You reap what you sow into your bloodstained velvet robes,
and you don’t have power just because a crown of thorns sits on your tortured and beaten mind,
You have power because you need control.
You have power because you make me weak.
But one day i’ll strip you of your robes.
I’ll rid you of of your crown.
I’ll stand up to you.
And I won’t be afraid.


I won’t be afraid.

So tell me all your fears, I want to memorize your scars. Car rides and goodbyes always seem to break me most. So ask me if I'm okay, and I swear that I wont lie, but the crossed fingers in my smile will argue otherwise. I forget when this started, I forget when I stopped loving, but I remember every bitter lie I told and it only gave me nothing. I keep my letters by my bed so I can fall asleep at night, but I still feel the insomnia, I'm still haunted by fear. I wanted to be a better friend. I wanted to be a better brother. I wanted to at least be something but I keep ******* up.

I keep ******* up.

No one actually likes my writings.
They just want me to take off the mask.
Im sick of the lies behind smiles.
And I know they’ll just keep coming back.

So take your scummy words cloaked in compliments, and walk the other way. I want to be liked for my art, not the person you know face to face.

Writing highly of you is almost becoming competitive.
Its must feel good reading poem after poem about how perfect you are.
I hope that mine live up to the standards that they have all set.
They all talk of how you radiate joy.
Of how your little actions mean the world.
They aren't wrong.
A smile from you leaves me longing for the sight of you all day.
A giggle, and my heart skips a beat, fluttering to the tune of your joy.
The melodic words that spill from your pen seem to be tattooed all over my body, running along my sides and up and down my arms until the strands of black ink meet on the spot above my heart.
The breathtaking collision of your kiss sends my fears and worries and little insecurities away to a far off place, never to be seen when your smile is in my thoughts .
it’s safe.
it’s bliss
it’s everything.

Thank you

Honest to God I tried to keep my demons on a leash.
I tried to hold the rope tight and keep it from wrapping around my neck.
But, somewhere between late night dinners and goodbyes to friends,
it slipped.
Choking me slowly.
Tightening bit by bit, day by day.
I can feel it now.
Making my head throb in a numbing and rhythmic way.
Making an exhale seem like a rarity in this dull trance of pain.
I wonder when my last breath will be.
I wonder when-

I think you like me a lot less than I like you. I'm trying to balance my feelings, but I get really happy around you. I think it annoys you. I think you're mad at me. I'm trying so hard to get you to like me. Maybe that is why you get annoyed. I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry. I just want you to be happy.

Maybe it’s just me.
But our talks feel one sided.
I truly believe that conversation is what keeps bridges strong.
But bridges take two people to hold up.

One of the most unbearable pains is needing to cry but never being able to.

Words of negativity are scraping and clawing against the inside of my skull.
Hoping to leap off my pessimistic tongue and plant seeds of sadness in the minds of others.

But I hold my tongue.
Like I hold onto hope.
Because I know it’s still there.
I just have to repress the haunting thoughts.

My brain is the strongest muscle in my body,
only because it works so hard to repress my tongue.
My heart is in the right place,
but my fists are always balled.

But I hold my punches.
Like I hold onto smiles.
Because I know that people care.
I just have to repress my anger.

Rage and depression go hand in hand.
But i’m fine with that because they help me write.

There are ghosts in the walls of this place so you should keep your distance.
There are pains that never leave the heart and I fear that you may catch some.
There is beauty deep within my bones, and I fear that nobody will ever see it.
There is a part of me that wants to never get up after falling over my failures.

It's been one year since I admitted that missed you.
And I know I ****** up.
And I know it wasn't just me.
And I know so much has changed,
And I want to keep you close.
It's been so perfect with you by my side.
We can do this.
I know we can.

I'm loosing sleep to runways, and following signs, as my head is split open by bright florescent lights,
and these long linear hallways filled with leather on chairs provide shelter to all of the wolves in suits and ties.

I try to call you but nothing is there
I try to call you because I'm getting scared.

My hands start to shake and strangers start to pass but I act like I'm fine just to make it home,
my feet become more heavy and your texts become shorter while I wait to fly home to feel just as alone.

Airports are lonely, but it's better than home.

******* 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.

don’t you understand that this is bigger than you see.
Now that I know, I’m just as bad as you.
This isn’t about anger or fear of being a snitch.
This is about saving a life and helping a friend out of hell.
You’re clouded by the weightlessness that the world puts on the topic,
but depression is a disease that’s looked over often.
So please stop talking about you getting in trouble.
there are much worse consequences down the path you want to follow.

I've been running, I've been hiding, I've been praying to stay alive,
I've been losing sleep and frost covered ground to the Ghosts of January

And they come knocking, they come crawling, they come hunting for my blood, They make the summer nights feel cold and drive fear straight through my bones.

I've been singing, I've been wishing, for you to pull my pain out with your teeth, but my frost-bitten fear goes deep, and the light of smile wont cause a thaw.

So I sit behind locked doors and scream a question with hopes of a response, pleading to a God I don't have faith in, and a mother who's lost her son.

"Is heaven still an option if I drown in my own blood,
if the crimson pouring from my wrists was a result of what I've done.
Is heaven still an option if I take away my sorrow,
will the ghosts of January haunt me if I take away tomorrow?"

I saw you cry, you told me later you lost a friend to suicide
and when we sat there in that pizza joint,
the whole world was you and I,
you looked at me through mist and told me
"I swear to god this **** gets better,
and every person in this building feels this pain some way or another"
And I saw the funeral and the poems and the piece torn from your heart,
your sadness justified by loss, and that loss tore your soul apart,
and I knew that in that moment you were picturing it with me,
and how you can't afford more heartbreak,
how you can't stand to watch me leave,


You said "I love you"

and it echoed in my mind

My world stopped burning

I'll think of joy from time to time



"So sing for every buried moment that you'd thought would never end.
And sing your fears about the future; and a dirge for faded friends.
For all the love that you had held to, why it somehow failed to keep.
And sing each minute you've been frightened; every hour that you've lost sleep.
And sing for all your friends and family; sing for those who didn't survive.
But sing not for their final outcome; sing a song of how they tried.
We live amidst a violent storm; leaves us unsatisfied at best,
So fill your heart with what's important, and be done with all the rest."

I have a book full of letters that I know you'll never read
I have a symphony of songs that I know you'll never hear
I have a sea full of tears that I know I'll never shed
I have a heart full of love that I know I'll never share

I caved in the drywall because you let me cave in.
And ****** knuckles seem painless when all I can see is red.
I wrote you songs so you would know how I feel.
I think I'm just afraid.
I know I'm just afraid.

It could just be the sad songs.

I can turn a friend into an arch enemy in the timespan of a heartbeat
and I defend this broken promise with the bullets between my teeth,
I can bury all your secrets under lost and frozen ground,
and I will stitch my lips closed while keeping memories safe and sound.
I can strangle all the monsters that hide behind closed doors,
and I can be your demon hunter, I can make your ghosts sore.

I can be what you want, and I don’t care,
Just so long as you like me, so long as you’re there.

I'm not a fan of people who fail to see past the smoke they exhale.
I don't enjoy the constant "I don't care" mindset, and I don't think it helps.
I don't care if you ruin yourself. I don't care about your health
but the second you hurt the ones I love I swear to god I won't hold back.
Do you know there is more to life? Do you know that you can have both?
You can be here for a good time AND a long time. It's not impossible.
You can’t just brush things off like it’s nothing at all.
And there is more to life than ***, drugs, and alcohol.
You talk of how perfect it is and write of how awful it is
I hope you get better.
I hope you change again.
I hope you start to see that there is always more to life.

‘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-

These rooms with high ceilings are beginning to **** me off.
And the echos that amplify as I get weaker sound a little too close to the voice inside my head.
Finding a reason to smile was so much easier than choking out my fears. That's probably why I stopped my strangling.
And the flowers you planted in the palms of my hand look so ******* pretty.
They're the only reason I haven't balled my fists in rage yet.

But it's getting harder.
And I'm getting worse
And I can only say 'I'm sorry' so many times.

I was fine yesterday.
I'll be fine tomorrow.
It's only today that gets me

It just pains me to think that tomorrow will just be another "today"

Please keep in mind that I'm a mix of ****** and depressed, but despite the mixed emotions, I promise I'll try my best to repress the negativity brewing coldly in my mind, letters to lovers, letters to friends, all just memories left behind, I hide behind the backs of friends right before the stabbings start, growing stronger and more painful, warping tightly around the heart, until it reaches a point of anguish where the skin starts to burn, and it seems like your love has left to the point of no return.

And tomorrow we all forget.
And tomorrow we all get along.
And tomorrow we all hold hands.
And sing our stupid ******* song.

"Are you still writing of death?"
Yes...
Is that bad?

Just because I'm sad, lonely, and a wardrobe of black,
doesn't mean I want to die.
Nor does it mean I admire death.

It just comes easy to me.
Fear comes easy to me.
If you look deeper you will see that I write of other fears.

Being left behind.
Other peoples perception.
Negativity winning.

so to answer your question, yes.
Confronting fears is why I write.

Im sitting here like it was yesterday.
It wasn't.
Duh.
My nails weren't black yesterday
I wasn't as insecure yesterday.
But even though I got new habits.
And new records.
And a new reason to feel sad.
I feel like nothing has changed.
He is still complaining.
She is still annoying.
And I am unamused.
So I ask myself why.
Why is the past so prominent.
Why is the present so dull.
Why can't I change it.
But I give up.
Like I always do.
And I complain about it.
And I call it poetry.

The cavity left in my chest when I stopped believing in love has become haunted by the feeling of being alone. I've been dressing like a funeral and I've been thinking of you often and the bed that I've been sleeping in is feeling smaller every night. I've been filing voids with a fascination in the pain of my friends, but it just adds on to mine, it just keeps me afraid. I want to test the boundaries of humanity, I want to memorize your scars, I want to know that I'm not the only one who owns a haunted frame, who has a pressure on their skull and thinks of death often. I think I'm going crazy, but I don't hear any voices, I just love seeing others hurt and knowing I'm not alone. I just love seeing scars and knowing they're okay to wear. Or at least they seem okay. Or at least they seem expected. I want to know all of your fears, what you think of at night, I want to keep you safe from yourself, hide you closely in my arms, I think that if you clear out all of the smoke and you look with sore eyes, everyone's fears are the same. Because nobody wants to die. At least not inherently, at least not at first, because we both know there was a time, a moment where everything stopped being all right, and you kept distance from mirrors, you stopped flashing a smile, and you started thinking, maybe, "I'm not strong enough to fight". So you can divide the world in two. You can narrow fear down, because there are people afraid of death, and there are people afraid to live. And I'm fascinated by the moment, or maybe the collapse over time, when the human mind switches from smiling to "I'm fine".  I wonder often if I'm the only one who finds beauty in sadness, and if I am, I'm sorry for calling you pretty when you cry.

And if I am, I'm sorry for wasting your life living time.

I'm listening to your record on repeat and thinking of times we had together. And I can't help but feel sad. Longing for your touch.  For your comforting brown eyes to be looking back into mine. I miss your hugs. I miss your soft skin. Love certainly accents the loneliness.