let it not be confused
let no one else's name
ring throughout these sentences
let this be a hatchet
let me put this to rest
this is not a test
i don't want to think
about shipwrecks anymore
i am tired of folding apologies
into origami birds
and placing them
at the headstones to your tantrums
this is not is not geology class
these are promises
written on razorblades
      & if you are getting choked up
        then maybe you should be
maybe we should be buried
with our telescopes face down
my mouth is full of sorry
all for being honest
we are falling out of orbit
we are burning bystanders
so cast away your callous condolences
because no one is clapping
in this waist deep water
this is not a baptism
so do not tell strangers
that this was a chance to drown
any differently
i am not a catalogue
of constellations you cannot name
this is not mythology
so stop believing your horoscope
i am not a wishing well
i am just a wall for you
to paint post nuclear fallout & antonyms for catharsis on
we destroy the things
that are not ours-
the wanton ways
we embody wrecking *****
and then cry over the rubble
this is not a heap or a mosaic
this is leaping
off a thousand story building
with no one to catch you
at the bottom & maybe
that's why some quiet moments
are so fragile, maybe that's why butterflies have mimicry
your words are black powder
and poetry is your musketry
i guess that makes me your blindfold

Life is bitter sweet, though always there for the most delicate moments
Through the short bursts of truth that will leave you cold on the bathroom floor
covered in shaving foam and your own blood
The spinning record that tells you to cut your hair and to give up on her
It doesn't have that B-side you wanted  
Yes, life is Bitter sweet
Said the cab driver on the way to hospital
A close call was not enough
To hide that family secret
But bandages hid it well enough
Velvet linens and a torn Hallmark card must have made the day
After a promise to be polite
a swallow of another aspirin and a bus ride home
try another dose of razorblades until there are no more feelings left

Broken razorblades haemorrhaging
beneath my voice, I tried to sculpture
the pain beneath my intentions.

To sew them underneath with blunt
needles. venting the devastation that
clustered beneath, I wanted to bleed out.

If I needed wings to soar they were plucked
before I flew, and the razorblades were
haemorrhaging beneath, I'd cut them myself.

Pariah

Nihilism at its finest

Bleed black the finest shattered diamonds

Of all the lost hopes and dreams

Outcast Society burning in the ruins of fallen Rome

Cynical skeptics, sarcasm dripping venom

Acid burns through flesh blood and bones

No one gives a ****, scream for a savior

Outcast Society burning in the ruins of fallen Rome

Shards of glass smile razorblades

Plague of loneliness grips your throat

Heart beats darkness through your veins

**** society, anarchy reigns 

Outcast Society burning in the ruins of fallen Rome

Shadow world of gray and stones and broken homes

Bleeding hearts and gutted homes

A black void in collapsing homes

Outcast Society burning in the ruins of fallen Rome

Cesspool of sick and stinking ****

Hungry ravish burning Rome

Parasitic beasts feeding on lost souls

**** you in and never let you go

False promises of help, burning, burning, burning, blackens the sky

Outcast Society burning in the ruins of fallen Rome

Nevermore the sun shines down on the wretched land

Outcast Society burning in the ruins of fallen Rome

This

Is

The 

Future

i am choking for words.
i hacked off the tip of my tongue
to spite my quick wit-
stumble over it.

lusting for beauty through text/
creation is hollow at best-

a dollhouse
a fantasy, dystopian as per usual
for an idle mind
losing hours and
pickled in hate's brine.
   salt in the wound
   salt in the wound

angst, angst, teenage angst.
a kiddie anarchist.
stop fighting it.

turn up the stereotypical.
depression playing on the radio.
don't try to be more original.
what haven't we seen?

choking for words and
stuck on painted portraits
all is well, but never exciting
i'm exiting this uneventful existence
all for once and once for all.

-and you thought there was a winner
buried in this chrysalis-
well, the rhythm has returned,
but i'm sick

of painted portraits and lost hours
and sugar-coated expectations of the truth
how uneventful, how unexciting
and i'm tired of razorblades,
but at least they're honest

speaking down, insults and
lies and i know i need to sleep
but i'm fighting it.

i'm ready to move on, but not for long
not for long and
you'll see me as a butterfly someday.

A box of prescription drugs on my table.
It holds your name. Stating what is wrong with you.
Flaunting the details of where your body is
Failing.

You notice the hair on my pillow.
Shame.
Worried looks.
Anger.
I find none of it in your eyes.
You buy me razors.
"Do you need any help?" you ask.

Kisses on my bald scalp.
Beauty. Now we match even
Better.

March comes like a punching bag

March will bring her smiles like plastic bags
Some tear some don’t
You never know when she will glare her teeth like razorblades and bleed the snow
from underneath these fingertips.
Leave my insulation soaked, me; feverish.
And the joke is, I saw this coming
shivering the melted ice out of me she
bares her grin like a warning sign,
and I was either too brave or dumb enough to step inside
like a welcome mat made out of ice
and a cartoon dog
A scared pitbull, and a woman in charge.
The joke is that haha
There is no joke, you walked in.,
and made one out of yourself.
Out of the frost on your eyelashes and grief on your fingernails.
haha get it,
sweat her out like the coldest fever, without dying of shock.
Get it now?
She brings back the taste of firewood and comfort of flames when you needed it the most
Punches like the best punchline
hard enough to make it hurt
not hard enough to make you forget
hahaha
Knocks the wind out of you.

She Looks Like a Tiger
See how she places her paws so lightly, so as not to be heard.
Silently, she moves through the crowd, head held high, today she doesn't want to hide.
Depicted in peach coloured stripes. No red, no brown, no blue, no black.
Today, is the first day she felt it was safe to show them.
Asking for the first time in her life, for the world to continue doing what it's always done
Lean on her, sing her our our sorrows so she could sing them back and pretend, that we could not see her scars.
She has always been the brick wall.
The concert hall
The shoulder to cry on.
The logic you would chase after with your pedestrian problems and she was the designated driver.
But when it looks like you're a casual on bridges over troubled waters, there 's no one talking you down from the ledge.

She would never have asked you to.

Hannah, your name sounds like a semi-permanent tattoo.
I hope that's what this poem feels like to everyone who hears it
So that every time they think they know broken,
they feel cold lines crisscrossing their body and can honestly wonder,
was this feeling your blueprint.

But I think you look like tiger.  
And I know, I shouldn't give time to some little boys who refuse to use her real name because it fits her to well.
Callin' her some emo, weak hippie freak.
she's just looking for attention.
Because when you're the first person to make it through Hell and back alive, you're a liar.
A hitch hiker piggy backing on someone else's problems.
But her arms served as straightaways for razorblades for nine solid years,
and its no thanks to people like you she's still here.

You think, she should be ashamed of herself. As if scars are a ***** in the armour.
Like she was peer pressured into self-destruction and couldn't resist.
No one asks you:
"Hey there, wanna cut? Wanna, self-mutilate?"

Just like I won't ask you not to hate the idea of someone being that low
That every beat of the heart feels a little like ****** assault, and cutting was the best way she could find to say no.

She looks like a tiger,
and she didn't earn her stripes. People rarely do.
But she has earned the right to wear them for what they are;
Battle scars.
Things she's long overcome.
Her head is held high again.

And I know, I shouldn't be wasting my time on people
Who refuse to use her real name,
but Hannah is still Hannah inside out, upside down,
Backwards, Hannah is still Hannah,
Even with her insides out,
Hannah is still Hannah.
She's still here.

It taste even sweeter when the blood is running down my arm.
Every sip I take,
I welcome the blade more.
I've missed this pain,
The familiar touch so welcoming.
Comforting me like an old friend.
I won't neglect you anymore,
Because giving in has such a sweeter taste.

No one gives me the pleasure you do.
So close to insanity,
But I cut the demons away.
Drowning away the emptiness that keeps dragging me down.
The darkness becomes stronger everyday,
consuming the very essence of my mind,
While I slowly drift away.

As I began to write,
my emotions kept cutting.
Deeper and deeper,
as if I was staring to wage
a virtual war unto myself.

I am cobwebs and smoke.
I am shards of a person who cannot decide
The difference between
Love
And god.
I am razorblades and thin air.
I am ink and shadows.
I am drowning in moonlight-
I am a spun web of starlight and wanting.
I am the wire frame of myself-
See through shape with nothing inside.
I am the wrong port in this storm,
Sending out beams of
Don't-ignore-me,
Blades of light that split the hazy fog of apathy.
You've sewn me with seeds of humanity
And I feel the life beneath my skin
Like it will sprout
Roots
Any day now.
I have a ribcage full of fireflies
That shine through the spaces when I breathe.
I have glimpsed dreamcatchers
In your eyes
And snagged my darkness in their dizzy thrall.

Go Tito, Go Tito
Go Tito, Go Tito
Go Tito, Go Tito
Mata los timbales
Go Tito

Go Tito, Go Tito
Go Tito, Go Tito
Go Tito, Go Tito
Mata los timbales
Go Tito

Oye como va...

the neighbors voices climbing out of windows left and right.

Is that you Tito?
Put down those pots and pans.
Make better use of those hands.
Don't you know those hands were made for working?
Follow your father to his factory grave shift,
Make razorblades to sell.
We'll always have hair on our faces.

Is that you Tito?
Knock off that racket.
Here I am trying to sleep
And you've got my feet to moving.
The night was made for dancing Tito,
And dancing was made for Harlem,
But that's bastante on a Wednesday mijo.

The young king packs up his studio,
Whistling dixie like she's never been whistled before.
Twirling the melody from royal lips,
Showing her how to use those God given hips.
Where did you find that groove you in your neck?
And do the words Puerto Rico still give you the chills?

You have walked on too many streets in New York City
And the Afro-beat is shacking up with the Cuban.
You can hear their children playing in the barrio allá,
And aquí they're blowing horns of imagination.
Make those wooden sticks tap your telegram, Tito.
Let the world know about this message brewing inside you.
They hate.
They yell.
They love to see you dancing,
But your ankles told you that wasn't right for you.
Your hands never have been able to keep still.
Maybe it's because they feel the future.
Do you realize where your bridge will lead?

You are the future Tito.
Do what you got to do to be where you got to be.
Play in Uncle Sam's band but don't you go to Normandy.
Follow your hands back to the big apple,
Take a bite out of this place they call Juliard.
When you sleep at night are they still screaming…
Go Tito, Go Tito
Go Tito, Go Tito
Go somewhere where the floor is on fire
With the fusion of jazz and samba.
Make it bigger Tito until it looks like it did in your dreams.
Pick up those sticks and mata los timbales.
Have the decency to wink when they name you king.

What is it that you mixed in that ***?
Your alchemy giving birth to new species.
Have mercy Tito.
Your music is feasting on the ears of the public,
Your hands are drumming on the ecosystem.
They call it salsa, and you laugh
Because they can't taste the carne.
Shine those pots and pans.
Tip your hat to Spanish Harlem,
Where windows stay open to let the dreamers dream big
And the red brick walls are soaked with memories.
Babarabatiri Tito,
Teach the world how to dance.

Go Tito, Go Tito
Go Tito, Go Tito
Go Tito, Go Tito
Mata los timbales
Go Tito

Oye como va...

a legend.

there is a tourniquet on his tongue.

he is a risqué bloke
with alkaloid fingers,
they are wearing
yellow asylum jackets
yet he calls me
mad-


emoiselle, his, in between the lines
he cuts with razorblades and mirrors.
i find myself in between legs
of a stanza (not standing),
pale femurs and inner thighs
french-kissing into
surpine ampersands
where the first word
is a proclaimed ugly disease    -- perhaps 'love.'
and the other, its escapade   -- perhaps 'tuberculosis.'
but i must be the period:
oxidised bones.  


within the eyes
of a stanza (still not standing)
abides no fancy lines
no avarice for contemplative meanings
there is but space and void
and i've filled his femur marrows
with metaphors
to the verge of the patella.
he writes poetry for me
with a needle
and an eight-ball.



there is a tourniquet on his tongue
and his spine fits my stocking


seamlessly.

I was an idiot back then,
those trips to Rebekah's hovel.
though they did make me sentimental,
for the days when her dad had taught me guitar
for eight weeks when I was thirteen.

she told me of a suicide dream
that utilized her iron deficiency.
I told her I would tell her parents
if she started pushing it in motion,
that made her cry,
though in retrospect, I wanted her to die.

I was at that misery factory age
when your heart pumps nothing
but razorblades and jealousy,
and the death of some overly-depressed
girl would at least give me a story to
tell.

I was a pseudo-lover,
writing page upon page
of poetry for Sheila,
I used an alias for her:
"Nature's Criminal".
It felt appropriate.
what she did to my
emotions seemed rather
unnatural.

we would kiss on dark, dirt roads,
and duck when cars would passby.
she would always preface
our encounters with,
"remember this doesn't mean anything."

now, Rebekah only writes to tell
of artists signed to Saddle Creek.
she got married to some diabetic,
acne-marred, ***-fiend that
bares the burden of a pet peeve
that revolves around bananas.

now, I only see Sheila,
when some boy is ******* her,
when she feels beyond used.
in her parasitic apartment,
I always remind her
they don't mean anything.

the grass dreams of a little girl
who will lay on its blades
again, shaking her small bottom

it feels much like warm wind
& baby bugs crawl into her hair
home, they whisper her name so

home is hope until the mom
kills every single one with soap
baby bugs do not know the

thoughts of tiny children, death
eats her skin & will turn grass
           brunette as she grows up

I'm here to spread the news that.
Despite its bad reputation with people
Back surgery works like a charm.

When I was 23, I injured my back lifting weights
I began to have chronic back pain
I researched what was the best thing for back pain
And yoga came to the top

At age 28, I began 8 years of yoga
That I practiced every day
My back pain was reduced until my age of 35

When yoga eventually failed
I moved in to physical therapy
That worked into my late 40s

I was rear ended in a car accident,
With the car entirely totaled.

That was the beginning of the end.

Nothing "alternative" worked anymore
I felt like there were razorblades in my groin

I would fall for no apparent reason
And then could not stand back up
I went to my doctor about it
He said if I got a MRI, that surgery would be the next step
Since surgery has such a bad reputation
I skipped the MRI

I was riding horses at the time
One day, I went to get a horse in the pasture
I kept falling and could not stand
I thought it was due to the mud.
I had to crawl through the mud and horse ****
To get back to the barn.

I thought once I was on concrete
That I could stand
But I couldn't
The stable manager helped me
To the office.
I rested for half and hour
And then drove home.

We were watching TV
In our downstairs family room
I went to go upstairs
And in the middle of the stairs
My legs stopped working

We drove to the ER
I had an emergency MRI
It showed that my disc was entirely extruded
And surrounding my spinal cord.

I went for emergency back surgery.
The procedure was called a microdiscectomy
They just took the gel
Away from my spinal cord
And within 2 hours of surgery
I could walk again.
I noted how easy it was to walk.

After a few weeks of just weird stuff
Like lightning bolts down my legs,
My back entirely healed Within 6 weeks
And that was the end of 27 years
Of back pain.

I often tell young people that
I had an extruded disc that
Was older than they are!!

It's been 5 years now and my back is cured.
If back surgery did not have
Such a bad reputation,
I could have saved myself a lot of pain

Microdiscectomy has a 95% cure for referred pain
In my case, it had a 30% cure rate for back pain
I am in the lucky 30%

Back surgery does work
And every year
There are more advances.

I went to my surgeon
And gave him a present
And a big hug of thanks.

Spread the word!

The subjectivity in the world still scares her
Like a little girl, dwindling in her room,
The vastness outside her drowning out
That meek little voice of hers.

It’s too loud; it’s too much
Her heart cannot swallow all the
World’s anguish
So instead she thrusts forth,
Razorblades at her wrists,
A cosmic determination lining
Her lips.

No, no, today is not the end
It is neither the beginning nor
The start. It is a quixotic trance
And she’s left out there in the cold.

Dank, deep, a sadness that consumes
And in the willows outside her window
All she sees are the bluebirds nesting
They are warm
They are whole
They carry on

Her sobs punch me eardrums.

Green eyes rimmed with red,
she presses her forehead firmly into her knee caps.
I stare at her hands and imagine them in his.

“I can’t breathe underwater like I used to…”

Passed out on the floor
she gasps for air.
I bet she dreams of water falls and razorblades.

He flattened her optimism with his realism.
Confused by body parts and heartbeats,
they made disappointment a language.

Illiterate lovers

*“I can’t breathe underwater like I used to, before I met you...”

This is a shout out
To anyone
And everyone
Whose helped me or hurt me
Hindered me heightened me
Loved me
Or left
Me
This is a shout out
To you
Girl

You were like poisonous apples I couldn't keep out of my mouth
Eve
You were the only thing in my whole life
I ever believed
In
Girl
You were like razor blades
Cutting my heart and soul

I feel your absence in my sleep,
the two by six abyss where your body should be.
Crime scene lines in my mind stand out starkly on the sheets;
those lines of snow and desperate hoes stealing you away from me.
It's been weeks now where
rolled-up bills, razorblades, railroad tracks have become your new significant other.

The minutes tic-tocking by in my dreams,
without you they slink by so slow from my fitful doze.
I wander and wade in nightmares after smoking sheep and counting green,
the Sandman is stalking me, mocking me and I'm praying you were near.
I put the ghost of your body in this pillow
but a stuffed bag is no soldier, so with nothing to protect me, I lie awake with no lover.

5 AM: caked-up ***** cutting lines for you.
Do you feel like a rock star now?
Rocks of blow, star of skanks, putting the King in ******* pathetic.
Dictator of my days but just a distant memory at night;
did I imagine you in the sun? Did you actually sleep next to me once?

I never sleep on your vacant side.
Even while tossing and turning in the tiny hours of the night,
I can still feel the divide
from that thin white line.

This body is a memory
Like a phantom ache
For fingertips
For lips
For fists

There was the rug-burn

I sleep most comfortably on my belly
Shirtless
No blanket

From when he brought the belt loop
Buckle pinching neck
The carpet not as soft
As curls of fabric
Felt like razorblades and fire
Skin so red and raw
Window open it cooled me like a slow breath
On tomato soup
There were days my body looked like tomato soup

This body is a memory
For the soft against my chest
Puzzle piece breath
In the ways I want to fit

I want to taste your mouth like a cannibal
Lips so full of blood I want to bite them

Some days I want you to single cell me
For simply the fight and the ****

This body is a memory
A gentle tickle
Some things I’d rather forget
Phone book bruises
Elbow torque and knuckle gut

Some things I strive to remember
Beer breath kisses
Head on chest
Hold you like an embarrassed birthmark
Because I don’t want my arm to fall asleep
But I don’t want to move you either

We were sleeping in our sleeping bags
as a noise like a finger snap
did wake us and break
our dreams into shreds
and someone did shout:
"This is the night the heater went out!"
And no time was wasted, it was a riot in fact
everybody was leaving
not leaving the place intact
the curtains blackened
and there were screams and tears and hours of horrors
all inside seconds
and apocalyptic schemes were suspected in every can
of canned beans
there were prophets and saviors falling from the ceiling
2 for every human being
shouting madly:
"The heater needs healing!"
But no one was listening
because the terror was whisteling
and walking very casually
with his hands in his pockets
ripping the copper wires
out of every socket
there were trains of doom
at the station
and a man with a silver harpoon did ask for your ticket
and if you didn't have one,the handcuffs clicked
and clacked and out-clocked
the time that made sense
There were houses in flames
and extended familys were just moving in
and the undead were asking the living:
"Where have you been,
i was worried sick,
now go ahead and die,
i want you at home before sundown kid!"
the tv's were glaring and swearing
"******* humanity, look what we found!
it is, yes, a heater and god the almighty, it went out!"
and evil thoughts went through your head
like swarms of bats
that flap their wings blindely
bounce of the walls
and fall
like leaves fall in fall
and only this one lonely boy, kept dribbling his basketball
in the schools abandoned gymnastic hall
getting his kicks from the imagened ghost cheerleader chicks
who were dumb, dead and gone
like weak old twiggs on a tree
when a heavy wind blows on
And the lions escaped from the local zoo
and were keen to know
what it would be like, to drink coffe from your cup
and take a bath inside your bathtub
and take your girlfriend to latest movie about cleopatra
in the next drive-in theatre
and the skip of a heartbeat was the longest unit to measure
and your in the mist of mystery lost love
was a grain of sand and even lesser
and you couldn't prove gravity
with the fall of an apple
it would float right up, explode
into razorblades that would settle
into the boiling water inside of your kettle
and the shocking shopping malls
were selling shock-collars and chopping knifes
and socks for the afterlife
And under your homes paranoid roof
you found goofs doing spoofs to proof
how bad you could rhyme
and they would always leave but never in time
the icecapes were melting like a single raindrop in hell
so that the turtles would jump right out of their shell
and fly like cannonballs that are as fast as no one could tell
and the bees were humming but only bluenotes
taking the honey and also your money
thinking it's funny
the highways were lowdown
and the deepsea was wadeable
and your one and only favorite thrill
would knock you right back and make you ill
your favorite song would disappear
in the cracks of your ceiling
and would leave you with only one feeling
none feeling
and your favorite word in your favorite sentence
of you favorite book
would jump right of your hook
ending up in the water
getting cought by a trout
that would finally end up inside a whales mouth
"why bother" you say to yourself, but you feel like a ghost
"why bother" you say
and those two words bother you the most
it was the heat of the moment
the beat of a fear that is still unexplained
that made the heater a mountain
of all that you dread
in your head, hands and heart
and now we shall part...

2 am

Land,
luggage,
end reality.

Bad weather means
delayed flight,
glued in tonight
still, adventure
beckons
from glass pane
separating
airport
and
New York City;

Our escape.

5 hours till next flight.

Sheer immensity
of silver obelisks,
so cleanly cut
edges like razorblades,
have grasped our curiosity,
slicing binding adhesive
of bad weather,
anchoring our release
into the cold mist.

We wander beyond
our time limit.

Bright,
despite night.
City never sleeps,
still peaceful
on the other side of day.

Making way
street by street,
exploring what we can
while we can.
The amount of exploring
one gets done
with a time limit.

4 hours

Alleyways,
streets, parallel
zigzag back and forth
up and down.

Some lit,
others
bleeding darkness,**
over pouring
with lost souls.

With a clouded sense
of direction,
one tends to find lost
at every corner.

3 hours

Like bugs at night,
we stick to the light.
We strive to make it back
before our time is up.

Nervousness settles in
as sight seeing
becomes partial.
New objective,
return to airport.

Mental maps being yelled
back and forth.
Still nobody knows
which is right.

2 hours left.

Familiar street
or frame of block,
memory shoots through mind
like lightning arcing through the sky
providing the route back
to salvation.

The Scarlet Speedster
known as The Flash
has never known speed
comparable to
my brothers and I
nervously rushing
back to JFK.

With our last hour
we check in our baggage
and board our plane.

Though not our destination,
it would be pointless to pass up
the late night delicacies
of New York City.

I am there
Wishing that if I pressed my fingers to your lips
I could understand the broken Braille of your breath
When your throat locks in the noise

Gentle butterfly gut
Fanning flames over burning cinderblocks in your belly
I am there

When you wished the moon in a rearview mirror
Heading west
Wondering if you really could go far enough to see its dark side
When you wanted to turn back
I was there

When she drank razorblades
And Tylenol ink
Into a botched suicide note
I was there

This is the journey

When he wondered when he could hold somebody again
Like a waterbed full of blood
Without the motion sickness
I was there

Every moment y’all
Of your ***** sacred
I want to be there
So when you see that this place is so big
And you are so small
And our souls might be stardust and minerals
Burning blue so far away
At least you’re not alone

Your body is built for love
She said
Beer breathed and true
I smiled
I was there

Kiss me with your car parts
DUI this knee buckle
I want to be tried and arrested
Spit out and spanked
And I will still kneel before you
And praise all that is good in you
Because you are holy

Every moment of you is holy

I was there
Begging to be baptized by your presence
Because in a place so big
I don’t want to feel so alone anymore

I want to kiss you
I want to kiss you
Like you are better
Than everything you’ve ever done
You are

I was there
When the world inside your breastplate
Spun natural disaster
And sunshine
Anvil remorse
And sweet laughter
When I held you
Any of you
And our worlds
Vibrated a conversation only our souls could understand

I was there
And all we could speak was “LOVE”
All we could speak was “Us”

She asked me to tell her story for you all today.
I wanted to say no, but how do you say no to a dead girl?
I didn’t think you could, either.
So here I am.

But I've been thinking- we all know her story.
You’ve been fed her story by her caring, devoted parents.
So I’m going to tell you my story.

I was with her every step of the way.
[Except when it mattered, except for at the end.]
I was there when her caring, devoted parents called her a liar,
called her a thief, and called her a ****.
[Then lovingly announced it was a character building exercise. ]

I was there when instead of getting help for their daughter
as she repeatedly cut and destroyed her body,
they praised her, bought her new razorblades,
picked up her various painkillers.

Oh yes, her parents are real gems,
ladies and gentlemen.
They were very involved in Jamie’s life.
Always made sure she had
everything she wanted.

You know what?
They spoiled her to death.

Oh, too soon for suicide humor?
My apologies. I guess I’m bitter.
The last thing I need to say is,
Jamie wanted me to thank you all.

She wanted to thank you all for letting her go.

People assume things. They tend to do so every day, no matter the situation. Why? Who knows. What? All kinds of things. For example, they assume that the happiness I show them is real, when it is only a faqade. My happiness is the mask I use to hide my bitterness, my hate, my depression, my anxiety, my lonliness, my helplessness, and the broken pieces that I truly am. I mask many more things than this. My sanity is the mask I use to cover the fact that I truly am not in the right mind. I might not be insane, but I am certainly mentally unstable. My wholesomeness is the mask I use to hide the fact that I am beyond repair. I am broken in heart, mind, and spirit. My body may be intact, but the soul it masks is broken. It is broken in a million pieces and these pieces are slowly turning to dust - beyond repair. My smile is the mask that hides my tears. The tears that fall when no one is looking. My laugh is the mask that hides the screams of pain that constantly **** me from sleep. The screams echo in my ears and they never vanish until sleep takes over again. The make-up on my face is the mask that covers the tear tracks. My empty, emotionless eyes are the mask that keep my inner despair hidden. The hat, or hood of my hoodie are the masks that hide my scarred scalp. The scars there are from countless hairs being pulled out by my bare hands when I have a breakdown. My pants are the mask that cover my scarred thighs. The scars are from countless nights of countlessly and raggedly drawing razorblades across my sensitive skin. I am completely and utterly masked, hiding everything true about myself like a coward. I even take it so far as to hide my cowardice with a mask called strength. It is better to be masked than left out in the open with nothing to shield yourself, wouldn't you think?

do something for me, okay?
tell my story at my funeral.
you’re gonna want to say no,
but how do you say no to a dead girl?
you can’t say no to me anyway, can you?

that’s my girl.
you never could.
so, will you tell them?
will you tell everyone
the reason i’m this way?

the reason my hands are useless,
sewn onto my wrists for show?
the reason you see me beside you,
femoral artery on display?
the reason my eyes stay glassy,
hyperfocused on nothing at all?

will you tell them of all
the things you were there for,
the things you saw,
the things you heard?
how you were the only witness,
every step of the way?

i think you will.
tell it all.
[we won’t mention that
when i needed you most,
at the end,
you weren’t there for me either.]

why didn’t you help me?
why didn’t you tell anyone about
all my razorblades, all my pills?

they were practically hand-fed to me,
and where were you?

right beside me, but not where you needed to be.
not helping me, only protecting me.
you protected me to death.

oh, did that hurt?
my apologies.
i guess i’m bitter.

anyway, the last thing i wanted to say?
is thank you.

thanks for finally letting me go.

i ruptured into a
million flickering stars
too long ago, breaking from
touch-induced trauma and the
poisonous aspects of
bleach. my thoughts drip
from the ink veins
of pens; ******* it,
i cannot allow myself
the privilege of
saying, “this

is every secret i
ever hid.” i am not
soft or pretty or
loving; i am small
and hurt and reticent
and guilty and abandoned. i
long to be the

little girl i was six years ago
before he shredded my
insides, sprouted roses
in my blood, wrapped his ******
thorns around my throat. there is
no recognition of that beloved
innocence. the girl in the mirror
never looks back at me: she is knotted
hair, decaying paper skin,
scarlet gashes, pink
scar tissue. i am not

sweet or darling. i am
ravaged. van gogh swallowed
yellow paint to create some
feigned happiness, and i understand
that in the nastiest way. i spent my time
trying  to shelter the black and blue
daisies on my hips with makeup,
camouflaging razorblades in fields
of sunflowers, pouring every
unhealthy bit of my starved
stomach into the beautiful
lilies in the flowerpot in the
bathroom. i have unearthed
that home is not the
safest place to be.

i was infected and diagnosed with
the disease of loneliness
by age eight. this wound
has burdened me yet the
ticking time tomb nestled in
the crooks of my devastated
personality will soon detonate; they
told me i was sick, and i think
i finally believe that.