Girl, why are you always daydreaming?

Maybe it’s because I want to astral project
Myself into space to not be here
Because when I’m here I hurt.
If I go deep enough into my own head
Maybe I will finally fall out and escape
The church bells ringing in the desert
When I was too coward to answer the call.
My skin crawled at the thought of being
Dragged along and left alone
But I answered a call from a safe zone
And I’m mostly alone except for a trail I can pick up.
It’s funny how the life you avoided
Is the life you ultimately lead.
That’s irony, right?

Like how it’s ironic that I used to joke about how I could fight a man
But when his hands were around my throat I cried.
It’s ironic like my feminist male friends
Who suddenly change the subject when rape is brought up —
Who only speak up when it’s about their sisters —
Who told you you did it to yourself when you got hurt —
Who don’t invite you to hang out anymore
Because you’re not the cool girl anymore
Because you don’t find their brand of misogyny funny anymore.

But they don’t understand how your flesh burns
At the thought of church steeples
And how your mind jolts when a man stands up too fast —
Or when your husband raises his voice in excitement —
Or when the stranger grabs your shoulder —
Because you dropped your wallet
And he’s just trying to be nice.

My body became a war zone for asses
And large masses of know-it-alls
And my brain hosts the riots
That none of them want to attend.
My body feels like a church congregation
Full of dreams and hope and pining
Over the ideal man who no one has ever actually seen.
I’d like to think he exists because
that has been forced upon me every day since birth
But now I’m thinking that woman is ideal and real
and so I pray

“Mother Mary, Full of Grace
Save Me From Thine Son.”
A Man made men in His image
And women from clay or bone
But I am a daughter of Lilith
Condemned for being my own.

Girl, why do you daydream so often?

It’s because nowhere here is home.
Nowhere here is safe zone.
And there’s nowhere else I can be left alone.

My dog always wants to share my chocolate
But he can not have it
Because I know what he does not understand.
I was told as a child
that I could not play the bass
Because I was too small.
So a violin was placed in my hands
And I played my heart on those four strings.
But the chords never conveyed my song
Like I thought a deep rumble would.
I could hear myself in a pitch that did not paint my feelings.
My words cried when they should have bellowed.
And my songs became somber in my desperation to connect.
I am older now and I still do not understand.
I have not touched that violin in ten years
Because it is too small to hold the massiveness that is me.

Some may say it’s when it lays a hand on you that bruises,
That the damage has to be seen to be abusive.

But there’s nothing like crying next to someone who is so engrossed in their phone or show to realize it,
and that perfectly describes the isolation you feel in your life.

Or how it doesn’t keep up with your written words
because they are as important as your spoken,
which is not at all
and you’re not the priority.

Sometimes you rotate eating rice with lettuce for every meal
of every day
because you don’t have money,
but it has the budget for beer and cigarettes and meals someone else makes.

It rarely finishes a plate of what you made
and never touches leftovers and all you hear in its excuses are

“you’re not good enough.”

Every so often it shows itself in the form of false promises to make you stop crying
and you both know that’s just not true.
He’s just tired of you being tired
and it’s the quickest way to politely say

“Be quiet.”

It once screamed “fuck you, bitch”
and you locked yourself away in a closet for three hours —
where you listened to a story about the boy who lived in one too
before it decided it was time to make sure you were still breathing.

When it’s around you’re not allowed to listen to the music that makes you happy
because you have really poor taste
and your happiness is as important as you aren’t.

It tells your friends half truths
and now you’re no longer the fun friend,
but the nagging woman they’ve all feared to befriend.

You’re mad
you’re bad
you nag.

But really you’re just sad
and there are very few left to listen
and you’re crying next to it
and it doesn’t even notice
which is perfect representation
of the lack of recognition
and why you’re so desperate for love.

And the best you can do right now is whisper
“I’ll leave you”
To the sound of a slamming door,
But at least he locked it before leaving you behind
So no one else could get to you.

[my heart belongs to a honey bee]

my heart belongs to a honey bee

who was suffocated by the

toxic pesticide of

humanity