my chest hurts

I guess it's my age group I'm in now that I'm watching people I know and am friends with start to get married. I've had conversations with people about it, about how many years we think we have before it's us in white too. But bro we're just kids, yknow? I'm about to turn 19, and I know a girl who was married at 19 and I do not understand it at all. Like, there's so much I still have to learn about myself before I'm ready to live with another person in a codependent relationship and share schedules and finances with. Someday, sure, maybe even sooner than I think, but please not in the next few years.

Anyway, that's not really what's on my mind, not entirely. It was just halloween weekend, and I've had to scroll through what feels like miles of posts from halloween parties and pumpkin patch visits and costumes and friends and, you guessed it, folks, I'm lonely. Frick like I'm fine, yknow? I'm good, I'm not depressed, I'm about to leave for my mission, I'm good. But I'm so sad, too. My friends are gone, and I know a few of them are still good friends of mine and that won't change, but they're busy and have new friends and are plenty happy enough to forget I exist at least some of the time, and I'm just not. I miss my friends at college, I miss my friends from philmont, I miss my ex. I mostly miss anyone contacting me to hang out or just talk or be bored together. I'm constantly being reminded that I'm not essential in the lives of my peers right now. And I don't want to change what's happening. I know I'll be on to new things and people soon enough, but it's gonna be a crying night for sure.

So say what I will about marriage, but at least it's gotta be nice to have a friend who's always there.

poetry dump — internal monologue

you could be better than this
          than what
you pathetic excuse for a person you know what
          but i don’t
yes you do you know full well that you changed for a beautiful second you had become someone you were so thin with a wide smile full of laughter and kisses in the starlight and you weren’t scared kate don’t you see that
          stop reminding me
no you weren’t scared you were so excited for the future you were so excited for things that had yet to come and now you’re back you’re back here letting this anxiety in your throat keep you from making decisions and moving forward and it’s clogging you up and you’re crying and crying and why are you so sad all the time now
          i don’t know i’m not doing it on purpose
don’t lie to me you do know stop acting like this isn’t your fault like this isn’t you like you don’t consciously stay up late eyes blue white from screens and scrolling while never getting up and how are you such a mess why are you such a mess why don’t you just fix it why can’t you consistently fix anything without falling back into these self-dug ruts where you pine and scroll through old pictures and wait for friends to reply from a distance with their new lives and new friends and you wonder why they won’t talk to you and how they are so happy and you want them to be happy but also you want to be happy i know you i know you aren’t that selfless
          i try to be it makes me feel better
you just want to be you want people to forget about you because then you’d have a real reason to be upset instead of just feeling forgotten for no good reason all the time and you want love so badly but maybe you don’t deserve the kind of love you’re looking for maybe you only ever deserve half friendships and lack of real connection and them leaving and leaving and leaving and leaving and leaving and leaving and leaving and leaving and leaving and leaving and god why don’t they ever get tired of leaving i’m tired i’m tired of it i'm
          i know me too i’m tired of it too
then why don’t you fix it why don’t you get up and make something of yourself you sit there and let fat crawl back under your skin even though you starved yourself for years over this sort of thing and hated yourself for years over this sort of thing and you wish you were thinner and prettier and your legs were longer and your face weren’t so round and your hair was more uniform and you wish people liked you and boys liked you and that you had the self control to be a better person but no you’re useless
          i’m not useless
yes you are you know you are
          but i’m trying can’t you see that i’m trying
i can hear it i can hear that you want to be trying but you aren’t you sit and you wake up late and you never leave the house and you eat disgusting food because you’re disgusting you’re pathetic and dance was the best thing you ever had and you lost it because you weren’t good enough at starving yourself and now you’re so full of self pity because you’re weak you’re too weak to stop eating again and to leave the house and exercise or anything
          leave me alone i’m so tired you think i don’t know you think i don’t know this stuff
only because i tell you if i stopped reminding you you’d forget
          i wouldn’t forget
you would
          please leave me alone
i can’t
          please leave me alone i am so tired
we’re all tired do you want to be alone
          no
then let me stay
          i’ll find someone else
you can’t i’m the only one who’s never left
          that’s only because
and leaving and leaving and leaving and leaving and leaving and leaving
          please stop
and leaving and leaving and leaving and leaving
          they won’t always there’s gotta be someone just one person at least who won’t decide i’m not worth their time and leave and leave and leave and leave and leave and leave and leave
why do you think that you will find that
          i don’t know
why do you think someone will stay when they’ve only ever left
          i don’t know i guess i have so many years left i should be able to find someone in all that time
you have nothing to back up that theory
          i’m sorry i just
i hate you i hate how you get your hopes up like this
          i am so tired
then sleep
          i can’t
why not
          you won’t leave me alone don’t you ever get tired
i’m tired too
          then leave
but i don’t want you to be alone
          why
because i want you to be better
          why
because i love you and i have to believe that even if nobody else does you will not be alone
          why would i need to be better if i have you
it’s me
          and me
the same person
          i know
so be better
          i can’t
why
          i am so tired

poetry dump — sap

There’s this sap oozing between my ears
like there’s no way out.
          (There’s no way out,
          There Is No Way Out!)

And I’m looking at all of you—
          beautiful and quiet,
          lined up neatly in those chairs at the back of my mind
                     with your tapping feet and memory eyes twitching
                     towards the clock, counting down to liberation—
I’m thinking, I guess—
          no, that’s not it.
I curl up at your feet with my chin on my knees.

A friend told me
          (growing up)
that if you swallow an apple seed, a tree will
sprout up in your stomach and branches will grow out of your ears.
But I know now, in my wisdom, how that was a lie,
          but
          if you plant a friend there,
          (deep inside of you like a secret)
          it will push up into your mind, right up between the ears,
oozing sap that will corrode every your every thought and
you forget what it was like before.

No, I’m grieving.

Yes, grieving, you say together, always wiser than me. Stop mourning us.

          And when they leave
                     (And they will leave.)
          their empty chairs,
          you can’t find the pictures you used to have on the wall—
          the ones you used to stare at until they gave themselves meaning.

Sticky walls. Sticky thoughts.

Crying and sitting and wondering
when the last time I washed the windows in here was, and
          wishing the carpets were less dirty,
and wishing you hadn’t all gotten new chairs with new people.

But you know, it’s fine, it’s fine.
          And there’s this sap between my ears.

Once I’ve emptied these chairs of you,
you don’t have to come back.

I’m throwing the chairs out too.

poetry dump — train tracks

I have to remind myself that the waiting is beautiful also.
That the sooner those glistening moments arrive,
          the sooner they depart,
          swept away on the rusty railroad
          that keeps perfect, deafening time,
                     crushing my laughter into flattened pennies,
                     engraving my memories into copper
                                and picture frames and
          I am laid out, spine sewn into
                     the railroad ties,
                     knuckles white against the
                     grumbling rails and

I have to remind myself that blue skies do not last forever.
          And anyway, I miss the rain.
          I miss you, I miss
          having a person
                     as my opposite and companion
          instead of a mirror and some dreams
          crowding out my soul and swarming out
          my time.
I miss having a dance,
          having steps to follow and
          notes to embody. And

I mustn’t forget how I sat at the window
          clothed in night,
                     listening to the rattling brass symphony
                     of my train approaching,
          how I guessed what it would look like
          when it came rolling through,
          how I stayed up all night dreaming
                     of empty train tracks being filled.
I’ve been laying here long enough that
          the grass beneath me has
          grown through my chest, yearning
          for light.
Ants traipse trails through my blood and
          fingertips, they wind patterns through
          my hair and chest garden and
          propose salty toasts in the tracks of my tears and

I’m laughing in the dirt,
          chest heaving against the sky
because it seems so unfair that everything
          leaves,

                     and I can feel my train approaching.

I know I shouldn't be afraid.
The shivering rails keep time with
the pulse fluttering out of my throat and in the depths
of my ribcage
           what will it bring, what will it bring, what will it bring?
          sing the ants.
I don’t know, I whisper,
                     (clutching the rails tighter, feeling the rain,
                     breathing the fear out of my shallow lungs)
something new.

poetry dump — sinking ship

i wish i were enough to stay inside you.
i wish you couldn’t go a day without
          wanting to see my face or hear my laugh,
i wish the memory of me lingered on
          your skin, blew around you when the wind
          disturbed your hair

because, darling, we were a sinking ship.
i knew it, but i can’t help but think
          you knew it better
          (somehow.)
because when the waves took us, you were already
          swimming, already eyes on the horizon, already
          gone.
and i was tied up in your ropes and rigging, fingertips
          grasping at every splinter you left behind,
          wailing back at the wind
          (she thinks she is so powerful, but i think
          she is just lonely)
and now there are
aching bones
          cluttered up in my chest,
scraping like cheap heels
          against sidewalk grates,
          trying not to shiver in the cold waters
                     you watched seep into my chest as we sank,
          (when you stopped caring whether I swam or drowned.)
i grab the water up in my arms because these waves
          once knew the touch of your skin as well—
          we seep and weep the same salty anguish.
and i remember our nights
                     in darkness.
          my back arched against you,
          bending at my breaking points
                     because you made me feel
                     so whole and
                                lovely.
          your hands in my hair,
                     in my spine,
          in my every thought.
          your lips on my skin, on my soul,

          and everything that matters
          is the air i wish weren’t between us—
your mouth travelling back up my neck,
your words that beckon sleep
          before i am ready to let go
because those are the spaces in the sidewalk grates,
          the echoes in my bones,
the whisper across the waves that we
never were enough
and now you’re gone

poetry dump — be here now

I am here, now.
My tiny home in the mountain trees,
my pen and paper, sleeping bag.
The sky rolls colours above me—
          cream and lavender and the softest grey.
Moths and gnats
          weave bobbing silhouettes against
          the fading light.
Featherduster branches shift
          from green to black
          as the sun drags their
          bristled details over the horizon.
Tomorrow, I leave this place,
          a body-sized impression crushed into the moss,
          my quiet breaths and
                     heavy footfalls gone from the air.
I lay as still as I can,
          eyes roaming over the undersides
          of the scattered canopy
          spread out against the clouds.
          Birdsong at dusk, ants beside me.
          Wind across my face.
I am here, now,
and I never will be again.

poetry dump — i let the mountains have me

I let the mountains have me,
let them fold me up in their roots,
          rivers flowing through my fingertips
          and shadows rolling over me
          like lazy clockwork.
I found miles and miles of earth
          who had never known
          the soles of my feet and
          dancing butterflies
                     who seemed to be
                     scraps of paper being cut and
                     uncut from the air.
I found music
          in the metronome of bird calls and
          plucking strings too afraid to die
          to find rest
                     when the moon rose.
I found the quiet breathing of trees
          keeping perfect time with
          the mountain’s heartbeat—
                     a rhythm I pulled from the soil
                     with desperate palms,
                     clutching the prayer to my chest
                     that I would someday find peace
                     like the saplings who simply grow
                     because they love the sun.
I found a sort of solitude
that could never know loneliness,
          a peace that peeled me open
          to press moss into
          the lining of my chest
          and caressed my face with
          gentle rainfall
          like a family I had left behind.
I let the mountains have me
because I wanted to find myself,
          to see if there was more to life
          than running
          until your bones become an
          unladen tombstone.
I let the mountains have me for a while,
and the mountains
          gave me a version of myself
          I could walk beside
          for the rest of my life.

poetry dump — father's day from santa fe

It was just stars, Dad.
We were bundled up like astronauts
in the bed of her pickup,
          swaddled in sleeping bags
          (synthetic and down cocoons)
          staring up at this absolutely dashing
                     swath of sky that spread on forever (and ever),
          or at least it seemed to,
                     by my reckoning.
We were perched up in the mountains
overlooking Santa Fe
                     (this glittering postage stamp of a city
                     trying its best to become the sky but
                     falling miles of fairy lights short)
          We sewed ourselves into the tree line
          and wondered at the beauty of it all,
                     hot chocolate words
                     held in our smiles and breaths.
We were thinking of the day,
heads bowed over pictures,
          as if in prayer.
It was beautiful, Dad.
          Nothing but stars.