I scream into this piece of paper,
Vomiting up ink that seeps in,
But no one hears the pain of the silenced,

You just see the words and thoughts,
Not noticing a lot,
Notice nothing as I drain my veins,
Notice nothing of my writing in red

But I write to you again,
Hoping you can feel the pain behind the words,
Hoping someone would bleed for me,
For I am all but bled dry;

I've been slipping
digging
into my heart,
using these broken nails
to crawl my way out of this dirt
that I buried myself into.

"No," I've promised myself.
"This world-- it's hypnotizing.
It'll **** the soul right out of you."
The hungry skies will feed off of your light
to make the stars shine.
The world might be flat in the way it feels when you hit the floor,
but it will still fold into you
like a lock twists into a cage.

Don't ever forget
to keep dreaming
keep thinking
keep breathing,
for the world will take it from you
and you'll never be able to live again.

If you don't swim you'll drown.
If you close your heart in the way you close your eyes,
you'll never wake up.
The heart never sleeps,
and the longer you keep yourself in the dark,
you'll close your eyes.

*And never wake up.

He’s afraid of the ocean
because he doesn’t understand why the shoreline deserves to be kissed
every time they push the waves away.
He thinks we’re all going to die and it’ll be for nothing;
that will live to fill up empty spaces like headless bees
with a desire to sting the very first thing we touch.
He believes that these limitations and politics are pointless
because apparently keeping your hands to yourself was something someone made up
because they were crookedly insecure about themselves.
He looks up at the sky and hates the moon
because it doesn’t burn bright enough to cover up all the secrets that the stars hold.
So he blames the system and closes his eyes and goes to sleep.
He listens to renditions of the same story told in fifteen different ways and is captivated every time because its so simple
and so easy
to have someone teach them for you
instead of sleeping on a bed of blades.
He doesn’t even walk
he saunters
and nods as a hello
and wears baseball caps
because maybe it’ll shadow the lies he wears creased between his eyes.

He isn’t real,
no matter how many times you touch him.

He’ll claim that he is a bearer of the sun and that the light is the ode to freedom
but you’ve never in your life kissed anything so cold.
He’ll whisper to you and you’ll want to whisper back,
but you’ll find yourself driving home
screaming at the top of your lungs
because you left drunk
and he was more worried about his career
than your heart through the windshield
when he could've just drove you home himself.
He’s Pinocchio and you’ll end up wishing he could lie better
So you could feel like a respected lady just once.
But his tone reminds you
that the only kind of love a boy like him is made for
is the kind of love that leaves you bleeding and wet.
He’s an empty auditorium full of reverberating echoes
and you’ll spend your time
waiting
sitting
wondering
when the show will end—
Not even realizing that the jokes on you.
You could’ve drawn the curtains at any point in time
but you didn’t
because he was smiling
And nothing in this world is as lethal as his smile
as he tells you
there’s nothing to be afraid of

Those words are bullets
and you weren’t wearing any armor.

I...am a man
No, I am a black man
One who walks around with this curse mark upon his hand
As he is drenched with this scorched abomination
Frowned upon by society as if his very existence is a sin
As if he asked to be born this way
Well newsflash for all naive buffoons in the world, he didn't
Now I'm a being who can envision himself soaking in his own blood
Always afraid to walk out his front door  because if he does...
He becomes public enemy number one
Forcing him to duck behind cars
Trying to dodge the bullet he got beaming towards his head
I'm a dead man walking attempting to live a normal life
But according to society I can't
According to society I'm a foul beast who acts on impulses
And goes on a rampage because simply can't help it
So I must die before I'm even given a chance to prove myself
I...am a man

the sun sets
and with it, my defenses

the night makes me vulnerable
to you

the stars come out
and I look up

I replace each of their names
with a memory of you

and when I piece them together
you become a constellation