I feel very weird today. everything feels foreign to me, like military time and gun powder. animals staring at boys with scared eyes. the uneasy silence of blood stained sidewalks, the airplanes, the buses, the trash cans. the cameras. the police that flooded the scene as the hatred split the glass windows into a million flying swords. a million fighter jets. the city is a rat trap, I curl up on the floor of my room and listen to the police radio feed, heart knocking in tune to the white noise between more news. i said it over and over. the economy is sinking, your face is something I think of as a whole different place. I keep grasping at the tendons, and the threads. such a messy job. i wish I could be one of those people who did everything right the first time. if you don’t recognize yourself no one will recognize you. the hurt, and the ***, and the dark nights riddled with chinese paper lamps. and the feeling of something ugly growing tumors in the sewers. you say only two people died. but who will die tomorrow. who will shrink into history books. how many cities will burn, how many libraries will burn, who will burn. someone is going to burn, the air tastes like charred cities. the panic. you. I keep wishing to be strong but I don’t think it works like that. I don’t need love, but I really do.

Sometimes I sit
in my nook by the
heater in the kitchen
with a cup of coffee
a glass of water and
a cigarette
and I just stare at
this website while
silently worrying
how many people have
actually read this?
680 individual human beings
680 parts that contribute to
the whole
that's a lot to me
seeing as i am only
one person

I smiled at the EMTs like a paralyzed child. A little girl asked if I was 'the lady who fell'. I didn't know what to say so I just smiled at her. I do a lot of smiling to get through my day. I just felt this hatred for what is happening right now. I know, they know, it's only a matter of time. A ball of yarn, unravels, and when you unravel it, it becomes nothing but a very long string. This string is the timeline to a life that I was looking for, thought I always wanted, where i marked the string, events occurred. You have to remember which color the event felt like, and be able to keep track of the black markers of years and birthdays and birthdays and birthdays. Understand your life on a one dimensional scale. It's humbling. But the problem is I lost the view of the shore from the ocean, and I began to unravel blank white string, adding gaps to my timeline, they get longer and longer. Save your string, do not unravel, you'll see the end when it comes. Just go, do something, stop caring, create new marks, imprints.

The hill tops are far enough away
That you never hold your hands to the window
But you’re secretly hoping they’ll grab you, run
Under tables and over the green couch of the
Woman standing alone at the window
On a snowy day, so go
But always come back again

Your body is made of half hearted attempts at
Scrubbing tiles and then ripping them out
To lay new boards, to secure every crack
Adhesives and bubble wrap
You’ll need it when you’re moving everywhere
Shaking like a leaf
So place the tiles back together
As if nothing had ever rotted in here

Armed to the teeth with excuses
Still looking for answers
Yet calling it useless
Stop fighting and leaning on your crutch
But i want to get off this ride
It’s costing far too much
And I’m not interested in luck

So I breathe quietly as we leave the hospital
Because I should have known better
And instead of less, you have become
More than can be stomached
You take up space like a deer at the crest of
Grass beside the edge of the highway
And you just want to turn into this beautiful person
So she can get her money’s worth
This beautiful animal

It wraps around a telephone pole
As if it were just sleeping on the curb
Baby nausea, baby *****, baby lay down on the pavement
And when you close your eyes
It’s nothing but the gentle imprint
Blades of grass leave on your skin

The bones are barbed
The organs are on display
We don’t make mistakes here
We just slip about the day
I refuse to look directly at headlights

when I asked you what happened last night
you said. “Nothing”
I asked you why
is there a used ******
nestled neatly in the space between
my bed. and wall
You don’t look me in the eye when you say
“We had ***”
because you know. “We”
didn’t have ***.
after you fed me a fifth shot
of the liquor you brought
you watched me spill over and
swooped in
to drink your fill

what texture did the skin take on
before it gave up and swallowed you?
did you ever for a second think
that you could be safe when
your fingers never stop twitching
every time you examine your neck in the mirror

there was a time before your hands
were reasons to hold on tight to anything
that could breathe
don’t tell me they’ve always been
this hungry

you must have known a night
before you had to bury them beneath pillows
to keep them from biting at your ribcage
fenced in by notions you put in your own head
they weren’t always this restless

there are ways to think about dying
without burning it into your skin
and there are nights that crackle like pyres
when you slip and let the embers sink in
and you think what is a body
but a vessel for sacrifice
but living on sharpened stakes
never felt so good
stop convincing yourself
it feels good

this depression is overgrown
you’ve never weeded the garden
didn’t water the flowers
and then turned away from your withering
too ashamed to call it your own

don’t you wonder when this self-hate
became the only trait that stayed hidden and safe
take those itching fingers to the shovel
and dig fresh beds to lay in
stop lying in the excuses
and uproot this grave

how does one climb out of a life
when every day is the same
when did you get so forfeiting
that you stopped attempting
to pull your body out of this?

i know it’s hard
to convince yourself this woman is not
the sum of her parts
don’t believe the man who spits at you
when you don’t agree to be the object of his rage
is sane
he will stay the same
but it’s up to you to stop
believing him right
and seeing yourself through his eyes

you are not a statistic
or a receptacle for pain
stop blaming your ribs
for holding on so tightly to your heart
for all the ways that you hate them
your organs are still smarter than you are

because they hold on
like deadbolts and locks
when you manifest the world’s sickness
in your brain
stop blaming yourself
and take the reigns

get a grip
that isn’t cataclysmic
learn to live
instead of picking at scabs
just to feel a pulse
you have gotten in too deep
and you are above this

1

being needed less is a pain that follows you
stretches and bounces as it lands at your feet
soon you learn how to dribble it

2

” someday” you said, ” we’ll all lose contact”
is that really the only option?
I get quiet when it hurts
but I still ask ” you think it has
to be that way?”

3

You are empty airwaves
I am an open phone line
I would call you
but I have a feeling you don’t want that