Lying Fairies

An abyss built of butterfly wings and emptiness
corroded the monotony of of her lyrical eyes,
as daybreak became the feathers dipped in
seawater that used to look like teeth
between pillows and dollar bills
finding their way to her fingertips
in the morning.

She's twelve and summer smells like
first kisses,  and autumn canopies
of memories August boys smile
away from existence.

She's twelve and doing back flips
off of albatross swings,and chipping
calcium on abnormally sized rocks
placed at reach from yellow wings.

Alyssa is twelve and a half and her walls are a frenzy of beige and cream, painting over princess stickers peeled from childhood corners. Her fingertips are raw from clenching bicyclye handlebars too tight as lunatic fingertips anchor her waist. Nickels stained her nails copper, and recycled paper is just too thin to hold her hopes, somehow they always fall out and so do chipped baby molars.



Withering clavicles dig torrents into her veins,
and her elbows ask her wrists to just surrender
but the opiates of illuminated cottages dotting
italic pages are just too addicting. A cacophony
of twisted fairy spines bleed joints of marijuana
as truck stop faces blow growing up into her freckles.



She's thirteen and summer smells like rolled
up joints and toyota boys camping out in
backseats letting steering wheel arms
peel back cherry stem bra straps in exchange
for forgetting, and breathing & and distorted sleep.

She's thirteen and eighth grade taught her how
to spell 'don't' and 'stop' but she always forgets
her cues and confuses them with 'okay, maybe'
and 'he really loves me.' Shards of vodka bottles
and itchy knees showed her how to spell the pained
letters of 'pedophilia' and 'scapegoat' and 'Ideservedthatbruise'.

Alyssa's thirteen and two and a half quarters, and the movie peter pan gives her a headache because wallet arms draped around her back think she's like Tinkerbelle and she's terrified she really is afraid of growing up, because its associated with pushed up against sandpaper walls and being ripped apart from the ribs down. She misses being four and dressing up like a pumpkin because fairy godmothers existed to poof her into haloween candy, and knowing sidwalk girls who called her at seven o clock sharp every night so no one could steal her toward chalky bedrooms.

Inflictions of intoxicated lungs burn her solar plexus
which is a lie because its filled with tar and nicotine smoke.
Diary entry ankles feel the strain of red apples whose poison
comes in doses of inertia and dangling off Rave rooftops.


She's fifteen and sunshine cuts her eyebrows like
shrapnel, and summer smells like 'nevergoinghome'
and fructose vodka eyes promising 'today' and
'not being enough' together, like 'iloveyou' and
fucking for numbing.

She's fifteen and depression sears her
eardrums and she cuts emotion into
tone deaf poetry because physical
pain stemming from five star slapping
and parental disipline terrifies her.


Alyssa's fifteen and a half and she's forgotten what its like to smile, & to cry, because tears weaken her facade of strengh, because letting go would make everything fall apart, and there has never been anyone who knows how to pick up her pieces. She's fifteen and whispered 'baby,you're mine' contrast 'bitch,don't talk to them' creating rainbows in her skin seem to be chipping wisdom teeth and fractured front teeth, but in the next morning there's no green paper beneath her paper. She's fifteen, and she doesn't know how to grow up so she tries to slow it down by running into the sunset hoping by getting lost, she'll find herself again- but someone someone always finds her.

She's fifteen- and fairy tales are as real as the liars who concieved them. The liars who promised the childhood didn't mean powerless and learning to be broken. The smiles who forgot to tell her that falling in love meant almost dying, and that living with herself meant making stardust from mercury.


Her butterfly wings,snapped
a long time ago.