she left a hickie on my neck like a brand
like a first place ribbon at the state fair
like a song by some sad angel
and no matter how hard I scrubbed it wouldn’t wash away
like blood under your fingernails
like ink smeared on our elbows, or
the epitaphs of all our friends that killed themselves

I dreamed of vampires,
of kissing old friends in diapers and
long dead rappers
I saw a shrink three times a week,
felt guilty for not being vegan
bought a couch for a dollar at an auction
dropped three glasses at work but
zero pizzas
saw a dozen exes and avoided the rest
I drank italian sodas
wrote bad poetry
and 　slept thirteen hours a night
I read zines,
spent all my tips on copies
saved every paycheck to pay for college
deleted angry emails from my mother
and never washed my dishes
I ate a peach a day
and flirted with people
in monogamous relationships
wrote letters and received none back
waited for a package that took three weeks to come
I got kicked out of my house
packed up all my books
got pierced and tattooed and
WHY? cut into my fingers
I kissed ten people in one night
at a party
made patches,
bought my first pair of heels and
ate salads with my fingers out of the bag

moving is depressing because you find things under the bed you didn’t want to find and of course you read all the notes and letters that slid behind your dresser and dirty panties stuffed between the mattress and the wall that still smell like her and when you take everything down the walls are empty and white and everything in your life fits into little boxes labeled clothes labeled medicine labeled books you’ve read too many times labeled books you bought but haven’t read yet labeled a different kind of medicine and you pack everything you don’t need to use for the next week first and the things you use every day last and are reminded how selfish and privileged and materialistic you really are despite your bumper stickers 　

///////////tonight\\\\\\
sleeping alone feels like the cure
/////////to my disease\\\\　

amindfullofyou:

something about summer, maybe
being barefoot
or drinking coffee on the patio
all day
is making me
half fall in love
with everyone I meet

I got arrested for writing this on a bridge

we slept despite the heat
despite the sweat and cigarette burns or
the threat of mental hospitals
we slept without ever seeing morning
spent all afternoon reading
too much Thoreau, much too young
we swore at our parents
snuck out windows
ducked under whiskey bottles thrown at walls over our beds
we slept on floors of our friends houses after
nearly escaping strangulation
(we did what we needed to survive)
we hid our bruises from our parents fists under
sweaters found in dumpsters
and ditched the classes of all our sexist teachers
we ripped doors of hinges
punched holes in walls
and kissed people we were not supposed to kiss　
we cut our legs and hips and wrists wide open
pounded our fists into our thighs
and blessed those blackened bruises
it was all we could do to keep on breathing,
keep on seeing every morning through the mourning
we cared for ourselves more than our parents ever did
in our bedrooms with the door closed and lights turned off
we touched ourselves and felt God for the first time
and we survived.

i don’t know how to forgive her and
its eating me up.
i want to be the better person, but
only so i can add that to the list
of reasons why i hate her

i know its wrong.

i know he was telling the truth when he said
i have so much hate inside me.
and that hurts. almost more
than the reason why i hate her

this isn’t easy
and for that i hate her even more

why did she never care?
how could someone be so cold?
yet,
i’m cold right back. ice on ice.
that chill up your spine in the night
its a cycle
her hate turns into mine
like some cursed windmill
and so many recycled plastic bags　

we kissed and drank and smoked cigarettes
kneeling on the living room carpet
spilled our drinks and spun empty bottles
cried and puked and laughed
and sometimes we couldn’t tell if we were laughing or crying
drinking or puking
smoking or killing ourselves slowly
rotting or growing　
living or dying
and as I climbed into my empty bed
I remembered we’d forgotten
to sing
happy birthday,
baby.

my grandma said she’d spent the summer
living among the Indians
hopped up on morphine with her oxygen tank
she’d slept on the ground under animal furs
and sipped soup among the wives of every tribal leader
as they asked if she’d like them to tattoo her
from the shoulder down to the fingers
starting with her birth,
down through her life
from her forty-three children
(only one of which born on another planet)　
down through her husband who died of whiskey
down to the last little bit of her pinky
on which room was saved, that last bit of white.

my grandmother said no
because a pinky wasn’t enough room to die on.

her goodbye was warm and salty and beautiful on my shoulders.
we are the lost souls of this faulty generation
forced to write our openings
in less than one hundred and forty characters 　

she left a hickie on my neck like a brand
like a first place ribbon at the state fair
like a song by some sad angel
and no matter how hard I scrubbed it wouldn’t wash away
like blood under your fingernails
like ink smeared on our elbows, or
the epitaphs of all our friends that killed themselves

I dreamed a world without coffee and cigarettes
where all the sad people wrote books
that piled up like landfills
and some people’s jobs were to bury all the books
deep down
where nobody could read them but the worms　

I wish my passion was from God
        years ago
from all that self injury
        ////////
he was a headless horseman, it was beautiful. 　

i was driving home when i saw him. he couldn’t have been a day older than seven, standing there on the corner, with a sign. i couldn’t read his handwriting so i made it up. it said, son for sale. five dollars. but I knew i could’ve haggled him down to three fifty.