The cracks in the sidewalk gape wider today
as words like bullets ricochet off the walls of
my skull, as the concrete kisses the bare skin of my knees.
Oh mommy, mommy, I'm bleeding again, but she's
not there this time, she doesn't care anymore. And I try not
to remember how she turned away when she saw who
I am because she knew she could never love me, only
the illusion, only the veil and never the truth.

Stumble down the moon-scape street, two seasons later but
centuries older. Ice grabs at the souls of my shoes and it takes
all I have just to keep on my feet. How many years of
fucking things up, and still I slip, still I ruin the best. Still, I'm still
me but there's hope for the future, if it ever does come while I'm
silence-screaming, retribution-scheming, apocalypse-dreaming but nothing
ever happens because the snow never melts, only thaws
to tepid puddles of silence and pretending not to see.

Frigid winds burst in through the tears in my sweater,
freezing the tears into scars across my cheeks. Last winter's jacket
can't keep out the cold anymore and I can't forget what she said; she said
she'd like me to crawl behind a rock and never ever (ever) come out so I said
I'd like to kill myself with pills except I'm only twelve, thirteen-fourteen-fifteen,
how old am I now?

The years slide smoothly through the cracks between
my fingers until I lose track of who I am, who I used to be and what
I'm becoming like the ghost of a person, the silhouette of a soul seen only
in my eyes when the shadows collide, when the poems come slowly, dully and
flatly like shallow graves for heartache because the razorblades can't bleed
this taintedness from me and the ink can't help me to swallow the sorrow.

i, with my unused passport
tucked into my pocket with hopes
of someday flying away
stand alone
in a crowd at the airport terminal
to wave wet-eyed goodbyes through
dirty glass window panes, goodbye.

have fun, wherever
you are going
this time around. did you know,
the tarmac looks
more beautiful than grass and
sky to me, right now but
it doesn't matter anyway
because i
have only roots and no room
to spread my wings.

i am tired of waiting
to grow up. seventeen years
have taught me nothing about
belonging where placed, blossoming
where planted. life is too short
for things like patience and ergo
i have none,
not today, not
for things like this.

i am tired of wishing
for unhavables. i want to run
outside and be blasted
by the winter air
and London's gentle drizzle, just
to know i'm alive, just
for one cold, wet, glorious second.

and maybe then i could storm
the jet and take out
my passport to be stamped
for the first time in a land
far away, an ocean away, a world away
from sorrow.

but
air traffic control would
stop me, you know, with
tasers and sticks and men in
orange mesh vests. and Security
would question me, of course
and they would never care to hear
my story
that it hurts too much
to be left
behind.