“Oh, Honey.
Why did you do that?
If your mom was still here,
What would she say?”
I don’t get to know.
I’ll never get to know.
If she saw me now, I can’t say she’d be proud.
I can’t say she’d like my hair
Or my nose rings
The men I date or my laundry list of bad decisions
But my mama was stubborn and strong
She lived her life like no one was watching
She made her own decisions
And she didn’t make them for you
So when you ask me what mother would say
I say
She would cross her legs in her rocking chair
Put her hand on her hip
Point at you with all five fingers
And wave ’em around
My Mama says
You don’t fuck me
Feed me
Or finance me
So it’s none of your business
My Mama says
That she doesn’t need to please anybody
My Mama would be proud of me loving myself
My Mama would love me for me
And I know no one else is obligated to do so
So the next time you ask me
What my mother would say
Remember who raised me
Remember all the times she told you
That you were all stupid bitches
Put her shoes on
And walked out your door
And know that she taught me to do the same
I SENT YOU MY EMOTIONAL NUDES
The ones of my heart
Not my boobs
Baring unto you
Every scar
From every blade I pressed to my wrist
And all the pain that lead me there
At three a.m. you are laying beside me
Temporarily awake from the sleep
We both so desperately need
Wrapping your arm around me
And asking me about my mother
What it was like to care for her at only 17
To try graduate high school and keep my mother alive at the same time
I tell you all the things that make me miss her
And when my eyes water as we drive past the overpass on Hudson and Weber
Where my stepfather crashed when I was only 15
There is not a bump in the road when you tell me how much you love me
And when I in detail describe all the times my Father left
How he is just another man to whom I will never be good enough for
And that everytime I walk through his door
I want to die
Entrenched in reasons why
He couldn’t stick around
That I was up for 5 days straight
Searching for an answer
To what I did that made him not want to be there for me
I paired it with all the reasons
I would never be good enough for you either
I tell you about all the men with whom I have shared pillows
That have subsequently left tear stains on them
And you don’t bat an eye
Or two days after our first date
When I’m up way too late
At my father’s house texting you that I know where he keeps his gun
And I want nothing more than to taste it
I told you everytime I tried to die
All the reasons why I wanted to
A long list of measures and standards to which I will never meet
So what’s the point in fucking trying
The day you broke up with me I wanted to die
Two weeks later I actually tried
I don’t blame you
I just wish you hadn’t blocked my calls
Stuck in a hospital room
With these 4 white walls
After six days your face had formed on the scratches in them
You weren’t the first man to see my body
You were just the first to see my pain
The next man will see my chest
But when I show him my heart
He will see your name carved across it
Six am
A Sunday morning
High street
Just before the leaves are beginning to crisp
And turn the color of the soft light
Peaking through the windows
Of all the empty businesses
I close my eyes
Turn of the music humming in my ears
There is no sound
Just the wind
I feel only the softness of my favorite sweatshirt
The hot coffee in my hand
There are no cars rushing by
No beings
Just me
And I am just being
All men are trash.
I know it’s true because I have an alarm set to tell me when I wake up every morning
And I tweet it once a day just to make sure I don’t forget.
But I’m still a racoon,
And I live for dumpster diving
Sometimes I think you could be an Ulta dumpster
Right after the employees just put in all the not-actually-damaged damaged goods.
Full of shit I don’t need, but I’ll happily take home anyway.
Even if you just take up space.
The space you’ll never quite fit.
I keep putting the ball in your court, but
I decided I don’t feel like playing these games anymore.
So I bagged up all the dreams of things we could’ve been,
Tied it with a double knot,
It’s probably sitting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
The only time this love every had any weight.
And probably the only time you fell for me.
They say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,
I’ve been digging for years and I’ve never found a Tiffany necklace
And no man has ever bought me one.
Or flowers. Or dinner for that matter
Sometimes I feel like trash
The kind that no one wants to bother to take out
They just wanna Netflix and chill
But he doesn’t have Netflix
Just a bedroom floor littered with condom wrappers
One for every trick he’s ever played on me
I so desperately want to ask what are we
But I want him to
Just so I can say that it’s over
But I can’t get over you
You’re odor lingers on my body for days
I can almost taste it
I just wanna taste your lips
But this love is expired like spinach I kept in the fridge for 8 weeks
Because I couldn’t be bothered to deal with it
I wanna be you’re girl,
but when it comes to relationships you can’t be bothered to deal with them.
Now I feel like trash.
I guess I’ll just have to take myself out.
Man crush Monday
Missing my man Monday
I’ve been missing you for a lot of Monday’s
Wishing you were still my man this Monday
Time turner Tuesday
Trying to turn back time Tuesday
To when we were together
Going back past the days we spent fighting
Woman crush Wednesday
Just another woman you crushed up
Wishing you were here Wednesday
Wishing I hadn’t thrown out all your stuff last Wednesday
Wishing I still had you
I had already planned our wedding Wednesday
Throwback Thursday
Throwback to all the pictures
Deleted from my phone
But I can’t erase them from my memory
Flashback Friday
Flashback to when you said you loved me It was a Friday
Flashback to every memory
Forget him Friday
Why can’t i fucking forget you Friday
Forget all the Friday nights I spent laid up beside you
Stop thinking about him Saturday
Saturdays are for the boys
Saturday is for the boy I cannot erase from my memory
Wishing my heart was a dry erase board that I could wipe away every word you ever told me
Self care Sunday
Why don’t you care Sunday
Caught up on the thought that you might love me again
Maybe some day
The days of the week
Most days I still get week at the knees
Caught up on distant memories
Waiting for your name to pop up on my phone screen
I just want you to say you miss me.
I spent all my time preparing for you
Remodeling all my broken parts
Patching up all the holes in my heart
Scrubbing the stained carpets so you couldn’t see all the flaws
I painted the walls the color of your eyes when you smile
Opened the blinds so the light could hit them just right
I shooed out the butterflies into the garden of my expectations
Sweeping out the cobwebs of all my ex-Lovers
I let you take up residence in my mind
You unpack humor
You unpack joy
I give you the smile I forgot I loved to wear
We place it on the mantle
It feels like a home for you
I show you what’s behind all the doors of my secrets
And then one day
You close the blinds
Draw the curtains
And filled me with darkness
But you started punching holes in the walls of my heart
Shattered all the glasses of my self respect
Until I could only feel that stinging ache
Your dog shit on the carpet of my self esteem
And alongside my pride
You threw it all out in the garbage
You caught me on fire and I didn’t realize it until I was left gasping for air
I’ve spent years trying to replace you
But I’m too dumb to change the locks
So you just barge back in
So you can finish your demolition
But today I’m coming home
And I’m evicting you from my memory
And charging you for all the damages
I put In plexi-glass
So my windows don’t break
When you start tossing rocks
Soundproof the walls
So I can’t hear our song on your boombox
Who, the fuck, still owns a boombox?
I unclogged the toilet you left overflowing with your bullshit
I patched up all the holes in the walls
But I don’t repaint them
So I know to never let you back in
I take my smile from the mantle
And slip back into it
Like a silken robe
Consider this
Your eviction notice
Firstly, if you haven’t hear Rudy Francisco’s “Honest Poem,” go do that right now. Rudy Francisco is one of my favorite modern poets and his work (both on stage and on paper) is absolutely phenomenal. In fact, if you decided to go down some downward spiral of YouTube on his videos and forget you were reading this I wouldn’t even be mad.
Secondly, I’ve written this poem inspired by his amazing work. So, here’s my honest poem:
I don’t know how to swim
I was sixteen when I got baptized,
I was so scared of the water
I shouted FUCK really loud
I’m pretty sure I’ve been drowning ever since.
I said my brothers name
Before I said mama
I’ve listened to the same 2000’s pop punk songs
Since the 2000’s
I’m still secretly in love with Nick Jonas
I’m still secretly in love with a long list of men
I take everything way to seriously
I fall in love at the first kiss
And will spend a lifetime waiting for the second
I make a lot of jokes about dying
But whisper please dont kill me when i cross a busy street
I wear my heart on my sleeve so often
But am always so confused when it gets ripped from my shoulder
Leaving so many holes in my sweater
But every time I find it again
It gets a little bigger
I call my father by his first name
He understands that Dad is a badge of honor to which he will never meet the requirements
I like to wear my mother’s ring
On days when i feel like I need her superpowers
I’ve worn it a lot these last few months
Now that I have inherited her tendency to dye my hair blonde
And her Prozac prescription
I keep my stepfathers watch in hopes that one day I can fasten it to a man’s wrist
And love him like my mother always did
Today I try it on
Trying to learn how to love myself
It has the tendency of falling off
Some shoes are just too big to fill
Speaking of shoes,
My cousin always says my feet smell like cool ranch Doritos
I can no longer eat cool ranch Doritos
Speaking of shoes,
When I put them on I always feel the urge
To break into a full sprint and run away
The pile-up of problems always feels like it’s chasing me
And most days, I get caught
I have tendency of getting caught up on what to say
So I just talk forever
Hi, my name is Candy
I’m twenty three
I’m afraid of absolutely everything
But my biggest fear is rulers because I don’t think I’ll ever measure up
I don’t have any dreams because I’ve forgotten how to sleep
I was almost born in a Walmart parking lot
And now I have a tendency of discounting everything I do
I don’t know much,
But I do know this:Love comes at a high price
And I am worth every penny
Brown suede
Broken back legs
Sink me deep into the valley
Suspending my disbelief
And my body
As I am cradled in cushions
Reeking of stale farts
And stained with pools of black mascara tears
And pizza sauce
I burrow
Hidden under the weight of all the cushions
So I no longer feel the weight of the world.
The only thing I hear is the Netflix chiming in the background
I can’t get up and tell them I’m still watching
I’m not even facing the tv
And I’m definitely not facing my problems
Is this self-care?
I don’t even know what time it is
But I’m happy here
Blissfully unaware of the world around me
It’s almost like someone is holding me
A grip I’ll never want to escape
As I try and escape
The lurking feelings of the death I once longed for
She’s knocking on my door
But I don’t get up to answer
She calls me
But my phone’s lost in the cushions
And I’m so zoned out
And when the front legs fall of
I probably won’t even notice
I’ll just turn The Office up
When my body’s imprint
Is so deeply engrained into the fabric
I still won’t get up
Because I am no longer a sad person
I am a happy couch
Old tanning pages lurk in the bottom of my dresser drawer
Folded into quarters,
Coated in a smudged gray charcoal pencil
Lines slanted and smeared to the point that I can no longer read them
Not that I’m sure I ever could
I don’t know why I still have it
I haven’t spoken to you in nearly ten years
I remember the day I ripped your letter from the wall
Let the poetry fall to the floor
The way my heart fell deep into the pit of my stomach
Cutting the day you left me out of the calendar
I always expect everyone to leave
But always hoped for an eternity with you
So I would never have to remember it again
But now I choose to remember
To remember the days when my idea of love began to blossom
In gardens of poetry from fourteen year old boys
I kept the letter where you told me you were sorry
You put the word sorry in there at least twenty times
A handful of RAWR XD’s
And a hope that one day we could be friends
We never made it that far
I think you blocked me on Facebook
Even though your mom didn’t
Seas of lovers long since past
But I still put your words back in my drawer
I wonder if you know I still write poetry about you
I hope one day you do.
Phleggy Blonde 