a-pale-poet

[a-pale-poet]

[a-pale-poet]

Yeah I decided to cancel my gender subscription, I wasn't using it much anyway

[a-pale-poet]

Sometimes my hands shake

And I race

Looking for a bottom that could stop me

It wasn’t the hospitals

Or the pills I lined up and took one by one

Or the booze that turned my skin yellow

I’m digging nails into my softness

Wanting to see inside myself

To something I can hold onto.

[a-pale-poet]

I’m looking at pictures of skinny girls again

Pretty girls with

Pretty ribs

And dark dark circles under their eyes

Staying high on brittle bones and

Wrists that look like flower stems

I think I could go a day without eating,

Maybe two,

Don’t you?

[a-pale-poet]

11.29.2019

3 am

Something quick

Sad

Vicious

I pace my floor

So up and so down

Whatever is moving in me

Whatever is mobilized

Moves without direction

I fall back into old ways

Slam my head

Bite my lip

Tear little pieces of skin from my arms

Headphones big but not loud enough

Someone else’s voice tells me to let go

Let go

Let it go

It’s supposed to be over by now

[a-pale-poet]

11.20.2019

She lays on her back

In the center of the room

I can see her ribs, I can count them

It’s been ten years

She says

She slaps herself hard across the face

It’s been ten years and I’m still insane everyday

She curls onto her side

I want to drown

She says

I want to weigh down my pockets and walk to the middle of a lake

She says,

It’s just the time of year, I guess

I’ve got poison in my mouth

And blood on my sheets

And nothing in my bones

And everytime I blink I see him

And everytime I sleep I dream of him

It’s been ten fucking years

She says

Picking at the skin around her nails

And he is still the soundtrack to my nightmares

She lights a cigarette

I’d ask you to save me

She says

But what does it matter now

The worst thing that could happen

Has already made its home inside of me

I am already a monument to his sin

She put the cigarette out on the inside of her wrist

I want to burn myself down

She says

I want to be ashes

[a-pale-poet]

Try to fucking stop me

She says

Her feet bare, walking on cement wet with rain

I want to reach out to her

Take her home

Put her to bed

You have no idea what my life is like

She says

She whips around, stares into me

It’s inhumane, you know

She stretches her arms wide and I see the scars that litter her

The ones across her forearms

The ones lining her veins

The times she tried to leave

It’s inhumane to make me stay

She says

I step forward

Her hands are shaking and she drops her cigarette

She says

Please,

Stop me

[a-pale-poet]

11.10.2019

I can’t do it

She says

Her back is pressed against brick

A curl coming over her shoulder

What happened,

It ended me, I think

She takes a drag of her cigarette

I haven’t been alive since then

And everyone knows

She laughs, then dips her head

Everyone knows I’m fucked, now

Her lips part, close, and part again

Why won’t they admit it

Why won’t they admit that it’s over for me

She tilts her shoulders forward, takes another drag

I get that it wasn’t my fault

But is it my fault that I’m not getting better?

The lines on her wrist are silver in the moonlight

I move to touch her

She says

Don’t

[a-pale-poet]

11.8.2019

How many ways can I tell you I’m sad

You see the rings growing under my eyes

You see the shallow divets in my cheeks

I walk the halls at 3am

Sit down on the kitchen floor

Consider a knife

The glint of the blade is beautiful in the moonlight

I think,

If this were three inches to the left

It could touch my skin

An inch more and I wouldn’t wake up again

I shouldn’t be thinking this way

[a-pale-poet]

I don’t write poems about you anymore

Not the way I used to

I don’t write about the curve of your waist

Or the blue of your eyes

Or the salt on your skin

But I dream about you, still

And sometimes I can still feel the softness

Of your curls

In the palm of my hand

[a-pale-poet]

11.4.2019

I haven’t written a poem in days

I’m so lost within myself

Numb to the point of a pain, unbearable

The same lines from the same songs

Circling, circling

I used to be better

Than this nothingness I court

This dullness I’ve made my bread

I used to be better

[a-pale-poet]

10.30.2019

It’s nearing 4 in the morning and

I can’t sleep

Soaring high again

Dancing around my living room

My dog chasing my heels

Downloading dating apps

Laughing to strangers online

I’m beautiful

Oh so capable

I’m not planning my end

Or crying in the bathroom with the lights out

My hands are shaking and I’m

Alive

Please don’t call it mania

I don’t want to come back down

[a-pale-poet]

10.29.2019

Just fucking kill me

I say

Laughing with blood in my mouth

What more could you possibly want from me

Look at these scars

At these breaking bones

These rotten teeth

Look at my loneliness

My weird creepy dark

Look at the way I’m not even here

Want to add a dent

Smack a bruise into this torn open flesh?

What a coward you would be

I’m not scared of your teeth or your wit or your hand or your smile

You’ve got nothing on the death I’ve danced with.

Edited: 9.27.2020

[a-pale-poet]

To the one that destroyed me

You’re the one I’ll make pay

By gaining my health

Regaining myself

Learning to pray

To the god of destruction

To the god of screaming no

To the the god of cigarettes and breaking teeth

To a way out of the hell that you made

Of my body

Because I’ve paid

With my heart with my skin

I broke free, you were the sin

All along

[a-pale-poet]

Does anyone see the state that I’m in

Does anyone else bite bruises into their skin

Does anyone else call their trauma a sin

Please, let me in let me in let me in

[a-pale-poet]

Cigarettes and three day old clothes

Lying in bed so long my hips begin to hurt

Missed messages from my friends and

Dreams of hospital beds

Thin red lines and lengths of rope

And it’s always noon or midnight

And the clock ticks chaotic or not at all

[a-pale-poet]

I play a little game

What if I don’t eat today?

Will I feel beautiful,

In control?

Will no one ever touch me again?