I'd like to ride again. I
wait patiently in line for
my ego rollercoaster, ready
to rise slowly, building
my anticipation, only to glimpse
the drop before falling down
down
down
into a spiral of nausea and
head jerks from left to right
looping back on myself and
ending at the bottom,
coming to a halt at
self-loathing, only to
start creating again so that
I can feel that tick tick tick of
my cart being pulled up the track again,
eager for the nosedive.
I'm addicted to the adrenaline
of feeling great and then remembering
I'm terrible and my art was the best,
no wait, the worst ever created.

the problem is
I'll never be good enough for myself.
I've no one left to get approval from,
they've all come and gone and I'm
left with me and she is a naysayer,
a slayer of dreams and it seems like
she couldn't deem me adequate if
it meant saving my life from knife or
rope, yet here we are, she and I,
standing on the same precipice.
I look down and she says my chin
looks fat like that.
I raise my head, and am asked
what do I have to be proud of?
shroud of imposter syndrome,
begone! Bygones, all of these
insults I've tossed at me, I
can forget them all each day
and wake anew, ready to redo
all the hate I slew at myself
just hours before.
A short memory is important
for my survival, I can't thrive
in these harsh conditions I've
painstakingly crafted, but I
can have a raft for these rough waters
as I traverse perverse landscapes
and try not to scrape all
my skin off along the way,
maybe that's a win, I'll hear her say.

When they call me 'prolific' I hear '****'.
churning out product like it costs me
nothing but a little time and a wince of
entrance pain that fades away.
doing it all for the quick gratification
of seeing yet another something by me me me.
I'm so full of poems I propagate like
my fertile little weeping pine, she's
probably a *****, too, but
that's her job and I'm doing this for free.
I've got less self-worth than a tree.

A tiny fist clings
Wrinkling the chest of my blouse
Fingers fat with milk and love and bananas
Draw lines in linen and decorate me as mother
Wet spots polka dot my clothing,
Residue of tears and drooling and more milk.

This uniform is at once costume, straightjacket, cape and mask, nakedness.

She has my eyes, but hers are green.
She has his smile, but he doesn't smile as much anymore.

She carries our confusion like a torch, leading an angry parade,
we carry her little body like a sacrificial lamb up the stairs.

pulled this way and that, I
reach my hands out, palms
up and wide, fingers splayed
like my cheeks, open and
quivering and receptive,
please be gentle on me, though
I've asked for everything but
that, I've forgotten me and
what I need is gentleness, again.

they scratch my skin so
I don't have to, leaving
red rocky channels to
pattern my landscape,
hand shape mountainous with
ridged knuckles that buckle
under pressure, tectonic plates
collide under your pinches,
inches separate my continents,
compliments mean much less
to me than land and sea
decoration on the world that
is my body, swirled with
tide pool bruises and oceanic
wetness, sweat accumulates like
dew forming my atmosphere
that you clear away with
thrusting earthquakes, shaking
my foundation, my creation
started at this *****, molten core,
more, more, more, it rang out,
pangs of pain and guilt
marble my thighs in stretches,
desert wasteland abdomen
with a dried-up well, swelling
******* pour forth milk and honey
but this is no promised land, sand
scatters and swirls, curls and unfurls
into furious scabs that could
serve as cityscapes, I have a metropolis
on my face and I'm patient zero,
latent heroes stay hidden under
fingernails while yours continue
to sail over tender skin, covering me again
in valleys and gorges and channels.