‘till death do us part or the flames of our home, a split or a distance has always been present.
     Dad started sleeping in the basement around 4th grade.
I think.
      I can’t remember when it started but I know it became normal.
      Now he works and complains and he never finds joy
       I wonder how long it will take before I end up like him.
        So I put verbal miles between us and hope that I end up okay.
      I collect records and CDs to distract me from the secrets behind closed doors
    But Kurt and Billie were only distracting to an extent.
     So I saved up all of my money, from pocketing moms dollar bills to mowing the lawn.
      And I bought a blue electric guitar with all two hundred and thirty of my dollars.
           It was storming the day I got it, and I have a fear of thunder, so I named it after my fear because it was loud as hell.
Cheesy, I know.
    I spent hours on end, day after day, cutting my fingers on the six nickle wound strings.
     And I got good.
I could play the **** out of that ******.
        I wrote a song called “he said” and I showed it to all of my friends.
I never liked the title but the song was okay.
       It was about a boy who ran from home because his family was broken.
       The first line was “I can only see out of one eye after I cut myself loose”
      I would change it every time I played it depending on the story I wanted to tell.
       Sometimes I would sing “after YOU cut me loose”
     I followed this with “ I packed my bags, left my ambitions on a noose.
I changed my hair, don’t want to know my reflection,
and you can’t gat lost without having direction.”
     It was edgy and it was catchy and marissa said she liked it.
         That made me happy.
       Since then my songs have been a good distraction from the fighting.
                    But they never helped me cope.
       And my friend daniel told me to never limit my art,
       He told me to branch out my creativity and he showed me his poems
   They were the depictions of a twenty five year old nobody
And I thought they were really good.
        I still read them and try to learn from them because I idolize his art.
      So I began writing poems in November because November makes me sad
     And I wrote consistently because I knew my friends would read them
    My friends wrote too, and they were always better than me
       I loved reading their art because we all struggle with honest expression
                               But lately I have stopped.
The distractions have stopped.
     The flames of my home are catching up and I don’t have the motivation to stop them with my art.
        So I’m sitting In my room listening to a nirvana record that my favorite person gave me.
     And I’m writing the odyssey of the teenage ghost
                         And I’m getting no answers.
                        And I’m getting nowhere far.
     And If you are reading this it means you can help.
       I don’t know how to end this.
I don’t know what to say.
     I'll try to keep writing, but these secrets are catching up.
      I don’t know how to end this, so I guess I just won’t.
    Just remember that I always thought-

I think that coffee helps.
It’s still really hard.
The only thing keeping me going is not letting you down.

******* for calling my art “rants.”
For not being able to see past letters I paint on a canvas.
There is a certain spot where ***** like you will never be allowed,
and that’s between the lines of the words I write.
I’ll write all you ******* off as I write of all your ******* sins,
and I’ll wear another mask just like you want me to.
I build a home and you burn it.
I build a reputation and you stain it.
I’ll be a ******* carpenter of confidence, and you’ll still be my villainous vandal.

So *******.
And your scummy scandals.
And your insidious intentions.
And your daggers of delayed and destructive dialogue.

I’m over you.