Sunset Soon Forgotten

Sunset Soon Forgotten

If I could pick apart your rib cage
like I pick on these strings,
I’d search for your heart,
or at least the space where it’s supposed to be.
Because I know the miles were arduous,
but you swore that we could conquer them
and I’m not quite sure how you left me so calmly
as if I deserved it;
as if I didn’t deserve you.

I’m gazing up at this painted sky
and the storm clouds moving in,
and it’s actually a lot like you.
It offered so much promise to begin with.
The pinks were the I Love You’s
and the golds were the I Won’t Cheat’s
while the violets were the Forever, Baby’s
and the reds were the Marry Me’s;
but the storm offered only grays and blacks and a strange shade of dark green.
It engulfed all of the beauty
and it ruined everything.

So I’m staring at my reflection
on the surface of the lake,
and it’s the first time in a year
that I haven’t seen a distorted face.
The storm is almost over
and as the drizzle bounces off the water,
I realize that it was true.
I didn’t deserve you.
I deserved better.
This is a sunset soon forgotten,
and it’s actually
a lot
like you.

Not Only Skin Deep

Not Only Skin Deep

I don’t know if change is possible
and I don’t know much about happiness,
but I think this is the closest I’ve been to either.
See, from where I’m lying
and the way my skin catches the sunlight
peeking through the blinds,
my scars are invisible.
I wish every moment was like this.
I’ve thrown away my old razors
and I’m sure they’ve grown rusty by now,
but I cannot promise that this new me
won’t crave new blades one day.
And I just wish these scars would fade.
I just wish these memories would fade.
I remember the sundress I was wearing
when the six-year-old me knew
I was born to explore
the forest behind my family’s suburban acre-lot.
I remember the polka dot pajamas I was wearing
the first night my mom didn’t come home,
and I remember crying at my window,
praying to see her mini-van drive down the street
on its way to our cul-de-sac.
I remember the cheerleading picture day,
begging her to help me fix my hair;
and I remember that she didn’t show up.
I remember realizing that the real world
was not soft and sweet,
but rough and rugged, with edges that cut
like those rusty razorblades.
And I remember that real world hurting me.
I don’t know if it ever stopped hurting me.

Loud

Loud

You have seen a raging bitch

Calm down into a peaceful girl.

Now you shall see a peaceful girl

Be stirred into a raging bitch.

Hushing your words has never worked

But for just one minute,

Would you stop forcing your shouts through my ear canal?

Because I’m usually just fine

Until my dad screams that he’s

Proud.

Proud.

Proud!

But if he knew who his little angel really was,

He wouldn’t say that so

Loud.

Loud.

Loud!

And I’ve tried to tell him for quite some time,

But he cannot seem to hear me.

Perhaps the faintness of my whisper

Is traveling below his frequency.

A frequency that refuses to broadcast that

Growing up isn’t always prom dresses and graduation caps

Or final exams and scholarships.

No;

I want to steal that microphone and announce that sometimes,

Growing up is blood dripping down delicate wrists

And dinner coming back out the way it goes in.

And growing up has taught me that

My words aren’t like birds’ melodies,

They’re like scratches on a record;

And I hear you barking that the record is a classic.

Somewhere, there’s a sinking ship full of frantically screeching people.

Sometimes I wish I was one of them.

Sometimes I wish I could just shut them up.

Lies, Lies, Lies

Lies, Lies, Lies

Tattoos are not permanent;

But do you know how long I’ve been trying to scrub this off?

It’s like trying to wash the scent of you out of my hair

Or the taste of you off my lips.

I bought a new perfume the other day

And I started smoking cigarettes

But you still linger on my body

Like this old tattoo.

I often think about where I went wrong.

I suppose it could be that I never went right.

And I’ve been trying to fix this mistake

Every day since I said goodbye;

Or maybe every day since I said hello,

Because I think that’s where I took a wrong turn.

The tattoo shop’s ‘Open’ sign

Was not an X on the map,

And engraving your initials on my hip

Was not the key to safe travels;

But sometimes,

The road to happiness is a disheveled walkway

With bricks and stones strewn all about,

And an occasional piece of glass that stabs through your flimsy shoe.

What a pain in the foot you are.

And I wish tattoos were not permanent.

Disorderly Eating With Ana (mid-draft, still being revised)

Disorderly Eating With Ana

I’ll tell you what happened.

It was actually quite simple.

There were no voices in my head or warps in the mirror.

I knew what was there and it was a huge pile of fat sitting in front of me.

So, I used every bit of determination I had inside of me

And I kicked through that pile until there was nothing left.

If it were like the television shows and health classes portray,

I’m sure that fat would have been taunting and saying cruel things to me;

But that fat did what fat always does. It just sat there.

The scale failed to speak as well, and tears failed to fall from my eyes.

My hair failed to fall out and my nails failed to become brittle.

The color failed to leave my face and the growls failed to become too angry to silence.

The only thing that proved to meet expectations was the weight loss,

And the fat surely didn’t fail to shed from my body.

When all these things fail to happen, however, people fail to notice;

And when people fail to notice, nothing ever changes.

Everyone acts like Anorexia is such a loud, heinous disorder.

Like it’s a bitch in Christian Louboutin stilettos coming to stomp on your entire life.

Like it tortures and harasses its helpless victims to the point of insanity.

But I don’t think that people realize,

Sometimes Anorexia is as quiet as a night in the West Virginia mountains.

Sometimes, Anorexia becomes your friend.

She became mine, anyway.

If she came parading in with Christian Louboutin stilettos,

She would have given them to me.

She gave me a lot, and she didn’t take anything.

So, where everyone sees parasitism, there is truly commensalism.

Everyone acts like Anorexia is such a loud, heinous disorder;

But sometimes, when I’m lonely, I wonder where my friend is.

One-Night Fall

One-Night Fall

            I woke up this morning on the wrong side of the wrong bed. All I could smell was stale beer and cigarette smoke. Nauseated, I rolled away from the mildly attractive man I must have seen as a ten through beer goggles, and made my way toward his mildly disgusting bathroom he must have seen as sparkling through man goggles. Gagging on the taste of his leftover kisses, I pitifully brushed my teeth with my finger and his dollar store toothpaste. Looking down at his frayed, old boxers I was practically falling out of, I decided I had to make my escape, clothed or not. That’s when he knocked.

            “Good morning, sweetheart” flowed out of his mouth like he had said it a thousand times. Perhaps he had, but not to me. I wasn’t keen on pet names, anyway; and any man that was close to me would have known that.

            “Hi,” I responded, reluctant to admit that I had no recollection of his name or what had happened between the two of us to make him so comfortable calling me “sweetheart.”

Noticing that I seemed a bit uncomfortable and puzzled, he grabbed my hand and said “Please, tell me you remember last night.”

Stroking his callouses for a brief moment and wondering what the story was behind them, I replied, “No, I’m sorry. This is a tad embarrassing, but what is your name?”

I could tell he was disappointed and had not originally suspected that I was as drunk as I was the night prior by the look in his sunken eyes and the tone in his voice when he muttered “Jake,” beginning to pull away from me.

Feeling like no blame should belong to me, the helpless, blackout-drunk girl that awoke in a complete stranger’s bed, I unapologetically and sarcastically retorted, “well, I’m sure this was a very romantic experience, sweetheart.” Leaving him in the bathroom, I stomped into the bedroom to pack up the few belongings I had brought with me from the bar to his apartment. Fumbling around the various knick-knacks on his nightstand and the clothes strewn about the floor by his bed, I grabbed my ID, credit card, and favorite necklace, placing them in my handbag; then I changed back into familiar clothes and headed for the door to leave.

With the bathroom door wide open, I could both hear and see him from the other room. “I’m not sorry,” he said as he leaned against the sink, staring at the floor with a lifeless, drained gaze.

“You’re not sorry?!” I shouted, turning away from the door that I was about to storm out of and walking back toward him. The hollows of his deep brown eyes were like the cavities in my favorite apples, holding seeds that looked like baby cockroaches. They got under my skin.

“Yeah, I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry that I felt chemistry and potential between us; that I didn’t want to have a mere one-night stand with you, but I wanted to see you again; and again, and again. I’m not sorry that I wanted you to stay.” Just like that, he grabbed ahold of my heart and yanked me back into reality- a reality in which I couldn’t run from my feelings or pretend that I had none. Despite my attitude and complete disregard for his desire to drag out whatever spark he thought he had experienced the night before, he still looked at me with a hint of sweetness. He still wanted me to stay.

I tried to give him a quick goodbye hug, but suddenly, I forgot what goodbye meant. Though he looked like the type to leave you gasping for fresh air, like you were drowning in the cologne-bombed Hollister store, he had no particular smell. I loved that about him for some reason; but I didn’t want to love anything about him. I thought I had already learned that happiness never did come from happy hour, but when I looked at him, I was pretty sure I finally knew what happiness really was. It was something that I didn’t notice at first, just like I didn’t notice the firm, protective hug he wrapped around me that made me feel safer than I’d felt in eight years; but I noticed it now, just like I noticed that his calloused hands told the story of his passion for and commitment to playing guitar and working a labor-intensive job that paid him only $7.50 an hour. I even noticed the most beautiful part: that those calloused hands fit into mine like they were made to be a pair. But I didn’t want to notice anything about him. I didn’t want to be part of a pair. So, I found myself waging an internal war: head versus heart, and I knew this battleground well. It hadn’t usually looked like a dirty, cramped apartment bathroom belonging to an innocent man with his heart on his sleeve, but I had been in this general position many times before, and I could tell you that head always won. This morning, though, heart put up a good fight.

Once again, I found myself lying next to him in his queen-sized bed, sheets and blankets scattered in every direction. This time, I wasn’t a blackout-drunk girl opening my legs to a fellow bar-hopper, and I wasn’t a hung over wreck trying to escape that same stranger. No; this time, it was my choice to be there in that bed with him. This time, I wanted emotional intimacy over physical, and I was going to get it. So we scratched secrets into each other’s skin and giggled about our high school years, which now felt like such a distant memory. The stale beer aroma I woke up to had seemed to dissipate and as I fell into his embrace, I realized why I liked that he had no particular smell. With no distinct smell lingering on his clothes or in his hair, I would have nothing notable to remember him by. I would never be strolling down the road and suddenly get smacked in the face with a nostalgic scent that screamed “Jake.” I could make up my own idea of what he smelled like, who he was, and what he meant to me; and just as quickly, I could erase it. I could erase him. That’s what I’ve always been good at.

“I’m definitely not sorry,” he said softly in my ear with a grin on his face, rolling back out of bed and making his way to that sparkling bathroom of his. He hummed a giddy tune that seemed to harmonize with the water pulsating in the tub.

“But I am,” I whispered under my breath as I picked up my handbag and walked out the door, finally remembering what goodbye meant.