I will drag my knife along your skin,
sharp blade down into your fragile, shaking canvas,
incising an increasing beat of whimpers and whines.
Please hold still. I promise this will hurt.

I will expose your clattering bones,
rip out your chattering teeth,
erase every impugned utterance
you muttered against me.
I will carve my letters slowly
on your unzipped frame,
sliding the burgundy blood across to
blot
       clot
              dot.    

This is only preparation for what is about to follow.

I will puncture your throbbing organs,
slash your stretched cartilage
with an unwritten script.
Before I press further,
I’ll assure you, you are still alive.

I will twist each phrase,
haunt you to believe it is your fault,
force you to beg the slightest escape.
I will permanently etch my name
deep in the frozen chambers
of your quivering heart.

I will open up the blueprint as a demolition expert,
remove whole fractions of your fractured soul,
leave you a horrid wreck in the abyss
of a mess you just made.

You will not get rid of me,
though no trace of evidence is left behind.

My hands have been clean from the start.

I crave human affection as much as
a flower demands photosynthesis
hiding beneath a shaded tree. It has
no control over capriciousness
from the sun.

The disappointment that resides in me,
as much as I tell it to go away,
swallows my entire body.

It eats away at my flesh and rarely
leaves enough time for skin to regenerate.
The disappointment that resides in me

licks its lips hungrily
at the sight of my blood, salivates
and swallows my entire body.

This cannot be healthy,
I say to myself. There has to be a way to invalidate
the disappointment that resides in me.

I wonder if there was ever a phase of sobriety
when my expectations' weight
did not swallow my entire body.

I suppose I must return to reality
and succumb to incubate
the disappointment that resides in me,
that swallows my entire body.

One day someone will hold my body, reach
intimate places, steal breaths from my throat
and his cold barb-wired fingers will breach
my silk-woven skin, leaving me to choke.
I'm afraid I'm not sufficient enough
to let his love crawl in me, sweeping dust
away that no one has bothered to touch
after all these years. Certainly he must
not want to encounter a tornado
that destructs everything that could save me.
When he's done, there will not be a halo
above his head. He precariously
set my heart up for more disappointment.
He took my trust with the lack of consent.

Realizing I am slipping away from her when she didn't text me happy birthday this year. Even though we haven't talked in four years, the very least we could do is say, "I thought of you today, and I hope it's going great." The absence of that sank its fangs into my throat.

Sipping a hot cinnamon dolce latte while sitting on the second floor deck of the student center. Watching students stream in waves to classes, and wondering what their story is.

Hearing the three chimes in 'Cassy O' and the guitar's chaos at minute 6:47 to 7:45 of 'Freedom' live at the Hammersmith Apollo, 2007.

Gazing at the sky when the sun is on the other side of the world, but a shade of crimson tinges in a terrifying drench.

Conversely, when the sky is so white, all one smooth blanket, I wonder what color will I see when I finally go to sleep- or will I be stuck in a black film?

Knowing a boy is near me so I stretch my neck, straighten my back, and hope he notices everything I want a person to notice and grow to love.

The disappointment people have in me swallows my whole body. Sometimes it's an act of cannibalism, and I can't push away regret faster than it starts to lick its lips at the sight of my glistening blood.

Seeing a picture of my younger self from sixteen, and it seems I have changed far too much to connect with the person in the image. She didn't know anything. I still don't know anything.

I stare at myself in the mirror, sometimes fully clothed and sometimes naked, and I wonder, "Who the hell is this? Who is she?" I detach my soul from my frame, and my face does not match my mind.

My eyes can just take a picture. I know the quality and the subject, my camera does not. I see angles and perspectives differently, and it frustrates me that I cannot get my vision out.

Some days my hearing does not affect me whatsoever. I don't even think about it. But others, particularly when I make mistakes, I blame my disability. And I hate to make excuses.

I want someone to film my passing moments, catch my laughter, study my ****** expressions. Expect me to glow and beam when I hear my favorite sounds, know where my dialect comes from, smile when I mention my friends.

One day someone will hold me and reach intimate places, and I'm afraid I will not be sufficient enough.

The scariest thing, however, and I absolutely have no way of explaining it, is life after death. We live for a fraction of time. We will forever live in white space, and not come alive again. Doesn't that terrify you?

the worst kind of crying
is that film residing in your throat
glazing over your vocal chords.
your stomach is twisted
into tiny intricate knots, triple tied.
your eyes bead in the corners,
glistening but not dripping.
you feel that you will never
be as sad as this moment.
your brain shuts off
a failed attempt to detach itself
from the veins fusing and tightening
stars heighten without blinking.
you have become so unaware of your actual body
the sadness eats away
at whatever remains. and even then
you are much too empty
to be dissembled.