i say i love you.
i say it in that way that
gives you permission not
to respond;
like maybe its a joke,
or you’re just a friend,
or maybe you did something
nice and it’s just a thank you.
i say i love you.
aftertaste like burnt cheese
stuck to the roof of your mouth,
hot fire you can’t spit out.
i push down all those
questions like
do you love me too?
can you just tell me
that you want me.
just me.
i pretend like i’m not insecure
even though i look in the mirror
and i fucking hate that girl
with the shit brown eyes
and the fucked up hair.
i hate her so fucking much.
i know what they say,
i know what i say,
but it’d feel so good just to
hear you say it.
just once –
i love you.
i love you so much.
you move the fuck away
and here i am,
writing shitty poems
wishing i was wrapped up
in you like the night sky
says goodnight to the earth.
Category Archives: poetry
lies we tell ourselves on wednesday.
I sat in the water today,
staring at my Instagram picture,
wondering how long it’ll be
before I believe that caption
“love yourself so much,
that mirror never stands a chance”
but I’m like fuck.
Just fuck.
So I buy ten buck lace lingerie
thinking maybe he’ll tell me
he loves me,
but it’s just another disappointment
I look at that girl in those pictures
making weird faces and
I don’t know who the fuck that is.
Can that really be me?
Is she confident?
Or just fucking stupid.
Just fucking stupid,
probably.
Peaks.
I saw mountains,
and my soul was home.
Not even my mountains,
but my heart knew.
I looked towards the ocean,
but all I saw were memories
and sadness and flatlands.
I guess your soul speaks
its own language,
and for me,
it is the language of mountains.
inside.
the way dye feels inside your veins,
that’s how it feels to radiate pain
dont worry im not fucking suicidal
they’d be so surprised,
if i answered the door with
blood dripping down both my hands
and bloody handprints on the fucking walls.
they’d be so suprised,
really they would.
they’d talk.
they’d say, but we didn’t see this coming.
i’d lie, you know.
oops, haha, silly me,
just an accident with a kitchen knife,
you see, i was a cooking a big pot
of what-the-fuck and god-this-sucks
and what do you know,
slit both my fucking wrists,
totally an accident.
they’d believe me.
because pain is something we hide
in the closet underneath last years swim suit
and the pictures from our fucked up high school
years.
i’ll chug a bottle of some cheap shitty wine,
the whole thing if it doesn’t slip
out of bloody fingertips.
but if it does, we’ll pretend it didn’t even happen
white wine, what wine?
look at the time,
you sure you’re okay,
that’s their favorite line.
clearly, i’m not fucking okay.
clearly, i need help because
this blood is never gonna come off the walls
and they’re white,
so obviously it’s going to stain,
oh, you got that other thing,
that’s okay.
i think i can get these stains out
if i cry fucking hard enough after you leave.
i think i’ve got more bandaids,
underneath the bathing suits.
thirty.
she was gone by the time i was four,
then there were others,
that came and said, i will be your mother
but they forgot me when they put
their mother-daughter outings on the calendar.
almost good enough, but not quite enough
to get an invitation to the beach
or the shopping or coffee to talk about the day.
good enough for advice, but
not quite good enough for time.
this should have faded by now,
this feeling of being forgotten,
you’d think by thirty you’d be finished”
with childish things like belonging
and motherly love and girls nights.
but here i am, writing some shitty poem
about what it feels like to see your
sister and her mother travel to the beach
and share jokes and shopping and time,
while you sit on a couch, wishing you had a mother.
she was gone by the time i was four.
sunset.
if you’ve never felt like
setting everything you own
on fire and traveling
into the fucking sunset,
have you ever even existed?
far.
let me just get in the car,
tank of gas will get me far
kentucky or kansas,
somewhere away from
all these damn feelings.
sing along with the radio
windows down, heat on
escape, damn escape
to a place where i can
drown myself in whiskey
maybe forget all these
fucking memories.
candles.
don’t bother to sew yourself shut,
just stand there, hold yourself open
let them see your beating heart
vulnerable doesn’t mean broken.
change the narrative of sorrow
as it turns out, happiness is something
that you can borrow.
you can share it.
like a candle and a flame,
your light doesn’t need to be extinguished
share it, no shame.
you’re beautiful even when you’re bleeding.
fire.
fear will eat you alive,
if you let it.
i’m telling you –
it will swallow you
from the inside out.
it will creep into your bones
like fire until you’re nothing
but ashes on the ground.
