You've blown me away but not apart

My name is Kathy, and I'm trying to be a better person. I've only played chess once in my life and I lost.

[shitandthings]

Things I should have outgrown by now

I used to write but I don't anymore I used to care about words And feelings but I don't anymore I don't have any more To give The worst thing about being publicly high functioning With severe mental illness Is that all your energy goes into being publicly High functioning So there is nothing leftover For the things I don't have anymore I don't have any more To give My body does so much My body works 9-5 then 5-9 Then 9-5 again My body is always three laps ahead I do not keep up I do not tell it thanks I do not let it rest My body stands naked in the mirror and cries My body outgrows itself

[shitandthings]

My body

When I wake up at 5 am My body is curled up beside me, I can’t move without waking it too. When I shower, my body uses up all the hot water. While I wipe the steam from the mirror, it leaves soap suds across the bathroom floor. My body drinks my coffee, then chips my favorite mug on the kitchen sink. My body takes, and takes, and takes up too much space. It is clumsy. It trips over me on the staircase. My body never apologizes. When I scrape the dirt off my body’s kneecaps, it doesn’t say thank you. My body is an unwelcome guest. It has overstayed its visit. My body refuses To leave.  Lately, my body has been giving me nightmares. I am not myself in my own skin. My body is more candle than bonfire. It tries To burn down my home if I forget it is there. My body never lets me forget about it. It has scars That glow in the dark. It lights up when I’m trying to fall sleep.  When the lights are off, I can still see my body. 

I can Always see my body. It’s no wonder we are both so tired of each other.

��-�{ �(�

[shitandthings]

Tomorrow is coming It is the first one you will not see And I do not love you less

[shitandthings]

Quietly

You know, we can never know true silence it exists only in the fragile clutch of a vacuum  and even with all our playing god and our science books  we can never hear it with working ears 

I know this much about silence:  In the miles from your headboard to my front door, I have spend an entire morning  tracing the sound of your breath. There is no silence like yours. 

These days, most mornings arrive in pieces

These days, I can barely say your name

I will die on one of 365 days and I will spend every moment until then trying to make a home out of prison cell bones When all my deepest parts are crying for a reason to believe I am still worth something, and my chest is a collage of broken piano keys, hopelessly out of tune, off beat,  the sadness is silence I hear echoes of

The kind that is pulsing, and cold, and most of all stays

serving as a constant reminder of how the empty bell of our bodies rang out with

nothing

[shitandthings]

Sylvia

I am a collection of nightmares in strangers' beds I am brittle bones pooling at my feet I am a paperback spine bent backwards

(I am, I am,  I am)

I think I understand why Sylvia Plath stuck her head inside an oven

there are voices in mine I'd like to set on fire

and

There are parts of me that still think love is a curled fist

And I am a burning city  I am a thin red line wrist kiss to kitchen knife I am caution tape wallpaper peeling away at the edges

(I am, I am,  I am)

I once sat in a room with death for 19 days straight we talked about the butcher knife, and the box cutter,  and also the gun and the kerosene  and my eyes burned until they ran dry but I didn't blink And neither did death and I'm not sure who won and I'm not sure it's over

But I am still here

(I am, I am, I am)

[shitandthings]

It's unsettling how often I let myself settle,

Like dust

For less than I deserve

[shitandthings]

Note to Self

Do not unstitch the seams in your arm You do not look as good in red as you think

[shitandthings]

the difference between some poetry and a suicide note is reading it aloud

[shitandthings]

The human heart  is an animal of its own,  A pulsing beast of blood and flesh.

Yours, a constant reminder that storms  are named after people

Mine, the reason that ribs are cages

[shitandthings]

stop lusting after the pulse of a man who doesn't even worry when he hears you've been crushed under the pressures of living.

[shitandthings]

new years things and stuff

2013 hit me like a goddamn freight train. A head-on collision. Tires skidding, glass shattering, metal crushing. Silence. Then sirens. The noise never left for long, but the silence was just as deafening. 

2013 was a roller coaster. The kind where even before the climb you could already feel the flip in your stomach from the fall. The kind that was mostly fall, anyway.

There were things that stuck with me through the ups and the downs and people who didn't. There was pain I couldn't shake on the sharp turns. 

2013 was zero to sixty in a crowded room. 

There is no contrivedly uplifting moral to this past year. I wish I could summarize what I've learned in some sweet little catch-phrase, but I can't. Because the thing is that all those stupid cliches are bullshit.

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade". Fuck that noise. Make noise. Throw fits. You don't have to make the best of a bad situation. Chug a bottle of vodka in thirty minutes then call your best friend over to help you puke. You'll maybe feel better in the morning. But you'll probably feel like shit, and that's okay too. Sit in the shower and cry. Scream. When life gives you lemons, fuck shit up. Also, it's all fucking lemons. First kisses will always harden. Every successful marriage will always end with one person watching the other die. There is enough food on this planet to feed every person, but not enough humanity to spread it around. There is not enough time to read all the books you will want to, or to listen to all the albums worth listening to. You will run out of chances to hug your mother. It's all goddamn lemons. Throw a fit about it. Fuck shit up. Hug your mother.

"Laughter is the best medicine". No it's not. Laughing about your problems is stupid and you will have more problems because of it. Get help. Do not be ashamed. Everybody needs help sometimes. 

"Ignorance is[n't] bliss". "Love is [occasionally but not always and really not even all that frequently] blind." "What doesn't kill you makes you[r drinks] stronger".

It's all bullshit. Unadulterated bullshit.

I am almost twenty years old and I have absolutely no idea who I am or what the fuck I want and that scares the shit out of me. This past year shook up everything I though I knew, chewed me up, and spit me out. I don't know which way is up or where the ground is. And I sure as fuck don't know how to take care of myself.

When my mom told us about her cancer, the room got really still. The air stirred quietly and we dared not disturb it. She was eerily content, spewing off shit about how "everybody is going to die, but not everybody knows how" and how "miracles do happen" and she "think[s] [she'll] be okay". Bullshit to it all. 

She is not going to be okay. 

"Life goes on". Bullshit. I don't know why people pretend it's not going to end. it will, it's just a matter of when. My mother probably has incurable cancer. My grandmother is on hospice, dying of infection. I lost a friend to heroin-induced suicide. The brevity of our existence is not something we should ignore. Life goes on...for a bit, for some people, for now, for what? 

So I guess all I can give you is a two-part question: What would you do if you knew you were dying? How did you convince yourself that you're not?

[shitandthings]

Nelson Mandela is Dead

Tonight, Nelson Mandela is dead and I have a migraine

I am not sure what to be more upset about:  the fact that my body is in pain or that thousands of miles away the heart of a man, who I have never met, has stopped beating.

One day, my heart will stop, too. His humanity is not much different than mine,

only larger.

Tonight, Nelson Mandela is dead and if someone were to ask me what the bravest thing I've ever done was,

I wouldn't have an answer.

But each of us only gets so many chances to prove humanity is more than the people behind you ready to trample you when you fall

and each breath you take has to be given back

somehow

There are bones in your body that you will never see but Nothing would be the same  without them

Nothing would be the same  if you did not exist

Nelson Mandela is not breathing anymore, his lungs laying silent beneath his ribcage,

never having held any more air than mine do right now.

Tonight Nelson Mandela is dead and my head hurts

[shitandthings]

On both of my hands, I can count the things I’ve done wrong. The people I’ve left. The phone calls that went unanswered.I  might have a problem owning up to things. Nobody ever  really prepares you for how difficult it is to be an adult.  Nobody tells you how  you’re supposed to stock your bathroom with honey-almond soap and scented candles. How your refrigerator must always be full and smell like tangerines and mangoes. How you will want to stay in your bed more times than you will leave it.  That nobody owes you anything. I lose track track of time the way my dad loses his cellphone- frequently, unnoticed. Days, sometimes weeks, lost, like shoes beneath a bed. I leave things behind - bobby  pins, an earring - on purpose. I  think I just want someone to  remember me.

[shitandthings]

When I Should Have Left You

When, after you realized the "goosebumps"  on my upper thigh were actually lines of opened skin, your face sunk and you slept on the couch

in the living room, leaving me to cry alone on a bed that wasn't mine. When I realized you only wanted me

when your breath tasted like cheap beer. When I realized being wanted is not the same thing as being valued

you can want things, just to use them and then trash them. Being wanted doesn't mean shit. When the way you kissed me changed

from being the passionate exchange of the newly obsessed, excited about being so  close to each others faces, to something

like a text you return so as not to seem rude. When you touched me the way a cat  plays with a mouse

long after it is dead.

[shitandthings]

Self-Portrait at Nineteen

I scrounge for change in the cracks  of my sofa, carry my travel mug  to class because it's cheaper

I start books but do not finish them, spend money I do not have,  Hum songs that have no words

My friend talks to me about God, wants me to believe, but  I do not have that kind of faith

I only believe in easy things like red lipstick, and coffee before noon,  and writing essays in pen

I sleep too late on weekends,  and don't floss as often as I should, I let go of things just to hear them break

I write notes in French, etch the date in the top right corner, scribble poetry onto dirty napkins

I too often find home for the night in someone else's bed, I make it a point to forget my earrings or a bracelet

I remember how your mother  smiled a little too hard when she  saw me last

Being sad makes me thirsty, so I drink two glasses of water and take an aspirin

I do not grow flowers here and I have not yet learned the  strength it takes to mend myself

[shitandthings]

For the first boy I ever loved, I would have driven 7 hours through nothing but corn fields just to crawl into his arms and then weep the whole ride home I'd have done anything to feel his heat  just one more time Thinking, if I could just wake up next to his voice maybe I wouldn't be so afraid of mornings He was laughter that couldn't be bottled, paint I couldn't stop painting with I have his portrait framed on my wrists He is still the last person I've kissed

The second boy was just a distraction the dull roar of a television in front of puffy eyes and tissue boxes he kissed at my neck like puppy and I did nothing I taste just as good when I'm silent

The third just happened out of habit, became where I went when the lights turned off, when I'd had a bad night, when I'd had too much to drink, when I had nothing left to say His hands were callused desperation, I unraveled in his tired fists I was less pretty when he opened his eyes When he left me, I wasn't sure I was sad I cried anyway Girls who look like me are supposed to cry  over boys who look like him

The fourth boy was concrete He was sturdy, he was strong He held me harder the more I squirmed It is the nature of stone to be satisfied It is the nature of water to want to be somewhere else

I used to gamble my bones for luck and I've never had the audacity before now to wait for a heart but you said sleep on it so I curled up on your chest and learned patience The morning can be so mortal and you often have bad dreams, but I would kiss the fright from your voice if you would let me but that's your choice

the last time I saw you you were just as beautiful as the first

I sat on your bed, and I'm not sure if you we're smiling  at some joke you heard earlier that day or me but I'll take what I can get from you.

And you are still the last person I've kissed

[shitandthings]

Dressed solely in each others palm prints and tequila I will kiss your boxcar of a tongue Taste all the train wrecks still left on your lips You are the best accident I've ever been in But an accident none the less We've made such a mess with these costumes we call skin and there are few things that have ever  stung me like you 

But we are so much less important than the things inside of us and everything is there in your chest

Oh I know and I know and I know It's still you It's always been you