if the footsteps behind me are mine

echoing off the marble floors in clips

and clops, heel-toe tempo in an envelope

do you think sound travels through time?

do you think the scream i release is

captured by the stained glass windows,

the same way harmonies and hymns once sunk

holy knives into ancient gilded glass for worship?

oh the song of God is a mourning call, as most

people will call out for their Father in times

distressful and hard. could i mail my death-throes

in the same audible envelope i arrived in?

wordless noise folded over and over again

pressed together and sharpened to a blade.

cacophony shoved into every corner and corridor

until the word of God is spoken under the echo.

so would you believe anyone can become a ghost?

since time is an echo and my last memories

tied to this place are a song i never wish to sing again.

since i remember a song i shouldn’t know.

since these halls are empty of sound,

and here, death is the only thing hallowed.

i’d wish my voice to travel far back in time.

if only to guide the people God left behind.

i don’t know what they call this,

melodrama or real life or secrets of a

wannabe cool kid stuck in kool aid suburbia

no newness no shine just

loss just yearning for a one-day flash event

for fire or for a name to paste in for

a feature on the ap lit exam to

wax poetic about my chosen devices when i,

left to my own, am a mess.

i starve on movie reviews and forty minute curfews

i pine for a person i barely know

i don’t sleep enough or eat the right stuff i barely have time

for the good people in my life as i give it all

to good stories and wasted time

and here i go again.

we should catch up sometime.

slowly spinning

satellite station

on the outside in,

warbled text-to-speech,

tragic rain-patter heart

solitary solution

starlight sublimation

pulsating radio fuzz,

patternless pointless roar,

nocturnal grungy void

simply spiraling

sanguinary soul

how is it that

i can dream so

frequently

when my

feelings are so

infrequent

who thought

it would be

so hard for a

romantic

to fall in love

it's not a good

reason - but i'm

dissolving

every particle

another fear

or another tear

after my family

has left me

behind

and when

my friends

couple away

i'm too

anxious for

social connection

don't you see

another warm

body next to

mine would

be nice, but

i can't exactly

call that

love

i.

i feel your hands

coming from my own,

even as they

touch my face (and linger there),

feel you like an

absence, like an

echo, like a

mem’ry, and

you’ve been gone and you’re gone and you’re

going.

you are going

so much.

ii.

—the kind of empty

that pulses through your chest,

aching,

echoing through all the

empty spaces—

iii.

and i miss you like

growing up

(growing out of people)

(things and music and loves)

(books and smiles and)

(people)

and i miss you like

growing old

(memories barely there, anymore)

(the love still strong, but like an)

(echo)

(i’m not quite all here)

iv.

how have you been doing? they ask.

i’ve been thirty-seven days with zero beads, i want to say.

i’ve been hungry and i haven’t eaten in hours, i want to say.

i’ve been feeling so empty and i can’t fill myself back up, i want to say.

i can’t stop seeing accidents in front of my eyes, i want to say.

i can’t stop envisioning death, i want to say.

i can’t stop i can’t stop i can’t stop, i want to say.

just a little tired, i say.

v.

i hope you all got some rest and recharged this weekend, my teacher says.

i grin across the room to the other students,

as if this secret we’re all in on

is a good one to keep—as if it’s

something to be proud of,

to have so many sleepless nights

and early mornings.

vi.

these voices in my head

trap themselves in the crevices of

my mind—they come out to play,

preying on the weaknesses,

until i cover my ears with my

hands and close my eyes, shout

as loud as i can, “SHUT UP,

SHUT UP, SHUT UP!”

and i hold off the tears,

fold my heart back into my chest,

and say, “IT’S FINE IT’S FINE IT’S FINE I’M OKAY, YOU KNOW?

CAN’T YOU SEE I’M FINE, I’M SO

FINE, I’M DOING SO WONDERFUL!”

(i forget not to yell)

the beetles digging deep in my skin,

they're dyed in crusted, rusted alizarin.

blood or pigment there is no difference.

by the soil that which accepts me

i am become deliverence.

the way my skin melts into the glade

of which, the touch of decay,

sped along by April showers,

pummel the ground to a verdant grave

of which, my body lays down.

though perhaps a windy crescendo shall

herald the end.

after all, what other embargo walls

could the beetles erect in my lost flesh?

they eat to stall a love affair with death.

now, words like blaspheme make me ache.

for this rotting body is in a place

of consecrated ground,

and time will leave no lasting trace

of what these bones used to sing about.

April showers bring May flowers,

so in the desert we make do,

mascara rain and broken things,

girl-turned-thunderstorm,

planting tears like prose across the back of each hand

where they ripple between shaking breaths.

She is ugly when she cries,

like the clouds this time of year,

but nothing grows from nothing,

and to water dreams with grief

is better than watering them with nothing at all.

i have been dead

for a very long time.

it's so cold, too cold.

the air is quiet, my thoughts are loud.

ashes and flame, all at once.

i want to live again

to forget the permanence of death-

i wanted freedom

but not like this.