the one cool night of summer

I felt the craving in the roots of my teeth, in the roots of my hair. The craving to be awake, to run and not let my lungs or my ankles stop me. The prickling pull of sleep pressed into my right eyelid heavily, churned and begged for my fist to rub and rub and rub. The greatest relief is always itching your eye until it feels like your eyeball will be smashed into jelly.

I caressed the cold air by arching my back against it as it slowly creeped into my window. A cold breeze, the smell of the air filtering in through the screen the sweetest smell I know besides that of human skin. I miss smelling the skin of an arm slung over my shoulders in the morning, but tonight I did not miss any person who has held me in that way. I only missed their smell.

In the book I just finished, I knew the twist ending from page one. I knew she was dead the whole time and I waited for the twist to unfurl itself so the rest of the reading world would catch up. In the same way, I knew he would cheat from the first flick of his tongue against my ear lobe. In the same way I know that summer will blessedly melt to fall in what feels like no time at all.

via *

Edge I

I bit my lips wide open; ruined them.
I know what it was to leave you in your bed.
To feel you against my skin for the last
time as I sat against your sink and
smelled you in my hair. (No, No, No)
Empty rose petals were swallowed
by screwdrivers made of bone.

I sucked and sucked for more
flavor from the petals, tucked the single
flower up against my windshield,
then watched as the wind gently
carted it away. Without ceremony,
the smell of tea leaves still in the air.

You felt yourself here, in the alcove at
the back of the house, where I watched
your shoulders (God, I love your shoulders) leave.
We are nostalgic messes, fumbling to
connect. And here I come apart.

Please miss my fingernails.
Please miss my rose-scented lips.
Please miss the night(s) you saw it all.

via *

everything in its right place

I remember thinking refineries produced clouds, dream factories spilling fluffy hope into the sky. But then I grew up and saw that they were just fountains pumping poison down through our nostrils until they ate our lungs away. Still as I drive past, I see the smoke sloughing out of the chimneys and can't help but find it beautiful even as I breathe the death deep down into my veins. I watch them pass from my windows and can't help but be relieved that I am driving alone. My hands are made of human paper that has been bent into ugly origami so often in the past and they are so happy to be alone. They caress themselves, they hold each delicate part of my body so gently, they block my lips as I step outside and avoid the poisoned air of factories and the refined fallacy of people. My human paper hands and my tulip cupid's bow are blooming for themselves in haunted, February air.

via *

simple little thoughts.

The lawn gnomes had all lost their hats
and the one that was my favorite, the one
that held a flower, had walked away from
our lawn after he pulled me into him
on my doorstep after our first date.

I pictured the gnome's little face twisted
into contempt as he started at this man
who had held my door for me all night
and smiled at me as I bought a book
in the middle of our date inside of a snow globe.

I used to have dreams that lawn gnomes
were hiding under my bed waiting to kill me.
As I grew up, the gnomes became much
scarier and moved from under my bed to
filling my mind completely with insecurity.

But I told him I hated mornings and that
I look horrible when I roll out of bed.
He looked down shyly and whispered
that he thought that would be impossible;
I'm happy my ring got left behind as I left his house.

It wasn't on purpose per se,
but I smiled knowing he would find it in the morning.

via *

time

Time is the most precious substance in the world, isn't it? We are all fighting to control time and earn more time. Fighting to use our time wisely or waste it in better ways. I wish I had more time to do the things I love, but I don't because I'm stuck doing other things I love. School is so much. I'm writing papers, but not poems. I'm learning so much, but I miss so much learning from all of you and reading your writing and books of my choice instead of assigned documents.

I really don't have anything to say. I just wanted to check in and say how much I miss my little home here. And all of you. And just life when it was simpler but when the fuck was that anyway? Life will never be simple; it will always be broken and beautiful. I'm almost done with my semester and then you can expect more words once I'm not draining them into papers.

PS: While I was gone, I was published in an amazing new online journal. Please check out my two poems and the AMAZING and lovely work of the other artists who were featured. You can find it all here. Massive thanks to everyone at No Falling Ribbons for accepting my work as well. You've inspired me to find more time and write for me again. Thanks thanks thanks xx

all we can do is keep breathing

There are some words that just sound exactly like what they are. They taste like how they feel when they play across your teeth. Bite. Love. Choke. Breathe.

Breathe.

I'm the world record champion for holding my breath. I held my breath once for twenty minutes. Then I held it for five months. Then I held it for one year.

The ghosts stole my breath and replaced it with shattered glass that got caught in my lungs until I was exhaling blood where the carbon dioxide should be. Then I coughed out all the glass and picked up a pocket of air that was hiding at the back of my closet. I swaddled it like a baby and kissed its forehead. As I did, the breath found its way back in.

My eyeliner wings were blacker and longer and the breath had a faint air of raspberries and happiness as it caressed the world around it.

via *

literally

I'm a fan of hyperbolic language because life is hyperbolic and explosive. I would much rather feel things in constant states of literally and hyperbole than through a veil of unshakable and polarizing apathy. Apathy does not make you impressive and isolation is not something to be proud of. Bleeding is impressive. Feeling pain that will lead to joy is impressive. Feeling joy that will lead to pain, that is even more impressive.

Let life drown you. We have been dying since the day we were born so why not go out with a fucking bang?

via *

cookie cutter

Weeks of rain led to dripping lightning
and sugar cookies, lovely with roses.
He smiled and my heart bloomed;
I owed myself some bravery.

I organized my words like the outline
of a puzzle, working to connect the
skyline before the center can become clear.
Truth tastes better dipped in tea.

His fingers spread across the table top,
I ached to join mine with his, create
a paper doll chain of two before his hands moved.
The cookie remained uneaten, the tea growing cold.

Deeper words came flying out as
he watched the crumbs on my plate,
licking his lips as I dipped my finger
from the frosting to my teeth.

The broken cookie broke his heart
while mine finally unloaded.
The past was long, full of twists.
I needed more time to make mistakes.

I needed to earn someone with a soul of silver,
lips I imagine taste like sugar crumbles
to match the rosebuds that
grow on my cupid's bow.

Again I've said too much, fingers
typing faster than thoughts can fly.
working to close the gap with every word.
My life has never been cookie cutter perfect.

But I'm willing to wait.

5.16.15

He unplugged his guitar and stepped off the stage, asking the entire audience to come stand around him as he played. As he played and sang, I could picture him so clearly in a studio apartment, liquor at his side, penning these words into a private notebook. There's something alive in the calm strumming of folk songs, an understanding of the inherent melancholy and hope wrapped up in human life. Maybe that's why it's my favorite; I feel like I understand that too. 

I love watching musicians play, when their feet start stamping uncontrollably like the melodies are curling up their legs. Or when their face scrunches up and you know they are reliving what inspired the song on the edge of their minds. The air around musicians is magic and bright. Their hands move me in ways that make my own hands grasp at themselves with excitement, anticipation, emotion. I was never blessed with music, but I'll consider myself lucky every time I see it live. 

via *

a matter of truth

I think I've discovered some of the biggest secrets in life right here, shoved into my pillow case. There are some truths out there that are so seemingly obvious, so simple that they almost become a cliche. Cliches don't have a lot of respect in this world but they are cliched for a reason, right? Sometimes being reminded of those simple truths could save a life or fix a broken heart.

Here are some of the simple truths I have discovered recently. I hope that some of these can help you too.

You have to love yourself and you have to love others. At the end of the day, all we have is humanity and our fellow man. Human beings are capable of profound feelings that I will never begin to understand, but watching the insanity that is a human existence unfold before your eyes is a gift that deserves to be treasured. Treasure each other and treasure history. History matters because for all of these years on this Earth, those people who have come before you have cried like you, laughed like you, screamed like you, bled like you. Learn their feelings and empathize with those struggles. Go to those places that are screaming with history and soak it all in because the tens of millions of people that have passed through this Earth deserve that respect and our thirst for knowledge. We are all humans and that needs to be respected and loved.

Love yourself. Please, know how lovely and good you are and can be. The potential you hold in your fingertips could build empires or crumble everything into ruins. You can be unstoppable and beautiful. Help yourself down that path toward beauty and creation by loving your body and your skin and your mind. Have fun in this life and have fun in your skin.

Do not let anyone destroy you without your consent. Here is the biggest secret I have learned, my loves: You are in charge of who is in your life and at what capacity. YOU pick who surrounds you and what energy you let in. The Daisy Buchanan's in this world are gorgeous and they offer you pretty things. When a Daisy shines their eyes across you, it is easy to feel special and singled out but I promise you that you mean nothing to them. If someone tells you they are horrible or careless, believe them. They most likely mean it. And if they don't, what a horrible and juvenile lie for attention.

I went through a break up recently that was needless and cruel but it changed me so completely. I feel as though it made me more empathetic and less so. Less patient and more patient. Lovelies, you are not required to keep venomous people in your life. I felt so destroyed by being in this relationship that I just sort of... remained because I felt too small to leave. That was a horrible lesson but I'm grateful for it. You get to control how venomous people are in your life. YOU. You decide if you make the frightening decision to make it their responsibility to change or if you are smart and adult enough to suck their poison from your life. You get to decide how to live and change.

Change is so hard, I know. But if you know what to do, change. Let that rush drive you against a wall and suffer if you have to but I promise you that everything will get better and you will be ok. Don't let yourself stay miserable. Choose to move on. If you don't, remember your life and your misery is on you and nobody else. Life is too beautiful to miss out on because someone gives you such horrific anxiety that you can't eat for five months or because someone makes you feel small.

Fill your lungs with air, breathe in and out, and love. Love until your heart is full to bursting. Then fill it even more.

I love you. So so much.

via *

the daisies

I shut the light off and bathed in the dark. I let the black velvet water come to nearly the top of the tub until only my neck and head were left uncovered. The music that was playing embraced me like you never did, seeping down through the water and sliding across my skin. It was like an underwater cathedral in my darkened tub and my body was the altar, finally learning to praise itself again.

When the humidity finally loosened my cough, I coughed up the daisies you planted carelessly along my heart. They were bright and sick and smelt like lies. After all of this, I have learned something after all. Don't trust the daisies; they keep poison in pretty packages.

via *

Dolores on the Dotted Line

The bartender sat a swan glass full of peach schnapps in front of me and called me Lolita, though he had never read the book before. He knew enough to know I was one, he said. He knew enough to know that I knew nothing at all. With 23 years, jet black hair and a few broken hearts to my name he said I knew nothing at all. He said not to call anything intense unless it had to do with sex because nothing else should ever be that intense, unless it was fucking.

I sat with my friends beside me and pushed dried up tears into the deserts in my tear ducts and let men buy us shot after shot, knowing that as drunk as my body got, my brain would never follow. I'm not even crying over you anymore is the hard part; I'm crying for my horizon and how long it will take the sun to set. I'm crying for a San Francisco apartment with exposed brick and piano keys. I'm crying for a seemingly endless fall and a chance at a warm December.

I'm crying over losing my Lolita and wanting her gone.

via *