if i had the poetry to tell you how soft i am in hot bubbles
i could drive you mad
the combination of my prepackaged scents would make you curse
like they used to
for that one boy
whom i have willfully discarded

if you did not have the imagination
i would show you
and christen your forehead
with fig and blood orange

if you cannot reach my tousled wet head,
if you cannot not kiss my freckled shoulders,
if you cannot not put your arms around
my soft, bathwater waist
i should not tell you
that you could

no one
likes a tease

i was in debt the day i was born.
the nurse said i was a natural red,
mom didn't believe her
boy
did i
show her

indebted to the woman's womb i struggled out of
the man's genes i inherited
and they dare to ask me
"are you a natural
red?"

the color of my blood is a natural ginger
just enough in my father's mustache

i am in debt
naturally
sometimes i can still feel
the umbilical cord
that she guilted me
into keeping
attached

i was born in debt
i am in the red
naturally
mommy
won't let go of me
i tried to get away
twenty
years ago
she could show
you the scars

this year i would
like to take less **** from people
i would
like to feel freer to punch *******
i would
rather not have a repetition of 2011
and i would
appreciate it if you all would shut the **** up

my bones shift and crack under my skin
like they never have before
i can't tell if tension is coming
or going
or sticking in my temples where it is so familiar
bones shape me
make me
these bones seem to hate me
they need another way to escape me

i am not doing so well

people make mistakes.
mothers leave
and break up families
leaving them scattered like glass in kmart
parking lots
but it's ok,
people make mistakes.
mothers leave
and children pick up bent pieces
and try to save them
but sometimes they run out

people make mistakes.
mothers leave...
babies cry
on christmas eve

people make
mis
takes

i love a moose
he's a perfect moose
with the perfect amount of flaws
i was wrong when i said i didn't love him
i do.

i'll keep
you

to my sister,
i am a nice keepsake
that she keeps in the bottom drawer

i live in a town she left for something better
in a house she never lived in

to my sister,
i am nostalgia.
i am twinklie lights outside nice smelling vegetarian restaurants
and self-taken pictures she sends to her new boyfriend
that i've never met

to my sister
i am something she visits
for old time's sake
i am no more important than her hometown
i am simply something to be visited
when the time rolls around
and you feel like you should go back to your roots and pay your respects

i am that moment.
i am that timeframe
i am those twenty-two years
those dandelions on the front lawn of our childhood home

to my sister
i am kept for keeping's sake

wrinkled fingers rub with rough green and yellow sponges
in the white sink that is marred with gashes and brown stains
(never could quite get it clean)
standing in the patch of floor
that is bare of the ugly, tiny squared cardboard and plastic.

that sink seems too low to me now
the edge of it no longer meets the same place when i lean into it
it seems so
small
the watermark on my shirt
from washing the dinner dishes every night
at 2am
would not be where it was
for 18 years of my life

i have outgrown that sink
and the smell of that house
and the creak of the stairs that i stumbled up then
because they were too tall
and fall down now
because they are too short

i outgrew my mother and father's bed
which is only my mother's now
my four siblings and i
would no longer all fit
to snuggle against the warm fleece of her sweater

i am too big.
too big for many things.
too big to listen to fights and be silent
too big to slam doors in my mother's face
too big to grab her and keep her from leaving
i am too big
and she is too small
everything that was once mine
that she owns
i have
outgrown

i live in a big girl house now.
mother said i would understand
when i was older
i wish i didn't

i stole six pairs of earrings today
while making small talk
in a jewelry store that caters to the masochistic
and now i am
pinning their wings up on my wall
to display the reward
of quick fingers
and plaster of paris smiles

i didn't even really want them
i took them from sets
i wanted to see the missing holes
and there was no bin to put them in
now i have little secrets
pinned up on my wall
they join others
that i took

i don't mean to steal things

superstar of the lowest level of the food chain
they marvel at my wondrous acts
i am enticing, raucous, too loud
the prima donna of the freakshow ballet
they would pay
to be seen with me
the perpetrator of chaos

hoodies with spikes on them
batman tshirts
and too tight
skinny jeans
tired pink sneaks
from my wandering days
i am the queen of misfits

i've been trying to navigate my own army of flipphones defying the neverending onslaught of iphones i am american and i love

nothing easy is worth it
so if you are in something hard be grateful
that you have been chosen to have something wonderful
when you get there you will forget
the pain

he manages to say things that hurt more than anything i've ever felt
and he's not even special

indie music
dancing shoes
indie music
doesn't cure blues
it starts them

indie music in the rain
indie music standing in trains
indie music for the deranged

indie music for the off-genre-ed
indie music for the off-centered
indie music for mis-fits
that aren't actually
misfits

indie music for the masses
indie music with glassless
eyeglasses
indie music for the misunderstood
or maybe that's all music...

indie music
dancing shoes
indie music
inspires blues

sometimes i am emotionally unavailable on purpose.

i put my phone under my pillow so i can't hear it beep and buzz and twang
i turn off my facebook chat and ignore your messages.
i don't even do it because i can't handle it
i can handle anything
i was born with an innate sense of determination
and morality
but sometimes i feel the need to be an unattached *******
just to see what it's like

i'll go on youtube and watch ****** videos
i'll even laugh
when i know that somewhere you're feeling like i do all the time
i won't give a single ****
not even a tiny pang will reach my carefully wired heart
right now it's plugged into too many other things that are ******* the energy out of it
to take note

i hope you feel ******* terrible
i'm not even bothered
i will be later
but not now
message away...

la,
la
can't hear you,
can't hear you.

i'm afraid of tripping and falling into familiar holes
so i stay up all night and keep guard
but i get tired,
fall asleep...
fall into familiar holes

clumsy child of the dark
tired daughter of the day
wary creature of the night

five am missed his redheaded friend
but i didn't miss him at all

if i put my hand above my cat
she reaches her head out
to have me cup it
i am the same with you
i compensate for the distance you don't feel like going
or maybe you just know that i'll always reach for it
so you don't bother...

it's alright.
i know, too

"calm down" they say.
like it's some kind of ******* incantation
that will soothe the beast
like those words make things happen

i know words that make things happen.
they lie on either end of the spectrum:
"i love you"
and
"i hate you"

the words "calm down"
don't change anything
they just show that you're doing something someone doesn't like

what if i don't care?

you say
"youre a ******* fool, red"
and i say
yes i ******* am
for talking to you again
only an idiot
would trust the words of a boy on the internet

you are sweet boy, ryan
sweet like a wolf who wants his way
sweet like a bird of
prey

i will not let you cut a piece of my arm away
again
even after three years
the old ones are still red
no more messing with my aching head
im already dead
what could you possibly want from me
this time?

you scare me.

not like elliot scared me -
he was frightening because of the sweetness of his smile
you are frightening
because you are a sweetness that lies

your calm
cool
demeanor
the way you laugh,
call me silly pet names
puts a bad taste in my mouth
a sick feeling in my stomach
ryan,
you are a wolf

it's been almost three years
since you sunk your teeth into me
i came close to forgetting
until i found an old conversation
started second guessing
even though i had made a note
that said
"never let yourself again,
red"
i
read
it
and now, once more
the lamb has walked into
the lions den

i feel like i don't have any poetry anymore. it's cool, you guys haven't been digging my recent stuff anyway. maybe i finally got it all out, maybe i'll be ok now. thanks for reading...don't know if or when i'll be back...could be tomorrow, could be never. i like unpredictable

the holidays are rolling around and i am determined to be ok
i will not write poetry about how much i miss my un-broken family
i will continue on as if nothing happened
if i do it long enough maybe i will believe it
maybe i won't have to burn my arms to jolt me back to reality
maybe things will be ok

good things come of it?
good things already have.
i'm just waiting for the good
to out weight the bad

people will try to say you're golden
people will try to say you're ****
i'll try to tell you that life is
what you make of it

ultimately,
you decide who is right
not them

i am a ****** up clown girl
and i **** up the nice things around me
too
i am so very good at it
i don't even notice i'm doing it
it's
reflex
muscle memory
subconscious
i do that which is done to me
thank you,
mommy

i did one thing in front of a large group of people and now i'm somehow worthy

worthy of going to leadership retreats
and christening babies
all because i managed to crack open the wealth inside four other kids.

it wasn't me.
i didn't do it.
i just helped.
i don't want the credit.

they tell her she is pretty on facebook
and truth be told,
she has a face like a southern bell...
but she sits with her hands folded
and her ankles crossed
and tips her head ever so slightly to the side,
chin raised
light glinting off
the brooch on her kohl's sweater...

she is not pretty
to me.

she has perfect cheekbones
big eyes
pouty lips
but she sits
like a doll
stiff,
posed,
placed
perfectly
intently
eyes
bright
i want to
smack her until the rag doll comes out
she is too perfect
too sweet
she is so sweet
that she is
sour
to me

stop loving me.

i feel like a selfish **** asking you to
but there is no love
in my bones
for you
stop breaking them open
to check

i can't be open with people
they feel sorry for the things that have happened to me
then they love me
more
but i can't do anything back

hatred i can deal with
i've dealt with it my whole life
but i don't know how to be careful with you
how to be something different
to make you not love me
moose, darling
don't love me,
please.

how much poetry is in a person?
and how much of it comes out?
enough to bring up the pimples in your personality?
the ugly bumps you can learn to hide
but can't stop people from feeling
when they touch you

how much poetry is in a person
and how much needs to come out
before i am better
how much before i get over this *******
that's calling my name

how much poetry is in a person
and how do i get rid of it
i either speak cynically
or with the malice
and blood
that seeps out of me

how much poetry is in a person
and is it ok to have it there
and when will these pimples go away
and when will i be
alright again

does the poetry have to be gone
for me to be ok?

i am fascinated with the unruliness of some girls' hair
the plainness around their eyes
the strangeness of their earrings
the smell of the cigarettes inbetween their fingers

i wonder at their worn brown boots
and slightly crooked teeth
and dry lips
and i think
they are the most beautiful things
i have ever seen
almost untouched
by things that beat me down
like the image of victora's secret underwear
and the world's first super model telling girls their thighs are too fat

i want to be one of those slightly unkempt women
they're like uncaged animals
i want to have what they have

but i am a product of this society
it is too late for me
i am destined to be unsatisfied
forever
i will always hate something about me
even if i don't mean to
i will always wear too much make up
and too low shirts
and preach the mainstream way of life

my fingernails will never be *****.
i will always be merely pretty
i wish i was
interesting

people **** the life out of me

i'm like a sugary cereal that they eat and eat and eat
but they never get full

i am so tired by the end of the day
i just want to go home
take off all the clothes i wore for them
take off all the pretension
all the make up
and lie on the floor

are you enough to keep me alive?

i suppose being infectious and wanted is a blessing
it has been a very long time since i have felt unwanted
probably way back into my awkward teenaged years
and now everyone wants me
but i don't want myself

are you enough to keep me alive?

the one person who i know cares about me
got scared when i put a nerf gun under my chin
and pulled the trigger
i just wanted to feel the air
test it out
see if the barrel of a gun belonged there
i have never told her that i didn't want to live
but i think she knows
the only reason i'm here
is for the people around me

are you enough to keep me alive?

i haven't fallen in love with someone in such a long time
i'm pretty sure if the abercrombie and fitch of cowtown usa confessed his life long love for me right now
i'd tell him to *******.

my sister is gushing her way through a romantic comedy romance
with some hot criminal justice major
and i'm happy to proffer advice
and cluck sympathetically
and oo and aww at the right moment
but my lack of drive to have something similar for myself
is slightly disconcerting

i worry that if i ever do have someone that means something to me
i'll have to explain to to them about my family
why i don't talk to my mom
why my little brothers and sisters can't see my dad
why my body is covered in scars
why i'm such a ****** up clown girl
and to be honest
i feel as if i don't have the ******* energy
to lay everything bear
to a potentially back-stabbing ******* human being

i've learned that everyone has that potential
my own mother tore me to pieces in front of a court of law
if the woman who gave birth to you
and claimed to love you for 18 years
can turn into a monster
so quickly
so can anyone else
and that is why i don't love people
like i say i do
because somewhere i know that they'll **** me over
they're human,
it's what they do

little clown girl,
sit on your dusty shelf
until it's empty
and you have it to yourself
i don't need any other accent
i just need space
and a knife

i was waiting for an opportunity to take my dad's credit card
because i wanted something
and tonight
just when i really wanted something
something silly
very badly
he was on the phone
his wallet on the table...
within two minutes
i was walking upstairs
his grody card
in my hand
punching in the numbers

before i clicked confirm order
i thought of remedying the situation
"oh...dad...i was just trying to order you your birthday present
without you knowing
wanted it to be a surprise
haha, never guessed, did you"
i thought he wouldn't notice
the $30 missing

after i finally got what i wanted
i felt so full
i finally had it

and then i felt scared
and
embarrassed
and
ashamed
and i wondered
if this is what i am reduced to
materialistic ****
stealing from my father
who gives me all he can
is this just because i am a girl
or because i am human
or because i am sad
when will i stop stealing things
am i some sick *******
who gets a thrill out of petty crimes
what will i do next?

my burn has finally started healing
next time i'll not hold it on for so long
it still frightens me
it looks inhumane
(am i inhumane?)

i'm getting tired of glancing my arm away
when people look at me
and sweaters are tiring too

i know one beard stroking ******* ******* ******* ******* guy
who always says
"whatever suits you"
in his dead-beat ******* voice
that just speaks of soft, white flesh
and greasy hair

and i've found that i hate that phrase
with every fiber of my being
because my mother did
whatever the **** suited her
and it killed her entire family

like what if what suits you is kicking puppies
or pinching babies
or molesting little kids
or wiping out entire races

like what the actual ****
you ****

"bling" goes the dial of people who feel sorry for you
"snap" goes the rope hanging from the ceiling

i have an issue with pity-partiers

i find the fact that you edit out little mistakes in typing hilarious.
you get high out of your mind and say the weirdest ******* **** i've ever seen
all over facebook
but it is ******* grammatically correct

brian,
you complain all over the internet
about how in love with me you are
you whine to anyone who will listen
but you are so unpredictable
irritable
******* out of your mind
that i can't love you
you're like loving a flippant breeze
and i don't have time for you

get off your marijuana horse

ben,
you make me wonder.

i wonder about your ex wife
and how you used to say ***** things to me
before you saw my face
and the innocence in it
you make me think about your kids
and how much you care about them
despite hiding behind a computer screen:
an important man on an unimportant online game

and after you stepped down from your role
when you realized online games are like real life only worse
you sat on facebook and played icon games
for three days

ben
i worry about you
i don't even ******* know you
but i hope you're ok.
it looks like all you did is transfer hidey-holes
...you've beat the icon game finally
what will you do now
why do you have to win everything
and is that why your divorce is killing you

people are always going to decide things about you.
what you need to do
is decide things FIRST.

decide that you are not going to put up with their ****.
make the executive decision to be a majestic *******.
remind them of the existence of zach galifianakis
and that one huge hideous fish thing in the depth of the sea
that eats lil ***** like you not only for breakfast
but for second ******* breakfast
because you're a ******* nerd
and that's how you like it.

decide to work your flaws into a masterpiece
some artists look at mistakes in paintings
do whole studies on them
and then decide they're genius
don't let a flaw get you down
it's what makes you human
it's what makes those other *******
not...

decide to be decisive.
decide that decisions are the same as choices
and choices are what define you...
they cracked you open before you were finished maturing
tried to change the outcome
like the ***** *** hoes that they are
but you...
you can choose,
decide,
force
your way into your own skin again...

finish growing up
then let the ******* have a go.

house your pain
in a birdcage
don't put it in a cement box
where it can concentrate
and get bigger,
fouler
let it breathe

and maybe someday
with enough air
that pain will go away
taken on a breeze
that had nothing to do with you counting scars

...good things happen
you told yourself so
this morning in the shower
good things are brand new baby girls
that don't know what a family they've been born into yet
soft, sweet-smelling darlings
who don't understand the politics of their birth

good things happen, red.
just not to us.

i can never sleep the night after a party

every worst situation that didn't even happen rams through my brain
in the quiet, frightening time between sleep and awake
a never ending loop that terrifies me

i get so angry
joe tells me not to be angry
but i can't help it

even if i feel good all ******* day
and am determined to be happy
i end up crying when everyone is gone
and i can sit and remember things that taint my mind like venom
things like separation
and apart
and family
and mommy
and daddy
and little sister
and home
and please
and cutting
and help me

and then i am crying
again
like i always do
even if i just had
the best night of my life
anything could happen
and i would still cry

this halloween
i am a clown with a tear on her cheek

the small wisp of heart i have left
was almost wisked away with the dismissal in your face.
the dismissal of my family
a thing that you have no right to write off
like a shopping list of things
you already bought
i don't give a single **** for your teenaged melodrama
it's a holiday
and i wanted a ******* photo
of the stretched scrap of a family that i have left
why couldn't you just let me have one thing
that felt normal
you are a selfish ******* *******
just like our mother

write all the mean poetry you want
about how twinkling lights
and family photos get old
you cut my arms with the things you write

little sister,
you should be ashamed.

little sister
the black mold in your heart is what makes you ugly
not the face that you take so many pictures of

i look at the burn peeling on my arm and i think about all the **** that got me here
from the red asterisk i drew with a knife three years ago
in the butter yellow room of my older sister's house
when we were homeless
to the childhood summer i spent as a lake baby
in my grandmother's car

i finger the scores of cuts on my arms
my thighs
old, most of them
some too deep to fade
each scar has a face
most of them are
mommy's

i like to remember her from old photographs
sun-bleached hair down to her unblemished thighs
the most inexplicable shine in her face

i think of how different those photographs would be
if she knew then that her daughter hurt her body
every time she thought of her mother

i think the smile would be different

but i look at her now
grayed,
aging...
still smiling.
as if she didn't know
that she made me a tiger
gave me these stripes
as if she didn't know
that it is her fault i am a killer

i look at the burn peeling on my arm
and for once this self harm isn't pretty to me
it is very, very ugly
a big, blistering red mark
marring my freckles
i wonder when it will fade
or if it will at all
i wish i could burn more than
just this arm
of mine.

i live for the applause
not like lady gaga
i live for the slow clap after a badly told joke

you live for the clothes
and the boys
and the drama
you live for saying things passionately
and for leaving me behind

i live for the hilarity
and the semi-trucks that send people i vaguely care about
sliding into perfect laughter
i live for the feeling that you care about me
and aren't just using me to move your ****
or cook you dinner
or design your wardrobe
or be there when you cry
so i can hug the **** out of you
and hand you tissues
i live for the feeling that what i'm giving
could someday come back

but what i get is the feeling
that it never will
that i won't trust you again
that you knew what you were doing
that i should stop burning my body
that i am not a candle to be lit
that i will not be a light
if i am dead

i have the feeling that applause will ***** me out
that i have had too much applause in my life anyway
i have the feeling that you don't give a single **** for how i feel

no,
it is not a feeling.
that last one is a fact

like a redheaded tiger
i too have stripes
red ones on my wrists
thighs
forearms

like a tiger
i can stand the fire
red hot welt
on my freckled forearm

like a tiger
i have claws
they are
silver
i cut at
that which harms me -
me

it's funny how skin melts
and it's funny how i keep touching a hot iron to my arm
and it's funny how afraid i am of it
but it's funny how i love it
and it's funny how i feel better
and it's funny how ****** up i am

what isn't funny
is what you did to me

i knew when i walked into my dark room tonight
that i was going to cry.
i've been ****** up enough times before
i know what it feels like.

and it's not even that you did it on purpose
to **** me over
i understand
you're just a kid, really
kids gotta have their fun
gotta have their rebellion
gotta have their fist wrapped around a heart -
i get it.

i think it's the fact that i've lost the last person i give a **** about
that bothers me
that i am now entirely alone
even though there are 20 others to take your place
i would never let them

another "bestfriend".
pound on my door, honey
go ahead
i won't be answering

i don't like crying
it makes me feel pathetic

for the first time the ball is in my ******* court
in my ******* building
my ******* country
my ******* world.

unlike ryan
who held me like a delicate robin's egg
that had been emptied
(whatever way he held me
he managed to crush
something)
unlike him
you hold me like the baby bird that grew up in that shell
promising and astonishing
you marvel at me

and though i truly loved ryan
i don't love you.
because i could do anything
and you'd love me
i don't like that.
i could be the worst version of me
and stay that way
and you would still
stay

i don't
like that.