When I was six, my grandmother tells me

she will be an old stone.

In all of my endless, six year old wisdom

I tell her that a stone is a very boring thing to be.

She laughs,

swings me around,

and tells me I will understand,

someday.

When I am sixteen, my niece wears

an old topaz bit, set in silver on a rusting chain.

It was my grandmother's,

maybe, probably.

I'd never seen it til the day after she died, hanging on her mirror.

My grandfather tells me

she wore it every day

tucked under her collar.

And so,

I have a piece of uncut garnet,

set on a silver back,

tucked under my collar.

I think, one day,

I'll be an old, old stone.

T-REX

I am a great beast

My skin is steel padded with matted fur

Fur not meant to cushion my fall,

The fur which grows like an uncomfortable itch

It grows on top of nerves

I can not feel outside my fur

I am tangled, my arms a mess, too short to reach out, but long enough to hang myself

I mean hug myself

I am cold

Enough fur to make me itch, but not enough to swallow me whole

My skin is visible

Let me drown

The smell of wet dog

Bury my carcass when I am dead

The smell of soil

Make me throw up

Hold back my hair

I mean fur

No, I mean hair

There is no illusion for the roar which bellows from my chest

I can deafen myself

The sounds of throwing up

A toilet flushes

The sounds of an earthquake in my stomach

The world shifts

I am in pain

The cold sweat of rain

I am too high up

20 feet high

My eyes are sunburned

Sink them into my own head and no one can see what I see from here

The ground rumbles from my belly

I mean from my steps

I am tripping over myself and the floor beneath me shakes

There are no footprints of my existence

You cannot see me anymore

But I'll leave you my bones to imagine me by

i.

hands

too many hands, touching all the wrong spots. too much pressure, in places that never asked to be stained with dirty fingerprints and filthy mouths.

ii.

nights i woke up blindfolded. nights i woke up deaf. nights i woke up screaming. nights i woke up dead. nights i never slept.

iii.

the way the refrigerator felt pressed up against my back. anorexic-spine refusing to bend and break. chin up, tears checked. the way that the solid object gave false confidence. the way my bones still cracked.

iv.

the wedding ring in the grass.

v.

tubes & wires

small lungs failing. because babies don’t belong here this early. but trauma has a way of bringing out the best of us.

vi.

tubes & wires

“you can’t hold him.”

“please give me back my baby?”

“you have nerve damage.”

“give me my baby back!”

“someone put her back to sleep.”

vii.

distance and space and sirens and screams. and how all of those words just feel like the word abandoned. and how everyone always leaves.

viii.

all these fucking metaphors.

ix.

my wrists tied to his knuckles. and how he hangs around my neck. and how he hangs around my thoughts. and how he gets hung up in my throat. and how my eyes feel hung out to dry.

x.

the way the mirror explodes when it sees my face. how two of my fingers fit so perfectly at the back of my mouth. how i reach for the devil and up comes the ache.

i.

there's nothing left of me

       nothing but the hush

& the burden I've become

to myself

       half-bent, half-broken

there's no way to pretend

it didn't happen like this

ii.

the mourning leaf gives its color

to the slipstream

like the slow yellowing of a bruise

as it fades

       the roses laid to rest

iii.

this is when I would write a poem

& title it I'm running out of metaphors

for the way I ache -

       for how I hoard my pain

               for how it bitters the heart

iv.

these hours belonging to death

clutter the wind

scatter a language of grief

its lack of symmetry

       undoing my breath

v.

my voice is kept inside the feathers 

of a pillow

I bring down the birds from 

their branches

to nest in my open wound

to touch what it means

to die

vi.

       & this is how I pray

splay dark ink on

a disrupted paper-sky

the gravity of its stars

guides my strokes

underlining the black edge

of night

       kneel here

where the moon curves

softly

vii.

grass is always greenest where we bury

our babies

in memory of my baby boys, Jason & JonThomas. mommy misses you.

mommy loves you.

it plays over and over and over in my mind

not the song, the memory

not the memory, the feeling

falling in love with how it

felt to break open like a jar

and laugh myself to sleep,

how it felt to belong to an

emotion, yeah, this one, this

kind of heartbeat, this smell

of happiness, this hug on my

soul, yeah, this one is my home.

the tears flow. well great. here come the waterworks. no, i’m not okay. i’m sick of people thinking these tears are from sadness but in reality they’re so much more. these tears are a cry for help- a cry for a chance to live to see tomorrow- a cry to feel something other than pure pain. you want to help? then stop babying me, it makes me feel worse; stop acting like i just watched the saddest pixar movie or like i’ve just been dumped, no.i am in pain. you cant fix me but you can make this feel a little less horrible. i don’t need your pity. i just need someone to comfort me. not fix me. because i can’t be fixed by two arms around me and a kiss. i can’t be fixed by being around someone or having someone genuinely love me,.yes, that makes me happy, but sadness and depression are two separate things. sadness can be helped by the presence of others. depression is deeper than a simple feeling- depression is the build up of all things bad, a build up of hidden feelings- a build up of numerous things that differ for each person suffering; that all sometimes build and build into a tower so high, it’ll crash. a building so high, it’s demise is inevitable. a building that is built up to the point where it can persuade someone to take away the one thing you can’t get back.why me...why me? why us, why now? these feelings have a fool-proof way to convince me, they know their way around my brain, they know what to say to trigger me- to make me feel they understand- like a snake following its prey ready to take a gulp and be satisfied... until it’s hungry once more. you can’t get rid of it. it’s stronger than you will ever be, it’s all too much. it’s all building up. it’s ready to attack, your chance to live is gone.as you run away it gets closer and you get tired and you want to stop but you run anyway. you know you can’t escape it but you run like you can. you get to the point where you wonder why you don’t stop the running and just stop your suffering. stop telling me not to be sad. i’m not sad, i’m empty. no, things will not get better. i will be alone even with you by my side.the hunger of this snake will not give up, it makes me run. i can’t hold on, i need to stop running. i’m out of breath and my legs are giving out, i need to feel something other than this emptiness, i need to know something other than this pain, i need to wake up from this never ending nightmare... i need to end this. she cocks her gun- i sit here with his two arms around me as he leans in for a kiss.

when the blues of the evening

blend with the ambers of dawn

another night will toil over

as I, a dying star roll on

07/03/2018

He walked on the soft beds of the Savannah with his head up high in the heavens

He looked down upon the fiercest beasts with his big kind eyes as he peacefully grazed

He was a calm soul, a gentle heart. His only fault- he was a rare beauty

She came on her wagon of death, looking to play her cruel sport- the one where she always wins

He was defenseless against her modern weapon

One loud bang and his head hit the dust, covered in blood. She laughed and took pictures as life left his nimble body, she posted pictures of him online as she took his last breath, scared and shocked

He did no wrong, yet executed for the pleasure of human vanity

He was no trophy for anyone to keep, he was a precious life like you and me

meant to roam wild and free

There is stagnant, noiseless still.

It is a silent, internal chaos that I am barely managing to control.

I need to know what comes next.

I need to know if it was just a momentary dream turned reality.

I can’t find my next step.

I don’t know which map I’m trying to follow.

I don’t know if I’m trying to make a home of an island or take to the skies.

Am I flying or stalling.

I know that I’m falling.

Slipping.

Missing.

You and me.

Missing you.

Missing me.

But mostly just tripping.

Mostly, I’m missing.

Me.

Like mostly I’m missing.

Like mostly.

You make me miss you and me.

And is it the skies or is it the sea.

the color of life- sadness. goodbyes- both bitter, and sweet. what drove you there? letting your eyes leak, without a sound, except the splash of yet another droplet of the salty sweet eye-liquid, adding onto the seventy-two others. is it that? or the 48 man made, raised, bloody crevices on your body? the people telling you you’re less than average? that you look like you belong in a psyche ward? too skinny? skinny? the words, the words, pouring in. waters running. “you have a purpose” “you’re here for a reason”. who said that reason can’t be to terrorize everyone, and make everyone miserable living their own lives, just by you being present? “no, you don’t do that”. but what if that’s my purpose. ten gallons in. remember that time that person compared you to the size of people at concentration camps- starving and crippled. twenty gallons. “do you think you’re beautiful? look in a mirror”; the thing i avoid. others think people like me have two best friends- the mass measuring death sentence, and or the reflective surface that solidify my beliefs. well, no. i rely heavily on my pointer finger and thumb around my arm. sit ups? never enough. the word enough means nothing. thirty gallons. “have you been eating? you look really skinny.” forced to do what i’ve been told- look. look up. the purple, beat up looking color i’ve gained around my eyes just proves my point. i turn to the side to reveal, nothing. forty gallons. “when will it be enough” little do they know i will never be happy with myself; how could someone be happy with a monster? these fragile pieces of marrow and hard stuff show through the thin material- it’s all that’s left; my angel wings. fifty gallons. “how does it feel?” what, feeling? you’re asking the wrong person. i do what i do to get closer to the thing that will make me feel. the one thing that some people hide behind- what they are scared of, i tend to invite in various ways. i want this for myself. no, it wasn’t because of shit you may have said in the fourth grade. verbal abuse is barely a factor. this is how my messed up mind works; as it always will. there is no fixing- it will grow and grow and who knows how much left of me there will be. sixty gallons. stripping off the baggy pieces of cloth i attempt to hide myself behind. stepping into the hot yet cold water. the drowsy years present themselves as i stare at “myself” in the reflection of the weapon- my life saver. head tilts back; this wasn’t a life. this wasn’t hell. this was- what was this? a fucking waste of time. “what about the ones you love?” my boyfriend- poor guy. love him too much. the fact he makes me feel, scares me. the fact i feel some sort of happiness around him- terrifying. looking at the strange tubes on my body that are heavily visible through the thin layer that protects these tubes that secure the fact i am alive- pumping life through me- the blue, disgusting looking things. a gust of wind seems to hit me. i switch focus onto the other one, covered in strange moles and marks, and again those ugly tubes. heavy breeze. i dip the now life-oozing arms into the last thing i will ever feel. i bow my head back and smile. this one’s for you. i smile thinking about how i actually felt around you. you make me so happy. you MADE me so happy. it was just too much for me. living hurt. i love you- and that scared me. everything becomes as if i were in a movie-like dream sequence, smile permanently there; like a nightmare sticks with a child. sixty gallons of liquids dyed red.