i don’t know to make myself useful
crawling crying clever huh
my veins are filled with saltwater
clench love stop heart
beat i must beat i must beat i must
wash my hair and get out of bed and wake up
necessarily in that order
if i want to love myself, but i can’t
god i don’t believe in you anymore but
god help me
god damn it
please pleas people pleased
pleasure's all yours
please don't come again
i am rotting inside out
i am going to put a knife under my abdomen
and write a going-out poem
for the pretty mortuary doctors to gobble up
if no one else
and nothing more, burn my high school yearbook
into lungfuls of cigarette smoke
and first last kisses
and coversations in unflavoured seltzer
bottoms up and choke
after all
i am only another failed experiment
in the class of 2024
neon glitter pen signatures rap tap tapping to
the hypnotising rhythm of
a crisis hotline
oops. i’m sorry. i swear i meant to live
i swear i don’t know how i got all the way down here
but cannot get out
i swear it’s my slaughtered knees
being bad butchers
making squealing pigs out of my soul
squeeeeeeee
i swear it’s not me but it’s
always me me me
meeeee
i can’t count how many times i’ve uttered tired
but burden hasn’t been dulled down
and i am all play and dullness
dig me out back with the jack and build
a house out of my bird bones
and cheap twine
when my head’s heavy with birdseed instead of
oozing medicine
i swear i’ll be someone else not me
i know you didn’t want this
didn't want me
i’m so j8ui
sorry, oh god
i just wanted to be okay
let me be.
but i can’t i shan’t i see
mama, i swear i didn’t mean to make you sad again
i didn’t mean to. i didn’t. i didn’t try to
spin your vertigo with unravelling spools
of unconditional devotion
untangle my anchor
from your sturdiest continent
and let me be, sinking sobbing stupid
i’m sorry i'm so
tirec
huh. i never tried but
mama, give me the strength to love you back