maybe you would take my hand

instead of taking blame

and walk to me

instead of walking out

maybe all the time it took

to break your promises

and spindle lies

and lay in bed so easily

could’ve spent elsewhere

in an artists studio across the world

by myself but not alone

wishing for you but never having you,

but not aching for you

the way I can’t help to now

I think of you in springtime

when my eyes itch and the wind roars

I think of you in summer

when the sand falls out of my towel

I think of you in autumn

when i’m another year older

and I think of you in winter

when the newness of a new year

promises softly

that i might

forget more parts of you

I remember sweet ty on a september night.

smoke still hanging there somewhere between real and fake, fake and real.

met me at the light near the coffee shop, windows blacked out and no one there.

fitted, tall, skinny, pensive.

looking from me to him, him to me,

trying to make it add up just right,

to even the equation on both sides, if only for the night.

wondering if he was thinking the same thing,

with our quick-decision whim amidst burning worlds.

if only to be un-alone and touched,

even if the fit just wasn’t right.

I remember talking a lot, trying to fill the void and find connection with you.

I remember quick glances from you to me, me to you.

what were you thinking of me?

did you like what you see?

what were we doing if not just swallowing cold air?

I nursed my modelo cause I didn’t want to be drunk for it.

somehow you never made a move like they always do.

was I too much? not enough? annoying you?

these are all just questions that make me shudder, try to laugh through it like I always do.

you laughed at me saying how my hair got blue.

and maybe that’s when I cracked you, cut you down to size from all the way up there.

that glistening moment, wish I could rip it from the sky and hold it forever, you know?

there was something

idk what.

did you feel it? when it all switched?

I think it was when you squeezed my knee and touched my tiny fingers, and I touched your tiny tattoo.

skin touches skin and everything’s alive again.

the way you turned off the light slowly and walked over in your purple lit room.

a palpable anticipation and a quiver in the lower stomach.

god, I wanted you so bad and hope you wanted me the same.

I’ll never know unless you told me, but I don’t think I will ever get the chance to hear it.

do things like this happen just once?

if it was just once it was the best once I’ve ever had.

it was soft tongue and lips and the worship of everything,

felt spiritual in a way you can’t put into words but I can try because like, I want you to feel what I felt. let me know it wasn’t just made up in my mind. I’ll be heartbroken if it’s true.

after we both got what we came for, shaking bliss, I wanted to leave but still make you mine.

maybe if I had you’d only remember the really good parts.

the way I made you feel when it was just us,.

the world can wait because it is unkind to girls like me,

and only gives to boys like you.

goddamn the true crime you like,

because the truest crime was walking me home in the morning mist,

thoughts suspended quietly in the air.

I wish I could’ve said something original to make it memorable,

but all everything is silent at 7:30AM.

when you hugged me lightly and looked at my face, lips, eyes like it might be the last time,

probably was,

“maybe see you again soon ?”

I could hear the space between the question mark in your voice.

I’ll never see him again but it gets me high just thinking of it.

fuck it,

i’m numb to murders now.

I want to be clean

clean

from the inside out,

outside in.

inward I’m all dirty and contaminated

hot sickness burns beneath my bones

and outward I’m all flesh and gross

everything is awful,

if you really think about it.

there’s days when it’s obsessive

this weary brain of mine

just fatty tissue

blood bursting

compulsive bitch ringing in my ears -

it speaks harshly of control

take back your life, the way you know how.

n other days it’s disinterested

who needs fuel when the car’s broke down

it’s 3:00AM with your sad, sad stomach

forgetting friends exist

bailing because you’re busy anyway

with those fucked up thoughts of death.

and you just want to pick and pull,

pull and pick,

from the inside out

outside in -

inward you’re falling down, down into it

wish you’d never come up in the first place.

it’s all poison really,

if you look hard enough at the ingredients list.

it’s ok to hate me

I don’t care if you can’t stand me

it’s ok, ignore me in plain air

I don’t care if you don’t care.

..

I don’t care if you hide us,

don’t remember my birthday

you can skate right by me

like I’m not even alive today.

..

it’s ok if you’re embarrassed

we’re embarrassing just standing here

it’s ok, ride with some other girl

she won’t see me I can disappear.

..

I don’t care if you gag me, choke me,

up n leave

it’s ok, you don’t have to stay

I’ll just numb the pain away.

..

it’s ok to hate me

and to hate yourself for liking me

it’s ok, i promise not to tell

I don’t care that we’re alive in hell.

..

goddamn I’m so bad

I don’t care that it attracts rats

I don’t care that you’re the worst

it’s ok, I’m good at getting hurt.

..

I just wanna dig myself deeper

into this black dark rotting pit

I don’t care if you’re not my keeper

it’s ok, I’m good at feeling like shit.

..

it’s ok to hate me

I don’t care if you want me dead

it’s ok, blame me beat me

make me feel like it’s all in my head.

after all is fast,

it has to get slow

after all is hurt,

it has to get nice

|

after the pain and the madness,

and the sleep and the sadness,

one day it’ll end,

and you won’t even know.

but realized it was warm blood.

we were all dreaming

of a place that doesn’t pump you with gas,

then blame you for coughing up smoke.

let us shield you from flames

and be pushed to the ground.

let us stomp out all the turning away,

and turning towards other things

to blind us from

ourselves.

|

be happy what we want is

warm bodies

asleep in their beds.

be happy what we do is

flood streets

not cut necks.

be thrilled,

be exhilarated,

we are learning at rapid pace,

while they kick us while we’re down,

while they watch us round corners,

while we read on our screens,

just to make it make sense -

the senselessness.

|

if you don’t know

you are not paying attention.

let us have your attention

and turn it to the light,

to the promise of better.

but better comes at a price

and the price has been unattainable

for far too long.

|

let us shed this wretched earth

of all the bloodshed

of all the walls

of all the screams into the night

of all the mothers awake til morning hours,

listening at the door and peering out the curtains,

of all the hurt -

that now,

we understand

this earth was never worth.

in my sacred space

I come to it

night after night

and day after day when I am feeling tired.

-

there are candles and little musings

drawings and paintings

photographs of moments of time when things stood

still -

is my beating heart

just to lay my head

and rest my weary bones,

awake or asleep in comfort

I have created for myself.

-

when I enter this sacred chamber

there are no invitations,

alone with no lonesomeness

empty with no need to be filled

let me sleep in peace with no interruptions

a feeling that wasn’t allowed to me

all those years before

when spaces weren’t my own

and I wasn’t allowed

to decline or accept visits.

-

but I didn’t know that yet,

I couldn’t tell from looking -

everything large and looming -

obscuring my vision of what was significant

what would leak into the later years

and drive me to pad my life

with white blank spaces

reminiscent of a psychiatric ward.

-

i come to it when I am tired

yes when the day has exhausted

and took what I didn’t even have to give

I come here with a promise

to myself

to the world

that I will never

never

never

open doors

to let you in.

flower

i opened up for you like a goddamn flower

anything you did or said or dare utter in my ear

i wanted forever and kept like a secret

i kept my body ready at all hours

and called it love

i’d look at photos of you,

the ones you took of yourself,

on my phone when you thought i wasn’t looking

but i’m always looking

looking at you

in the mirror i saw chaos

in you i saw a promise of stillness

of laying in bed until noon

until we couldn’t fight our hunger anymore

until your friends couldn’t fight the urge to hit your line

repeatedly

and give you shit about the naked babe next to you

at noon on a sunday morning

soon we’d stop fighting the hunger

and venture out in monochrome white outfits

to that brunch spot you used to bartend at

and you’d introduce me pointedly to all the servers you used to fuck

they’d come to the side of our table

and make eyes at you

and slide a vintage vase with a dried flower in between us

i’d see it

and call it love

until 3 whiskey shots before eggs benedict

and looking at your crooked nose across the table

touching the impossibility of tanned arms in the dead of portland winter

i’d take the first bite and felt like orgasm

chanterelle mushrooms and creamy hollandaise next to a bed of small smashed rosemary russet potatoes

you’d steal looks at me and bites of biscuit,

sips of bloody mary,

kisses of fingers,

and when i left for the restroom,

soft bites of neck

i’d look at you looking at me waiting in the hallway

from a gold frame mirror hung crookedly above the table

a woman would come out of the bathroom

with a little girl who looked like me

her hair tied back

complaining about morning

i’d look up in the mirror to see you smiling

and call it love.

~

messy hair,

forehead kisses,

sleepy drives,

fountain wishes,

show me yours,

i’ll show you mine,

swimming in the great divine -

of love,

of light,

of grateful spite -

the wind knocked me down,

like you did that night.

you’re outside,

you’re inside,

you’re everything

in between.

i wake up beside you,

this must be a dream.

~

come on,

come out,

come take me away -

to that spot on the beach,

we got drunk that day.

~️

carve me,

draw me,

write me,

press me -

into the sand,

so i know that i won’t leave.