sad girls
sad women
like me
offering their lives
up because some
abusive asshole
won't cut the
never ending
fuckery out

slit wrists in a bathtub
a bellyful of pills
my demons are having 
none of it

that shit is for martyrs 
they say with venom
as they do weird
interpretive dance
in the shadows

pain is just 
another art show

one demon 
pantomimes
a sad clown

then we watch
the martyr me
bleed out in a
bathtub

of course
she slit her 
wrist the wrong
way

Sylvia  had it right
the oven is so peaceful
and what a powerful
metaphor

the demons 
throw glitter
then
make a crown 
out of my suicidal
martyr bones

i am wearing it now

it hurts
and i love it

my heart is splattered
on a wall 

look at it

i forgot to wrap
a piece of tiny furniture
for my store on etsy
it arrived broken
like me
and then i overshared
about missing my daughter

now i am thinking
i can't do anything
other then feel
intensely and write
about it

all the miniature dolls
stare at me with dead eyes
just like the ghosts
who stare in to nothing
the nothing that is me

pain is
grounding me
and it isn't enough

the song of the dead 
plays on repeat
ghosts pulling 
at me

whispering
secrets 
 grief keeps
coming 
in waves so big
i can't see 
the point
anymore

when day is gone
night spreads its black wings
i lose myself here

my sadness
and anger
can create other worlds
portals spreading like veins

a road map
to anywhere but here
shadow man tips his hat to me
at each doorway

the horror of longing
fills the space in between
i am in and out of a trance
black pupils
pulsating universal wisdoms
 
someones dead grandma
is knitting spiders in the corner

i remember the root of my pain
my daughter isn't here
i open another vein

this portal
takes me back in time
here she is still a baby
wearing a drool bib
smiling at my dark star eyes

she recognizes my future self
my past self sits in another room
busying herself with mundane tasks
that keep her sorrow from cutting to deep

i hold my baby 
dance with her in my black robes
on beige carpet
she giggles
stares in to my eyes

i don't blink 
so she can see the secrets
of the universe
i know she will forget
we all do

i leave her with spirits to watch over her
colored orbs that glow in the night
i leave her with my past self

move on 
another vein
another place

the ghosts are my chariot
i urge them on
take me farther
show me everything
just keep moving

the man with a thousand faces
has won
taken the last light i had

the shadows are all around now
the ghosts are whispering
last memories

he always made me feel invisible
and now she does
​
my little girl
is gone

i knew it was coming
did everything to push
back fate

my blood
my tears
are just vapor
i am a ghost 
clutching at old memories

darkness is coming 
and i don't care

the world is painted in loss

memories
grown out of bones

each one
a message
to end this cosmic scavenger hunt
find every piece of myself
i lost along the way

my self is a broken mirror
that shines in the dark
to form a jagged star

wounds bloom into flowers

i pick them again and again
just to see them die

the serpent takes his mouth
off his tail to kiss me

tongue to tongue
while the world ends

my mother is hungry
and i am too small 
to speak full sentences
she can't find a penny
in her pocket
she is close to tears

later
underneath
the florescent lights
she stares out the window
while feeding me bits
of pastrami

the walls are mint green
but her sadness is the yellow
of a dying sunset

we haven't found a home 
she just holds me in her arms
at bus stops until she gets tired

we sleep on grey bus seats
ride in to the night

when she finds
our home
the man holds my neck
up against the wall
i try to call for her

but see in her eyes
that this is how it must be
i have to make this man love me
and i do

she falls farther away
he gets so close
i can't breathe

when he holds a pillow
over my face
i look out the bus window
he can't see

all those places we could have stayed
and she chose here
i lay still until
he thinks he has killed me
laughs anyway

i am a good little girl
because i want to die

my mother is in the next room
staring at a computer
she can't hear me now
he made it like that

i know she is looking out the bus window
i wish i could see her 
​

the dead sit in rusty folding chairs
a seat has been saved for me

i have been standing too long
waiting for too long

is this like eating the fairies food?
if i could just sit awhile
stare in to the abyss

can i return home?
what is home now
that i am not my daughter's
home

the chair's rusty jagged
pieces  of metal
 cut into the back of my leg
i can't feel the pain
just the blood trickling down

the dead smile at me
and point to the black curtains
ahead

looks like the show 
is ready to begin

 i play with dolls
make tiny furniture
while the dark vortex
swirls beneath

shadows are my friends
now
the ghosts that wake me up
at night 
are now polite

power is a lovely thing
​
 suffering isn't so bad
 when it brings all the answers

my mentor came out
of the dark
when i was still 
seeking the light
that blinds

i fell down the rabbit hole
 knowing i was not alice
i held the queen
of hearts sword
and cut my heart out
she buckled beneath
the thin card she was made of

i watched alice follow the  silly rabbit
who couldn't even tell  time
his confusion would kill her

while alice was signing her life away
i fell in  love with the mad hatter
his chaos was my cup of tea
and i drank it

alice didn't pet
the cheshire cat
while i smoked his hookah
she ran frightened
 into the woods
i pet his purple stripes

until
he purred
slipped into my ear
told me 
that he was the hanged man
and he was the joker

the tarot cards
leaves on the tree

i plucked each one
threw them into the darkness
 and we both laughed
when alice ran
​
he grinned so wide
i walked inside

​