i don’t know to make myself useful

crawling crying clever huh

my veins are filled with saltwater

clench love stop heart

beat i must beat i must beat i must

wash my hair and get out of bed and wake up

necessarily in that order

if i want to love myself, but i can’t

god i don’t believe in you anymore but

god help me

god damn it

please pleas people pleased

pleasure's all yours

please don't come again

i am rotting inside out

i am going to put a knife under my abdomen

and write a going-out poem

for the pretty mortuary doctors to gobble up

if no one else

and nothing more, burn my high school yearbook

into lungfuls of cigarette smoke

and first last kisses

and coversations in unflavoured seltzer

bottoms up and choke

after all

i am only another failed experiment

in the class of 2024

neon glitter pen signatures rap tap tapping to

the hypnotising rhythm of

a crisis hotline

oops. i’m sorry. i swear i meant to live

i swear i don’t know how i got all the way down here

but cannot get out

i swear it’s my slaughtered knees

being bad butchers

making squealing pigs out of my soul

squeeeeeeee

i swear it’s not me but it’s

always me me me

meeeee

i can’t count how many times i’ve uttered tired

but burden hasn’t been dulled down

and i am all play and dullness

dig me out back with the jack and build

a house out of my bird bones

and cheap twine

when my head’s heavy with birdseed instead of

oozing medicine

i swear i’ll be someone else not me

i know you didn’t want this

didn't want me

i’m so j8ui

sorry, oh god

i just wanted to be okay

let me be.

but i can’t i shan’t i see

mama, i swear i didn’t mean to make you sad again

i didn’t mean to. i didn’t. i didn’t try to

spin your vertigo with unravelling spools

of unconditional devotion

untangle my anchor

from your sturdiest continent

and let me be, sinking sobbing stupid

i’m sorry i'm so

tirec

huh. i never tried but

mama, give me the strength to love you back