Dear sister

I had a dream you ended it
-found your way through the maze
of indecisiveness and
unjustified anger-
your first act of courage
but skating right in-line
with the introverted you
I know and fear.
Little me,
my first thoughts
weren't the whywhywhys,
no realization of the impossibility
of the terrible act to jolt me from it-
we share a face and name,
your bed was across the room from mine
you talked me into insomnia,
we laughed off hate
and ate ice cream with spoons on the kitchen floor-
but I'd die without knowing
what caused the hair in your fists
and the slamming doors.
In the dream, you took that too.

If you become a fan of Jesus on Facebook

I don't think we can be friends.

Narcissistic Depot

You have always said you can read me
open the pages of my insecurities and playfully
crack the binding of the confidence
which doesn’t appear until the 3rd edition
“COMING SOON.”
I would think you’d grow tired of a story you already know
whose words cannot promise to surprise
or mask the tear stained sanity
that the now deformed pages have acquired
from various puddles.
I’ve been dropped.
and I’ve walked willingly into
the muddied situations that
I suppose can now only
merit the title of
literary suicide.
I can’t write romantics.
Love poems must be beautiful
and horrifying
and make everyone who is alone feel inadequate.
I would, of course, savor such power
(you, of course, know this)
but I fear the ignorance of the optimist-
who would mistake my cynicism
for profundity-
and somehow find inspiration in my attempt to belittle.
And I cannot have that-
cannot allow superficial joy
from such a sinister cause.
I am selfless.
Can you help me find a new self?

Wordchuck

I want people to stop-
to stop the complaining
stop ignoring their painful scrutiny of every detail
the conscious riddled words and phrases of the
OH SO NOTORIOUS
--word vomit.
I’m sorry that these sentences fail to purge
the mind of the disease that has for
too long plagued your thoughts-
these empty pages and the endless piles of un-recycled
paper are yet another testimony to the forced heaves
of my failed circumstantial bulimia.
This pencil has been heaving dry for too long.
(And you say angst dies at fifteen).
Let’s get high off the excess mediocrity we’ve stashed in the walls
and the floor boards of our unrealized talent to do
a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y
nothing
and acquire unwarranted hatred
as a teenage girl collects insecurities.
I borrowed these words from faces
I pretend I know-
Adopting personalities is like shaking hands-
but taking away more than the germs
and the moist souvenir of someone you judge upon touch.
I’ve been conditioned to hate everyone equally,
with the occasional bias
tossed into a less than delectable salad of wilted acquaintances
and stale “friends.”
Can I really blame anyone for such cynicism and occasional spurts of egotism?
Yes.
But not today.
Yesterday-
When the world revolved around “you-know-who,”
I could have identified the perpetrator directly.
I’m not feeling particularly fond of clichés.
Perhaps Tuesday.
Ask then.

Commas

I can feel your not-hereness-
the absence of your voice and the
not- next- to-meness of you.
My hand is empty
and my words are lost-
merely tolerated by the other-than-yous.
My footsteps hopscotch
solo along the graveyard of worms,
the wet concrete misses your steps next to mine
mismatched, scruffyrhythm stop start-dragstop-giggle-kiss-one-two
and it starts again.
But I haven’t heard our clumsy song,
just the heavy sighs of my frustrated justmeness
and the slippery-face-almost meets gravelness
of my un-witnessed falling.
Your name inserts itself between hellos and goodbyes
and anxiously churns into gibberish mindmud-
that, like a madwoman, they can’t hear but I repeat.
Repeat.
I poke and punch the air.
I wish there was a button
for the not here
back-to-you-there,
You.
Me.
Back.
Together in the same line.