
            girlfriend in a coma...
                            pretty girls make graves...
                     some girls are bigger than others...
            oddly... the music when watching
empty buses plough the streets -
             when empty streets become...
arcades for the winds...
                               and... they are not missing
those arthritis prone in-mid-life joggers...
              well... it's still the right sort of time...
to head on high... and find entertainment in thinking.

Hey kid, you've been dead a few weeks and I'd just like to say hello. The ground has its first December coat of fragile snow over your dead body and I know you can't feel the cold but I'll tell you right now, I can see my frozen toes, just barely move them, breathe up into the sky, Id be lying if I said I still cry every day. But, I'm lying to myself if I said that I'm not trying to take back your pain every day in a way that won't make your heart start beating again.

I wonder if those butterflies ever drank up the nectar from your blood, probed their soft tongues into the velvet of your cuts, those razor blade ribbons, oh holy romantic, how you bleed like Mozart and bleed like ballads of classic rock stars, how they whip your face with sour sweat and drugs and drugs and drugs until you find yourself half asleep, brain swept under the rug.

Did you know only 1.5% of drug overdose related suicide attempts are successful? Beautiful blonde martyr for an ugly catholic high school in an ugly state in the ugliest of its hearts, how does it feel to be 1 in 100? How does it feel to be a rarity, carbon pressed into diamond? How does it feel to be cry for a week, left in the grass to roll like waves, buried without a name and a face and a grave?

In the latest of solemn sleep deprived nights I press my ear to the chest of the 100th depressed boy I come across and don't feel Vicodin climbing up his arteries, don't feel Klonopin, OxyContin, Ibuprofen. I can't seem to find the one, who knows, maybe you were it and all my efforts really were wasted. All those nights I've stayed up late did nothing. All those knives I stole, all that blood I wiped away with t-shirt sleeves, all the blankets I've put around stupid shaking shoulders, all the bittersweet will this be the last time your skin is this warm hugs, God did they mean nothing at all?

I lock my jaw into a permanent silence, buy back time by putting my money where your knife is. I take bets on when someone will die next. I read the label on every bottle of Xanax. I roll over in my bed again and again, and try to put you to rest again.

Amen.

Not since the days
of shooting ******
into the artery in my armpit
(too many blown out veins
in my arms and feet),
have I spent multiple nights
pacing and sweating…..
******* simple carbohydrates. –
In the first months
of being a non-cigarette smoker
I would see folks light up
and near instantly collect
a chilled film on my back
and fingernails…
forget about it;
but the other day I drove
by a pizzeria
and had thoughts of ski masks
and 45 caliber pistols…
******* simple carbohydrates. –
Once upon a time
I drank near 200 ounces of
Mountain Dew
each and every day.
If I missed a day,
I would have massive headaches
combined with serious irritation;
while it has been more than 5 years
since this body ingested caffeine,
last night I could not fall asleep for anything
and no amount of cannabis oil
or ibuprofen
had the ability to curb
my aching noggin….
******* simple carbohydrates –
change is the only constant
and humanity has evolved
amazing adaptability
while I know I will be fine
at this moment only one thing
really runs through my head:
******* simple carbohydrates! –

there's a Heart of Virginia Festival magnet bleeding out onto the
countertop. it's been like this for weeks, i think. i've
been sitting here for weeks. letting the phone ring and
not picking up. a couple of old strawberries molding in
my palm. two ibuprofen waiting to be swallowed resting
pretty on my tongue, melted down to sulfur and acid.
i'm not the right kind of sick for you. bees buzzing inside my
skull, lazy and
sticky sweet. blood dripping from your face to the tiles.
gutted and fresh and stinking, and
you won't stop carving dead languages
into the meat of your thighs, muscle gaping red and raw
you sit in the bathroom of a Macy's and howl,
like youre wild,
like you're hoping someone will round the corner, fists flashing
and ******* stop you.
youre not a Real Boy, you say, spit it out quick and harsh.
thats what momma said- you'renotarealboy.
faster than before. like you're scared. (i know you are.)
my shoulders go up once, twice. what the **** is a real boy?

This was yesterday,
this was punctuality,
this was all I had left to say,
projected insanity.

Numbed or overdosed,
this case is closed,
overwritten, surplus.
There never was a thing called us.

We got what we needed, nothing more,
we got what we deserved, a saddening bore.

Damaged Goods
Broken not accepted
Lost in deception
You eat my words and step on it
******* and my lesson
I’m 17 and you left me
You eat my words and stepped on it
Mindset ****** with the darkest cuts
I tried to open up but you tied me shut
Through me on the ground
exposed my cuts
throuh   all the evidence out
With my eyes closed
I started to swallow those infections that ate me up in side that makes my hands shake and my stomach ache
Doors closed my mental state
Ibuprofen how much should I take **** this **** my heart won’t break
  knock me up I’ll get what I can take
beat me down shut me out give me worthless knowledge and doubt
how dare you say you love me when you just broke me
*******

Step 1: Be as anxiety ridden as possible.
Get a bladder infection because you are too scared to ask the teacher to use the restroom.
Fail your Algebra class because you fear that if you tell her you are confused, she will laugh at you.
Everyone will laugh at you.
Wear dresses and frilly skirts because you are scared to come out as transgender.
Your mind will mock you with thoughts along the lines of,
“ You dont deserve to be a boy.”
Just go along with it.
Let the words bounce in your head like children in a bouncy house.
Do not reach for the ibuprofen bottle.
You see your mind will need to be as messy as your heart.
Therefor your heart will have to crumble into an avalanche.
DO NOT PICK UP THE PIECES.
You will need to be addicted to starbucks and body modifications.
Do not get anything less than a Venti because if you do not get your daily dose of caffeine you will go into withdrawls.
You need to modify your body because it is the only thing you can control.

Step 2: Make your hair as colorful and bright as possible because then maybe your mom will understand the fact that you are gay.
Maybe if you turn your head into a walking pride flag you will not have to see the look of disappointment coat her face when you step out of the closet.
I know what youre thinking because I have been told this before.
“But honey, the closet is made for clothes.”
Yeah youre **** right but the closet is also the only place you can hide your chest binder and boxers,
They will sit right next to your pushup bras.

Step 3: Feel everything.
Feel every single thing as deeply as you can because if you do not,
Then how will you get a messy heart?
And to have a messy mind your heart must match like the couple shirts he bought you on your one year anniversery.
Do not love him.
He will break your heart two years in and cram the words
“I simply dont want you” down your throat
And you may not cry.
You may not show him you are hurting because then he will know you care.
Then he will know you are wrapped around his finger as tightly as you can.

Step 4: Do not fall in love.
Even if it is simply with the brush strokes on a canvas.
Do not fall in love with anyone before you fall in love with yourself because for the past two years, toxic waste has filled your veins.
Do you know how much it hurt to bleach him out of your mind?
You have to scrub his fingerprints off of your body.
You will become raw.
It is okay to be raw,
You just have to learn to heal yourself.
No more coating the burn wounds with promises of forever.
No more temporary treatments.
For the sake of your sanity,
You must fall in love with yourself,
Before you can learn to not love him.

It was all a blur...the day I met you
A headache of which 200 MG of Ibuprofen would not satisfy
You might as well have cut my forehead open and questioned if its contents were love or lust
I didn’t know
I had a headache

Oh it was a doozy
Whew Whew Whew
Thoughts whizzed around my head in zip a dee doo das
Fugazi's of  Love or Lust
I don’t know
I have a headache

I spent my last eleven dollars on a plastic bottle of ***** sitting on the refrigerator.

It is right next to the ibuprofen and the giant salad bowl.

Last night we drank our plastic bottle of ***** in glasses.

I remember the day you realized you always write about water

and I always write about fire

I also the remember the week I took too much ibuprofen and

slept with my eyes open in the back of your car while

allison stole from the salad bar at whole foods and

here we are on two different continents

writing poems for men on circled corners of maps

you ripple, me ash

Sun dust haze
an old wooden door
I reach, locked
handles, hands
pressed splintering
knock,

The newspaper reads EVACUATION NECCESARRY
Exasperation of the lilting seed of sanity;

the clocks unaligned to my watch
the fridge has been off for days
milk curdled, cheese hardened
this Panadol, IbuProfen parachute me
down, codeine
hits me hard upon the ground
the fireplace surrounds
a dragon breathing flames out of our mouths
and the room is no longer hot;
it is supernova.

Stars sound like songbirds outside, shooting,
gargled gin smells like grace,
erase
the drone of Arab spring
the scent of comradery
for a security station
computational bastion;
calculus of reason,
reputation, family, existential crisis
lets circumnavigate

to the window ,
reality split by liquid,
a rainbow in the sea,
children dancing beneath the Pohutakawa tree

“Hello?”
“Hello, were you here all along?”
“Long enough to see
those purple hues of your dressing gown, you
standing aimless across the room,
you came here today too?”

“I didn’t really choose” balloons, still tied to the ceiling
pop
“I must go”
“Stop”

ground dissolves, glass
mirrors, present, past
pop

“take my hand
lets watch the angels carry the sun away”

If I think harder do I burn more calories

Does being hot or cold burn more calories

Silent night time exercise

how many calories in
           lexapro
           ibuprofen
           air
           saliva

how many calories did Auschwitz prisoners eat

is diy liposuction possible

what body parts can you live without

could they have poured calories in this water

how to give myself the flu

can thinking about food make you fat

how much does a finger weigh

Rosanna knew she was kidnapped. She was taken all those years ago. She never knew her new family was really as bad as they were. Her older brother Liam changed after high school. He wasn't ever really normal. This was something she always knew.
Being nine years younger than him, he was her protector. The day he snapped was about a week after he turned nineteen. He killed his parents and buried there bodies in unmarked graves behind the house. He was ready to **** himself when Rosanna got home from school.
He knew that before he took his life that there was something she should know. He told her that she was adopted legally but not obtained that way. The family that adopted her were the ones that took her away. He told her that he loved and her birthday was her own, that he had killed their parents and she would have to survive on her own. He said his final goodbye but he never would have known that she would snap to that day and he wouldn't let go.
She took the gun from his hands and threw it out the window. She pulled a chair over from the kitchen table and smacked her brother in the head with tears rolling down her face. She told him he was an idiot for forgetting the promise that he made just a few years ago. He said she'd never be alone, that he'd always be there. She reminded him of this while hugging him around the waist.
He wanted to be alone and tried to push her away. She wouldn't have it, especially not today. This only made her hold on tighter to the only family she had left. He picked her up and carried her back up to his room. She was still crying when he sat down on his bed and told her that he was sorry. She cried in his arms, late into the night.
She woke in her brothers room, on his empty bed. Frantically she ran down stairs to find her brother there. He was setting the kitchen table with a breakfast made for two. He saw her and he smiled. He went and scooped her up. He was feeling sorry for making her cry. He didn't  know his actions were the partial onset of her taking her life.
She was diagnosed as schizophrenic exactly one year from that day. He had no idea she would trip the way she did. The year she turned fifteen she went on a trip. She heard her brother and her boyfriend, they were the voices in her head. They were telling her to **** herself and that is what she did.
She thought about taking a rope and jumping from the balcony but she didn't want to display herself  for all the world to see. Her next option was to take a knife and slit both her wrists but that was just the thing everyone would expect. Finally she came to the decision such as this, she would get the bottle of ibuprofen and take all the pills at once.
Her brother had come home to find her laying on her bed. He thought she was sleeping but really she was dead. She wasn't too far gone, though, she was barely breathing. He sat her up against the bed, laid a towel on her lap and stuck his finger down her throat. She threw up the contents of her stomach. The whole pills and all.
She woke up unexpectedly in her brother arms. Another body was now laying in another unmarked grave. This one belonged to her ex-boyfriend. Liam's reason for this crime was this and only this. His sister nearly took her life because of the voices that were triggered when her boyfriend told her to the face that he was cheating on her.
He got all this from the note that was on the bed beside her. When she laid there on her bed going cold from all the poison. After he had saved her life he took the life of the person that didn't deserve any affection from his angel ever again.
Liam now has a new toy, a nineteen year old name Niall. It's been four years from the day his sister tried to take her life. She is happy with a guy that she can truly love. Caleb is the cutest thing and he doesn't mind that sometimes she is going to breakdown and he will see her cry. He doesn't even mind that fact he's going to have to share with Niall and Liam at times. She knows that Caleb will protect her just like Liam had. He knows of Liam's crimes. It's all happily ever after because her heart won't be broken this time.

I walk in
and throw my faded, ripped, three year old, coca cola pajama pants
toward the tub
just soft enough to miss the shower curtain.
I close the door and take off my shirt,
undo my belt, step out of my pants
and just stand there and look at myself:
my hair is a dull brown, and messed up, but I don't care tonight.
My pupils are dilated; a few too many ibuprofen.
my nose still looks half broken on the side opposite my scar.
my left eye has bags, as it always has,
as does my right- between the merging of two faint bruises;
one from a Nerf bullet impact turned sty I had removed,
the other from a zit which overtook my cheek a few weeks back.
my forehead is wrinkled prematurely
my unshaven chin and scalp both growing grays.
my collarbones stick out enough for me to fit my fist in when I lean forward.
my neck widens in the back in a way that looks unnatural.
my biceps, chest and stomach are all muscular, firm;
the result of two workouts every day.
But it is my leg that shows my pain,
shows the strength I still tell myself I have
or rather the strength of the weakness I sometimes let take over in it's place-
knee to ankle;
fresh cuts, all bleeding
each a quarter inch apart.
not the most I've ever had, but the longest stretch of my body I've ever covered completely.
and I don't even remember why.

You know when you’re like
What the **** am I doing
But you still do it?
That’s me; doing stupid ****.
My back building a wall to her
In bed when I just got TOLD
That *** again would have made the night
Perfect—so it wasn’t.
Me with a glass of wine like ibuprofen
And tortilla chips for xanax
At 171.8 which is unacceptable for a runner.
Doing stupid **** like echoing I love you
Because if you don’t say it back
You don’t mean it—which is bull.
Somehow becoming OK with
Saying things like I’ll get in trouble.

Washed out every morning
Curse the night before
Wallpaper alarming
Eyes are getting sore
Ibuprofen breakfast
Knock it back with tea
Messing with the contrast
Squinting just to see

Sharp november morning
Stinging on the cheek
Cracked lips from yawning
Feeling antique
Light up in a doorway
Cough the dust aside
Use a passing ashtray
Don't break stride

Everything's Picasso
Jaunty on the eye
Drowsy desperado
Mouth is growing dry
Too many left turns
That just can't be right
Check for directions
Late despite

**

i guess that after the rainfall
of september
i reached through october
to clear it all away, blue skies
and lies fading from my tongue
and yet, all through november
the headache persisted
and i listed the failure to forget
among my insecurites
left there to dangle from my fingers
and as i pressed my hand into your waist
i could feel them bleeding
bit by bit
into the fabric of your jacket
and i feel better now
and the headache?
well, suffice to say
that in december, i noticed
while kissing you
that you tasted faintly
of ibuprofen