The kitchen smells like a secret I forgot to bury.
A peach gone soft, skin splitting like a bad promise.
The fruit flies know something I don’t;
they’re the last priests of a dying faith,
and they’re waiting for me to leak.

I tell myself I’m healing,
but last night I dreamt I had to eat your heart to survive.
It tasted like burnt sugar and nail polish remover.
I woke up gasping,
your name soldered to the roof of my mouth
like a curse I didn’t mean to cast.

I call it the trick of wanting:
how I keep looking for your fingerprints in places you never touched,
how I flinch when someone says my name in the dark,
how I let the mirror watch me shatter
and pretend I’m a stained glass window.

Here’s the part I shouldn’t post:
I liked it when you lied to me.
I liked it when you said this isn’t about love
and I let you mean it’s about power.

The fruit flies keep coming.
I pretend they’re a sign from God.
I pretend they’re angels. Or demons.
Never both.
I pretend they’re a reminder that sweetness
is just another word for rot.
I pretend the buzzing is the sound of my name-
fermenting in your guts,
putrefying in your chest,
decomposing in your memory like abandoned fruit.

I know I shouldn’t write this.
But I do.
Because I want you to see it.
Because I want you to flinch.

Because I want you to know:
I am the girl who would eat your heart if I could.
I would peel it open with my teeth,
lick the blood off my lips,
smile like a god in a red dress,
and call it love.

And you’d believe me.

A small piece of satin,
Held by single thread and pin.
To divest myself of it would be
To undo what has been.

We're mammals;
Walking, talking, thinking.
We're animals.
Upright, articulable, sophisticated.

Yet, we pay little respect,
Fret more then reflect;
For an ancestor we all share
And yet share more in neglect!

What long ways to have come
To have gone so little distance;
To be ever farther than before,
But to have done really so very little!

I talk about our planet!
I talk about all those who inhabit!
It's a rotten mess that's been made.
Each blemish, every scar, all the stains
Marked & soaked into each & every page!

Many great recessions & regressions,
Degradations & destructions-
That's what we offer everything.
But I digress from the apathy,
For it is better thought to think of change.

What beauty nature must have been,
Even understanding the difficulty
Of life prior to our modernity.
Years & years ago, hundreds & thousands,
When natural life was more abundant.

"When we were slaves to nature!"
"When all was bountiful & liberated!"
"When we were aching & starving!"
"When all was free & meritable!"

It's all perspective,
But are they all really mutually exclusive?
Like the popular philosophies of a moment
Fluctuating with the pass of time.

From good to bad,
Like stored food going spoiled.
From growth to decay,
Like rust on metal forming.

Yet, it's just change.
Yet, those are just oddities.
Everyday examples
Because of our lifestyles.

Those things exhibited being indicative
Of perspective on the nature of "change."
Good, bad.
It's by an individual basis.

Balance between any individual & its environment
Is essential for that individual to maintain.
At the same time, being a product of its environment,
To what magnitude, if any, does any individual actually have a responsibility to?

It's by an individual basis?
But every species is a part of,
In one way or another,
A collective of that species.
Their effects, how they affect,
Can be counted cumulative.

But it all sure is beautiful.

Splinters in My Spine
Your grief carves jagged lines in my back,
Each sob a splinter, lodged and twisting.
I brace against the weight of your sorrow,
Its edges cutting deep, unrelenting.
I seethe beneath the burden I never chose.

Why must I bleed for you,
While love I cherish stands untouched?
His arms wait—empty, aching,
While my strength drains into your abyss.

I rage against your cries,
Your storm that strips me bare.
Do you not see my fractures,
Or the love you push aside?

But guilt grips my throat,
Its voice a relentless whisper:
Am I cruel to cast you away,
To claim my freedom at your cost?
I wonder if this pain is mine to bear,
A debt carved by the world’s sorrowful laws.

Yet, the world has taught me this:
Happiness favors the selfish hand.
Am I not allowed my joy,
To choose the light over your endless shadow?
I see his face in my heart’s quiet corners,
And know I cannot waste more time.

I won't drown for you anymore,
Not while my heart beats for another.
Your sorrow will not consume me,
Nor steal what’s still mine to give.

Let your tears fall where they may,
I cannot carry them with me.
For I am tired of breaking my body
To piece together your endless grief

it's the strangest feeling
not having anything more pressing in life
than life itself...

there's a little room
with a round door
in the back of my heart
with a view of the ocean
it's here where i find myself
forgiving everyone and everything

the floorboards are worn smooth
from all my returning
i pass through corridors
where conversations
circle like trapped birds

but here, in this back room
there is only morning light
on bare wood, and a single chair
where i sit and watch waves
erase themselves over and over

sometimes i stay until sunset
when the water turns to copper
i know i'll leave again
dissolving into the sweet
clutter of being human,
my heart a crowded kitchen

but the door stays there
round like a full moon
waiting, and the waves
keep writing their one word
over and over: return