She holds the dead body of her brother
Long after it's grown cold
Like I had once held a dead kitten
In a washcloth...
Anguishing over a loss
That I couldn't have helped.

I couldn't have helped this one, either.
No matter what we have
Who we know
Who we are
Death takes us just the same.
We all leave...
Cold
Pale
Blank
Empty.

I remember,
That for a while
The kitten was just limp in my hand...
When I laid him down for a bit
And came back to check once more
Just to be sure
That he was gone
He was stiff
Stale
Like he had never been alive at all.

I asked my sister to bury him.
I could never be sure he was really dead
Even though he had no breath
Was he still there
Somewhere?
What is death...
Anyway?
What is it
People say?

He's passed
He's gone
He's deceased
In heaven
In hell
He's left
(he's not here?
are you sure?)
I'm sorry for your loss
My condolences
He's at peace
He's at rest
He's watching over us....

Where is he
Really?

I'm just watching tv
Innocently engaged
But I can't watch this anymore
After seeing that woman's face
It looked too much like my mother's...

The shiny, porous skin...
The red, wet, blue eyes
The veins standing out
Her hair, damp
Frazzled
Worried.
I'm scared to remember her face.

Sometimes,
I really miss my mom.
I miss her red cheeks,
Her frizzy, fluffy brown hair
Salted with grey...
I miss the funny sweaters she used to wear so often
The clogs she wore that clunked through the house
The sound of her needles,
Clinking together.
I miss her handwriting...
Her grocery lists
Her almond-shaped nails
The rough wrinkles on her knuckles
Her pants with the funny elastic.

And although I am almost 20 years old
I can still remember how it felt
To sit on her lap
To have her arms encircle me,
Hold me
Protect me
Love me.
And though she's left me
Shamed me
Hated me
Spit at me...
I cannot forget how it felt
To love my mother
And to be loved back.

As soon as I get home
I take off all my clothes
Sit, and wait
To become me again.

Like a magic trick,
No...maybe a spell
The facade falls away
The fake expression melts
Off my face
And I am once again
Reality.

I like to be naked
To know that this is the purest form of me
I take off every greasy make-up mark
And re-embark
On the daily discovery
Of my essence.

I'll feel all the scars,
Revel in my imperfections
Bask in the failures
That society has so graciously informed me of.

I wish they knew
How much I love the ugly pieces of me
They are what keep me here
What remind me
Of reality.

As I put my clothes back on
In the morning, before class...
I practice in front of the mirror
Arranging my face
Into pleasing expressions
Trusting a piece of glass
To keep me safe.

But always, I live for the days
That I am hated
I live for the days

that I am naked.

the elephant girl
draws excellent swirls.
i trip across the beginning of one
run along the loop
until i come to the inner-most circle
where i sit
and wait
for class to grind to an end.

A one-worded answer
flies to me, through pixels and buildings and trees,
across six states
and to my phone.

and I still wonder

why I'm alone????

If you find me broken by the road
Don't put me back on track.
That's what got me here in the first place
And I'm not going back.
Instead, give me an encouraging word
A pat on the shoulder,
A smile.
That'll help me get by on my own
If only for a little while.

wednesday

the squeaky-shoed boy day
the extremely annoyed day
the ice cold void day.

the boy who's all teeth
smiles with the girl in the cleats
drowning in bicuspids
telling her how he 'roughed it'.

sneakers scuffing
hair fluffing
smoke puffing.

bleed out of me
until i am empty
take away what i see
set the pain free.

i just want to feel better
i just want to be gone
i want her to see
that she is wrong.

bleed
out
of
me.

there are never enough cuts
to heal the scars
everything could seep out of me
and still they'd be

there.

Sometimes when I smell
That old familiar smell
I can still remember how it felt
To have my ears scrubbed
In our ancient bathtub....

Sometimes when it rains
I can feel the old growing pains
Shooting through my arms
As I run through our farm.

Sometimes late at night
When my body screams to turn on the light
I can still see,
Still hear
Mom and Dad fight.

Sometimes when I lose
The will to go on
I'll sit and remember
That what Mom did was wrong...
That I shouldn't die
Just because she told a lie
That I still belong
Somewhere in this song
Somewhere in these memories
Reality still breathes.

How long before I become
One of those creepy single people?
The ones with all the cats
And ***** sweaters
Who eat cereal for every meal
And smoke at the kitchen table.
How long will I be able
To make single look
'Cool'?
Apparently I can't fool
My parents anymore.
Dad's sure
That I'll hook one soon
But what is...soon?
Tomorrow? Today?
Ten years from now at noon?

Why can't I just be
Unsingle...
Not attached
But in there somewhere
Somewhere is a place...
Right?

....maybe it's my height...

There's a girl bopping her head to the music,
A boy wanderin' 'round with a guitar
Who don't know how to use it.
Traffic fills my ears and eyes,
Onions and smoke and fries.

Beat up sneakers and flip flops
Bandanna people with orange tops,
Hipsters, tricksters
Hustlers and saints
Empty, wandering, full of complaints.

Broken, discordant conversations
Elaborate, intricate exaggerations
Dusty, ugly sidewalk
Happy, ugly small talk.

Sighs and trees...
Silent pleas
From the lost
Who couldn't pay the cost
To belong:

An aria for the wrong.

Cheap lipstick
Smudges in the corner of your mouth
A wilted flower,
Regretting the chance it missed
To get out.

It's not like I'm making an effort
It's not like I really care
But sometimes I wonder
If you remember
How my hair
Smells.

It's not like you're someone special
It's not like I've never seen you before
But every time you walk in that door
My heart feels...
Funny.

Maybe it's like you're normal
Or maybe you're just not
Maybe you've got that something...
Maybe you've got a lot.

If we think hard enough
We'll turn into a fire
One lone whisper
In a field of desire.
We'll imagine our way out of this
We're not scared at all
There's nothing to be afraid of,
We'll think down that wall.
Nothing exists if we don't want it to
We can close our eyes
We don't see the hurting
We don't see the lies.
We're neck high in refuse
An inch deep in love
We're not scared of the consequences
If there's nothing up above.

Love,
Can't you understand
That poems don't mean anything?
When you stretch out your hand
You can't hold them.
Can't you see
That all I am is a tangle
Of words?
Of things people have told me
To be?
I'm paper thin
Reluctance;
sin.

You don't KNOW ME
I don't
Know you
I'd rather have you spit at me
Than just look through
My heart
Like it's nothing.

Hey you
Look at you
Do you want to be my friend?
I like the way you smile
And the way you wend
Your way to me.

I like the curve of your neck
The way you turn all the way around
To check
If I'm looking...
Most of all,
I like the way
Your eyes talk to me

                 Quietly.

I like the way you hold your pen
The way you write
How you laugh,
And when.
The way you walk
Towards me
Is concerned
And a bit bouncy
Your heels
Seem to chuckle
And your eyes
Talk to me...

            Quietly.

My words ****
Faster than my hands will.
Quick as a lash,
I can't take them back.

I should have been a better daughter
I should have been nicer
I should have tried harder.

But I
didn't.

You won't let me forget what I said
My anger echos in your head

I should have been
nicer.

The cuts on my wrist
Insist
On my insincerity
They wipe the clarity
From my mind.

I cut like a knife
Cutting away life
The yawning stretches of tragedy
Still haunt me.

I don't deserve peace
I don't deserve love
I don't deserve this justice
That you've talked of

Because

it was

all

my

fault.

I know you don't ever listen
I know you don't really care
But that knife,
That knife sitting there...
Might just end my life
Tonight.

If you had wanted me,
If you had only wanted me
You would see
The pain.
You would see
The bloodstains.

Tonight
My head won't stop me
My heart won't stop me
My hand won't stop me
Tonight
This knife
Will save
My life.

A heart could be fixed
If all the broken pieces fit.
If one isn't so jagged
It doesn't recognize it's mate
Sometimes they can be forced back together
With just a little hate.

Hi, Hoss,
This is a poem.
I know you’re not really familiar
With yknow…poems
But you’re going to listen
To this one.

First off, I’d like to say
That you’re pompous
That your head couldn’t fit
Through a 90 foot wide door
That I don’t give a ****
About the proper usage of “Your”…

That your beard really isn’t very cool
That I wouldn’t ever braid it
That you’re kind of…a tool...
That if I ever chopped it off
Your personality
Would be at such a loss
You’d probably shrivel into a heap...

In reality,
No one wants to marry some ****
Just because he can grow ***** hair
From his chin.

today
i imagined drawing a big-*** man
on the white walls
in the hallway of my school
a big, gingerbread-like man
crying out for help

maybe
i'll make him a family
a lump of twisted, broken limbs
lying in a pile behind him
tied with a string
around his neck

today
i wanted someone to see him
acknowledge that he existed

and then forget.

today
i didn't draw
a big-*** man
on the wall.
i walked past every single one
and pretended they didn't exist
at all.

It is vitally important
That you find somewhere to hide.
If you can't manage it in private,
You must at least try in public.
Find all the round, yellow little cubbies you can
Pray they are unoccupied.
If, in fact, they aren't...
Wander, pointedly examining the floor,
A wall,
Your phone
Until you find a cracked
Worn
Red one.
Slink unnoticed into it,
Keep your head low
And let the grody,
Curved
White wall
Protect you.

I sit
And I look through my planner
At all these days that I am expected
To live through.
Part of me
Doesn't care about what is expected,
And longs to do the UNexpected
Just to regain some small respect
For myself.
This small part of me
Wants to tell all these little, boxed in days
To go to hell
That a day
In a week
Can't confine me...
But then the rest of me remembers
That a GPA
does define me...

The active part of me
Reminds the inactive
That you are what you do
That it is simply not acceptable
To just be
you.

We will all meet again
When time has wound to an end.
We will grasp the frazzled, ragged edge
And run along it until we find
The beginning of time
And her twisted hedge.
She will clutch us against her silken blouse
And at last…
We will find our peace in that old yellow house….
Not one foul word will we remember
Not one ugly face
Not one weeping December.

It will all be as if it never took place
I won’t remember the cuts on my arm
The harm
I did to myself…
Nor the cuts I can’t see
The missing snowglobes on my mother’s shelf….

I see it everywhere.
I see it when I wake up, on the ceiling
I see it in his face
I hear it in her words.
I see it in your eyes,
When I brush my teeth, it stares me in the face.
This house,
An embodiment
Of how wrong
Everything is.

I sit here
Trying to read meaning into every missing second
Every little blip that it took you to think about what you just said…
Doubt? Restraint? How best to lie?
What flies
Through your mind?
Does it have anything to do with the fact
That you told me that you loved me
And then apologized…
What of that?
I apologize for nothing
I regret not a single thing done
I take back not a smile, a laugh, a song sung
In joviality…
Somehow our love was just this odd joke
That we entertained off and on
We were thrown into chaos when it broke
Over reality…
Like an egg cracked on top of a globe
It encased our small, narrow-minded world
Made it slip out our fingers
Made it roll, made it whirl.
Now we sit here with this
Slimy, newborn thing
Not sure whether or not to laugh at such a preposterous idea
And fling
It from us…
Or to examine it, seriously and closely
Think about it for a while
Pick and choose what we want
Contemplate the weight of denial…
If you really just want someone to always be there
Someone to watch movies with
Someone to laugh with
Then I guess I don’t really care…
I just wish it hadn’t been said at all…
A ball
Will roll if you push it…
An object in motion will remain so
Until something stops it…
But really,
Your apology has gone and done what it ought…
It has successfully replaced and retracted
All that was thought…
I’m sure we’ll be great friends
Until you slip up…again.

Days and nights melt together
Into a heavy grey fog

Forgetting how to smile

Your words and your face don't match
Your threats

Forgetting how to smile

I am forgetting how
to
smile

Today, I am glad it is winter.
No need to make up excuses for wearing a sweater
Until I am

                                                          

                                                                                                                better.



Little blue vein
In my wrist
Little silver knife
In my fist
I cannot decide
If I want you two to meet
I don't know whether to stay,
Or to leave...
Little
blue
vein




                                                                 bleed out the pain


Because I can't wear a sweater

                                    

                                                                                                                                                                   forever.