you’re close enough to me
that i can see your eyes,
but they are
somewhere far away
from here. and so we sit
on the couch in silence,
me reading my book, you
staring into space and repeating
the same five lines from a song
i don’t know.
i really do feel like you’re on some
other side, you know.
mom’s crying on the kitchen floor,
stabbing holes into
cellophane because
at least when grandma died,
her body didn’t haunt us anymore.
He met them in middle school.
Eventually he fell in.
Rust grows at the corners of his eyes now.
Only he can save himself.
I pray every night that he will
Not sink.
THINGS YOU DON’T SEE IN THOSE ‘THINSPO’ PHOTOS: self-hatred that weighs far more than any number on a scale. vomit stains on your favorite crop top. hating food but being able to think of nothing else. taking four hours to go grocery shopping because you have to read every goddamn label. your partner fearing their fingertips will break you. running in the park but being so focused on your heart rate monitor that you don’t admire the way the leaves are changing. hunger. HUNGER. HUNGER so deep it hurts. nausea. fainting when you stand up to give a presentation in class. always keeping Altoids in your purse. storing laxatives in the kitchen cabinet because you can’t go without them anymore. emptying your stomach to ignore the emptiness elsewhere. numbers. numbers. you never even liked math but now everything is numbers. everyone is numbers. getting high just so you can eat food and not feel guilty. feeling guilty anyway. hating yourself. self-hatred like boulders in your backpack. self-hatred that weighs far more than any number on a scale.
i want to bleed tonight.
when nothing makes sense
i want to bleed out because
my heart’s not beating right.i want to bleed tonight because
deep wounds heal eventually; my
favorite reminder that everything ends
up alright.i bleed because i need to know
i am flesh and blood and not a ghost.
i’m still dreaming
about razor blade kisses
on my thighs
on my arms
teasing tongue
on my neck.
my first kiss
ever,
always threatening
to be my last.
the only kiss
to ever make me feel
something.
well-water eyes like hands
reach into my chest to
squeeze my beating heart. to
stop the thumping.well-water eyes like drills
tear holes into soft tissue and
grind teeth down with
sandpaper stares.when the covers baptize me
in my own sweat,
i am not haunted
by the dead, but by the
living.in our own
Waterloo, well-water
eyes that drown me in
their dark waves of
self-doubt.well-water eyes everywhere,
making darkness permanent.
well-water eyes that
i have not yet learned how to escape.
when
his fingers strum you
all you can do is sing.
or wail.
sometimes it sounds more like wailing.
and whatever he’s feeling comes out of your mouth.
whatever he’s thinking.
whatever he’s saying inside
comes out of you instead and
your throat’s sore from all the screaming
he’s feeling; from all the anger
little peach pits in his stomach
and you regurgitate them and
your throat is bloody red.
I. i saw your jar full of wrappers
and thought maybe you’d just developed
a sweet tooth recently. though
it never occurred to me that
white waxy wrappers
can carry
fun-dip powder and pixy stix, too.II. i knew something
was wrong when
clouds fogged your eyes (grey and heavy
with rain);
so heavy
they could not look straight.
so heavy
they kept sinking.III. at half past midnight you left
to ‘be right back.’
45 minutes later and i felt the thunder
shake the house; i knew
there would be rain
in your eyes.
At eight forty-five the next morning
(you normally never wake up before eleven),
you ‘stop at a friends’
before breakfast and return
empty-handed but eyes full,
veins full, blood full
of calm, full of ocean waves and
lullabies, full of
ice so cold you feel like you’re
on fire.IV. you are forgetting
more and more
about me these days. it seems
you’re drifting farther away,
farther into
your veins.V. i know that
i don’t know
how your mind rolls
on the tracks in your skull.
i never will
feel the hunger in your veins
for a needle that bites
so good. but every time a new
track mark paints your arm,
the train that’s riding them
runs over my heart.
My therapist once told me that overcoming an addiction is a daily battle: I will always crave a cigarette on my lunch breaks, and I will always instinctively reach for a razor blade when life is on overdrive. Every day is a war with my mind to not give in to itself. I wonder if it’s going to be like that with you, too. I wonder if every day I will fight not to pick up the phone just so I can hear your voice.
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.
Silenticel 