Nectar

When she wilted on the wooden 
floor and allowed herself the blows,
I couldn’t see the love 
was gone, but I knew
I couldn’t save her.
When I found myself
cornered in the eyes of her
 hurricanes, helpless
to the venom she spit,
I didn’t realize I needed to
save myself.

Biotechnology

I am swimming in a sea
of crippling uncertainty,
and it is my life’s greatest fear
that paralyzed, I’ll drown in here.
I’m struggling to stay afloat
while anxious tears constrict my throat.
Afraid there’s nothing I can do,
a merciless god I’m praying to.

No matter how I push and kick,
the sea ignores me and
I sink.

It’s that much easier for you to suffocate me now that your hands aren’t in mine.

because if i’m not holding your hands then they’re around my neck, and every time you smile without me hurts a little bit

Your intelligence isn’t measured by what you know, but by the questions you ask.

something I learned by observing my friend.

Impossible Equation

in physics class
i learned
the further you fall,
the harder the landing:
F=ma.

i fell
for you at
90 miles per hour
without a parachute.

if the force of your lips
saying you do not love me
is like a thousand hammers
pounding at my heart,
what is the mass of
the empty shell
that remains?

Freedom To Believe What They Want You To Believe

they dunked me underwater

long before i could swim.

i was not born

with communion wafers dissolving

on my tongue.

they took my mind and

threw a snake in it.

a slithering snake that snarls

at humanity and

what they have become.

but i will laugh and dance while

i am ripe and still have the

recourse to forget.

motion is the only guarantee:

they’ve not stamped a cross

upon me yet.

Toxic

not like fists and
bruises and whiskey
on your breath. not
darkness in eyes and
screaming.
not poison apples,
but i love you’s–
i love you too much.
i love you because i cannot
love myself.
toxic everything i own
in a pile on your floor,
toxic take all that is mine.
toxic maybe we can share
the burden, too.
toxic take, take, take
all the love
i don’t know how to give
myself.

Mary’s Blue

dark blue– like childhood, like
memories. like
sinking into a dream.
bite marks on the black
plastic instead of
on your lips.
covered in stickers
of where you’ve been.
your heart’s been torn
off your sleeve and
the hole it left in the fabric
keeps unraveling.

anxiety haiku

i’m feeling too much
there is an overwhelming
pressure in my head.

Mother

every day we walk on
your back.
we stick needles in
your spine and fill
your lungs with our smoke.
we look you in the eye while
we close our hands around your neck.

every day you
love us, cleaning our spills
to cradle us again.
we are fleas, but
you love us even when we bite.

you keep trying to grow.
we keep trying to
cut you down.