you remind me

of water in the kettle,

fragments of voice recordings

saying things like

i loved someone who

was never mine.

you search for silence

in a crowd of strangers,

not realising the only emptiness

is inside you,

a version of paradise

you never asked for.

romance in rhythm –

gripped in paroxysms

of alternating grief and terror;

how long until the hammer falls,

and it becomes

impossible to love you.

it is only here,

where the world is sinking,

that i think of all the time, all

the years of rain –

sometimes i weep,

sometimes i drink.

Then.

I wish for a better tomorrow

I don't know what 'better' truly is

But it has to be more than this

Now.

Now I long for days past

They were easier, simpler, less exhausting.

Is this all life is?

Changing and changing, never getting better and always getting worse?

Each day it feels like I'm getting better

Each day it feels like I've grown a little bit more

But when I compare tomorrow to back then,

I've sunken deeper,

Died a little bit more,

Rooted deeper into my problems

Tomorrow.

There is no growing.

There is no feeling better.

There is only worse and worst and then you're dead.

bodies swept out to sea,

lain supine across the ocean floor,

hardly a shadow in the water.

this loneliness is my own creation.

i paint white fences with rose-petals

and imagine that it is love,

but in the end,

no one calls my name,

and it is my hands

which hold me in the night.

and boats passing in the darkness

slow and watch my hair

fan out across the surface,

though no one will drop anchor

to feel for a pulse.

1 E N V Y

stretch my neck and scream at god:

"i'll tear you to shreds before i am gone!"

"jealousy, jealousy, fuck you all!"

"kiss on you, piss on you"- farther I fall.

2 G L U T T O N Y

eat your sins and eat your pride

stuff your feelings, quiet your lies

i deserve the beef, the bourbon, the bait.

donations for me, the starving will wait.

3 G R E E D

owe me for being around your dumb flock

for my kindness, quiet and poison sweet talk

i deserve your world, sour liquor and rum

it's never enough; i am queen, you are scum

4 L U S T

hold me close and tell me lies

i'm beautiful and you'll stay with my for life

lick, kick, tumble, tap

screw me; "SCREW YOU!"call it a wrap

5 P R I D E

stick me with your words

"i like it! it burns!"

destroy me, enjoy me, you can't change facts

you can't kill what i don't even have

6 S L O T H

run yourself ragged across hot broken glass

i laugh and scowl while sitting on my ass

stupid, boring; you do what you're told

let me lie, let me die; writhing in the cold

7 W R A T H

i hate you for the horns, tail and regrets

the pain running through hands, foot, chest

it grows, i shrink, i soak in your mad test

insanity!! profanity!! fuck it all, bullets for breakfast.

soft morning light:

    & i am naming my desires,

    settling back into my memories,

        kissing teenage girls by campfires

        & lying to my mother.

i do not admit to wanting,

    even as i wake up beside the river,

    spilling water from my chest,

        considering dreams

        of white birds & cathedrals.

watching women

    from across crowded rooms

    is not enough —

        so i move to the other side

        of town & drink there.

a tender rain passes

    over the sleeping city

    as i pace restless

        in & out

        of my childhood bedroom.

violence, then —

    i would have preferred a hurricane,

    someone real to love,

        not faceless, whom to lose

        would be unbearable.

Shall I compare thee to a tinder date?

Thou art more classy than those little hoes.

Shut them down and they'll have to masturbate,

But swipe ye left and I may never know.

Sometime too many selfies does one take,

Lack of literature adorn the shelves;

Instagram, Facebook, all socially fake,

Minds go numb; all too taken with ourselves.

But thy beauty and splendor is always,

In my minds eye, merely mention your name.

Too good for lips of guys who never stay.

How I go without you knowing the shame.

So long as you post, or you snap, or tweet,

So long live I to worship at your feet.

I was wet.

I was green.

I loved, and failed.

I'm no longer wet.

I'm no longer green.

Turns out, love doesn't care...

...as long as I'm willing to try again. 

I write poems about flowers but can’t manage to keep any alive. I spent a whole summer when I was fifteen not going to bed until the sun was up because I thought the dark was trying to eat me. Even now, when I bleed, I expect demons to seep out. My days are arranged by color; my brightest moments are always shimmering in pink. I’ve cried at too many sunsets and not enough sunrises. I don’t live anywhere near the water and can’t swim so I’m always falling in love with boys on the west coast. I collect song lyrics instead of stamps. I won’t be content with my body until it’s covered in ink and I don’t mind looking at it in a mirror. Home still feels like just another empty word I don’t fit into. I’ve never broken a bone and I guess that’s my consolation price for a jumbled mind. At twenty-one I’m still too small for most roller coasters, but can still fit on most swing sets. These days I sleep with lavender and blueberry incense on my pillow to try and keep the nightmares away. My heart is always straining against my rib cage, and I think one of these days it might liquefy and spill right through the cracks.