arabesque-o

purpose driven pulse looking for a sense of complet- ion in need of a life expressing meaning.     called to joy-           but unable to hold contentment watch it slip through the holes in my life how do you hold yourself full if everything has a hole ? the night sky is a blindfold, the day a continual heavy-weighted choice. my thoughts lash i am raw with the version of self grating inside this body.

 the dictatorship of my unspoken neglect- the heavy-handed monarchy of my procrastination first wrapped a meaty fist around me in college. as a life-newbie, cigarette-dispeller, empty-bank-account dweller, people-seeker, and knock-out drinker combined into a toxic potpourri of leftover depression and the unmarked to-do list of my procrastination you know that dismal mind-labyrinth of ihaveto-needto-but probablywon’t? the bear trap of it’s-not-been-done-for-solong there’s not much of a point anymore? i signed my name under that thought and held it like a banner. a shameful staking of territory a problem to drink to a lul

i count the air i breath in exhaled cigarette smoke- these are my vital signs

your fingers encoded in the tangles of my hair there's a glass of wine to darken your lips and a cigarette to make mine smokey the moon is an icy chandelier above us as we breathe together on my rooftop overlooking downtown and i am forever stuck trying to interlock my hands with the petulant toddler that is Now i want nothing more than this moment, but time does nothing but run from me. stay still, i plead. maybe if we don't breathe the light won't touch down on the earth quite yet, maybe i won't have to leave in the morning again. i want to hold this perfect in my hands, i want to cage it in a mason jar to keep it in the threads of my s

 show me how to breathe without choking on my own lungs. show me how to live inside my skin without self-destructing. my head is a fistfight and lately it's been entirely impossible to get out of bed. tomorrow, I will turn 22. I will wake up and eat two eggs and then I will go to work as a 22-year-old. I don't know what that means. Nothing probably. according to modern culture, all my remarkable birthdays have now passed. I feel like that. Passive, I mean. Purposeless- like floatsam but I am so very far from the sea.

unzip my spine turn my skin inside out and burn everything it houses. I'm sick to death of the casualties of my mistakes, my chronic failures like a fire burning down those I love most. break the record I don't want to keep replaying these old patterns. look me in the eye and tell me I'm not the common denominator of all the times something broke. I want to see you try to lie don't patronize me, if this was the test I've failed it again. I'm not sure I believe in starting again anymore- I'm too tired to get up again purity is too far out of my grasping hands.

 my head is heavy with a blanket of snow, my limbs are stiff with the frostbite of dread i've been having these weird dreams lately, of people shaving off my hair or relapsing or these half remembered dreams of His or her hands I'm sorry, my breath smells like vomit again and my mind is running at the edge of sanity playing chicken with the crazy. It's not okay I don't know why, -but I'm cycling again. maybe it's the thunder of old storms, the memory of old Christmases like a guillotine kissing my neck the dread and anticipation in one married knot beneath my ribs. small frustrations chafe like sandpaper on bones, the end equation of some

 you strange human, you child hearted explore. you mischievous ear-poker. you are so full of life, but your heart is the bathtub you keep draining. they say 60% of the human body is made up of water, and by that I mean maybe you don't need to be so afraid of drowning because maybe you were made with water in you to learn how to feel at home with it. I hope you feel at home with it. your body I mean, I hope you feel at home in it- because I know the way sometimes skin doesn't fit right over bones and the way your head can feel like a gut-punch or the crawl space in an attic or an old record set on repeat. remember to listen for who yo

it's as unfamiliar as breathing water, this feeling: this can't-stop-thinking-about-them this elementary might 'like LIKE you, like you' this tidal-wave stomach-storm, this can't say this nervous jitter my heartbeat could storm a castle at just the thought of touching their face and I'm writing bad poetry again, knowing that this is just another sign I've tripped and fallen down the staircase again but this time it feels innocent it feels unsure, tentative- like the way a baby opens its eyes for the first time or the way you learn to fly. unsteady, heady, and a little bit tipsy on the unspoken longing. this is a language I have never spok

I'm tired of this always-trying-to-fit, this eternal strive to be funnier more energetic more likeable like being around my friends is just another performance. as if every time I open my mouth I'm really just trying to run faster than the dark in my head- terrified if I stop long enough it will shut me down. I found myself only to lose who I am in the projection of my own voice. stop trying so hard. let the words come when they will, but do not apologize when silence fills your mouth unique does not simply mean carbon copy yourself a different version of someone else you are not meant to be a circus act to meet with their approval. self-ac