Her
Soft naked rain drops
drip from my eyes
and peel away
all that is unseen
beneath my mask.
Crimson grape juice
floods from my wrists
and stains the skin and the scars
I do not try to hide
from the world.
Cruel laughter and pain
they all watch in vain
while I stand
and I weep
at the reflection I see staring straight ahead
from behind the glass
from a different world
with eyes that whisper her absence.
she is a different girl,
but we have the same smirk
and the same taste
lingers on our tongues;
tequila, beer, and someone else’s mouth.
I watch
as she paints her arms with cold metal
and does not listen to the warnings
her friends give her
on the rainy nights
when she is alone
and there is no one in her pants
or in her mouth;
When there is not a song
playing in her mind,
lulling her to sleep.
The window shuts
and she cannot breathe
but she would not want to anyway
because suffocation is so much easier
than walking through the hallway
with tight clothes that shape her curves
and bring eyes to her chest;
eyes that flit away when they see her face
and they see her past flashing across
her forehead
as if warning them that
she cannot be trusted.
her hair dangles over her eyes
and protects the memories which haunt her
even though they may not be real.
She still feels hands where they do not belong
and she wants so badly
To prove that no hands were ever
in that place so private
between her legs.
And so she shares herself with anyone
who thinks she is beautiful,
or thinks her body is worth entering.
The guilt dangles from her ears;
shiny bright blue and orange beads;
one for every woman
she has ever fallen in love with.
And one for every cut that will never heal
but will forever linger on the skin
beside all of the scars
that her mother gave her
that cannot be seen
because no one believes they exist.


We are not the same girl
but we have the same name
and the same scars
and the same wish to die
on a rainy Tuesday
when the whole world is drunk.

She cannot see me,
but I am watching her.
And she is not alone,
over there beyond the glass
on the other side
of forever; there is peace
and there are smiles
and there are babies who do get abandoned
and fathers who do not molest their children
and mothers who listen to their daughter’s sobs
and care.

But me.
I am alone except for my voice
which cannot be heard
by the love and freedom behind the glass.
But I still try, and I let
frothy music notes
fall from my lips
and dribble down my chin
to the cold, bare ground
Below
and I know
that one day,
someday
a girl just like me will slip
and fall
and drown in the tears I left behind.