burning green like a rhomboid sun

money talks (pt 1 cuz I couldn't decipher the second stanza LMAO) (Written 05/04/25)

i wish to be a billionaire

with shiny maseratis, chrome paint

maybe a few dozen stars bought

and owned, shoved in

little metal drawers for safe keeping.

dog days (06/04/25)

familiarity leads to insolence
which leads to screaming matches
in the bathroom doorway
and leads to spilled chemicals
staining the tile floor
and painting my skin blue.


it leads to fallen stars
lying broken at the doorsteps
and choking hazards in my
week-old mcdonalds meal
i meant to eat but forgot about.


kind of like how you forgot me,
standing small and shriveled
in the doorframe, dwarfed by
your voices alone. it leads to
hospital visits and disgusted faces
treating acid burns on my forearms.


familiarity leads to insolence.
it leads to forgetting your daughter
and making all the wrong kind of decisions.
love me at my highs, ignore me at my lows.
i’m just the dog barking at your door.
familiar with it’s bite, insolent in its barks.
you yell at it to shut up and it complies.

in the night (07/04/24)

quiet skies,
fireflies
glow.
dead of night,
dark things
crawl.
bright stars,
too many to
count.

nighttime (08/04/24) (It sucks.)

moon.
low light, night sky.
sun.
too bright, gleaming eye.
star.
up high, no flight.

who taught you to hate yourself?


“who taught you to hate your hair?”
she did, with her idle remarks
about how it would look better curled.
(i curled it into long ringlets.)
then she said it would be better short
(i chopped it all off with a swiss army knife.)
it’s been bleached, stained, and cut
in all manners of ways.
(still it was never enough.)


“who taught you to hate your freckles?”
she did, tracing contellations on my cheeks
with permanent red sharpie until it looked like
i had wept thousands of scarlet tears.
(i spent all night scrubbing it to no avail.
she offered no help, only a faint smile at my struggles.)


“who taught you to hate your skin?”
she did, with her languid tongue and
knife-sharp jabs. too pale, not tan enough,
she said, running fingers down my arm,
like a vampire, coming to suck blood.
(i dug my nails into what made up my outsides
and tried to pry it off my very bones.)
i’m was left with only scars.


“who taught you to hate your bones?”
she did in late nights spent curled together
in the back of my pick up truck, poking
and prodding at my body, saying that
i must be pretty big-boned to weigh so heavy.
(i dug my fingernails into my thigh, peeling back flesh
until i could claw away at the bone hidden beneath.)
the hospital tutted and bandaged me up,
and stuck me into a small box with a self-proclaimed
therapist whose only job was to make me feel worse.


“who taught you to hate yourself?”
she did with her loaded gun questions
and sketchy answers. late night calls
of ‘i love you’s’ and tired apologies
when it was never truly my fault.
she taught me to hate myself.
(what is love if not another form of hate?)

space

her tears taste like honeydew with a
hint of extraterrestrial redshifting.
she walks with the grace of moonlight
and has eyes like protostars.
she’s not quite up to societal standards,
but she lives in the future, not the past.

somedays, other days, all around every day.



i confuse myself a lot of the time.

somedays, all i wish for is to be back-to-back,

curled up between someone’s legs with

strong arms wrapped around me.

other days, i hate the idea of being touched.

the mere thought of skin-to-skin contact

disgusts me, makes me want to claw my

skin off my bones, as if i’ve been defiled.

somedays, i’m antsy, legs shaking, bones aching,

can’t quite manage to sit still. the walls tilt

and swirl around my head, telling me to move.

somewhere. anywhere.

other days, my bones drag me down into the

soul-sucking waters of exhaustion. i can’t

move. my brain hurts. my limbs ache.

on those days, i am numbness,

and numbness is me. unfortunately

there is never an inbetween.

i confuse myself a lot of the time.

i am an inherently selfish being.

i get so absorbed into myself
and forget that other people exist.
does that make me selfish? everyone
likes to tell me it does, heavy hands on my shoulders.

i am an abhorrent plague.

my insides seethe with rot, festering infection
on decade old self-inflicted wounds.
why am i allowed to love others when i can
not scrape this harrowing disease off my very bones?

i am a vengeful weeping angel.

i'm forever stuck in quantum-lock,
gaze held by others, never myself.
am i really so terrible that people cannot look upon my face
for fear of being send back to when we were young?

CW: verbal & physical abuse, manipulation

spit acidic words on my face, drip drop,
and call it love.

drag fingernails down my scalp, pull it tight,
and call it love.

lay heavy hands on my shoulders, press down,
and call it love.

pull me into the silver waters, keep me under,
and call it love.

when do you get sick of masquerading?
disguising your scales and feathers and talons
as human flesh in vaguely parental figures.
when do you get sick of pretending?

flay my skin from my bones, devour it,
and call it love.

crack my knuckles, slurp marrow down,
and call it love.

dig knobbly fingers into my ribcage, break them open,
and call it love.

drag nails down my back, render the skin useless,
and call it love.

what are apologies if not the remains
of dozens of broken promises?
what are the words "i love you" if not a sword
to carve away at the little that's left of me?

bury your fangs into my body, dig deep,
and call it love.

nibble away at my personality until i'm only a shell,
and call it love.

watch as i struggle to name you like rumpelstiltskin
and call it love.

pluck every nerve in my body like a harp, watch me spasm,
and call it love.

what other word is there
to label these actions,
any other word, what is there to do except
call it love?

CW: language

i already have such a low self-esteem
and you shed it apart with words like
selfish. lazy. monster. bitch.

you tear into my gut with razor claws,
spreading infection and disease like
depression. exhaustion. immolation.

you really said fuck you and left me dangling
on the doorstep, holding the good parts of me back like
my self-worth. my personality. my love.

fly fishing on the last day of april

it's fitting that,
like the beginning,
it rains on the last day of april.

it clings to my skin,
to my lashes, to my hair.
soaks me to my very bones.

thunder cracks, lightning flashes.
i drag my gaze unwillingly upward,
towards the violet-lit sky, palms up as if in prayer.

it collects in the curves of my collarbones,
then spills over and runs down my chest.
mud squishes underfoot, fish wiggling in my bones.

the rain is bitingly bitter, crying for the month gone by
it's like a sorrowful goodbye, maybe a joyful hello
in the way it curls along my bones and flesh.

it makes a mockery of my clothes,
flattening, shaping, worming under.
poking, prodding, pricking. parasitic in nature.

the fish bite at my hook, reel casting, wobbling
unsure of what to do now that i've got here.
it's caught, hook line and sinker. what a fool.