You Won't Realize I'm Gone I can’t imagine getting married. I can see a man with a strong jaw line on one knee as his shoe lace turns into a diamond as big as my cornea. The excitement and the disappointment. “I thought you understood.” Still hopeful expression, trying to be strong for the strangers leaning in on the scene. Maybe I will marry him and ignore all the foreshadowing I hallucinated in high school. The smell comes back and those chords ring in my head, but I’ll drown them out. I won’t close my eyes. I’ll wake up with the outline of clean sheets on my arms and the imprint of a wedding band on my finger and relieved bruises on my neck. We’ll be happy for a while. I wonder how much I’ll tell him, how much he’ll never understand, how much of me he’ll create in his head. The house will need a little work, so I’ll wake up a couple mornings a week to power tools and the smell of fresh paint. He’ll look like my father did in ‘91. I’ll know I’ll love him then. Naked Sunday mornings and Saturday nights like high school and Wednesday nights full of music. But I could have that with anyone. I’ll tell myself I couldn’t. I’ll tell myself it feels better than those nights in 2012 when I cried because I was so happy. So if he asks me, I’ll say no. Return the ring. Who do you think you are? This shit is dangerous. And he’ll tell me he knows and he expected this but, think about it; it only makes sense. It will feel like a falling out but I’d beg him to stay. Just not this way. I don’t know what kind of man he’ll be, but anyone in their right mind would give up on me. Maybe he’d surprise me and love me and sleep next to me without getting the government involved. It’ll be the same, but it’ll last longer without the celebration. I can feel it in my bones. The#moondoesn’t dance for married men. The sun doesn’t shine through the blinds of a complete home. Classics, both banned and hidden from history, will line the apartment and unfinished novels will be strewn from the rafters and ripped and painting on the walls. We’ll talk about how we should’ve been rock stars, but he’ll always end up playing someone else’s song and he’d be the only one who’d listen to me sing. He’ll break my head and I’ll never get used to it. I’ll just learn to decipher the songs he plays and his color palette. I’ll wear his shirts at dinner and a pair of underwear at breakfast. There’ll be skeletons leftover from Halloween year round and Christmas lights left along the headboard. I’ll tell him not to talk to me when I’m writing and no, I’m not going to tell you what it’s about. I’ll bitch and moan and cry and he’ll say I’m too sensitive and I’ll call him ignorant and I’ll wait for him to come to me. “You’re so fucking stubborn,” he’ll say and I’ll ignore it. I’ll just smoke out the window and tip the ashes on some poor soul’s head. Five points. I’ll cave into his chest because he’ll know I can’t go to sleep angry. And on days when he’s an asshole, I’ll tell him and keep him up till the early morning because I won’t let him go to sleep angry either. “You’re fucking just as bad as I am.” A couple kisses goodnight until we fall asleep. None of this would happen with the rings and the wedding wishes, or the priest’s blessing and the in-laws. We’ll let the world assume for itself. I don’t trust myself as a married woman. I won’t love myself yet, but I’ll love him. That won’t be enough.

I Will Haunt You Like A Ghost I just want to fight everyone. 2012 was the year I got used to loneliness. This was the year I could stare it in the face and understand why I saw my own eyes staring back. This was the year everyone let me in on the secret of my #life. “Don’t you get it?” They’d whisper, “you’re just causing your own problems.” They’d get louder, “You must see it, there’s no one else even involved enough to make things hard on you.” Finally, they just started screaming, “Feel it! You’ve gotta feel it! It’s the only thing left. You’re not bleeding this one out!” Then they stopped. Each syllable silenced and each breeze lifted my feet off of the ground. “We’re sorry.” “You’re not worth it anymore.” “You’ll figure it out.” “It’s only December.” The whiskey’s still upstairs and the glass isn’t broken. I’ve been waiting for him to come home and, now that he is, he’s farther than ever. I’ve been beginning conversations and dismissing them just as fast. I’ve been waiting for that chime of memory where I left the poet who understood. I’m just a little girl who can’t drive very well, now. My core is all washed up like driftwood on a frozen beach. All the other bodies sunk down, but even the sea couldn’t drown me. So hollow that I float. I cut off my own arm and I’m burning it for art class.

Civilian Destroy is my favorite word. So I got my garters and I caught your tongue like a cartoon cat. You got my skin in yours and you caught on. All the romantics got a white Christmas and I’ve got shit to do. Give and take and give and take. I take, take, take, and I hoard and I forget to give. I drop and spill and crash and bruise and destroy. I always said to destroy was to create. I’ve been a mess of masterpieces unfinished and dreams that fell too short. We always ask for honestly and end up sleeping in filth. I’ve loved you before and I can’t remember when I knew. "Perfectly able to hold my own hand, but I still can’t kiss my own neck." “You’re too young for love, we both are.” “We’re too young for a lot of things. Doesn’t mean we’re numb to it.” Too young for shots and deep inhales and all the profanity on TV. How do they expect censorship to last? Your sheltered kids will come out crawling on their knees, squinting from the light, dashing eyes like spotlights from lighthouses on the seas where demons weep. Some will climb and some will dig, but all will fall. Slaves rebel and women hold guns and men wear suits. And I still destroy the natural simplicity in front of me, creating a darker world I used to hide. A world between your vertebrae, weaved around the notches in your spine, making you twist and thrive and stand up straight. My mother used to stick her nail in my spine so I would stand up straight. I couldn’t hide anything in there. I used to imagine the day when her nail, painted red already, would dig too far and hit glistening ivory, the pure skeleton of her helplessly rebellious daughter. She’d apologize and love me like no one else.

Dead End Kids Our veins trailed off and converged into one path with routes and destinations. Many, we had followed before, but most we've never even seen. But so many roads had breaks in them, cracks in the concrete, dead end kids. Those days you were gone had been etched into my skin and the tally marks are now road blocks. Put your jacket down to cover a puddle and watch as we fall through to the sea. Your eyes reflect the sun and mine carry the moon.

Flash Smudged lipstick.