A person I used to know

Freshly shaved, sun-bronzed kneecaps touched each other

From opposite ends of pretzeled calves and thighs.

Toenails sparkled with fresh paint.

Your trail of salt slipped off a round, rosy cheek

Crashed onto my leg and fell in to the carpet –

A dark pink, almost red, plush that bore witness

To all we could only tell each other.

When I used to look in the mirror,

I would see your eyes – deep brown,

Eager to share the world they knew,

The world you knew.

I had your deep brown and you had my hazel.

I knew every inch of you, every outside and inside.

Even the unspokens had beds in my ears.

I was comfortable.

But now in that shiny glass,

I don’t know deep brown.

I can only find hazel.

I search my inside for your outside

But can only find the already spokens.

My kneecaps don’t know the touch of yours

And no ruler can remeasure the inches of you I’ve lost.

My outsides are itching from the screaming of my insides.

My eye-sockets don’t like hazel, they yearn for deep brown.

My hairs are standing –

My insides won’t stop churning, screaming, yearning.

They itch for deep brown, soft bronzed kneecaps, wet glimmering toenails

And that salty moisture right before it disappears into dark pink plush. 

Liberate

The knowledge I seek can’t be bought

I can’t find it in a textbook or my scribbled notes

My professors read from their lecture outlines

Their words rest on my ears, but quickly fly away.

I can’t be confined to these four walls

Studying, reading literary anthologies, writing English papers.

I want the freedom to be wrong,

Make bad decisions,

Know the right answer but never internalize its solidarity.

I want to question everything,

Every truth, theory, and thesis.

I want to question my own existence,

Cut my skin open to see if I bleed poetry

And when words don’t fall out of my wrists,

I want to smear canvases with my blood

And sell them as artwork on the streets.

I want to escape classrooms and assignments,

Fuck everything up and make it right again

Rearrange the circumstances I have no control over.

I want to run away to the Big Apple

Lose myself in a maze of skyscrapers,

Live in a shitty closet-sized apartment

And carry pepper spray for fear of being mugged.

I want this pen to save me from a life of normalcy.

I want to wrap myself in disappointment

And wait to breathe until right before suffocation

To prove that I am stronger;

Failure is not a reality.

I want to build a rocket out of memories

Ignite them and fly to the sun,

Feel the burn on every inch of my body

So I know I’m still alive.

I want to find the comforts that lie in sin

And disrupt them with the pain of forgiveness.

I want to uncover redemption and throw it in the ocean.

I’m not broken and I don’t need saving.

I want to be more than a test score and a graded paper.

I want to make myself something, anything.

I want to be more than a college degree.

Brown eyes, skater shoes

Skater shoes climbed in my window at night

And found a home next to my converses

Skater shoes watched me learn to dance,

Tried teaching me to run instead.

Skater shoes rested at night

Cozy, next to my bed

And bare feet touched mine while the moon rose and fell

But soon those shoes wore thin;

Too much dancing.

Too much running.

Brown eyes, skater shoes; we fell in love too young

My converse learned the meaning of solitude.

Then all too easily, all too comfortably

Skater shoes were at my window again

Tracking their mud into my bed

Finding their old home next to my converses.

Bare feet danced together,

Bare feet warmed each other until the early morning.

Skater shoes stayed,

They laughed and loved.

Skater shoes were home next to my converse

Brown eyes, skater shoes; we fell in love too fast

For soon those soles wore thin

And sock feet touched the blacktop as they ran

Skater shoes danced in the night

Skater shoes danced often

Danced without my converses

Danced alone.

Brown eyes, skater shoes; we fell in love too far away

Alone, my converses quit dancing,

While skater shoes were grinded to a halt.

Desperation, necessity, and longing returned skater shoes to me.

My converses apologize.

Skater shoes promise to do better.

Brown eyes, skater shoes; we fell in love too young, too fast, too far away

Brown eyes, skater shoes; we can learn to dance again.

Muddy Waters

I had never seen muddy waters so inviting

But the warm pools ahead beckoned to me

And gently murmured my name in soft ripples

And I, finding it impossible to resist the call,

Stripped away my pretentious guise.

I danced in the shadow of my vulnerability

To the suggestive call and response of two drums

One with a boisterous cadence, steady and sure

The other merely an echo rising from the wind

Lightly repeating each confident beat.

I danced in the light of brown desert mirages

As the two drums learned to beat as one.

My body was separate from my mind,

Responding to the sweet summoning of the waves.

Those gentle tides, they saw the dance.

I had never seen muddy waters so inviting,

They swirled with a tender delight

The drum beating stopped, my dance suddenly halted.

The muddy waters were no longer mirages

And my desert thirst was satisfied.

Your Breath

Your warm, gentle breath on my neck excited me

Led me willingly into the night

And laid me down under the stars.

Your breath poured reassurance over my body

Soaking me in your love

Your breath, already hot, slowly began to boil

Bubbling out of your mouth

Lies spilling and falling

Marinating my skin with your hate.

Your breath took me hostage

Made me yours forever.

Your breath colored the air with pretty words

Tricking me into thinking that your breath could keep me safe.

While I lay young in your arms,

Your breath slithered down my neck and back

Formed shackles around my wrists and ankles

And your breath told me it was all okay.

Your breath knew this game too well.

Your breath fooled me, took me.

Your breath lingered on my pillow long after you left

Your breath never promised to return,

But still I waited.

Your breath is miles away, but still it’s near

Sending its sentiments through text messages and missed calls

Finding its way back into me.

Your breath has turned to cement around my feet

Grounding me in your deceit.

Ballad of the Victimized

Dear Attacker,

I hide from inviting smiles

Betrayed by predators’ lustful eyes;

But why does it feel so good to have a sweaty weight

Pressing into me the most delightful, painful memory?

An enticing drug laced with flashback and regret,

Catalyzing the painful minutes after

When I sit naked in the bathroom and cry.

It was you that did this.

Your curious eyes, your unsure body

Exploring and navigating

Taking what wasn’t yours,

What was never really mine.

I can still hear your mocking laughter

Each night as I talk myself to sleep,

Listening carefully that your 2 am footsteps

Never make it to my door again.

Dear Mother,

I do it all for you

To make you proud

Every morning I choke down a suicidal dose of emptiness

Because what mother deserves two fucked up kids?

I do it all for you

To become your perfect life-size Barbie

Eager to be everything,

To meet each of your unrealistic expectations,

Hoping that one day

When you wake up

You’ll remember that you have a daughter.

Hoping that one day

You’ll remove the courtroom from your blinded eyes

And you will see

That my plastic has scars and bruises

And that your hateful words are etched into my skin.

Self-consumed, worthless, piece of shit.

BITCH.

I do it all for you

So that one day when you see me

You’ll see what you’ve done to me.

Dear Attacker,

I am a prisoner

My body is a jail cell

A breeding ground for insecurity

I am a prisoner,

Chained by the mistakes other people made out of me

Dear Mother,

I am not perfect,

I am a cut out paper doll

Not good enough to be plastic

I am not perfect,

But I’m your daughter.