i want to be considered an adult eager to think & capable of thought. i want to be able to express my thoughts without having anything to fear & i want, also, to be listened to.

$4.99

my clothes feel too big,
& my bed feels too empty.
so i keep throwing things around
making messes on my floor
to fill in the vacant space.
colouring the carpert
red & black.

my sweetest memory lies
there, tangled & woven into
sweat-laden sheets. a thoughtful,
steady drag of cigarette;
a cloudy gaze beyond a
tinted window--recall the
shape of her against me.
her hand on my cheek, on
my neck, on my chest.
a sigh, a moan.
a whisper.

a kiss on palest skin.

beautiful.

I'm 

so 

tired

of not 

having 

the 

courage 

to live 

a normal, 

boring 

life.

in your own words...

i spent hours
trying to write
you something

long,

thoughtful,

and beautiful.

but every time

my pen 

touched the paper.

all i could think was...

i love her too much to even breathe.

please. never leave.

i was only trying to spell a loss.

i keep hiding 

little 

notes for 

you, sending 

them through 

text 

in it's various 

form. i just 

want you 

to know... i 

think about you. 

i wish 

i could write 

in this. 

i wish 

i would write 

anything 

down anymore.

please... are you listening?

last tuesday.

shit gets me high--that's what i can say for it. the emptiness in my stomach--the well digging down--the nausea--the aching won't leave me. it's profound--consuming. i feel like curling up, serpentine on the floor. crying. i need a thousand pounds of heroin. i need to drown myself in pills and liquor. 

or maybe--maybe--i just need to get sober.

my head keeps going around like this.

sitting legs crossed inside my double-wide bedroom closet. shirt sleeves dangling, brushing by my ears. she's cooking a cotton shot while i'm nodding off, desperately crying a pathetic plea for her to tell me everything is okay.

i wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. not fuck, like in the movies. not even have sex. just sleep together, in the most innosent sence of the phrase. but i lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and i was gawky and she was gorgeous and i was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. so i walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, i was a drizzle and she was a hurricane.

just a thought.

what a beautiful face
     i have found in this place.

i felt proud of myself talking with college literature majors & realizing i knew more about their topics than they did. i don't know what it is about this feeling of superior understanding & comprehension that makes me feel accomplished. maybe it's nice to be reminded i'm more than a drug addict and a drop out, and i'm more than a complete deadbeat. maybe i'm just a huge mess of wasted potential.

ffff

i'm a horrid information hound.

i'm a loveless, loveless lover.

i'm too animated to ever feel dead.

i've got great taste in music.

i've got an optimistic outlook on life.

i've got a forgiving heart that breaks too easy.

i would do almost anything for the people i love.

i would buy the world for you.

i would leave you alone.

i can be ignored.

i can be forgotten.

i can be replaced.

fuck.

fbp2.

mneh. love is for pussies

anyway. i know absolutely 

what i want from myself.

i want to help people. 

i want to save people.

i want to change the world

for just one person.

but i never really know

what i want from

anyone else.

my god. i'm pathetic.

what i wouldn't do.

this doesn't really mean much writting down like this, but i've been thinking it a lot lately. you: i want to save you. i don't know what from, but it's always in the back of my mind. so badly. i hardly even see you anymore. but i want to save you.

maybe that's my problem.

you remind me of a lot of things, like magpies & sylvia plath. i guess you're just that indie in my head. & black embroidered tights with runs on the knees. & empty beer cans. it's ridiculous how much you skip across my mind... even know: i wonder if you'll ever read this. i think you're a pirate, girl. it's all your golden teeth. & it's your ten bony fingers, skeleton pointing, holding a cigarette. i want to show you my stupid tattoo & i want you to run your hands over it while we lie in the grass--i think it would cure the itching. mostly; mostly. i want to buy you a bunch of pretty sun-yellow daisies. & a pack of marlboro's wrapped in pink paper with a red ribbon tied around it in a bow. i want to leave it on your porch & doorbell ditch you like i did to all of my juniour high crushes. maybe i'll do that now.
     god. i wish i knew where you lived.

ebony curls.

pretty, pretty palms.

thank god.

it takes strength to be firm,

it takes courage to be gentle.
it takes strength to stand guard,

it takes courage to let down your guard.
it takes strength to conquer,

it takes courage to surrender.
it takes strength to be certain,

it takes courage to have doubt.
it takes strength to fit in,

it takes courage to stand out.
it takes strength to feel a friend's pain,

it takes courage to feel your own pain.
it takes strength to hide your own pains,

it takes courage to show them.
it takes strength to endure abuse,

it takes courage to stop it.
it takes strength to stand alone,

it takes courage to lean on another.
it takes strength to love,

it takes courage to be loved.
it takes strength to survive,

it takes courage to live.

littoral minutes.

i wish i could say that was the moment i knew i would do anything for her.
     the moment i knew i loved her.


but it wasn't.
that's just the thing with her. there are no "aha!" moments. nothing world breaking. it's just like a steady incline. like water rising. fluid, swelling thoughts of "my god... my god...

how could anyone ever be so beautiful?"

i'm still too scared.

i once loved a man with black circles around his eyes. blue eyes. like ice floating on unfrozen white water. the sort that tends to bend light and warps it into spheres and glares and fuzzy specks of dust. his fingers were sooty, his nose would bleed. but the things he said were beautiful when he found the strength or motive to move his lips. he always forgot to wash his clothes. i was told i was condemning myself to loving a dead man. i was told that no one should live for the buried.
he's just sick.
he's just sick.

but only i was sick for loving him.

stupid.

because you're special to me.
and not special as in ""special""-special.
     nothing like... a disorder. or being slow.
special as in you are the only person i want to trust.
everything in my heart.
everything in my head.
special as in i want to tell you everything,
     even though i'm terrified of you.

i hate you and your brain, dr. phil.

defining moments
10. 'skinny love'
9. christmas with ky
8. nights at the mary's
7. favourite park
6. heroin & my wrists
5. adderall & mountains
4. felonies & fear
3. rehab
2. shay
1. sarah

critical choices
7. leaving ky
6. kissing brooklyn
5. dropping out
4. calling from jail
3. coming clean
2. happiness & marlboro's
1. letting go of anger


pivitol people
5. kylar weisman
4. grey otis
3. derek zabriskie
2. shay bender
1. sarah prestidge

mynameistrinity.

the fluttering of delicate wings, like a bird caged in my head. throwing itself against bone time and time again, fighting to return to the world. a small ticking inside of mind. there's a silent tapping on my heart. it's there, in her yellow eyes. it's in the softest shades of cherry blossom pink. sun freckling on the ridges of my shoulders. electronic popping of eighth grade headphones shocking my ears. your soft hands, my back pocket.

strawberry palms. smoked cedar scent.

i'll tell you everything about being free.

when skies are grey.

for 30 days and for 30 nights.
charismatic criminal i am,
hoards of lost souls and newly born bruisers
knew my title, knew my identity:
they all called me
     SUNSHINE.

asldkfj.

please.

please.

please.

never tell me that you love me.

just stop.

'cause i really can't handle it.



there are all these radiant bursts of life that inspire,
      but they're wasted by my inability to hold onto them.



 

extremely loud and incredibly close.

what about little microphones? what if everyone swalled them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? when you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. one weird thing is, i wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which i know about, but don't really want to know about. that would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. and at the finish line at the end of the new york city marathon it would sound like war.

elizabeth kubler ros

the most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. these persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. beautiful people do not just happen.

that is why...

i try 
to put my 
feelings 
into 
words, but 
it never 
works. things 
get mixed 
up, jumbled 
along the way. 
starts 
to feel 
like 
i'm just 
going on 
and on 
about nothing. 
constantly 
thinking 
but it won't 
reach my 
lips. my 
voice... gone. 
i just 
wish you 
could look 
into 
somebody's 
eyes and 
everything 
you want 
to say is 
right there. 
i don't 
want to 
tell 
anyone 
anything. i 
want them 
to 
see it 
for themselves.

who needs the bird.

once i held you tightly in my arms, your ears against my chest. i stood with you and softly reassured: you are the only girl i would throw away a cigarette for. and she, one hand on my knee and one hand on my cheek, said she would never understand how you could walk away. the moon like sun in my eyes. chain smoking reds in the aftermath of rain. go on and drink away my memory. try your very hardest. i will show you co-dependence. i will show you pathetic. i will show you desperation. and now, let me reassure you this:

standing, smoking, barefoot in my lawn.

i'm still smiling--my hope for you is gone.

you will never hurt me.

  

 

the home depot.

white lines painted over cheeks--immaculate ethereal pillars; drawn smeared across your eyelids visceral, carnal bars. a collection of tiny mirrors with frosted glass & golden frames adorned the surface of cheap metal rods. parts to a black rodent's cage. white walls streaked grey from dripping water & steam aided in destroying material junk i threw at them, like catastrophic sheets of snow & ice. bruising, shattering, tumbling onto dusty floorboards. piling into rolling drifts of dripping clothes, rusting garden tools, torn legal documents, splintered wood & splintered furniture. frigid. i could always see my breath in fleeting puffs. wintry.

recall nail-bitten fingers probing & pushing, sweetly stroking shallow skin stretched tightly over a beating, pulsing ribcage. i felt like i was only ever watching films from a vault. i saw it happening, & i never really felt it, but i heard it echo in my ears. a loving gesture reduced to the hollow sound of knuckles rapping timidly on panels of a distant door. finances, emotions, relationships, humanity, reality--amounts to nothing more than far off sound & chaotic, muffled din. don't even try to reach me; all words have lost their meaning. self destructing & forgotten in a dark & tepid tide.

rolling shoulder over shoulder from my twin sized mattress into smells of hazy weed smoke, stale beer stains, liquor lining kitchen walls, bic's blazing under burning tinfoil. coat sleeves & thin sheets sticky with sweat had wrapped around the both of us, & i dragged her halfway down with me. paused, lying still, my stomach on a spread of broken down cardboard boxes. my fingers dragging along sickening smooth paper parts, washed with...

     the narrator's voice speaking inside my head right to my hostile little face. "yes, these 

     are bruises from fighting. yes, I'm comfortable with that. i am enlightened." 

 you were awake. my buckled knees drove me to the corner. you were watching. i drew out seven lines of orange & white powder on the keyboard in my room that wasn't mine. you asked me: 

     "what are you doing?"

     "fixing breakfast so i can go to work."

silence responded & i--newly numb, awake, asleep, refreshed & worn--walked away & left you lying in my bed. locked the door behind me in the same clothes i fell asleep in. lit joint pressed flat between my finger & my thumb, i wanted to smile.

     & you never saw the works.

hooting and howling.

you:

you are lying. you are young and hopeless and lost and you are not alive, to me or to anyone else. how long have you been buried six feet underneath the sucking, steaming mud of your self-given delusions? you're never going to find a way to breathe down there. there is nothing but empty space in the middle of you, where circuits should be running down and connecting your mind and reality. you probably cut them yourself to tailor to your needs your threads of thought and fake vintage, indie-looking lifestyle. it would hurt me to watch if i still cared about you. but, god, i'm so relieved that i don't love you.

you:

you need to know what you're into, i'll tell you: i'm a goddam piece of work. you flow like smoke from blister lips, to car interior, then out the rolled down window avoiding oncoming traffic, escaping into air forever. drifting away. but that's just who you are, and i know that. you never knew me back then, but empty soft packs and empty pill bottles lead me to act just like him and him and him--i'm a drug addict, too. i wish i could explain to you how i'm like him in reverse; fully alive with smudges of who i was last year. i'm vicious and i'm wild--when i'm like that it's so hard to stop myself. and i'm sorry.

you:

i actually really miss you. i was thinking to myself today what the best night i've ever had was, and it was you. my god, it was beautiful. it hurt to know you're gone and probably won't come back, but remembering made me smile really big and stupid and my eyes got watery. not from crying, just from smiling so much. you probably don't remember, though. you probably would argue the details if i bothered to talk with you about them. you probably wouldn't carry a conversation with me in the first place, anymore. and now i will never really smile when i see you. and that's how i know you're gone.

and you:

...

god.

i don't even know

where to

begin.

stay the fuck out of my life.

don't ever tell me that you love me.

i will rip your heart away.

and i will swallow it 
whole.

i've been meaning to say...

lying on my back on the earth's dead stomach, he's lying on his stomach on top of me. clawing at my shoulders, biting my neck until it's sore. overcast skies. brown shirt. brown grass. brown cigars. my chest sinking through my bones and sucked down into brown brown mud.

i feel so naive and so childish for trusting and loving people like i do sometimes. and it hurts to believe that since i've let her go, she'll be gone forever. and it's not even her anymore. i hate how cryptic i am when it's night time and i'm alone but i need to wake up early for work. early to bed, you know? i miss everything. need to copy and print and stack all through the midday sun--no cigarettes, no freedom, no meaningful boredom and meaningful conversation never more.

shit.


 

money for a smoke.

stacking piles of trash and junk to walls through the door of my bedroom, there's a note buried somewhere in adderall notebooks and empty pill bottles that says you always make me remember the tiny things. i'm gaining weight fast and i want to dig my fingers through the surface of my skin, bury my hands in fistfuls of greasy, spongy fat and throw slow, off-yellow coloured punches at the ground. i'm finished with these too-human drives and impulsion. i can live off of only smoking cigarettes and pretty words. i'm going back to how it was before, damnit. i'll stop again when house arrest is over, but i'm going back to how it was before. 'cause it's been three weeks since i've had my pills, i think. i can't know for sure, really. i don't remember anything. i wake up, go to work, sort papers, come home and sleep. same process the next day. and the next. i don't remember sunrise, and i'm not conscious for sunset anymore. my life has taken on this carousel feel to it. i see the same faces, the same bodies of beasts running in circles for hours and hours, day in and day out. and i hear the same music, i hear the same laughter and the same happy sighs and all of the ignorant promises. but all i feel is spinning, the repetition of perpetual motion. holding on to a golden pole driven through a prize horse's head, my knuckles turn white and i need to close my eyes and count my breaths when i even hear her name.

can you believe it's only been a week?

in arcadia.

i sound 

my 

note, playing 

sweet and 

low on my 

pipes 

of reed 

while she 

wails about 

the 

mountain-top.

yellow eyes dressed up, asked me twice for two queens. compared our thighs in the shower, but hers were more like wrists decorated in scars & sepia coloured burns. the girl asked to come over & visit me, beg me for a kiss & i punished myself by saying yes. & i lost my thoughts again; i'm feeling i might find them trapped, lurking under iron rods. & all this retching bile puddled up between my tongue & my teeth, slipping from spiced lips & staining my shirt & pillow, dripping on my toes. i wanted to cry & run, but all i managed were some slow soft moaning sighs. prayed she wouldn't hear me. i pled with god to have her look the other way. but she took my hand & led me to the yard. we burned last year. we burned the beast & all the dread hollowed in my chest away & branded instead little stars & hearts. i took her words & wrote them in my hands. i begged myself to stand while my ankles bled & cracked, but when i wave goodbye the crowds will see my heart. 

pillow talk from a mile away is better than holding on to syrinx & meaning drifing into stale black air. all i am is pan, i will spend forever chasing ekho until thamus cries across the rolling ocean--the cry "great pan is dead."

deja vu.

for you, babygirl! it's only january, but you're right: it's a little fun!  

we were both born dirty liars, you know.
grabbed me under my skeleton arms and picked me up and looked through me in my empty eye sockets.
i wasted
time
touching your
hips, giving you
kisses really
soft and
careful because
your tongue
was sore.
 you grabbed my neck. & i kissed you on the lips
from your ground down teeth, powdered enamel falling down upon my lap
do you think that's what i want?

acid will corrode 
the words i wrote on your back in sharpie marker and you didn't see the smile i left on your shoulder blade:   
you lied to me.
& now i wear a bullet like a cross around my neck.
rid the world of one more deadly promise. 
i can't stop gasping for air between thoughts of you.


so i swallowed amphetamines to cope
i buried myself in blankets & pea-coats & little lamb pillows.
surrounded by pictures of clouds and hearts and pokemon and 
     lightening bolts.   
i can feel like an adult feels -- there's your proof in blue & red crayola.

you're 

always singing. 

drawing hearts to each other in the stains of our hot breath on cold glass.

  

  

valerie.

i know there's no way i can convince you this is not one of their tricks. but i don't care. i am me. i don't think i'll live much longer and i wanted to tell someone about my life. this is the only autobiography i will ever write and, god, i am writing it on toilet paper. 

i was born in nottingham in 1985. i don't remember much of those early years, but i do remember the rain. my grandmother owned a farm, and she used to tell me that god was in the rain. i passed my eleven plus and went to girl's grammar. it was at school that i met my first girlfriend. her name was sarah. it was her wrists--they were beautiful. i thought we would love each other forever.

i remember our teacher telling us that it was an adolescent phase that people outgrew. sarah did. i didn't.

in 2002, i fell in love with a girl named christina. that year i came out to my parents. i couldn't have done it without chris holding my hand. my father wouldn't look at me, he told me to go and to never come back. my mother said nothing. i'd only told them the truth. was that so selfish? our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have. it is in the very last inch of us. and within that inch, we are free.

i had always known what i wanted to do with my life, and so i started my first film, the salt flats. it was the most important part of my life, not because of my career, but because that is how i met ruth. the first time we kissed, i knew i never wanted to kiss any other lips but hers again.

we moved to a small flat in london together. she grew scarlet carsons for me in our window box and our place always smelled of roses. those were the best years of my life. 

but america's war grew worse and worse, and eventually came to london. after that there were no roses anymore. not for anyone. i remember how the meaning of words began to change. how unfamiliar words like "collateral" and "rendition" became frightening. like how things like norsefire and the articles of allegiance became powerful. i remember how different became dangerous. i still don't understand it--why they hate us so much. 

they took ruth while she was out buying food. i've never cried so hard in my life. it wasn't long until they came for me. 

it seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place. but for three years, i had roses. and apologized to no one. i shall die here. every inch of me shall perish. every inch but one.

and inch. it is small, and it is fragile, but it is the only thing in the world worth having. we must never lose it or give it away; we must never let them take it from us. i hope that whoever you are you escape this place. i hope that the world turns and that things get better. but what i hope most of all is that you understand what i mean when i tell you that even though i do not know you, and that even though i may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you: i love you. 

with all of my heart: i love you.

    

comedic interlude.

blue eyes and dirty brown hair. told me once i was an adventurer--born that way, stay that way forever straight down to my core. the problem with being an adventurer is i love every situation. i love the messy, the difficult, the diseased, the fight. i love the flood. i love the fallen.

you open your mouth to sing soft songs, and smoke spills out from your lips in breaths and chorus lines. tracing the rivers in the palms of my skin, dipping deep into the crevices and cracks of my fingers and i love the feel of soft nails running across my stomach. marble eyes drowning me. ebony hair and braids and ribbon wrapped gifts from my head to yours. lying in the grass, arms extended above our shoulders and reaching out to the hill, she said "i feel like i could just fall asleep here." welcome to my mind, dear. i could sleep for days in shallow canyons of grass and dirt and weeds and breezes blowing clouds slowly overhead, worms and beetles moving quickly underneath. sometimes i only want to entangle myself around your waist and grab onto something and throw you up into the air.

i keep closing my eyes and seeing these birdy-branches hanging from my ceiling, levitated by thin wires and clear string. i see dozens of vintage mirrors adorning my crumbling walls and making everything look more open. robin blue ashtray. wranglers box half full of dainty cigarettes. taxidermy heads mounted on my wall, constructed of chicken wire and painted with old pages from a french magazine. but i know too little about history or literature to consider myself erudite.

when you close your eyes for the last time--pay more attention than you ever will.

words escape me.

the downside to being an optimist--you always end up missing everyone.

i'm not ready to see my face reflected in old, scratched up tin.

i'm not ready to see my face at all.

and i hate how the colour orange

just about engulfs me.

all i see are yellow blossoms.

 hello, daydream:

a clawfoot tub

a sunny yellow kitchen

a belly up kitty in the late sun

a painted wooden porch swing

slow dance in the backyard

a cheerful goldfinch song

fireflies in the grass

banana bread and chamomile tea

a sleeping puppy

an old barn for a studio

the baby in a wash tub

 the prairie's morning dew.





    

good old war.

every time i fall asleep, my fingers wrap around my phone.

and i see light through my closed eyes--i keep hoping someone (anyone) will want to say something (anything) to me when i can't sit still and i'm all out of cigarettes.

but i had this thought tonight.

why do i ever even waste time thinking about her.

when i've got friends like you instead.

i think that's kind of beautiful.

thank you.

my spotless mind.

my stomach feels like a low & rippling tide. a disturbing minnow, swimming cyclically inside of an itching, hollow space. & it's hungry. & it won't be fed. this self dialogue sounds like jim carrey on the beach at montauk. void & cold--such a traitor to the cause.

laying on the floor, stretching around and twisting my back. pointing my toes toward the heat dish. reaching my fingers out to...something. listening to the black keys tell me i'm not the one. i'm not the one. i can write myself a bunch of nonsense. like taking what i feel and what i think and burying it down, down, down. just digging a hole and throwing it in there and covering it in dirt. or words. but i know from experience: forgetting is made more simple when i have a bottle of dragonberry smirnoff and a flask of sunny brook whiskey. i have about a week before my house arrest begins. i have about a week to self medicate before i am faced with more time alone in my mind than i have even now. every time i hear mumford and sons, i want to throw my fists and pierce my eyes and scream.

i dream of sunshine on my face, marlboros between my fingers, life inside my eyes. drown myself in fruity drinks & mellow smoke & humanity found in crowded city streets beneath skyscrapers & the tallest billboard ads. orange & yellow birds painted on my windowsills, chiding me "good morning." cheap living in a downtown studio. a real bank account without 2:00 am overdrafts. no more four-dial safes & no more keyed-up lock boxes & no more holes hidden behind posters in my walls & holes under floorboards, rugs beneath the ground. cigarettes indoors. cat stevens sleeping on my legs again. & i want to bring home a new baby puppy--a pug because they're fat & stupid looking & always loll their tongues between their teeth in dumb, happy smiles.

this name blows arrows through my chest, the feathered tips sticky with something foreign to me. the prospect of lacunar amnesia has been so appealing to me lately. i can never sleep. i mean, my god--all i have to do is lie on my back and wait for my thoughts to be erased. i know i wouldn't. but i wish it were that easy. i wish anything about her was ever simple. sometimes i think i'm smoking on the back porch and listening to trains, and there's someone beside me. holding both my hands.

don't you fucking dare read into my words.

you don't have the decency to miss anything.

i don't know why i feel weird lately.

i know i poke my tongue between my teeth when i laugh. thanks for noticing.

how my mouth will move.

i roped off the light switch in my room with sticky, note covered bandaids and a smiley face that thought thank you out loud. ace of spades card with it's corner wedged tightly, awkwardly into a crevice of my clock--reminding me wake up when the alarm goes off and it's still dark outside. bare feet on cold carpet, bare thighs in cold air; someone's going to have to start the coffee around here. 

and yes, i'll wake you up when i hear the drone of a morning siren seeping through the cracks in your door, the noise alone is not enough to bother someone so far gone on pain pills and benzodiazepines. and i am a devoted member of the amphetamine club lately, i will stagger about in this hard, empty house with my notebooks and journals encircling me and pulling me to my feet until vyvance and adderall and ritalin fold together in my stomach and press my eyelids open, coax my cheeks into a shit-eating grin, again.

it's like she said: medication pumps me full of emotion. socialization rids me of my calm. i remember living for days like this; in a state of hypnagogic hallucinations while time flitted past in seconds and minutes. that was the only place i felt okay around you. between dreams and waking, i would pull your hands up close to my lips and breathe soft and slow and sweet. and i could feel this--your lungs jerked so much quicker, so much more shallow than mine.

she said, "i need to feel safe in my own home."

is anybody hearing this?

is anybody hearing this?

tang.

clouds of fog fill and float around my eyes.

i haven't left my room in three days other than to drive around with people who make me feel needed. my eyes are sore. my nose is sore. my lips are sore. i keep scratching at the cuts and claw marks on the backs of my hands and around my bony wrists. i want to push up my sleeves, but i don't want to stretch out this shirt i'm wearing. my sleeves remain hanging loosely above my knuckles, and i remain uncomfortable. i feel unsettled.  i don't eat very much lately, and when i do eat it isn't very healthy. i never want to eat again. i never want to feel the taste of anything but smoke on my tongue. i never want to go through the motions of my jaw grinding. the bullet around my neck is feeling heavy and my head is slumping downward. i'm thinking about orange powder and brown mud. i'm hardly thinking at all. that space i  have heard about recently--the space between the base of your lungs and the top of the gutty area in your stomach where all the wires seem to come together and connect--feels like there's wind blowing through it.

i'm twenty years old

   and there is wind blowing right through the middle of me.

the scent of something.

i was given this beautiful little ash tray today. it's a sort of foamy blue colour and has tiny speckles on it. it reminds me of a robin's egg. there are three notches around the lip to lay my cigarettes in. and there are yellow blossoms painted in the base of the bowl. i love this ash tray. i really do. i want to have a new home to parade it in. i want to have a home that is mine. but right now, my room doesn't even smell like me.

i feel kind of sick.
i will lay in bed.
i will read something beautiful.
i will try to breathe in
through my cracking, alligator lips.

why is it so hard for me to ask for help.

why can i even think

i can act the way 

i am acting and

still, someone

will want to

see me and

make me

smile.

twin sized bed.

he said i got shy around you.
i think i just get quiet when i'm drunk--
every girl i see, a censor goes of in my head:
target! target! target!
it's not because i want anything from them.
it's because i think girls are just... soft.
it's a habit from my glory days.
i really just enjoy sitting with them,
holding their hand and kissing their ears.
that's about the extent of my sexual wants.

and every girl i spend time with
is labeled as my girlfriend at least once or twice.
i guess my reputation proceeds me.
why won't they believe me when i say
i don't want to be with anyone.
i mostly want to be myself.
i mostly want to be.
     maybe i've been cast as the dating type.
     i consider this a problem.

61.

this isn't normal writing--i just wanted to see how i fared: 
_______________________________________________________

Ten Things About Yourself
10. i fall in love with almost every girl i meet--at least a little bit.

9. i like chain smoking cigarettes when i am really high, and when i am really low.

8. i don't really hate anyone because i think it's just easier to love them.

7. i want my body to become a book of poetry for the world to read.

6. i think it's very easy for me to be very happy. about everything!

5. i am very easily excited. by everything!

4. there is hardly anything in the world i treasure more than my friends.

3. i am thrilled to know i have overcome what i have overcome.

2. i really like flowers--especially yellow ones.

1. i love that i am 'too soft'.

Nine Things You’ve Thought About Recently 

9. moving to salt lake city this summer.

8. why i view humanity as so flawless and beautiful.

7. why i haven't been able to be proud of my writing in a while.

6. the dangerous summer and my bamboo partition. 

5. coffee on friday.

4. coffee today.

3. how i'm going to acquire more cigarettes.

2. sycophancy and narcissism.

1. not thinking about her.

Eight Ways To Win Your Heart

8. smoke cigarettes with me while we talk about things that matter.

7. kisses on my neck.

6. waste time adventuring and roaming with me.

5. call me on the phone every now and then just to say hello.

4. love people that other people hate.

3. listen to music and know the lyrics and tell me what you think.

2. have an opinion on something real and share it with me.

1. live like you like living.

Seven Favorite Albums You’ve Heard Lately

7. waited up 'til it was light - johnny foreighner

6. wild hunt - the tallest man on earth

5. two dancers - wild beasts

4. contra - vampire weekend

3. tell it to the volcano - miniature tigers

2. for emma, forever ago - bon iver

1. reach for the sun - the dangerous summer

Six Things You Do Before You Go to Bed

6. text

5. turn on my bed

4. take off my pants

3. smoke a cigarette

2. lock my bedroom door

1. think of lyrics and writing

Five Things You Wish You Could Say To Five Different People

5. i'm not sure how we got to be such great friends, but i feel like i'm very blessed for it. you are the most fascinating person i've ever met, and i wish i could think and feel the way you do sometimes. i love it when you sing. i love it when you listen. i just love you. i don't think you actually realize how beautiful you are.

4. thank you for pounding sense into my head a lot lately. i think with my heart, and it makes my head stupid in a lot of different ways. but i feel like you care about me even when i'm crazy. i love you so very much. please remember that i will always love you and i will never try to hurt you. you helped me realize i'm more than what i'm told. i love you, sweet pea. you deserve the best!

3. you are my significant other! being with you always makes me smile and i want to talk to you about every little thing. you are hands down my closest friend and i would gladly have your babies. thank you for always being my friend, even when i go crazy over girls. i treasure the time we spend together. i love that you let me know you enjoy my company. i think about you a lot. and i think i  could maybe be straight for you. and i know i would be completely lost without you.

2. you taught me how to live. you taught me how to fall with grace. i can see that you hurt so much more than you let on, and i wish you would stop hiding and pretending for the sake of safety. part of life is getting hurt and moving on; it's just how we learn. no one on this earth has hurt me more than you have--i still love you. i don't know if anything you ever said or felt was real or fake. i wish i meant something to you.

1. i want to be your friend so badly, but you always seem so busy! i'm excited to see you soon. i'm excited to get my tattoo because at least i can have a part of what i think is so beautiful about you. you make me want to live more. you make me want to invest myself in others more, because even when i think your heart is breaking i'm proud that you can feel so deeply. i want to drink a lot of beers with you! i want to be your friend so you will know you are always, always loved.

Four Things You’re Doing Right Now

4. drinking peace tea.

3. talking to my husband.

2. noting everything in my room that is out of place.

1. writing in this stinky blog.

Three Things You’re Scared Of

3. satan and all things surrounding it.

2. being a complete asshole and not knowing it.

1. skinny skinny skinny love.

Two Things You Want to Do Before You Die

2. show someone how to live without trying.

1. have my family be proud of who i am.

One Confession

1. i consider my arrest to be the greatest blessing in my life--if i could live my life all over again, i wouldn't change a thing. 

midway.

laid out on my skin, others stories that i tell the world. these characters, these shows and you are an event that lapses inside myself. 

who am i to you?

what scars do i establish through our talking and our touching?

these are the love songs that i sing to you:

satan & cigarettes.

i thought it was great, the way i was reminded how i am alive again. my doctor taught a lesson yesterday to a group of sick men and women gathered in a circle, legs crossed like children. we smell like smoke and coffee and someone in there was sick, i could tell. pale and sweating. but the lesson he taught them--my words spilled from his old and lipless mouth. i could hear myself behind the strategy and efficiency of living in a way to love yourself and love the world and its inhabitants. i participated like i had never even heard these theories, these mantras before. he asked me, what is a lie you have told yourself?

i told myself she must be heartless--i only thought it for a second, but it near kills me.

i told myself i was incapable of really caring for anyone.

i told myself i could never stop hurting the people i loved.

i told myself i wasn't able to be loved.

words.

only words.

but they were carved deep into my chest and burried in my bones.

i wonder if she put them there.

post-it notes upon my brain.

i don't believe those words anymore.

i am granted trust where it isn't warranted.

there should be suspicious and caution--

but i have proved to my caretakers:

i am happier feeling.

i am happier living.

i am just happier.

and m will always tell me that i am loved. i hope she realized how i care for her, too. 

and we talk about how she is like watching zooey deschenel or listening to regina spektor; you don't know what is different about her, but there's always something there that just blows you away and makes you feel so young and so small still. and we talk about how her voice sounds sleepy, and bored. and she herself--looking at her you feel she could just float away.

i just smell like cedar and smoke.

drowned in striped sweaters--a bandana wrapped bandit.

coming off junk.

choose life. 

          choose a job. 

                         choose a career. 

                                        choose a family. 

                                                  choose a big television, 

                                                            choose washing machines, 

                                                                      cars, 

                                                                                compact disc players and 

                                                                                electrical tin openers.

                                                                                          choose good health, 

                                                                                                    low cholesterol, 

                                                                                                              and dental 

                                                                                                              insurance. 

choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. 

          choose a starter home. 

                    choose your friends. 

                              choose leisurewear and matching luggage. 

                                        choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range 
                                        of fabrics. 

                                                  choose d.i.y.,

                                                            and wondering who the fuck you are on 

                                                            sunday morning.

choose sitting on that couch--

          watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing junk 
          food into your mouth. 

                    choose rotting away at the end of it all, 

                              pissing your last in a miserable home, 

                                        nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, 

                                                  fucked up brats you spawned to replace 

                                                  yourselves. 

                                                            choose your future. 

                                                                      choose life.

and you.

choose fantasy.

choose normality.

choose duality and fraud.

choose your malady over something real.

this is the last i'll think of you.

this is how you've made yourself to be remembered.

this is how a lot of people think of you, i hope you know.

this is what i want you to be reading right now.

this isn't what i wanted for you. ever.

this is what you made for yourself.

this is the last thought i have regarding you:

you are a small and insecure child.

i dare you to try and play me again.

i fucking dare you--watch me turn you away.

when i think of you,

   when i hear your name,

      when i see your pictures,

         when i remember how much i care about you (still),

            when i consider the person you could be,

all i feel is deep, abysmal, gut-wrenching disgust.

you are never on my mind.
you are the horror story that my friends tell.
you are not even a memory to me.

let me know if you ever grow up.

i choose life over the living-dead i am with you. 




(i wish it were different.)

my skinny, skinny love.

who will love you?