asmr: i'm crying in the bathroom and you're into emotional voyeurism: A Collection

mouth full of metaphor

sorry. i know i’m supposed to start at the beginning

but i don’t really know when that was. sorry,

there’s something in your mouth. what was that fairy

tale about all the teeth? no, wait, that’s not the one;

there was… woods? maybe. i don’t remember. i

never had one of those big books of fairy tales

as a kid. i had a forest, though, and an imagination,

and something to run away from. and milk teeth. sorry,

i had milk teeth, how small your milk teeth are!

is that the beginning? if it is, let’s not start there let’s -

let’s start somewhere else. like the middle. the part

with alleyways and drug deals and i thought you were

the story i was searching for. turns out you’re something,

for sure, but if we start with that then we’ll start with feelings

and that’s what good poetry is about. and this isn’t good

poetry. this is an incomprehensible stream of anxiety

medication and being someone else so - so which part

am i supposed to play? i don’t have a red cape but the wolf

doesn’t have milk teeth. am i the one in the bed? does

that make me dead? i can’t finish this. maybe i should start at the

end.

you don’t look like you did on tinder two years ago

my god i need to hear voices somewhere else

than these little apartment walls (i keep

something inside) have you ever seen a film

on tv late at night (like a prison) where there’s

a room and the walls are closing in (locked)

but they always manage to get out (let me in) well

babe that’s me except i don’t get out i just get

s m a l l e r

would you rather i was enough for you or

enough for myself or

enough to fill a line with anything other than

a straight-up-on-the-rocks-panic-attack

with two straws and a little paper umbrella

and a tap tap tap on the bar waiting for the walls

to o p e n up again?

ice cream parlour for alcoholics and lovers

thank you for buying me that bottle of vodka

that i left in my drawer and forgot about,

because we were going out that night for cocktails

and i like to dress up and pretend

that i’m the man. do they still say that?

you the man!

or is that another thing i missed out on?

thank you for reminding me, when it’s 2am

and i’m faded out, listening to mitski,

that i still have that bottle of vodka

and there’s nothing to remember

so i may as well black out.

god, i must sound like such a lost cause,

but i suppose i am, i suppose i’m

a rescue dog sent back after christmas,

cycling through lost and found

like a jumper with holes in or a love

letter to someone called sally. (i’m not sally.)

god, i must seem like something to be taken

care of, or taken violently, just taken

so i’m not left behind. you know. you know?

do you know? i mean, i’m asking -

begging - you to do all these bad things

to me because i don’t know what i deserve.

thank you for making fun of my therapist

and for driving me to get ice cream

when you knew i had to be across town

in an hour. that ice cream tasted so good.

you got cookies and cream and i don’t remember

what mine was, but you licked it off my lips

and i thanked you because it was the first time

in a long time

that i’d been touched like that.

drive-thru rehab

i love you, but not in the way you want to be loved.

you want someone to say (hey it’s okay

that you get fucked up on coke and bite

the skin off my neck, darling) and i want to change

you. i want things because i’m designed to want:

like wolf-alice wanted to howl

and i want to scream to feel alive. instead,

i scream helplessly. (noise noise noise)

that’s what you say. that’s what you sound like.

you always sound like something,

you’re not quiet. you clamp your hand over my mouth

and i smile. i’m quiet. it’s okay

that you get fucked up on coke and bite

the skin off my neck, babe.

survival of the hottest

when dogs bite people, they put them down.

it’s sad, isn’t it? that we punish the animalistic

in the animals and let it run wild in the predators.

you, in the forest, you, lying down next to me,

and i hold something in my hands but it’s cold,

now, like the corpse of a dead rabbit caught in a trap.

the foxes are salivating but i won’t hand this over.

a dog bit you the other day and you bit it back.

i hated you for that. the foxes are whining

and i yelp back, wounded, bitten.

you scream too because you like your voice

against the night. you’re an animal. you

open me up and play doctor and the moonlight

glints across your yellow teeth.

your fingernails paw across my chest

and they’re perfectly sharpened. you make

me wait for it. you made this world,

and now you’re bored.

i’m wondering whether you

got to tear into something so sweet

ever again.

cyclamen

i’ve got hollow bones like a little baby bird.

i tell myself that, when you pour yourself

into me. you’re liquid and i’m just a vessel,

a vase for some flowers. it would be easier

to love someone else, and i do, but i am still,

like the cool water’s liminal edge,

and i am primarily yours.

i’ve got rough skin from years of scrubbing

to make myself clean. our bathtub

has seen more of me our mirror has,

even more so the razor on the little ledge

that i use to shave my non-existent facial hair

and pretend i’m someone else. like we’re

in a 50s movie about coming to not-quite

terms with disillusionment.

i’ve got eyes that stare too intently,

scared to blink away the ghost of you

that sits on the edge of the bed, all skin

and bone and more skin left over,

enough of it that i can grab onto and wrap

myself in. then i’ll set us both alight.

maybe i’m the one with hands that hurt,

i don't really know much of this anymore.

you are white-hot and violently intense,

the rock to which my hard place shore-crashes;

if you must be by my side, do it quickly

and painlessly, for i’ve had enough

of time and agony for a lifetime.

for two lifetimes, actually.

mine and yours.

the mess

this place is my bedroom, but different.

it’s like everything has been shifted

an inch to the left, so practically, everything

is the same, but it’s unsettling. it’s off.

there’s a space where my coat

should hang from a rope

but it’s more like a prison cell

than an ending. it’s more like i have

to exist here, rather than wanting to.

i don’t actively want anything.

well, i want my coat. it’s your coat,

really, but you left it in my apartment

for two weeks and i think that makes it mine.

like how i stayed in your bed for three days

without eating or moving or showering

and you told me that it put me in your debt,

that i had to do something spectacular

like jump off a building or get clean

in order to belong to myself again.

perhaps if i wear enough coats, i’ll cover

the flesh that you exposed. maybe it’s easier

to say that you did this to me, that everything i

did was just a response. a backlash. a quick whip

into another lifetime to see if you were right,

i'm dirty, i need to sit in the shower

until the water runs rose-clear.

remember when we sat on your sofa

eating popcorn? skirting between jobs;

you worked for that skeevy sex line

and i tried to sell my art. nobody wanted

your body or my sadness, so we took

them in and adopted them and gave them

to each other. i have all the fleshy parts

of your skin, and you have the burden

of knowing that you knew me.

; and , (but never . )

your little snore-music against my heart

(i’m not really sleeping, you just can’t tell)

when your curtains strip before the bed

(i left them swinging that way,)

i’m running away in a car that won’t start

(drive off a cliff or drive straight into hell)

there’s a space between my legs you said, you said.

(the curtains won’t fall on your stage.)

and the hot powder night seems to sing of delusion

(it’s because you’re here that i’m spitting up smoke)

drugs and cigarette burns and throwing up bile

(and thinking that i must be mad,)

you roll your eyes thickly in familiar disillusion

(if i’m not beside you, how then will you cope?)

it doesn’t quite fit when you say you’re mine.

(god, am i just like my dad?)

so the suicidal stars will put themselves out

(did i ever tell you to get therapy?)

and i’ll end up putting something out, too,

(right now, it’s long overdue)

your little snore-music becomes more of a shout

(you’re not your own priority)

i’m exhausted. i’m crying. you’re you.

(i’m exhausted. i’m screaming. you’re you.)

so suck out the petrol from the car exhaust

(so leave me, my darling, i’m not good for your health

and tell yourself love, just what did that cost?

and tell yourself, still, i’ll find someone else.)

i love you, stevie smith, i love you

at nighttime, when the water

is more soft than warm,

and there’s (something) white

waves leaning up to kiss the rope

shoreline. at midnight (close enough),

when all the lovers have retired

to old-folks’ homes and single

beds. the stragglers, strangers (i)

who walk barefoot on the rocks

have cut their feet and gone home,

the stars seem to turn their back and i

(miss you) wait a little longer.

before dawn, before sunrise, the last

colours on earth are blues and blacks

airbrushed against a dirty palette

and they’re waiting for me to stop

waiting. the water is cool and feels

sort of how i imagine a hug would feel

so i linger in it, in the liminality,

until my ankles are in deep and it’s harder

to walk. but i walk.

i hope the stars are watching, now.

i hope they’re a little more comfortable

with suicide, since i am, having overcome

every happy thought i’ve ever had

and still this is what feels right,

being touched for the last time

right up to my neck and all those saltwater bruises.

i want to fill myself with it,

not just my lungs, but every cavity -

the space between my fingers, the gap

in my front teeth, right down

to the intimacy of my naked body

which will bloat before i am found.

but now, i am not found. now,

i am infinite and dying,

and in this one singular moment,

the nighttime sky reflects every colour

through the hazy film of the slick sea,

and my pockets hold no stones.

i had sex with my sleep paralysis demon and now i have a STD

are we talking about trauma or are we talking about sleeping?

i can’t seem to do both, unless we’re talking about nightmares,

but we’re not talking about nightmares (and really, we’re

talking about nightmares). so sometimes, we cope.

sometimes, we lick the sweat off each others hands

and claim that everything disgusting is beautiful,

like blood and piss and vomit on the floor from too many pills

and a bathtub full of failed suicide attempts.

see, sometimes (sometimes meaning - obviously - always)

i have dreams about you overdosing

and i don’t know whether to call them nightmares or…

or or or or memories. you tell me you’re clean

and i know you took a shower for the first time this week.

you sent me a pinterest board with my name

but it was filled with photos of people who aren’t me.

i suppose that’s how you love, and i suppose

i’ll have to make do with what i’ve got, a double bed,

a lot of things that i should probably tell a therapist,

and an itch that needs no fingernails to scratch.

self-diagnosed whiny bitch

i forget things half the time

and i forget that i’ve forgotten even more;

i think maybe part of my brain

decided, once, that i’m still young

and i have to make more room

for anything good. i’m dreaming

and that’s good, i don’t know why but,

well, there’s always a little split second

before i wake up where i’m not anything.

i’m not awake, or asleep, just lying

in the sweat of a thick winter duvet,

and i feel like half a person, half the time

but that moment before everything sets in

is a little pocket of happiness,

where i’m not me and those things were never done.

3am dialogue to the mirror

you must like me a lot, love me even;

the way you tear into my body means you

want it to be yours. tell me you want it

to be yours and i’ll let you in. i know you

get off on tearing the door down but this time

i’ll open it right up. i’m here for you,

that’s what they say before they ignore

your calls. not you. i can call and you

pick up with your sleepy voice and viscous sarcasm

and i say everything to you.

(it’s pathetic.)

i hear your voice in my head, instead of me

and my voice. it’s always there, thickly whispering

all the things that i try and tell myself, to me:

a love letter from back home, the temporal lobe.

i wish i knew what you wanted from me

because every version of you that i create

tells me awful things, how it hates me,

how i should hate me, too.

(you should.)

so what part of this will survive? will it be me,

putting myself first again (selfish), or will it be you,

headstrong and fast and violent and so unlike me?

so unlike how i love and crave the atoms of you.

so unlike how i feel, how you tell me

i’m supposed to feel. what is it that i love? you.

what is it that i hate?

what is it that i hate?

michelle von emster

quite honestly, i don’t want you to remember this.

i don’t want you to finish reading and think man,

at least i’m not that pathetic,

you know? if i can make you feel better

about your own life, then great,

i’ll take it, but god, please don’t remember

me after you’re done.

i think that people exist when they’re thought about.

if it was that easy to blink out of existence,

i’d erase my name from every government database

and, i don’t know, go and live on an island

until i got eaten by sharks.

actually, let’s talk about that instead. sharks.

everyone’s scared of them since jaws

came out, but statistically they kill

one person every two years. that’s 0.5

people a year; half a person dying.

i’ve killed more people than that in stories.

but hollywood thought “hey, let’s make the big scary

shark into the villain”, and everyone said “okay”

and ate it up with big wild teeth

and now people don’t swim in shallow waters

because their shadows look like seals.

i wonder if someone made a movie about me.

‘the big scary sad life of never leaving your room’,

because people cross the street when i notice them

cross the street,

so it’s only a matter of time before i join

the barracks of some statistic, too.

2020