i thought to live,
so i am. 

i think this is love: that i stand
instead of crawl. 

on this sharp
edge, as my  

wrinkles get deeper
and laugh lines 

turn gray
on asphalt. 

i still am,
living.

vows,

there goes a birthday cake
leftover on the table.
another unwashed plate
nicotine stains the walls,
and she would rather envelop on the couch to dream.
a kiss to forget your shadows
someone left behind their mind.
only panic in the dark room,
where an armor of dissent wallows.
the shattering of plates over his head,
and the last Christmas picture to send out to friends.

one take,
bad smile.
two take,
i blinked.
three take,
battery died.
and i knew i should have never vowed to make a family.

silhouettes of our imagination hang and i develop snap shots of our goodbye.

dancing on my own

how can i give my loneliness the expression it deserves. never the right words despite an abundance to pick from. and maybe that's because i have so many of them present in my mind simultaneously i can't organize in time for them to fulfill. they swerve and crash into one another as i run after them furiously. too strong a hold on control and my words spill.

my loneliness is most at ease when i nurture it with solitude. when no other force is present i can indulge in no tasks, no friends, no comforting relatives. just me. it becomes clearer and clearer that i am never alone in my thoughts, though i feel a gutting edge when my thoughts are alone. this takes me to a daily reminder that i share very little to no similarity among my peers. and that's when isolation becomes too big to comfort.

truth is, i have never been comfortable with social obligations. the manners in which i have to behave. the answers i have to give and the smiles i feel forced to take. i almost always rebel against these contracts for i know the reasons i'm being asked to fulfill them in the first place don't interest me.
oddly enough i find people fascinating and wonderful. i want to know, i want to learn, but i know caring for others is a responsibility, and disappointments are easier to handle when they're your own. too much investment.and in turn, too much thought, too much noise. there is a tenderness to me that always wants to heal someone. almost as a filler for what i can't always do for myself. i'd much rather care from a distance and show it in a way that may not be conventional. what it does is preserves me. and in the end both parties are safe from the resentment that would usually occur if i did fall in hard. i'd rather much experience a chaos all on my own than merge it with someone else.

my mother says i am 1. barbaric - in that i don't always know how to properly assert myself in social settings, and 2. selfish for the minimal effort
but this is the mechanics of my introverted self. some of us need distance to conserve, observe, and process energy. i can turn on my charm as easy as i can turn it off, but it comes at my own volition. and i am smart enough to understand certain times call for certain falsities. i can't always scoff at the standards laid out by society when i enter the work place, for example. nor am i rude to strangers, or even cold as some would imply. there is too much warm intensity inside me for love and humanity.

anxiety spears me harder than any lonely feeling ever would. it is from judgement that i feel small and tormented. an alien pod among the regulars. but I've learned that to be alone is to be wholesome and liberated. i do not want to be stuck in empty decadence, with false niceties, and chatter that leaves me yearning for silence.

and so comes the conclusion: respect and authenticity. 

I. Me. I.

One day passes, nothing happens. Day two slip while I'm still asleep. Three days come around and i'm finally awakening. Singing. On the fourth day I eat with no remorse. My body is happy, and I am sleeping on a blanket I stole back from 1999. On the fifth day I remember my grandmothers closet. I put on her favorite shirt and I feel her jewels. The marks from my grandfathers 'love' stuck on her chest. That's where I used to lay. I am not full woman yet to carry her crown.

Tea is glossing my mouth. 6 cups of it on the sixth day. Fragrance of mango black keeps me warm. Never enough so I continue to detoxify my body on the seventh. My mother reminds me I am death in human form. What does this mean? It sounds like poetica so I scoff. But on the eighth day I wallow in destruction. Eight years old and she's running through the snow. Something in me is crawling. Ghosts I've welcomed, maybe? Calmness has never been a friend.

9 piercings punch through my skin. Where do these little holes reside? I am a map. My body is mine, my mind is yours to use. On the tenth day the city drenches me. My complexion is dull. I have not seen the sun in eleven days. I read his love letter. I read his print. Study the curve of his L the same way I studied the curve of him on me. Twelve poems to write - I have this marked on my calendar. Twelve. One for each day I shed myself. Thirteen is the worst number. I hope and pray it lands on a Friday. I'm thinking I was really supposed to be in feline form.

Fourteen footsteps to my new life. Fourteen footsteps from the outside. On the fourteenth day I walk, count. And when the key turns someplace will be home. Fifteen days and panic begins. An american with foreign bones? Where am I? Am i still her child? On my sixteenth birthday my father calls. A ghost in my veins, he lives to haunt me every sixteen days. On the seventeenth I tell him to go to hell. Though I think he found it effortlessly years before.

Books are scattered in every corner. My loves and I fly through pages and on the eighteenth day I finally try. I put on my finest cocktail dress and go for a walk. I see a woman and I am sure we will marry. Our shoulders brush. There goes my interest, lost as always. I remember I have to clean on the nineteenth. Met a life that gave my love something to aspire to. He held my hand and I broke his. I throw the remaining bones in the trash. Now the room smells of lilacs.

Twenty days steal my hunger. I am no longer. Who was it that took me from me?...Cut my finger vigorously. Once, not too long ago I used to run from blood. But the pain now sings me songs. Twenty one days and i'm learning to wipe it off. Twenty two passes and I am still alive. Not sure if this is good news, but someone out there must be relieved. Twenty three is loud! And i'm on the floor writing. A little girl cries out for attention. My windows are close to breaking. My childhood is reminding me this is not it.

Twenty four days go by and I fall back in love. They have no names, and I do not know if they exist, but they are everywhere. And they are everyone. I cling to attention that leaves me empty. What else is there? Not one superficial smile can cure me yet. Not one interaction has left its fire. I am trying once again when twenty five comes around.

i have done it.

in a drunken haze i have never felt more clear and crisp and real than i do now. i am shedding old skin, sewing together new from the rags sprawled out in front of me. from each day and each month, each year i have let myself down - i am sewing with vigor and going off on a tangent i hoped would come. here it is. yes. 

i will not be used for validation.

i will not allow anyone to gut me with their words,
because i write, i should know just how empty an adjective can be.

You should too.

Sometimes I like to just sit in the bathtub naked, no water. I'll grab my trusty ciggie, light up a candle, unlock the window, and let the wind blast it right open. Occasionally my fingers will wander and I will experience some of the best orgasms I ever have. The self is good. Myself is great. 

mother nature and I hold hands.

2004. Sometime in the Spring. I was 16, in high school, and completely boiling. 

I remember a specific date. Not the number, but the instance. I was going through a lot of conflicting emotions. Angst, sadness, emptiness. It was a terrible day. Actually, it was a terrible year. I felt inadequate, alone, scared.

Back then I used to walk a lot. No music, just the streets. I would leave the house to clear my head and that was enough to recharge me. I remember this particular day because it was one of the worst, and one of the best.

That day I went down to Lake Washington. I sat down on the steps by the water and tried to clear my head. I thought, okay, I just need a breather. 1 inhale, 2 exhale, 3 repeat. I remember closing my eyes and emptying every thought from my mind, every feeling, every ache from my body. It was more than what I was expecting. I remember hearing the waves, and each time they hit the edge of the steps - it was almost as if it was inside me. Hitting my lungs, but in a blanket sort of way. No suffocation. Does that even make sense? It was a weird moment, a beautiful moment. I don't know why I keep thinking about it. Although, maybe I do

On that day, in that year, in that season, I was still. Pure. As if my soul was lifted from my being. It wasn't just envisioning, I was feeling it happen to my body. Each wave hitting me, the intensity coddling, and freeing. In that moment -  A higher state of consciousness. Meditative perhaps. 

I was water.

Today I went down to the lake and tried to clear my mind, listen to what's around me, become it. 

Never quite got it. 

I don't know if I will ever experience that euphoric state again.