and there are so many times like this when she just wants to
c r e a t e
something beautiful,
to string letters together into a simple-intricate sequence
of black vines that twine themselves around the blue lines
on the paper as she draws them (slowly, sometimes, careful-thinking, or in
an inspired rush) from her pen. the metal tip grazes
the blank surface, tainting
the pristine white even as it
.pretty,
decorating the emptiness to form something.
perhaps even something with meaning, she d.a.r.e.s
to hope—even if the
“meaning” is just a lost.littll—but then,
she doesn’t know if she can help it,
because she’s licked blood from her fingers countless
times, but it never
gets any less red
though she wonders if maybe it ought to be black, like those other
things she bleeds—the clotted things she fills all those once-pure sheets with—
‘cause after all, those are bits-of-her-insides splayed across the page
—and oh yes, she’s still spitting out metaphors (although
(because) they make her sick)
just to show them (you know, the ones that will never read this)
that somehow, she’s still (not) (breathinguglyscreaminglostcryingmadleaving)
here.