maybe life is just a peanut m&m

One evening, you're scratching a scab on your shoulder.
It widens. And widens.
Until it becomes a hole so deep, you fall in.

Inside: a vast room lined with dozens of doors.
Some open easily. Others resist.

The first door reveals a beautiful woman—except her fingers are carrots. Bunnies nibble delicately at the tips.
Another door groans open: a perfect spring day. The air is neither cool nor warm. A lawn has just been mowed. Thousands of clover heads lie decapitated on the ground.
You move on. All you can do is continue.

In the next room: your first bicycle. How did it end up here?

You wander from door to door like a door-to-door salesman with nothing to sell and no one to sell it to. Even if you had a product, who’s the customer in a place like this?

One room smells only of honeysuckle.
Another: two teddy bears gently swaying to harp music.
A bathroom—Your mom slumped on the toilet, days before she died.
A dream you didn’t dream.
A story someone else once told you.
A wolves’ den.
A winter landscape.
A museum.
A husband. Ew.
A nice, heated pool.
A field of daisies.
A dirty kitchen.
A car crash. Slow motion.
A playground with wood mulch.
A high school book report you once burned.
A movie theater after the credits have rolled.
A chapel. A wedding. A prom.
A stockpile of Diet Mountain Dew.
A couple of shirts you threw away.
A bedroom full of Barbies, tied together by the hair.
A room full of doors—
infinitely redundant, clearly not worth your time.

Locked door. Locked door. Another locked door.

Ah—this one opens easily.
Rows of metal file cabinets. Cabinets on top of cabinets. Cabinets beside cabinets.

Then: the hospital where you were born.
The fears you never name.
The house of your first slumber party.
The gynecologist’s waiting room.
The most recent panic attack.
The last place you were drunk, which seems strangely blurry.
The Indy 500? NASCAR? Get outta there!
Another door opens to your office. No thanks. It's the weekend!

One opens to a hallway lined with prison guards holding metal detectors. One waves with a friendly smile. You slam the door shut anyway.
Next: a grand hall. All your exes seated at a long medieval table, a feast before them. Your first boyfriend looks ghastly, face gleaming with grease as he tears at a turkey leg. You shut that door quickly.
A room of pillows and cats.
A bank vault of blank paper.
Another locked door—you hear what sounds like a train behind it.
A stained-glass door opens to a hill crawling with angry gnomes who charge.
A closet-sized room with a single ham sandwich. You consider eating it, but the greasy turkey leg still lingers.
A glass sliding door opens with a satisfying electronic ding-dong—
but it only leads to an Office Depot. And you already have enough pens.

Behind a plain white door: lovely, sweet, soft kisses. You wish to never leave, but the room expels you.

A heavy iron door offers a blame-matrix...ending with you every damn time.
A screen door opens to a man threatening to kill you. Or perhaps it was just a joke.
A room with every piece of Halloween candy you've ever eaten.
Well... maybe just a piece... wouldn't hurt...

Followed immediately by a room with your fingernails, bitten down and bleeding. You drop the candy.

What’s this room? Is it? Oh yes, this room is just full of porn!

You keep moving. Each door opens to something more absurd:

A bowl of fruit next to a pile of plastic Happy Meal toys.
Girl Scout Camp, but no one is having fun.
Expensive soap that sits in a dish, unused.
Unicorns with donuts on their horns.
A brand new Ford Bronco blessed by a priest.
Depressed children who "don’t want your help."
A courtroom. You’re the defendant.
A T-Rex with Jello-soft teeth.
One Princess Diana Beanie Baby in mint condition, tags still on.
A voting booth. This country is doomed!
An iPhone with a cracked screen, playing grainy videos.
A room with you, age five, deeply picking your nose.
Stop before you hit brain!
Christmas—
a room containing all of Christmas: past, present, future.
Bah humbug!

Finally, the last door is locked.

What a boring place.

Or maybe not.

Maybe most nights, what you’re scratching isn’t a scab at all—
It’s just a peanut M&M stuck on your back.
You eat it.
Candy-coated chocolate with a salty, crunchy peanut inside.
Maybe the only lesson in life is “Don’t eat candy in bed.”
Anything else would be ridiculous.

dada

I know dada is never  

a fatherless child’s first word—  

but second? Third? Fourth?  

Have I ever said dada

in thirty-seven years,  

outside the art movement?

Wasn’t I already speaking  

in full sentences, whole thoughts,  

when a father-shaped substrate,  

like compost drawn  

from the bottom of the pile,  

surfaced as I turned it?

What word could I reach for now  

to name him?  

Not dada.

bitters: the widow's ribbon.

Tarot Card of the Day: Death (in Reverse)

This morning, I placed a widow’s ribbon on my dresser. My altar, really. I think the top of every woman’s dresser is an altar—a small, sacred space for the little bits and scraps of life we need visible in the morning and evening. Mine holds a small knife, crystals, slips of paper with wishes scribbled on them—and now, the widow’s ribbon.

It once wrapped around curtain rods that came with the house. Small, lingering remnants of a former owner, now gone. Before her, her husband died. The neighbors still call her “the widow who lived here before you.” Why the ribbon? I’m not sure.

Recently, I listened to an audiobook of a hardback I first read seven years ago. In it, the author claims that every woman, somewhere between her late thirties and early forties, must face the choice of whether or not she will become bitter.

When I was in my twenties, bitterness felt inevitable—like taxes, old age, or death.

But so far, my thirties have read like a male redemption arc. I can name at least two men I like. More accurately: two men I consciously choose to tolerate. Am I bitter? Perhaps it’s a rational conclusion.

My horoscope today: “Now is the time to release the way you’ve been relating to 'the masculine' for the last 19 years.”

Nineteen years ago? When I was 18? I’m not sure I’d met a man yet, though I knew a couple of boys. It seems simple enough. I could keep one around. Something to talk about when I was with the girls.

Under a new moon in Taurus, I bathed in rose salt—not because I felt dirty, but because I longed for clarity. Earlier that day, I dusted the top of my husband’s dresser. My husband—one of the two men I consciously choose to tolerate. Love is strange that way. You can love and still need to tolerate.

I dusted his pocket knife, a baseball cap, a neatly folded American flag in a box, a flashlight, and spent gun shell casings. And I realized—we’re not so different, after all. Men have altars on their dressers too. What is the flag from his father’s funeral if not a very large widower’s ribbon?

Suddenly, I felt open—like maybe I’ve misunderstood men just as much as they’ve misunderstood me.

Alas! Perhaps? I am not bitter after all!

:-D

pearls before dumb girls

You're not a dumb girl. In fact, you're incredibly perceptive—she knows that. So if you’ve read between the lines, as she suspects, understand this: if you trace a vein of anger deep enough, or follow the scent of pain long enough, you’ll strike gold. Love and devotion often arrive dressed as frustration. Hurt wears the mask of care. Human connection is strange like that—one person can be a niece, a sister, a lover, a temptation, an enemy—all at once, all in a single breath.

Don’t approach her. Don’t ask. Don’t confront. The answers, if any, will drift like fog—vague, deflecting. She’ll say things like, “I love all my friends,” or “Your passion is contagious.” But the truth is simpler: she’s guarded. Always has been.

She lives in a Jenga tower—careful, deliberate. She might pull a block now and then, stick out a toe to test the air, flirt with a life she doesn’t quite believe in. Maybe she submits a poem. Maybe she brushes against someone just long enough to pretend it was an accident. But she will never risk the one move that might bring the whole thing down.

Still—she will love you. Even if it’s only a grain. She’ll tuck that grain into her shoe, carry it from morning till night. She’ll feel it pressing against her sole with every step, like the princess and the pea—except this one doesn’t keep her from sleeping. It keeps her from forgetting.

It will irritate. And irritate. And irritate.

Until one day, it becomes a pearl.

And even then, she won’t give it to you. She’ll seal it in a Ziploc bag, drop it into her purse, where it clinks around with loose change and expired coupons. Forgotten, but not lost.

Until one afternoon, while fishing for her keys or pulling out a receipt, the pearl slips—clink—and lands at your feet.

Still, she’ll insist it isn’t what it looks like. That it’s not really love. Not like that. Not for you.

And strangely, she won’t be lying. Her love for you is a private relic. A selfish keepsake. A gift she gives only to herself.

Is that unfair? Maybe cruel?

Probably.

And though she may play wise woman, deep down, she’s just a dumb girl.

Not like you.

monthly eucharist

My body keeps churning out blood clots, plopping out like buttery slugs every hour. Christ bled too, through a slit—not between his legs, but in his side from a Roman spear. Maybe that’s why His blood is holy and mine is unclean. He poured it into a cup, passed it around, said, “This is my blood,” and men drank it without flinching. That ritual continues every day, all around the world—even at the Pope’s funeral. If it were my blood, the disciples would gag. And yet, each month, I feel a strange kinship with Jesus. I wonder, if He had been the Daughter of God instead, would churches pass around menstrual cups of wine? Maybe we’d recognize a different kind of holiness. I feel connected to Him in those moments. The only difference is—He only bled once.

men·stru·a·tion con·ster·na·tion

My body — churns
(butter? nah — blood)
coagulates and spills
every hour.

ℭ𝔥𝔯𝔦𝔰𝔱 𝔟𝔩𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔬𝔬.
His wound: also a slit
(but — spear 2 the side)
cleaner. nobler. holier.
mine: unclean. inconvenient.
𝖇𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞 𝖍𝖊𝖑𝖑 —

“tHiS iS mY bLoOd,” he said.
𝖒𝖊𝖓 𝖗𝖆𝖎𝖘𝖊𝖉 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖈𝖚𝖕—
sw@ll0w3d it whole,
guzzled it like ji$$.
#sorry — is that sacrilege?

…or truth?
Still, dey drink.
Even 2day.
#Blessed #Faith

(っ◔◡◔)っ Mine?
  they’d gag.
   flinch.
˜”*°• pretend it ain't divine. •°*”˜

<communion><communication>
menstruation = consternation
MAKE_me_A_man —
and the kardinalz
would be sucking it down
monthly like rent...

after all,

n
o

o
f
f
e
n
s
e

✌𝓙𝓮𝓼𝓾𝓼 𝓸𝓷𝓵𝔂 𝓫𝓵𝓮𝓭 𝓸𝓷𝓬𝓮.✌

ode to the tough, the unruly, the too-loud, the dandelion girls

“Yes, death. Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace. You can help me. You can open for me the portals of death's house, for love is always with you, and love is stronger than death is.”  -Oscar Wilde

The only line between a flower and a weed
is judgment.

And I—judge, jury, executioner—
preside over the wild court of my mind.

In death, a dandelion grows
bunny-soft fur—gentle gifts
you could fill a pillow with.

Sleep. Rest.
But instead, we blow it to the wind,
selfish—turning their death into our wishes.

A maybe, a what if that never fails—
it bends, it morphs, it floats
into whatever I need it to be.
The dead don’t disappoint.
They shift, reshape,
become whatever I crave
right now.

Death is a seed
planted into the dirt,
rubbed from the corner of my eye
when I wake up, watered in
yesterday's tears.

But alive?
It was better.
The fucking best.

A riot of yellow grins,
spirals of lion manes.
Growing!
    Everywhere!
            Anywhere!
Sprouting in lawns,
gardens, gutters,
sidewalk cracks,
asphalt parking lots.

Do you know how tough
a flower must be
to grow through cement?

Pretty and hard,
like ballerina toes—
bloody, calloused,
but full of grace.

Like a cowgirl
shooting stars from her boots.

Like best friends sharing clothes.

Like a tombstone photo of a girl
mid-laugh, face soaked from 
a  water-balloon fight—
Put into the ground too young.

Dandelion.
Not a weed.
Not a flower.
It’s medicine.

Drink it down—
the tea licks your liver,
clears your kidneys,
soothes your heartache.

Take it every day,
until my seeds drift
on a child’s breath.
Your wish becomes my command.

ciphers/sisters

the women in my life =
a wet web, shimmering—
               unsummarizable.

their messages:
grainy voicemails / emojied lists /
one-word texts / snail mail (still slimey)
humming beneath

a pond-surface plain—
but dive:
fish / algae /
eels—
a whole ecosystem fucking
in the stillness of a second.

one says:
“teaching summer PE”
[translation]
she wears the gay trope
like vintage jean jacket—
worn, wanting,
exactly hers &
her co-workers like it
('like' like liking a FB post)

another:
weight loss / shirt won’t fit—
nothing fits
anymore / new clothes?
—keep the old? how long?
and I’m brushing dust from vertebrae:
the bone-curve of her,
slipping
off the map
of who she's been.
the end = unknown.

a third:
condo listing / square footage / open house
she's selling it.....
I hear scissors snip:
thread cut.
gravity—optional.
maybe she floats past stars next month.

one sends a photo—
yes, a couch
(yes, perfect)
and in that Ikea angle, I see:
it’s about him
about how couch-shape / match
his absence.
home now = (her - him) + couch

another:
letter.
art again.
not for money.
not for clapping hands.
I read the ledger:
loss, subtracted.
herself, added.

and then me:
MBA class one.
then none.
my reply, plainspoken:
“I’m done with school."

but I trust them—
cartographers of the in between
my encrypted
~ notification ~
they’ll read
what I really sent:

a matching thread in their wet web—
pluck my meaning from the lake.
Sisters! Sisters!
I won't be
\\\weary\\\anymore\\\

women are a vast and wonderous thing.

The women in my life are a vast and wondrous thing—  

sending me the plainest of messages  

laced with the deepest codes,  

like the smooth surface of a pond  

teeming beneath with algae and eels,
and fish fucking.

One tells me she’ll teach Summer P.E.  

And like a detective dusting for prints,  

I read between the words: a lesbian so seen at work,  

she slips into the cliché like it was tailored for her.

Another texts about weight loss and clothes—  

but I, an archaeologist brushing bones,  

surmise her body is shifting fast.  

She doesn’t know how much or how long.

A third sends her condo listing.  

I, a coroner reading cause of death,  

see in the square footage and staged light  

that she's cutting every tether—  

might just float off the earth by May.

A friend sends a photo of “the perfect couch.”  

I, a WWII codebreaker with Enigma in hand,  

decipher her meaning: it fits perfectly—  

like a man once filled imperfectly, earlier this year.

Then a letter arrives, about making art again.  

The auditor in me reads her ledger lines:  

a woman no longer chasing approval or paychecks,  

but creating for herself. Finally.

Like a train conductor checking his pocket watch,  

I time my reply:  

“After one class, I’m quitting the MBA.”  

I trust these women will read what’s hidden  

in the simple words—  

the vast and wondrous thing  

I’ve sent in return.

Jesus would encourage this type of thing

The day after Easter, the Pope died, and you asked,
“Wanna watch J.C. Waterwalker die?”
I said sure. We made nachos,
ate them while The Passion played.

Between floggings, I picked at a bruise—
no idea where it came from—
just above the knee, below a fading tattoo.
In the shower, it looked like ink:
deep purple,
as if it might bleed
into the water.
I scrubbed.
It stayed.

Later, wrapped in blankets,
on the edge of sleep,
my phone buzzed—

a text from you,
though you were lying right there:
“Sorry, dear. Almost made it a whole day
without texting you. Please forgive me.”

That’s when I noticed
how tightly I’d folded into myself,
how much I’d missed.
I want to say I’m sorry,
but instead I whisper,
“It’s sad the Pope
never got loved like this."

My Final Thought

The Appalachian Mountains are older than the North Star,
the Atlantic Ocean, even trees. I live at their feet,
searching for a poem in reruns of Jerry Springer.

It feels close—like vein under skin,
the last great space where all our tangled roots are fed
as if the mountains themselves know
the blood buried in the soil beneath our stories.
Stories just like the reruns of Jerry Springer,
where the same betrayals play out, again and again.

What family doesn’t have a call-girl cousin,
a child whose father’s not who they think,
a sister who stole her sister’s man?
Branches growing from a strong trunk. Why—

—In college, my mother slept with my aunt’s boyfriend.
My aunt swears it didn’t happen—he only liked blondes,
that my brunette mother must’ve said it just to hurt her.

But now my mother is dead. I have her journals,
and I am alone
in these deep-time mountains,
re-reading, not speaking, the truth.

Final Thought:
You only get one family, like Jerry says.
When that family betrays you, it’s hard to reunite.
But here, in these mountains, I’ve learned
to sip from the stream that carries without words.
Here, I pick leaves from the trees—
slowly, I listen to the silence speak,
and in it, forgiveness isn’t asked of you.
but the earth lets you choose what to hold
and what to release into the ancient wilds.

A Time for Ahh. A Time for Release.

Why do we say Ow when we're hurt?
Why not Eep, or Ack, or Ooh, or Ahh?
Last night, I dreamt I scrolled back—
six years deep—to your first message

after we became friends again.
All it said was:
"Deleted by Sender. Negative Content."
And I didn’t flinch, didn’t sting—
not even in my sleep did I say Ow.

For anything you might’ve said
felt justified.
You could’ve made me
chew gum from your shoe,
press a boot to my chest,
take a fistful of my hair—
and I’d look up, wide-eyed,
thinking: Yeah... fair enough.

But in real life, six years ago, you didn’t.
What you did was wilder than anything
my dreaming brain could invent:

You just loved me.
You opened the door
like you’d been waiting,
like I’d never left.

And maybe back then,
I didn’t say Ow—
maybe that was a moment
for Ahh.

Diet Culture (12/F/USA in 1999)

I know—  

during Friends

(laugh track, Central Perk,  

Ross whining)—  

Jennifer Aniston  

ate the same salad  

every day.  

bulgur.  

cucumbers.  

chickpeas.  

feta.  

control.  

discipline.  

a body that doesn’t complain.

I never liked the show.  

Still, I carried that fact  

like gospel in my bones  

since age twelve—  

before I had bones, really,  

just cartilage and shame.  

[glass of water]

I knew Calista’s numbers.  

Angelina’s.  

Sarah Michelle’s.  

Flockhart: 5'7", 98 lbs.  

(I could recite it like a prayer  

or a curse.) 

Learned the stats—
foods that burned more
than they gave—

Some glitchy website.  

Some pixelated authority.  

I believed every byte.  

[another glass of water]

And Britney—  

abs in six moves.  

Every day.  

Easy.  

Just ten minutes.

I tore the page out.  

Tried on the carpet.  

Quit somewhere between  

bicycles and V-ups.  

I called it laziness.  

I called it failure.  

But really—  

I just wasn't ready to disappear  

the way I had been sold.

Chunks.

Sometimes I wish I could cleave off  

a chunk of my life and give it to you—  

like when the neighbor’s grandson  

came over for Easter  

with his new black lab puppy,  

a wiggly thing named Chunk.  

I’d gift you cookie dough,  

thick with melting chocolate chunks,  

sweet tea sweating in mason jars  

under the same sun that brewed it.  

And then, reality settles—  

like soil in the garden  

days after I’ve tilled it.  

These beautiful chunks  

are beautiful to me  

because I wanted them,  

envisioned them,  

made them with my hands.  

To you, they’d be like  

wearing someone else’s socks—  

or panties—  

awkward, off,  

something to walk funny in all day.  

And maybe that’s the strange  

and wonderful realization:  

I’m in love  

with the chunks of my day.

Man With a Hammer

I heard once, “If all you have is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail.”
speaking of doctors—
of machines and meds pushed on them
by reps pushed by companies
pushed by shareholders (some of whom,
dare I say, may fund my retirement?).

I once only had a hammer—
a hammer’s no one-trick tool.
Sure, it hammers.
But it also pries,
props open doors,
lies beside me at night
ready to fend off attack.

It can crack a window—
or hold it open.
Bend metal.
Tenderize meat.
Crush ice.
Drive tent stakes.
Pop open paint cans.
Hang proud on a garage wall,
serve as a bookend—
or a bookmark,
depending on the book size.

So maybe nothing looks like a nail
when all you have is a hammer.
But the hammer—
the hammer looks like everything
you prize.

cigarette

In 2025 a Burning Bush is a Rocket to Space

If God spoke to us before,
she will again.
But we walk differently
through Redwood forests
than we do down Manhattan streets.
There, it's the hush.
Here, the boom.

Yesterday, we launched
a pop star into space—
the rocket’s brief flight
burned more fuel
than I’ll use in a lifetime.
Still, I rush through showers,
trying to save water.

If God spoke to us before,
she will again.
But it’s 2025—
a burning bush is passé.
Maybe now,
she appears in a blaze of flame
beneath Katy Perry’s rocket.

It wasn’t Hot n’ Cold,
just hot—
ants on the ground
scorched alive.
And somewhere,
I swear I heard God cry.
I did too—such tiny lives burned.

There is Friendship & There is This.

Sometimes, time doesn't exist

Sometimes, time dissolves—  

past, present, future  

fold into one.  

Then, now, someday  

feel as real  

as an apple in hand,  

a bite on the tongue,  

a swallow between  

tears in the break room

of a job you don't really like.

Did you know I once said,  

“I don’t know,”  

when a friend asked  

if we’d ever speak again?  

Now, I’m your Apple legacy contact—  

if you die.  

I say if,

not when,

because a world without you  

is unfathomable.

And yet—  

how many years  

was that my reality?  

My line-a-day journal—  

(the one I bought because you had it)  

reminded me:  

today’s the day.  

The day we told our versions  

of the fallout.  

How did we spend  

a whole year  

finally reunited,  

yet never name  

the elephant in the room—  

the one with the pink bow  

dressed in the weight  

of everything unsaid?  

To me, that's a friendship

of faith. Moving forward

without knowing why.

We just needed to be in

each other's lives.

Didn't talk it out—

Just open arms.

Friendship with you

like sitting on the couch

after a long, hard day.

I shouldn’t have been surprised.  

Years of devotion,  

on both sides,  

erased by a man—  

your husband, then—  

and the man-lies  

he fed us  

just to save his own skin  

for one goddamn day.  

 Grateful—

we laugh about it now.

That laughter is nourishing— 

an apple I eat every day

to keep the doctor away 

If We Texted God, Would She Leave Us on Read?

We don't light candles anymore—
but we charge our phones overnight
and check notifications
first thing in the morning.

I asked God a question
in an Instagram poll:
Am I alive?
Three people voted 'NO.'
But none were God—
She didn’t even view it.

I DM’d Aphrodite once,
tagged her in the caption.
She didn’t repost,
but a skincare brand liked it
and sent me a 20% off code.

How can I reach Parvati
if quiet prayer isn’t monetized
and she doesn’t Like or Subscribe
to my content? I post 
every Tuesday by 5 p.m. EST.

Yet, for a moment,
in the pink flower emoji,
I thought I saw a flicker,
a Divine eye winking—
but my phone died.

Tomorrow,
I’ll try a TikTok trend,
maybe then Isis will
duet my video.

Mudflower Me.

How self-centered I must be,
to feed my poems into ChatGPT
and ask it to respond
from my subject’s point of view.
This is the only way I learn
to walk in their shoes.

But if AI is just bits of data,
crafted by human minds,
and within each of us lies a spark of God,
perhaps I’m not as far off
as I once believed.

time to consult the religious texts....

....my journals for the past 15 years.

chokehold 🪡

The divine thread that binds us

is spun from you telling me

“Let Her Cry” by Hootie & the Blowfish

was huge the last year

you went to Bike Week

in Daytona.

Most days,

I don’t mind this umbilical cord—

until it coils,

wraps around a neck,

tightens like a boa,

choosing either you or me.

Between blue gasps for air,

I wonder

if we’re nearly a decade

into a beautiful, suffocating

mistake.

need a gay bae 🤠

Make the barber

a Southern gay—

a real queer good ol’ boy,

the kind with a pocket knife

tucked in the rhinestone pocket

of his bootcut Westerns,

shirt tucked tight, big belt buckle gleaming.

He'll call me honey,

call me sugar,

tell me I’ve got good hair texture.

Let him keep a photo of Dolly

framed on the mirror,

and let him not try

to take off my glasses

before brushing through my hair.

don't be subtle 🪻

I’m a modern girl—

I need God to come at me Moses-style:

Burning bush, ten plagues, or nothing at all.

Give me the promposal treatment—

Skywritten signs in plain, bold English.

God, just say what’s next—

I’ll cut my hair tomorrow to prove I mean it.

I heard you like sacrifices—

Say the word & I’ll cut it all off for you.

Are you there God? It's me, Caroline. 🙏

"My loneliness is killing me and I must confess I still believe"

 —Britney Spears

God—

          Could you be my friend?

(I'm asking for a friend.)

But of course, you know—

that’s just something we say

when we’re too shy to admit

we’re talking about ourselves.

Truth is,

I could really use a friend right now.

      I have a few, sure.

But what I need

    is a super friend—

The kind only You can be:

supernatural, omnipresent,

patient, and endlessly kind.

     So…

       God—

           Could you be my friend,

               right now?

read it on reddit 🛜

The internet can draw out the worst in people—

what might have been a fleeting thought,

barely noticed and soon forgotten,

gets typed out and posted.

Others who’ve shared that same passing notion

latch on, adding their weight,

until it swells,

spiraling beyond reason—

a snowball rolling downhill,

gathering speed and snow

until it becomes too massive to stop.

better 🫛

"You Could Do Better Than Me"

Sure, I could find someone else—

someone with more time,

more money,

more patience,

more perfect fit.

But would they quote Cheech and Chong

during a horror film

or crack open a Diet Dr. Pepper,

grin like a kid at Christmas,

and sigh,

"Ahhhh… That’s God’s drink"?

Yes, I could find someone else—

But better than you?

Not a chance!

babygirl runs 🏃🏼‍♀️

Babygirl, why does it seem you’re always runnin’?  

Sitting in a chair or lying in bed—  

Like you can’t get far enough away  

From who you could have been?  

Instinctive, like a mother,  

Slamming the brakes, arm cutting out—  

My body more protective than a seatbelt.  

I wish I could fling myself in front of you,  

Stop that little juggernaut.  

Remember when we were younger,  

Sitting by the creek?  

You smoked your cigarettes down to the butt,  

Not knowing what to do with them,  

So you handed them to me.  

I tucked them in a plastic box

That once held sandwiches I had brought.

At the time, I thought  

I could hide your messes forever—  

Like a sin eater, cleansing you  

One piece of litter at a time, saved for later.  

But I was wrong. I couldn't fathom  

The monsters you’d behold.  

—My appetite not enough for things so big 

after a sandwich by the creek.

stickyfingers 🪲

Loneliness is a bug trapped in jam,  

Legs weighed down by sticky goo,  

Wings glued to the surface,  

Waiting for the giant God-eye  

To scoop me up and throw me away.

the morning raged like a bell 🔔

Awake, but forget the dreams I've had,  

Something happened,  

Between the reality of last night

and the reality of this morning.

Like a deer, startled and fleeing,  

It’s gone without a trace.  

All that's left to do is sip the water,  

Curl deeper into my warm cocoon,  

And pray to God there's no storm within,  

As long as the one outside will pass.

told me who you were at the start 🐍

Snakeskin, snakeskin, have you any clue?

Pierce my words with needle’s thread,

Twist my meaning, leave me misread,

Strike me down, then turn your head,

Say you’re innocent, soft as a dove instead.

bitches.

My stomach somersaults,
like a trained terrier
at an agility course—
best in show.
A hundred years ago,
this would’ve been confined
to a low-brow circus,
not an elite national competition.
Yet, no matter the time,
the context, or the stage,
we’re still just bitches—
performing,
for them.

Fuck you, AP Science! [still resentful 25 years later]

Where does love come from?
It must be born from some fragile core,
like the yolk of an egg broken by my careless finger,
its shell dissolved in a vinegar bath—
a lesson on osmosis and change, taught by Mrs. Powers,
who marked me with a D- and wrote,
"Needs to be more patient."

But resentment grows differently,
from expectation—
like the assignment to catch twenty-five species of bugs,
I.D. them, mount them, in one month.
Nothing in my life had lasted
a whole month. So in the final four days,
I scrambled, gluing ants together—
Frankenstein's monster, but with bugs—
trying to make them look like flies, like gnats,
and failed. I was never asked back
to Advanced Placement Science
the next year, because I
"lacked organization."

The next year, sadness took root.
Envy came along, too.
While I was told to try harder,
until I cried,
the girls with A’s suddenly had boyfriends, no time—
I was told it was "just jealousy", but what I felt
was a broken heart, realizing I would never be theirs.