Young and precocious. Bored and ferocious

I open my eyes and only minutes have passed
Since i felt my ears popping
Dozing off in the backseat
Of a car driving up a california mountain top
20 hours since i last slept
And nightmares awoken
From a startled past

Numbing my hand to imagine
It is a boy on the east coasts
Soft carress against my cheek
Opposite of every one in my past
Calloused hands with rough grasps
Staking claim over a body
They have no more intention in knowing
Than skin
I resent every moment
I put my heart before my head
So i feel like a revolving door for every man
who takes what he wants and doesnt give a damn

I spent hours looking at every page of your high school sketchbook
And burned the memory of your safe place in my mind
Break down every second together in increments
Remember every word you said
I had never felt so trusted
Until you said you couldnt do this through text?

And you are not the only reason
Just another example
Of how i know we all break our backs for people who dont notice our potential
But tell me why
Im still having dreams of you
Where im chewing on glass
Then waking up out of breath
Cut you off from being honest
Because i beg not to hear any of it

In another desperate leap for human connection
I drive to georgia in the middle of the night to see him
Then he doesn't return my call
I never know what he wants
Anymore than i can know why i want him

And i tell strangers everything
So i can barricade myself against anyone i could have wanted
There is a man twice my age on the other side of the world
Who knows my story more than anyone
(Only portrayed callously,
As if it never affected me)
Who idealized me
Until his sexual advances had left me unkempt
Said i must have wanted it
Because i opened up to him
But he only listened to respond
And feasted with his eyes
Then responded angrily, said i was a lie

I have enough friends who tell me
The boys i write about are dumb
Dont know themselves anymore than love
But cant tell me why
I can give myself away
Without feeling a thing
Until im responded with a lack of empathy
The lack of desire for anything but my body
When thats all i can offer up honestly

english boy, french terrace

it is almost 5 a.m.
and my eyes have rolled to the back of my head
waiting on you
or begging you, as i do,
to make a move

and now you know you didnt have to buy me a stupid drink
or use your accent to make my knees weak
my voice is hoarse as i call you baby
hoping you wont resent me (more than i resent me)
when youre so used to this meaning something
because i am used to nothing, more than this nothing

and i think, it is just my luck
we would meet in the south of france
where i fuck myself up for being too honest
and a kiss is my curse to return instead of roam(rome)
you were something i missed
instead of home

so i walk back from your hot flat
where we smiled under white sheets
to have a dream of pulling glass out of my feet
reimagine them now as blisters popping
when i walked the same streets
you grew up visiting
it is hotter than your fingers wandering
the sun has been sweltering
i packed more for this trip
thinking i could handle it

then i go back home and tell myself
you are just like every other boy who
took my body for its curves
and said you loved my words but
didnt know what they meant
just feigned interest enough to
feel my breath on your lips
convince myself you asked for it
(when i know that i really did)
just so i can get over the fact that
some english boy too old for me
doesnt text back
because i felt like i needed him to

and i know after london
i will never see you
aside from in snapshots- brief glimpses
saying you miss my kiss
two days expecting more than a promise
i am too young and stupid
i convince myself
that a holiday fling
could mean more than one thing

Corpse and wood

You swore you could see right through my coffee cup littered floorboard

Had worn that aesthetic before you got bored

And you bet its so petty

Like being spanked as a child

Go on "its a flawed system of justified abuse"

When you have a child, you know what youll do

While i think i should be less sensitive

Before i leave in a tangent

Say more than i should on the subject

It is always more of me than i should have shared

Fuck the boys who are loose with their words and crowned sensitive

While i am better off dismissive

I had never spoken up to you or anyone with such confidence

Yet It still came out as whimpering, helpless softness

But you let me finish

When I should have just steeped in the air of injustice 

Spared the awkward silence 

But "i grew up from a humble background"

And my parents owned a home on a street with grass that buried my feet

Shame by the time i was 9

I had felt the bloody nose of defeat

you are lying too

As you are prying through

Some feigned idea of understanding

Guessing childhood traumas

Like its a game you're landing

It is digging up graves for the haunted

So i can reface everything i was told you wanted

Your rootless, divine ignorance makes me jealous

When you say such beautiful things

I disregard

you are exaggerating me

And grasping at strings

To make me blush

Everything you guess is a flush

And everything you said you wanted when you were getting to know me

Caught me up and made me weak

Only for this honesty to change what you think

april-14

i am itching my skin
peeling off the sunburn of my decisions
it is just as agitating as knowing you are not who you said you would be
that you are closer now to a crutch named "happy"
because im still too young to be your drinking buddy
instead i watch you etch my brother into a carbon copy

so i wonder if im burning holes in my brain
just trying to relate
when she said you were different
i knew, that means more than youd ever been
lost the light in your eyes
yours were duller than mine this time

remembered skipping stones, playing hopscotch
while you preach to me that there is no god
and it all made too much sense
coming from someone i trusted
who had seen more than i can now glorify
i hate that you still make me cry sometimes
wonder what a father who loved god could have been like

we played monopoly on a sunday night
and now im glad you won
that you took advantage before anyone
recite that the shitty things that make me weak
will make me stronger
just give it a week

so i gave it two years
and now i am just as confident that you would remember my name
as much as i could recognize your face
ashamed to say i cried water under the bridge for a minute
before i remind myself the thinning alcohol does to blood
pissed now my crutch cant be Noah's flood
id jump the boat sooner
than you can regurgitate your habit
you can numb your mouth
and mine as i watch
sickly comforted to know
it wont be long
that my friends dont watch for articles
about being dead and unknown

C.C.

i spent a rainy sunday morning
evening the tone of my voice
while you danced around from room to room
Claiming you felt a change
reimagined yourself after meditation or feng shui
you always swear you feel different
Though nothing has happened yet

i get tired of following you
as im sure people often do
So i offer to rearrange your records
by new or old pressing
whatever that means
always lacking the prowess to fill any social scene
and i think about making promises i often wouldnt by choice
then feeling insecure under the noise
i preoccupy myself

you run around with some shameless need for eccentric perfection
hang art the way i hang nooses
as i drink more coffee than you can stomach
and thumb through your collection of poetry lazily
compare myself to everything
come up short of what i really need
i am more hungry for admiration than honesty

so i have been your lover longer than i have been your friend
because i know its easier than anything we could have actually wanted
you hold your paintings up and i cannot imagine you as a separate being
and do not wish to
only hold you at a distance
the timeline is a maze of reckless attention
some cynical phase of passive intentions

west coast or not my home

you only say youre sorry

after youve invaded my borders

and before questioning my comfort zone

i know youre laying beside me

but ive never felt more alone

i only ever feel raw and unprotected

when your fingers graze down my spine

or arm wraps around me tight

before i can say thats not something i can like

a quick reminder men take what they can have

and a little bit of me every time i feel it flashing back

and it pisses me off that you packed a tie

a complete misdirection of where i was headed

when you are nothing of what i know ive wanted

a bit too eager to praise the audience

when i bury my bones in the backyard

for reckless boys like you to harvest

so you remind me of everything i know i cant handle
staying up too late to hatch my escape or over-think
the way i feel suffocated and incapable to speak
too often, tripping over memories that make me sink

i try to preoccupy myself with more important things

people back home practicing knots for nooses out of shoestrings

or breaking their back to not change anything

i am not like any of them

my heart breaks to convince that there is anything redeeming

when we know more of damaging feelings

paint or pen

just fuck this when i am filled with a forest fire

and you cant feel anything you deem worth while

you said for the first few weeks i swept you off your feet

but the attention exposed where you were chaffed from the previous

some other girl rubbed you raw

in a way that made you feel cold like metal and red like rust

and i know my pen is more delicate

than the way you make a name for yourself

but i have met where you are sensitive

and have never felt more connected

and i have a feeling that some unexpected things are more permanent

you are fresh in that you are in a new beginning

my heartache is fresh and consistent

because when i look in the mirror, i still have my father's curly ringlets

and the heart that goes along with resenting the resemblance

i recognize i torture myself with the same longing for connection

respond by drowning myself in some sort of a depressant

anything to alter my stagnant vision

when i wasnt surprised anymore after the age of seven
i learned to be more comfortable naked
because my skin was bruised from too much attention

then you didnt kiss me until four dates in
and promised all this bullshit
that i actually believed
or i dont know, maybe i just wanted to...
i fell harder even as i was leaving
when you told me not to do anything that doesnt make me happy again

i dont know how to open up until the last moment

or expect my poetry to mean more than i show it

???

2 weeks in/drunk off 1 beer/friday spins

I would have said i love you
A long time ago
If i didnt know any better
My emotions are entrapment
And I dont want to be a heavy head on your pillow
Or a heavy heart on your weighted chest
When we're already pulled down by our past

I cant hate you for being honest
I can only resent her more for tearing apart your best
And dissapoint myself by moving too fast
Fuck i Only fall more in love before you can promise
But im trying not to make it a habit
To give you all of me before you can handle it
But you were more than i expected

Whispering words i should say definitively
But your presence means more to me
And im too tied up in what we were supposed to be
While you discourage the idea that this is enough for me

I dont know if it is
I dont really care at this point
Ill grip until callouses turn my hands rough
Run them over skin i have touched
for only barely two weeks
And im sure its enough
To feel like i have known you too well to make my stupid voice weak
I would tell you everything if i wasnt afraid
I would hear myself cracking
Breaking open to trace the lines on my limbs and what they all meant
We would deal with heartbreak in the same way
If i hadnt found a safer place

And im not talking about hiding or sulking or even burrying it deep
But coming to terms with damaging things
I was told were a problem for me
And i dont know if you have thought the same things
But i just really want you to share everything with me
Because i have never felt attached to someone so lovely

basement songs

I have always felt more comfortable naked
But my head feels nice on your soft chest
When i lay down to wrap around
I know that i can rest

I have always resented that i can take off my clothes but leave my make up
Smeared on pillowcases in sheets i have not felt safe in
But i feel your breath on my cheek
And do not hide from sunrays brushing my face where your hand runs to move my hair that covers my eyes
You say that im beautiful like that and inside

I have never mustered up the courage to compromise with a past i am unnecessarily embarrassed with
But i felt so intensely connected
Then you made me feel delicate
As if everything i have been through does not weigh me down
And though i still hate it
I no longer wrestle with the negativity that dulled me out or stole my crown

I had previously felt relegated to a loneliness due to lack of understanding
But i have never felt so sure of myself
Standing not stupidly too soon to be bare flesh
But confidently with my heart so honest

I have yet to have felt like i needed to compromise with myself in order to please you
And my heart flutters every time i know i can say what im thinking
without worrying we will rub against each other with friction
Or leave red, raw, cutting myself for lack of attention

Instead i press my lips against your skin
After i climb out of a hole i consistently hide in
Terrified the dirt under my fingertips
Displays more than my fear of attachment
When i know that everyone i love learns how to bury me in the end
Ill try harder to get past it
In hopes that my openness doesnt destroy me when i let you in

mute

i dont speak up with you
or anyone, anymore
i have only become more mute
sink in then fade out
ive lost interest
for feigning any kind of romanticism

i remember finger tips that meant more than yours did
and its not something im sure i should idealize
when i know it will eventually kill me inside
but im still searching for the same feeling it would give
and you could never make my heart skip a beat the way that it did with him

although i do not compare everything
just the ferocity
and you dull me out
i feel touched on display
miricalized, unknowing

only notice i strain for comfort in silence
i stretch my body from discomfort
as my ribs rise up
you claw for surface
over a body you cannot claim
not when i cant love you that way

you will eventually hate me
when im honest
and beg for empathy
you will remember the way i write
right beside
unknowing and unwilling
to be turned away

but i am indifferent to your dangerous inhibitions
i cant focus on the positive
i so quickly change my intentions
then wait on poetry to make my decisions

no gods, no masters

You were too proud for my stomach
When you said You are so good at swearing to them
You are forced upon this bottomless feeling
Of powerlessness, self loathing, then a pinch of courage that keeps you going
Only to falter again
But you dont have answers to my questions
Innocent strangers too ignorant to ask why
You say you care
Youre so good at faking it
Know youve won when i break eye contact

I used to oblige
Say that its alright
And cuddle up on the couch
When i could fit in your arms
And Your dissapearances were a consistent mystery
Makes me sick when i think the worst
I would walk a labyrinth back home alone
My feets unfamiliar distance
And i remember burning my finger tips
huddled by the radiator with my sister
As we wonder where you were
You were a stranger then and now only more

you dont try to hide it though
Not in white envelopes like before
I would trace graphite letters
Looking for a way i could relate
Where we both capitalize our R's
promise not to make the same mistakes
And i tell myself not to fall for it
Blend in the cursive spelling out,
i refuse to respond when i wrote the date, but struggle on the address
An unexpected fate
I cant fake interest
In a man who uses his children as bait
Its as if we only exist for your benefit
And im so sick of claiming im over it
That ive broken down too much to still obsess over this idea that you promised
We will be happier than the present tense
I just needed your presence

winter cold

I just need this knife to pierce my skin the way that you did

But pain feels different when its self inflicted

And i gave you all of me but it was something you never wanted

Claiming im too sensitive

Because i bruise too easily when your words hit

You were supposed to hold my wrists so that my fists could not punish my own skin

But you loved it

In a way you could say

"I tried to save this girl from her own shit"

Then come home and tell me i have to deal with it

Im not enough

And you always knew it

I was an anchor

And the only thing that made me worth while 

Was nights you wanted the softness of my skin

Its sexy when i bite my lip

Because you know its a nervous habit

Displaying my weakness

I stutter up word vomit

Twist my hair

And beg for empathy

What can you expect

That a girl be delicate

After reality had been beaten in

Polite and fragile paper skin

And i chip my nail polish tapping the keys again

People who arent poets always try to relate

Feign interest

Gain conscious 

Then hate me for it

And yeah youre right, i forced it

Im so sorry i loved you too soon

Needed your presence

Any way i could get it

But you used me and punished me in the worst ways

I did not feel safe

It was a quick comfort for me

But to you, i was quick sand

Ill never know who i am

for three months ive grown, too

I knew better

Though i wish i didnt
And im begging to open up about it
But this feels different
I tried to talk to someone
But they felt unrelated
Not the response i was hoping for

I know trying to relate is a masochistic chore

I dont know what to say about it
Can relay the facts
But explaining how i feel
I claim a detachment
And even standing in front of you
I felt awkward like a stranger

Your face looked different
The light in your eyes didnt change
But the conversation did
Feeling nausea over your day to day decisions

Not the same as when i was a kid
And we were closer than i can imagine now
Realization poured in years ago
And it still makes me sick

You were never what you said you would be
I take honesty to the extremes
But like you, cant keep to anything i said i wanted
I know im shitty, but i let them know it.

But you still fake it
And i dont know how to fake the same
Twisted relationships my brothers and sister somehow can
The idea is so innocent in nature
But it just seems like cruel punishment
Feeling a hopelessness i know i shouldnt

trace a thinner state that i know

I felt cracked like the skin
Of the people in the paintings
And i felt impatient
I would hate as your eyes gaze
Feel a soft touch
I know the intentions all too well
And it was something i hated
But i cant speak up
My mouth is jaded

The idea that i must go along with it
Claim im sensitive
I am but shallow
Blush because im modest in a way
My heart drops to my stomach
Feel raw when my poetry is mentioned
Its something im proud of
But not something i feel comfortable with
Outside confining walls
Come alive as it gets dark
And my facade fades
I feel the decay

Curling up to sleep in a cage
Not sure if its even comfortable
Contort my body into something beautiful
But i am alone in sheets
And in my bed
Memories that prey on darkness
Feel like a concealed mess
But in my poetry honest

My heart beats as i repeat it
Going over past occurences
How i feel about died out notions
It will get better if i work on it
I dont know if i am
Attempt to follow paths i believe lead to happiness
But i obsess over the negative
Feel swallowed by how ive been molded
And judged because i cant be understood
Stand off when you try to get closer than you ever really could

closing statements

I dont usually smoke cigarettes
but i bought a pack on new years eve
And it's become a habit of mine
one that will probably bury me
Something about the polite burning

My words are smoke in a similar sense
They evaporate as i bend
Ill beg for it to carry me
But im not light enough
Not like i want to be

My poetry means more than you ever did
And i wonder if it hurts or if you get it
As you read about other boys in my bed

I Reject the idea that you were good for me because that's not how it felt in the end

I remember sharing a cigarette on your back porch
As you told me what you wanted
I just needed to lay in a bed i felt at home in
And the yellow porch light illuminated your face
In a way i learned to hate in memory
A more sufferable feeling i was able to replace

I watched the way your lips curved around the butt of the cigarette
And i became an addict
Should have muted my desire for the way you would bite my skin
Falling in love too easily was a habit

But after everything
I find it hard to match the ferocity
A crush and my cheeks will turn red
When im complimented
But my heart could never skip a beat the way that it did
When you wanted

I feel a detachment to the emotions in my memories now
Remember writing the poetry but i dont know how
I only long for it because i knew it was something i wanted
I held the torch so long i burned myself
And now i stay on the cautious edge of it
Dip my toes in then run away to another city again

I remember saying no one dives like you do
But you lost interest
And i was embarrassed
Hate to be the one holding onto people who cant do the same for me
So after over a year of grievances
I know now im passed it
But in a way i can say
I was almost saved by someone else
Until i realized i can do it myself