you are
too busy
to live
yet
too idle
to die

the funniest part
of it
      all
is that I (actually) said I wasn't
going to do this

but you had other plans,

didn't you?

you had other plans
you're very convincing
I listened
I'm a good listener

on a side note,
I think brown might be
my favorite color

your eyes were brown

I also like pocket-t's
quite a bit

speaking of which, I liked
the design on your shirt pocket
quite a bit

I even remember your name

but don't ask me to spell it,
that's a different story

just you and me, you
know? Or maybe you
don't, rather? either
way it doesn't matter

either way I'm infatuated
either way you have this poem
either way my soul has bled for you

I hope I see you again

If only things were different,

if only things could change.



If only time ran slower,

if only I wasn't strange.



If only I could have guessed,

if only I knew.



If only my heart was stone,

if only the world would end with you.

a month ago, i got in a car accident that totaled my car.
i was making a left turn at a stoplight
and the driver of an suv was paying no attention to her red light.
she barreled into the front end of my car at full speed before i even saw her coming,
and then everything was shattered glass and metal colliding and screeching tires
and suddenly my airbags were puffed out like sinister clouds and my engine sounded like a death rattle.
when i opened the door to get out, the hinges grated like a scream.

but i wasn’t hurt.
i cried for six hours that day but i went to school the next one.
everything was fine.

it's just that since then, everything in my life resembles a car crash.

i smelled burning for weeks.
i still blink and see spiderweb patterns of broken glass.
i cried for two hours when i realized i lost the cd i made
just so i could listen to my favorite songs in the car.
when i hear the song that was playing, i have to turn it off.

my father picked up the shrapnel still on the street a week later
and gave me my charred, crumpled, unreadable gravestone of a front license plate.
he straightened it out and put it on my new car when we got it.

i broke up with my boyfriend three weeks ago
and as i left i heard sirens from inside his house.
the day after that, i was talking to another boy
and his promises sounded like ambulances with no paramedics on board.

last week there was a fatal car accident half a mile from my house
and i couldn't breathe for the rest of the day after i heard.

i have to turn left at the stoplight where my own accident happened every day
and when i turn i clench my fists around the steering wheel
like it wants to tear itself out of my hands and maybe it does.

i still check left and right and left and right during turns
even when someone else is driving.

call all of this a reaction to trauma,
but honestly i don't know what's wrong with me.

all i know is i cried with frustration, immature, pathetic,
when my mother and my father couldn't find a new car.
all i know is i grieved for my ford focus
like it was my only friend in the world.
all i know is i keep talking about this accident
even though i’m even getting annoyed by myself
and my fingers on the keyboard sound just like the policeman's as he wrote up the report
as i perched on a plastic backseat, shaking, face covered with tear tracks,
waiting, alone, for my father to arrive so i didn't have to be an adult,
waiting, alone, for an explanation of why this happened to me.

all i know is everything in my life resembles a car crash,
and there are sirens in the distance,
and i'm still waiting for the smoke to clear.

We reach the end, we close our eyes, we hold the blade to our throats, we wonder what's the point anymore? Why go on? The pain is so much more. He comes along, he takes our hands, he takes our pain, He keeps us sane.

(Chorus)
He takes away our fear, he wipes away our tears, he heals all our pain. Yet behind those child eyes, he cowers alone in fear; afraid of his own monster, lurking just beneath. He knows all our pain, he knows all our fears, he's the oldest child here.

Sister just was murdered, lover just ODd looking down the at the street, 50 stories under me. I take a breath and leap, but he is always there, he catches us when he falls, he loves us all so dearly, he's just one person though, how many can he save? He reaches out to all of us, anyone who bleeds, and that's why we all say to him, he just can't save the world. But still he tries to take it all away, to keep us all sane.

(Chorus)

He chases away the dark, reaches for our hands, even when grown men fall,  still on he will stand. Never giving in, friends to everyone, yet still he stands alone. How long must he stand alone? Who will share the burden? Who else could be strong enough?

(Chorus)
Who takes away his fear, who wipes away his tears? Who heals all his pain? Who gets behind those child eyes, when he cowers alone in fear? afraid of his own monster, lurking just beneath. Who knows all his pain? who knows all his fears? he's just oldest child here.

And he takes this burden on alone.