I wanted to tell you

all the things that I didn’t like

because you weren’t listening then.

But there are no words

between us now.

Nothing but empty space and foreign ash

press soft kisses between our lips —

Strangers on trains holding no funerals

for deceased intimacies.

I wanted to tell you

all the things I didn’t like

to stand up for myself,

but I never had the chance.

Blocked dams and burned bridges

prevent us.

I should have professed that

I was a woman not made

to be writhing like a snake in suffocation

while trying to shed ancient skin.

And although these days,

I speak your injustices to northern winds,

I will show up for me

by telling him,

by telling them,

by telling anyone

what I don’t like

hereafter.

Why am I always mourning?

Always pouring salt over wounds

and uncovering the dead to see

if they could be breathing once again?

Why am I never growing?

Never turning soil over lovingly

and planting seeds to birth new beauty?

I inhale the slightest inkling of fresh air

and run off to climb back into coffins

and keep climbing into coffins

and then finding other coffins to climb in

until I am begging to be buried

with all of the dead and their insufferable corpses

that have rotted to decomposition and rot.

Why does this grief always live here?

Why am I offering it a home inside of bones

that are no longer held together with well-oiled joints and working cartilage?

I see all these epitaphs

with so many names.

I see all these epitaphs

without my own name

next to open graves,

selfishly holding no room for me.

I see all these epitaphs

not destined for me

and all my bitten-up mouth can manage

is to complain.

And sometimes I wish

that it was of my own doing,

the moving from beyond the scorch

of the harsh California sun.

I wish it was not you

who reminded me of gentleness,

of warm hands and the cold nip

of New England’s soothing kiss.

If it had been all of my own,

I could cut the cords of my emotion

stringing me back in

(hook, line, and sinker...)

to a bubble of “but”s and “what if”s

and “if only”s.

And sometimes I wish

I never opened myself with the force of the blizzard

that brought our passionate energies to combination.

Never allowed myself to feel the calm in your voice

and allow my thoughts, my dreams, and all of my insides

to come tumbling out with the roaring snow.

I still had the nerves to catch myself,

and keep me close to chest

wrapped in caution tape

in perseveration’s last attempt.

And sometimes I wish

I had been more careful with myself,

instead of flinging Pandora’s box wide open

that night in your car.

That night that kissed oblivion and abyss at once.

That night that painted us in black and white silver screen dreams.

That night I came into you

spilling and pouring and emptying.

They say it is better

to box beautiful memories as a reminder

of the love you once had

and the laughter you once projected

and the feelings you once reveled in.

But sometimes I wish

I kept everything to all of me.

Kept all of me to all of me

to begin with.

I wish I could fling open wide

the flood gates

while tide rises to peak,

in hopes that they could wash away

all of the memories that rage endlessly,

waging wars

and burning their permanence

into the trees —

just as the way they scorch

in Australia.

I never did enjoy

hearing all the boast of your feats,

the pride of your conquests,

the stories of all those

who fawned at your feet.

With security as small as your stature,

discomfort lay disguised as disgust.

The churning of my stomach triggered

at the realization that I

was just a cleverly plotted pinpoint on your map —

Queen next in line to be seized,

chewed up,

spat out,

controlled by government ordination

until your gut grew greedy once again,

and eyes wandered for more land to cover,

your lips smacking at every possible next move you could take

to expand your illusion-made empire.

Devilishly delectable

and demonically addicting,

I’d devour them one by one

until I made my belly full with

s i c k.

After having enough,

I left all the crumbs there on my plate.

Those sweet, plump delicacies

had been crafted all wrong:

half-baked and tart enough to ruin teeth.

No longer delicious

and alarmingly unappealing,

I left them out for the crows to peck.

For their warbles to sound a burial march.

My most infectious craving

nothing more these days

than disdain and disgust.

I leave these treats to woo the Parisians, those already drunk on love’s charms

and sugary sweet spells.

They no longer satisfy here,

where they are only able to melt

in the east coast sun,

turning American soil

to embitterment.

They say time heals all wounds. They say it gets easier and you disagree. You can’t see beyond it, not then anyway. But it does. You remember. And it gets so much better.

I’m on the bottom bunk in a tiny hotel room in Philadelphia for vacation. My best friend is asleep on the top bunk, nursing a sinus infection and struggling to sleep comfortably. The hotel room is nice but small, and I am confined to where I am so much so it itches slightly at my claustrophobia. I was never really comfortable in my own home, but I am comfortable in my own home.

I think about when I wasn’t. I think about not so long ago trying to sleep in the place I thought would be a home for me sometime in the near future. A place I thought I felt at ease in, but kept waking up every night in the middle of the night, unaware as to why. I ignored the unsettled feeling and reminded myself of the body heat next to mine and went back to bed. I shook it off as my anxiety, my obvious talent for just being unsettled. But often times, I fail to listen to my body just as I had done then. My body told me that being there didn’t feel as good as I had wanted. It told me something was wrong and I needed to feel right. I ignored it then, when I should have listened. I’m trying not to ignore it so much now.

I have more intuition than I give myself credit for. I have more confidence than I allow myself credit for. I do a lot of ignoring when I should be listening because perhaps if I really pay attention and listen, my feelings will guide me away from all the things that just aren’t good for me. For the past few months, I had ignore my body crying out for sleep. I was waking up to check texts, to prioritize a relationship, to offer myself down time in front of the television, and spending any and all free time I had traveling and experiencing what I took as an investment in my life and future. I dehydrated myself by drinking more coffee than my two cup a day max rule because it’s just what we did and it was there. I explored food because I love it and I was exploring love, forgetting all about how I need to eat for my thyroid condition. Ignoring how I shouldn’t be having dairy and should be ingesting more fish. I forgot the importance of gluten, grain, sugar-free and paleo. And I had forgotten the fact that I loved the gym and lifting. I forgot how to make time for it between everything else.

My body shut down. It shut down last week, and I took it as a warning. Granted, landing in the emergency room severely dehydrated and mildly deluded from ultra-violent food poisoning wasn’t exactly something I had done to cause it to shut down, but it sent an alarm off inside of me and I listened. I intended to listen.

I slept like the dead for three days. Since then, I go to sleep around 10 or 11 instead of 1 or 2 and I feel so much better. I’m not skipping my vitamins or medication because I’m too busy galavanting about and didn’t have the time or water to take them. I have returned to investing in my health and myself and I have been happier. I am almost fully vegetarian now (I allow myself fish and since my hospitalization, I am deterred from eating meat. The idea makes me sick). Although I am better, my stomach is still in recovery and I intend to treat it with care. I have been doing so.

Prior to this, I had been doing yoga which helped my anxiety, posture, and health. I felt a whole body and spiritual difference within starting that practice. The results began to pay off. I even invested in buying my first spin bike, to prioritize my health when I am too busy to get anywhere else.

I’ve allowed myself to be deaf for much too long. I’m learning to listen to my body and to my mind and frankly, I am loving the results. I am still recovering, but I feel incredibly empowered.

Sometimes when you lose yourself in other people or things you forget who you are. I know who I am and I will never let myself forget it again. I know what I am capable of and how I am an amazing warrior woman. I don’t care what they think, or anyone else. Only what I think.

The only investing I ever need to do with my love is within my own body and soul, not that of another person. It is not selfish to put yourself first. When you do, it makes you beautiful and powerful. It brings out your best person. I’m back. I’m grateful.

I won’t forget again.

Betrayal sits like pebbles

settled at the bottom of

swamp water.

Thick with mud and muck,

caked with anger and regret.

I would cry out,

were my tongue not cut out

by the edge of your rusty dagger,

but I am too busy

bubbled over in regret.

Why am I still here,

boiling over?

Why is waiting

all I can still ever do?

Sometimes safety is sneaky.

It lures us falsely, seductively,

securing us into a rise and fall of breath

that is easy.

We see only like-minds with open hearts

and words pulsing and beating with life

from pens that have purged slaughters,

and wars, and laughter,

and tears.

And we are all muddled.

Muddled together and holding hands

to reach the vibrations we seek.

But our connections are false.

They are frayed.

We latch on to like and feed

with mouths gaping open,

hungrily leeching.

And there are some who bleed too much,

who open their veins too wide,

who give too much of themselves

to parasites who are nothing else

but empty.

And they need likened souls.

They need illusion-made twin flames.

They need traumas to match

and pities to be thrown in banks

filled with dirt and mud

and stain.

They are all muddled.

We are all muddled.

Even I

am muddled.

But I never asked for all this.

I lie empty from giving

too much of me to too much

of these ghouls that have taken

hospitality as host.

I will not bleed for you

any longer.

I only bleed for

all of me.

She cloaks herself in death’s sweet kiss,

comforting herself in black velvet and sandalwood to camouflage decay.

Her glass-covered casket

houses a beautiful corpse:

pale, porcelain doll

with sunken eyes,

blessed by self-made herbs and potions

coveted closely in a former life.

Surfaces are illusions,

hiding rot that festers deep inside.

Within intentionally silent mouth,

blackened tongue deceptively sleeps.

Forked with poison,

stained with a soul that has soured over decades,

one that filled those who would fall for banshee’s call,

with falsehoods of a putrid kind.

Her crooked fingers

once mastered the art

of marionette,

playing puppetry with souls empty,

lapping hungrily at the doorway

of false enchantments.

Don’t tread too closely,

a sorceress’s bride will surprise,

and snatch your soul from your quaking lips;

Equip a shovel at your side.

Witchcraft works quick,

so it’s wise to away hurried.

Demons are best kept

when eternally buried.