red red red

It's dangerous work
trying to get to you
and I think if I didn't have to
kill kill kill kill kill myself doing it
maybe i wouldn't
think so much of you

-Fiona Apple

to belong to the ocean

seeing how others love you

makes the light from my hand glow dimmer

I can't give you

anything exceptional

I become less interesting

with your eyes off of me

that is the inescapable rabbit hole of my perception

I am selfish and calculating

I am more withdrawn

as you soar

I keep waiting to be missed

I keep waiting to be held

and I will stop waiting

naturally

without force

I return to a more basic skin

and have conversations with different versions of me

and it is good for me

I become "normally attached" perhaps

more balanced

but I've always preferred the fall, the longing

to the catch

I remember what it feels to belong to the ocean only

like my keys, or my new winter gloves

love is so easy to lose

portrait happy people

These floating things
caught in a spider-web flask

these disappointments
caught between my finger nails

they make up this hollow container
where I store the makings
of hope-sustained-longing

beautiful, postcard images of you
as you look
from only far away

(that's where I'll stay)

Never is a promise

My fever burns me deeper than I've ever shown

to you

-Fiona Apple

People going to bars in suits

The first impression
should be
well formatted
tight neck, pointy but masculine shoes
(as if such a thing exists)
(as if masculine exists)

Everyone leans on their hands
in an intellectual way
they have practiced
while fucking in front of mirrors

Everyone wants to look trendy
so the people with visors
on double-decker buses
can tell all their friends

my hand, through your hand
to your chest, to your feet
are the only connection
to the inside, evidence of my existence

reassuring, yes
pathetic, yes
romantic? In the 50's maybe

I am too ambiguous to handle grunge
I crave the familiar self-loathing melodies
of anyone else but me


I am not unhappy
something worth documenting
An accomplishment in and of itself

try not to move,
try not to do anything at all

m a k e i t l a s t

Unbound

All we do is
talk, talk, talk
this gnawing scrap of metal lodged in the inner thing
of my throbbing brain

when you get home from work
I'll be distracting myself
with more ways to not think of you

when you get home from work
I'll be stuffing my face
promising tomorrow to show restraint

when you get home from work
I will hear your voice, over the phone

briefly

scratching

the insides of my throat
before I'm moving, moving, moving
again,
losing my gravity to the wind
suffocated in clouds and
a pressure to be
more than I think I am
until my guilt-ridden skin
cements to my bones

I should believe it

but I've stayed here too long
and my feet won't stick

What if I'm a mermaid in these jeans of hers
with her name still on it
but I don't care
'cause sometimes, I said sometimes
I hear my voice
and its been here
silent all these years

-tori amos