Your first poem

 10 years I wait to retraumatize you

After seeing your messages
With the same kind of yearning
I had for connection,

I knock
And you crack the door
To tell me about your ghosts

I want to hold your hand
I feel like youre someone I should know
But you never let me in
Theres some golden shadow
In your new apartment
It must be different
from the grief weve been stricken with

I tell you I know what I want now
And its not crying in the car
Next to someone who I hope never understands
The reason why
I hide my emotions behind
Thinly veiled sexual detachment
But now I have to try to forget
That you ever asked me what I wanted
And I chose to be honest
And ignore the dreams where I lose my vision
After realizing Id been blind when I had a moment

It's been at least 6 years since I called you on anything

Now its a telephone on your hospital bed

The most we spoke; the least we said

20 minutes of fighting with the television for awkward conversation

A third of the minutes diluted with silence

When I dont have a response to a sentence

It's been 2 weeks since you had your rib broken

Have to replace your phone cause some kids had stole it

In that call, I revert back to being a kid

and selfishly clawing for your attention

Knowing I lost that when I was 12 and you were in prison

Or maybe 9 when the shit had so many dimensions

I only had you to blame for becoming the defendant

You were my uninvited baggage on the doorstep

Crocodile tears in my carriage

2 hours west to be by your hospital bed

You were 3 weeks out of the cold

The nurse hears more than they want to know

And you remind me of when a friend from 7 years ago

She had a dream you were dead and unknown

Washing up on the river bank

Now your hospital is 2 miles away

From the bridge, you told me you wanted to jump

Until someone stopped traffic to shut you up

It's a premonition

 A sick sentiment

Obsessing over inanimate objects

A year and a half his crutch has been in my shed

And I'm moving now but can't get passed

This idea that it should come with everything of him that is left

Like the sum of his ashes unspilled on the table

From our ritual filling of silver mementos

That now leaves my throat feeling hollow

This inanimate object like a noose around my neck

A year and a half later our mother asks if I have bipolar depression

And she references our blood in the past tense

It takes little for me now to control my emotion

Except for when I think of him

A year and a half later and I pretend I've curbed the anxiety attacks

From when I had a dream he was in the driver's seat

Taking us off the cliff

Long before I ever lived on the ridge

Or woke up late at 8 am

and didn't respond to his text message

passed the hotel off the exit again

And the apartments where I could have done everything different

In honesty, for a while, I resented the death of him

Simply because it was something for myself I had imagined

you're still holding grudges against a ghost

A brother with blood too thin to share a toast

Now courage can bond us

Or become the host

For resentment despite now that

You are who you chose

for most of that November, my teeth were stained red

Lost the high of life and got drunk instead

But I should have scared myself

with any tendency to become a lush

I am already a submarine made up of rust

We carry our burdens like a badge of honor

Its the weight of addiction and a homeless father

The past makes excuses for decisions on the altar

Our perceptions are distorted on where we falter

When I was 7, I waged a war against my body

And every ceiling fan that chose to taunt me

So every middle-class home was haunting

I was 9, crying on the stand uncoached

and still was found a liar by most

So I know we could pour our offenses

Into someone else's definition

But what justice isn't

Robs us of goodwill and intention

6

Life is regurgitated in distorted sentences

It takes 5 years to learn comprehension

You were reading me wrong as I'm heaving anxieties

In my crusade against the softer parts of me

And you know my father abandoned me

So I hyperventilate in my sleep

And you use it against me when I'm weak

It's embarrassing to trip over nothing

You are a helium get well balloon

I get lightheaded and then confused

With all the hot air I am filled with

I make a conscious decision

To mute myself instead of the television

Landscapes/road trips/mountains

We compare our bodies to these landscapes
And mark them off like conquests

But I am more unlike myself everyday
Becoming more polished
With every melting country road
Curves that make me soft but bold
I am a waste of your time
With my legs around your neck
But you just rev your engine
And turn your wheel into my wreck

Sometimes you catapult into cities bragging with confidence you can conquer based off friends previous conquests
And cities shriveled in comparison from the distance you glorified in your head

if you squint your eyes through the haze you can trace youre finger along the silhouette of the mountain range
To you, everything is the same
As the sketches that claim you fame

And sometimes you get close enough to see the jagged rock columns
Rising up like the fairytale kingdoms you grew up reading
There is something there that needs your saving
And determination makes it yours for the taking

But Some of us born into mountains retreat into the ridges
Seeking a plateau and some peace
So you are more confident than you should be
For someone who was born on a beach
Where the ocean is endless
And you are senseless
To think there is any of me to keep
tracing fingertips is less effort than climbing over my edges
And these mountains are so different from your sketches

It should be winter soon
But its too hot right now
And your palms get wet with instant regret of promises to conquer mountains you have never traveled before
Your windows are down but its still too warm
You cannot grip these curves the way someone more patient can
Or someone who could understand
What it's like past the valleys without the views
I am more than someone new

2 shadows

I cant leave your side without the smell of cigarettes on my sweater
but i hate the feeling of being alone
so i trace your crucifix with my fingertips
and judge you for your crutches

but i still dont wash my hands
before i touch someone new
it always happens too soon
and you hate that thats something you knew about me
before you ever really knew me
my past is thicker than the smoke thats hanging

i cant detach myself from your broken promises
so i try to blind my brain
begging to change the way i over-glorify
people who think im not enough for them
because i am sick of suffocating on nicotine
for people who dont want to hear what i think

and so
that summer we bought disposable cameras
i waited to get the film developed
i know i am not akin to fitting in
but the alcohol ingested
created a moment
a feeling unlike indifferent or distant
and i didnt want to miss it
but the photographs still felt foreign when i thought i needed them

now i am crowded
and shoved, spilled beer with no buzz
i feel emotionally fatigued
a catalyst to my social anxiety
but repetition dulls me
and this is what living is supposed to be...
right?
i need to get out
to feel trapped and lonely

this art
it proves regression
when im dying for clarity
ive moved on from the worst of things
found travel and trees
but i drown myself in dreams
i will never follow through with
because promises are toxic
and i learned that from my best friend

it was a lie to say anyone would be there when i needed them
so whats the use of getting drunk with fake friends?

Realized im invisible

She walked by me on the train
Didnt ask for my ticket
Maybe could tell that im american
The face looked too dependent
Or with a hand already in a jacket pocket

You think one day i will say
Sometimes i get tired of getting lost
The way they think i run away
Just so i can make a change
Or hope that someone will ask me to stay
Knowing i get headaches in the same place

She learned to relax against the currents
And now only bangs her head against the glass
cant Compare it to finding nooses on my ceiling fans
Like she did in the past
But she still Hangs her head over it
With a face like blank white canvas

He said he could not feel anything
Much worse than just not what i wanted
Couldnt feign any interest
Although i thought he did a pretty good job of it
But i guess i dont have the experience to tell the difference
Falling for hearts with an indifferent distance

im still burning to call someone baby
And i thought that would be you
But youre bored to tears in my museum
Running by the rusty memorial plaques
Where im begging to leave with my heart intact
A history hall, but you dont connect at all
And want your money back
Because you resent all the dirty finger prints
The people who were there before you could get to it
I was stupid to fall in love again

So i bury my head in the snow
Looking to reason with hearts as cold
The ones that visit
Just to say they get it
But tell others not to mention it
the luxury of being ignorant
I fucking wish that i could fit in with them

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