bleach

my latest preferred method of hypothetical suicide is swallowing a bottle of bleach. bleach must really burn when it goes down your stomach. it must really fucking hurt. it probably boils down your esophagus, not pussy weak shit like pain pills and not sudden and virtually painless like a bullet to the soft pink brains, no, it must hurt like hell and sting full of the realization of itself, it must make your eyes water, not that anyone would notice or really be able to tell because I imagine that by the time you swallow a bottle of bleach you're crying, anyway. i've tasted bleach before, though, as part of some sick science experiment, and it doesn't taste how you would think, all slippery and chemical. it's salty, saltier than ocean water and not dirty like ocean water, either, but bright, very bright, the way fresh, super concentrated blood must taste. I've had bleach gurgle in my stomach, just a little bleach, mixed with milk, mind you, and it was achingly painful. what would a stomach full of bleach feel like? would it churn so hard that the milk in your stomach would turn to butter? would it burn so bright that your whole body would feel lit up, electric, alive for one last time? and what if you did feel alive for one last time, after swallowing all that bleach? would they be able to save you, that is, if you wanted to be saved, after feeling lit up and whole again, lying there on the floor, all burnt up on the inside and full of bleach – I watched a documentary once about a man who made himself a kitchen cleaner cocktail, swallowed it heartily, and survived. he was praying mantis skinny, stick bug skinny, even though he ate a full meal every few hours, and you could see the food move down the tube in his chest, the pipe in his stomach, you could see it go right through him. is that would life be like after, if life can possibly exist after swallowing a bottle of bleach? what could possibly make someone desolate enough to swallow a bottle of bleach want to live such a terrifying existence after? surely they had no want for any sort of existence before, but I suppose that all changes when the chemicals hit and everything suddenly becomes slow and fast at once and you realize that this is real. and the ambulance lights are bright and you're thinking “oh god, please don't let these red flashing lights be the last thing I see, please don't let these screeching sirens be the last thing I hear, please don't let this acrid bleach be the last thing I taste, please don't let this overwhelming regret be the last thing I feel.” and whoever it is that loves you the most is probably standing over you, screaming, why, why, why, but you can't see their mouth move anymore. the room is getting dizzy and you're wishing you would have mopped the floors more, scrubbed the counters harder, used up that damned bleach before it used you.

Speak to me / breathe

you lived in the bags under my eyes
that I kept large and lofty because night
meant dreams of starving cats and
dirty old men scratching at my thighs

and when some men sing they try too hard
but you scream it out so effortlessly
you've got a handsome chin
under that beggar's beard

and every night I sing alone but there's no
rhythm, there's no melody, just sound's like
someone else's voice cracking,

talk to me, because there's oxygen tubes
and radio wires, there's little brown bugs
and water that won't put out any fires

speak to me, I'm living inside someone else's
dirty broken parts, I'm living inside of a
painting but I'm no piece of art

Tablecloth

am I just some tablecloth, something you make
a mess on and then just pull out and brush off,
throw me in the wash, but some blood was spilled
today, this red wine stain won't come off and you've
got enough change in your pocket for something else
cheap and white.

The Artist

The artist is the worst kind of whore, guarded but constantly and consistently eager to connect, to find someone to tell her secrets to, crying and fumbling, all humbling and shriveling, open and bleeding out but she never runs dry.

And I cry between your thighs every night. I thrust my scabs and scales into your palm and I beg of you to see these things, see the dirty and cheap me, the desperate and weak me, and not look away.

But so often you just think my scales are a sign that I am a snake in your grass, a needle in your arm, I am coming at you fast and chemical and addictive and you don't think I am worth the comedown.

Just something short

I put my headphones on
I turn your vocal chords up
tonight.

I'm supposed to be an artist
so why do I always end up
the muse?

I'm sitting pretty on the tip
of your lover's tongue,
but tonight, I just might
come undone.

unsatisfied

lord knows I am
unsatisfied.

with all my feathers ruffled
doing the lousiana shuffle
past cinderblock built walls
down an old school hallway

your voice, it violated
my lover's brain, my thinker's heart
until the ache in my chest
told me it would refuse to cease

I watched seed feathers fall
from your dandelion hands
and wisp past my hair
through the cracks in the neighbor’s fence

you plant yourself somewhere else
but manage to still keep your eyes
on me.

Nobody's Perfect

And I wish you'd see me
like I see me
not golden, bathed in
some angel perfection
but just lucky enough to catch
some angled light

because when look at me that way
all misty and glassy and floating along
I can't get better;
I can only do you wrong

and in my eyes you saw some light
some ethereal, more than a being
but instead a beam, something more than
I could ever be.

I'm just a girl, not even a man with a plan
I'm just some girl, with some shaking hands
sleeping on the bottom step of your stairs
getting tangled up in the curls of your hair

there's no such thing as falling up
and even though I'm tough
when I plummet from this pedestal
I'm gonna bruise and scratch so easily

Baby, I'm gonna look so rough to you
you won't even recognize me
and the noise I'll hear as I'm getting up
it'll be the sound of you leaving me.