I'm swollen with
annoyance, and
popular culture
disgusts me.

i wish i could care
about a video game
as much you do

i wish i could see it
like I see ghibli films
that make me cry

but

I don't know i wish
you cared more about
other things

because

that was a phase to me
but nothing is a phase to you
you need to love it and show it
and put it on your wrist so
everybody knows it

I would prefer not to live
in a dry hot place with those
sandy stucco houses and windows
you can see straight through, there's
nothing there that quenches a **** thing
just brown lizards and copper crickets
and I don't remember why I was
so mad about this in the
first place.

he swore to
try and love
God for me
dragged his
knuckles on
my driveway
and said he
was planning
on giving up
some of those
things anyway
but I know
better, I know
it's not that
easy and that
he still talks
to those faces
because these
people are only
bad to me, and
not to him, never
to him, because he
only ever tried to
recognize the bad
for me, but every
thing was just an
act. Why is every
thing just an act
just silly promises
that no one ever
really means.

the words are allpilingupagain
I andi'm not sure he understands
how much talking saved me from
myself but he stopped and now the
words are everywhere, in my chest
and in my hair anddrainingfrom
my fingertips, with no where else
to go and they never leave through
tears, the thing that leaves the most

You dropped change
in my pocket and I
haven't had the
guts to pull it
out. I wish I
wasn't so
painfully
sentimental

I have kept you here
for too long, asking
for things you can
not even give, i have
not loved you properly
and have self-righteously
shouted to the world
what not to do in
love when I
am just as
much at
fault.

That one night when you
scolded me for being afraid
of tap water, I pounded on
your chest and cried into
your shoulder, but you
knew why I was mad
as if we had both
waited too long
to open up
and it was
too
late.

I hope i never
meet a better

liar

do you think that
the reason we move
along is because we
have learned all
that there is to
learn about
that person
and that
the people
who we end up
with are the ones
we never stop every day
the sun catches the reds
the browns, the golden
hues in their hair and
we say, I have not
truly known you,
yet.

at what point will
I stop knowing every
thing about you, at
what point will I
I say, yes, I
knew him
once.

I had a 10 pound
weight in my hand
as I imagined you
spilled across the
room drunk like
a tranquilized
bear except
you were
more like
a mouse
or a flea
or not
at all

I have torn myself
to Guam and back
in search of the
why

No,
I'm sure of it.
you are more
beautiful than
you think

It's strange to think of you
with a straight-haired girl
as if my curls were unique
between your fingers, but
I still do not know how to
deal with these thoughts,
these scenarios I find in
every photo, wouldn't
you be happier with
a girl with birds on
her back like the
ones on your
wrist?
I'm terrified
that my beliefs are
walls to keep people
out, because people have
always been better off with-
out me, finding new pieces
of themselves in others who
share the same scars, I have
not learned to live with the
fact that my God scares
people away and while
they pacify my needs
with words, with
promises I know
I should not
believe I
believe
but their vows
are temporary, and
fleeting, it is my own
fault. I continue to suppose
that everyone will be happier
in the [         ] of someone
like me, who stays tethered
to the one thing I know to
be perennially safe.

I'm so lost
and I love
him, but I
but I, but,
i
i
i

Oh,
He thinks
I am made
of stone

will you make
wine out of me?

I have dug out the
worst parts of me
like eyes of a potato
or bruises on an apple
but, scalpel in hand I
tell God I cannot be
my own surgeon
This Hurts
I tell him
this
hurts.

they say that bronze was
the prime component in
the Equestrian Statue of
Marcus Aurelius, or the
stone of the Ajanta Caves
in India, but will my skin
keep me alive? I once said
something interesting in
a classroom in regards to
immortality, when a girl
picked out the flaws in
For the Love of God a
piece by Damien Hirst.
It seems to say that we                                              must realize our mortality
but do skeletons not last
the ravage of time? Exactly
what part of us is mortal
aside from our skin, first?

I hate his sister for
not being a better
sister, for not                                   protecting
him when it mattered
but instead enforcing
the drug induced stupor
he wallowed in for two
months.

I sometimes feel as if
this constant state of
unrest, of I do n-not
understand is here
to stay, because I
do n-not under-
stand, but do I
need to?

Why would you want to
know them, you
ask of the same people
who also eat the best
parts of you.

I realize here and there
that he is trying to fit me
through a hole with gold
flower curtains and rafters
that brush my face nightly
and I scratch the windows
that don't open in white
dresses, wear this, he
says, wear this and
dance.

I like (and do not)  listening to music that reminds me of you
for
one
two reasons

because it often leaves me ***-stranded on the blacktop in
the kamiak parking lot or dropping from heaven, hitting
the ground running without sneakers in a cold sweat on
top of Lake 22, trying to get you to sing and carving
my name into ashy wood while pine needles rain
down on top of my head. But also because of
cold apples--McIntosh candles that were
always lit in your room with windows
that were never closed, never closed on Weekends
on weekdays, in seasons. I've rolled in fake grass and
timed your 100 meter dash, of all the simple things I might
wish that the naivety could have been expanded upon so that
we might have enjoyed the trivial things for a while longer but
I can't beat the clock anymore, sneakers or not. There's no more
hartford in this soul, just chubby cheeked memories and the scent
of ramen and your mom's borderline vegan cooking.

How many times
do you think God
will grant me mercy
on the mistakes that
I have made (and
continue to make)
before he
before he
before
he

I tell her:
you will not
be ugly if you
cut your hair

because when
she was small the
kids called her
fat and the

boys called her a
boy which was
okay but not

so this long hair
was a rebellion
as she proclaimed
i really am a girl

i really am a girl

i really am a girl


won't you believe me?

I used to be
scared of my
stretch marks

I stepped on a plug
it left a **** in the
middle of my foot
and I saw your tattoo
for the first time but
kissed it, because I
thought that maybe
forgiveness should come
from the heart, where you
kiss scratches to make them
better then you shakily told
me you had another, on your
leg. I cannot kiss there, I thought
to myself but i started to cry
anyway because it feels as if
everyone has lied to me, as if
no one has ever told the truth
so I lament the things I have
believed

How many people have you let read
the words printed on your heart the
chapter monologues tattooed on your
lungs, to dog-ear the pages of yourself
where they stopped but promised to
begin again, spilled hot coffee in the
middle and stained the title. I'm not
entirely sure if anyone has read the
prologue, did you know who it was
dedicated to? Oh, but you lost me
behind your bed, a good read,
no doubt, but I am long with
many pages. Maybe someday
you say, maybe

someday.

There are certain things
I should not feel betrayed
over because the hurt that
I feel originated here as well.
I found out yesterday that I
am the crux of my all my
problems, I am at fault
for the squashed trust
the expectations that
no one could ever
meet, the anger
the went out
inside, it's
just


me.

God spoke
to me today,
barely a thought
hardly a whisper

did you know there
is something worse
than heartbreak?

Today I wore a dress. It was cold and my skin
pinched up in the wind. I hurt a strange and
angry sort of hurt today. Where my bones
shook and my stomach hurt but with my
sunglasses nobody on I-5 knew the difference
between singing and screaming and I ended up in Seattle
where the roads are confusing and the sky is stretched through
shuttle bus wires and the blinkers never stop, I may have blown a red
light but nobody noticed--especially when I ended up in Ballard. who knew
you could get back to Everett by skipping half the free way and by the time I
ended up back where I started I saw myself leaving hours earlier down the ramp,
decided I couldn't go home because I wasn't ready. I asked the boy at the ticket
counter which movie was the least less full? Sorry, least most full? Which theater
had the least amount of people (to see me cry) and he smiled strangely, but asked
for my ID. For a moment I remembered I wasn't 17, 17 was just that age where
you're allowed, I was so past allowed but here's my ID anyway, it was sticky.
I didn't watch that movie, what even happened? A man sat behind me,
grunting. I tried to cover my phone but my mind was elsewhere in
an anger that did not let me be mad. Instead I could only consider
the situation a hundred times over, consider the words
I could say, should say, would not say,
should not say, the things I should do,
the right
things (whatever they were)
the wrong things. At this point I noticed
the movie was crude, disgusting even. I hadn't even
laughed once. What kind of humor was
this? But again, my mind
was
elsewhere
and Stephanie wanted
to know where I was, where
are you? Where was I? I was at Costco
with mom earlier, how did I get here? I was laying on
my bed when I got that text but here I am now, soaked
in salt, although my bones no longer shake and my stomach
no longer hurts but these blankets know the difference between
screaming and singing, I know the difference. But I'm. Still. Here.
God, God, I don't know what to do or say or be. I don't
know what to do or say or be or say or do.

sometimes I realize
I cannot save every
one, every thing, I
can't save the brok
                                         en

I have lost
you to the
world.

i am rolled between
rocks, my everything
hurts

as far as sheep go--
will you find me
soon because I
don't know where
i am and countless
people have discovered
me and they ask their
many questions but
but
but