It's empty on the other side
There was you
then there was nothing..

Fictional nostalgia
Hearts that beat slower

Calm the swelling tide
I still look at you
Like you're everything

I call her the shadow dancer,
punished with hope..
She twirls with reflections,
and shadows on her broken feet..
She struggles to remain beautiful,
to perpetuate the stereotype..
She leaps, weightless into the heavy air,
pointed broken feet, hiding the pain..
Odessa, the swan in her lake,
flying, oblivious....

I would rip all the doors
From their rusty hinges
I would scale those walls
That you built around you
take down my own..
Nothing compares to you
In this breath..
In this shiver
Running down my spine
Nothing compares...
For you, I would

The words don't flow the same
The colours seem too tame
Lashing out like a whip,
Tongue doesn't know when to stop..
Last piece didn't fall into place..
Now I think I've been building
A castle in abstract air..
This cartoon ground crumbles
beneath my leather shorn feet
I fall upon this weathered earth
Disillusioned yet unblinded
Stuffing my ears with things
I've ripped apart
To keep from hearing the tick tock
Of this broken clock
Cranking the volume of this poem up
To Drown out the phrase "I'm lost"
But the words don't flow the same
This tongue hasn't learned
This new rhythm
And I sit in the dark sometimes
Counting the seconds
Until my heart learns it too..

I know time doesn't stop
When we want it to
never accepted love
I didn't have to beg for
Now you say
You don't want more
But I play
The worn tape once more
I break my own hurt
We don't get the ones we want
Say we learn to love the ones we get
Who wants a love like that,
Cold and unafraid?
Love is a threat, love is a weapon
Don't tell me different
My hands on his body were not enough
It's an enemy we don't understand
Just like that forsaken loop of a tape
Taunting me with images of alternates
Stuff a sock down its proverbial mouth
With eyelids squeezed tightly shut
They never fall for a pure heart
What about one stained black
With dashed hope and excuses to let go
What was it?
Love is a weapon, love is threat
You've taken away
I feel as though I am nothing

Have you ever wanted to scream
At the world, tell it:
To go **** itself
But choke on the words as they tumble out
Because you went from happy
To talking to the air in seconds
And asking why the hell
You're so ****** up
And the mind gives you no answers
You have no reason to be but you are
So you switch of the lights
And the panel in your skull
Tells you how to feel
And how to think
It tells you you are okay
You believe it
The sun comes up
But you still feel ****** up

Sick of trying
Sick of waiting
Snap it shut
Watch the dust rising
Pick up another
But your page is always marked
Makes me feel
Like a John green girl
you were like
Tyler Knott poetry
That book is closed now..
John green girls are
Irresistibly broken
You were too much to want
Don't think I deserve you
I know my tenses are disjointed
that's how you make me feel
I don't know what I can do
To stop taking you off this shelf
You were always leaving marks
In my dust

Touches her, touches him
Hold hands, I can hear me scream
Take away what was mine
Trouble seems to be on time
between light and darkness
I stretch like a shadow
Hoping it will hurt less
When I find he's hollow
Possibilities turn to insecurities
Beating hearts go wild
As words become oathes
And fierce fires burn mild

My tears have silence and warmth
Whispering pain steeped in stealth
Craving chances that fell apart
I stumble on a heavy heart
Thoughts curl into fists
Banging on walls that are bone
Hearts are savage beasts
That can't be left well enough alone
Hanging on with sunken teeth,
I bleed a dead pain..
The guns are loaded
Neurons fire you into my brain
Images fall into realist hands
And gravity does the rest..

To know you is to feel you...
I am hollowed out
In the space you never seem to fit..
In the aftermath of doors shut
Silence and warmth flow in stealth
Images fired travel slow and heavy
Leaving stains..

It's the things we want that destroy us
Creeping slowly out of the light
Dragging us with them
We morph and twist
Into shapes unlike us
Try to understand
What baits me so
Hold onto a slippery self
And frown upon
This consolation superiority..
Let the bad remind me to be good
Let these sinful hands fall upon
The loneliness deserved.
I am forgiven
But I punish myself..
My father always said
"Beware the beginnings,
They are the root of all evil."

The pain draws you nearer
Won't need me
If I don't need fixing
I feel like I'm going to
Have to keep running
Towards the edge
So you can keep
Pulling me back
From it..
Do I have to cast myself
Into the storm
So we can dance in the rain?
Do I have to jump
So we can fly?

"If you love it, let it go"

The last thing I'd want
Is freedom from you
I've knocked on a dozen doors
With my unbound hands
Still I come back, begging ..
to drag your shackles by my feet..
different scenarios cause a phantom pain
Yet under blue skies, it all stays the same..

I changed and you lived
change was death,
oblivion was static..

Lately it seems to me
The world is moving in black and white
I've only seen you one way
And everyone is beautiful in half light
It's clear as can be
I'm alone in this..
I Try on hidden envy for a mask
Try to logic my way from holding on
But masks become cloaks
And everything stays on the inside
All my thoughts are of darkness
'cause I've been denied the light
Been living in heavy contrast
And I just wanted some grey
You've never loved me, that's okay..
I'll learn to walk my path someday
As soon as I earn some scars and such
stumbling over these volumes of poetry
I've been lost in finding grey
Pounding on walls I thought were doors,
No one on the other side
My echo never infected you..
I was always alone in this..
Eyes on your back as you walk away..
Been living in heavy contrast
You were my only hope
While I stumbled through
These volumes of poetry.

I'm sorry to have left you for so long
And before I leave you alone...
I think I must point out...
That you've called yourself dumb and stupid and everything inbetween
And you've been lying....
I don't know how to help you....
Be kind to yourself....
You're amazing
Why didn't you call me?
Are you okay?
Just don't do it...
It's not worth it
You'd be surprised
You should be on the other end of some of your.....
I've said too much
I don't mind
Just come home safe
Why ?
Why have you become mob fuzzy
Right
Don't over think life
[9/1, 23:43]  Trust me

She says hellos laced with laughter
Like ice cubes in whisky
Punctuated with silence
gave it to a wolf
Because the sheep wanted not
For smoke stained lips
And embroidered skin
Drenched in sweat
And the smell of strangers
Deer running with wolves
Doe eyes hidden under
Rainbow ray bans
a world of frayed conversation
yarn that needed to be burned
A fire to cure all guitar strings
To fuse the seams of broken hearts.

When feet get lost in the shadow
Running back and forth
Between indifference
And unhealthy attachments
Holding on just so
I can let go
Breaths come shallower
And sleep doesn't come easier
Find myself whispering poetry
To the deaf ears of the night
I find you in the quiet places
Where I am invisible..

Thousands of beads of rain fall
Never sinking into the right grounds
As hordes of seeds of thoughts die
Never really losing you
Never really keeping you

Impulses received as afterthoughts
I'm the person you deserve
When the door closes behind you

Were the crafted seconds to be
It would take but one for you to see
These hardened layers through
It takes just one to believe

Time passes
Seconds turn to years
The silence is beautiful
blanketing all
Like snow choking out all that's living
But glistening like gems in the light
This soul nestled inside the same bones

Yours..

The things I've done lately
I want to cut out my veins
And drain my offensive blood
cut my brain apart
Piece it just right
Make sure ghosts never became souls
And demons never wrote scripts..

I don't know who I am anymore
And all I can think is cut...
But my skin stays unstung
And my eyes remain dry..

Starting to think, he's the one to fix me
The only one who can..
He's the one pure thing I never had
I'm drowning in the tar
Accelerating heart beat
I reach up for air
I become a brick in the wall
I don't know how long
This dam is going to hold

Cut, cut...

Play the music louder
Drown out all thoughts
I'm not worthy
But I'm all I've got

Go back to the thing that broke me
Hold on to the words that haunt me

I wear the same clothes
I look the same
But all I can think

Cut.

If you're ever looking
for someone who loves you
Come and find me..

I will ask no questions
I do not promise empathy
Only presence..
What you feel is uniquely your own
And I am witness..

I don't claim to understand you
I don't think there is such a thing
How can I know how time shifts around you?
How can I know how you carry a world inside you?
If you're ever looking for someone who loves you,
I hope you find me

The important things
Have become arbitrary landmarks
I feel a detached distaste
A numbness when I cross my mind
I wanted to be  
beautiful, mysterious, adventurous
I wanted to be free...
The farther I look for myself
The more intricately I web myself in
The idea of a person..
have I become that person
What does that even mean?
When does reinvention
Become destruction?
Do you keep falling
Because you've grown attuned to the motion?
When do decisions become muscle memory?
I'm digging tunnels , digging pits
Lights fade out , I forget I need saving

trying to tell yourself
"I'm fine, I don't care"
But all the hurt festers
Turns a thing that once was pure
Into the fruit of a vine that grew sour
While you're in denial
The cat's away
And the mice will play
When the filter gets stripped
from your eyes
And you realise
You've been seeing color
where it's black and white..

Taught that flowers were meant to be plucked
That they were just things to be looked at
How can I not die in a world like that?
For I myself was only a plant
Full of life yet devoid of it..
This is why I wont be silent

Try to keep a beautiful thing, and it dies..

I am a seed, unsatisfied
Always reaching with both hands
One for heaven, the other for darkness
To be uprooted or to be swallowed whole
Or to stay in the middle and avoid the fall
This is why I do not move

Pull on a chain long enough, the links come apart..

I'm drifting from my metaphors
Started writing without a direction
I see in my own words
All the pointless confusion
All the revelations
Of my inner most thoughts
Think to myself
This must make God sad..

Do you see, do you see the links coming apart?

In secret from afar
They'd all swear I'd differ
In everyway, everyday..
The ink stains all these thoughts
Like hope and it's all for naught
And the swirl of the eddy
That was your written name
Poisons what holds me steady
And I'm drunk on the fame
Of being an idea
Some day soon
I'd be all you hold dear
All in secret from afar
'Cause you're all that's fair
And I'm all that's forbidden..
I couldn't bear to have you beaten
By the lies of my tongue
And my fickle heart..

Thumbs describe paths and words are spoken
Say over, trace back, to where it forked
Like a devil's tongue in an angel's mouth
Go left, go right, take no path into that good night
Make no apologies for planned mistakes
For as roosters crow and bells toll
I swear no allegiance to who I was
Breathing slow and talking soft
Hope comes not swiftly but deliberately
As you say to me, I say to you...
And hold promised time like flowing water
But it beats a great pair of wings
And words not said become lost..

Breathing seems hard
I stitch the leather
That covered my skin
The day I almost died
I watch my skin purple
As it bruises over mistakes
Read words penned
Only shadow brings light
I crave one for the other..
A little death for a little life.

Well, this isn't a poem
but since you are poets
I figure you understand..
is it crazy to be constantly
thinking about someone
who probably never thinks of you that way..
and to close all doors just in case theirs opens..
I swear, I believe with all of me
That we were meant to be
is it crazy to think I love someone
not because of anything they've said or done but just because they exist..
I just want him to be everything..
does it matter what I want?
is it all in my head..
I think I'm making all of it up in my head..
but what if
What if it could be real?
one day, isn't so far away..

Thoughts never made it to my hands
Should have never taken the chance
Now I'm on a one way road
Can't stop to shed the load
And looking back, it all seems to shrink
Yet I'm stuck, somewhere in between..

Almost is my favourite place to be
Between a rock and a warm place
Won't let them all know me
It's called defensible space
Except for one, if only he could hold me..

But distance isn't measured
in meters with you
And time, well seconds and hours never suited you
your name's a spell I utter quite often
One more day, keep my doors open..

Have you ever looked at a person
And known that's who you'd love
And never hold back?
When I saw you I knew
Time was a useless construct...
And right now,
Almost is my favourite place to be..

I love the smell of that oil
the one I rub in your hair
the one that clings to my hands
and to my skin
slowly seeping in
I can almost hear it.....
nestle in my molecules
becoming
becoming you.

I love the sound of that door
the one that scrapes
on the hardwood floor
the one that announces me
and lets me in slow..ly
I can almost see it
lodging in my brain.
becoming,
becoming you.

I love the taste of that lavender
the one that we killed...
the one that clung to your breath
and to your fingertips
delicate
I can almost smell it
settle in my bones...
becoming,
becoming you.

Stuck in the same destructive cycle
Get lost in the shadows that define it
Heart beats a descriptive thud
Mind finds some comfort
In the familiar rejection.
Invisible hands press on my shoulders
Voices whisper in my ear:
Open your eyes girl
You were never good enough
That's why they always leave you
That's why they don't want you.
Every time I close my eyes
There's another thing I've failed at..
All the thoughts clutter down
Like tin cans falling through a chute
In need of distraction
I fall back into the rhythm
The cycle of destruction..
Trying to shut it all out
But rocking myself in the darkness
Only makes it grow louder
I'm not good enough
I'm a fraud
I'm a failure...
Don't let them get to know me
I'm a mess underneath the skin

This is why
I want to live under the stars
No walls no echoes
There's a place there
For people like me

When you stare long enough in the mirror
You start to think
the light doesn't fall quite right
You start to see the ugly things
You wonder if you are loved
In spite of or because of
It's not just lines or curves or surfaces
It's thoughts and memories and feelings
The things you let go
But they never went far..

Medusa's eyes your own
Turning you into stone
As you try to look away

You develop an aversion
To being alone
A penchant for tinted bottles
And an affinity to poetry

You say "you're finding yourself"
But you're really running away
From the things you let go
But they never went far.

I'm just tired, you know?
Boxed in, believing in "no"
The world don't listen when i say go
but wants to go faster when i say slow.
this rhyme seems tired already
four lines in...
i wanted to be meaningful
but im disastrously unravelling
a beautiful mess of a metaphor
for the state i feel stuck in
hoping for some life
to come out of death
everything has slowed down
i cant seem to see past scarred eyes
that see no more
than tarnished memories
i started out with purpose
but its just no..
you know?
and could bes that'll never be.

You are a universe within a body
And I am caught in your gravity
Spinning, I've had a few too many
Almosts with you, in doses so small
I didn't know I was hooked
Being drawn in on the line
Pulled out of my atmosphere
The world was beautiful out there
But I couldn't breathe that air..

You are both the best and the worst person to love unrequited
It's incurable..
Because there's no one
Quite like you.
Your name flashes neon in my head
Washing the walls of my brain
In indescribable color
And I am mesmerized.

You're too much in your own head
To love another human being
Except conceptually..

I hold onto a green bottle
Warm it with my life blood
my hands get numb in the exchange
And my pale blues go white
Underneath a neon lamp..
Suddenly
Noise is quiet outside me
silence into my bones seeps
They seem to dance behind a veil
As though they were blind
And I one eyed
Drink doesn't drown
My gilled lungs
Vengeful adaptation...
Read words written..
Do you like
My name upon your tongue,
Upon your fingertips..

Thoughts creep up on me
Like thieves they whisper
Did it hurt you to break me?
Was it no before reasons were known?
How much time did I get
When you played it out in your mind?
Walking miles in stray shoes
Bitten tongues and humour
I'm the one
Behind the veil.

They say I'm crazy but how can they know
Time's moving faster but oh, they're so slow
Sleeping when they could be running with wolves
Open your eyes before the clock won't stop

You better
Lock the doors and turn the lights out
Close your ears to the voices in your head
There's walls that don't need breaking
But you turn the key, one more time

After the clouds have turned into rain
I stay in this t-shirt soaked to the skin
Shaking where I Stand for fear I'll come loose
The moon's painting shadows on my pallid skin

What'll it take?
To say you'll ache
For this open road?
What'll it take
To lose your mind just once?

Lock your door, turn your lights out
Close your ears to the voices in your head
These walls don't need breaking

This is one for the one I haven't met
It will all click and fall into place
Forces will mold
Broken pieces will be rebuilt
Eyes will see
Hearts will feel
And mouths will speak
Of all the joys to behold
When lips will touch
Hearts will beat
Eyes will shut
Broken spirits will be scattered
As the forces mold
You and I into stars of space
Like them, it takes a few light years
To see our magic

dont need to understand why
been broken a thousand times
still dont cry for broken ties
or hope and ******* rainbows
refracting light and telling lies
you were fight, i was always flight

**** those words
**** these eyes these ears this heart
i'm a lunatic spelled on a moon
causing oceans to rise,
drag them back desolate
from the shore

cant write proper anymore
cant fill this hollow
it falls and falls
like things that are past
i threaten to breathe
this air feels like concrete..

you said to me
in that moment..
i was everything
that it didn't matter
what came after
i'd always be
in that moment..

Did you see something
Worth keeping?
A shell you pick up or a seed you plant?
Thoughts pattern your blue eyes
I think you're lonely in that crowd
When I see you, I think "I love you"
But what is it to love so easy?
The love I give to what is denied
Feels purer than that deserved
Yes, I say "love" for what is purer than sight?
If I say nothing else, I'll say "I see you"
You don't need to swim near the surface
You're scared of what you're looking for
I can help you come out the other side
But first you have to trust me..

Crazy maybe gypsy eyes tinted coffee
See much but do they say as such?
Can you read or can you feel?
Paper and ink don't seem to catch

Listen
.............
I see you

Walk faster and faster
Hoping you can leave it behind
But it turns every corner with you.
squeeze your eyes shut, pull at your hair
It all stays firmly in existence..
burning me..
room too big, too empty
For wandering thoughts
It's a dark, creeping whisper
.....I've ruined it all.....
Grows louder and louder
until it's pounding
It's way out of my ribcage
The darkness will hold me
Against it's beating chest like a child
Til the Sun doesn't ignite misspoken words..
Or alter the meaning of truth spoken amidst lies..
Beat in time with me
I fear I've been falling through an empty tunnel..

try to tear myself away
from this rudimenta...

backspace, keep thinking...
not good enough.

he..
no you cant say that
you're a strong woman..

when do i get to be weak
and unreasonable?
when do i get to be the broken one?

the bells toll my turn for insanity

no justice in this love
Doesn't want me close
Wants me too close
Guilty for staying here
Guilty for staying there
Pulled apart and put together
Stretched too thin and crammed in a box
Pound on the sides, can't find my way out
Of this paper jail, of this thick air...
Wall around you I can't get through
Bricking me in, you're too close
Lying beside you, you're too far
Might as well flinch at my touch
My fault, loved you too much
Didn't love you enough.

Clearly,
There's something wrong with me..
Don't know what I did
To have such rotten luck in love..
I tried, I tried.. I tried
But they're all hurt or they don't care..
I'm as alone as I've ever been.
Whoever you are, better come along
Before I destroy myself
Piece by piece
Trying to fit these puzzles
That supposedly make sense
I don't believe, I don't believe
It's hard to look okay
When everything inside you
Is screaming you're all wrong
you're not strong or brave or patient
You're just a pathetic coward
Holding onto people
Who clearly do not love you..
Pushing away the ones that do..
So whoever you are, do you see?
I need you to show up
Before all this
becomes who I am..

I can't take it, I can't, I just can't
I tried, I tried, I really did try.

The surface of me is overwhelming
The light within couldn't make it
Cracks ran too deep and all too thin..

Did you hear of the war woo?
I heard it once,
it rang as though a foreign tongue..
God, the sound of it
Felt like heaven...

I am reluctance
Walking a thin line
Between cowardice and foresight..

See I fell off that cliff once
My body couldn't take another no
I still feel anchored to the ground
On which I stood the first time
I wasn't enough..

Tell me, have you heard of the war woo?
I fear words aren't enough for you..

Eyes inch to closing
I watch the grey road race by
Through lashes that imprison light
I put another brick atop this wall
And wonder if it's worth the fight
I couldn't take it If once more
all the good intentions just meant no

I feel I'm going to discover I'm a fool
You're telling me you're giving up
You say you're tired of waiting for me
I say it's like we're breaking up
You say I wouldn't know it..
I start to think you're too nice
should tell me how wretched I am
Instead you say:
"People always bend backwards for you"
I'm stuttering claiming it's not true..
You're leaving just as I started living
I want to tell you to stay but I know this is right, you leaving me is right...
I like to have my path disappear around the bend, for you and I, that was the end..
We said we'd climb a mountain together.
Travel the world in a Fibonacci sequence
Till we made it to space, the milky way..
You asked me once from what I was made, called me a rainmaker..
We made sense, I can't explain
Why you leaving seems right...
the storm Will always conjure your name

So I loved you the same
Underneath the foggy stars
Your stripes burned into my skin
The first time I touched heaven
And I loved you
Though I taught myself not to
When you said nothing
To my wells of everything
I loved you the same
'neath flashing neon lights
Thumping baselines and breathing
that icy veneer you claim is care
I see it now, but I love you the same

surrounded by an energy
I can't quite understand
"No trespassers allowed"
don't think you know that..
Whatever it took..
Keep reading
this blank-paged book
I can't for the life of me
Figure out why
Them not you..
No cosmic sense
No cannons for those walls..
Perhaps I was all wrong
But you never were..

I love to look at you,
Trying to read those eyes
For signs of truth you bear alone

I think

You got lost trying to find meaning
I got lost trying to find "life"
You liked being lost..
And I, well....
I was lost.

Just crawling through the barbed wire
The pieces inside me ache
I can't help but crave the misery

I'm frantically scratching your name on a beer can..
Trace my fingers over the dents
'cause I can't see you in the darkness

Can't shake the feeling this is all wrong
Because it isn't you
I'm not partial to self harm
But I cut away the pieces he loves
Because you don't

I'm begging God for you..
I don't want to survive you....

The world was running
From its point of view
While I closed my eyes
To myself and focused
On all the people I could be
Why pick one person
When you can be everyone?
Except everyone becomes
The person that you are
And like the earth
You're spinning on an axis
Chasing your tail
Moving so fast
The stars aren't points
they blur into sharp lines
Just like photographs
Your shutter was open too long
And you we're double exposed..
Everyone shows on your no one

when will it be over
this arbitrary struggle
and longing to belong
still to distinguish
oneself from the rubble
of a crumbling world?

putting out a half-smoked cigarette
think to cut the cord
curling up in blue sheets
think to make it stop

a love was torn from me
merciless nonchalance

i am that rock
falling still identical
the rubble of a crumbling world