Category: Poetry & Poetic Prose

There is a hill in a park, one across a diner lit when dark.

When you go, you go during reckless hours when there is no one except you and the man on the moon. You ride the swings and imagine the rough of the rust of the trains passing your eyes. You jump off the swing, embracing the brisk wind seeping into your skin. You run up the hill. Here, it is true that there is gold in your blood and stardust in your body. Here, you are grounded in a constantly moving world. Once submitted, you sit. You close your eyes. You listen to the buzz of life around you; the faint rustle of leaves, rumble of trains on tracks, airplanes’ engines, and wheels burning rubber on worn roads. You look above in awe of the stars in the sky. Each star greets another as a part of a constellation twisting tales.

They, like you, are awake in the dark.

Featured art: Unknown

*An imitation of “Depression Is Funny Like That” by Reagan Myers and “Scars/To the New Boyfriend” by Rudy Francisco.

One

This week, I sat inside a Whole Foods and dissociated in front of the frozen goods because I didn’t have the energy to try to focus…

which sounds pretty pathetic, but so does my life when I think about it.

Haha! Jokes on me!

I thought I was more than just another lifeless body and then I was run over with a grocery cart or

haha! Jokes on me!

I woke up not wanting to die for the first time in a long time, but sike!

I hadn’t fully woken up yet.

Depression is funny like that.

Two

Also this week, I fell asleep next to a new face and woke up with a new headache.

The adrenaline of making bad decisions coursed through my bloodstream.

It scares me how invisible I feel, like not even God can touch me.

Three

Exorcise me.

Mandate prayers composed of sacred phrases like,

“I love you even when you don’t love yourself” or,

“I won’t abandon you when you’re going through a hard time”

over my compulsive body until my illness is expelled.

I want to vomit out all of the maladaptive thoughts inside of me until

I am alone again.

Four

I let my illness tear me apart with claws like twisted fairytale branches.

If I can’t please the people that I love,

I might as well please the thing consuming me.

Five

Every 11:11, birthday candle, and shooting star I wish for you to reappear, but

Six

every year you hate me more.

Seven

When my illness takes my hand and leads me with a blindfold covering my eyes,

I do not stumble along the way.

When I feel water to my knees,

I kneel until I am covered by waves.

I let the current take any part of me it wants

hoping the recklessness will be taken away.

Eight

Do you want to know how I got these scars?

I branded “CAUTION” across my forehead and

“DANGEROUS” down my arms.

Nine

If I could, I would stop time for just a moment.

I want a single moment where I don’t hurt anything.

I have a long list of names followed by apologies that

time prohibits me from giving.

My mania says,

“Fuck them for not understanding”

while my depression just cries.

Another person gone is just another abandonment in my eyes.

Ten

My mania is a broken rollercoaster keeping me hostage on the ride while my depression is a precarious harness holding me intact.

Sometimes, I wonder which one will kill me.

Ten

I am worried.

Ten

I am a junkie stuck in a twilight zone.

I am high going 80 in a 30 and

low when I find myself upside down on the side of the road.

“How am I not dead yet?” plays on repeat in my head.

I am stuck in a cycle of car crashes.

Ten

When you ask me how I’m doing,

you might as well as how bad it is on a scale of one to ten.

I’d raise two hands and lift ten fingers every time.

Featured art: Unknown

“Adderall” leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

When I hear, “Adderall,” I think of the art show and how, when I hugged you, I felt warm sweat soaking your shirt. The entire time we showcased our work, you did not cease shaking. My mother, who once adored you, asked me if you were feeling okay. I did not want to answer.

How do you not understand that I cannot feel safe in the arms of an earthquake?

“Why is 12:34 A.M. important to you?”

He looked me in the eyes through a phone screen and gave me a bedtime. He, younger than me, demanded for me to take care of myself. I loved his consideration.

His consideration is something that I would have died without. If he had not checked on me at the house party where I overdosed, than I never would have been able to apologize for causing trouble. Holding onto him felt like holding onto a precarious life raft.

Holding him then was no different than holding him at the art show or as I nearly died in his best friend’s bathroom. His eyes, always kind, never changed despite the things he had seen. People said that he is malicious. I said that he is misunderstood.

“How can you stand up for a monster?”

Monsters are created. Anything created can be transformed. I have been touched by his light and scarred by his dark. I defended his life as if mine was tied to it.

I used to tell him to consume happiness in bite-sized pieces. I told him that, one day, he would feel full. I told him to stop rushing things; that time is not real. I told him that bright lights are not always blinding.

I told him that he will always have a piece of my heart.

He told me that he did not want it.

Years later, I have forgotten the taste of his kiss. I no longer desire the security of his embrace. My brain has stored away all of the memories that once held me afloat as well as the ones that haunted me long after he left.

I have learned to not tremble when touched.

Featured art: Unknown

Loving you is loving someone who cannot stay still.
You are always just out of reach or 
slipping through my grasp. 

Trying to win your love is something that
I can no longer keep up with.
I cannot decide if loving you is worth your worst. 

I begin the process of forgetting you;
a cup of something clear to make you disappear,
but then comes the longing.

A name on the tip of my tongue,
one that I cannot forget
no matter how much I drink.

Most nights, I wonder if losing you was worth losing me.

Featured art: “Long Nights” by Nicolas Martin.

I wish to puzzle you out of my memory—
to write you as a riddle too complex to solve.
The last time that I blew out a candle,
I lingered on the ache for selective amnesia.

Your words alone mark me.
I display bruises in vibrant hues of purple slander and brown libel.
Mixed together, I possess the color of rot.
Yet, I name you not.
You are nothing except my everything. 

How do I allow myself to value you above all else?
If you held a gun to my head then yours, 
I would be more scared of the sleek metal against your skin.
There is no life without you.

I wish I had stayed in the water a moment longer.
Hesitation is important before making a mistake.
Before, the only thing that could drown me was waves.
Now, you can do the same. 

When I asked you,
"Why do you love me?"
You hesitated before muttering clichés.
Your misused passion broke my heart that day.

Featured art: Unknown

I begin the process in a state of denial,
one where vodka tastes more like juice than hard liquor.
When I drink, it goes down like water.
I long for the taste of amnesia.

My habit is a lot like my heartbreak: hidden.
I am sneaking shots of gin while wearing your shirt to bed;
leftover whiskey breath and the letter you wrote me is in my hands.
Two bottles sit empty on my nightstand.

Near ocean tides, I parade around a bonfire, smiling at strangers.
The clink of beer bottles blend with misfits' laughter.
A green-haired girl points out Orion's belt.
I chase the longing to tell you with a shot.

I try to put the bottle down, but
I cannot.
When my hand is empty, it aches for yours and
my head throbs as your voice invades my mind. 

I drink so much the stars spin new stories.
I slur every name except yours.
I do not leave time between sips for it to escape.

I wonder if my taste for liquor comes from you;
If the drinking games we used to play are
what inspires the drinking games I play alone.

Featured Art: Unknown

There is a pool table,
one encompassed by a pair of lovers' smoke.
She holds the cue incorrectly.
He takes her arms with his hands,
fixing her position.
She loves his (temporary) affection.

There are neon signs
illuminating their faces and
the illusion of love between
two uncomfortable bodies.

He watches her through smoke screens.
She pretends not to notice and
deliberately poses herself to look flawless.
He looks away and her posture crumbles.

Other tables host laughing and swearing from
smiling friends or couples clinking glass bottles together.
Their banter harmonizes with the
music blasting from the speakers and cracks of object balls.

There are raspy confessions,
ones born from liars' mouths.
There are stolen glances before
missing the shot.

She gets close to him,
wordlessly asking for a kiss, but
he takes a drag of his cigarette instead.

Featured art: “Interior In Red With Billiard Table” by Victoria Sukhasyan.

We are a car stuck in reverse.

We only go backwards.

I am shaking.

By “shaking,” I mean not because of the temperature.

I mean I am shaking because my thoughts are causing a riot in my mind and stampeding through my blood vessels.

I can feel my spirit being run over.

By “run over,” I mean I still get hit even though, around you, I walk on eggshells.

You paint the colors of rotten fruit all over my limbs and justify your actions by explaining that self-sabotaging is your sin.

I am weighed down to a blue bed.

By “weighed down,” I mean imaginary metal chains wrap around me like a harness so heavy my arms are purple and limp.

By “blue bed,” I mean I am holding my breath like I am having a contest with myself and the universe.

The hours of your absence suffocates me.

Maybe you ran away because I gave you the sickness of uncertainty.

My mother says that I like to fix people, but people are not broken.

She says my need to be a savior will not be rewarded.

I am not Jesus.

I am not holy enough to purify the sins of myself let alone others.

I am a black hole consuming anything to feel less alone.

I do not know how to exist on my own.

You are in the drivers seat, but it is my car.

When I reach for the wheel, you grab my hands and hold them.

By “hold them,” I mean you hold them hostage.

You tell me to trust you, but you regressed from a lover to a stranger and

I cannot trust strangers.

I desire an existence where I am uncomfortable in chaos;

one where my body is not stuck in fight-or-flight.

I am constantly between fleeing from or fighting for your love.

Loving you is like loving someone who cannot stay still.

You are always just out of reach or slipping between my fingers.

You are a precarious rollercoaster that is always breaking down and

I am an adrenaline junkie whose favorite sound is your voice.

I scream at cars and they scream back.

By “they scream back,” I mean I imagine cars screaming back at me so at least

there is something surprising left in a world I have been finding so dull.

By “dull,” I mean I told my therapist that my life’s purpose is to love you and I cannot allow myself to.

You do not provide what I want nor need.

You do not understand that loving me means no hesitation.

You do not understand me at all.

I have been bruising in my sleep again.

By “bruising” in my sleep, I mean I beat myself up trying to exorcise you because

I am a haunted house.

You materialize in my fondest memories.

I wish I could write you as a riddle too complex to solve.

My father says people never win more than they lose.

You are in my life, but I do not know how to platonically love you nor do I want to.

I cannot exist in a world where we are not together because, with you, everything is better.

I know that I will love you forever as you are my long-term curse.

The only thing keeping me sane is reminding myself that love is not enough.

“How can you stand up for a monster?”

Monsters are created.

Anything created can be transformed.

I have been touched by his light and scarred by his dark.

I defend his life as if mine is tied to it.

I used to tell you to consume happiness in bite-sized pieces.

I told you that, one day, you would feel full.

I told you to stop rushing things; that time isn’t real.

I told you that bright lights are not always blinding.

I told you that you will always have a piece of my heart.

You showed me that you did not want it.

Featured art: “Pomegranate and Paper Wasps” by Joe Helms.

I ate a shooting star hoping to become your once-in-a-lifetime wish, but all I did was burn from the inside out.

The Quake.

It started with my head. 

Reminiscing our past caused my skull to crack and chip until brain tissue leaked from gaping holes. As gray matter seeped, I began to forget if you smelled of musk or linen. As white matter oozed, I began to lose memories I once treasured, like how you made me mint tea in the park or did laundry in the grocery store. 

You.

Yuo.

Uoy.

The Cough.

I wanted to talk to you. When I tried, I would choke. All the things I wanted to say built up in my throat until I passed out.

I woke up coughing up confessions until all that was left was bloody teeth.

The Inflammation.

My eyes grew inflamed staring at pictures of us. Your arms wrapped around my waist in our Christmas photos broke at least seven blood vessels in my watering eyes. The polaroids I kept hidden almost made me blind. 

The Rash.

A rash broke out everywhere your hands have touched me. From my neck down to my wrists were red. The trace of my waist and shoulders displayed splotches in the shape of fingertips. I scratched my arms until they bled trying to rid the feeling of you. I could not stop until nurses noticed and put me in restraints. 

The Blisters.

When you came to visit me at the hospital, the blistering began. You reached to hold my hand and it became a surface of raised bumps.

My skin forgot who you are.

The Drool.

I tried to answer your questions or thank you for visiting me in the hospital, but all I could do was drool with a swollen mouth.

You looked away.

Was it because you made me this way?

The Crust.

I tried to blink at you in a code you could understand, but my eyes began to crust until I could see only the colors of your shirt, skin, hair. As my eyes glued shut, the face I used to stare at for hours became a distorted blur.

I would have given anything to see you once more.

The Breath.

You always pointed out that I held my breath around you. This time, I could not help it. 

No one tells you that when you consume a shooting star, it survives off of your oxygen supply.

The Shedding.

Perhaps the worst part was how my skin shed off onto you. 

I flaked at your touch until my bones were exposed. I felt you wipe me off your fingertips, disgusted. 

I wanted to scream with a mouth I could no longer open.

The Death.

You never got to hear about how my organs simmered inside of me like a slow-cooked stew. 

Doctors studied my body in ways you never cared to do. 

As I was dying, I heard a doctor ask another if I had tried saying your name.

I did.

Featured Art: Unknown