#syntheticsynaesthesia

It is the phrase I see over and over again, “Alena Dennison, a 16 year old died in a car crash driving through Yosemite National Park.” 

Rise and sleep, sleep and rise, numb and frozen 

and in the cold, brisk air you want simply to fold 

into yourself until you disappear. Will disappearing 

make you warm? Might as well try. Burnt bagels 

toothpaste smeared onto fingers, lips chapped 

and brittle, scraped, raggedy knees, bruises and 

dirt under your nails, waking up with deep lines etched into 

your face, dark splotches, frazzled thinning static hair, 

cold buried beneath our limbs like stubborn splinters, 

our legs the kind of shaken that makes us know we’re 

alive, trembling like the frames of abandoned farms. 

We can see our breath in the early morning, tangible 

proof that we are here and we are alive, and I think 

of Mrs. Gaudry, asking us how we know we exist, how 

we know we’re alive. Consciousness is the visible breath. 

We spend the nights speaking in whispers, damning 

or praising our peers, trading secrets like currency. 

This is a curious temporary home, the walls a little 

less sturdy, the ceiling lower, a muffling claustrophobia. 

We hear nothing- no sirens, no lawn mowers, no airplanes, 

no cars, but the silence doesn’t make us forget the home

we left behind. Constellations and blurred fingertips, gauzy 

grey mornings in this stark panorama, laughter and anger 

and smoker’s coughs. The stars stay out all night, we don’t 

have that kind of strength, but at least we aren’t voiceless. 

I read somewhere that taking pictures increases positivity 

and appreciation and so I click away and the camera gets 

passed around because it’s not that we want these moments 

to live forever, it’s just we want to learn to love them. 

They swim unplanned in the river, the iridescence settled 

deep into the bottom, to drown any remainder of the hike’s grime and dust. 

Starboard on a boat in the middle of the Delta, between white sheets furled around our legs like sails, his breath rigging my hair, his hands moving leeward, floating up my spine like a buoy, my mind a spinning helm

In New York in a tired youth hostel, slang sprawled across the walls in sharpie, on the bottom bunk of a rickety bed, keeping our voices down lest strangers overhear, our feet cold like the winter iced pavements, his eyes so bright and blue they made the sky look like the Bronx, hands raised against the back of my neck like the statue of liberty brandishing her flaming torch

Paris, we had gone to the Louvre that day, we can see the Seine from his bedroom window, the bright lights of the passing boats, the smell of cigarettes always lingering, 

I write about boys, booze, the way stars 

look at night, about packs of Malboro 

smoked at midnight. I write about hookahs 

and pipes, the sex I’ve never had, the exotic 

landscapes I’ve never seen, the boys that 

will never love me. I don’t write about my life. 

Tears are so angsty. I don’t write about routine. 

Routine is lost plastic combs, cracked mugs, 

homework. The coffee maker an empty stomach 

rumbling. The way sometimes just walking 

through the door makes me want to scream. 

Negative numbers, fractions, calculus. Wrinkles 

in floral sheets, deep lines etched into my face 

when I wake up. I don’t feel alive during the day, 

when I’ve got nothing to burn my gut. I don’t feel 

tangible when I’ve got no one clutching at my waist 

like my hips are the only gas station on the highway. 

There isn’t always tenderness. I am not always a 

goddess or a saint. Sometimes I go to the movies 

with a boy and leave with nothing but the gum on 

the bottom of my shoe. There’s nothing poetic about 

taking out the trash, the way the dark plastic yanks 

taunt full of garbage, used groceries. Spilled detergent. 

My French friends smoke their cigarettes from the tip 

of their pale fingers. The smoke is pretty but they’re

just bored. Broken binders that snap the fingers like 

jaws. I don’t travel a lot. I spent every Paris trip in my 

grandfather’s hospital. I’ve never been to Versaille, 

never seen the chandeliers and mirror chambers. 

If I had all I would’ve seen reflected was puffy eyes, 

jutting bones and tired, lanky limbs. Routine is blood 

and spiders, tight bra hooks and cold leftovers. Ink 

that won’t wash off. Being late to Louis’ car because 

I spent too long adjusting the stereo. Night is cold feet, 

sirens, the fog horn, accidentally touching cobwebs. 

Adam says stop writing about drugs and 

alcohol. He doesn’t say stop, not expressly,

but it all means the same. There is so much

more. I’m 16. What else is there, other than 

the booze, the boys, the dumb nights. But 

every night is a promise: You don’t have to

 go home tonight, you don’t have to sleep

 alone without your body fitted into someone

else’s. Yeah we’re lost, we don’t know what 

the hell we’re doing, we will probably never 

figure this all out but we’ll learn how to cope

 with what we don’t understand, know that

there’s no rush, you’re doing the best you can, 

we are all doing the best we can. Let your fingers

roam skin like ivy in the rubble. Forget your 

parents cleaning the dishes, your angry father,

your weeping mother. Forget dirty soapy water,

cracked mugs, cold feet, muffled swear words 

at three in the morning. Forget chipped paint, 

forget stains and wrinkles and bruises. Tonight

you can have anything you want, the bottles are

lined up, pick which nectar will intoxicate you 

tonight, Baccardi, Smirnoff, Jack Daniels, Captain

Morgan, Absolut, anything you need is here. 

You’re not an alcoholic, you don’t usually drink, 

but you’re with us tonight. Take your pick. Smoke

a joint, and fuck what everyone else says. It’ll

be good and I will write about it, the way I write

about everything, your lungs pricked, limbs languid,

eyes stained calm. Kiss until the rest of the party

noises fade away and it feels like home. This is 

the magic of dumb high school parties, the magic

 of illegal vanities. Forget the home you left behind. 

Pretty, pretty, pretty, beautiful, it is a hymn, a young girl’s anthem. We try to claw ourselves out of skins, pinch our flesh, curse the curve of our hips or thighs. We straighten, bleach, pluck, shave, wax, burn, melt, freeze, inject ourselves. We are taught we are not beautiful until we disappear. As women we are taught to despise our own flesh, what makes us human. We live in our bodies with a constant apology. Disappearing hurts.

We’re taught to not be whole; be half a person, be a quarter of a person, an eighth, maybe nothing at all, maybe thin yourself down so much your bones begin to fade away. You don’t deserve to take up so much room. The world wasn’t made for you to exist on.

Pretty, pretty, pretty, the never ending question. I wake up in the morning, hair tousled, lips pouted and flushed, eyes dark, look in the mirror. Am I pretty yet? Am I enough, will I ever be enough? The mirror is riddled in dust, the answer is always no.

If hating ourselves was a class taught in schools, girls wouldn’t even have to show up to get perfect scores. We would pass with flying colors. We are not born knowing, but it is taught to us so early. From the moment we leave our lacy pink nursery, we are treated like glass. We are told we are fragile, breakable, that we are to act as such. Be little, be delicate, be dainty. We are taught to keep our voice down, to keep our smiles tight, to not show ourselves too much. Don’t be too bold, don’t be too brash.

There are days where I still weigh 100 pounds but it feels like 200, I can feel myself folding into my spine, shrinking. My fingers curl against my palms, my stomach is hollow, I take little steps, dip my head down. I am always taking up too much space. The pretty pretty prayer is always tucked into the lump of my throat.

Wrist slung over the edge of the armrest,

ash from the cigarette hooked at your fingers

falling onto the dulled floorboard.

We fucked on this couch,

threadbare love affair,

appeased each others’ insecurities.

Go ahead, tell everyone the girl you nailed

wrote a poem about you.

Laugh, say she is weird,

finding romance in the most animal acts.

I told my mother what I always say

I’m going to the library.

She thinks I read a lot.

She would probably cry if she knew anything.

No one knows you, there’s nothing to explain,

no one to explain anything to.

You’re my secret, my ashtray, my dustpan,

my dirty laundry hamper.

No, this isn’t a clean secret

but at least it’s something I get to call my own.

The smoke rises softly, shrouds your eyes.

You are so good at ignoring me when the lights turn back on.

Everything is hushed.

This could be so tender,

the way your skin looks tinged in purple,

the way you hold your cig like a cross.

I will go home tonight, sleep in my own bed,

the memory of your touch still imbedded into my body,