I wanna put this feeling on a bumper sticker but I can’t describe my current state of mind.

I’ll kick inspiration in

the gut before I push

through this writer’s block. the

process of letting my sadness rot

while I attempt to reconstruct a

face from my disproportionate memory

is a plagued road not taken.

and yes, I’ll sit here as the salt hits my

face and my innocence slips away.

I’d tell you all the scandalous

things I’ve taken part in; such as reading

past dark and driving in the rain,

skipping church to paint my

nails another color. but I’m letting

the current purple hue chip

away because it reminds me

of that third sunday in july

change the weather when you return from oblivion

I knew him only blind, as if time had been grabbed by a force of nature. Humanity spun and sputtered when I described to him the way I felt perched among the churchgoers, piercing through my mother’s wall of anxious fear of my tendency to burn bridges before they’ve been fully built. Time stood still; I wanted to breathe again, to feel my lungless angst turn to stone in the presence of his nomenclature. If you asked me what falling in love felt like, I’m not certain I could regain the capability of telling you. Imagine the world is burning and never stopping, idolatry fixates on a facade depicting your happiest memories and impressionable made up scenarios. He adores your damning sense of dread, the screaming song of nature clawing at your ankles, and the way you dress your body in the world’s finest deceit. My soul had been bludgeoned and the obnoxiously green, glittery eyeshadow borrowed from a sister was smeared in obscured bits upon my flesh. If I had known that leaving you on the other side of the moon would’ve eased my heartsickness, I might’ve filled your soul with balloons.

confessing to what I want but cannot grasp

love and war dawned on me

when my knees hit the ground,

running like small children when

their mother rings a bell

I mix my emotions for you

at the drop of a hat, into the melting

pot they go

I twist my hands like your

grandmother twists licorice

around her fingers;

strawberry was michael’s favorite

I know because he told me

he told me about the way you

adjust your socks when you’re

reminiscent of your youth and

the playlists we made for mama back

in 2016 and how your middle name

is just the old southern baptist church

hymnals spelled backwards and

burned twice in the name of apathy

and simply for the sake of a lullaby

you told me the act of proving

yourself to someone through

artificial loving was over-promoted,

and that I would learn to regret

the way I give my heart away

yet still, I want to taste the venom

I want to learn the poison

you tell me to save myself,

save myself,

save myself,

I hear you say softly before

I drown out your words in a red

velvet ocean of angst fueled exhaustion

and satin rebellion

his eyes are the color of dirt and I want to see them closer

cold coffee satisfies her

needs on days when the soles of

her sneakers are holier than the

pastor’s sunday sermon and when

the boys won’t leave her alone,

afraid of her nurturing ways that

reminds them of their mothers;

strong and resilient and unfeeling

she’s destined to burn libraries if we

let her read too much into the world

now tell me,

is it the way she wears her hair on the

mornings when the weather

drains her empathy and goodness?

if she let them I bet they’d

cut her open and sever her kisses

they’d steal her childhood heroes and

artificial poems

he’s brewing a doomsday

trophy wife mindset within her,

determined to drain her of this brand

of godless femininity

and somewhere there is a soul that

isn’t fueled by testosterone-induced

nonsensical values that dreams of

writing sonorous music on her

skin with his lips

and then both boy and girl will find

that grief is healed by momentary

pleasures of spontaneously unbridled

teenage euphoria

things that make me tremble in my grandest form

he wants laser tag makeout sessions

I want dark chocolate and

a good pair of overalls

he wants electrical currents

felt through my fingertips

I want to breath life into

the other end of the telephone line

and flowers as dead as my bones

he wants to build a home with walls

as green as the countryside

I want to hold my body softly as I

slowly lose my way

he wants girls with blouses

that are simpler to unbutton

and bra hooks easier to unhinge

I want to burrow in the

ground unaccompanied

he wants to touch my scars

to heal them

I want to rip myself open again

desperate to be easy on the eyes

he wants to know what heaven feels like

but these wounds taste like hell

I am poetic in nature, though

scandalously snide

he wants to gift me grief

wrapped with a bow

I want to burn his ambitious nature

from the inside out

oh, love, I want to ruin his

silver screen teenage dream

you are among the loveliest things

I have exhausted all of

my options, the things that

give me hope

I am sick of the way I shatter

like glass when I see you,

and when I hear you speak

I don’t like the way my mother likes

you, or the way you say her name

and the thing I hate most is the way

I can see it now; the two of us

the future of a couple of misfit

children, born on the day when the

sun decided to slit her own

wrists and scorch the ends of

her hair, all for the sake of someone’s

misplaced happiness

and dear, please let me breathe you in

tell me about how you like

your coffee on mornings long before

the sun has risen

I know you hate the silence, honey

but let me hold your heart

dangling by the strings attached to

my bluish fingertips

on a night when the moon

spiraled into abhorrent turmoil

just once, just once

honeysuckle apathy on a saturday night

he poured something

sweetly nauseating

on his hands, soaking

through his jeans into

his flesh

but it never burned like

I once did in our

home town

throwing knives at

trees in my backyard,

following old trails that

led far beyond the

property line, praying to

God and asking for a

rebound

a rebirth

crimson on my fingertips

I bow my head and

cover my sins in

cosmic teenage love, drenching

my body in the

world’s bruised symphony

laugh like hell; you shall be dead soon enough

tonight I screamed

so loud over the cars

and the trucks, hoping that maybe

I’d shatter the atmosphere

break the barrier

oh, honey

holding your hand in a darkened

room is worse than

launching my awkward

humanity over a

bridge, hurdling towards death

but I hit the ground running and

my angel wings have returned

I live,

I live,

I live a little

too much, too hard

come up from the ocean waves

feeling a little too happy, I raise my

eyebrows in suspicion

concerned that maybe the sun

had burned my mind by reading

the local news and

thinking that another human

could fill my lungs with

fire and pretty words

when in reality I am plagued by

my apparent existence

tonight I screamed

so quietly in an empty parking lot

where not even the asphalt

beneath my sneakers could

feel my knees tremble in the

presence of God

I live,

I live,

I live in my own divine nightmare

the secret souls of gemstone children

melancholy-prone girls will learn how to

burn secrets in their youth

from the youngest age they are able, their mother’s teach them to

pluck the feathers from heartstrings

and leave the rest where you found it

the typical conveyers of the world

are the ones who like to tear you apart and dispose of your

goodness, happiness, smiles, flowers morals

they turn us into bigger things

which sounds good, yes

it rolls off our honeysuckle tongues

in an inherently lovely, seductive manner

and that’s where the dangers lies

because biggest must equal

better, right?

isn’t that the way the world works

these days?

hypothermia

southern gothic

churches line the

landscape of this town

in such an

orderly manner that I am afraid

to ask if it was

the hand of God that placed them

this way

railroads tracks that lack arms

the ones that let you know

when a train

is due before you step out

in front

and catch your death

sweet boys in

country grocery stores

that say things

like “hey, brown eyes”

and when you look out

into the woods

behind your house

a haunting image of

moonlight can

be seen through

the trees

and you wonder,

wonder, wonder,

if you went to bed

with soaking wet hair

the world might like you a little

better tomorrow

and maybe,

maybe, maybe,

if you drank your sister’s

perfume at 3 am

he’d kiss you

a little bit softer