“so long, sentiment; it doesn’t matter now.”

i will blow these candles out
that they may feel as cold as i
that they won’t hear
nor try to match
the music of my wakeful sigh.

i’ve only ever wanted
except

the chalky whites of your eyes
did not stare into mine;
your ands and ors could not
suffice

i’ve only ever wanted
but

were you the blackboard smears,
the blackberry stain,
the crooked grin;
was i the pool you swam in?

i’ve only ever

wanted.

someone swallowed me
took me into their veins like a drug
and got strung out on my words
(apparently)
i didn’t mind in fact
it soothed me to know that i was worth this
that i could be taken wholly

you spit me out
didn’t like the taste
bitter and barren and too bold
for your tongue
but all i wanted to be was robust
and a concentrated version of myself
but i guess it was just too much

but someone swallowed me
and down down down their throat
i slid and tumbled and fell
to the pit of their stomach and i rumbled
through their insides
and i thrived to live like i did within you
i would drink the fluids from their body
and swim through them like i used to swim through you
i tried to drown myself

i used to sleep within your organs
and your heart would swell (with love? maybe) but i was there
breathing every breath, having a sip of every shot you took
and you sheltered me like i was a part of you
something growing within you

i pulled at your insides and you rejected me
like a virus within your flesh, tearing tearing
and ripping at your mouth and breasts and sinews
between your bones and muscle like paper
tired and spent i crawled from the shell of your
ribs and was bathed in the ocean of air

someone pulled me into them with their
teeth of glass and hands of spiders’ legs pushing me into
the void of another
and i burrowed myself into them
under their skin and between their joints

i want to fold into myself but all there is around me is you you you you
and i can’t find my fingers, my toes are webbed and i’m
eating through my umbilical cord
it’s grown back and i am slowly
reverting back to my pre-human stage of
lightness and depth and surrounding, flawless
dark and enclosure i am growing and growing
and getting too big to stay within you but i will not be birthed
so i climb from your eyes and stretch into the world
and jump into the sand of humanity

and immediately, regretfully, i am swallowed again
and i think to myself maybe it is not my place to be my own, to breathe
that lavender air, to sit in my own aura and to struggle with myself
instead of with someone else and their wet, sticky
foreign insides i want to spill from their mouth and spring from their
forehead like athena escaping the axe but ridding herself of zeus
the only thing i have grown and gained is another heart
that i dance within and wrinkles from being submerged

i can’t get my eyes to focus as i break from you
and my voice sounds way too loud in my own ears

finished my first year of college, now i’m back at home.
everyone keeps going away from me, and i don’t like it.  



but i’m going back to europe for a month, and i leave on tuesday. so there’s that to look forward to.  

the balls of my shoulders,

like skulls of my limbs,
feel like glass in this light.
my solidity completely defunct
without the shine of you.

my heels are like two clubs
but: life seems easier without swinging.
breaking bulbs, eating filaments,
the glass cutting my lips but
there is no difference between that and
my biting them.

in this light, non-light, I
am empty empty empty.

how am I supposed to tell you that 
I want your warmth, the firmness of your palm in my back, 
your thumbs digging into my dimples, fingers sinking into the fleshy parts of me? 
my mind races and my anxiety is immeasurable, 
trying to decipher if you want me, or could love me. 
I am impatient, yes (very much so), and I want to know now: will you love me? 
how will you love me, and when?

i’d prefer you to begin today.

I have been losing sleep-
   it burrows into the abyss
    of the morning hours
 between hitting snooze,
burying myself in blankets
       and wondering of you.

I have been nodding off at work-
   my fists ache, without
 thought; my knees are unsure
    of their placement in space.

I am trying-
   all I want is to understand
  why I feel
     so shell-like: not abalone,
  just empty, a little grainy.
when I see my face,
          my flaccid limbs,
       downturned corners of my lips,
  all I see:

         someone
who isn’t worth
the risk.

and I am losing sleep again—
   nesting in my sadness:
  no regard for otherwise.