one cubic centimeter of brain tissue
is home to more neural connections
than there are stars in the milky way;
that war should sometimes erupt between them
is not possible so much as it is inevitable
and it’s important to remember this
the next time your mind decides
to bring the battle home.
some days will be harder than others
and none made easier by the glass barriers
your mind has so meticulously constructed.
still, despite the isolating nature of illness,
your fight is not one to be undertaken alone;
in case of emergency,
we’ll provide you with a hammer
but you need to be the one
to break the glass.
Snow Globe
Some people are going to treat you like a snow globe
and keep you on a shelf
and take you down only to shake you up
and watch what falls.
So break your glass
and let yourself pour out
and choose not to be so fragile.
Tip over the aquarium they keep you in
and seep into the ground
and grow flowers.
Evaporate into the clouds—
that high—
you’ll see more than a plastic house
where the snow is just paint
and the white-coated trees don’t grow or breathe—
let yourself fall in drops
and know you’ll be lifted up again.
A letter to past, present, future selves
1.
There will be days when your best friends are all in love
and you have been alone for three years.
These days will be hard, they will hurt,
they will sting with a blighting injustice not felt since
Nathaniel Whatshisname broke all the crayons
in your 64 pack way back in Kindergarten.
You will survive this.
2.
You are worth so much, I promise.
I firmly believe you will be okay,
you have so much love to give.
Don’t spend it immediately on the first stranger
who walks in and smiles at you.
The ensuing self-loathing
is not a form of medication.
3.
Being sad will happen often,
having the opportunity to be involved in
the beautiful miracle of living happens only once.
Do not give this up for anything.
Do not set yourself on fire.
Do not crash your car into the telephone pole.
Do not drink your body weight in Tequila.
4.
It’s okay to drink yourself to sleep with Nyquil
every once in a while.
I know it’s easier than lying for hours alone
in your massively empty bed
thinking of every thing you’ll never have.
Do not make this false sleep a habit.
This summer may not be yours, but your life is.
5.
You are not obligated to tell anyone anything.
I cannot stress how important you are enough.
You must find something that makes
all the voiceless screaming in your head
a little more bearable
and you must clutch it in your bones
with every ounce of strength you have.
Skin
I think there are bed bugs in your mattress.
Last night after you fucked me
My blood felt a little bit thinner,
And I had the strongest urge to rip apart the skin at the nape of my neck.
You used to write me love letters in pencil.
After I read them my fingertips were left stained with gray soot that whispered the ghosts of your words.
She wrote you a love letter
Of her name and seven numbers in blue ink.
It was folded 3 times and pushed into the corner of your blue jeans pocket.
Now, when you tell me im beautiful,
I smile with my lips closed.
There are parasites under my tongue that are eating away at the few words I have left for you.
Now, when you touch me,
I only want to pull away from your leeching fingers.
You take the warmth from her body in filthy motel rooms at deadly hours and transfer it to mine,
Then back to hers every thursday night.
I think there are bed bugs in your mattress.
Every night I want to pull you off of me like a tick.
I hear her six-legged words in my ears
And I feel her seductive fingers in the sheets
And I just want to rip off all of my fucking skin.
I want you to wake up to my rotting bones.
a love song for mia
I think I am leaking-
Imagine:
A woman pours her heart into a bowl
and feeds it to her cat. The heart
becomes a liquid thing- like heat,
a shocking,
but not so shocking red,
like my mother’s lipstick, like the first drop
of blood, like the tone of a poem
written all wrong.
Sometimes I look at people I don’t know
and think “I could love you”. My ribs tremble
with survivor’s guilt, and the branches of my
wrists spell out my future.
I think I am leaking-
and this is the sound of fragility.
We are capable of kissing
bruises and watching mothers cry
over lost children, who are not actually lost,
but hiding;
under the kitchen sink,
or in the upstairs closet, or in the concave
that is the human heart,
plucking ribcage songs.
I want to write the kind of book that gives your brain papercuts. The kind you can’t stop scratching at cause how could something so small hurt so bad?
And I want to see who keeps scratching and scratching until they uncover something hidden deep in there that explains exactly how and exactly why. Exactly who they are in bare, raw syllables. I want to see who understands pain is part of the process of becoming.
And I want to see who just slaps a band-aid on it and pretends it isn’t there. See if they even finish it.
(I bet they won’t.)
fix you
take these words with you when you leave
and stuff them in some dusty corner of your heart
behind the crack that consumes you
and remember
i will never try to fix you
not like a clock
with its gears and machinery
because though your words and actions
are mechanical
and the look in your eyes is bleak
your heart still beats
driven by a force
too pure
too broken
too human
and i will never try to fix you
High School Didn't Prepare Me for This
I.
Will you miss me
when I leave?
Will you toss and
turn in your sleep?
II.
In your dreams,
you’ll say everything
you were too shy to say,
and in mine,
I fear you’ll push
me away.
III.
I wanted to fall in love,
but I fell into confusion,
and you can’t be a winner
when all you know is losing.
IV.
Please remind yourself
to keep in touch,
because remember
we were supposed
to fall in love.
V.
(Come on, babe,
we’re late.)
