The scrutiny is toxic,
it builds up like tar in her weakened lungs
she can't breathe
when everyone else steals the air right from her
and replaces the purity with rotten words that make her blood curdle
the scrutiny is toxic
she tries to brush it off
but it won't work
she can't breathe
please stop the scrutiny

Dregs at the bottom of my coffee cup,
the burnt remains I could never finish up,
My poems always had to rhyme and I hated that,
I hated me.
Sediment at the bottom of a river,
it turns from crystal to mud,
still carrying the weight of a 100,000 tons,
but never looking pretty enough.
Sediment at the bottom of a river,
the farther out you are, the bluer it becomes
because you can't see the piles of dirt underneath
or the diamonds that lay beneath

The only thing I do well is leave before I’m left,
I’m a victim of theft in every sense of the word,
Consequently developed a cyclical sense of self defense,
Where I break my own heart and force everyone I know and love
to watch, and taking notes and noting cues so they can learn to do it too,
I find it to be easier to let others down first so they don’t get the chance to ask questions
I don’t know the answers to, questions I deny and refuse.
Why do you do what you do, when so many people love you?
I told myself I would not do this to you, and I did.
I did.
I’m sure I could take it back if I tried hard enough,
But I’m not sure I’m worth the effort you put in,
I’m bound to do it again and it’s that ******* self defense,
I use as an excuse to ruin everything around me that usually blooms,
I told myself I wouldn’t, but I did it to you.
I tried to hide it behind your apathy and how it drove me crazy
To watch sunsets hit your eyes and fade away like they were never there
In the first place but I did not know you were soaking them up to reimagine later
When you felt you had no other way to feel okay again, and warm again,
I took your apathy for devolution and I painted you a thief and I wanted my soul back,
But I had latched it onto yours, like I always say I’ll never do,
But I did to you.
The only thing I do well is leave before I’m left,
I’m the reason for the hole in my own chest,
I did it to protect you from everything I think I’m not,
I never wanted to hurt you so I had to leave before I could,
The only thing I do well is leave before I’m left,
You never showed any interest in going away,
But I made sure to do it myself so I did not have to force you to stay someday.

So maybe I can say that
I'm "clean" from self harm
because I stopped puncturing my skin
my arms are free from scars


but does it not do the same thing
to trace back old memories
of you and I
and feel the same sting in my stomach?
the same stab from the same type of let down
only this time without a drop of blood for proof of pain

Am I not hurting myself every time I pretend
that I'm okay like this

The scars have healed atop my skin
but the ones within will never get the chance
because every chance that I get to step forward
I take to stay in place,
or in the past
wherever you are still a part of me
and any time where I do not have to close my eyes to have you back

*** used to have meaning
I used to feel it
not plead for anything to make me believe I didn't need it

and now it is nothing
it is a hobby or past time

I miss mixing my soul with another
instead of trading sweat with someone I didn't even bother
to ask their name

Yours was the only one I cared to know

a book with ripped pages
a recipe without spice
*** without love is hardly enticing
because you don't feel the emotion pour onto your skin
with every breath and he doesn't laugh with you when you
crash heads, he might call your name but it doesn't shake your bones
knowing that he loves you for everything you aren't;
*** without love is empty,
pleasing, merely, but empty,
it's an impulse move to fill the void
you deny is even there.
You faked your happiness for a year,
and now your ******* on a strangers couch
because you're afraid to admit you don't like *** without love,
you're independent now and it's all you speak of
so you don't need that kind of connection that warms bellies
and chills skin, you just need a strangers bed to sleep in,
right?

Until you can't sleep at night because you know that *** when you aren't in love is an act, one that will never bring the feeling of sharing yourself with someone you love back.

*** without being in love
Another ghostly counterpart
to fill myself up
Says my body is lovely, my sounds are art
Can't see way I knocked over my cup
On purpose to distract him,
I needed it to end
I stopped having fun
6 months ago in a room in Boston
I thought I was filling the void
With attention,
A habit I learned in early
Adolescence
I was making it bigger
Confusing my soul
The men I sleep with are empty and foul
*** without love
Is an act of sin,
Not according to God
But to the person within
Myself, I am sorry
I give up on it
*** without love
Feels meaningless

Crimson winds in Early September
blew my own smoke back into my face
so I got a double dose of ashes, burning my surfaces
I stopped digging into my skin with metal
but filled my lungs with tar
and I can't tell what's worse
Forgetting to take in sherbert skies because
I'm too high
or being there but not caring in the first place

You’re always in the back of my mind,
When I kiss him at night
I think of the way we used to laugh until
The morning.
Sunrises have not been the same in ages.
I know you hardly think of me at all,
I hope come fall I cross your mind.
I hope you smile.

I remember how it felt shutting down
not like when you turn off the lights
and leave a vanilla candle burning
as you read yourself to sleep
not like it feels to turn off your phone
and just listen to the waves hug the beach

I remember hitting the floor so hard I still have a bruise
and I remember 567 outgoing phone calls,
to you
I remember you telling me you hated me
that you never loved me back in three years
I remember crashing my car into a tree
going 103 miles per hour, the doctor telling me the impact should have killed me
sometimes I wish it had
I remember you telling me you wished it would have
in that same ten minutes but still not feeling
that same pain in my chest as the steering wheel
broke three of my ribs and the prerecorded message telling me
to leave a message at the beep was the last time I heard your voice

I remember shutting down
and how I could **** a thousand gardens
before I'd have taken enough lives
to have mimicked the feeling when I thought mine was ending
but those flowers would have died
I only shut down
I still live with it
every day and I don't know
how much longer I can take the pain
I remember shutting down a year ago today
but it still hurts enough,
I'm still tired enough to feel like it was yesterday

I write the best at night when I can't sleep
the IV is dressed like stability,
heart like an addict but could never commit.
unhealthy habits I never wanted to quit
I didn't look sick.

when the memories are lucid and loud
your words come alive in nightmares,
nurses rush to check I'm not climbing out the fire escape again
easier to jump out than to let anyone in

so used to leaving in a panic I never learned to use the door,
I still feel the burn of your hand on my cheek and the cool of the floor


I write the best at night when I can't sleep
the IV is dressed like stability,
heart like an addict but could never commit.
unhealthy habits I never wanted to quit
I didn't look sick.

I took classes about drugs
what could happen if we tried them
All the street names and side effects,
prison times and famous users
but we never learned what to do when the drug had
brown hair and blue eyes and held your hand in the back of a cruiser

I didn't look sick,
I climbed out the fire escape quick
for one last hit because you asked me to and I didn't think twice about it

i let you haunt my halls every night until the floors caved in
i grew to want and need your harrowing prescence
in the spaces between walls, i kept three flares and my keys
convinced i would have to fight my way out if i were to ever leave
but i never did

i'm sorry that i let you linger
four months since that family dinner where you told me you
could no longer hold me up on your shoulders
i was your burden to bear and you wanted the guilt to eat me alive
i would be lying if i said that it did, you cut yourself and held the blood up for the world to see''
i grew cold, entangled in apologies you pulled out of me
i was always scared, i was never sorry

Slam the door,
one more time
it shattered enough windows last week,
all the items in the house fit through the three that cracked,
the frame was intact
but the glass had been smashed,
just enough to fit a small bag already packed,
and then shove myself through

slam the door,
one more time,
this time I'm not coming home.

I did something wrong
this day, last fall
The October wind took my breath away
I did something *****
this night, last fall
The autumn leaves swept my confidence away
The flickering memories still disturb my somber sleep from time to time

I did something brave
this spring, 6 months ago
March carved out the pieces I let cement in the cold
I did something bold
this spring, 6 months ago
I got up and left, chains still digging at my ankles


But I left,
I did a lot of things wrong,
I have the scars to prove how hard I held on.
But I left,
I did something right.

Sometimes I wish you would have hit me
because I could take a blow like that
and get back up in a minute
those scars heal like bandaged paper cuts
though they hurt like hell at first, you **** it up
your skin covers its own trenches in amazing resilience

Sometimes I wish you would have hit me
because I could handle a few bruises on my arm
over endless nights of hearing your words that cut like knives
but the wounds do not go away,
they get deeper with time and everything I try to cover them with
too, is covered in blood

Sometimes I wish you would have hit me
because I would not hurt a year after leaving
Sometimes I wish you would have hit me
I fear the easier one to heal from is a physical beating

9 months have passed and I still feel small
I threw away everything, photos and all
I felt empty for months, angry this fall,
but now I'd give anything to be your next call.

Your tactics were perfect, like beautiful seas
I was so eager to let you control me
Because surrendering felt like ectasy
And your grip around my neck had warming properties

The bitter taste you left that last time you kissed me
was nothing compared to the sour one I recognized that last time I spoke to you on the phone. I'm writing you a letter to let you know that I'm sorry for everything, and it isn't because I feel so ******* ******* alone right now. Because that would make me selfish like you said, and I cannot agree with that. But anyway, here's an apology that ***** the stability out of my hands. I'm cold as I write this and I pray to God you find comfort in even a single word I write.

I will start with August 24, 2013:
I'm sorry that I hurt myself the day after the best day of my life.
I think that I felt the warmth from yesterday escape my body too quickly and I had already began to lean on you. I'm sorry that crimson reds that dry brown are the only way I could articulate my feelings three years ago and I'm sorry that I still feel the same now.

I'm sorry I let you down.

September 23, 2013:
I'm sorry that the blade betrayed you again on this night,
but I found a breath in that moment after gasping for hours.
I remember as the blood leaked out my lower arm I longed to be in yours, remembering all the nights you stayed up ensuring I was okay.
I hated making you do that.
I'm sorry.

December 7, 2013:
I'm sorry that I cried on the first day that we had ***
because I envisioned the man who hurt me at age six.
I'm sorry the twist in my gut hurt more than the cuts on my arm that were still sore, but not because they were healing anymore
but because two days earlier you said you were sick of seeing them and to cover up.
I'm sorry you had to look at those, I know I should have covered them better but the makeup stung and the bandaids burned and I'm sorry I cried for hours.
I stopped crying about my babysitter after twenty minutes and the rest of the time I lied to you because I was still upset about what was going to happen 6 months later in June.

I'm sorry that I hurt for our entire relationship.

June 1, 2014:
I came home from work today covered in syrup, sweaty and tired.
My hair frizzed past the elastic and I looked in the mirror at my makeup and wondered who thought I looked ugly today, because that is what I felt.
So 8 months after I promised you never to hurt myself again I started panicking.
I shattered mirrors, I paced from the kitchen to my bedroom, bounced from the bed to the chair, wondering what would happen if I could just have one tiny little cut and not tell you
and so I sat on my bed and cut my arm 6 times with a pair of scissors I'd bought to make jewelry with.
and then I did not know where to begin so I started apologizing.
I started saying sorry but not telling you why I was sorry and we went out that night where you saw my arm and from that day on every time I said sorry you brought that back up.
I remember the way that I covered those 6 cuts but it stung,
I remember more the look on your face when you'd realized what I'd done.
You turned white and I do not mean it as a cliche, you lost the color in your face and I lost you that day

Although I kept you for two more years, I lost you that very second because every fight after that lead back to june 1 where I was selfish.

and I am sorry.

Fast forward fifty weeks later when I stopped breathing at the amusement park.
I'm sorry I ruined your night. I'm sorry that I picked fights just to get your attention because it was fleeting like my trust only in a way that mimics those dust bowls we learned about in grammar school.
Only they do not teach you what to do when you are what is left barren, empty.

I'm sorry I got mad that you called me fat.
I'm sorry I was fat.  
I was working on it but I was too tired to go to the gym because we stayed up watching tv again. I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry I wanted to go to the gym but it took away time we set aside to rot away and leave imprints on the bed I cannot pretend I do not feel no matter how many times I toss and turn.


I'm sorry that I invalidated years of effort by tarnishing your reputation, the one you cared about more than your character.
I'm sorry you care about her more.
I'm sorry I had *** with you on Easter then thought it meant something because 8 months before you questioned how I could do the same when you broke my heart for the 3rd time that week.
I was weak. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I told everyone you were cruel to me becuase I was still healing from the last and bitter bruise you left on me.

I'm sorry.

There is a pink haze over the city tonight
I’m sitting in a parking lot, texting you in a panic again
I’m sorry I haven’t gotten it together yet
At least we caught the end of the sunset
I love the way the full moon hits your cheek
Please don’t get tired of me
I took a picture of the orange,
I spent all day in bed
I don’t want to waste my life away
I don’t want you to grow sick of me

I'm sorry for the things I said while I was drinking
I'm sorry for who I become when I'm wasted
I'm sorry for wasting your time by pushing you away
I'm sorry, I have this way about me that makes connecting scary
and I would say "It isn't you, it's me"
But I haven't identified the source of this inescapable misery
I'm sorry for what I said
I'm sorry for everything

The longest day,
The deepest breath
You always knew me the best.
My second spring,
Without you here
I wonder who I'll be this year.
The greenest grass,
The bluest skies
I hide the ugliness of my insides.
The warmest sun,
The afterglow
Of a girl whom I'd like to know.
The longest day,
The deepest breath
I won't wait for you again.
The time is now,
No room to wait
Gaia dealt a brand new day.

tea that steeps too long
leaves a bitter taste
the very same way
we held on too strong
to something gone
we wasted months

I soaked up
years of your self hatred
and now I am here.

Cavities now rot my teeth,
I spent months trying to sweeten
the tea we let steep
for far too long

I still try to replicate
that tingle in my skin
I got each and every time we'd kiss
and how I never, ever felt it with another
and now I'm scared I simply can't
and that you ****** the magic right out of my lips
and that every man now will live in a shadow
of something that no longer exists
and it scares me, still
after all this time,
to want you back
to call you mine

I don't know how you do it
without even acknowledging me
you make my stomach twist into a ball
you make my knees too weak
I still get sick when I think about
the times we used to have
I still hate myself for holding on
I still get sick wondering where it went bad

I turn 20 in 3 months.

3 days ago, I **** my pants.
Yikes.

What? Ugh, I know. Well heck, dude.
It was an accident.
Or it was laughter mixed with Corona.
Or it was nervousness taking over,
lactose intolerance teamed up with people intolerance,
**** did it smell, but
we did try to make the best out of a sticky situation,
for lack of a better word.
The air was stale, but at least I could breathe at that point.
It's in our nature to coat our ugliest metals in gold.
Why do we do that and feel bad when the copper starts to shine through?

I beg you something, I plead.
Stop calling  anxiety beautiful. Please.
What's beautiful about air stabbing your chest like
shattered glass as you hug your own knees for comfort
and beg it to make it to your lungs in time to breathe?

What's so beautiful about bloodshot eyes so red that customers tell your boss you're surely high when you'd give your left leg to be low enough to calm down, even if for a minute.
What's so beautiful about burn marks from coffee pots your dropped while you were shaking?

And what is so beautiful about freezing in the heat,
or not being able to distinguish between the two because goosebumps cover your entire body. Anything over 72 degrees and you can't breathe
because the air

is just
so
heavy,
it sticks to your muggy lungs
but you still tremble from the cold because your body forgets how to adapt to certain situations as it's too busy remembering how to function at a very basic level to keep you alive to experience every aspect of this attack so tell me what is so ******* beautiful about colors getting trapped outside the fog in your brain like prisoners of war, the kind of fog that you can't even see but that ***** the vibrancy out of things you used to use to fill up your empty parts, so tell me what is so beautifully tragic about your favorite grass being grey instead of green?

You try to turn something ugly, something vengeful into something to roll into a ball and cradle like a blanket or a toy, something pretty and controlled,

and you end up cold on the tile floor of Cumberland Farms
in tears
at 20 years old
warking your mother up at 3 in the morning
with a screaming ringtone
only to forget how to speak
when she answers and her voice cracks
"what's wrong? what's going on?"
And you don't know
but you konw you have coffee to make
if you hands would just stop shaking
please for a second
and that's why you smell like coffee now,
because more grounds get on you than in the filter anyway,
you just never stop shaking
but when someone asks what's wrong and you can't identify the source you do your best to forget what's even causing this in the first place
so tell me what's beautiful about any of this.

About your heart beating so fast you
swear it's racing someone else,
maybe racing to get you some help,
but what would you say when they arrived?
Where did this derive from?
Every single hair on your body rises,
it's so hot,
you can't breathe,
but you still freeze,
or are those nervous bumps?
You feel every chill like waves under a full moon

Tell me what the most beautiful part about a girl you can't kiss is,
is it the chase? The same one that pumps through my blood.
I'd chase anything for one long breath I didn't have to fight for.

Please stop calling anxiety beautiful.
Please stop coating my copper in gold.
Please don't tell me that it's something tragic but that it makes me stronger,
because when you end up on the floor of a convenience store, crying into coffee you already ruined twice,
you'll hurt the person who was only trying to be nice.

Can you please stop showing up unexpectedly?
It's so rude to do
I'm out with friends trying to have a good time,
I'm laughing and smiling and free,
and you show up so quickly and make me feel sick so suddenly


but you never actually came back and that's the worst part
your memory haunts my present and it's something I can't shake
no matter how many people I try to replace you with

Oh, God I'm freaking out
What if I never get around
To pursuing my dreams and I stay stuck
Like the lump in my throat that stings
An ember burning its way through my chest
But never gets deep enough to see what I need, where I need to be and what makes me feel free oh god,
Oh, god I'm freaking out
What if I never get around
To pursuing my dreams
The East coast buries me under slush and AC leakage, oh God I can't breathe
Oh god I'm freaking out,
What if I never get around
To me,
And then it's too late
I need to escape

Is the best piece you ever wrote your suicide note?You were a writer and you knew how to turn your words into weapons. You weren't supposed to use them on your own skin. What made you wage a war you know you couldn't win?
Why Did you hurt the ones you love and call it art? Did the act of waking up every day burn your insides so much that
You couldn’t bear to stay on Earth for another sunset without collapsing yourself? Is that why you went away? Is it sunny there? Or warm, at least I know you didn’t like the heat but you needed a promising heartbeat and New England winters stole the color from your smile, I saw it with my own eyes. I saw you glow too and that makes me wonder why you left. The leaves fell off trees and you danced underneath, something about that felt like magic. What made you feel so free and where'd it go? You loved October air growing up, and how it filled your lungs,apple pie that just cooled off, but warm enough to heat you up. You used to eat the whole thing,
and now you can't. Did you stop hurting the way you used to here? How can we be sure? You never asked anyone for help, and now you can’t.

be like strawberries
in the middle of july
when they're perfectly
ripe, be sweet to me
i need ectasy when we kiss
i need sugar on my lips
be like strawberries,
please, be sweet to me
every morning i make a smoothie
to taste the summer on my tongue
in the coldest winter months
so i need consistency,
please, be sweet to me

I can count the number of times my body has been violated on both hands,

But I need both hands to do so, though and while that might sound horrible,
I've grown to know that saying "no" does not mean "stop" to someone who insists on trying,
what I've learned is that my body was never mine to begin with,

I grew sick with a task of delivering pleasure to someone else at the cost of myself and what I learned is that
waving that white flag cuts you open and
causes you to bleed on your white sheets
you already bleached stains out of twice that same week,

My body was never mine to begin with,

but I'm taking it back.

I'm stealing my body back from the fear that stole it every night I agreed to have *** to avoid getting hit.

I'm stealing my body back from every night I said no and you still did it.

I'm stealing my body back from the paralyzing thought of what people would think about how I got into that situation instead of why you did that to me in the first place.

I'm stealing my body back from the haunting, cemented, cold look on your face when you said "I do what I want"
I shrunk into my skin,
I swore I would never feel safe in my own bones again.

I'm taking my body back because it is mine.
I'm taking it from every person who stole it from me,
even if temporarily,
at ages 6, 9, 10, 14, 16, 18 and 19.

I'm taking it back for me this time.
It is not your temple or release.
It is not your garden or your sanctuary.
My body is mine to keep.

I talked about you
like you shaped mountains
as if you had the power to reconstruct
centuries of settled sediment
into something I would lose my breath trying to climb
I spoke about you,
I swore you put the stars in the sky
just for me
but took them as my eyes adjusted to the dark
and I could finally see.
I talked about you
like you were the milk in my morning tea:
just enough to keep it warm
but not hot enough to burn me,
as if you never hurt me,
it's funny.
how I talked about you
like you would move mountains for me,
or build me a galaxy.
I used to love tea,
and now I drink coffee.

Talk all day
Type our fingers sore
Refresh, refresh
We beg for more attention than we get
We share so much that
We know everything about each other
Our thumbs are raw
You can see the bones
I typed you novels
You called my phone
We talk all day
We don't take breaks
So why don't you know
I'm not okay?
Why can't you look me in the eye?
If we talk all day why can't I talk to you in real life?

When you read those corny books about breakup they tell you that no matter how hard you think it might be, you'll get over it. You'll get over him. You'll get over her. You'll get over late summer nights where you swore you would never need anything else. And you felt solace in a book that promised happiness at the end of the road and so you tried to stop missing him. You tried to stop missing her. You replaced them with other people. You kissed that short, skinny boy with greasy hair to see if his lips compared to the ones you grew used to. They didn't. You kissed that tall, chubby girl to see if her lips made you sing like the way you were making music for all those years. They didn't. Nothing you tried to replace your first love with was the same.

And that is the point.

When you fall in love for the very first time, they don't tell you that it's going to hurt when it ends. Well, they might but hell if you'll believe it. You're blinded by something that we would all beg for another chance to do over and I swear to God I would do it the same way again. You were blinded by a force so strong you simply cannot move on in 3 months. Today was supposed to be your 3 year anniversary.

And it wasn't.

When you fall out of love the first time they don't tell you how or when you will get back up. They don't tell you that you will check his Twitter every day. You will see if her Instagram pictures of you two remain. And they don't tell you how badly you'd rather take a knife to the gut when you see they moved on already. It feels the same anyway.

When you fall in love for the second time, though. Everything is different.

When you fall in love for the second time, you wish everything was different. You beg your brain to not **** this one up. You bargain with your heart to let yourself have one night to enjoy what it has for once.
But the games you let sink into your blood and permeate your idea of love come back to life when your heart starts to beat again. You notice different things about the second person you love, like how their hair never stays in their hat the right way or the way they fall asleep laying on their back but always end up on their side holding you really tightly and how you finally feel okay with them, for once, even if it's just for a night. You notice that their hands are a different shape than the first person you love and that they might shape clay differently and it might not hurt you as much as before and you notice you're absolutely terrified of replacing someone else's hands so you use your own to push them away as hard and as far as possible.

And for the second time, you ****** up.
For the second time, with someone new,
you broke all the rules and you hurt someone who loved you.

They don't tell you how to fall in love a second time because they're so shocked you could ever love again after all those nights you spent screaming into your pillow until you lost your voice and fell asleep remembering that one park you used to hold hands at 16. But they will not tell you how to feel that way again because something sunk it's teeth deep into your skin and its venom changed the chemicals within you and now you see love as a game and I'm sorry because it isn't.
I'm sorry you have to hurt people to show them you're changed and I'm sorry that you are stuck in this wave of not knowing who will come into your life and make you sing again.

When you fall in love for the first time, it is in that one park and you swear it's the best feeling in the world. You swear you can fly.
When you fall in love the second time, please don't let it go, you know what it feels like already to watch love die.

You will never see the basement of the church,
I spent months there begging for answers.
I will see the steeple.

You might never collect all the flowers in the garden
I spent weeks tending to the seeds.
I will reap the most vibrant yellows.

You will never hear the beating of the drum,
I spent months tuning it out.
I will strum my own strings.

You might never face the consequences of your past.
I may never heal.
But I will be better than what it left me.
I will rise up and I will feel again.

I wove a basket for you that I filled with my own flowers,
The summer drought killed my roses.
The summer rain drowned my daisies
But in the fall I die once more,
in the basket, I am reborn.
I wove you a basket you did not take,
so with my own heart I will make one,
in this basket I will keep
the flowers whose roots run deep.

I planted them myself,
for me.

if the first real heartbreak is the worst
does that mean that the first love will always be
the one worth hurting over?
will they never be better?
will I love him forever?

I always wonder what the last song I hear will be,
what words will grace the fingertips of my grave
and will they make a difference in the way that I decay?
What print will they leave on my soul, strong enough to stay
when the oak I said I didn't want, but got, has rotted away?
I always wonder what my last song will be,
if the strings will harmonize with me,
and dance with the wind,
and steal the tears from my family,
because God knows they will have plenty,
when they hear the last song that I chose
before I said my time on earth was plenty,
I always wonder what my last song will be,
if I should make it sad, to make it easier to go,
or happy to make sure they know that's not why I did,
I always wondered if I would still be able to here it, after
God knows that song would be something I could live for, forever

A tall, thin man
stands outside my house,
it's cold out there and he waits for me to come out

The same young man wears a black hat
and a black blouse
he paces to and fro until he passes out

The tall thin man
waits for me to arrive
stands there singing songs
until he feels like he might die

He knocks on the door,
he sounds so polite,
begs for a minute,
and a glass of water if I might.

The man barges in,
he breaks my door,
he raids my cubbards
he stains my floor,
he spills my wine,
he eats my fruit,
the man feels nothing,
he continues.

While he wanders
through my house,
he spits out lines
as ironed as his blouse.
"Thank you for your patience"
"I really have to say,
you're very kind and giving
in the most pathetic way."

The man then goes up to my room
he makes my bed look brand new.
Then makes me now lay down and pray,
tells me that I belong this way.
I beg him to stop as my hands start to ache,
my heart froze up and he swore I'd been faking.

The man in the hat
the man in the blouse
the man that I let into my house
the man that stole
the man who broke
the man who I let take all control
that man took what he needed
that man then left
and left me bleeding.

On his way out he said goodbye,
he said farewell, and thanked my time,
before he took off to the sky,
he told me something I can't deny
"You're too trusting, my dear,
and look at you now,
you let people in out of fear,
and you are left the clown"

One day I'll talk about the pain
In retrospect
And I'll talk about the way I healed
It won't be a stretch
One day I'll talk about the pain
Like an old friend in high school
Familiar faces focused on the has-been
But only for a little bit
One day I'll talk about the pain in retrospect

I don’t know exactly when I lost you.
Somewhere in the middle of me
Falling apart on a perfectly timed cycle
And blaming my sadness on your apathy,
I remember you told me you couldn’t handle it anymore.
I don’t know when, I remember the way you walked out the door.
And how when I chased after you, peeling paint cracked off where the handle was
Before I started trusting you and started leaving the door open
I remember when I gained you,
Everything went silent
When you told me you needed me
I called your “I love you’s” filler words
And you called me paranoid
I remember hibiscus kisses, stumbling
Over broken pavement outside my apartment
Where we made love on the couch
And I felt the blood in my veins
Make its way to my heart
And I finally felt that feeling
I waited my entire life for
I felt you and my favorite record playing
And I thought that was what it was like to be alive
And to be happy about it, for once
And then you left and now I drive in silence
Music makes me sick
Six months after you left I learned what it meant when people
Told me I had to get over it or it would **** me
Because I tried to **** me and the pictures that flashed across my face
As it started to fade,
Were all of you

"I would say I care about women's rights, but I wouldn't call myself a feminist"
"I think men and women should be equal, yeah, but I don't want to be called a feminist."
"Does that mean I can hit you?"

The word feminism rattles like a cracking cymbal crashing
just hard enough on pavement to scratch it
but not hard enough to break.
The word feminism manifests itself in our culture
in poisonous ways,
like the food dye in our candy'r
parabens we cover our faces in,
we don't say this word cos' it's scary
we don't want to make too much commotion

while white men in black robes orchestrate the court system
and have police by the neck, inserting money like a candy machine
we fear the word that gives us a step to bring equality

while white men in suits ask us "how we doin'"
and we don't admit that we're angry,
women don't show anger, it isn't polite
when the men in the subway puts his hand up our skirt
and says "hey baby you like that"
no, he doesn't ask if we do, he tells us out flat,
insinuating our satisfaction is a product of theirs
reminding us with a hand on public transportation
that anyone who has a **** can be one and we can't do ****
because we aren't supposed to be angry, it isn't polite

The word feminism manifests itself in delicate ways
we can't ask for too much, they won't take us seriously
****** intergrity? girl, try again
the right to not wear a bra?
Where do you think you are? this is america
An opinion
one that they hear
that isn't facilitated
out a white man's mouth
into a white man's ear
we aren't a filter
won't you raise your voice?
**** being polite,
please, make some noise

The word feminism manifests itself in ways you can't see
if you fear what it might make you lose
you haven't much yet by the hands of the man
so why are you choosing not to grab your sister's hands?
Stop saying sorry when someone interrupts you
stop moving out of the way for men who don't move
put your female foot down, don't say excuse me
you're a woman, angry with every right to be
stop fearing the word feminism
for the connotations are flurries
the word denotes storms we're starting
join us

Tonight was grand
I felt symphonies in my rib cages
Where music was out of tune before
Only for a second did he kiss me
But I wish it were an hour more
I felt zoos inside my bones
Stampedes of nerves wouldn't le'me alone
And then he kissed me and I felt a spark
Something I had lost last year, left in the dark
My third first kiss was multi colored
It was unlike everyone since my first and second
My third first kiss made my heart race
And I can't wait for it to happen again

I packed my clothes
And cigarettes
I'm moving to the South.
I always romanticized the North East,
And North West but the middle seemed draining and sure, I'm scared. I'm bound by my youth here and I have this exaggerated passion to travel I decorate for the sake of feeling adventurous but I'm actually comfortable with my feet in concrete boots, climbing back to you. You asked if I'm happy and said that it's sad that I'm leaving, we have so many memories. I felt the same way a year ago with you so I said I didn't know if I was. I don't know if waking up every day past noon to down a pill just to leave the room is happy but I know I'll live three miles from the Atlantic ocean, from pink sand in three weeks and you know I always romanticized the way nature could heal a shattered soul, so I'll go.

I hate that you asked me if I'm happy right before I go, I hate that I'm over you but that still make my insides coagulate and tear apart my stomach lining, I hate that I'm lying about why I'm leaving.

I said I'm starting over but I just have some things I haven't let go of, and I can't. So I'm running from them instead. I'll live on the beach. You won't pop up in the coffee shops I pretend to like dark roast in. I won't see your face in public when you aren't really there. It's unfair that I don't know how to go anywhere but towards another person but I'm hoping those morning beach walks might teach me how to go towards something scary instead of something safe. Maybe happiness isn't safety, maybe when you said you missed me that pain in my stomach was irony because a year ago I collapsed in class on a white tile floor when you said you'd never love me the same and now I'm leaving behind white walls and a white door I never painted because I never picked a color that made me happy.

Wake up,
Thursday morning,
smell of wet asphalt creeps in through the crack in the window left open
get up,
breathe it in and listen to the chickadees sing for this type of weather

Drink up,
warm water with lemon,
detox yesterday's sins
and begin new today
peel the wrappers from your arm from falling asleep eating
too many candies,
go for a run, cook a colorful lunch
fill your body with something other than crap for once.
the sun does not rise for you to waste the day in bed,
remember how it feels to do what you love and feel calm at night when you finally fall to bed, not shaking, but somber.

today is yours,
do not let it slip away,
god knows you have the strength to take it,
so do as the birds do,
just be,
fly,
sing,
breathe.

Tired.
Exhaustion,
the kind of fatigue you don't counteract
with behind-the-counter medications
because it lives behind your eyes but
not quite inside your brain,
the kind that makes you feel insane
just for acknowledging it's there.
It's quiet in the day but wrattles constantly,
reminding you, you're the only one to hear it.
Tired.
The kind that misses sleeping in,
but 13 hours of sleep is never enough
to fill in gaps or bags under eyes,
so you just lie in bed and think about
how tired you've become,
and how you've forgotten
how it feels to be refreshed.
Tired.
The kind of tired that inhibits you from moving
your mind races and your body is glued to the bed,
it's 3am now and you've finally stopped pacing in your head.
Tired.
your eyes stop moving around 6am
when you crawl into bed,
you are so drained,
nothing could keep you up now
you block out cars horns,
you ignore thoughts that knock on your door,
and rustle in your blinds,
and drown your fatigued mind,
begging for a place inside your bed,
you are so tired.
you are on sheets,
you haven't washed in weeks,
stuck without a destination
for your mind.
stuck, the sun just rose,
so you are
**** out of luck.