ugly people do ugly things .

on october twenty-sixth
the dreams i breathe in speak of a ghost that explodes
enveloped in the quiet floors of earth
the foliage i drown in is the sunrise she died in
body buried by burning leaves
memoirs of a ghost exhale the wind bringing back the familiar shiver
a caved in breeze but
i feel her only in the trees the pines
the little needles i stuff my feet into forever searching for the scene of lavender
at last
a rush of warming air carries her ashes into me
filling the cave of the caged animal in my chest
which still aches to grieve in solitude

Copyright Siarna Kinney, 2011.

coincidental sunlight rests on the red ghosts of my body
the straight ladder rungs that bump along my arms and hips
people look and say why do you do that i love you so much please stop
i don’t know where loves come from and it’s hard to understand them
it’s hard to understand why the doctors shine lights in my eyes
and my pupils do not move
maybe love is shy a separate star that will not show its little face
for the next one hundred years

Copyright Siarna Kinney, 2011.

my lungs are the color of space
it has been two hours since i last made myself vomit
and i am scared to close my eyes
but maybe if i am thin i will not die alone
i find god in my skeleton and open my body like peaches
to watch jesus bleed out
the thorns in his head now thorns in my neck
it is a strange thing to see the blood in my hands

Copyright Siarna Kinney, 2011.

there are twelve massive scars on the inside of my left arm
i always tell people ‘if you don’t look then they aren’t there’
but people are stupid and curious
i am a zoo animal to be observed like
blood-pink clouds in the morning
somewhere there is sun but i have hidden my shame beneath the ocean
i cannot hold my breath for very long and the sun moves closer
murky above the water’s surface
a red pebble that begs ‘breathe breathe’

Copyright Siarna Kinney, 2011.

sometimes you forget to say i love you too
when early early morning i am awake in my bed
and seeing your heart curling in the candle smoke
i don’t know god but i hear it when you speak
god says you will love this man forever
from his chipped front teeth to the hairs from his navel to his intimacy
whenever you try to look at women you look directly at their breasts
your eyes on mine are seventeen and twenty years old
i want you to notice that i don’t close my eyes when i kiss you
i don’t want you to disappear

Copyright Siarna Kinney, 2011.

when i first got my period i cocooned on the bathroom floor
and cried for hours begging it to stop
i was tired and didn’t say anything anymore
didn’t sleep for days
was startled by the sound of my own voice
i became so masochistic that pornography was more believable than god
but today i still search for the face of jesus in the faces of those women
fake cum cries pretend orgasms like white flags
my womb is a bomb shelter with tissue plaster
it’s an empty room that i stuff with men if only to feel better
maybe he will be able to hold back his disgust long enough
to jerk off on my homely body and hide the scars in milky white

Copyright Siarna Kinney, 2011.

my therapist asks me what my poetry is about, her thick legs crossing over one another,
the veracose veins pulsing hideously with her age.
i could only tell her that i like making people uncomfortable with words;
what i didn’t say was that i wanted people to regret hearing anything i could say.
i like to make people choke, to make them feel disgusted.
she made a sort of disgruntled face, as if she had just sucked on a lemon, then asked why.
again, i didn’t know, but i wished she would stop talking.
i spoke. my poetry is about my mother who drinks with each breath
and my father who tries so hard and keeps trying and i don’t tell him i love him enough
and me, monstrous, pathetic, selfish me,
who can’t stop writing about herself and can’t stop thinking about
how the therapist just stares at her scars and says, “oh, how sad, how sad.”

Copyright Siarna Kinney, 2011.

as much as i wanted to be beautiful
i would always be an ugly duckling at heart
i wanted to have eyes like cinderella’s ballgown
but somewhere in my head i know she turns back into a big stupid pumpkin
and i don’t want to have to break my body to half it’s size to be pretty
people tell me how strong i am almost every day of my life
i wish they were right
i wish i was like david and i could kill my inner goliath
but i’m too busy sitting on my hands to keep them warm
and i’m not allowed to go near anything sharp
because my mom thinks i’d just use it to hurt myself
i don’t tell her that she’s wrong
i’m just this dumb little duck and i’m too scared to fly
too scared to be a swan

Copyright Siarna Kinney, 2011.

even if i like the feeling of autumn falling onto the dirt,
i don’t like feeling cold all the time; maybe the littliest parts of me
are dying off one by one.
they are clouds of dust; the ones that walk in streams of light,
but the sun cannot scare the darkness out of me.
i am something that speaks in ink blots.
i am not much more than a teeny, tiny hot breath.

Copyright Siarna Kinney, 2011.

another very bad love poem. why can’t i stop writing these.
in honor to chantelle. i love you, darling.

your love is like this huge pink wave
like pepto bismal
and i could drown in the cotton candy romance
of cheap boxes of valentines
and those heart-shaped containers of chocolate
even though i always end up eating the one that tastes like dog shit
but your love isn’t dog shit
it is in fact quite the opposite of dog shit
the love that blooms between us in the spring time
is radiant and ripe like peaches in the sun
even when they sit out too long and rot and smell
but i’ll still eat them anyway
because that is what our love is
a peach that has been outside too long
and will mold, the color of snow,
the color of our love

Copyright Siarna Kinney, 2011.
someone make me stop.