No, I don’t believe in hell, but wish
I hadn’t seen her twitch
panic at being pierced
the needle clawed the iris of the mind’s-eye
as the long caterwaul
of distress
hammered my ears
I flinched–
(They said it would soon be over.)
To see her lives
spill out her eyes and empty into mine
feel the images imprinting on me
her executioner and witness
oh, now I wish I never saw her
wilting in that blank abyss alone.
You needn’t ask now if I believe in purgatory.
No words to leave on paper,
No sounds behind a window,
No stranger passing by.
I have what I've got.
Sound proof glass,
Unknown eyes staring right at me.
I can do nothing just lay down
Listening to my silent heartbeat.
I want to hug a person,
But nobody is really here.
I want to feel somebody here,
But no real eyes are looking through me.
I see nothing and everything,
I feel everything and nothing.
Feel like not sleeping tonight,
And once again going to the world of my own.
Flying mirrors,
Crashing, stirred.
Mom's not coming,
Slapped and whipped.
Empty windows,
No surprise.
Shouting, rattling
No device.
What is here,
And what is there?
No voice back,
Like no loved chat.
Empty bottle,
Empty glass.
Nothing's keeping,
Not the grass.
she burns herself with her cigarette
accidentally
again
and i’m
across the table
coffee between us
soon
we’ll compare suicide attempts
ah
romance
You told me you were
afraid to loose me
and then you
faced your fears
and left.
I remember when i was
the twinkle in my daddy's eyes.
Then he left one day
without saying good-bye.
She'd wake the next morning
hoping it was just a dream
finding out her mommy
really wasn't mean
A bat or a broomstick
A hnager or a hand
A little or a lot
She couldn't understand
Why someone who
claimed to care
would shout and yell
and pull her hair
Thinking of you I lean over silent water,
this head appears.
The earth turns,
the sky has no motion.
One by one my eyelashes free themselves and fall,
and meet themselves for the first and last time.
She gets the attention
She gets love
She gets rewards
She gets to be happy
She gets to party
Because she behaves
She is nice
She can't fail
She does it all right
And me
I'm in her shadow
She's an angel with big wings
And I
I can't crawl around them
My wing are broken
Beaten
i used to want to be a cigarette girl,
have long blonde hair with smoky roots
and watch the pain go up in velvety rings.
i used to want five-blade razors,
a camera flash, and a filter applied.
glinting silver on a white lace bedspread.
i used to want a boy to kiss my scars away,
to take my hand through a polaroid camera,
baby soft lips on pale rose skin.
i used to want to take some pills,
spilled out onto the counter like candy.
a black and white picture of elegant dysfunction.
but soon i was bent over hacking up my lungs,
pressing a haphazard tourniquet to my wrist,
being kissed in new ways by strange, scary boys,
manging to right the chemicals in my brain.
the last time I saw you
you were seven and I was eight
and you gave me a chart, all drawn up in blue crayon
and told me it was to track what I put in my mouth
every single day, every single meal
because you wanted to be skinny, you said
you wanted to look like a grown up
and to this day, I still don't know why you thought,
young as you were,
that dysfunction is beautiful
when I got home
my mother found it in my jacket pocket
among the gum wrappers and the crumpled up poster
of some teen heartthrob from your magazines
she asked me where did I get this and who gave it to me
and sweetie, didn't I know that I was perfect ?
dear lauren,
i think i know what he did to you.
he paraded you around like a trophy and it fit
you were bright gold with a sun-kissed tan from a florida vacation
until he got to you, ripped the light from your eyes and tore you apart
as if you were but another notch in his belt.
but then again, i shouldn't be talking about you, because this isn't about us
and i try to convince myself that it never was.
this is about him, and his madcap sisterhood of broken girls
and i can't even begin to imagine what he must have done in four months:
if he managed to shatter me in only a few minutes,
though to be honest i'm not quite sure how long he took to finish with me and