a four wall reflection

My room is filled with blank checks, empty birth control packs, a compact mirror, cropped tops. A chaotic sea of adolescent belongings. Novels and handbags scattered among a half unpacked suitcase, open supplement bottles and empty cups, plastic bottles. A hair diffuser, needle and thread. Enough nail polish to paint the town red. A pink and white journal from years passed sits collecting dust under my desk. My dog licks her leg on my plush white bed and the naked overhead light is glaring and unflattering -- casts this room in a more harsh and unforgiving light. There are socks, vomit-soaked gowns yet to be dry cleaned and my cracked, unnourished lips. There are prescription pill bottles, some empty, some half-filled with substances that are supposed to fix this cursed condition. This chemical imbalance that makes my esophagus red with anger and my brain riddled with fears. A chipped, unglazed ceramic cup I made at age four sits with three mint leaves and ample water. It gives off no smell. Hand cream, face cream, copious amounts of chap stick containers, lip balms, carmex, Blistex. A book shelf filled with stark and depressing titles, how people rarely stop to acknowledge how bleak the names are, Being and Nothingness, Paradise Lost, The Waves, In Cold Blood. The case filled with the truth of human existence, Crime and Punishment, The Razor’s Edge, One Hundred Years of Solitude. How these men and women knew how dreary this life really is. In a mess of noise-cancelling headphones and magazines adorned with Chanel poster adds. Some attempt to achieve beauty. Leather and faux-leather purses. A dog breathes heavily in the night and I love her. More than I love the coat hanger siting on my desk chair and more than I love, in many ways myself. More pills, receipts, empty shopping bags and earrings. For freshly pierced skin. New breakthroughs, needles dug deep. An open drawer of unmatched socks. Nude mesh leotards and rabbit ears. Dress up. How I do not know how to move on from here. How I do not know where I want to go. My left gland is swollen and my lungs are bruised, damaged from too much smoke. Drawers filled to the brim with crushed empty cigarette packs, Marlborough Lights, American Spirit Blues, Parliments. I am never quite ready to go to sleep. Sitting half up half awake not ready to face the night. The pre-dawn surrender to daily darkness, collective lack of light. My toe throbs and pulses through infected skin. A damp towel rests on the edge of my bed and I doubt I will move it. Doubt I will hang it up to dry where it belongs. Im seeking joy in vindication, disorganization and appreciation of this chaotic summer. Im seeking joy in the potential relief from my undeniable self loathing. How everything begins to feel like a rejection, when anyone says my name. how its so strange to hear the syllables spoken outloud, recogniton that I do indeed exist, in this unspeakably unfathomable life. How no words could ever come close to describing the hourly struggle I face of attempting to confront my doom. The foreverness of death. The lightness and sand like quality the ones we love have of slipping through our fingers, out of our grip. And seep out like fireflies into the night sky, away from us. Too far to touch. But how I hope we all light up the sky, in a thousand little pieces, radiant speckles of neurons, brain cells, flesh, skin flakes and neon veins. How I hope to light up the sky.

sorrow found me when i was young

sorrow waited and sorrow won

sitting in a strangers room in portland, oregon listening to the national. his caramel voice washing over my body like tapioca, like some kind of taffy. too many metaphors. no way to pin point anything i am ever describing. my body aches for something more rewarding, for fulfillment. a constant state of either dissatisfaction or depressive apathy. released from your chains. the high hoped let down and not-good-enough. whether that label belongs to you or i - i am still unsure. my eyes itch from new-state allergy. finally got on the plane. finally broke my biggest physical fear. so what is the residual anxiety? the leaky washed up faded heart attack. half-forced.

no words left on my chest. everything held inside of me taken out. i am a walking zombie. life force taken away. no desire. no trust in the future. bleak. the scalp-itched discomfort of physical new place. without you. without the desire of you. without the crutch of the possiblity to shrivel and croutch next to.