i will bloom
in your hands
if you let me.

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?

you're living under a warm
pink light and I can see you
holding her hand between
the wooden seats in that
cafe

there's a glass of cold water
on my desk and I'm about
to go to bed.

do you ever wonder
why people don't smile
at you? people tell me
I'm intimidating but
always take advantage
of my kindness once
they know I'm not
a threat.

if only the sun shown a bit brighter
but these streetlamps will have to do
they seemed to glow when he would
kiss me, he's gone spelunking in my
heart to dissolve the mites and tites
where my reality teeters on emotion
and the soles of my feet may disband
as feet and the ground as ground, but
here the upheaval of roots can only be


good

I can
never
make
my
point

.

we all want to be
opened or discovered
but I want neither, I don't
even want the want the want

The light you replaced
in my room has gone

out

******* for
being exactly what you
hated me for calling you
no I don't regret it because
it's true you
*******
you're a liar
you're a ****
you're a man

all the lights were out with the
exception of one orange creme
porch light weakly splayed through
the sliding glass door and it made
your face look like the purest
pastel I've ever seen in my life--
a-not-quite-brown but not-quite-yellow
and it moved across your lips when you
spoke, touched your tongue when you
paused and looked good on everyone on
the 1st floor of your parent's house
probably because i was delirious
and your dad had just driven 3 hours
in new years traffic to come pick us up
in downtown Seattle after your car took
its last breaths and we lost Joe as a friend for
the next
two years.


today
i finished the diary I started
on January 1st, 2014 at your
house before anyone was up
and I had fallen asleep in the
chunky gold necklace from
the night before, tucked into
the couch with my feet stuffed
beneath Brett's thighs, listening
to her voice--and Christina's and
Josh's and also my own startling
contributions in rhythmic breathing--
at some point you whispered that I was
sleeping (only half-true) because this
particular moment was insignificant
but happens to be one of the only things
i remember


that pastel color and making tea
the next morning wondering how
far away i'd be in ten seconds
and here I am,


here i am.

You said thanks for
the closure and I
tried to hide how
wide my eyes got
all this time and
I was hoping maybe
maybe? maybe? maybe
what? Maybe, maybe.
What was I hoping
for?

attached by heartstrings
my mom documented every
millisecond of my life which
ultimately included you, every
photo a timid look, loving glances
our hands permanently floating
gently draped legs, I hid behind
your glasses with you, i hid behind
your glasses with you, were we one
and is this why I
why i
why
i

I'm tired of feeling guilty
over not doing lifts, or only
six squats, wondering why
my thighs look fat at the
gym, but okay at home,
stopping mid-crunch because
i can feel my ******* skin
i don't want to abhor the
body that I live in.

inside there was a
spat b e t w e e n my
bones, a wrenching
in all the sockets
every single
curl in my
brain was unfurling
but all I could do was
pinch the calluses on
my palm with a calm
ferocity, he does not
want me to c o n d e m n
myself but i was already
******* in, concave and
ready to collapse.

she said that it's not true
that you have to love yourself
for someone else to love you but

it is true and it resonates with me.
I can't rely on somebody else to
build me up only to find I have
nothing to fall back on, not even
self-love, so all I'm trying to say
is nobody can love me until I
love myself and I can't
even do
that.

I always relented when
you tried to put cayenne
pepper in the dishes you
made for me. Spicy things
open up the taste-buds you
lectured. And no matter how
much I'd poke your shoulders
you always managed to put
a pinch in. I claimed to hate it.

This morning I poured hot salsa
onto my breakfast and ate it without a

problem.

we aren't pretty
enough without
filters, we like our
faces better with
faux overtones
people like
us better with
faux overtones
but really we
just want to
be loved
in honest
to god


daylight.

I had a dream
I was still trying
to outrun you,

what was that?
5th grade? I could
hear you behind

me, a thick breath
that got closer so
I ran faster, no

no, I cannot lose to
you again, I can't
be ugly, I can't

be alone on the playground
anymore, I can't be alone on
the swing-set, I can't go home
until this is done. No, Sierra, I
can't be the outcast again. I

can't beat you
can i? I just have

let go.

the last time we
spoke with our
voices, i asked you
why won't you sleep
with me on skype? and
you nervously smiled, played
with something between your
fingers. i asked again, why?
I felt you aimlessly search my
face before you said, I don't
want you to see what I've done
if i accidentally roll over.

I hid beneath the covers and cried.
you said
[                          ]

He was like the thunder
8 miles, 7 miles, 9 miles,
suddenly, three. Suddenly
gone. Suddenly,
rain, suddenly
none.

There is still a place
in my heart for you
and I hate it
I hate it
I hate it
I hate it

he will tell people
that the Eagles won because we weren't together
that this winter has been so warm
because i took Skaði and hid her
beneath my skin
and this summer will be perfect
because I am not the one.

He says they're weaknesses
the reasons, I mean. The reasons
why he couldn't say anything, when
they called me a *****. When they called
me crazy and awful. I desperately try to
process those weaknesses, because there
have definitely been times where I could
not say anything either. Yes, I was
silent in the presence of my adversaries.
And he watched me take the blows
he lent an open ear to their
curses and listened
without a word. Without a word
he took none for the team and walked
from the field. So I rattle the fence and blow
from the sidelines, I tell him
You really don't know this kind of loneliness
do you? Because it's been this way since I was
little, since before lunch tables, since before nap
time. I say,
You really don't know this kind of loneliness
but I'm beginning to wonder if no one does
because everyone has their own.

i don't know
what he's thinking
but it isn't of me and I
shouldn't of him. He said
i have no preference
and I apologized when
I should not have because
the truth is I can't be sorry
forever for the  things I did or
said. I have to forgive myself
at some point.

i sometimes wonder
if all the inspiring quotes
you see make you think
that all of them were the
opposite of
me.

Make a wish on your necklace clasp
he's thinking about you when you
sneeze I wonder if you see hallmark
cards and think of me, if you read
Monte Cristo and wish I was
Haydée, if you grow flushed
during that chapter of The
Great Gatsby where your
voice broke twice and  
you let your head fall
back, I miss the ways
I could make you
do that.

my anger has manifested
into sore throats, the perpetual
swallow, even while you sleep--
that no saliva, cotton ball in your
chest soaking up the living, leaving
me high and dry, contemplating
the meaning of every idiom,
every moment, every customer
that orders five 20oz mochas
and doesn't leave a single
tip but works on the block
and complains about local
business.

(in the silence
he is doing the
worst of things)

(I'm afraid that
one day he will
say, I'm so sorry
so sorry, I did
what I said I
would not)

(but my fear is
unwarranted,
that would mean
that I wanted to
believe--that I
trusted in what
I should not)


so in the end
it's still my

fault.

there is an aimless sense of
wandering, a trip on an empty
train, floor awash with foot prints
streaked under the seats and here
I am clinging to the handrails, but
like a dream the corners of my vision
are fuzzy and I fight to be unaware
and somewhere from the end of
the car, horses stamp their
hooves, all lined up
behind red stanchions
they aren't bulls but they
breathe like I am red, and
somehow this is all curiously
distant, sauf pour the speed of
the train, the only thing that is
unnerving is the ways in which
I move and blink and how i am
made up of seven billion billion
billion atoms but this number
seems so inconsequential and
small compared to how lost
I feel and how many times
a day I ask myself what
I am doing.


What am I doing?

warm inside
introverted but
i love the chatter
lip tint, gold eyeliner
beautiful around
familiar faces
no one would
ever break me
here. this is my

family.