Tag: spilt ink

How The Words Get On The Page

They are all the times
i’ve been put away on a back shelf 
and collected dust. 

All the times my heart has shattered
onto the pages of my notebook and
sullied my fingers black. 

They are the words
I carve onto the pages instead
of into my skin. 

All the times I have felt
my heart was burning in the night sky
instead of in my chest. 

The times I have stood still
among hives of buzzing, 
undulating people. 

When I have been sitting
on my own bed, 
and still felt I wasn’t home. 

When I feel so restless in
my own skin 
that I swallow rainbows so I may
dissolve into darkness and wake up
forgetting. 

You’re Everywhere

You were a new coat of black
polish on my naked nails. 
I settled in quickly, not waiting for you
to dry. 
And as I touched and sat and wrote and ran
you began 
to chip away, and
in little flecks throughout our path
I have left the smallest pieces of you where
only I can find them. 

Falling Apart, Falling Together

Each day jabs its hands
inside my chest
and steals a piece of me.

I am slowly dissolving into
the air, being reassembled into a collage
of the girl that smiles at me 
on the subway and the mailman and
my high school choir director and
that piece of advice my father once told me
that I will never forget. 

I am a masterpiece, the universe’s
papier mache. She is spinning me 
on her wheel and shaping me, 
molding me. 

You Were Scared I’d Break You, But You Broke Me

Why were you so scared
to touch me? 
Did you think the fire would spread
from your fingertips to your tongue–
that I’d burn you? 
Or that I’d splinter
under your skin and bury myself
so deep, I’d be impossible
to pull out? 
Did you believe I’d shatter and
draw your precious blood? (you never
had enough blood to give)
Or were you scared
I’d pull you in closer; that you’d have nowhere
to hide? 

Danny Boy

You showed me where your heart
beat through your chest;
you let me feel
it pulse through all of you. 
I wanted to see the scars
on your bones and take
the walking tour of
your mind, to carve my name
into the walls
of your skull. 
But you wouldn’t take off your
skin for me
and I’m sick of knocking
on doors that don’t
make any sound. 

Spring Cleaning

Sometimes things make more sense in metaphors
and everything becomes clear 
when the dirt is out of the carpet.  

The way the stars align when the dust
lines up at the mouth 
of the dustbin. 

Sometimes questions are answered as you watch
dust fall– as you sway. 

Sometimes the first smile after 
a breakup comes while dancing with the broom
on the kitchen tile. 

ED

I’ll be doing fine. 
I’ll be able to stand on the scale and see the number and be okay. 
I’ll look in the mirror and love what I am, not hate what I am not. 

but then. 

But then I eat something
and all of a sudden I am
larger than life; I am too big
for my clothes, too big to
be loved, too big for myself. 

and then

i want to be gone. 
i want to be anyone or anything
but who i am. 
i want to shrivel up and 
die
because my self hatred weighs
on me
far heavier than the number on the scale, 
and it is too goddamn big. 

the hopelessness that 
i will forever have this body
that i hate is suffocating
me.
let
me
suffocate. 

Sticks and Stones

I remember the first time I saw her
drop to the floor and crack
and spill,
and I knew I had been lied to.

Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but words can also hurt me. 

And when he said i’m sorry,
and like a panacea
cured the dew in her eyes, i thought
there was a way to fix the soul’s broken bones.
and so i learned to serve
everything in my life with a side of
i’m sorry.  

I don’t want to… i’m sorry. 
I can’t…. i’m sorry. 
I don’t like that…. i’m sorry. 
i’m sorry, but I disagree. 

And in trying so hard
to make sure everything that left
the assembly line of my mouth
was a gentle breeze, in
wrapping people in i’m sorry’s to protect them
in case they fell, i left myself
exposed, and (i’m sorry)
covered in bruises.