Tulips kiss to stain my sweater red

As the blood in the cup of faith

Is a fickle thing, don’t you know?

How the rain feels where it wraps my fingers in cold

As the bones in the flesh of the sinner sits

In a corner to keep the monster in line of sight

With no breath left to muster up

The chain of command the way all good soldiers do

Not keep things from me, my love, we talked about this

Is not enough to keep me here

We are and yet the water reflects back one bruise, not two

Of us would be easier, if we were true

To the way we look, like manifested pain

Is a luxury because it means you’ve seen pleasure

Is a common good you can get if you want it

Takes a hell of a lot of courage to own a mirror

Mirror on the wall, how can I save my own life?

My mother is an alcoholic. When I was 14, I got into my first physical fight with her over a bottle of rum. She told me that she needed it to live, and I told her if she drank it she would die (she was suffering from severe alcohol poisoning). We both had our hands on the bottle and were pulling on it, when she started scratching my hands to get me to let go. I told her, "You're hurting me, please stop, please stop," and she said, "I know."

Before that moment I had accepted my mother's apologies about the things she did when she was drunk, accepting that alcoholism is an illness and she had limited control over her actions. And to an extent I still believe that. But I no longer allow that to be an excuse for her actions, and recognize that it doesn't mean she is worthy of my forgiveness.

Cover me, my love

The rum bottle shakes in our hands together

Turn the dryer on high,

so the clothes will be warm when we put them on

Hold my hand, beauty, they’re cold from the air

And I could use something to hold onto, a rope–maybe

A gun, always

Remind me why I got out of bed this morning

You forgot to eat dinner again, didn’t you? Silly goose

My fingertips are sore from praying to the strings of my guitar

Are you devout if you do not push through the pain?

Are you a coward if you take shelter from the things that hurt you?

Cover me, darling, I’m going in blind this time

You should forgive me, because I said I’m sorry, because that’s the way it works

Lying on the pavement, letting the sun sink in its grip

My shirt is too thin to hide my back from

The rough pavement beneath me, or maybe the truth

Living is the original sin, honey, like it drips from the hive,

Like I long for peace

Slowly, and with caution

I want I want I want I want

Something

To live for

When my shoes come into contact with the pavement beneath them, they make this small suction noise, it’s almost hidden beneath the sound of the rain on that same pavement. These shoes, I forgot, have a small hole in the side, water leaks in and air leaks out when it’s wet outside. The asphalt here is smooth, freshly paved, and properly thins out the water so the squelch isn’t so bad, the water on the road isn’t reaching the canvas of my shoes or the ankles of my pants. I don’t like it, I’m headed deeper, down a hill I’ve driven by a thousand times, and thought-- it would suck to get stuck in that ditch. I want to be stuck in that ditch now. My feet slip a little on the slick grass, but I don't mind, I’m not going to be vertical or dry for long the way I’m headed. At the bottom of the hill is a little ditch, dirt, not quite mud yet as the downpour is supposed to begin later. I take my shoes off, stuff my socks inside, and set them up neatly in the grass just outside this dirt ditch I’ve found myself in. When I curl my toes into the dirt, there’s no suction, no sound, just sensation. I crouch down to watch as the raindrops hit the earth, darkening it and changing the form of it, maybe if I pretend to be the earth it will change me too, I come from the same place the earth did, we have the same mother, may she bless me. Slowly, afraid I might disturb my own resting place, I lower my body to the ground, I spread my arms out as wide as they will take me, dig my heels in and stretch my head as far in the opposite direction as I can, try to pull my bones apart with my will. And then I rest. I open myself up to the rain. I hold my soul bear, sky and earth the only witness to my confessional. The purest confession, one without words, but with unbearable hope, I pray the rain may alter my form like the earth, and I am sorely disappointed when the rain falls to a mist, and then decides to remain in the clouds a while more.

When I rise, I can feel that it was not enough. Where the rain fell upon my clothes has changed, the moon wiped her light across the damp parts and left a shimmer in its wake, only visible when I turn. I turn and turn and turn, catching glimpses of a blessing not meant for me. The clothes, they have no choice, they cannot help but be. As they are made is as they will be, and the moon and sky sees their honesty and rewards them with temporary beauty. As I was made and formed I made choices, have hidden parts of myself inside myself, let them collect dust in the back of my ribcage. I’m trying to bring back a half remembered dream of a person I could be.

Behind the ditch lay a forest as far as any eye could see and farther than any imagination could stretch. I head into the trees with no shoes and no dignity, thinking maybe at the end of this half-cocked journey I’ll find myself some honesty. Why can’t I sleep at night, why does the loneliness crowd in my throat and burrow down deep, why do I kind of hate when it leaves. My feet find the pine needles on the ground, and let them prick, the wound gives way to jealousy. These live beings around me have lived a longer and more honest life than I could ever believe, and it has never cost them a thing. I would sell my soul for a quarter of the peace and none of the time, quality over quantity that’s what they say and what I believe. The feel of a life wasted pulls at me, my footfalls heavier on the forest floor and heart beating faster with every similar step. Time and rain have changed them here too, their boughs heavier and leaves greener, trunks stronger and bark lighter. Everything I have never been and will never be, even if I were ever lucky, it’s no lottery for me, just playing the same numbers every Tuesday at the same gas station for ten years, thinking the odds are in my favor more and more each day.

The moonlight is different here, it doesn’t just barely skim the earth the way it did earlier, here it seems to glide, long patches of silver resting on the ground, ruined the moment I come near them, but I am unable to resist and follow their trails to a small clearing, mostly taken up by a lonely pond. It sits like glass, barely any frame of shore to transition to dirt, just the water and the moon and me. When I approach the looking glass, I am surprised to see a face unlike my own staring back at me. This face in the glass is older, much older, and bitter, lips twisted in a foul way, eyes like pits reaching for me. I kneel at the side, and nearly skim my hand on the water as I look at her, but as my hand nears the surface, her hand appears too, and it is not the same color as the rest of her, it is darker, much darker, and strange. A profound sorrow rises in me when I recognize that it is blood on her hand reaching out to touch mine, that it is her blood, the blood of time and the blood of pain, the eyes of this being are reaching deep inside me for my mercy, and a tear slips out of my eye. I know as surely as I know myself that she will never find what she’s looking for as long as she searches inside me, and when we make eye contact I know she knows the same. But she searches all the same, and I let her. The more she searches inside me, the more my own pain begins to mute all sensation, afraid of how my mind would fare under the duress of its memories. My regret and pity hold knives towards this woman’s search, and though she wants none of it she receives it all, the sharpened edges making the same blood that runs into her cupped hands. Time walks along the way she always does, and the woman’s desperation slowly turns to frustration, she beats and pounds at the doors of my empathy, and I cannot tell because I am hiding my pain behind those doors too and without the pain there is only empty. This woman may search forever but there is nothing to find, the shifts of Time came by many years ago and scraped me clean, rubbed me raw. When I try to tell her so, the nothing comes out the way it always does, a noise of absence, there is nothing for me to say and so I do not. I give this woman the only thing I have left to give, the only mercy I have ever known, I let my nothingness ebb into her something, I start to take away all she has left, not for myself but for her and for the absence, her hands stop bleeding but there is something worse, the lines on her cheeks, forehead, and around her eyes disappear too, her scars leave her behind and the moon seeps in instead. She seems ethereal, there and not there too, a fragment of a dream left behind, a memory that never reached fruition. I am nothing at all if I am not her witness. The moon smooths out her reflection as Time continues on her way, and too soon she is gone, without a spirit to witness, I am nothing, and the glass shows me as much, I have lost my own face in the water below me.

My knees are damp in the earth, and I cannot think of else to do, so I still myself. I fall back into the empty and try to forget about the already half gone dream of rain and metamorphosis, but like all necessary things it comes back to tease me in mourning. I open my eyes so that I may tell the sky to her face that I no longer have any desire to remember, that I both confessed and witnessed and know now that the change will never come, but first I look one more time at the pond and find my own eyes staring back at me. I hate this more than I ever hated the woman’s invasive search and ugly desperation. I hate it so much that I actually feel something, I feel the hot press of my anger at the base of my throat, pushing on my useless vocal cords, creating meaning where there was none. I ride this wave, and grab onto the grass nearest me and rip, and with the uprising of the soil comes the downpour of the sky, the water coming down so hard and fast it knocks me off of my knees and onto my side. When I stand up to face the onslaught, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the water, and I am unrecognizable, the rain has shattered the image of myself beyond repair, and I know that this is how I will always remember myself, broken and afraid and enraged underneath the will of this world, and this knowledge tears me loose from myself. I am no longer human, wrapped in damp clothes and missing shoes, but an animal of an idea, rage pouring from my mouth, screaming loud enough to deafen my ears, a lion pours out of me, and I become it, roaring with the thunder and grasping at the lightning like it’s something I could touch if I tried hard enough. My fists break the earth and the earth breaks upon me, the blood from my knuckles enriches the soil and provides life while mine is ripped from me. Together the wind and I pick up the earth and replace it where it does not belong, branches in the pond and lilypads in the trees, the sky upon the earth and inside the water is me. The emotion coming from me feels surreal, feels wild, feels. I feel. I hurt. It’s not the rage coming out of me, anymore, it’s the hurt. So much hurt I could have created this downpour with my own tears and still had enough room left over to make a pond.

When the rain starts to abate, so do I, and when the presence of the moonlight returns to the clearing I can see what has happened. This part of our world has changed, windswept by the storm and me, the sky and I. We tore ourselves loose from how we wished to be perceived and destroyed what we thought was beautiful in the name of honesty. We broke the things we love just to find relief, and the world will remember, and its shape will change again to reflect it. When I turn back to the pond, I find it has overflowed quite a bit, and the surface is still moving from the storm, ripples and debris turning it over. My own actions have left me unrecognizable in the looking glass, and this beautiful thing may be ruined because of me, I sacrificed a piece of the earth so that I may see my true reflection, but it is this action of mine I detest the least, and the image of myself that I can learn to love.

Wellbutrin, Zoloft, and Singulair. Ativan.

CVS Pharmacy: PLEASE RESPOND: Would you like your eligible Rxs ready…

Remember the notebook and pen for class, the one with the smooth pages that makes the nerves in your fingertips settle for a moment.

Gently push on the cap of the pen, over and over and over. Look at the smooth circle indented on your thumb and the dot of blue smudged by your sweat.

Have a panic attack. Let yourself feel grounded by the cold metal of the wall of a bathroom stall, put on headphones to calm yourself down. Try to turn on something so loud that your thoughts quiet.

Taco Bell Loco Burrito! Now only $2.99 and with a drink combo only…

Get pissed, just for a second. Feel white hot rage spark in your stomach and try to make its way out of your throat. Can’t even have a panic attack without being forced to consume ads for shit you don’t care about.

Ativan, again.

Shove your hands in your pockets to keep them out of sight while you wait for the bus. Schrodinger's cat. If you can’t see your hands shaking then there’s only a fifty percent chance that they are. There’s only a twenty percent chance you’re real.

Get on the 57 bus to Watertown Yard. Blink and realize the sun’s gone down, you’ve fallen through another crack and it’s an hour later than it was when you closed your eyes. You went outbound when you needed inbound.

STOP REQUESTED

Fifteen percent chance you’re real. You hit another skip in time, or you’re broken. It’d be better if it wasn’t real. Get back on the bus, inbound this time. Ride for an hour and a half to make up for your mistake earlier. You’re not lucky enough to lose more time.

Slide your id through the scanner, flash your badge at the security guard. Wonder absently if they even care, if you should start using the wrong badges on purpose and see how long it takes for someone to notice. Place your keys on the thumbtack you shoved in the wall and try not to think about that time you stepped on a nail in the summer and it went through your flip flop and into your skin. You are not the wall.

Abilify, Trazodone.

Stare at the ceiling and pretend like you believe you have a body. Laughter from another room comes through the door muffled. Your senses feel muffled too. But when you think about it you start flying backwards and out of the body so instead you think of nothing at all.

One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand.

If you make it to one hundred one thousand you’re allowed to think about how you feel, and if you don’t then it doesn’t matter anyway.

CVS Pharmacy: Your Rx order is ready. Be prepared and stay well with Rx delivery. View delivery eligibility and more at…

My house is situated on top of a hill, next to a small forest like area that divides my parents’ land and the land of our neighbor. When I was younger, this was my secret place. It is not as large as most forests, but it was naturally enchanting all the same, with a small river running through the center on which a friend and I would pretend to ice skate during the cold winters. It was carpet and tile replaced with flush green mosses and it was shouts replaced with the kind of quiet only insects understand. I adventured through the land for hours, climbing over logs and rocks, leaping as though I was the small ant making a cameo in the “Land Before Time” movies. I suffered abrasions and surface wounds from diving through the thickets I claimed were gates to new worlds. I found that this woodland was where my fantasies could blossom, kept away from the harsh realities by the kind seclusion. When I first found this home beneath the trees, I was afraid to venture in alone. Surely, monsters were coming to take advantage of my solitude, and I refused to enjoy my secret place unless I had a friend with me. Eventually I became the grass pushing through concrete to escape the boundaries set by the people around me, and I overcame my fear of isolation by force. Mid day jaunts through the forest were not uncommon, and the question of my whereabouts was no longer a concern, but an idle wonder that was short-lived. Eventually, though, the silence I had once found comforting became suffocating when consumed in large amounts. I slowly weaned down my daily dosage of calm until I was going through withdrawal. It has been years since I have returned to the little woodland that was once my beneficiary. The place once so rich and lush with life is now dull and overgrown, blanketed in snow and tainted by cold memories so easily remembered. The green that was once vibrant is now taunting to me, and the skies that were once so bright grow darker by the day. I now skirt the edges of the forest to avoid reminiscing. Such powerful wonders this forest is capable of, even I, the self-proclaimed speculator of imaginary worlds could never dream to replace it with something better.

Wondrous creature and early morning stargazer I plead with you for eternity to hang your hat on the coatrack inside my heart and forget where you put it when you try to leave. Please, I plead, don’t ever leave. I could spend eternity in darkness if I knew that you were still there somewhere, I could breathe carbon dioxide if it would allow me more hours to spend with you. For one hour with you is too much and one hundred is never enough, once I’ve had you in my sights my eyes lose their shine in the sun and his lips no longer kiss my skin but burn it crimson.

I used to love summer, you know. Before your elegance tainted my affections, I would stand in the sand and soak in the rays of the sun like oxygen, watch the bees buzz with the wind and wonder why I couldn’t live in that moment forever. Every day since I’ve met you I thank the wind of the cosmos that brought us together, say thank you so that every day I have a night to look forward to. Now that I’ve known the way it feels to stand under your light and breathe in the scintillating view of the stars far above me I don’t think I could ever go back. Now that I know, winter is my favorite season. Longer nights and shorter days, counting down the seconds until I can stare into the skies with you by my side. On the days when I’m blessed with snowfall I revel in the sight of your pale complexion accompanying me wherever I am to go.

God, I miss you. I remember warm summer nights when I spent fleeting moments with you before my eyelids fell like the shooting stars I love so dearly. I remember brisk fall nights watching the clouds worship your gravity and imagining the bare tree branches as skeleton bones reaching out to hold me in a way only they could. Imagining their thin bones through the cloth of my jacket, grasping my wrist and asking me not to leave them alone. I remember the night I first met you. I was so naive. Running into the woods like a frightened animal, tripping over tree roots and my own feet, tears pouring down my face like rain. I remember the way the cold, damp grass pressed against my thin shirt and tickled the back of my neck when I breathed. But most of all, I remember you. I remember the second my eyes strained to see on a galactic level your bruises and scars. I remember thinking to myself that I would be satisfied to spend the rest of my finite life exploring your surface. You ruined me. I didn’t think I would ever be so happy to be destroyed from the inside out. Thank you.

Sincerely, your secret admirer.