"what? do the other boys not hold you jayna?"

waking up depressed gives me panic attacks nearly impossible to shake.

The first time that I tried on overalls was the single most liberating moment of my life. In the Kingdom, girls and women alike were supposed to wear dresses and long skirts with shoulders, chest, and midriff covered at all times. Needless to say, pants were forbidden. Overalls had the familiar security of a jumper, (a skirt with fabric extended at the top on both sides and hooked together with straps that went over another dress or long shirt) and the taboo FUCKYOU of jeans. Not just any jeans though, boy jeans. I was ecstatic. I was in the fourth grade.

I was the new girl. The strange new girl from New Hampshire, who was a Pastor's daugher, and carried around an orange lizard in a tin recipe box. It was a newt, but I was too polite to point it out. The transition was easy. Ha! Overalls saw me through though---> I was the only kid who wore them and they inspired awe. Sometimes when I was feeling snazzy I would put a giant masterlock on one of the belt loops. Surprisingly, this caught on (much to my dismay.)

In the 6th grade I wore an Ecuadorian poncho to school. That did not go over so smoothly. The same could be said for when I dressed up as Harry Potter for a book report and got called a cross dresser by Jared Clemenzi. These are defining moments in any child's life.

When I discovered books I realized I didn't have to care about being cool. With books you can feel anyway that you want to feel- you can be the protagonist, antagonist, magical, down to earth, factual, pathologically insane, shy, loud, deviant, saintly-anything! or anyone. That was the year I stopped using my bedframe. I was too cold at night so I had my matresses near the heater that ran along the outside wall of my room. It was chilly but when the heat came on I could stick my feet in the gap between the matress and wall and be in heaven. I would only eat tuna fish from the can, block cheese, and wheat thins. Nightsnack of Champions. I prepared a little platter, a feast in my mind, every night and munch as I read. Greedily. That winter during the 5th grade I mostly drank Tension Tamer, and Sleepytime Tea. Also that year my teacher, Mr. Skiba, told me I was snobby about being smart. "I needn't laud my intelligence, and talents above others," phhh who was lauding there Skeeb's?

Anyway, I'm back on over-alls. I'm still the only one that I know. When I finish my sling shot it will go in my back pocket and maybe I'll slap on a masterlock for posterity's sake.

I'm also back on books. Now I don't care if I'm cool anymore because with books- I can be anyone that I want to be! or anything. I'm liberated.

I don't love nature the way that you do, (I can't)
but I can see and feel it through you-
and I wish and pray through your honest open mouth while you laugh in downpours
that God could help me accept the GRACE
that you breathe, intoxicated with-
You are a God
send
and a mouthful so fluid that I always bite my tongue.
This is a love letter to myself
through a strangers eyes.
Eyes I can never see through but
can feel and wish and pray through
for a version of myself
worth fighting for.

CONSUME.
BE SILENT.
DIE.

window puppets becoming of the company
(becoming the company)
october nights after days enchanting
and sickening.

the foul persistent prick
of thoughts that cannot be escaped
(a thought, a notion, a movement)
the slow death trap of carbon monoxide-
the pounding head begging for freedom,
or annihilation
nihilist elation
or at the very least proper provocation
to over
flow.
i am the overflow.

while puppets armed with soundboards are plucking strings
behind drawn shades:
the music overflowing
briefly allowing escape from deadly notions
concludes the show.

PERSIST.
COMPELL.
CONSUME.

Samuel:

this isn't about love, it's about pumpkins

"You lied to me."

"No, I lied to myself. Who do you feel more sorry for now?"

"I'm sick of this perpetual pity party. Grow up. The whole 'woe is me' routine is really played out."

" But I'm a ma-"

"No, you're not a martyr, NOR a saint. You're a kid, a lost kid, but a kid none the less. Cut the semantics, cut the excuses, and face the fact that no matter how you word it eventually you're going to have to take responsibility for yourself."

It was December. The road was damp and the moths were falling like snowflakes. He had only ever seen a perfect snowflake once. It was on the coat of another patient, and it was breathe-taking. As for the moths? Well, they were the ironic sort of beautiful that his life was becoming. The raod gave way to his inertia with a cool wet whisper as he watched Great Barington sprawl out behind. No home, no Academy, no Drew, and no Sophia: No problem. They drove on.

"Nothing but me and the moths," he exhaled blowing the brownish red hair out of his eyes. IT was hard to say whether he was ignoring his father for poetry's sake or if he even noticed the quiet man in blue courderoy to his left. It is called disassociation. It is when someone departs from reality, removes themselves from a situation that they cannot handle. These days most things were too much too handle.

When one is deprived of the simple luxury of the solitude of their own thoughts a subtle madness starts to take hold. Kilgore Trout knows what that feels like, but this is not about him. This is an important differentiation to make. This story is about Owen Underwood, and not about any of the characters in books he has read that he confuses himself with. It had started in the summer and since then he had been hard pressed for a spare moment. His friends were demanding, their lifestyle

it was summer: i remember
the taste of asia plum fermenting on our lips,
and being drunk, silly from your kisses.

our brains boiled acidic that august:
most of our time was spent dangling on the chipped white balcony
that over looked nowhere.

while the ocean, pulled by the pallor of the moon, pulled
tiny rocks over each other, cackling: i remember
the horrible serenity i felt in our sway when i realized

i must kill you: i remember
i looked into your eyes and smiled, and you could
see the pearly fangs my mouth contained, fresh with thirst-

if you were looking, but you never do.
i do not remember:
you seeing me clearly, ever-

your ravenous princess, a disappointment sitting
on a cracked pedestal.

i do not drink my tea sweet anymore: i remember.

the tighter i try to grasp the larger you expand
and you're out of reach
out of touch
out of focus
out of this world
refusing to breathe, refusing to acknowledge me, refusing to see
not everything lacks purity.
not everything lacks purity.

maybe if you had the slightest interest in hearing it.

"Get in."

( .... )

I have never been so aware of the veins in my hands,
And the wicked world
Is writhing in my grip.

It's pulsing out my veins
Out of, but not by, my hands-
And I am writhing, in my grip.

Hope is such a dangerous things and
It's tearing my walls down.

Hope is a dangerous thing.

i'm so listless and strained...
i sit around when i am by myself reading poetry until i find one that fits my mood just so that i know i'm not alone. it dosn't really ever help, it is just a better worded scenario to explain why i am feeling down - and when it comes down to it in the end: it never really makes too much sense

it is just a pretty sound for sadness.

Oscillating circuits
Spilled guts, like prying
Walnuts from their shells
With crude utensils.

Flaunting fantasy flits
As mathamatics
Formulated me-
Ticulously, but

How are we equated?
How do we measure?
Add the future, then
Let's cut the dead weight

Potato peelers poised
Let's shed this skin, and
Paint our eyeballs red;
View with passion clear.

take these words & bones & bre
ak them
down to pivotal form,
in fracture

the powder you breathe, dusting your lungs
in the skeletal truth
of your inhibitions
he said
she said...

When the God's fall
the crash is tremendous.
All your pedestals cracked,
blown up your nose
and rolled off your lips with
wasted, spiteful kisses.

and today
was a day
just like any
other ;)