And looking back at it-
I swear you ****** the life out of me
Faster than you burn through your cigarettes
You left me there;
Charred and used
Just another decoration in the sewer drain
You stepped on me
To make sure that my light was completely gone
As you reached in your back pocket and pulled out another one

I binge write,
Like an addict relapsing from ******
I wake at 4:13 in a cold sweat
Because somehow words have become more important than sleep

The foot prints on the moon are permanently engraved into the soil
Just as the tire tracks from our technology will not disappear
For the moon has no wind
It is steady and unchanging
Like knowing the sun will rise each day
And the moon will guide our darkest nights
It's as unwavering as the alignment of constellations
And the gravitational pull of planets
But what if...
One day the sun did not rise;
And the moon did not lead us in darkness
What if the traces left on the moon
Were all mysteriously erased?
Like one day waking up to an empty bed
With the suitcases gone
And no trace of that person at all

I don't have a gag reflex anymore
Because I've shoved my fist down my throat
Far too many times
Just trying to pull out the words I cannot conjure
They all taste acerbic
And sound as bitter and damaging as they taste

I crave words more than a hopeless romantic
Craves the touch of another human being

I can’t hear what you’re saying anymore

Because you all sound the same

What happened to originality?

When poems didn't always reference the sun, tidal waves, and ever abiding seas?

What happened to poems filled with truth, artists that don’t lie

It seems that all art work sounds exactly the same; love, pain, suffering, and then you die

Why can’t you spit the truth across your pages

Why can artists no longer write things about the past ages

How hard is it to let the ink spill-

In such a way that tells what you real feel?

All the ******* lies convincing people your art is... “art”

Well, it’s no longer original, it no longer comes from the heart

Your mind is your own, if you just be yourself you’d see

Not all artist “dot their I's and cross their T’s”

It’s sloppy, its raw and it’s real, breathe truth into your words

Because all we really are is words;

what you speak is everything that’s heard.

I can feel the anger pulsate through my blood stream
It travels full circuit in less than a second
I can feel the pounding of it cause a headache that screams and bellows through my skull
When I look down at my wrist I can see the blackness traveling through my veins
It creates black shadowed trees, wishing that I would set it free from the poison
It taunts me and begs for the kisses of razor sharp blades
My own veins would rather be cut open than feel the poison traveling within it
As for my mind, there is no escaping that.
No razor blades to kiss it better
And no medication strong enough to will the screaming echoes away

I sowed my lips shut for fear of the wrong words escaping
I’m too scared of the pain I’ll feel when I remove the stitches
I’m sorry that my pen has more to say than my mouth
And I’m not strong enough to change that.

My sister asked me why I'm so morbid
I didn't have an answer
Just that my veins bleed black
Not red

You ceased to exist the second your footsteps became inaudible
No matter how many times I read my journal full of our memories
It didn't change the fact that you were gone
Writing didn't make you last forever;
It only showed me how little 'forever' really is

I buried all my pain in a 40oz bottle
My mother had once asked me if I was an alcoholic
She found endless bottles beneath the crevice of my bed
It looked like the valley of the shadow of death;
A grave yard of bottles that had been drunk’ to the last drop-
She lined every one across my desk; pleading for some answers
Her eyes were solemn and filled with grief
She must have looked like she aged about 20 years in that moment,
I saw her wrinkles were pained with disappointment
Tears escaped her eyes, I was lost to her.

She walked into my room to watch me sleep for a few minutes and say goodnight,
I was wearing a sweatshirt; only it wasn’t me
It was stuffed with blankets and pillows.
I was in the closet, I felt her disappointed sadden breaths as she peered in at her little girl
She had no idea I was leaving; I left the moment her bedside light when out.
Somewhere there was still a broken little girl who buried her pain in liquor and drugs
When the phone rang during the dead silence of the night she wondered if her little girl would be gone forever
She struck a blow to my sisters face; She had never been faced with a situation like this before
Her first instinct was to blame her for the loss of breath that would not will itself out of my lungs
Her eyes peered in at her little girl;
But this time it wasn’t from her bedroom door-
It was through her blurred vision standing outside an ambulance.
When a pulse was found my mouth began to foam and my chest heaved in spasmodic compulsions
It took me two days to recover; my mother didn’t leave my side.
She must have instantly grown grey hair the second she laid her eyes on my lifeless body

When I went away to Africa she found my drugs, she flushed them down the toilet
Wishing she could flush away all my bad habits
She must have sat in my room and cried numerous times that summer
Her little girl was still lost, even more than she could have imagined.
She didn’t know what to do, so she did what she could-
So she replaced my drugs with bible verses that had been burned into the back of my skull since I was a kid
I came home that summer to open arms, still full of love
But this time it looked as if she must have aged another decade
I walked into a perfectly clean room;
It must have taken days for her to clean.
She didn’t miss a single spot, my drugs we’re completely gone
And I felt pieces of my heart slip away,
I wondered how I could burden the woman who brought me into this world I wonder if she felt all hope was gone

She asked me if I was an alcoholic again
When she found new liquor bottles stuffed between my clothes
And the 24 pack of beer in the far corner of my closet
This time I left; I didn’t come back
She cried and tired to rip my bag from my hands
But the disappointment of her stare burdened me to no extent.
Her little girl was slowly slipping through her fingers.
When I finally came home she still welcomed me with open arms
She embraced me as if I was the prodigal son who had finally returned She didn’t realize I was still lost-

I told her I was going to my best fiends house
We went to Santa Cruz instead;
I was hyped up on coffee, and would soon be so drunk I couldn’t walk
My mom got another call that night; Her daughter had been in a car accident, it was bad-
The entire car was totaled on one of the busiest highways
I looked to the side and a semi was coming full on
I thought I was going to die;
I prayed that God would give my mother some peace about me
That he would somehow get her through the death of her child that has been long coming;
But I didn’t die, because some part of God’s plan wasn’t over
The semi hit us, our car was slightly underneath it;
Death stared at me inches from my face
Yet all I had was a few broken ribs and a scratch that ran along my forehead
I wonder how much older my mother looked then.
I was still lost, did she wonder if there was any hope of bringing her little girl home?

My mother discusses books with me now;
She hardly brings up my past
I can still see disappointment in her eyes
But she somehow looks younger Because her little girl finally came home-
Because even though her nerves want to wake her up at 3am wondering where I am, they don’t
It sounds like quite the story, but imagine reading it through her eyes.

Please don't search my skin every morning and night
As if I'm one of your art pieces that isn't quite right
You'll stare at your drawings for hours wondering what you need to change
You erase all the wrong lines till you've painted over them
In order to perfect your piece
My skin is not your canvas
You cannot erase the marks I have made
I'm not a piece to be speculated by an artist
Who never deems any of her pieces worthy.
If you like I can frame myself for you
And tuck myself away in the dusty crevice of your room
A graveyard for all your unfinished pieces;
The ones that even you could not fix

We exchange civil text messages
Even after I broke your heart
You jokingly bring up women I objectify and ignore
"rack them in" you tease

I don't know;
Is it easier for you knowing I go through people
Like I go through b
                                   o
                                        b
                                             b
                                                 y
                                                       pins;

Or do you just like to torture yourself
Knowing you we're just another   l o s t    bobby pin
I didn't bother to look for?