the tragic necessity of white lies

 




how am i?
i don't know how to answer that
should i tell you
that i've envisioned
and battled
5 unique suicides this morning?

1. masturbating on the train tracks
5 minutes before it comes every day at 12:03 pm
clawing at my insides
like an inside out child
with chicken pox
wearing all black
and a kabuki mask
squirting everywhere
my orgasm
will become the temporary
hot spot for flies
as my soul sighs
and disintegrates like smoke
in french, a small death

2. like virginia woolf
determined to be in control of just one fucking thing
strangers adoring my words
but ignoring that the print
is my weeping wounds
black dreamlands bled into crisp white paper
my beauty,
my pain breathing on their mind until the story leaves them
that i want more than anything other than release
to leave claw marks
on their scarless backs
i want them to carry
my pain
with them like a disease
cradle it like a babe
especially my loved ones,
they do not see me
i feel like a ghost
even when i make it a point
to look into their eyes,
i see pity, mistrust, fear,
sometimes guilt
and they quickly look away
before i can scorch some meaning
into them
that loving is the only reason
to breathe
and sometimes that isn't enough
that i'm sorry
and i'm not

stones in my pockets,
i'll feel much lighter
smile, truly smile, for the first time in months
maybe years
time is an enigma
i just know that you carry years
of horror
like bags of bricks
dragging me down
as i drown, my hair
dancing around me like flowers
in the breeze
my last poem will float to me
as a stray ray of light

"it was selfish of you to love me
to let me love you
when i couldn't love myself
if you had truly loved me,
you would have heard me scream
in my dreams
in my awakening,
dawning cat & tonic catatonic
far away eyed smiling mask
that pleased you so
you would have put a pillow
over my sweaty face
screwed in torment
said a prayer and
let
me
go"
left unheard by still deaf ears
and wet dumb eyes

3. i'll write every poem left in me
scurrying away from me
like spotlighted mice
i'll delete every trace of my voice
my sob
my art
my soul wrenched loving you all
gather it in a pile
with sticks and branches
surrounding it with all the stones that broke my bones
and all the words that hurt me
more than any 2x4, lead pipe, knife,  black bruises and eyes,
or betrayal

i'll torch it like scarlet fever
inflicted velveteen bunny rabbits
and join them in their dance
until it rises a foot above me
then i will embrace their reaching
arms,
join in their rejoice
their masochistic peace
and burn

like the witch i am
and my sisters and brothers before me

4. simple and cold
freezing tap water and a bathtub
empty as i am inside
except for me and a knife
daisy heads floating
no notes
no goodbyes
no bullshit
i'll slit my throat
a shocking red open ended ending
always the boundary shrugging beauty torn like fistfuls of rose buds from a sneering ex
frantically
like the lyrics of a rape victim's clothes and violated heart
shoving live and wriggling
imagery down
your throat like bitter horse pills
even if you beg and plead with me
"NO. NO! PLEASE GOD, NO."
the perfectionist and sadist in me, the need to be understood
the disturbed clarity
all collaborating
desperate to reflect my mind's eye
my constant struggle to convey that perfectly mirrored scene
finally realized

5. a landslide of pills
and a january wonderland
made of clouds and wings,
flushed and blushing cheeks
snowmen that never melt




i wonder sometimes their reaction
if i actually answered honestly
showed my soul's bruisings
how my mind is a torture machine
custom built for me
how tragedy and abuse
is my shadow
that everything i touch
ends up hating me
that i am cursed
a fool
hideous
king monster
that the devil fears the killer
that lurks within me
silent and smirking
my blood bubbling
in the girlish giggles
of the irrevocably insane

i wonder if they'd hold me,
frown and pat my shoulder
shrug it off
like lemon in their water
when they requested none

or call in the authorities
in some hidden corner
send me to some white solitary
robot hell
like the one from my childhood
given only crayons and paper
non-toxic, of course
no sound, no human voice
only the whir of cameras
my singing and screaming and laughing and dying sounds
the sound of the slot opening
giving me glops of food
or pill cocktails
waiting for my tiny arm
and IV to slip through
so they could perform more tests
experiments
without breaking my solitude
convinced i'm the only little girl
left in the world
and god is a machine
not knowing my crazy
paid my grandmother's bills
until the day she looked at me
through the double sided glass
and i touched my hand to it
saw her somehow
and sang to her she is still my sunshine, my only sunshine
and she stole me away
into a day that blinded me
told me she thought
they were helping me
didn't know
as she convinced me slowly
over weeks
i wasn't dreaming
this bed is real
there are billions of people
living their lives
skinning their knees
talking and texting
crying over split milk
or a fallen ice cream
making love
dying
carrying on
typing typing typing
helloing how-are-youing
never really seeing

my grandmother is all i have
and i see death hovering over her
with an umbrella
my rain pounding like fists
upon it
please don't take my sunshine away

every morning i wake up and wonder why
until i see the flowers
she left on my dresser
daisies
my favorite
and feel the strength
my hugs give her,
the joy i receive from helping others, listening with my heart,
being there, making them laugh
despite the gloomy sundays
and widow's melancholy
that clings to me like a tight dress



you wave your hand in front
of my face
"oh... sorry about that.
i'm fine. how are you? you look absolutely beautiful."
yada yada yada
i stuff away the me
no one wants to see
and keep walking somehow


i'm fine
is the biggest lie i've ever told
i'm sorry for lying
besides love,
i believe most in truth




now tell me. really.
how are you?