“so you can practice forgiveness.”

–responses from God during meditation, Tuesday, 11:22 p.m

once i swallowed a penny
and
wished it turned into a sword.

”the well”

“Do you know the difference between me and a crusade?”

+ (You had a war about you too.)

“Nothing.”

–Responses from God during meditation, March 13 2017, 11:32 pm

perhaps you have bewitched me
with your promise of violets
in the middle of February
when there isn’t a single living ecosystem to be found
anywhere but inside of us,
but I have been roving the black ice
in thick socks and high boots,
my dead brother’s sweatshirt and the story
to woo,
robed in stifled violence and 
pride for a job well done
from the other clever orphans
seeking solace in intemperate nights
and bare, blue chest;

iced & they offer me fresh fingers,
long necks to lick
or strangle
depending on the grace,
sudden cries to smother
with my unshaven underarm.
we play gentle radicals
with our leg hair and pixie cuts
and never waste our bleached teeth 
on anything less than an audience if it’s a 
protest we are performing.
we make sure we are seen, heard, have signs and
wallow with perfect timing.
swap books, scarves,
antidotes for too much silence.
they give me twenty five excuses
for everything,
they don’t believe in flowers
or permanent lovers.

besides,

will you still lick my wounds if I
taste like someone else’s mother?

“cradle”

“and it’s difficult to hear anything anyway through all the traffic, and ambition.”

-Mary Oliver

Depression is like a void that keeps on taking. I was listless in April, when I should have been impatiently waiting for dandelions. I was still. His hand in mine and my head was in pieces. I was still. He offered me water. I was still. A void. Avoid. I was still and, God, it must have been five of me, screaming inside for what felt like, so much time.

My friends threw me a party to celebrate me getting out of my house jail, which admittedly, was only ten days long. My veins were like a desert by that time. I could hear my bones crack up the stairs. I was thirsty but resolute. I would be dry. I had not a drop to drink the entire time out of fear they would find me at my house, passed out, ankle bracelet still plugged to wall. Dead. I would grow flowering cactus from my liver, Indian Ricegrass from my ankles. Dry.  I insisted on only weed for the night. 

“I’m done drinking!” I screamed over The Limousines and pulled my fishnets up. “Just drugs!” 

Someone passed me a blunt. Fifteen minutes later, someone passed me a flask and I was cool with that. 

Woke up in vomit on the floor.

they’re coming for me and I can’t seem to

find a headstone small enough to
frame this spot,

look you in your green thumping eyes,

move like I own it,

finish you

or find the light switch.

I can whimper in a book

I inscribe to the tune of a dead boy’s voicemail

that I forgot to erase countless times

but stories only count if they rhyme:

I can do tempo,

I can do pace-perfect violence,

I can do boudoir,

I can teach others how to love in silence

(the secret is to nibble their ear lobes
in heels & then
die
quietly)

I can do you and walk away

someone else ate my little heart out:

my brother is still dead,

my lashes still dry

the sheets are wet.

better write it