a short silence
for lucipher's wings
a short silence
for jesus' body
a short silence
for the death of youth

breaking for adulthood

being brave is
loving yourself
when no one else
will

2013 was made of bus stops and ABC gum
while you garnered a habit
of chewing your lips in the corner of every room you entered
sinking into the cushions as easily as if you were the stitching
running your hands over the stitching in the cushions so many times
over the course of a single conversation, that you could easily
have become the stitching.
2013 was made of boys who left holes all over you
when they pulled out each careful seam
you restitching it every time and spitting
oh well, your loss

new years resolution:
stop allowing yourself to be turned into an object
because you're afraid to be a person

2013 was made of barely fun nights
of screaming sweaty 'cool' people packed into much more interesting rooms
and you, happy to be with friends
wondering who all these other angry people are
and why you never end up surrounded by a crowd
of happy people, who don't find any space taken
that isn't consumed by them, to be offensive

you say cool like it's an insult today
you say cool with a bitterness that can only come
from a markedly uncool person
someone who doesn't laugh at damaging jokes
who makes space for others in conversations
doesn't linger on the bottle of whiskey that is not theirs
their unwillingness to share reminding you of
greedy grubby fingered five year olds
clinging to snack packaged oreos
their eyes darting around as if someone might just
notice their selfishness
you see them, your tongue pinched between your teeth

new years resolution:
share more, even with greedy people
what is taken with bad intention can never be fully enjoyed
you know that well
bacchus could drink every ounce of wine in greece
but without a reason to count his blessings, he is just drowning.

2013 made you into someone different than you used to be
someone who thinks too much and is too harsh
too much instead of too little, always too much
who has learned how to stand but not yet how to bend to get
the best result out of holding their ground
who can be cool like their peers for maybe half an hour
before feeling the pull of a tidy bud of green
and a pen and paper, an archive of sounds and thoughts
that don't talk back. you feel weak. and yet
you feel so ******* strong

because 2013 has made you someone
who runs to help the drunk ***
tripping over the curb outside of your house at 4 am
even though your mother is reprieving you in your head
as you take his weathered hand, sleeve soaked with beer spilling onto the curb
and pull him carefully to his feet, asking if he is hurt
and despite your concern he regards your sunken female figure with discomfort
as if regretting that he couldn't have fallen in front of
a more ****, beautiful girl that is full of vitality and life
and nurses poor sad men back to health

and as he is having a moment of realization, you have it too
he is realizing that a man in shambles
can only ever hope for a woman in shambles to understand
no ****** mary will ever grace his worn soul
only a faded chain smoking insomniac waif
the world is not that magical
this reminds you once more that not only are you not cool
for caring about others, but you are not welcome
because you yourself are a social *****
and that's not the love they were looking for
when they asked for it
but you will give it anyways

new years resolution:
even when they burn you and cut you
even when they hurt you and steal you
even when they bag you up in pieces
and sell your respect in jokes
you still have it and just like the bitterness
it will never stop bleeding and beating
and you can handle it
even if they can't

you are strong in a messy way
a way that stinks and sops past memories
out of every pore when you are courageous
and if that is considered an uncool way to be
then that's the coolest thing you've
ever done
so don't give out on me now

when i say i don't need you
what i mean is
i could need you
if you chose to want me to

but how do i tell you
there are little dead girls
rotting like black pebbles
in my ovaries
and i'm still scavenging for the gold
trapped inside burn crusted skins
determined to pull every survivor from
the tomb before the world shifts beneath me again
and lava eats away at the bedrock

i can't let you be the next explosion
that crunches through
my chest and floods it's way
into the cavities of my armor
how do i say this and not come off harsh?
i have **** to do
i can walk with you but i can't walk for you
and i won't walk because of you
unless you walk because of me

if you let go
of my arm and instead
held my hand
if you would look at my eyes
instead of the door
because i'm sitting right here
in front of you, just waiting
for the moment
when you finally notice
i'm not manipulating or planning
i'm not waiting to crush you

i'm not doing anything to you at all
except hoping that you'll
look me in the face
and ask how my day was
and genuinely want to know
and actually listen to what i say
you will notice
you like me a lot better

i still stay up most nights
because sleep ran away
with the part of me that's missing
but i don't imagine that it's with you
because you will not be allowed
to take the valuable bits of me
if you just feel like sampling

and i don't run along fault lines anymore
searching for where the destruction begins
i don't think of you when i'm sad
because i won't allow any person the power
to shift my entire life into collapse

it's too easy to hand me a weapon
and think i won't use it because we all love ourselves
too much to do that, you're making the assumption
that all human beings feel like human beings,
and that's a dangerous thing

you see we all taste our feelings
a bit differently. sword swallowing
is something i do every single day
every muscle in my body is torn
every secret is ripped open and displayed

i feel nothing inside me is sacred
and now i am truly dispensable
but in that, i've found peace
i am nothing, i am guilty of this
but in that silence
there is only freedom
a blank page waiting to be punctured
with only the most carefully cultivated thoughts and feelings

and in the process of decay i have become everything
have been everything at least once
and even through my anger i understand
the people i truly hate
and even through my adoration i see the flaws
in the people i truly love

this is not to tell you i think you are a bad person
but you're a person who would hand me swords
just to see what i would do with them
because you live for yourself, alone
and you're a scary type of person for me
to get too close to, when i live to create love
to the best of my abilities
even when i'm alone

and while i understand it isn't personal and so on
i cannot sit through another year of not knowing
who you are and what you want from me
so i will make this choice for you

antioxidants, to help
we are poisoning ourselves with every breath
the records in the corner
crumbling underneath the dust in their crates
crunchy warm voices bounce off the sunrise
spinning around and crashing like cymbals
mist at 7 am and a cup of black coffee with two teaspoons of sugar
far away from life
in a corner, under a desk
all my friends want to be cool
i want to hide and be happy in a field
with a mug of steamed milk, with a sweet person
who tells me many things that make me smile
and query, and discuss
they will be the kind of person
i would braid my hair around
when i was listening intently, who would interrupt
themselves to point out a bird startling
and spreading it's wings
or how beautiful winter is under the surface of the sadness
how death is somehow majestic, in the way that
the earth can bring itself back to life after it has lain still and alone
for many months, she can still yield all the possibilities
of fruits in spring
he seemed confused by this idea
i was not upset by this
i was just a bit melancholy but not because of him
because of everything around us
he sees it as cold and uncomfortable
he doesn't understand why i walk outside every night
to teach my body to acclimate to the conditions, this winter
so i can accept it and become it without freezing over inside
and learn to love it as much as the warmth
he rolls his eyes, they all do, they roll their eyes and turn away
and ask why i don't put on more layers instead
why not three sweaters instead of one
why not fight it more, to keep your last skin thin and flawless
i only have one left, i dunno
one skin left, have to get it weathered quickly
before life boomerangs back
this skin is careless and has nothing left to care about
she laughs until she's crying and holding her belly
and she doesn't feel anything but tightening
everything is corroding us from the inside out already
i want to at least breathe in the direction of the moon
once a night

i
you say i am honestly not the same person
i say one day i woke up honest
and i do not know how to undo experience
my own eyes and ears and nose and mouth
cannot be undone at the moment
how do you do it?
push that pressure to the back of your mind
like that
how do you all manage to laugh with a straight face
at things that you know aren't really funny
i can't fathom it. where you go
when you are stomping and ripping
and ****** and jeering
and laughing and running
it's exhausting to watch you

ii
i apologize if it doesn't make sense
that i can't play along
but playing along
doesn't make sense
i could never win a grammy
with this tight lipped smile
laughing at the expense of others
makes me feel more like a paparazzi
placating insecurities for currency
leeching off the vulnerability
you may not think i'm smart but
i am smart enough to know this is not 'normal'
and there is nothing wrong with staring at you in the rearview
and saying "i wish that was really sarcasm"
i'll tell you the truth
and you don't have to like it
and you don't have to like me
and i don't have to like you
because if there's one thing i know about myself
it's that i don't dislike anybody
until they show off their callousness
hoping it's the right party trick
to gain respect

iii
we watch comedy tv, and you are worried
by the way my spine cracks
when i let out a uncontrollable laugh
dragging on, beginning to spill, and as i try to quell it
my whole body shakes with the pressure
of it bubbling inside of me
you feel all of this beside of me
a small volcano with a bent back
quaking absorbed by pillows and flowers and cushions
not quite right for you
wondering why i couldn't laugh like this earlier
when we were not alone
everyone is looking for something more porous
more willing to let in effortlessly
and absorb tirelessly
that can simply laugh like a stream bubbles
and let go of the undercurrent
yet we are sharp and uneven and course like logs
and the weight of our actions carries much further
being shunted downstream by tides of gravity
every intention runs it's course
every intention speaks volumes
if you feel that in your core
every day you will uncontrollably think of how
every intention defines the quality of the laughter
stuck in someone else's head
and you will save it for things that are funny

you cry like lost toys and dead pets
there's nothing you can do about it right now
you cry like a small animal with a broken spinal chord
you keep whimpering, but it can only heal in time
you cry like pressing the skin of your palms
into the membranes of your eyes

when everything in your head is so cacophonous
you want to rub away all the little things you absorb
want that your hands could throw out this migraine
like a candy wrapper on the sidewalk
and if you believe hard enough that it's gone
you'll never notice the sugar rush or the comedown
so you press your hands to your face
as hard as you can and try to pray like a religious person
but you were raised christian and american and
the ways of believing and hoping and loving that you knew as a child
seem insincere now, and hard to speak
the language is not truthful
everything is what they told you it was not
nothing is what they told you it was
or everything was always what it was
and you or i could've told them that

and you think that wrapper might eventually end up in a landfill
if you go throwing it carelessly around
and sadness taken with too much sugar can be a toxic combination
so maybe making the bad things go away
is harder than throwing away the wrapper and enjoying the rush
maybe the wrapper is somewhere else now you can't get to
where you can't hear it crinkle or see it shrivel,
but you can still relentlessly feel it
getting whittled away by time and weather
while steadily melting down bits of you
as you pass your heart around
gasping inside the icebox

until one day you look up and the sun is a bloodier color
and your lungs are full of ice like pins
freezing inside of you
and when seconds before you had oxygen
as you begin choking, you think it's amazing how long
it seems to have been
since you were alive

your knuckles are dry from holding on
to a rusty ladder wrung
even when you want to move so badly
and there's nowhere to climb
you refuse to jump
and you're still trying to figure out
how to fall correctly
to break the least amount of limbs