unconditional
the room is quiet
save for the humming of the AC unit
i’m hyperaware of the rise and fall of my chest,
and the stillness of your stare.
i break the silence with heavy words,
stilted and uncertain
i drop them like stones.
but you catch them
and reply without missing a beat
we weave a delicate back-and-forth
threads of tension twisting painfully
the air is saturated with a mournful hesitation
the space between us uneasy
we have reached an impasse
we hold our breath,
unsteady.
i sneak a peek at you from the corner of my eye
and i trace the gentle planes of your face
the familiar slope of your nose and the curve where your hair tucks behind your ear
i allow your smooth contours to quell the tightness in my chest.
i know you can see me looking,
keen eyes, magnets drawn to mine
there is nothing placid about their warmth.
i meet your gaze
and my blood slows.
something in me snaps
and you are there to break my fall,
you pull me close
i whisper an apology into your chest
you rest your chin on my head
for a while you don’t speak.
“i wouldn’t hurt for someone i didn’t love,”
it’s a rumble in your chest
an ache in my nerves
and with that,
the icebergs frozen by years of anguish
begin to melt.
the water levels rise
but i am dry in your arms,
safe and sure
buoyed by the steady thrumming of your heart.
decay
with the passage of years
a lot of things have changed:
i’ve lived a lot of life and learned a lot of things
but they didn’t make me feel the way i thought they would
and by virtue of these new experiences or perhaps despite them,
i no longer feel things as intensely
be that ecstasy or agony, and
i think this is what they call growth
but to me it feels synonymous with numbness
you chose this, you can change it
whispers a voice from inside my sinking stomach,
she wants to help me, she knows me
and i know she is right.
i can feel it in my bones; i am the one responsible.
yet still i am gagged and bound,
i cannot think and i do not know how to feel free again
i have this bounty of useless knowledge;
i know more than i could have dared i would
and i’ve lost the power to express it
the thought of writing what i’ve felt rattles me so thoroughly
i run from my will to create. i race away from my desires with reckless abandon.
a part of me misses those days
when i felt everything so much more acutely
my wounds far deeper and my joy
tumultuous, earth-shattering.
this proclivity for pain, however twisted,
meant there was so much of me left to hurt;
it scares me that i don’t know if this still holds true.
i wonder how that works
why knowing less allows us to be bold,
why the tender brashness of youth gave us such courage.
we grappled our way through this life
in blessed ignorance of our own naïveté;
our rage was volcanic
our love no less explosive and
we did not allow ourselves to be tamed.
and now that most everything has changed,
my head tells me
that every day makes me stronger
and every fight i lose makes me wiser but
maybe this is something i tell myself
to spurn the thought of hope fading from my heart, and maybe
jadedness is a part of something bigger
than the whittling away of time.
maybe reason and rationality are words i use to hide the fact that i give up more easily now,
i can’t bear the shame of admitting this and i don’t have the strength to fight it
so good thing we’ve made circumspection into a pillar of pride and progress,
good thing i don’t have to feel guilty
for walking exclusively on eggshells.
good thing this is normal,
good thing
being careful is all just part of growing up.
wither
when the heat on our backs becomes too much
when our spines feel too brittle to stay straight
and the bones in our wrists begin to splinter
from carrying the burdens we bear
some days I like to dissolve
they tell us to fight
to rage against the dark and chase the dawn
but once the weakness has entered my bloodstream
I become a puppet with a noose around my neck
without the strength to scream
other days I run to the world
fingernails scrabbling for love, wild eyes
heaving, open mouthed sobs
bloodied knuckles, bitten
today I cannot take flight so I fall
lips sealed tight to keep in the frost or the fire
I don't know if I am melting or freezing
but the helplessness does not discriminate
karissa
when I was in the ninth grade
I became best friends with a cocaine addict
she was beautiful
before third period she would smear concealer all over her face
with her fingers in the bathroom
in the mornings when she walked into English
her mascara would be spidery, flaking
a crumbling halo that surrounded her bloodshot eyes
her hair was a dull platinum blonde
dishwater brown roots creeping up from her scalp
ends fried from blowouts and flatirons
when she got changed for gym class
her pale breasts would bulge out of extravagantly decorative bras
"I can't afford these, really"
she would say, but I knew
this wasn't true
for she lived in a mansion up on Liberty Hill
with her two sisters and two brothers
"I used to be anorexic"
she told me, as we were about to leave the locker rooms
showing me a photo of herself two years prior
ratty hair this time dyed a fox red
ribcage stark against ghostly white skin
then: she put away her phone, entered a bathroom stall
and promptly stuck her fingers down her throat
we would run side by side to warm up
and one day she whispered to me
"I got raped last night"
and I
who had never even been kissed before
blanched, reeling
when I got home I hadn't been able to forget, so I vomited
and faked sick the next day
when I tell the story of my past
self-deprecation is my forte
and people laugh, incredulous
that a goody-
two-
shoes
straight A student
could ever associate with someone like that
I was a comedy of terrors
new kid, no place to go
sitting alone in the bathroom during lunch
before the stoners invited me to eat with them
I left their lunch table after a few months
and went to sit somewhere else
with four Regina Georges
and the only freshman guy on the varsity basketball team
a clan of populars
complete with brand name jeans and
lokai bracelets,
(all of whom treated me like trash,
but I like to leave that part out of this narrative)
in the tenth grade
I became friends with the student body president
she was a senior, flawless,
all five-foot-eight of her.
straight teeth, blinding smile
an infectious laugh, golden skin
a gorgeous honey colored mane
and green-grey eyes that could melt hearts
she was entirely too good for me, I suspect it was pity
that made her take me under her wing
but I was in. and since then it was a series of
status boosts:
student council, prom committee
editor-in-chief
junior class vp
start a club
be unique
fuck
yourself
up
for the sake of expectations
and whatever you do,
don't make friends with the wrong sort of person
but
I never did forget her,
the kind, damaged girl
who did too much crack
the girl who taught me how to sneak out of my house
to escape my abusive parents
I never did, for I was afraid;
the girl who first told me
the way I was feeling
was a result of depression
I lashed out at her and went into denial,
I was not broken like her
I wasn't going to let her ruin me
but little did I know how right she was.
after the ninth grade
I struggled to meet her eyes when I passed her in the hallways
two years went by and we didn't speak
once, junior year, she caught a hold of me
and I was shocked that she remembered my name, but
we made small talk, and she told me my eyebrows looked good
I smiled and gave her the fakest laugh you can imagine,
and I haven't seen her since.
I don't think about her often, because when I do
my skin prickles with shame
because I know
that I am a coward.
fear factor
this is quite the cage I’m in, you see
suppose it is fear, consider it as such
for my nerves are trembling and my
heart quakes with calamity
for my eyes are open but unseeing and I
acutely sense a thrumming under the veins in my wrist
they lurk long and hardened, bloated and thick
I itch to rip them out
like roots wrenched from damp soil
and still the blood rushes on
soldiering hard and fast through the tunnels of war
so that the walls do not deflate and collapse
and yet
I wish they would, I wish
I could retch and rid myself
of the hesitation that has built a nest in my throat
and I could snatch my fingers away
from the crates full of dreams that lie crumbling on the shelf
and I call out for them but my lips are shut and my cords are cut
so they whisper to me instead
taunting me with their slimy tentacles of doubt
and they drag me into their lair beneath the sea where I
tread lightly
nimble fingers weaving and dripping and swelling and slipping
to build a raft before the waves soar higher, crashing
overhead; and it is too late
something else
sometimes I wonder if it was love or something else
an undeniable magnetism in my bones
or a tremor of the nerves that simply never ceased to consume me
a fluke or a smile
that drew me to you
when the drinks in our glasses dwindled away and the night drew to an end
I smirked at you and
wondered if it was love or something else
that possessed your soul when your breath hitched in your throat and suddenly
your hands were up my skirt and your fingers were caught in my hair
my body asked me if it was it love or something else
when you plastered me between you and the wall and my eyes rolled up to a heaven I didn't believe in
as your mouth lay claim to my collarbone and
as your nose folded into my neck
your lips wrote stories of love or something else as they trailed up my stomach and when you kissed me I thought that maybe
love was the lingering taste of the burnt caramel sundae
we'd shared hours ago and in that moment your skin tasted
of something else
the next morning as the sun filtered through your hair and I
brushed my nose against the giddy flush that flooded your cheeks
your eyelashes fluttered and you grinned and then
flipped me over and I was once more disarmed because still I didn't know
if it was it love or something else that made your voice hoarse as dawn
when you told me you'd like to fuck me again
and as your fire burned through every square inch of me
and as our bodies melted into one another and as you
whispered with your tongue between my thighs that
you'd like to swallow me whole and
as breathlessly between moans I said I wouldn't mind
I realized that I didn't really care
if this was love or something else.
~
cosmic
we are dust,
shivering particles of debris huddling close for comfort
to find warmth in this frosted galaxy
look down at your toes and see
that you stand on the edge of a gaping black hole
ease away
or you’ll topple and s
i
n
k
right through
do you see the shimmering stains on your thumbs and cheeks?
those are residue
from the bones of stars that forgot how to sparkle
you are a spot of color amidst the flickers
the silky darkness envelops you
and you stroll into its absolute embrace
conjuring massive empires with the tilt of your palms
they loom: winking, glittering, masterpieces of will
and disintegrate as you blink
in your eyes reside the moons of jupiter
your smile is one quarter of a sliver of saturn’s rings
your fingers are streaks of silver
grappling with unwieldy torches
balancing comets’ tails blazing in ghostly fire
we drift and we drift
but nothing implores us to settle
for gravity is nowhere in sight,
it refuses to weigh us down.
equilibrium
it’s a game of balance
toe to heel on a fraying tightrope
chin up, nose to the sky
scared, shivering
ankles quivering
be it that the daintiest darling dove
may dare to settle on your shoulder
and you tilt, off-kilter
but her song can halt the winds
perchance you leap
to land on a cloud
and lounge in its pearly embrace, proud
or you fall through it
snatching desperately at gauzy filaments
it dissolves
like cruel cotton candy
and the next one
reaches out with tender palms
to receive you as you plunge
but with not a flutter of the eye
you soar once again and
return to square one or square
eight, if all squares are one
and you perch, nearly hovering; bound
to teeter and trip
or stagger and slip
and yet you continue
ever enduring
merely mustering the courage to cope
always arriving back at the tightrope
and with a sweeping glance you see
the rest of us danglers
perched on knotted threads spanning the sky
some seek exit
but there is nothing else
and some of us
flirt with the edge
tipped forward
arms up and out
wings waiting to unfold
slanted backs and slanted smiles
unafraid to fall or to fly
the dragon
it had been years away from home
and I trailed behind you through the faded grocery store parking lot
your hand was strong yet frail as you took my hand and we
crossed the dusty asphalt, and I hopped from patch to patch
skipping over the spiderweb cracks
the laces on my hannah montana shoes were short and frayed
silver streaks feebly glimmering over sickly pink patterning
today it was dim and nearly drizzling
but my eyes glistened with a hungry reminiscence
and my thoughts were scrambled, dreamlike
memories of bright eyes and empty heads and youthful cheer
wistfully eyeing the cotton candy clouds hanging from stalls
in their thin plastic bags
tempting me, as if with one bite I should dissolve or
evaporate and become a soft pink cloud in the sky
and I was back in the warmth with careless laughter echoing through my bones and
the sun filtering through red and white canvas tents and the wind riffling through my too-short hair
behind closed lids the hologram of skinned knees and dunking booths
tasted sweeter than those cotton candy clouds I was never allowed to have
today the air was flat as I accidentally stepped on the back of your shoe and
snapped out of my reverie, a sickness spreading through my blood
replacing the hunger in my stomach with dismay
as you snapped back at me and I recoiled with fear, contrite
still we trudged ahead through the noiseless stalls
footsteps crunching to the rhythm of the laughter that was
noticeably missing, and I wondered who stole it
and then from the corner of my eye, a hint
of green, and I looked up in awe as the hunger once more tickled me impatiently
the dragon, with a grin once majestic and proud
leered down at me, perched on wheels rusting from disuse
and I was lost to a summoning impossible to resist as I let go of your hand
green scales once bright were today the color of wilting leaves
in my head echoed screams of joy
veins fizzing with vertigo and arteries of molten honey, a heart full
you approached soundlessly behind me and I turned
catching the tension in the straightness of your back
you looked up at the man behind the fence
and reached into your pocket, hand just barely shaking as you held out the price
three crisp dollars
your face was pale and I knew they were your last
for on your forehead I saw the invisible fluorescent paint
spelling out “UNEMPLOYMENT”
tugging at your shirt I begged you to take us away from here
your words were hushed and unwavering
don’t worry, you said
your voice reassured me but your eyes screamed forgiveness
I complained of a fabricated stomachache
it’s just a silly rollercoaster I said dad,
let’s go home.
as we turned our backs on the old carnival
I lifted my chin and tried to match my pace with yours
the air was cold and you were tall beside me
I took your hand
and it was warm
fracture
memories buzz on the tip of my tongue
but I write this to forget
the stars I saw in your eyes
now, under the ice of my gaze
they fracture
on the first day I saw you
my thoughts evaporated
and my mind became air
as your cheeks crumpled and your lips curved crookedly
into a smile you would learn to save just for me
the first time we talked
you laughed and I wanted to capture it in a bottle
as all my inhibitions abandoned all pretense and fled
and I let them.
never come back,
I called out to them as they ran and ran away.
we settled into routine
two heartbeats finding pace
skipping and speeding
too eager to let go and too afraid to settle
one day I looked at you sideways
unable to break this drunken habit
and your eyes were a different color than the day before
and the other day you said my name and those eyes were palest green
a shade of fear new to my soul
and I fought the urge to crush my lips into your ear
and whisper your worries away
the first time I touched you
all my cells blushed barely pink and
I was a cylinder of warmth
but now I shiver
and the ghosts of giddiness in my heart
fracture like the stars in your eyes
when I first met you, you were a constellation
you showed me the way home
even when I wanted to be lost
and you left the heavens and came to earth
you became my oxygen
but it hurts to inhale because with every breath I taste you
and time, time again
I fracture