it's not like it was just yesterday that you forgot about me

and we stopped talking

it's been seven months

and i'd be lying if i said this wasn't the worst winter i've ever had

i've been stuck in blizzards and heatstrokes of writing stupid things about you that don't add up to poetry because the way you treated me was never quite as beautiful

it was hell

i just didn't realize it before

maybe it was because i was really getting used to the way your voice could shatter my entire existence with a few syllables

or how your words always managed to stab me in places under my skin that no one else could ever reach

you were right,

i didn't matter

but there must've been something between your "that's nice"s and "cool"s that kept me breathing, because you got me through the fall even though you didn't mean to

i never saw your list of intentions,

but i highly doubt they mentioned helping a lost girl cross a chasm to find her way back home

however, this is not a thank-you note

it's more of a goodbye

i'll say it again-

we were not poetry-

we could've been

but no matter how you choose to romanticize it,

we weren't beautiful

our worn-out mouths and twisted hands were not smothered in strawberry skies

they were tainted with poison

we were toxic

there were no words that hung in the air like cigarettes at midnight or smiles that could've reignited the world with their spark

there was just us

and you left your mark on me

instead of trying to find the rose petals in a field in full bloom,

you chose to focus on the thorns

you said i had thousands of flaws, and you found them in my every breath,

choking me with what i should've said

so if you thought the pair of us were poetry, answer me now:

were we beautiful then?

face it

we were never gorgeous

and if you still think we were, get it through your head:

pain is not beautiful, and the way i've barely managed to survive these past weeks is not somehow stunning

so stop telling me we were dynamic

that's not true

we were dynamite but i took the damage

all because of you

The last twelve months were blissful,

In sunshine and travel and love,

I've soared and roamed and grown and flown,

Like a fluttering transcending dove.

Then from the depths it grabbed me,

And dragged me into the fog,

Clawed and scratched and tore me up,

The howling beastly black dog.

Fighting, it sunk its teeth deeper,

There was nowhere I could run,

The tears they burn like acid,

What happened to the Sun?

Malfunction. Sadness. Anger.

Normality on an unreachable shelf.

My eyes no longer look like mine,

Where did I leave myself?

Batten down the hatches,

Accept the extended night,

And now just ahead I see it...

The love. The peace. The light.

It's toxic to be around chemicals for too long and to consume poison

It's also been confirmed that letting smoke live in your lungs will rot them like the bananas sitting in your kitchen

Another toxic thing is the gasoline that accidentally drips onto the ground while you pour it in your car, allowing the smell to travel to your brain, mixing up thoughts you thought were solid

The boy in your math class is also toxic, and he seems to constantly be under pressure because every time you see him, his green eyes seem to resemble a crystal more and more

But the thing that no one ever warns you about, is the person that festers in your brain, deteriorating every positive thought you once had towards yourself

And that is the thing that will kill you faster than anything else

stop using the push of your verbal button to create this combustive destruction inside my hateful soul.

you are using my likes and dislikes and insecurities to make me feel more secure in the fact that i am totally worthless.

you're using hateful words to describe to the T every single thing that's wrong with me.

i have become apathetic toward the hateful hatred you yell at me, but mostly i've come to appreciate your company.

thank you for pointing out my flaws to make me see the reality of my worthless existence.

without you, i'd never have seen the circumstance of the essential disgustingness of my very being.

The models in mind cascade, fitting atop each other like Russian dolls, open one, you get another, close one, the smaller world inside disappears.

I'll skip above what we experience remote.

At the top, is the brilliant jewel like world, airplane lights, fireflies, solar blaze on wheat fields, splashing frogs who disappear, supported by the churning fires of smashing continents grinding down rock in swirls of pink sandstone and white calcite and painting it sulferous black pocky foam into fume.

Tear off the sod, dust devils blow and choke, tear off the trees, the heat rises until we dry up except for one last squiggle of sweat, tear off the water, we have sponge soup air we drink, but beneath, a glass

bowl surrounds a terrarium with a city of soaring glass, steel, hung with ivy, ferns and air plants, splashing we buy, we sell in extravagant

glowing lights holding death as a silver, pink, blue light. Beneath all

the happy brisk strides are the tubes of encrusted stool, smelling of earth and death and chow bacteria and the swirling juices of bodies

sprinkled red, dusty chemical, and flushing blue. Its a wart made of tinsel and paper dragon.

Tear of the dome, screw up your nose at onions topped by regurgitated beans, put your ear to the door, yank, splat goes the hand, whack goes the fist, or koochi coo goes the momma before she screams at the bite, so set it aside and hear the chant of angelic young

men, fussing at their hot robes, jabbing and poking and ah-ah-ahing,

and dum-dom, dooom and the slipping soft hands of a lover humming oh.

Tear off the mayor, the police, the junkie, the teacher, and suddenly all the additions and subtractions come down to a mirror like projection that says, me, I fart burp spew phew, and slop over skin with tongue, sponge and super perfume. Animals suck at my dead skin, chew in my gut, worm through my skull, all tearing apart what miraculously formed on its own. Toxicity, the steady refinement of me into the glue of you.