Another poetry collection I have been working on for a while, this one is full of half-truths, momentary backtracks, and muted confessions. Trying to love again, in some watered-down way, I write out of that valley in my mind. The dip that cradles new hearts and breaks them, as I continue to patch myself together.

(disclaimer: if you are my family, you may want to skip this one ;))

Proof.

I feel my figure tracked along the road
and I know I am there.
Breathing in front of other bodies.
When I write, it is for me,
my truth & I don’t care to offend other eyes,
but still, the thought of others weighs heavy on my hands.
Inked words given an end stop,
a pause,
where I imagine a read receipt
at each indent.

You know.

You hold this power over me.
You know you do
that’s why you loved me.
Thats why I can’t be around you.
I dream of the day you’ll cry
and I’ll feel nothing.
No pulse will slow and quick.
No drawn heart will ricochet in my soul.
I dream of this day with my eyes closed,
pressed shut so that one day
I can see you,
and see nothing.

What do I call you?

You go by many names,
and baby, so do I.
I snake like a poison
around my own ears
and listen to the city’s heartbeat
from an open window.
Costar reminds me to “notice everything”
and darling, I do.
Someone drips their words onto my skin
makes love to my lips
and touches me with sweetness
unmatched by any second-day sugar.
I dream of someone in sliding photographs,
because I am not comfortable in still frames.
Hovering, always writing,
over any page.

White lies are only white if the truth doesn’t matter.

Why can’t I stop biting my cheeks?
Like flesh pealing from raw lips
will silence your circular swarm.
All midnight thoughts pull back
to what I should have said
and what you shouldn’t have.
There is no one I love more and trust less
than you.
The pink skin inside lips and tongue are meant to heal the fastest.
So I am always ready to bleed,
each time you chew my mind.
With
every 2am earache,
every 3am tear,
every 4am conversation between teeth,
comes severed skin.
You don’t hear the words I scream at you
they are in my head
but I bear my teeth anyways.
Cannines into wet scabs
blood until breakfast.

melody.

there is another face pulling me when i listen to music
a new theme in my soundtrack
written away from the name that held too much
for too long.
but there are too many lyrics about someone else now
there is a sweet song sliding through my ears and
it builds something new inside me
stacking tracks in a direction i forgot was possible.
youth has a second coming,
i knew it was far from over
those vibrating notes were just the prelude.
i have albums in me
countless plastic photographs to gloss over
with greasy fingertips that lie
in whatever future waits for me.
songs come a few times a week
and they aren’t repeats anymore,
though the artist remains the same.
dark eyes pull me into the present,
into this morning city in front of us.

A-

I thought you could be toxic
while he seeped into my brain with his own poison,
but maybe both can be true.
Could your love for me just be a little too much?
Enough to see through his bullshit when I was blind.
And I need you,
toxins and all,
to erode all these ill intentions.
You are the only one I trust to love me
when everything goes up in smoke.
I wait for your text,
so I can divulge my soul to you.
So I can tell you everything I don’t know how to say to myself.
I can’t stand it when you are quiet.
You sleep, or work, or dance
while I roam another city
and reach for your love with the stars.

True Stories.

How can we be reduced to a grain of our sand?
How do we become defined by our final moments?
Like all true stories, there was always going to be an end to your sweet.
Your bittersweet cavity moaned loud through painkillers
and I sink into that feeling again.
It swells, the molasses you left me to drown in,
this stick of you to my skin.
Sugared sick covering every crevice
filling all empty flesh.
Then I know this quicksand sweet will become a grain.
It must, in time, despite the residue.
You- we are a part of me.
Still, you & I & we are only a moment of everything.

You aren’t the “he” my diary knows without context, and nothing is life or death anymore.

Knowledge.

What would he do if he knew I was writing about him?
Would he be colored in red?
Or know the impact of his stroke,
Know how he lands on me,
And how his fingers curl me inside.
He wants a playlist, and I want him,
Right now,
Even if I don’t know for how long.
He’ll always be alive in my memory.
Exist as a sexy patch of light
Illuminating the French ridges of my mind.
Filling the space I thought would stay empty here.
And am I scared of him or how he makes me feel?
Who am I to know.

Dear,

I would be lying if I said that your affection doesn’t draw me to you or that your free-flowing nights out don’t buy out the fifty percent of my brain that says- stupid girl, run.
I don’t know if I’ve ever known I was making a mistake while I made it before. Not like this, not for this long.
You are dangerous.
But are you really? Now that I think I know you?
Do your gentle friends excuse the sharp edge below your steering wheel like I do?
Does the sweetness of your thumb on my chin excuse what it does to faces that aren’t mine?
I know it is wrong when you throw the first punch, and it makes me want you.
You broke your hand because you are too hard, but with me, you are softer than butter. I don’t have to touch you to melt you. Just the heat of my hand begins to break you, but still, you touch me.

Grass.

You were supposed to be grass under my shoe,
Nothing.
Nothing but a blade,
Fresh-faced and green.
Climbing up my boot
Caressing my leather until I crush you.
But now I’m crushing on you,
Looking at the space below my platformed heel,
Hesitating.
You were supposed to be grass.
Beautiful and temporary,
Just for the season
Then gone.
Your last pleasure, the crunch
Underfoot.

Read Receipts.

19 seconds on the clock, and this beer falls down my throat easy.
How else are we meant to walk but hand in hand?
If I text you twice, will you smile,
or cringe away from my name?
You make me feel safe, somehow,
as I scroll and react.
So shallow against your words.
I love you.
No, I didn’t say that.
I just think about you often.
You live and lie in my brain now.
Just a tiny version of everything I know about you.
I am tempted to know you,
I hesitate, and want you.
Oh, I really do,
I want you.
I just don’t know about forever.

Again.

How many times will I let you feed me lines,
and gift you any semblance of belief?
You haven’t meant what you said in a year.
I dont believe a word from the forked tongue
you tearfully split, and for the first time
I know it’s true. I dont want to be with you.
It took one picture, and in that moment
something in me shifted.
I grew white hot
at the switches flip and here I am
finally angry with you.
It is all your fault,
this hurt. I know it is your fault,
because I looked inside myself
I scraped every hallow with responsibility,
and all I can find of mine is softness.
I am too soft.
I’ve always been too sweet.
I should have screamed at you while I had the chance.
It took a while, but I have found my sharpness.
The part of me that cuts,
and how dare you sharpen me out of understanding.
How dare you make me cry on my birthday
because you were too weak to bite your lip for one day.
How dare you decide for me what I deserve,
from everyone and you.
How dare you tell me constantly that one day
you would come back after you severed us,
because you were too scared to imagine us in a straight line.
How dare you cut down your own promises,
like they were crops only rooted in this season’s reality.
How dare you never tell me the whole fucking truth.
How dare you swear to me you’ll follow through, this time,
and convince me with drunk words that you love me.
You told me to wait for you. Not to cry because you couldn’t handle it.
And these are things I will never do for you. Not if you ask.

Ahead of Myself.

I don’t think I’ll miss you when I’m gone
but what if that’s a lie?
What if I’m the one who is falling
and your arms just happen to be there to catch me?
I keep tracing back to the time you held me.
naked and sweaty from our nightly activities,
and you just held me.
At the time, all that ran through my head was fuck.
What the fuck am I doing leading you on like this?
It’s cruel.
If you just want to be held.
But now it’s me who is thinking about it.
Why am I thinking about it?
On the street, I’ll start smiling,
because of something you said.
This is wrong,
I’m not supposed to think about you if you are not inside me.
But I see you,
The next day,
and the day after that.
And I’m okay with that.
If I never ran into you at that bar,
met you for a second time at Rennes’ universal rendezvous,
I would have never said yes again.
I was planning on fading,
a fond memory,
and now I hope to remember you for myself.
The man is supposed to miss me,
I am supposed to feel a bit guilty, shrug it off, and become a ghost.

Hurt Me.

When he warned me, i almost died
as I soaked cotton
crossed and uncrossed my legs,
one strewn across his knee now.
His hands like my hair,
they like drawing loose strands around my ear,
and turning my eyes to his.
He says he is trying to be good for me,
and after our first round romp
he stopped me still in the back of his car and held me.
He rested my head on his shoulder
and did the same.
Simple, but not what I was expecting.
Soothing our skin with forward fingertips
unafraid and unencumbered
no thought.
On his shoulder lines a dragon
inked and ridged as I feel it,
and with another kiss, we are all fire again.
His hand grips my throat, and I wish I had the words to say
harder.
Plus fort, I guess, but instead,
I place my hand over his and squeeze.
He doesn’t want to hurt me
but he should
I will hurt him.

Storylines.

Do we start our story at the beginning or the end?
I write in my pink notebook
Like it’s normal at the bar
Because it is, isn’t it?
Doesn’t everyone write while they want a cigarette?
Doesn’t everyone dance this dance?
Tongues dance a million languages between us
And I don’t know which is yours.
Between these and a thousand other tongues
I will choose you.
I choose you.
For now and as far as I can see into the future,
Which is never longer than a week.
Isn’t that enough?
I make enough mistakes in my French to speak to others with assistance
But with you I use nothing.
I am raw with you, and you try to understand me.
C’est pas nécessaire, mais pour toi c’est vrai.
C’est nécessaire.
Je suis nécessaire.

Danger.

But is it even that simple?
Or is it that feeling,
Between my legs
Between my eyes and his
Between the made beds we untuck
And ruin.
It’s his job,
To be in the dark and on the run
And maybe I’m okay with that
Because one foot props the door.
But then my stomach clenches
With each minute he waits to speak
And I want him to keep on wanting me
Like he does
Even if that means breaking him.
I cool my conscience by telling him small things,
With words he may not understand.
Maybe I let this go on,
Because I like the way he feels
With his hand on my back
With my fingers tracing secrets on his thigh.
Of course, I like how he feels,
I like our franglish jokes with their belated punchlines.
The way I talk around the right word
And his lips move slowly to teach me the sound.
Those lips curl around our words then my lips
And he is disarmed in translation.
He cannot lie,
Or maneuver his words to serve him.
There is no mincing between us.
He says what he means, and I say it again,
Because when do we understand the first time?
Our mouths take time to know each other,
And our tongues know what to say without words.
We are high on his work and my American deprivation,
Learning new ways to say it.
Exchanging expressions like currency though it’s him who pays for everything.
He wants to buy me everything,
But I can’t tell if I believe him.
I’ve been trained to discredit sincerity,
To write off promises,
To add disbelief to anything said in love.
But why would he pretend when I have given him nothing?
I tell him not to pay,
Because every coin is charged to my guilty conscience.
Because I will leave, you can bet on it.

I have nothing and everything to say to you.

Tears soak into gray on my violet sweatshirt.
You still have my favorite one,
you wanted it and told me it would be waiting for me,
with you
when I flew back to you. And I said okay.
Because I believed you when you said we would meet again.
I left clothes in drawers you cleared for me &
I wish I was colder to you.
I wish your face didn’t startle me with forgotten contours
burn-branded into me.
You took liberties, and I wish I screamed at you.
But I smiled & everything was your idea.
This was all your idea, from the beginning.
And I wasn’t angry for so long. For too long
my love for you burned so bright it charred
the split ends of my skin and clotted the flowing blood for me.
Love licked my wounds and understanding numbed the way
I never really stopped bleeding.
But this love was temporary, just like yours
and I still need stitches
& fuck you for that.
I can’t believe all the ways I let you fuck me.
Over & Over & Anyway you wanted.
Nothing was off limits for you.
I was blind. And so small. And crying.
But I loved you enough to choke down the tears
I drank them, so you didn’t have to see,
but now they are coming back up.
Soaked with bile & blood &
other indesgressions you asked me to swallow.
You’ve never seen me angry. Not really.
Its rare,
a shooting star,
burning through myself,
I go cold.
Tears fall like ice,
I speak slow,
through clenched teeth steam whistles like a kettle.
You’ve never seen me angry.
Not like this.

overwrought sunshine.

everyone calls me sunshine
it’s in my hair
lining my face
as the first thing out of their mouths,
once they run out of generics.
i’m sure there are many of us called sunshine,
can we get together,
start a club,
and talk about what our lovers say to us
what they call us and think is original?
can we hold each other,
bright and breaking
the stars of love burning,
and the gold that falls around my shoulders
can be too much.
because firing eyes can cool into ashes,
and they will understand this.
just for the minutes recorded by our sunshine secretary
can we bring a room to absolute darkness,
hang our tired arms at our sides
and we won’t have to smile.
no one has to smile,
we can laugh at the literal
our favorite color- yellow,
and the golden brows that tip the scale
of our overwrought imagery.
we are not sunny, we are the sun.
the burning ball that shows the ones who share our bed
the morning.

The Flipside.

It’s crazy to imagine someone trying to get over me.
Me?
Maybe its narcissistic,
but I crave to know what it is like
to know me,
to unknow me.
How do I look to the other eye?
How does this other mind think over me?
This other heart bleeding over my name.
I wonder what it is like to mourn me.
I used to hate the way I looked,
but I’ve never hated myself.
Because it’s me.
If I don’t like me, I can change myself.
Everything there is to hate is under my control.
Everyone else is the obstacle.
So I wonder what it is like to breathe in the wake of me,
and I ponder what must come after.

Close.

Am I scared of love again?
I don’t think so
but how can I tell?
I don’t want anyone,
but if I feel the spark,
that magic.
If I felt that familiar feeling
I think I would jump again.
Broken bones heal,
and broken hearts only have so much blood to bleed.

Uncaring.

I am sick to my stomach,
or at least that’s how my body is reacting to a lazy day with little food.
I know you like me. I can tell by the way you kiss places that aren’t my lips.
So I don’t know why I haven’t heard you today. Are you okay? Are you running? What plagues you?
Because you plague me today.
My eyes dart with every flash from my home screen.
I wish you would help me quiet you, before I realize I actually care.

I can’t lie, not to a blank page. Though I am an expert at lying without words.

Come to Class.

It astounds me,
How we all listen and understand
Words spoken and taken.
Paragraphs spell out everything
But I keep some for myself,
With you everything is half.
I half know you.
I give half of myself to you.
And you half understand this.

Games.

Is it worse for you to hurt,
or to ignore me?
I don’t know what to think.
I am sat outside a bar,
there are pool tables inside,
but I only want to play with you.
You are somewhere in the ethereal,
the dense cloud of ether,
connected, or not, to magnets in the sky.
But even if you were here,
I would still be floating,
wishing you were tuned to my skin.
You are a placeholder, not my anchor.
You aren’t heavy enough to ground my lips to the surface.

You trace your hand between swollen skin
and I feel nothing but the warm pulse of life.
No sparks fly from your fingertips,
its almost like I can’t feel you at all,
so I don’t need you to stop.
I like cosplaying as your girlfriend,
drinking your drinks,
smoking your splifs,
holding your hand in mine.
I rebuke guilt
with laughter and rejection,
don’t give me any gifts of permanence.
Don’t give me anything of permanence.

I tell you I am too young to think about staying,
but there are so many ways you don’t hear me.
I can see the hope you won’t let me crush.
Not completely.
I hear you stop yourself
from asking something too serious.
Something you will have to hear the answer to.
Declarations of union
earn you nothing but aversion,
disbelief and laughter
yet you re-itch to ask me for a reason.
I stare blankly
until you toss your feelings to the wind,
and there is fear in me that you will actually buy a ring.
Please don’t ask me anything,
I could never say yes.

Friends.

You touch our lips,
and it could be a hug.
I feel less than when I press
against best friends in dim parties.
Or the first time he broke skin,
and I asked if it was done.
Closing my eyes with the creak
wood platforms and stuffed feathers.
You push inside me and seek more,
stretching to touch iris to iris.
But when I meet your eyes like this,
it feels like lying.
Lying by acting out hope.
By inviting you to forget every rejection from my mouth,
because look how you make it gasp.

When I Grow Up.

Age comes and I believed it when it promised everything
I had ever wanted.
But the candles burned to their end without needing my permission.
With time’s abundant hands
the golden thread can be spun too long
or too short
as it carries you through
and moves, independent of our limbs.
Then and now is nothing.
An invisible wind on a clock
ticks a sleeping child older,
seeping time into bones.
Months can pass in seconds,
and seconds can be pulled into eons
and these are all just different types of waiting.
A lobby waiting room you don’t see around you,
until someone calls your name.

Stop fucking your friends.

I wish I could take back knowing you.
Because now you are a friend.
One who twists my hair around your finger,
looking at the contrast.
Smiling at my smile,
while your voice only queues this mantra I ignore.