whenever i hear a wind chime i think of your voice. i wonder what it's like to be your bedsheets. what it would really be like to understand the jargon in your head. i ******* want to kiss you sometimes and then others i really do want concrete between your hands & my skin. i can't think straight all the time so i wonder if it benefits me at all to explain what it means that i don't want or expect anything from you but if we accidentally liked eachother in that middle school "sort of way" then i wouldn't say no. i want to really understand what you mean when you say "stay" to me in our texts. i wonder if your sleeping pills do to you what they do to me. i'm thinking again about "stay" and maybe i'm choked up on you leaving for school up north but i'll never tell you because get the **** out of here and don't look back especially not for me. stay. your smile, genuine or not tears me in two. i wish every face on the planet had your smile and i am ******* afraid of you wearing lipstick. i'm terrified of your bare skin and goodbyes. i hate farewells and see you laters. i knew the first time i saw you interact on your phone while drinking coffee the way you text people and how i now do the same thing. i get around read receipts. i sometimes want to hear you say you want.. not so much me, maybe me, but my company. theres a park near my house where i've imagined us paddle boating. i got written up at work once for daydreaming about it. what the **** is in a friendship anyway, decency in a human isn't biological. i get hung up on knee jerks and gut reactions. i want to know what the ******* are thinking about when i look up and you are looking right at me. but then again, i don't. as long as i'm wondering. as long as the door might swing open or closed. stay. go. run. **** your collarbones. **** your chest and skin and lips and everything i hate but crave and might like about you without say so. stay. sit down and explain to me why it is that i care anyway. i am afraid that if i say i want to *******, you'll think i mean *******, and not "*******". i wanna know if any of this sounds familiar and i here i am back to wondering what the **** is going on and why you're looking at me. the hair on my neck stands on end when you do and another thing... **** poetry. i cloud my feelings for you & anything else with the abstract so you'll never really know if i ******* hit rock bottom or not over the fact that i know we will never kiss. somebody just said "**** buddy" on tv and i think sometimes symmetry between irony & circumstance. i have harbored some of these thoughts since the night you said hello to me. i'm sorry i had to get over the fact that once upon a time i wanted to save somebody, and you weren't going to let it be you. i do sometimes think my hands might break you, that you spend your day painting a picket fence in your head that you can't get on one side or the other on. i felt like you didn't want to get up from dinner and i rushed it out the door because i am afraid to start a sentence with so. so stay. i am sorry my words often wear brass knuckles. your smile shoots to **** and if i ever die while you still remember my name i want you to read this or read something at my funeral. i don't know if these butterflies are waiting for me to jump or sit down but they speak up when my phone lights up & it's you.

•i        
     was    
         once    
              whole    
               •full and
                    complete•
                       grand desi-
                          gns adorned
                              upon my very
                               soul•always...
              ­                  would land on
                                    my feet•my wo-
                                     rds now partially
                                      broken•resembli-
                     ­               ng that of an ail-
                                   ing crescent• i...
                                 am still here, i...
                               watch and i lis-
                           ten• scouring
                        for mediocre
                 remnants
             that still
         remain
 abs
en  
t•      
.

Let's break all the tension with the pretense of my presence.
Yes, I'm insensitive--but there's no other incentive others can give--
And while I'm not sure I could prevent it, I swear to no god I'm inventive!

Yes,
My hatred is incessant--ever present--and it's what I hold most sacred.
I'm a naughty narcissist with a nasty list of wasted kisses,
And I won't say that I'll miss 'em, 'cuz I'm the type who never misses.

I'm a hopeless romantic with a new sense of Tantric hope,
It's the antics of a frantic mind, but I'm too calm to cope.
They say I'm a raving, violent--rarely silent--tyrant with a craving
for the obscene,
Though, while I'm mean, I'm rarely seen within a mob or in a scene.

I'll admit I've got a streak, but--if you'd stop to take a peek--
You'd see a Buddhist, not a nudist, who's less a demon than a geek.
I'm oblique and I'm obtuse (do these math puns work for you?) yet I'm rarely never right;
Get my angle? Catch my drift? I might thrash, but, man, I'm thrift!
Hold on shift: I'M SCREAMING NOW!!
Don't know why; don't have a cow!
Remember that? That 90's rap? Look at me then; that piece of crap!
Shot down! Torn up! Shut in! Turned out!
Lips are sealed; inside I'd shout,
'Bout just how bad I wanted out!
Enraged and crazed; cravin' razors; a victim hiding from all saviors!
Turned to the pen to brace for the knife,
Started writin' and saved my life.
It's funny to say my life got better the day I started a suicide letter...

But letters turned to words and those words became whole worlds,
And before my very eyes a whole legacy unfurled!
I was GOD--not just a slob--but a shaper of all things,
And the schemes that I'd been dreaming shifted into scribing,
And I never stopped since then; it's why I'm still alive!

So my insanity became vanity as calamity turned to amity.
Sheer pessimism became untamed narcissism,
But if the mind's a prison then consider me jail broken.
Outspoken, re-awoken; take a moment to let that soak in.
That a boy doubtful of tomorrow could ditch the sorrow,
And become an immortal--though immoral, not totally amoral.

So yea, I've got my faults; I'm a sensory assault,
And while I don't mean to offend I'm just a product of the ends.
Played with fire; I got burned.
Dared to aspire; I was turned.
So I inquire to you sires as I march out of the fires:
You've seen my darkness and know my story--beginning, middle, end--
My name is Nathan Squiers, do you wanna be my friend?