the storm

I can feel it in my gut, you say,

you look me straight in the eye. 

My hand placed there, yes, just

above your collarbone,

I want to feel it too. I want 

to know it as well as you do. 

Yet, all that's in my gut is

an army of little sea men,

setting barrels--pulling down

masts and tying knots. So many

knots, tethering me down in 

the midst of all these tossings,

the turnings.

Lightning licks my insides, dark

clouds hanging overhead, a great storm! 

I won't allow myself to be cast overboard,

I can't be derailed,

my arms sore from holding to my ship,

calling to my crewmates, please; I'm here, 

I'm safe. 

When is it okay to let go, I wonder,

and my hand is still on your collarbone, hanging

on to the sinewy handle like I'm holding to to the rails.

Not today, not today. My eyes find 

my hands, purple from the cold, and 

my hands find my pockets. 

ouch

 I keep bleeding.

every time my finger bends, I find a new cut. flesh is sliced every time I turn a page, or if a knife nicks my knuckle. blood stains my pillowcase. 

It's not that I'm afraid of it--the red, pinkish stains it leaves behind, or the hot pools leftover by my menstrual cycles. I'm not afraid of red blood cells or white blood cells or circulation or purple veins. I'm afraid of what it signifies; I'm terrified of pain. 

I'm worried that if I read more books, the stinging will continue, or worse, increase. How can I keep going when all I can predict is the pain? I cringe at any mention of soreness, or the sharp pains someone might feel upon injury. I'm wary of others in pain; I can't be around them too long, because it might be catching. 

The worst thing about pain is that you can't see it. My face might contort into a ball of frustration, and I might scream "damn" and "shit" and all kind of curse words at the sky, but you can never really see it. Something in us expects pain; anticipates it, knows somehow when someone else might cause us pain. We have a sense of when it might slide its way into us, but maybe that's the worst part. Some people say pain is blinding--others say you get used to it. 

The bruises on my knees are almost gone. It's strange to me, that some pain leaves no scars. At least none that are visible. Some pain is so deep, we might hold onto it like a scar, might expect that it's part of us in some way, that the skin formed around our cuts is too precious to forget about. Maybe that's what I'm doing; maybe I'm holding on to the pain because it's all I have left from what was. 

a letter

 you're not reading this, but if you are, when you see it, can you tell me if you think you did the right thing? is this what you wanted? I felt so powerless when it happened, and I feel remorseful and ashamed of the last 7 months, the months when I tried to love you less. I sometimes sit and wonder if you feel like I do, broken up inside and worried, and worthless, alienated, and I sometimes even hope you feel those things, but I end up imagining you feeling nothing but indifferent and apathetic. I'm sorry I was withdrawn. If I could change things about how I behaved the summer of 2017, I would. I don't know how life works, and it's hard for me to understand that one day you have someone and the next day you don't. I didn't know you were feeling this way, I didn't know this was an option you were considering. Maybe if I had, I would have tried harder. I blame myself for thinking you'd stick around, like you always did, but as soon as I stopped fighting, stopped the outrageous fighting that I had continued for the last four years, the fighting for you and the intense grip I had on everything. as soon as I stopped, you stepped away. Was I blind to this inevitability? If I had known, I would have given you a hug. You know, that last day, when you came over, and you needed someone, and I wasn't the person you needed me to be. We went through the drive-through and I complained about your dog in defense of my own vulnerability. You remember, when you were leaving, and we looked at each other, and I knew you wanted a hug, and you knew I didn't want to give you one. I can't reach out to tell you this. I don't feel like I'm allowed to, like suddenly you've created an invisible boundary that neither of us defined but that I think would be crossed if I tried to define it. I wish I would have said more. I wish it could have been different. I keep replaying it back in my mind; if I had known, I would have pulled you in and held you, at least one last time, to send you off with some semblance of love instead of all the cold I shot at you. 

thanks

6 years

74 months

323 weeks

2,259 days

54,215 hours

3,252,955 minutes

195,177,313 seconds

you said forever

witchcraft

my stomach's a crystal ball--it can tell the future

it turns, and I'm reminded of the worry today, when you told me

and it settles into a dynamic flurry that loves to reject everything I give it. 

it tells me the future, and I think I can feel you; 

I can feel that you're hurting, and I can feel someone else holding you,

and I wish I could change this but I can't. 

did you know, nonbiological twins exist?

cut of the same heartstring, forever before the womb, forever before today,

I didn't know.

maybe it's just our stomachs tied together, I'm not sure

nothing seems to cure it, not time, not distance,

not talking,

not un-loving,

not even Pepto Bismol,

I sigh 

How can this be, that you experience things, and my body moves with you,

sinking when you're low, and becoming defensive when you're in trouble,

aching to envelope all your feelings, all my feelings, until we become whole again?

but you don't feel it. you can't allow it, 

because you don't know,

and I always expect you to--because I know, long before I ask,

somehow, I know, and somehow, you don't. 

it's witchcraft, this. have you voodoo-ed me? 

I haven't been writing.

I haven't been writing.

Maybe it's because I'm supposed to be writing, or because I've found other ways to expunge my emotions, but I haven't been writing, and I think that's okay.

It's okay because I lost you. I lost you last week and I knew it was coming, like the aftermath of the year's biggest hurricane, predicted on my local weather station. I had my 72-hour-kit, I did my research, I was ready for the power outage. I held my breath when you told me the news, and my voice was so shaky--I told you I was cold, and you believed me.

It's okay because I'm hurting, and I'm hurting everywhere in a way I haven't before. Some of it is because of you, and some of it is because of my own external recklessness, but maybe that is in some ways also because of you. I had to find ways to live, ways to move, move away from the kinds of hype I used to get when I thought about you or when I imagined myself close to revealing my feelings. I knew my highs needed to come from somewhere else, or at least I needed to distract myself.

And now I'm here with nothing to distract me and I feel it in my stomach, a kind of curdling that leaves me tossing with disgust and discomfort, and I want to escape it. My stomach is boiling. I can't get away.

love letter

honestly I never imagined it would get this far, that I would feel this way, 17-year-old me resurfacing to make yet another dramatic comeback. I'm not just habiting the same sunsetty parking lots and drifting away in my own boredom, but I'm starting to wish for impossibles and nevers, and most of all, I'm starting to think of you. I'm starting to think of you like I have a mad middle school crush, a fluttering heart without any kind of cage to hold it back, and I'm happy to let it float away into nothingness like a helium balloon set free by a toddler--up, up, up into thin atmospheric hiding places.

This isn't just a love letter to you; I mean, of course it is, with your eyes that reflect all my laughs and the way you tangle your thoughts up with mine. But it's also a love letter to me, to myself, whom I often believe to be completely confused and without any sense. It's a love letter to myself because over the last few months, I've been surprised by how many times I've been right when everything seemed to be telling me I was wrong. This is one of those times, when I feel I've been right this whole time despite everything telling me that I'm confused, or misunderstanding, or illogical.

So, this is an "in-your-face" sort of confrontation, an "I told you so," a reverse confession, I suppose. I reflect towards others the way I'm treated by them, and I'm completely in love with you. Everything reminds me of you, and I want to talk to you when my day is good, or when my day is bad, or when nothing has happened at all.

I can't finish this, because I can't write what I'm feeling. It's unusual for me, to not be able to write it. But I can't. Where are you? Why can't you help me?

do what you want

this whole time, you've asked me for forgiveness, and I've given it to you.
I asked you for forgiveness, and you gave it to me, but for what?
for asking you to stay?
for wanting you here?
for begging you to help me?
for loving you more than you wanted?
and now, what, now you're here, and you're asking me to do those things,
to hold you and comfort you,
to tell you that I care,
but I'm tired of forgiveness and I'm trying to prevent needing it,
and I'm not allowed to do those things, remember?
I'm so tired of letting people control me,
I forgive faults so easily,
and the people I love tell me to stop allowing the way I love people to poison me,
but I guess I have a death-wish,
because I keep finding people to dose me with arsenic little by little,
I keep finding people who I can love and lift by giving them my wings,
and I'm suddenly realizing that yes, it is my fault.
It's my fault for wanting to be the person you cared about,
and it's my fault for believing that people will love me the way I love them.
leave me alone.
do what you want,
I'll say it and I'll keep saying it, and every time I say it it bores a hole into me and I've
become a sponge that soaks up more bleach every time I see you
bleaching myself free of emotions until all that's left is a half-eaten rag
I don't even know what I want anymore, because that's been taken away from me,
so do what you want.

you

you're breaking my heart so slowly
I didn't even realize it until now
blinking back wetness
I'm consumed by you
and it really hurts




thanks a lot

it's a-me

I am compelled to write, if not to inform myself, than to deposit the heaviness that presses on my insides constantly. I feel myself shrinking under my own inclinations, slicing myself into pieces, digesting my own thoughts and turning them inside out, thinking so much that I don't have room to think. And so, I must write.

I need to write about so much that my fingers freeze in hesitation and pause to grasp for a moment at the whisper-strings flying about behind my eyes, only to break them in their delicate existence. I cry out in frustration like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum, thwarted by the loss of my own control.

And so I'll start, like humans tend to do, with myself. My own impatience is sending me tumbling into non-productivity. Frankly, I want to be someone that I'm not. Wisdom tells me to be content with who I am, to change myself step by step if I wish to improve, and to take each step with a happiness and joy that propels me into a greater step of being. I can say it, but I can't do it, and I want to be lighter today, I want to reverse decisions I've made, I want to be able to complete everything in one fell swoop and become perfection with a simple nod of my head. If I can't perform perfectly in any aspect, how will I ever become as perfect as I hope to be? I can't change my face, and I can't seem to change people's perceptions of me. I found myself pulled by patience at this time last year, and I'm struggling to find the vein that I happened upon and took for granted. I try to draw from my strength, but I just feel so weak and want gratification, now. I'm tired of being patient. I'm tired of waiting.

I feel like I've wasted time. I'll talk about him, about his non-productivity, even worse than mine, stuck with no drive. Have I caught his disease? Is he as overwhelmed as I am? I curse myself for the instincts I have to take him into my heart to keep him warm, like Han Solo stuffing Luke into a TaunTaun to keep him warm and save his life. But my heart's not a freaking TaunTaun and I need to chill, or rather, to let him chill, to leave him to die in his own pathetic wasteland of "I can't" and "I don't want to." I'm finished being an unrecognized stilt and I seethe at my own commitment to he who can't even recognize my functionality or strength. So, I've wasted time and I hate wasting time, and I've gone backwards in patience and forwards in my downhill descent, and I'm leading my heart into a broken wasteland to die, if not for eternity, then just for a few minutes.

I thought I had more to say, but I guess I feel relief already and I'm less involved in myself now that I'm on the page. Forget about the finances, about the obligations, about the snowflakes still threatening to keep me cold, about the food, about the men, about the schoolwork I'll have to do--I'll manage somehow, just as I always do. I assume it won't be the end of me, and if it is, I guess things could be worse.

for you, when you realize

hearts beat faster than we're breathing, I suspect

I couldn't really hear them, 

but I could hear our knees tapping

against the hard plastic of lawn chairs

our eyes meet and it's a contest,

I'm drowning in a sea of broken, glassy green,

begging to be held, 

I know I'm seen,

what are we waiting for? I wonder,

willing to wait, willing to wish away 

wish away all the dew on the grass

all the foggy mornings and late-night-cheese-fries,

until we can be together and I can breathe,

breathe like my heart underwater 

like my brain on jupiter,

every inhale for me,

every exhale for us,

one-two, I think, one-two,

and I can feel our knees touching purposelessly,

folding into one another like gravity,

we can't help it,

they're trying to stop us,

mosquitoes swarming for a drop of sweet blood

hot blood pumping through me, 

iron singing to both of us,

we have no defenses.

worst case scenario

worst case scenario,
you look at me, submitting yourself like you always do,
reading me like a doctor's diagnosis.
you'll laugh at all my jokes and question my logic
frequently, probably,
but I appreciate it
worst case scenario,
I drive and won't look over at you,
focused on the road and my foot on the pedal,
but you'll probably drive
and look at me for a second too long
and I'll break contact to remind you to look at the road
worse case, you'll listen to me
and I'll listen to you
magnets spinning around each other
only to be separated before they finally make contact
we're magnets, aren't we? I think so.
I'm never afraid to be with you,
but I'm afraid of myself
I'm afraid I'm nailing myself to the ground
and I'll be stuck here forever, waiting.
worst case scenario,
I'll be nailed to the ground,
but I know you'll always come back.
anyway,
it doesn't bother me,
but last time I cried on the drive home,
alone and wiping my face, one hand on the steering wheel
I just let my sobs fill the space around me,
and they held me like a blanket.
I don't know why I was crying,
I guess anyone cries in a worst case scenario,
even if it's the kind that leaves you breathless and grateful and comfortable,
I can't think of best-case,
I can't be disappointed.

a letter

Dear Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups,

I’ve been wanting to write to you for some time—I know my absence is likely worrying you, but it was too difficult to make contact before now. Every time I think of you, I’m filled with a hauntingly familiar lust that fills my chest and pools in my fingertips. It’s silly, I know—maybe we were more obsessed with one another than “in love,” maybe the relationship was parasitic, as so many people tell me. I credit you with both saving my life and with slowly killing me. Two years ago we were in the exciting and (somewhat) exhausting phase of new love, and I couldn’t get enough of you. I felt to some extent that you reciprocated. Nobody satisfies me quite like you do, still, after all this time. I try to brush thoughts of your comforting presence aside, remembering the tools you used to control me. You were manipulative, paired with the Devil himself, as they say, leading me “carefully down to Hell,” taking my heart with your added sugars and tempting taste of toasted peanuts. The day I decided to leave you left me paralyzed, tucking myself under my bed-quilt, forcing myself to curb my appetite until I finally fell asleep in a state of near-illness. How did I ever let it go so far? But this is turning to emotional assault, see, I never wanted to hurt you, and I still don’t—I admire your perfection, and perhaps it’s too much for my uncontrolled passion to truly receive. Even now, as I write, I realize that I’ll never be truly free of you. I tried to pry myself away from you slowly, tasting, restraining, but it always turned into bags and the bags turned into pounds, and I knew cold-turkey was the only way to truly cut free.

I’m sorry for leaving. Sometimes I still regret it. Sometimes I think I can still taste you…

What it was to be drunkenly controlled by you, putting all my trust and pouring all my emotions into you. I never had a lover so reliable, so fulfilling. My mind in a sugary haze floated above all my hurt and everything seemed like the foam atop a latte for a while,

but I’m here now, and I got here without you. I’m not boasting, only validating my own decisions, knowing that my wounds were only blistering in infection when I was so distracted by you. I can still see the scars, and it’s tempting to come back to you, when everything seems fine, but I’ll try to remember the past.

For now, I send my condolences. Don’t think too hard on me,
Kalli

back to the same place

I want you to know everything. 

This always happens, I don't know why I'm running myself in circles,

I don't know why I'm always distracted just long enough to derail myself,

and I come back to you every time.

I want to tell you how you made me try harder,

how your smile always makes me feel loved x1000,

and I'm a magnet when you're by my side

My brain is pulling on my heart-leash,

bruising it and suffocating it,

and all I want is to let it off and let it run free

but last time I did that you left it to the beasts

they almost nearly devoured it,

left it in a shredded bloody mess on the ground

and I ran to pick it up and heal it in solitude

but it's the same beating heart

with the same impulses,

and you can't teach an old heart new tricks--

I need a new heart but they are too expensive

and I'm okay with this one for now

Can you catch it when I let it loose?

grandma florence

Grandma Florence, it was just a headache. 

Deserts of Nevada and four babies and a giant headache.

All her insecurities, all her failures, all her successes.

The house over the freeway.

1-15 is my heritage.

How much do they pay people for houses when they need a freeway

Public roads and voting

Memories and things, relationships with each other plaster onto relationships with things and with the universe

Driving through Nevada and looking at the slate colored walls and neon signs thinking, Florence, why here? Why him? 

this is fiction

the freckles lined her lips, tracing them with spots of fairy dust and sun-memories. whispering, whispering, she stared at him with hazy eyes, foggy from sleep and drifting into submission. he combed her hair back, the dark wisps pulling away from her eyelashes, making her shiver run down the back of her neck and eat at her insides. shh, shh, she thought she heard, and she lifted her fingers, tracing his ear, wondering where did he come from? why was he here? he winced and took her fingers from his neck, holding them and staring, tracing the spaces between like they used to do in church. it had been so long, but he felt familiar and warm, and she missed him. she missed the grass, and the games, she missed the running that made her insides heave and the scrapes from the sidewalk, the wet cement and incriminating laughter. she missed the rope burns and the plotting, the butterfly jars--she missed summer and the heat and the carelessness. don't leave, she told him, don't leave. when he brushed her cheek she smelled sunscreen and paint on his hands, so familiar she wanted to reach out and hold onto it. his hand was wet from her tears, the tears she didn't know were there until they smeared against his hands. he didn't bother to wipe them off, and he smiled sadly at her, pulling her up and rolling her onto her back, tucking a blanket around her. are you cold? she nodded, and he added another blanket. he stared at her for what seemed to her an hour, in her incoherence, and then touched her forehead and sighed. he turned, slowly, intentionally, and walked towards the door, glancing back at her before he took hold of the doorknob and closed it. she felt the tears running hot down her face now, fast, stinging her sunburned cheeks. she closed her eyes and imagined him away, imagined it all away, until her mind was nothing but wisps of darkness and bright spots of light, swarming together in a garden of emotion, sinking itself into oblivion. the more it swirled the more the pressure built in her brain and she forced herself to breathe, keep her eyes closed, ignore the tears. she felt the bed under her and let it swallow her, let it open up and take her in, and she gave way to the hole in her mind and slept. 

I have to go to the store

grocery list

attracted to people whose attention I can't get
a circus monkey performing for an apathetic audience
serenity vs excitement, passion vs stability,
when can you be happy
my biggest fear in life is being boring
false sense of intimacy when you're sharing your trauma
don't take my behavior personally
it's just oxytocin
you having a life isn't a rejection
loving myself is so much harder
it's not helping, nothing's helping
here we go boys, here's another one

strain

keep it real keep it cool keep it calm

my hands are at my sides but my head is in my heart; I'm never sure what to think about it but I'm telling myself to take it at face value. I'm never sure what I want, I'm sure for a moment and then you wrap yourself around me like some sort of hypnotic snake--scaly, enticing, poisonous. Venom like sweet syrup dripping down my throat, slowly, so I'm part of you, but enough to rot my insides one organ at a time.

TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT

You're lying and I can tell, you're a con-artist with no perceivable goal. Trading weapons with yourself, you're stuck in business with no profit and you're dragging yourself slowly down and taking me with you. I trust you, and I'm foolish for it. Quiet, please, leave me alone,

leave     me     alone

numbers adding up, slowing down, what for, who am I trying to please, what is pleasure and what do I want? Your appetite is eating me, chewing away at my skin until I become what? what do you want? I'm not sure if I can be good enough for you, I just want you to be happy...

1 2  5  9 14  19  26  31  40     45

hoo-ah hoo-ah I need your help and I can't live without you

static

the thoughts in my mind stopped dancing for a minute

I thought it would be terrifying

but the cool droplets of relief hit my tortured skin

and I'm letting out a breath that I've been holding in for

centuries,

I'm floating on top of a turquoise sea

sunshine kissing my eyelids

my pupils resting beneath their cover

my ears taking in the constant pitch of sunshine

and the underlying harmony of the water

my heart beats slower now

allowing me my pace

echoing throughout every chamber of my body

a rhythm I didn't understand until now

the song floating gently to my toes

beginning in my throat and finding escape 

in my veins

I like it here

the pride I'm feeling is a medal under my shirt

I've been afraid to show it until now

I try to force myself into chaos,

but I know what's real 

nothing gives you more power

control

than the separation of reality 

and imagination

each realm equally open to be explored

conquered, lived in--

but existing separately,

exhaling clarity and revealing

truth

TIL

I learned that hispanic women call me "lady" and old women call me "sweetheart,"

to young men I'm "miss" and to old men I'm "young lady"

The lady across the street calls me "darling" and my mom only calls me on weekends

I have a lot of people who call me "friend,"
and a couple who think I'm "the best,"

sometimes I'm "sister" and sometimes I'm "girl,"

When I'm joking I call myself "homie"

and I never really understood when you called me "dude" 

Today I learned that I shrug off the good names, 

shy away from respect,

dance with casual titles and sip raspberry tea with generalities

Today I learned that I'm hiding behind your name

hiding behind a phone call

I think you deserve more.