Oh, Moon, why won't you bloom?

Turn full, and save me from this gloom,

I'm masked under a bouquet of doom,

Wishing you would whisk me away on a broom,

Oh, Sun, why won't you shine?

Make these clouds part ways and show me a sign,

Make my stars align and entwine, along with fate on cloud nine

But maybe it's a fault of mine, and the way I live my life,

Oh, Ocean, why won't you let me drown?

Why let me float with nowhere to go,

Not even a boat, all alone with an empty frown,

Until it breaks dawn, and the beauty gives me vertigo,

Oh, You, why won't you let me go? Let me free,

Break these shackles that hold me to thee,

I can feel your heartbeat, so I'll never give in,

Even if you hold me back, you're just my reflection,

Not my perception, a glass aberration,

So shatter in my rejection, my final imperfection

I went to

Dunkin Donuts

asked for a coffee

to go

laughed hysterically

when I realized

that’s all they do

I had called out sick

it was too grey

and the men making

conversation outside

seemed like

scientific specimens

the art of surviving

an academic subject

with a grade seemingly

just for participating

I watched them

as if through glass

my lukewarm coffee

in its styrofoam

waiting for its end

glances whispers rumors spark feelings without names igniting icy rage tinted jealous jarred thoughts unglued scattered lacking sentence structure because my mind has no lines no boundaries no control when wandering wanders too far i can’t retrieve the wanderers from the wilderness so i weep for the nameless soldiers of the war within the battles beneath breasts behind smiles masking chaos at its snowcapped peak cracking sliding an avalanche of aimless agony burying the excess emotions undesirable and ugly for no eyes but His and even those glint suspicious with partiality unspoken prejudice unrevealed instead put away privately but sensed and unraveled at the battlegrounds now a graveyard littered with death but bursting with new life choking out the mundane existence until the mundane departs and superficial standards still stand they still stand they still stand i can’t stand it any longer

sometimes when i write it feels more like vomit

like forcing out words that bubble in my gut and leave acid stains on my blue lined paper

its like finding the stanzas that have been etched into my bones with plastic knives,

peeling them off between the layers of skin i cover up with hello kitty bandaids

its like playing dress up with words from the mouth of a person who belongs in a white room with padded walls

like maybe if we tie a few silk ribbons and add sparkles to this monster of fear we can squint our eyes, tilt our heads a little,

and read it as poetry

it's sickening to love my body

its vulgar and perverse for a fourteen year old girl to adore and appreciate every angle and arch in her torso

how dare i love the dips in my hips and kiss the scars that line my wrists

i love my shape

i love every shadow

every glance in the mirror

i don't hate myself anymore

and i won't let them convince me that i do.

I didn't do it.

I swear on his life.

Of course I did it,

Otherwise, I'd swear on mine.

I broke his heart.

Shattered that pure gold.

Made a young man,

Feel hatefully old

I didn't do it...

Ok, yes I did.

I took his number,

Under the fingers he slipped

I shouldn't have called him.

But I was curious

Is it the devil in me

That makes life so much worse to live

I didn't do it.

Maybe I did?

I hope she'll forgive me.

But I hope she never forgets.

He said he loved me,

So did the whole lot

Take a number to

Go with this misery I've got

I didn't do it.

Break all those hearts.

I came here to confess.

Oh, but where do we start?

Mind if I light a cigarette?

When I said I liked the dark, I think I meant the almost-dark.

The greyness of the world in the makings of a storm. My bedroom when the only remaining daylight comes faint and blue through my windows. City lights through blurry eyes.

I didn't actually know the dark-- not this kind of dark. I don't like it here. Here, in this place, I never see light anymore. Or if I do, it's a camera flash and then perhaps a minute or two of seeing spots.

There's ink in my eyes, in my room, licking at my ceiling. Even if you drained the ink, you'd never scrub the blackness from the carpet, from the walls. You ask me where I am in my faith; I say, "Just follow the black footprints."

I am always crying these days. I have yet to fall asleep with dry eyes this new year. I feel sick. I am sick. Monday night I lost myself. They thought I was laughing but I was gasping, choking. Eli brought me iced water in a tall glass. I said I can't play the drums this week because I can't breathe and I can't do what they want me to. I want to be well.

I watch movies that move me. I listen to songs that make me feel. I do things that once brought joy to me. And sure, I'll smile and laugh and feel okay for a moment, but then it's gone. I don't think this is healing, I think it's distraction. Fleeting. I feel helpless.

Smiles for them, and me, a punching bag.

~

It tastes of ash and feels like halfway home.

But I glance at faded street-signs,

flickering street-lights,

and dust paints my sneakers

till I'm one with beige monotony.

Scratch out belonging from my dog-eared dictionary,

it bleeds irony.

Irony squeezing itself out through the sun,

burning my skin.

Happy days of now fade to nights drunk on days compared.

The past yanks on my puppet strings, spits on my heartstrings,

and it tastes of ash, Everything burnt up.

sometimes i just want to drop the symbolism

and just empty my head

the real and the bitter, like black coffee--

see? there i go again

you should know that i love mornings

i like cooking fried eggs and opening windows

while fog still hovers over the sidewalks

i like cleaning and sipping water from a glass

before the world wakes up

i like morning voices and sleepy eyes

i like the patience of mornings

those mornings when you've nowhere to be

or perhaps somewhere, but without panic

i feel happiest during the hours in which

the sky is still waking up from the night

i feel prettiest in the post-sunrise light

golden and warm, or perhaps blue with rain

which may be just as lovely

you should know that i hate afternoons

i hate being in between meals,

hungry but hungrier for a better body

itching all over, hair greasy from touching it constantly

tucking it behind my ears, twisting it in my fingers

feeling warm and sticky and wishing it would pour rain

because then my hair would be wet

and it would be cool on my feverish skin

i hate the monotony, the mediocrity

i hate not knowing what to do with extra minutes

and always wasting them waiting for dusk

you should know that at night i become a monster

i do enjoy nighttime, i think

but i become someone-- something-- entirely new

i cry and rarely know why

i think and think and feel all the things

i somehow wasn't able to feel in daylight

i desperately crave notifications

attention from whichever person

on my mind at the time

it's unfair to them, my fleeting infatuation

but all i want is a feeling, a sensation

and then i move on, and i'm sorry

that i'm this way

but when the sun has long set

so has my optimism

and i think about dying

my mind fixates on the space between

the top of the high school bleachers and the dirt,

the top of a building and the sidewalk

but i know i will wake up in the morning

and wonder how one could ever think about such things

when there is so much beauty in living

i am two different people

every morning, every night

and i am always switching between

back and forth

from dancing to wondering if i even deserve to dance

how do you ask for help when the other half of you is a stranger?