...it soon becomes unquestioned

...of men standing over me. And maybe one day I will be anything more than messy, empty, fractured half-sentences.

[its5amandimstillalone]

6/15/26

You’re perfect.

You glow yellow-gold from good health.

Health. Good descisions. Good desires. Good relationships. Life.

You're fucking dripping with it, succulent.

The rest of us are spindled to cobwebs, frothing and the mouth and keeled forth, clutching our protruding ribcage. Dark and hungry and desperate. Blood stales on the corners of our mouths.

You know where you come from.

You may disown us, we may encourage you to crawl upon our crackling spines in order to shine above... but we will never be divorced, and you will forever be our child.

[its5amandimstillalone]

7/15/26

and pineapples

haven’t drawn blood from my tongue

in months.

You’re the only thing worth feeding

I’d shrivel.

open up, baby bird, I need pan on stovetop

an excuse.

“You only love me for my milk supply”

we laugh.

you haven’t seen through me that quick.

I’m opaque,

pink opaque, throat full of milk and mucus, no water,

no pineapple.

[its5amandimstillalone]

and his blood wet my hands last night

midnight hour upon midnight hour trying to end things

powerless, caged, with broken wings and broken toes.

now, these hands can kill.

[its5amandimstillalone]

7/5/26

and why must my subscription to my morals be so complex to renew?

5,000$ on a wanted poster,

take my money, take my money,

help me find me.

[its5amandimstillalone]

and no longer a black vacuum in empty cosmos,

but white paper and poor eyes,

unreadable memoir. Nothing but the here and now

because the then, the then

i can do nothing but forget.

[its5amandimstillalone]

6/26/26

and skin isn't designed as a solo organism, if the swell of chemicals following fingertips is honest. Stimulated, we’re meant to be stimulated.

bones ache atop futon. Feet cricket against cotton, cold. Frozen rivulets trace windowpanes. Not a blanket to simulate the drug-inducing strokes; bruises, then? Please? Stimulation. We’re not alive unless we’re stimulated.

we’re not alive.

[its5amandimstillalone]

and all I could ever desire was a childhood I’ll never recieve.

[its5amandimstillalone]

6/8/26

And it’s December; I’m sitting on the kitchen floor with cold cereal and greasy pyjamas. I’m eleven (and fourteen). Chairs topped with blood-bred strangers. I’m eleven. Sniffles creep outside. I’m eleven. Matts lie on caved shoulders. Stained fabric. Sticky skin. Blood-bred strangers, they hug long. I’m eleven. The warmth draws everything else out. 

[its5amandimstillalone]

10/5/26

and stuck on her refrigerator was a note, a tidy name at the bottom. I murmured each letter aloud; I couldn’t recognise your name. Fuck I’m dyslexic, I thought.

I think I’ve just forgotten.

[its5amandimstillalone]

and have you noticed

how the clock ticked

louder

today? surrounded by porcelain

dirty sneakers on fresh floors

waiting

to be paid? Or when your

phone dies

at eleven, half asleep

under ratty blankets with

their head in your lap

and you

can’t hear breath

just tick tock

tick?

[its5amandimstillalone]

3/3/25

and the sky looks like sherbet; I can taste it, inhale it, eat it, because I can do anything. I am invincible. If only I run fast enough and breathe deep enough, I can unhook these wires dictating my life. 

[its5amandimstillalone]

and opening my phone to text you

not to expect anything,

I typed in your password

until it locked me out.

[its5amandimstillalone]

3/31/26

and awaking after 18 years of dreaming, reality is the same warm bliss of slow mornings in bed. I wonder if this is being asleep. I wonder if scary faces scribbled over photos was reality; if being scared is the accurate reaction to truth.

is relaxation a detox from poison or an ingestion of drugs? The ketamine I’d bloat my tongue with under the sun.

the rug itching to be pulled beneath my feet, but it’s the last barrier between my toes and the dust I swept beneath.

[its5amandimstillalone]

3/18/26

and past car after car, how unnatural. I can’t squirm between them to reach the creek.

and walking on pavement, on pavement for four months straight. How unnatural. I haven't felt the soft give of grass since New Year’s, haven’t sunk my toes into soil since September.

and hard work for a higher education for a capitalist scheme I don’t endorse. How unnatural. I’m two setbacks away from running into the forest.

and my stomach turns. How unnatural.

[its5amandimstillalone]

4/3/26

and I don’t think I’ll ever outgrow this deep grey suit of Guilt. I push it to the back corner of the closet; lapels collect dust and rust edges intricate buttons. I fold Shame, Rage and Disgust, hanging them alongside that untouched grey blazer.

Sadness, Love and Joy follow, until the only outfit I’m left with is stained Numbness joggers and a pair of orange Frustration socks.

But I can’t bear seeing unworn Guilt with moth bites and mould waiting for me in that back corner.

[its5amandimstillalone]

1/27/26

and the sweat from your skin tastes like being seventeen. You were my seventeen. Patterned green sweaters and scraped bronze skin.

It’s too cold for sweat now, as I twist on your Subaru’s heat. Streetlights illuminate your skin gold. Your breath tastes like condensation. And I hope to turn the fan high enough for your voice to die beneath it.

Because this condensation tastes awfully akin to 22 and goodbye.

[its5amandimstillalone]

2/27/26

“Are you all right?”

“I’m me.”