The Lego castles I built when I was little
Aren't strong enough to keep you safe
But they are the best I can do.
And I promise
The collapsed dollhouse in the garage
Is not a fair representation of me.
Though it might be a bit too close to the truth.
And I've never been good at Jacks
But I promise to pick up all your pieces
Every time you get thrown around.
And I got good practice
Taking care of people
Through all the stories I made up when I was five
And the rubber heads of my Barbies
We're always still connected to the plastic bodies
At the end.
So I think I have good experience
On how to stay alive in the real world
So maybe we could live in Lego houses forever
Please?

The family tree is dying
Everyone seems to be lying.
The tree is falling apart,
Everyone stops caring
My family grew from the same roots,
But our branches are growing so far apart.
Everyone is letting this demon into their heart.


I am planting my own tree.
This tree is going to grow in upmost care,
With no one to stare at us.
This tree
I will call my own
Will have strong roots,
Values and traditions.
While the old tree dies away with every bad omen.


This tree will grow with care.
It will grow with every emotion to spare.
I will feed my new tree with genuine love and understanding,
No more fighting.
No more judging.
Just pure patience
Our branches will grow intertwined.
The roots go deep into the ground,
Tons of people in so many places.
But the past is dying.
The traditions are dying like a malnourished plant.
I cannot believe how low this tree is coming.’
These roots which grew deep
Are soaking in poison
Feeding the poison through the tree,
And affecting the modern members.
Anger the only root.
These roots are becoming ghosts.
They watch us.
Our moves.
Our actions.
My family is not a family.
These roots which was so deep are killing us at the top
Our lives falling like leaves in the fall.
I know that I want to make a new tree.
But let it not be in vein.
I will learn from this old tree,
An old mentor,
Who lived a life most unsatisfied.
This new life starts at 18,
Carving my name at the beginning,
And as I live,
I will see the sapling grow,
While watching the other tree die.
Its pain is my gain,
Because I am learning the tricks of the trade,
I am learning how to escape the grips of anger,
The accuser who condemned my family for generations.
I will break free,
Grow with the tree.

My family’s branches are high, but alas far.
They are becoming separated, but I am young and watching.
They say that your life is set by your parents,
But I am not fueled by abusive fire,
I have grown past them,
I have thrown this virus of the tree away.
I am not going to fix their problems,
But I am growing my own success,
My future.
This sapling here,
The seed to be birthed,
It is going to grow,
So tall.
These notes I have scribbled,
Will lead to the happiness of my child,
The contentness of my wife,
The success of the spawn of us.
This tree is going to take a long time to grow.
It will learn from its mistakes as its predecessor did not.
It will be tall.
Making this broken tree nothing more than a shell,
This life,
This tree.
It is going to be free.
The sickening evil for blood with dry up,
The new tree will feed on smiles and happiness,
And out will sprout
The family,
I have always hoped for.

But this hope started somewhere.
This hope I birthed had pain.
It is a spawn of abuse.
Which seems to be the main cause for the old tree to dig so deep.
The anger of the leader spread somewhere,
And though not everyone is the cause,
We were ALL effected.
It took our values
Pushed them to the depths of hell
And left a chilling heat of anger and hate,
And though this is a debate,
Our family’s trajectory is going straight to hell,
Back to the man who gave us anger.
I cry today,
For those who were consumed by the darkness.
I feel sorry for those in the tree who did not reach for the sun,
Who did not fight for the family,
Who did not fight the urge to inflict pain.
A sad thing indeed,
But this is why I have the need
To start again.
This is why this life,
This current tree
Just isn’t working.
I’m tired of being fed hate.
It not too late.
My tree is going to grow strong.
It’s starting now,
Here
Today
It always has been.
I was superglued to someone else’s tree.
Taught their values.
Taught their insecurities and told they were my own.
But the forbidden word.
No.
Is becoming my advocate.
I will reach for the sun.
I vow to encourage
I vow to take what is rightfully mine.
I vow to start anew.
Make this tree reach high.
This new tree will never know the “Mendoza” way of things.
This new tree
Started by a sad situation
And a definite resolution
Is becoming truth.
I may have grew up in the poison,
But more and more ii have found a cure,
Immune to anger
To hate
I have found that these roots of their tree,
Which has poisoned each twig,
Has one fault.
It never tried to reach for the sun.
So I,
I take this,
And I make this my own.
This house is not my home,
But things will bend
And I will break,
And start anew.
I will live to see my family flourish.
As its predecessor did not

She sits silently
Shellacked, superglued sans sound.
Cornered, Christine clenches
Claws covering cowardice
Comfort.
Taut tongue tangibly taciturn
Turns, transforms til truly torpid.
Silence caused transformation.
She is now an armchair.

When my ear first orbited your throat
to listen for a roaming balloon of nestled flesh
I heard trailer home hollowness
in copper vein pipes.
You draped a scarf over your superglued
neck, telling me it was normal to fistfight
death at 35.
On Dad’s desk, your weight breathed feebly
inside a sandwich bag. At night
its nuclear green cast Orions across our ceiling.
I never knew what real stars looked like,
while you had completely forgotten.

Years later,
in the dark of our 17-acre home,
you handed me your thyroid in its bag
swimming in opalescent fluid
and you looked at Polaris for the first time,
as that same glow painted the Big Dipper
on neighboring snowbanks.
I dropped the bag on the dry rot porch.
We heard your cancer flatten to a deflated bicycle tire,
sweating from death,
watched through squinted eyes as its glow turned
from hazardous neon to cinder.
It dried in the moonlight,
a forgotten, frostbitten raisin,
and our eyes readjusted to the perpetuating darkness.

I saw it then like a long constellation
line connecting star to forehead.
It had been a lie before,
but the North Star is truly the brightest
in the sky. We looked through its surface
underneath the star’s skin to its heart space,
and we realized that Polaris can only be seen
when thin plastic holds inside
damaged shadows of family
dinners bathed in deionized salt,
where I ponderously stared at the ****
in your esophagus, drawn with knife
like ruby crayon into office paper.

I.

Sickly, dark-skinned Joseph
Bustos was in a suit,
picked his phone from his
Pocket and asked us to take
Him a selfie as he motioned
To the statue of an eerily staring,
Possibly demonic Ronald
McDonald languidly swaying
On a faux-park bench. Collective

Laughter - "Are you serious,
"Man?" We said, having all heard
Full well stories of
****** painted clown statues
Moving its creaky bones
At the crack of dawn only
To devour our soul. "Are
"You serious,
"Bustos?" we genuinely taunted -
"Well I'll have a mirror," he told us
"So don't worry." I never

Quite got what that meant.

II.

The laughter and tales of
Business school and
Med school continued full on
Into the late (school) night,
Dense tails of superglued
Frog brains, Chinese economics,
Girl problems in the
Philippine stock exchange drowning
The macabre absurdity
Of the take out
Terror, Ronald

Staring blankly into the crevasse of
The night, and we absurd,
Blanketing in laughter scarred and scared
Wanting to approach
The chained playground but shivering
At the slightest hints
Of movement - which of

Course

Came. And Jack
Yeung (The largest, yellowest
Of us all, perhaps smartest too,
Studying in Hong Kong)
Leapt, at which we laughed,
And made jokes about how
The cockroaches
Matched the color of
Our country's skin, made it
Crawl not just because
Of its stick thin haunches,
But its brownness,
Seediness, inconcealable

III.

To which we laughed - yellowed
Out, almost as pale
As the sticky ice
Cream cups that adorned our
Table, pale not though,

From lineage but rather
The collective rosiness of our
Disillusioned, ice
Cream-fed cheeks, and the fear
Of darkness, and eerie
Whitefaced Ronald, and
Brown cockroaches and

Spirits that could move
Frozen marble faces. Bustos
Gestured quietly
To his cellphone,
Gazed downward and muttered
Something about
Fraternities and connections.

IV.

Behind our mutterings,
The Movement: children,

Coffee-stained and tattered rag
Shorts slit open like grass stained
Skirts, holding their bony
Hands and kissing Ronald's
Hollowed cheeks like he was
An ancient god. "Stop,"
I imagine us warning them,
"Evil spirits, dark and deep
"As night itself, haunt his body.
"Stay away - we've studied
"His countenance plenty."

They would only laugh though,
And continue to stroke
His paint-chipped cheek,
Brown - not
Ghost-thinned cockroach,
But rather rich
Like brewing coffee and
Fertile

Soil.

Eyes transfixed, care to take a second look
Lies spill like oil out of the picture book
See the ever present glazed look in her gaze
The levels of misery just might amaze

The smile superglued onto a falling face
This plastered image in a foreign place
A trick of light, my love, and that is it
Photographed half-truths, often edited

Bind them together, for a story we must fabricate
Smash the window to see the masterpiece we make
Distort and contort a slump into paradise
Hear the people wish for a second they had your life

Look back on smiles and then upside down
See the dull eyes behind the makeup of the clown
The lights are on, my dear, paint on a pretty face
So we can reminisce fondly of the happy fakes

what can i do when there are hands
hands all over my body that
are disembodied reminders of that
night
when kristallnacht fingers slashed my
tender soul to childhood ribbons
penetrated me in my flowering womanhood
and stamped my forehead with
that bloodstained W
and you still see me as that
*****
that infant abandoned
at the red brick fire station
safe haven laws
but i didn't even go to a hospital
when sanguine shame
seeped from my cursed hole
that secret between my legs

and i wished they'd unraveled my entrails
disemboweled me rather than
stabbing me with their flesh
samurai swords of virility and
i wish they'd killed me like
a stuck pig and maybe
placed an apple in my mouth
to silence me instead of
asphyxiating with their hands
that i now can't escape
their sensational escapades
across the plains of this body
that i am forced to
inhabit and traverse the
Serengeti wasteland where i
beg for predators to once more make
me feel like i have no control
and maybe **** me in the end

because those hands

when they first touched me
i would have hacked them off
with a butter knife
some dull rusted blade
but they disengage already
they follow me as if
superglued to the hole which
for them was the complete
embodiment of myself

just a cavernous nothingness for them to inhabit
with their manhood
shooting pain to complete my
empty soul
and fill it with seething shame
and a layer of dirt to
close me up and
forever taint the white sheets
with blood stains absent
and are you still a ****** if
they took you by force and
you never wanted it but
didn't fight back

they are inside me
forever
and they wake me in the
dark of midnight whisperings

they wake me when
you turn over in your slumber
to wrap me in your arms and
you are greeted by shoves
and tears
when will i not whimper
because you aren't them but
those hands
in the darkness
i can't tell the difference between
those hands
and my own
and yours
and i want to be ripped apart
torn open and laid bare
excise them from my secret place
from that place in my brain
from which my nightmares seep
and those hands
hold me down to relive their
searching violation
in bold technicolor revelations
that i'll always be that girl
the drunk *****
the dumb *****
the ***** who deserves to
relive that night to no relief
world without end

you must see a dumb *****

you must see the marks of
their handprints
all over my body

you must be disgusted

but i'll take your *****
and consume it in your absence
just to be closer to you than
those hands.

He would file the edges of glasses down
Whenever one would chip
And I would find them,
Rough rimmed
Ragged edges ground
And always where my lips would rest.

I don’t know why it annoyed me so.
Perhaps because I hated the imperfection so badly
But the dishes too, he began to glue those
When broken and that was too much.

Cup handles superglued and breaking just
As I lifted the hot liquid for a sip
Lead crystal port decanters with the
Elegant stoppers mended
And sitting cockeyed on top
Daring me to lift it and then
Only to break over and over
And him,
trying to fix it
again and again and again.

I found myself deliberately smashing things
Down when chipped, or flawed
Throwing them on anything hard.
The backyard patio became my favorite
Breaking point.
I couldn’t stop.
although I cut my feet and knees
While creeping through the yard
barefoot
Weeping.

I hid the adhesive.  

Just so he couldn’t try to mend things one
More
time.

I severed the cord on the grinding wheel
And found myself examining anything
fragile with a keen eye=
Sometimes a magnifying glass.
Searching for any imperfection that might prove
A flaw capable of breaking.

And in the end
it seemed to me

That nothing,
nothing could leave this house
Until finally,
eternally,
unfix ably broken
or crushed into pieces.

It's sad when things fade. Like when friends drift apart,
Or that song you used to listen to on repeat becomes boring.
Really, It’s not sad.
Just you moving on with your life,
Evolving into a fresher, more complex version of yourself.

Time moves ridiculously quickly.
No one ever thinks to pause and look around for a bit.
We can't take life for granted.
It can be taken from us at any second of any day to yourself,
Or those you love.

Don't judge people.
Don't wish people harm.
Just learn to accept and appreciate those around you a lot more then you do now,
Cause I bet you've spent your life mainly thinking about yourself, and for a while that's good.
Self-healing is good and is a way of rebuilding broken parts.
But once you're superglued back together again, think of others.

Tell your family you love them more,
And when parting for the day give them a hug.
Do nice things for them randomly.
Whenever they're not expecting it.
Plant love like poppy seeds,
And nurture it until it blooms fully and is brighter than first thought possible.

Think for yourself but do not become ignorant.
Debate and embrace others opinions,
So that you do not become small minded or obtuse.

If people try to harm you,
Work out why.
Confront them and demand an answer,
But do not shout. Remain calm and collected.
If they have not got a proper reason (Not that there ever is one)
Take them out of your life.
Erase them and their negativity.
The hate will fade away.

They cannot affect you if you do not let them.

Remain strong.
Remain honest.
But most of all,
Remain yourself.

I'd like to applaud the dickwads who found the need
to stomp on my toes and bring me to my knees
only moments after the emotionally crippled girl
superglued the final pieces of shattered knee cap bones,
Bravo to you former close friends,
for setting off the final fuse of complete self destruction in t minus ten.

Mental snap, Olivia Addams is back

“Your heart is a beast”
They said
And ripped open your ribcage to pull it out
Antiseptic smiles
scalpels in their hands
a sheet stapled to your chest that just said
”wrong”

“this is for your own good”
They said
While the
flesh peeled and
Bones cra ck e d apart
Fur pulled out til it was all red
And

The howl was stolen from your throat
so you couldn’t even scream
couldn’t bare your own **** fangs
Cause they’d taken those too

Your heart is a dull-toothed beast
Staggering and swaying
Snapping at the wind
Spitting up blood
Leaving a red trail in the earth with its paws
To match the one your organs made
When they all spilled out

“for your own good” they said

And

You are dying



Bleeding out in the dirt
Hemorrhaging on the inside
like some forgotten thing hit on the highway
like some old fiend, having taken its last blow
and curled up to die
while the warrior sheaths his sword and gets a hero’s welcome

but you don’t

you should be dying
but someone scoops up your shattered little heart and the shards of your bones
your organs where you left them on the ground
and takes you home

“it’s okay” they say
As they gently scrub the blood out of your fur
until it’s all white again
“you’ll be alright” they say
as they clean the grime out of your paws
sharpen your nails
Dust off your heart
And nestle it deep in your chest
under patchwork superglued bones

they arrange all your important parts with the care of someone
who knows how easily things break
drain all the blood out of your lungs
and you remember how simple breathing used to be
when you weren’t drowning with every breath

“they were wrong” the tender one says, sharpening your fangs
Petting your head
“But you are not”
And their hands are so warm
That you think you can believe it

He was a penny superglued to the sidewalk.

He was a balloon that made a plan to escape my

fingers before I ever had a chance to tie it

around my wrist first.

dead eyed river:

your lips are the end of my line;
i’m wearing fish masks to deflect time into bottles
sealed with wax.
little wishes written in invisible ink
seep into jagged cracks,
whisper empty bottom of the glass.

ring untrue,
superglued lips parting flesh,
and find liberty within your hands
caressing scales.
ring untrue and smile void
through charred airwaves.

i’m coming to you unglued,
fish mask fresh with decay
smelling of *** and the center of being;
i am rotten between my teeth.

you are dead eyed endings,
blanks shot to terrify the living -
you are unforgiving,
smelling of grief -
you are my ending just as i thought
dawn was beginning.

A superglued mouth

(this isn’t a metaphor)

******* superglue

The merry go round sailed around on its rusty, squealing hinges. I could feel the chipped paint beneath my fingers over the metal bars serving as handle holds. The platform ridged to better stay on. My old friend swung into view among the blurring trees and swing set. He looked aged, weathered, with his unruly hair sticking in places by sweat and the light rain that had begun. It needed to be cut back above his ears. Though this way I could braid it, or let it curl around my fingers.
My laugh rang out against the cloudy playground as I went around one more time. His answered, a lofty, deep-set sound. I could hear his shoes squelch in the muddy rut around the merry go round. It wasn’t going as fast as I felt it was, but I couldn’t care less. Watching the muscles of his arms heave it before he began in a run and hopped on gave me a high. To me, we were flying. We could be superglued here forever and I’d never care. Even as my shirt began to cling as the weather worsened.
Then the weight of his sudden landing brought the contraption to lurch, then slow, and we fell as a heap on its side. “Just one more time!” I remember pleading between breaths, his heavy and gaping. His green eyes flashed, incredulous at the idea.
“It’s your turn!” he bellowed. Though we both knew I hadn’t the strength to turn it, much less with him on it. My stomach was starting to flop even as I thought about giving it a go.

I miss my best friend
I miss giggling
I miss arts and crafts
I miss netflix watching
I miss my best friend

Letting go of your favorite balloon as a child was heartbreaking but you almost felt at peace knowing it was going up and going to reach the stars one day
Maybe I need to think that
Why does high school need to tear apart good friendships and create groups of plastics
Best Friend is a not a label i give out lightly
So how do i rip it from someone that i’ve superglued it on to and it’s sit for 4 years

I cannot make their decisions
I cannot choose their actions
All I can do is sit and pray
And it kills me
I see her change
I see she is not like before
I see that she doesn’t really care

I see that group rubbing off on her like sharp cheddar on a grader
Collecting all of think mold inside of her
She become so full of it she forgets to clean herself off.

She forgets her roots
Her tree is flourishing with fruits and leaves that the people around her validate her for
She forgets her roots that i loved
I cannot cut her down
I cannot turn her into a stump
The only thing I can do it sit along her trunk and wait to see
Wait to see if when all her fruits falls down she remembers
Wait to see if my balloon comes floating down
Wait to see if that superglue held on
Wait to see if my best friend comes back

Dirt sided shoes
Patter lonely on the grass blanket
Shaky hands choose
Flowers pink or purple
Eyes stare seemingly dry
Unable to feel repressed pain
Memories cry
Tears wiped with white tissues

"I'll miss you"
Whispered into the wind
"I know that you'll miss me too"
Spoken from a superglued heart
My snowflake fingers melt
Onto the rain soaked forest floor
All the love that was yet to be felt
Falls short to branches of ever twirling trees

"It was... magical." They would gush
Stars orbiting just for them
A moment where two minds
Choose to be one
You can roll your eyes
Say you've heard the story five times-
Six now
But they aren't even listening, they can't
Above the crashing waves
Of their passion

This party wasn't made for two
Gravitating toward one another
Not even socialising with the outside lifeforms
The moon and his sun
The day and her night
The sand and his ocean
Ten plus ten fingers still equals ten
Two hands superglued like crafts
In the middle
Money and papers forgotten
A universe built like a cottage roof
Above two bodies
One soul

Ten years pass
And suddenly one home becomes two
All the secret smiles
And inside jokes
Are screams and shouts and curses
That you think echo across the street
But live inside your head

That first story
The way they met
So long ago
Is the story you wish you'd hear
Instead of this exit song
That will never stop playing
Until one or the other
Finally gives up
Leaves orbit
To be the only star
Of their lonely galaxy.

What was when?
Happy now
Whats really in
the now?

What was when and again

and then_
(Sir)prizes
superpowers
Got us how they won
Show me no shortcuts

Life is not a Zen
10
Please don't take
too long
I was better off in my
Play pen
True or false
I felt so touched

When you were sincere
your energy through my
pulse like a love overdose

Now and then
Future When
Do I hear his beat
How you worded me


Through another
dimension
Superbody
language many
French Italians
Stallions Germany
Drinking at the
Dynasty
Spanish
Happy now
I wish what was then
Paella dish perfect ten
Sorceress swordfish win
You knew me
The true me
Now or then or when
Did you really hug me
Dark London Fog

He locked and
She locked
Sherlocked
Christmas
"Everlasting Eggnog"
Scrooge
Humbug
Mistletoe
Bumhug
Ruined me
Newton fig
It wasn't me
Jolly Green big

Superpower
Something took
such a hold
over me

You are so over me

Talking head's
Montezuma
revenge
Gave me the
powerful runs
No time American
Women Pledge
Allegiance

Goddess miracle sun?
Wanted now you better
run
She was then
Pulled in the wrong
direction but when?
Ritual book
Queen Daily- Double
Woobly in a ditch
Druken so Scarlett

So ****** lost
her affection
The good witch now or then
"Red Moon" doomed
The bad witch again
Reminiscing or ritual spell
More room red vampiric
Heartache met my match
Terrific
Blood type smoking
hell pipe
Nothing too hype

Exploring on skype-_??

Egyptian cat nap
Seeing Alien's
swim slap
"The Aquarium
Happy now" evil twin
And then that all depends??

Her water turned to sin
her long
The black cat stretched_
body super catnip

Took over claws and fin
You could see through
her smile
Supertonic sin
All to the end of her
tail map
My head
"Spin Tops"
Mummy planet dearest
The darker the fairest
Viruses she sneezed
Super Devil computer
He is still sitting

He was the last man
standing
I had him superglued
Samantha now she
  sued

I didn't get a chance to see

myself tomorrow
being loved
"Secrets inside you"
But what could you
say
I can't convey
I couldn't look away
Platonic drinking tonic
What was then feature
Another scary seizure
You could feel it in their
gestures

Holy night powerful
Happy now
more hopeless
Tomorow

I was leftover
lifeless
I wasn't getting
older I was happy_+*+*

Corpselike in the now
Ladyfingers matched to
"The Demon"
"Sorceress" killer
season
Hybrids or the
powerful feds

Hospital bodies
elevated in bed
the weaker
(The Seeker)
moonstone
Disembodied

Spiritual awakening_

Otherworldly $ * %
Everyone is numbered
Immortal # 2-4-6-8
Who do we appreciate
Dark tunnel and when
do we get her cake
Italian funnel
In other words all hell
broke the supernatural
ring this was not the time
For  Sing-Sing
And then she was left
Risky business in the back
dead wing

"Then Transcendental"

*******  Valentine
"Red" super now $$$

Like a "Celestial"
Too commercialized
I am happy to know it
And then he claps his hand
So pompous to show it

But felt alienated
So foot cramped
All clamped inside

She is the happy-one
I don't get it
Glorified
Those affairs pursued
got horrified

Egyptian King Tut all
magnified
The other side how
it fire-lit
The left side hip wickedly
justified

Afterlife or after
dinner mint

Did you not see it coming
Her stunts
A hint? You were stunned
And then so?

Rarefied or rare find
Pack of werewolves

Blood through her sleeves
Ethereal so devotional
So consecrated Ego inflated

Terrorized then tranquilizer

shots

Aluminum more allied like a

clad ***
The third eye saw the good
what it got
Being grateful not so
"Penny dreadful"

More formed for now
physical
May his force be with you

So Presidential political
But not you

ripping paper and the
delicious sound of
detachment where there
was once a unity
screaming to the heavens
bleeding acid rain and
soaking me to my core
cold and wet watching you
watching me
at the window
mascara coursing down with
searing tears that
mix with rain and disappear
before you can see
the gaping hole
myself laid bare
bullet holes
and sink holes
collapsing in on themselves
and eating away
my body
silent screams escaping
the prison of my lips
praying
and praying
rending my garments
throwing myself prostrate
to be destroyed
consuming myself with
the pain of your absence
even when you are
sitting next to me and
i feel you slipping
along with my tenuous
sanity

you could have used a blade
a scalpel or razor
to leave clean cuts where
you extracted yourself from me
but you used a machete
a butter knife
rusted and dulled
hacking away to leave
jagged edges
screaming for relief
because i'd superglued you
into me
sutured your heart
where mine should have been
but yours burned brighter
than the stars in the universe
and i wanted to share
in that
and i wanted you closer
and closer
to absorb you into me
telling myself you wouldn't leave
but i'm bleeding on the ground
with only my pain
to keep me company

you were sick a long time

i didn't really get that
i was in seventh grade

we drove all the way up to maryland for what was supposed to be the last thanksgiving, but i didn't know that

and apparently you didn't want that
because then you got taken off of hospice care.

who gets taken off of hospice care?
no one, that's who.

i didn't really get that
i was still in seventh grade

we rented a beach house like we used to do
all the cousins and aunts and uncles

and you
still sick

but still you.
you had your boomerangs and your piece of driftwood with the shells messily superglued to it (it matches mine) and your mo oatmeal that somehow tasted so much better than normal oatmeal.

it was really nice.
i enjoyed it a lot.

i don't know why i thought you'd just keep getting better
maybe part of me was still in seventh grade

you lasted a long long time
i was proud of you

i grew up a lot
but i think a piece of me will always be in seventh grade

because three days before my birthday i couldn't really believe what i was hearing

not really
it didn't seem like reality

i finished my cereal
and rinsed out my dishes

walked upstairs
closed my door

sat down on my bed
and then i don't know how long i cried.

i think i'd be okay
if i was still in seventh grade.

but now i'm here and it's been four months
and i'm not.

It was a few days after it all
when I clung
to the ship that wasn’t really a ship, or you told me so
I,
I would have believed it could have been anything
a block of cheese, a fandango,
that old porch
I’ve been dreaming of for a few years
the scene doesn’t end but
Frank, the jumper wearing fellow-
he’s shaped a little oddly- he
told me to leave the fridge open
and you see I got a little distracted the world wasn’t quite there
and the machines weren’t quite machines
and I couldn’t pull things off the walls like I could pull
fishes
fishes out of my eyes- something a little backwards
didn’t we used to keep this behind the teabag jar?
I,
I thought the lid was
superglued with something a little tougher than
soft touch
blues
the melody calls out from one of those dog-eared
spitting instruments and we
look at each other in shock-
it knows something we don’t.

hi
what in the flying **** is happening?
can you answer me because it seems like you can't
it seems like you've superglued your mouth shut
tied your fingers up
never to type my name again
hi
what in the flying **** is happening?
can you maybe like find the time to type a few words
after all, look at this poem
maybe you could take the time to mumble something under you breath
something that i know i won't like
hi
what in the flying **** is happening?
you know what
you can just **** right off
if my life means nothing to you
then tell me
why, in the whole world of other people's lives
that you could **** up,
did you chose mine?