It was a Sunday afternoon when I thought I had you. I thought I had you with the words you had hidden away from the palms of your hand. I thought I had you when you said that you'll always have me here. I thought I had you. But I forgot to remember the words you've said days before.

I forgot to remember that you can't save me from drowning. I forgot to remember that you will always be so near yet so far. I forgot to remember those lingering, unsaid thoughts from you; that you will always be on the shore, beaches far away from my sinking heart. I forgot to remember again. And there's this certainty that I'd still forget.

Perhaps forgetting you was always too hard for me.
No, forgetting to forget you can always just be a thing I can never do.

this face is not Your face
these hands are not Your hands
Your hips are not your hips
so why are They here?

disconnected
ear, knee, toe, elbow
are they Yours?

body and mind
unaligned

where actually are You?

where am I?
not here

yet not completely absent
I'm in this body that is mine
but not

but if not
then who, where, what, how?
how am I
If not in this body of mine?

'Coward', I hold my blade.
'*****', The tears fall.
'Useless', The blade moves.
'Unwanted', The blood drips.
'**** Yourself', The cuts deepen.
Oxygen stops reaching my lungs.
Think Before You Speak.

as a young girl
I told my mother
I would never get married
and I stuck by that
for years

I got a boyfriend
but I knew
I was never
going to
actually
marry him

but as time goes on
and I get older
and people around me
are getting married
and starting lives
I keep listening to love songs
and noticing
what I want
in a husband

and I am not one
to settle
or settle down
but I made a
google doc
devoted to songs
I want played at my wedding
even though
I've never wanted
a wedding

my loneliness keeps creeping
in
watching me
but
I've finally
succumbed to it
and I want
to make it go away

and for the first time
in my ever expanding
life
I want to stop being alone
and can't stop pondering
childlike
dream wedding
fantasies

****

Hey mom-dad, listen.
Hit me, hate me, throw me out,
But don't shut me up.

She seems pretty queer
Yes she does
Something odd
Something peculiar

Is it in her insouciance
Is it in her audacity
Is it in her pirouettes
Spun with such vivacity

Is it in her defiance
Is it in her nonrepentance
Is it in her reveling so free
A form full of glee

Sometimes impetuous
All times ingenuous
Aflame with passion
An immersive intoxication

Cracking down on this mystery
A perplexing dichotomy
Let's remove the misfitting pieces
In sync with commonplace notions

Alas what dismantling of a girl
at peace with her pieces
What uprooting of a girl
at home in her body