It's our tongues tingling
in a thick sea of Vlad
It's impromptu road trips
without a destination
It's all of our legs wrapped
around the same gray sheets
It's eight of us in a four seater
looking at each other through blood shot eyes
It's ****** breakfast food that makes our ribs
ache worse than laughing at our misfortune 
It's twenty seven reruns of
ghost adventures at five in the morning  
It's my hair in the palms of their hands
as my head hangs over the toilet
It's all of their voices talking at once
just to greet the tears on their way out
It's every phone call
that has gently eased me to sleep,
it's every makeshift sing along
that has kept me sane,
it's every tired morning
after every dark night
we spent curing each other,
It's every beautiful
friend we found  in this ugly town

I can see the pain breaking through his porcelain shell and billowing out of his lips. Now he's lying with his back against the cold tile floor & his arms wrapped around his stomach just to soothe the empty void growing beneath his skin. I breathe his name in my sleep. I dream about him behind the steering wheel, the reflection of his shoulders unfolding in the rear view. We exhale a layer of smoke into the lifeless air that hangs over my bed. I can feel my lungs giving in & leaning tiredly against my rib cage. He does the same & it makes my entire body ache. Have you ever thought about how much you missed someone while lying in their arms? The vacancy in his voice shatters the flood gates behind my eyes. I'm crushed by the blankness of his stare. I remember watching his face morph into a playground when he was laughing out loud, but no pill can resurrect that expression now. All that's left are twisted veins, and worn out organs floating in a sea of champagne. I rest here, waiting for the day they sink & he gets dragged away. I spent 18 years as a calendar hung between a set of revolving doors, apathetically watching people come and go with every season that changed beneath my feet but he unhooked me from that place and whispered life into my ear every night. Now I'm looking at his shaking hands, a light shade of blue & every inch of me is weakened by the knowledge that it's his turn to walk back through.

Blue veins and Marlboro lips.
I've got open wounds from my wrists to my hips.
And we've got some left over whiskey so we're just taking sips.
Doing everything in our power not to sink these ships.

He lowered his head toward the steering wheel
And I fell silent just to let him feel.
We watched the kids we grew up with bleed from their noses.
Disappearing with their friends' prescriptions and hanging from nooses.
But he took the deepest cut and came out swinging with the least bruises.
Those dreams of pulling a trigger under your tongue haven't made you useless.
Because the longer you stand in the dark, the brighter the sun is when it diffuses.

I’ve been dressing up ugly lies in pretty words for a little over a year, now. I’m driving around this town with the windows down, blasting music just to drown out every self-deprecating thought but they’re louder than the base & more violent than the drums. I’m cutting into the rhythm with a pounding headache. The heart beat in my forehead is distorting every word. It’s warmer today than it’s been in a while, around here. Everyone is climbing out of their winter skin and burning their feet on black pavement. My eyes are stinging but I’m waving, and we’re smiling. Well, hey, it’s not all completely eradicated. I’m really working on it this time. I’m doing everything in my power not to panic. Counting breaths & skipping over every song that brings me down. I’m focusing on the street signs blurring together in my rear view & reminding myself to forget about you. I’m ripping cigarettes to shreds and burying their remains in my back yard. I’m washing pills down my kitchen sink. I’m silencing my cell phone when your name lights up the screen. Dependence is just old & abused comfort laced in fear. Well I know the swelling in my veins won't go down for a couple more weeks & I know my knees will shake for days to come but I swear to Christ, I’ll walk straight through this summer clinging to nothing but my shell. I swear to Christ, I will shed every inch of this ******* Hell.

The truth is, I am breaking but I’m not broken just yet.
I know there will always be leafs falling from trees, I’ll never climb
& seasons changing somewhere I’ll never stand
but today I wrote a haiku on the back of my work schedule
and it felt cheesy but I smiled
& there’s something to be said for moments like that;
the ones you share with no one,
memories you create with yourself
that make you wanna go outside and stare into the sky,
just because you can.
And yeah, I haven’t felt a fresh pair of lips against my forehead in quite some time,
and I still ache to be told those comforting lies
but there’s something peaceful about the way
I refuse to allow my will to learn and to write and to know
to become a casualty of any war I wage against myself.
And so, maybe, I’ve fallen out of love with teenagers singing in coffee houses
because I just don’t feel like I fit in with them anymore
and maybe I’ve lost a certain charm that used to exist behind my teeth
and roll off my tongue with the spit and the wine
but I will never fall out of love with the way coffee tastes on Sunday morning
and I still kiss my scars, even when I create them.
I guess, January just always felt like a decision, for me.
It makes the continuation of my existence feel optional.
Well, this is my life. I don’t want it all of the time,
but I’m gonna stick around because I can see
the sun peeking through these dark blinds
and I know there's still light behind these tired eyes