Untitled (but it's cute and super gay)

grimed streetlamps light

pavement plagued with glass

straining—the moon doesn’t come around here

police sirens sing strawberry blueberry

and your hair smells like papaya

youthful energy

in the skulking night gangs

baby-faced boys with jutting chins

hoping guns turn them men

they won’t bother us anyways

this bodega smells like

donkeys and cigarettes and sulfur

we heave ourselves over the fence

to the neighborhood pool

your dad thinks you like boys

the water is warm and

chartreuse in cheap starlight

I hold you

all elbows and grasshopper legs

you taste like chlorine and summer

Unso much dirt in this town

I kiss the crime rates from your neck

you point out how the broken glass bottles

look like diamonds

if we squint and tilt our heads

Stuck in my Head Again

Fairy lights b l u r

without my glasses.

Sight is so cumbersome

and I wish candy floss

was wearable

like a stained cloud.

The sound of magpies

terrifies me

how awful to love things

that glitter.

Give me mud,

wet and brick red

and chapped lips

from hiking in winter

or kissing too hard.

Both my parents love

lilacs

but not each other.

I’m partial

to sunflowers

in flesh, not connotation.

If loving everyone

is True and Good

what about Cruella DeVille?

She wanted to kill puppies.

Passenger Seats

Sing me passenger seats—

windows down, frost

collects on our laughter.

The wind is so cold but

generated heat blasts our

mudded hiking boots.

The world doesn’t matter.

A waltz on the radio.

I dream in mountain roads—

icicles blaze cliffsides

a moment frozen

               sparkling.

We joke about death

I picture our car tumbling

down the mountain

a sweet child’s toy.

I can’t stop loving you

and the air is so clean

pine and snow and snow and snow

dissolve past the window.

Timelessness

in evergreen and three four timing

a painful lilt

because ice melts

and our eyes are the same color.

Something Like Romance

I hear

the great lakes feel

like oceans

and your heart feels

symmetrical to love

puddles to great masses

of roaring saltwater

but still vague

mirrors, watery reflections

of the real thing

that’s all I wanted

something like romance

not a glass screen door

seemingly open

always locked tight

I hear

crashing

is it from a seashell or

those blue blue blue eyes

both impenetrable, an easy mistake

Ornithology

Seagulls swan-dive

willingly into the

bitter November bay

intrepid plunging

and seeking

marine breakfast.

We avoid eye contact

avoid depth

pulling ourselves to

this feeding frenzy

feathered valor.

Laughter feels like choking

on dry biscuits.

A sparrow twitters

anxiously nearby

flashes of grey wing

from dead bush tangles.

We crane our

lonely necks

us scientists

us ornithologists.

I was hoping you’d

study the way

our palms connected

etched lifelines pressed together.

Instead we drink juice boxes

to busy our tongues

slurping from cardboard

while seagulls feast.

An eagle,

Clawed umber giant

casts shadows

on the steel water

birds shadowing birds.

Tiny featherhearts

more chaotic, more fervent,

more alive

than ours.

Sentiment is Dumb

Yasher Koach.

May you have strength.

Actually,

I’d like to have

a thick milkshake,

sweetcreamycold

and I’d like for Grammy

to not be dead.

But thank you for the sentiment.

I acknowledge your kindness

and raise you practicality

(or is this heartbreak).

Threshold

Threshold—

a window, perhaps.

A cracked door.

An archway bursting

With lilacs.

My breath catches

at the risks

heart stuttering

under the heft

“what if”

pumps into the bloodstream.

I could stay

or look down

step through

even j u m p

oh god. Maybe not jump.

My toes hide

behind sturdy shoes

practicality

in neat laces

and soles glued

to the past.

One step for mankind?

Am I Icarus or intrepid

safe or unlimited

at this verge.

One ledge, one body

a million messes to lose

or set     free.

Being Obnoxiously Introspective While Washing Dishes

My phone sings acoustic

folk from its nest

in the bag of oranges.

Five o clock sunlight

gilds the kitchen

and my world is a harsh shine—

cheap marble counter,

copper strainer

I’m scrubbing clean,

steaming water

that streams through

its soapy pores.

Light filters

through my lashes

and pools in my collarbone

as I lose my skin’s softness

to the scalding tap.

Vance Joy’s guitar strings slip

into my ribcage

and loosen my jaw

as I work the sponge

around a silver slotted spoon.

Should I be soft

like water running,

like sunlight?

Or severe

like chapped hands,

like sunlight?

Self-sacrifice (sabotage)

I tell myself I am powerful.

I hold me in my arms.

Lovingly, powerfully,

my mistakes wipe their own tears.

My back straightens

it’s never minded gravity anyway.

I am so afraid

of everything.

Despite love

and its pungent, flowering

soliloquies

life is gutting,

mashes my stomach and

heart.

I wish I was dangerous

or a sea urchin

but my tongue ladles no poison,

cradling my heart rate

with shushes and tender

frustration

is a full time job.

If you asked for my

lungs,

I’d slit them from my chest

With that same self-pitying smile

I shoot my reflection.

My life is not mine

 but I tell myself I am powerful

just in case it’s true.

Washing Machine Sea

Washing machine sea

foamy, soapy churning

fish like a school of socks

am I shark or sand dollar

your lips sweetly sour like

laundry detergent

Washing machine sea

bubbles grey dye

turbulent tongues

taste woolly like turtlenecks

we spit the threads

clinging wetly to each other

Washing machine sea

and I scramble to driftwood

opulence rests in clenched oysters

in hot sudsy water

in self-love

I’d rather scald than indulge

clean beats the

heartfelt

Cord Cutting Meditation

Garden shears in hand,

a gaping silver mouth. Ready.

We’re connected by glistening wires

every body part, scalp to heels,

linked and secured

and pulling at our skin

as you

leave.

Try.

This weapon

Cradled between my sad

palms can slice

the cables between us,

the metal tarnishing as your

s i l e n c e tells me

to let go. To cut.

I don’t want to.

I love you so simply and so deeply

and these cables

are all I have.

Should I gnash my shears

like malignant teeth?

Set you free?

Set my mind’s picture of you aflame, some

Viking funeral?

God for once minds his

own damn business

silent as you are,

watching a gardener

water her dead plants

desperately,

clinging to old wires.

I am

armed but clueless and

unwaveringly sad.

Velour poem #2 (title creativity quickly dwindling)

Felt crowns and unibrowed

smirks confirm royalty.

A kingdom, a sisterhood,

we lay ourselves at

her feet but she pulls

us up to meet her.

Equals.

I feel nowhere near

but habitually tend to believe

blue-eyed goddesses

with silver tongues.

Fire engine screams

match a t u m b l i n g

of rose petals—

her normal is not normal

and we flock,

thirsty for shadows,

for monsters, for

art without pretention.

She is a Fabergé egg warrior,

a gender slayer

barbed with magic

and crackling with intellect.

If we are black freighters

(the forgotten ones, the

odd ones)

she is a lighthouse

burning

white light

calling us home.

Panic Attack (can you tell I'm bad at titles)

4:44 am

shoved into consciousness

breathlessness

dizziness

I can’t hold down air

despite gasping

My insides might

soon be exterior décor

and it’s so so so cold

(or am I sweating, burning)

I lay on the cold tiled

bathroom floor

downward dog

Am I anxious or sick

or dreaming the

whole messy thing

reality

fuzzed but harsh

liquid but severe

I down a tiny cup

of pink goo

sliding cold and

minty medicinal

into my stomach’s

thunderstorm

like a blushing SOS

I feel even sicker

so back to bed

measured breaths

turn desperate

not enough air in

“breathe for five

hold for five

release for five”

am I sick

I could die this very second

one more gasp and

blue-faced silence

I don’t want to die I don’t want to die I don’t want to die please god please please please I don’t want to die I have so much to do

fatigue saunters in

S o  s l o w l y

or is it physical exhaustion

I’m grateful for anything

else

it’s 5 am

I am the first

to hear the first bird chirp

for the morning

I want to strangle it

and lapse into tears

Mood

Oh honey bunches of oats

do not

come for me.

You darling, idiotic thing

I will climb inside you

from that mouth

hellbent on destroying me

and knife

my way

out.

I don’t mind a little

blood.

This could have

all been so easily avoided

but here we are so

twist my arm, sugar

I’ll twist any one

of those precious

organs of yours.

An eye for an eye?

Oh what a funny thing

you are.

An eye for a

slitting of the throat.

A crushing of the lungs.

Up to you, really—

I look forward to your reply.

Sasha Velour

With snakes round your neck

and sleep in my eyes

your tongue moves to music

my throat sinks in sighs.

You soft nighttime creature

all feathered and swathed

your hands drift like moonbeams

your boa is frothed.

The moon thrusts her chin

into dissonant night

while I watch, lip trembling

your kindness; your light.

My eyes should be closed

but your face pulls me in

an extraterrestrial

in sweet human skin.

I don’t want to need you

but I do, and can’t sleep

so I stare and I cry

while you sing about sheep.

Anxiety (is the worst ughhhhh)

Don’t tell me it’s in my head

when it’s so clearly in

my lungs

crushing air like aluminum.

And in my fingers

rubbing my collarbone

or threatening

follicles on my scalp.

It is tangible

palpable

in the curling of my toes

in the scabs I ravage

until blood seeps like

coagulated fruit juice.

Don’t tell me it’s in my head

when its jaws are clamped

greedily

around my throat

squeezing.

It is not a part of me

it has infested me

chosen me as its

gracious host.

I want to feel nothing

slurp air noisily and wastefully

but you were right— now it’s

in my head

feasting, frenzied

poisoning from the inside out.

Poisoning the Milk

You don’t listen when I speak.

Too busy poisoning the milk

stirring toxic sweetness

into thick, creamy white.

I fiddle with worry beads

you serve poison

in a tall, perspiring glass.

Eyes framed with choppy lashes,

you blink gummily, carelessly

into your laptop screen.

I shriek for help

demand it, weep for it,

watching you load kettle corn

like manna into your mouth.

Apathy isn’t bitter but

rotting, blackening teeth

worming across tongues.

I drown in me, in you, in everything

while you sit sipping coladas

on the shore.

A tossed joke or two, flippant,

dismissive. Nothing more.

You glance at me, finally,

nowhere near what I need.

You scroll with two fingers down your keyboard mousepad.

I drink the milk.

Beware the Hydrangeas

Lost in the hydrangeas

nodding wetly from summer rain

it’s impossible to inhale anything

but sweet purple.

I had wanted to be here

in the thick greenness

petals like tiny colored thumbs

but sugar air brings bees.

Whirring low and angry

heaven b l u r s to yellowblack

thorned bodies reclaiming

their periwinkle homeland.

In this gummy heat

I’ve exposed my limbs

for branches and beestings

the smell of flowers stings my throat.

Skin shredded raw and heart

palpable I grab fistfuls

of dirt smeared like warpaint

and       run.

My crumbling wood porch

sops up bloodstains and tears

Momma clucks through the screen

that I shouldn’t track mud in the house.

The Simplicity and Confusion of Existing

I was driving home after a quick session of paperwork and training with Buffalo Wild Wings, when I decided to call my mom. Her voice crackled over the Bluetooth speakers in my car as we exchanged quick life updates. My GPS, Debra, tried to announce the upcoming turns but her robotic British voice quickly became buried under my conversation. Two wrong turns later (sorry Debra), I found myself in a small parking lot with a playground on the right and a tangle of trees on the left. My heart began to do a happy dance, and I could almost taste the pine needle-y tang of the woods. “Hey mom, so, I wasn’t paying attention and I’m like at a park or something? I’m gonna go have an adventure, bye!” my voice rushed excitedly. After hanging up and stepping out of the car, my enthusiasm wavered. The forest looked pretty shallow and was littered with picnic tables and fire pits. Despite the run-down, low-budget park vibes I was getting, it was still just a park. Maybe not an adventure. I decided to trudge deeper through the trees, crunchy leaves and springy detritus cushioning my footsteps. I found a murky stream and a bridge traveling over it, but the bridge was blocked off for construction. I was disappointed but decided to follow the length of the stream, hoping it would lead somewhere. After a few minutes of nothing, the river widened its mouth into a lake, a sparkling cliché with blue waters nestled by trees. I giggled out loud like a crazy person and finger-gunned the heavens, thanking God or life or whomever for this discovery. There was a massive tree that had fallen on the shoreline, its roots on land but the trunk and branches stretching horizontally into the center of the lake. It looked sturdy enough for a 21-year-old trapped in the body of a prepubescent male, so I clambered up the roots and awkwardly crab walked sideways across the trunk. When I reached the middle of the tree, I looked around and realized I was smack dab in the middle of a glittering lake, surrounded by budding trees and birdsong. After a month of friendship problems, unnecessary drama, mental health struggles, and more life lessons than I was able to handle, there was suddenly a pause. A silence. There was just a lake, just a fallen tree, just a forest. A piece of litter floating sadly but amicably under my right foot. My phone creating an uncomfortable bump in my jeans pocket. Birds spreading gossip in treetops. Normally when I go on adventures I try to uncover some hidden truth about myself, mining greedily for wisdom in my subconscious so that later I can brag about my findings. I had the urge to find meaning in sitting in the middle of a lake, treating myself like my own therapy patient, asking myself in a faux-sympathetic voice, “Well, how do you feel?” But I stopped myself, thinking, “Maybe this doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it doesn’t need to. Just exist.” It sounds pretty simple, but to an anxious 21-year-old with not many friends and a tendency to overthink, it was the biggest revelation. I turned off my phone (after some shameless selfie taking), lay back on the tree trunk, and breathed in the cold, bright air. The sun made blinding patterns on the lake, and a hesitant breeze mussed up its glossy surface. I didn’t analyze anything or try to feel anything, just watched the world unfold artfully around me. There were times when anxious thoughts slithered into my mind, and I didn’t try to block them or correct them. I let them exist, giving them validity but not truth. When I felt ready, I did my awkward crab walk back down the tree trunk and stepped back into the forest, refreshed and content. I cried in my car in my apartment’s parking lot, not wanting to strap my burdens on again. But then I realized that place wasn’t going anywhere. The park wasn’t some magic little detour away from “real life,” it was real life in its truest existing form. Things just existing, growing, dying, breathing, living. And if I didn’t need to assign meaning in a place of intense beauty (with so much potential for symbolism and interpretation), maybe I didn’t need to assign meaning to anything. Maybe, at least sometimes, I could just leave life alone and exist in it. I still feel bogged down and stressed out, as every college kid does, as every human does, but there is no judgment in it. I made some wrong turns from work and found a tree on a lake in the woods. Nature has no binary system— no good or bad, no success or failure. No judgment. And if nature is the purest form of existence, and I want to exist, then I’m not going to try and live a certain way to appease myself, my friends, or societal norms. I don’t need to assign meaning. I don’t need to label myself as a good or nice person—bear with me here, I know that is A Sentence. Nature isn’t good-hearted, and it certainly is not nice. Some people love it, some people hate it, and it keeps existing regardless. I realized all this in the middle of a lake and said “Oh!” out loud into the brisk afternoon sunlight, before chuckling to myself with the simplicity and relief of it all. And now I exist. I have officially welcomed myself into the world. I am so excited.

Death sucks

As a lover of aesthetics, initially I found my Papa’s passing beautiful. My aunt sang him, “You Are My Sunshine” and told him it was ok to go. So he took her advice and passed on. I pictured them holding hands, a father and daughter cradling one last loving moment. After briefly admiring the story and feeling grateful, I cried and anxiously picked at my fingernails until they bled. I washed all my sheets, vacuumed, Clorox wiped, and Windex sprayed every surface, trying to shake the grimy feeling of mourning. Death is death. It can hold captivating memories and heartfelt condolences, but it is what it is—death. Awful, messy, heartbreaking death. In a few days, distant relatives I’ve never met will dab their glistening cheeks and share their favorite stories, sympathetically reaching out to my immediate family. Everything will smell like flowers. We will have the best hors d' oeuvres. “He’s peaceful, now,” we’ll murmur appropriately. “He’s with his wife. Not suffering.” It will suck. Death sucks. We use traditions and aesthetics as a coping mechanism to deal with heartbreak, giving the heartbroken a free pass to express their emotions publicly. Great. A slight glitch in the patriarchy. I’d rather have my Papa alive. I’m sure his funeral will be beautiful. Significant. Enter some other deep, flowery word that means nothing and everything. But it will also suck and that’s ok. I’m angry and nauseas and panicky and really fucking sad. Pardon my language. But I’m being honest with myself. I know beneath the touching aesthetics of mourning there is a gritty ache that demands to be felt. It tastes like burning asphalt. I will heal, go through the stages of mourning, and this will all fade into a faintly bittersweet memory—I’ve had a psychology class, I know what happens next. So don’t tell me it’ll get better. Please. Don’t tell me to cherish his memory or think of him every time I see puppies frolicking in the sunset or some bullshit. I’m not there yet. I will be, I get it, but not yet. Tell me it sucks. Allow me to hurt and be angry and wallow in self-pity. Please. I love my Papa, I love everything about him. He was incredible. He was gentle and capable and was so unrelentingly proud of me. But death sucks. And I’m not ok. And that’s ok. 

Afraid? Angry? So fight.

Dear friends,

you are hurting

angry

ravenous for justice

eager to place blame

defensive

scared

scared

scared

Me too.

Whatever you believe is the answer—

fight for it.

Listen.

Act.

Call people.

Rally.

Take time to breathe in between

but gear the hell up

and push for change.

This is ours

all of it—

the responsibility,

the heartbreak,

the anxiety behind not knowing.

Fight then breathe then fight again.

There is no right way, no one

answer.

But justice is graspable

if we are not too lazy,

apathetic,

or judgmental

to reach out talons

hungry for peace.