Promise me a rose,
with its subtle, sweet scents,
its soft touch,
and its beautiful presence,
oh, and please,
don't you worry,
I'm well aware
your promises always wilt away.

Warm color palettes can't cover up a cold palette heart.

Pull the trigger, take a hit,
poison drips from fingertips,
each pill shimmers upon the floor,
a deadly grip if taken more.

Casing lined in gold or silver,
with each hit, it takes a sliver;
a busted brain, a mangled heart,
they knew the risks from the start.

A curtailed cry, cut short goodbye,
two bullets settle in throat and thigh;
eyes rolled back in a glassy stare,
lips pulled apart, a forbidden pair.

Pull the trigger, take a hit,
blood runs red from fingertips,
men resting silent upon the floor,
the chamber clicks to silence more.

These puppet string are held by me,
I’d say I’ve lost my grip,
this autopilot hand-fidget has really gone to ****.

I don’t feel the same anymore,
nothing bubbles in my chest,
but who’s to say I cannot feel
if its only feeling is in my head?

Hello, how are you?
I’m doing simple math,
The strings aren’t taut and funny how
every movement is an act.

The doll’s alive, and she does dance
but watch at your discretion,
because if you knew her once before
she isn’t the same person.

Recall for me
all I cannot retrieve;
I’ve become so fractured
that the rain has washed me out
and the clouds have fogged
images to dust,
leaving my senses rusty,
taunting me with flashes
of lost recollection.

I’m not sure how to return to you
All the crippling anxiety you brought
Along with the sorrows deserted to all our doorsteps,
But I’d like to remind you
That the product you supplied
Was not as advertised
And I’d be much obliged to ask for a refund,
If it weren’t too late
To pull out my receipts
And read all your hypocrisies.

Don’t misinterpret me,
But I must admit this is not what I wanted
And I paid to you two years or more
Of my miserable life,
Yet this is all the effort you could muster
To me
And every other person who bought into
What you were selling;
I never took you for a snake oil salesman,
But that’s the price I paid for my naivety,
Isn’t it?

I’m sure you’d like to remind me
That a customer should always do their research,
And I’m oh so sorry
I didn’t feel the need to.
Would you like me to sue you
So that the next time someone buys in
To your sly little Ponzi scheme,
You come with a warning label?

I despise how abuse is always
littering my airspace,
always tainting
the water I drink,
and always rupturing what's left of me.

I had this preconceived notion,
unfortunately,
that once you've been abused,
you'd be wise enough to escape
another abuser,
but boy, how he showed me,
how they all showed me,
how stupid I am
to have believed that.

I want to imagine,
though how useless it would be to do so,
what it would have been like
to love someone
and to be loved by someone
genuine, for once.

I must confess,
I don't think I would know
how to accept a love
that isn't corrupted,
or perhaps,
nonexistent,
and that pains me more
than my delusion that
I could stop them from hurting me.

Tell me, what's it like to recognize yourself?
Does it feel like you'd remember it?
Why not?

With all of the years blended together,
my reflection blurred across the spans of time,
stretching apart any resemblance of self.
My reflection is a black hole that ***** away any knowledge of who I am and regurgitates a flat, shiny depiction of someone else instead.

Why did I think you could cure
all the aches and pains
I had held for years and more,
when you were never my remedy?

Every dose I took
was another ******* placebo,
and you'd have thought
I could tell this treatment wasn't working for me.

I wish I could kiss the memory of you,
and travel back just once
to when I was naive enough
to hold you close
and feel my anxiety burn and frazzle out
in your arms;
when I was meek enough to nuzzle in
to your soft neck, your lying throat,
and whisper that I loved you
with warm breath I wasted
for two years,
or to finally remember
how unfit our bodies were
pressed together in the dark,
despite our cheery smiles
hidden in hot sheets,
because I want to kiss
something too good to be true
and pretend I don't know it.

I can recall now
That night we were cuddled up so near
And you asked me if I could remember
The night you first kissed me.

I sorrowfully replied I could only see haze
And that despite it all,
I still loved you;
My only reference
Was my old poetry,
Documenting much of my life for so long,
My sacred crutch,
The only description I could use
To pretend I still recollected.

I see through the splotchy memories
Much easier now than I used to,
But you had gone and soured every last one
As soon as I could finally remember.

What a dastardly fellow you are,
Stealing the memories I worked so hard to regain,
Soiling them with your presence;
I’m not sure being able to see them
Was ever worth it.

Looking into myself,
I can't pinpoint that
crushing, confusing, messy
mixture of feelings I have for you.

I would have sworn a week ago
that I hate everything about you,
but now dreaming back
I remember how tender your love was.

I don't know why
you loved me like that
and no one else,
or why you tortured other souls
to have me,
or why maybe,
you destroyed yourself,
but I do know
that I can't rest
without understanding you.

Empty my mind,
My perception of time
Is skewed and I’ve lost myself
Somewhere
But I can’t see it
or feel it anymore,
My life shifts so slowly,
Or is it quickly?
From under my feet and
As the stars and planets
Rotate, I feel alone
Small
Fragile
And unnerved,
Please tell me where I am
And who I am meant to be
In this cavernous hole in reality.

I want the blistering hot, caked asphalt
to fry my heels as I run,
I want my skin to peel back
and for my bare feet
to form calluses in its place,
I want to run and to keep running
until my knees rust
and my lungs burst.

I want to collapse in the streets alone,
just so I know I can make it
that far.

I can't shake the idea
that given the opportunity
to mend all that is wrong
about us....about you,
that I'd drop so much of me to do it;
but I'm no time traveler,
no sorcerer or magician,
nor an oracle who can tell you
it'll be alright,
no, buddy,
you and I?
We're verboten,
and I'd consign all of my soul
just to relive "us".

I think you'd always known
that I was sacrificial
and I'd lay down all of me
for you,
and neither of us wanted to believe it,
yet now I have to swallow my words,
my tears, my tormenting silence,
and admit I'd loved you so much
that I would have risked it all;
I would have broken the space-time continuum
to have you.

I'd like to be buried in sand
so when an archeologist, an excavationist, or a child
walks into the sandbox,
they might believe my body is a hidden treasure,
and for once,
I would be remembered.

Help me
I am scared
Of the men in my closet
Their skeletons wound
Like a jack in the box
So when I look for something
And the door just nearly cracks
for those I’d almost forgotten
They all come crashing down
Suffocating me with their cold bones.

My mouth is burned
By the acidic tastes
Of the orange rinds
And mistakes
Of the toxic paste
Driveled from my head
And out my throat
With haste,
And yet,
I never let go
Of the next bite.

Every time I push people away,
I wait for the door to rat-a-tat-tat
and revolve back into my face;
I had never considered how often I steal opportunities away from myself by running.

I run until I collapse,
and I've stolen compassion, and understanding with every half-sprint I take away from everyone that has ever cared for me,
because what do you do when they genuinely love you?

I don't know why it is so hard to believe that they could love me,
or that I am not wasting their time by asking for help,
but I know that I live in this doublethink,
where I both love myself, but no one else could possibly love me too.

Haven't you seen me like this before?
I'm on the brink of understanding
I have a difficult time loving myself in actions, just in theories in my head.
This is why I run like this,
and by constantly shielding myself from perceived danger,
I am actually blocking potential kindness too.

If I shut off the danger and the kindness, what will I have left for myself? Nothing.
I can't keep doing this,
I am going to have to let them in.

Do you really know me like you say you do?
I don't like existing in memories of others when I cannot remember my own.
You can't possibly remember me.

It makes me so angry when you tell me that,
angry that I can't verify it,
angry that those ideas of me still linger,
angry that my past exists at all.

I want to purge this dissociative self
I used to be from all consciousness,
and it isn't fair that you can still remember her.

I am so mad that you can compare me now to me before
and that you can clearly recollect all the signs.
I am so envious that I couldn't have seen the signs myself when it was happening and that I still can't now.

I envy the way you can tip your sight backward to how I was before and that you can see the progress.
I want to see it too.

I am so angry
and this feeling burns my throat
when you remind me of what you know.

I'd be such a good girl for you,
making sure to cram and compartmentalize every piece of me
into whatever shape you'd prefer;
I've never known any better.
It's what I've always been told.

If I'm not here to make you happy,
then what is my purpose?
I've never known to take care of myself,
but I would take care of you in a heartbeat.

I don't know how to stop,
I don't know how to love correctly,
and I definitely don't know how to be loved.

If I keep giving,
what does it mean if you give back?
I think I'd feel nauseated knowing
you spent so much energy into me.
I'm not your sink, I'm the output source
and I'd never let it be the other way around.

Oh, so you could finally sleep soundly at night,
knowing my gullible body
warmed your cold, corrupted heart?

Yes, I see now,
you are a real criminal,
sleeping contently with me,
knowing as long as I do,
no one will come for you.

You slept quietly, happily, with comfort,
the comfort of a facade
you made me a vital pawn in;
I did not intend to console
your wicked ways with my love.

Try to sleep peacefully now, boy,
and please take those sweet memories with you,
they weren't real anyway.

Slipping, slipping, slipping,
falling through the cracks,
I nearly forgot that your
kisses felt like that
against me
with your hand brushing past
my neck,
I'm falling back,
slipping,
my fingers lace with your own
and I forgot what it felt like
to be dying;
falling,
falling down to the earth,
keep me grounded
with the sound of your heart
beats
so serene as I fall
falling back,
back
into love with you.

There I was.
Resting.
You remember, don't you?

Me; nuzzled into the crook of your neck,
my hands gripping at your shirt...
you fancied it, you know.

The embrace was warm,
and our heartbeats may have synchronized
in hopes of lulling us to sleep.

You remember all of this,
I'm certain,
but there are some things
you don't.

At approximately five or so minutes
before I buried my swollen, dark, brown eyes
into your chest,
I was choking back tears.

Every time I hugged you,
it dulled my depression just enough
for me to pretend my heart
didn't live like someone was having
a boxing match with both atriums and the aorta;
no, it was a searing pain that dulled
in moments like these,
replaced with a suffocating tension.

I knew as soon as I left you,
I would be shaking,
on the ground in panic
or digging my nails into the utmost layers
of my body;
you didn't know that this moment we shared
was more about me
masking how much pain I regularly endured,
and about using you to soothe my psyche enough
to pretend I was alright.

Dear Diary:
A daunting opening,
and a lost, red leather journal later,
leaves the pen ink sweating
down the page
reminding me how temporary
all my thoughts are
and how every smudge of my fingers
is really just a desperate attempt
to forget what we've become.

Stay with me, somehow,
and see the world as I see it,
pretty and dreary,
though more dead than alive,
and squint your eyes into the sizzling desert,
riddled with hollow bones,
and look further to the flowering cacti;
then maybe you would see me reflecting back
in its fruit and know that it is my life;
I tempt death's grip,
but he cannot reach one so destined to survive
regardless of such extremes of hot and cold
or of such arid landscapes,
but I musn't sip at the clouds searching for water,
and maybe I'd admit I've tried,
so stay with me, somehow,
and discover me for yourself.

Memory loss;
I know you're serious,
but every time you try to speak to me
I'm dropping words and sounds
like an imaginary hot potato,
thrown to me by a very rude child
who thinks making me lunge a thought
away from me counts as being safe.

I know you said something,
sounded like white noise,
sounded like the conversation
I think we're having right now,
I'm behind five sentences,
or maybe five minutes,
something there sounds about right.

Keep speaking, I can only hope to catch up,
this constant amnesia is aching
and my head is in a fog,
but I know you're serious
and you said something, something...
memory loss.

There's something strange about him,
it's sorta hard to place,
but his smile is much too wide,
as it sits upon his face.

I used to think about it,
as I laid down in my bed,
but maybe, just maybe,
it was only in my head.

Yet others seemed to notice,
the awkward, unsettled glare,
and I too became conscious,
there's a little bit more there.

I took a breath, walked away,
but digging in my back,
were his eyes and eerie smile,
plotting its attack.

I should have known he was no good,
not for me at least,
he always seemed a bit unhinged,
some say a mighty beast.

He disappeared, for years it seemed,
no eyes, no smirks, no laughs,
but when he returned to me, he said,
he hadn't done so on my behalf.

There was something strange about him,
it was sorta hard to place,
but his smile was much too wide,
as it sat upon his face.

Why would you pretend
that you weren't in love with me;
continuing to play so dangerously
against others' skins,
trying to tempt something
from within yourself to not be
so **** obsessed,
so obsessed, I see,
that as soon as I was let go,
you looked inward
and started to project parts of me
onto every other girl.

I sip coffee,
black, no sugar, no cream,
and hope so badly that you see me
with my arms stiff,
my eyes burning violet,
my throat humming,
buzzing like a swarm of wasps
clearing the area;

I despise coffee
but not as much as I despise
the shame you walk with
or the silent stares
angled in another direction.
Look at me
with coffee that hurts
and twists my stomach;
it exists much like you,
a crutch to feel alive
but it only causes nausea.

I drowned all my memories of you,
and let them drift to the bottom;
sea foam bubbled as you sank, and the thick green froth gurbbled when you plunged-
into the abyss, my cavern of exile.

I had to **** you so I could live;
but the fish, too, became intoxicated,
and so they were gone; crushed coral littered your descent into the black ink, to the places my mind won't reach.

My feet placed firmly, barefoot, caloused, in the chilled sands of time,
watched the water go still, and the sounds of life, birds, and the wind ceased, all the while the salty smell of defeat rest across the monotone blue.

I had to **** you.

You must be starving,
your beastly belly never satisfied,
never satiated by the image
of a woman’s *******;
not her neck nor her thighs
could quench your burning,
relentless, shameful tastes
for flesh.

Of course, you're starving,
where could you run
when nothing would stop her desires,
her blood boiling, heart aching desires,
for the body, you so brazenly touched,
to be the one thing to light you on fire;
her voice, amplified by all the innocents you touched,
calls out to the hunters who
stare into your loveless, ravenous eyes,
knowing that you will always be starving.

I could wear red,
But you’d still touch me
Running past the signs
Like a self-entitled racecar;
Even yellow has you going
Revving up against me
Throwing caution in a bin,
When will you learn to read me?
I don’t need your tires
Skidding on my potholes,
Making a mess of marks on my body,
What could send a message?
Maybe orange?
Please do not speak to me
Construction up ahead,
Too busy fixing all the holes people left behind.
Or would you just run over the cones too?

That neighbor of yours is a sunflower stealer,
No doubt about it,
And I think they made a grave mistake,
Picking flowers like that,
Because they missed the most beautiful one of them all,
You know,
Because when they picked them, they let you go.

You call me sunshine
and there are days I'd believe it,
but others I don't.

When my mind is so cloudy
I can't think at all
or when I process far too much
and it clashes in thunderous claps,
or when my tears block my view,
pouring, dribbling into its final trickle,
you say it.
How could you call me sunshine then?

You mean to say that behind all that,
nothing changes?
Surely an object cannot be an object if its properties change.

Yet you have the audacity to say otherwise,
that I can still be sunshine even when the night has fallen,
and the stars take my place,
because who else would illuminate the moon had it not been true?

So maybe I'll believe you.

February, you sing,
as the smallest (month), together we ring.

I suppose it was only fair,
that I fall in love like this,
my birthday, and your holiday,
we always have to share.

Although mine creeps before,
avoiding the martyr of your Saint,
and I know that it still kills me,
as I patiently drift upon your shore.

Sweet twos, you and I,
together we strive, linked by the stars,
and I think, perhaps, my soul admits,
I'm never ready to say goodbye.

You held back with so much tension,
every time you laid a finger upon my skin,
and I never realized how much
you must've been fighting
your compulsions
to break through me.

He knew the importance of words
and treated life like a crossword;
taking hints and context to places
that he never knew were possible,
solving them faster than his mind could keep,
he was full of it,
and every letter got him closer
to his dreams of entitlement.

Oh you've solved it, all right,
but his genius was limited,
nothing but words on a page;
The puzzles? He'd just skimmed it,
and each box became his defeat
for his words would no longer speak.

He could only solve the same book;
shoulders up, blamed his luck
on his limited palette,
maybe he'd done better if he invested
in a thing like vocabulary.

A forgotten mission, a new edition,
blew around in his mind,
but somehow he never could manage
to find the time
to understand these riddles' complexity,
and so to this challenge, *he'd flee.

The same mouth that kisses,
Damns you,
The same arms you run to
Swing back,
And the ones you love the most
Will hurt you,
It's all a part of the plan.

My love for you is a different kind,
less explosive and hardened;
no longer plagued by ecstasy.

No romance, roses, or advances.

My love for you is a different kind,
not light-hearted, friendly, or smooth,
lacking tact, natural, or loose.

Not friendship, laughter, and chances.

My love for you is a different kind,
ostracized in form, yet firm, careful,
restless, persistant, and withdrawn.

Not lost, forgotten, or resentful.

My love for you is a different kind,
now,
and I don't know what to do.

The sound of wind bounces against my bedroom window,
and the roar of thunder soon follows,
but despite all that noise,
all I can focus on is you.

Gazing down into those gentle green eyes,
I know that I'll never want anything else.
I could see everything through you,
and the softness in your look
is enough to never let go.

Did you love me in a past life?
Is that why you made a pact with me
to conjoin this time in a karmic unraveling?

What did you intend to learn from me?
Our energetic ties implied we should have known
how this would all end;
I felt it in the beginning,
that this might not be sustainable,
but I persisted and so did you,
dragging our feet into the trenches.

Did you care what the end result would be?
Was it satisfying enough to watch the soft shell
surrounding us crack?

Wretched time loop
what a good song
I have never heard it
you should hear it
it’s my favorite
who knows what it’s about
anguish
man, check out this song
I have never heard it
I think it is familiar
Hey did I ever show you?
Oh boy, what a lovely tune
wish I heard it sooner
have you ever seen it?
You gotta let me show you
Whoa no, I never showed you
Have I ever seen this artist?
What is this about?
It’s good because I like it
it is a little sad
I’ve never heard it
You should show me this song.