turn the lights down!

it’s too late for me. the damage done by the airbrushed models and anorexic angels gracing the covers of magazines has rendered me unable to love my own body. i can’t stand to look or even feel the weight of myself without picturing how i could be. if i was better, brighter, thinner. more feminine. maybe then someone would want me, i think, maybe then i would be loved. i know this is nonsensical and i know that everyone is insecure but i cannot help it. because the damage is done. past tense. nothing, no amount of love, can heal my hatred for myself, the swirling storm in the pit of my stomach when i stare at my hair, my thighs, my hips. my lips have never touched another’s and i am terrified they never will. but it is not too late for them. save the children is all i can shout. maybe i am unsalvageable but they are not. because before i could read i saw these women and i think that’s the problem. before i could even think without the crutch of my parent’s approval i was knee deep in beauty standards. skinny is good, the world seemed to shout. even when i rejected pink and praised body positivity i was doing it because “not being like other girls” was the only defense i had against the onslaught of hatred i had for my own body. it is impossible to fathom that the world could hate you so much so i distanced myself from my identity. now everything is backwards, like reclaiming sexuality as a weapon erases the male gaze. as if life will ever stop feeling like a performance. if gender were a performance i think i would be booed off the stage. but the children- there’s still time. still time for love, still time to teach that public vulnerability is so exhausting, picking just the right bible quote to honor your cat’s death on social media is not a form of bravery, and life will never look as good as on a screen. the grass isn’t any greener, baby. trust me, it’s just the filter. a.g.w.

you stole this space from me. you take, and you take, and you take. you're going to destroy her, then act the part of the perfect mourner.      like some kind of paltry martyr on ice you are a poison with no known remedy. i gave you fucking everything and you won't look me in the eyes. you resent me- for what? there's a piece of me that wants to rage against everything you are     every scoff in my face     every disagreement, just to disagree     every dismissive tone but you won't even look me in the eye anymore. you used me you used me you used me i bare my teeth around this sentiment like a child swallowing medicine like a bird with newly clipped wings still desperately trying to fly the coop i should have believed you when you told me who you were the first time and i have paid the price. the people i really do care about have paid the price. i am still pondering redeemability. i still wonder if you could ever achieve it. for your sake, i hope so. for my sake, i hope i never find out. a.g.w.

THE CURSE OF LOVE i long to cover you in kisses but sometimes i forget that you are not honey dipped ambrosia instead you are coated in gasoline i ask for sweet romance but sometimes i forget that you don’t do candlelight love you would rather burn it all i burn for you, baby but sometimes i forget that between the two of us i will always be your wick your attitude is devil-may-care, but you do not. a.g.w.

(i’m gonna miss my) stupid fucking hometown i’ve always hated this goddamn town. filled with know-it-all freaks and passive aggressive comments and acres and acres of endless corn stretching out into oblivion like the seaside rendezvous i never earned stinking of the shame of indifference rather than that sweet sea salt breeze living in my half-baked memories, reconstructed like trying to shape taffy sat too long in the sun. the town has always housed the worst kind of people- the uppity kind that have too much time on their hands and absolutely nothing in their brains but their own opinions. so small minded so little to do everything is small the views are few and far between and there has never been a bike path connecting my neighborhood to the rest of town until this year as if i always had to work a little bit harder to get where i needed to go as if the town itself was rejecting me for resenting it and all that it stands for. when someone asks me what i do for fun i imagine travel. i daydream daily, and i have always hated, hated, hated this town, this state, this region, this life. i shriek and shrink away from any kind of pride i hope and pray that no one ever asks me where i am from because everything is so useless here so passive aggressive all “are you sure about that”s and ignoring you in classes who gives a rat’s ass about popularity all i ever asked for was friends but i hold them all to an impossibly cool standard as if i need the best backdrop for my shitty sleepovers as if i will ever be able to grasp at importance like the straw littering my town even with a ten foot pole in the greatest city in the world my goals are unattainable. but when i stood at that podium. when i walked out of that stadium. i left a piece of myself behind. i was crushed when i found out this state had its clutches in me for four more years, even when i hung my hopes on the thought of leaving to prevent myself from hanging my body. but. some of the people there that day i will never see again. kindergarten kids. friends and familiar faces that i will never have again. i spent so long wishing a way out that i didn’t bother appreciating what i have around me until now. college isn’t “embarking on a new journey”. it’s a pit stop on the way to a better personality. i hate this town. everyone else does, too. i wanted to be anywhere else. but now it’s like- it’s stuck in my head. every passing view, every shared joke, every ocean of stupid fucking corn i pass- it’s all mine. i don’t know if i’m ready to let it all go. a.g.w.

my great aunt kitty came to visit for the first time in a decade. my eldest sister is getting married soon, so she has some arcane advice. she wanted to make sure that my mother had passed on "what she needed to know". the subtext is all that was necessary to understand. that's how we survive. women subsist on whispers, passed down like the family heirlooms we never got. every class ring, every old book, every smoking gun, passed over our heads to our brothers. every utterance of our name is another instance of the patriarchy because one day we will only be a "mrs.". we will be reduced like sweet milk we pour into our baking, pour out of ourselves, to feed the men who will one day betray us. she said that the word pregnancy was taboo. that if you became pregnant, you wouldn't tell the other children. the miracle of birth is a mystery only because it belongs to women. our birthright, our burden, is to give life itself. no man could ever do that. men kill and fight and causes wars and try to control death in any way they can, because they could never understand what it is to give life. we have an unspoken power. only god and women have dominion over both life and death. that makes women     old gods, struck down by the anxieties of men.

NEW YEAR'S GRIEF while i picked up trash from the side of the road i spoke to god. i said what's the point if it's all gonna be back again tomorrow? he never answered but that night was the first that the raccoons didn't get into the garbage. while i picketed outside a mindless man's office i cried out to god. i asked, if we wreck your earth, will you ever forgive us? are we your creations, or are we your destruction? he was silent, but the next day my throat was healed from screaming. while i went to pray in a chapel lit by neon i wanted to scream at god. i pleaded, mercy, mercy, have mercy on me. my chattering soul seemed to reach no end, but the neon light went out, leaving my body bathed only in candlelight. while i write this poem blanketed in a warm sweater, i mourn god. i think my savior may be gone but his echoes have saved my aching soul. a.g.w.

my only shot at a love story (is if i write my own) or every love letter ever (except this one is for you)     for my dearest-     my love for you overshadows all other elements of my life. my actions have ceased to be their own. all i do, all that i am, is for you. you are not the air in my lungs, nor the sun on my face. you are not an idea in my mind or a metaphor or a medium or a muse. you are wholly human, and i would not have you any other way. but. you have consumed me, body and soul. somehow, by some twist of fate, i have become irrevocably yours. how is it, that by a mere pursing of your lips or crook of your finger i become putty in your hands, that i would kneel before you and offer you all of myself? if you would be my altar i would sacrifice every moment of my short life just for a brief blessing. but you are not an altar, you are human, and you are mine. for that, i am forever indebted to you. you make me feel the kind of love i have tried to read about in books, or see in movies. i thought they all had it nailed but they missed the mark. they could never describe the fulfillment that i feel at the mere sight of you- no. i do not believe that any sight of you could ever be merely anything. i am sick with love for you. flowers bloom in my chest at the sight of you. they’re violets. they heal me with their sweetness. it courses through my veins and shocks my every nerve. my eyes start to sting and my ears begin to ring. anticipation. all this in the breath before our eyes lock. then it is over for me. roses are red, violets are blue, i love you, i love you, i love you. my mind’s code is rewritten. it is like my brain is hardwired to react to you the same way every time. it shuts down. i don’t know if i was made to withstand this wave of emotion. but honey i would drown myself day after day, drown in an unsurvivable torrential downpour, if it meant loving you eternally. tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow do not creep but speed by, we fly through the days like a novel we cannot put down. be careful with my pages, my love. they are paper thin but they bear the weight of my love for you. i am your hamlet- indecisive in all things but my love for you. you are my ophelia- a beauty so coveted every poet thinks that they may have you. but somehow you have found me worthy of your love and mercy. you have gifted me with a dependence upon you. but dependence is a two way street and without each other we both go mad. even with each other, we go mad. we are chaotic and free to be ourselves around each other. you make me the best version of myself. if i were to walk away from you, i would be halved. you hold my heart in the wildest of ways. you carry it across forests and through deserts, we traverse the wild while you have me absolutely bewitched. i am sure of nothing in this world other than you. i have heard wind of ghosts, but i see right through them. i have been told tales of magic, but they have all been metaphors for love they could never know nor understand. i have seen feats of technology and i have studied great ancient societies but out of everything i have experienced, i believe only in you. i know that you would ask me about gravity, because you are so clever, so beautifully clever, and yes. i trust you more than gravity. i could drop a penny every day, waste every cent, and still never trust that the next one would not spring back into my hand. but i will always trust that you will return to me. our love is never in doubt.          xoxo, yours.

WINDOW when did everything i hold dear to me die -      while my head was turned?      my back was to the wall? the flowers are all stomped on, my dear, the leaves have fallen, the light is out. maybe in another time we could have been heroes but for now our time is up. like a shiny new car turning over and over again we were ruined out of the gates. i am not crafty enough to fix us but i can compose an end in which we lived. i can tell a story where all the bad parts are crossed out because even i can't erase something written in ink. every romance novel ever written wishes it could encapsulate the scorned love of being a reject. i want to lean closer to the fire but soon enough the paint thinner dousing my heart will catch like a lock swiftly clicking open     shut         open             shut                 open                     shut on repeat until you can't feel the door to your lungs anymore and as soon as the quivering beat stops it's just you. panting up the stairs, breathing     heavy,         heavy,              heavy, like the stars themselves are stuck in your throat. i said it's too cold out. you said let's dance anyway. so we drowned in moonlight together. a.g.w.

HEROES AND VILLAINS AND all at once: gone was the veneer of innocence the facsimile of happiness all that was left in its wake was the powerful, terrifying, truth. you were not my knight in shining armor destined to save me for king and country. you had your own designs- mysterious machinations, which made my mind spiral with possibilities but one thing was for sure: the chances of you saving me are infinitesimal. when you said to me "you can be whoever you want to be in this world" you forgot to mention that you would never be yourself. a.g.w.

and i have seen the way that words press up against my mother's throat, kept prisoner just barely by her teeth. the invisibility that she harbors, like a mask that transforms curt words to kind phrases by design. my mother is a maverick forced into a cookie cutter. i see the same echoed in the fires of my sisters put out so easily in the presence of others. parties full of men lounging, "shooting the breeze", killing time, while the women waste away in the kitchen for an unspoken service. the service of a woman is always unspoken. because to speak is to be spoken over. to speak is to risk being heard and to be heard is the worst part. to be forced back into that indignity, that invisibility- the place to which we have already learned to retreat to, beat into us from years of teachers forcing us to apologize first, apologize always, apologize for even existing or taking up space, it doesn't matter if he started it, ladies don't fight, being the bigger person while being given no space to grow, stunted like a tree in a closet, forced to subsist on the drip of a pipe and a sliver of light from the keyhole. the barest of recognition leaves me starving for more because i will never be satiated. i look at all those big, strong men in my history textbooks and wonder about ambition. i wonder about the way that human beings can never seem to be satisfied. i wonder if the fire in them tasted the same as it does when the smoke from the one in me makes me choke back sobs around my unwanted words. i think that men and women want differently. i think that the men in those books wanted to satisfy their greed. i think that the women in my life just want to satisfy their need. a.g.w.