turbulence

you take me and shake me up and down
and out comes salt and pepper
black and white and sad
all my insides are bobbing up and down within my chest
blood spurting all up and down my esophagus
because you look at me with stormy eyes
and tell me that you do not want to talk about it

waiting

i want you to be the
pause before he speaks
before he spits the word no out onto the sidewalk
like tobacco

the hesitation rife with possibility
the echo between a nod and a scowl
the insecure girl

waiting wanting feeling
his arms wrapped around her
longing for him to say yes

i do not like you

i do not like the way you talk to him
i do not like the way that you are cute
why are girls so cute always so cute
like lily with her puffy hair and black eyeliner
and b-cup bra and the way she drew little doodles
and laughed softly and acted unintelligent as if the spelling of words was so elusive
that she could not find the letters in the space between her bangs

(then i went home with her
and saw all the maps on her walls all the stars
all the space inside her chest)

when you see us you act cute, you smile
when we joke about your unimportance
(you are not a part of this)
you laugh as if you are hurt

then say that you hope our happiness fades
(laugh)
that you hope our love dies
(smile)
you are joking but it is bitter

i hear the undertone in your words yelled from the concrete
maroon sweater wind sun he is blissfully unaware but
i want to turn around and yell back at you

i hope your happiness fades
i hope your love dies
slowly and loudly
without any smiles

admit it (a decomposed journal entry)

i feel sick
i feel sick to my stomach
when i see the email in my inbox
hitting me going straight through me
like a punch in the gut i crumple around its
fisted fingers like a white sheet
no resistance

how can i continue to exist knowing the future

how can i go to that meeting
how can i not go to that meeting

i don't want to leave you in the hands
of all the other people who may want to go there
because maybe if i wanted to maybe if i had an inkling
i can stop it it i can
stop this moving
train
i can stop it
i can stop it
step in front of it with my arms spread wide open and
that will be enough

how will i ever know?

i have a clothes pin in my hair
its latching my braid clothes

i wonder if in a make believe world
it would hurt to be hung from this line

if i were paper thin it would not hurt

and i could whisper in the wind
and waver softly

Happy Sad Angry (or An Outburst of Jealousy)

just because she is good at Tetris
doesn't mean she is good at sucking dick
or late night calls
it doesn't mean that she would wake up early
to go buy you cupcakes even if it turns out that they only have the ones that
you don't like or write you small notes
and slip them in your locker
and just because she touches you on
your shoulder and acts cute and
when she says are you going on the
Rome trip she says you not you guys
and that you should totally come does not mean
that she would spend dozens of mornings going
to the places you first went together taking
pictures and collaging you in or
that you would be able to find her
under her kitchen lamp the night before your birthday
late
sewing up a small yellow book
(because she knows because she cares)
just because she exclaims in a high pitched voice and has
a good sense of humor doesn't mean
she would make the hour long trek to Queens
continually continually continually
doesn't mean she would give up her bed for you
to float in her scent and crawl under her covers
doesn't mean that she would cry cry cry cry so much so much
over you for you because of you happy sad angry
doesn't mean that she would say i love you
and mean it
and want to scream it
and want to sing it
and say it over and over again
spinning in woozy circles
her bones jutting in dangerously
as she crumpled
to the floor.

Vapid

your shiny hair
hides all the air
beneath

i wonder if it is possible to pop you

why am i so tired? i feel my mind melting
like a candlestick down my arms and my fingers
the hot wax cools
the flame flickers
then dies

a lament for love that has died

she sits in class with her
black pen cocked at an angle
and he is wearing a necklace

the curve of her face compliments
his furrowed brow
and i can imagine a worn photograph
of floral print dresses and
cocky slanted smiles

can you remember when their names came together in trains?
i remember when i imagined them smiling and young
crammed into the venue's dingy bathroom
kissing

and though they seem completely fine
her bun has only lost a few hairs
his shirt is only slightly frayed

i feel sad

displacement

we can only hold so many people in our minds.
invariably superfluous skeletons slip out fractures
in our skulls. leaking

slender bodies from our ears and from our nostrils,
we open up our lips and limbs slide slowly through our teeth.

ceramic skin full of watery souls,
the trails of beings drip like bread crumbs back behind
the forgotten strewn like snow salt
drying footsteps


and you will never be one of those figures,
the ones lying by the wayside.
and you will never be one of those figures,
the ones cracked under my toes.

i kiss you pressed up against
your middle school's back doors

this is not a mistake

i think its maybe because even after a year
i am still slightly unnerved by how you once were

this kiss is a sense of dominance
this kiss is a dog peeing a circle of territory
and it tastes like strawberries

it tastes warm and blurry like
a small bottle of gin shared
on the steepest slope of riverside park
in the cold

oh my god
how can you be
so immature

i don't understand
i don't understand
i don't understand
i don't understand
i don't understand
i don't understand

just because you are mad at me
you cannot victimize me

these petty things draw curses on my skin
draw tears from my eyes
this subtle meanness this hatred

and i don't understand

i need to write an essay
i'd rather write poetry

i'd rather think about the turning
glass organs within my body
that shatter and pierce my innards
as they please and yet the cold
smooth curve of glass against my cheek
gives me relief

i'd rather think about emma lee's poem in which
a person unclothed became clothed and how i lived
what she wondered about and tried to understand if it
was as strange as she thought

i'd rather imagine you in your patriots sweatshirt
on the bench hugging me and telling me that this is what you'd miss
your eyelashes in my ear my cheek awkwardly angled against your shoulder

i'd rather imagine myself lying in this bed a year ago
at a loss for words to describe the first intimate touches of skin

i'd rather just be

a spell to be anywhere but here (from poetryclass)

"take my arms off this table oh gentle wind

i see you tickling the trees, the leaves' soft underbellies

hairy, warm and yellow, run your fingers over me and braid my tears into a river

rushing roaring loud into my eardrums like airplane sounds and crowded highways

and the ocean noise of the late night B train when my ear is pressed hard against the rattling window

snatch me up between your gusts, hurl me violently

so that i am pitched far forward and fly over the burning sun.

scorch my eyebrows!

burn my eyelashes down to ashes!

i will no longer cry with eyes like morning dew

over clovers with three petals

then, let me land in a fisherwoman's boat

blue-painted sharp and chipping scratchy wood

weave splinters into my bare palms so i will not forget

and let me sit in solace there

in peace under the rising moon so hulking large

that i am scared

and i tremble

oh kind oh dear oh skillful wind

take my arms from this table make my fingers quake and

shake the fragile nature out of me! so when i shatter i reveal.

and stretch me thinly 'cross the sky

before you press your violet lips unto my heart

and puff one breath

send me

falling

paper-feathers-dust-mote speed

it matters not where i will land

as long as it is far from here

and i no longer where i stand"

yellow car

i can already see you driving
away in your yellow car

your tracks leave scars on the tan snow
open and swollen
crying red wine tears.
your exhaust coughs
toxic smoke into my mouth,
ferments my inner cheeks

in your shiny rearview mirror
i stumble over saffron toes,
drawing myself tearstained paths 
to follow in spirals

i hate spanish

i don't care if it is my
native tongue

tongues are gross anyway

i don't care if it is supposed
to slip out of my mouth effortlessly
while my tin spoon rattles against
my cafe con leche cup
and i tap my painted nails on the domino
table considering my options

i hate it

shit fuck shit fuck shit fuck shit

my eyes are red and itchy

and i wanted you to come to the movie

but you didn't

i don't even have allergies

what the fuck

An Ode to Aaron (my love)

run your fingers over me lightly

like water

over smooth grey stone

i want your hands

on my

thighs

my legs 

my arms

rinsed with your touch

in my mind

i hear the trickle 

   sounds of 

your voice

reflect

your face

on pale

    blue surfaces

      flushed

skinny dipping

in the pools

   i stare

        back