Anxiety pulls my intestines out through my belly button
As I wait in silence for The Verdict.
Fear, a rabid dog, lashes out at my feet with every retracing step.
Time is both an enemy and an ally
Here, where darkness sears every eye into blindness.
I would see your face,
Would it not bring both Exuberance and Despair as gifts to my heart.

I would beg of you,
Could my mouth but move for the irons locked around it,
Prove Fear and Despair wrong.
Let Distance and Silence not calcify your heart and affection.
I plead of you to fight for your warmth,
Do not let the cold win
Though it may be easier.

Don't forget me for nothing but a mistake,
A passing thought in your life
With no significance but the confusion you once felt.
Please.
Give me something to trust.

Fear** is the thorn bush
Seeking refuge in my left ventricle
Stealing all the oxygen from the rest of my body
Keeping me immobile for fright of suffocation
Feeding my brain with insecurity
And self depreciation.

Saying things like
He doesn't really want you back.
You don't really mean that much.
You're an embarrassment.
You're too demanding.
You're too broken to fix.
And who would want to help with repairs anyways,
You charity case?

So you see,
There really is no escaping this
Without injesting herbicide
Or ripping my heart out.

A cliché I've heard before
One that hits the sternum
And knocks your breath out.
And now it applies to me.

A loving friend pointed it out to me
Handed me her glasses and said,
"Take a better look, love."
And she was so right.

Seeing it clearly
For the first time in what feels like years
I know the truth,
What you see in me.

An option you don't want to lose
But will never make a priority
Above all your other
Pretty, shiny, sparkly, more interesting, more intelligent, more playful, more down-to-****, down-to-party, less uptight, less afraid, less work, less stressful,
Less me
Options.

My love for you
Cannot be contained
By ten words

She's a deep breathe of happiness
Or at the very least
She's not sticky with the muck of sadness

I can see it now.
Why you needed them
Your light in the darkness that was my life
Your life vest in my treacherous waters

Baby, I'm the shark.
And the sad fact is
I may be made of fire
But I am no beacon of hope, light, and laughter

It doesn't make you a bad person
To not want to burn for me
Like I burn for you
This is what love looks like for me

But I am certain,
If you ask,
They'll see my shade of grey
and not just your black and white.

I release the smoke in the night,
Not the blackness itself
Think on that, if you will think on me at all.
In the mean time
Know that I finally understand
Why you needed all of them.

You're about to reach terminal velocity
With the biggest grin on your face
Symbolically giving your dad the ultimate *******.
The only way you know how,
Plummeting to the earth like a raindrop

I mean, after all,
You are the rain.

But there you go
No fear, no anxiety,
Just weightlessness
For a few seconds, maybe more
How should I know,
I've never jumped out of a plane before.

If I know you at all,
You'll be thinking of him the whole way down.
Wish I could be there.
You'll be truly happy, if only for a moment
Because I know,
This is the last way to feel close to him anymore,
To flirt with death,
To peek through the curtains to the underworld,
To try to catch a glimpse, or maybe a shiver,
An impression of his essence, his soul.

You might even judge yourself for humoring such whimsy.
But don't you remember,
Those who shun the whimsy of things
Will experience rigor mortis before death.
So flirt with death if you must.
Do every stupid thing,
But please promise to come back.

Fight.
Purgatory was never meant to be your home.
Escape.
Don't relent when the maze locks you in.
Fight of your demons, love,
In whatever ways you deem necessary.
Live.

Wander back
And flash me that tortured half-grin.

*What do I think of that?
I think it could make the world a better place.

I can't help but wonder what I did
Uncertain, unknowing.
What made you stay
But the moment you were away,
You just kept on running.
What magic trick were my hands weaving
Behind my back, unseen, unfelt?
What did I do to make you stay,
Am I guilty of manipulation?
Because once you stepped out that door,
You were never coming back,
And yet,
Before you left,
Before you took those steps
You said it was difficult, painful
That you didn't want to.

So what made you stay?
And what's making you run away?

Still sleeping with the tv on


Missing your light snores

Coward.**
You can't even cut the cord
On promises you don't intend to keep.
Drunken wishing words once spoken
Asking for time
Time to grow
But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?
Why grow up man up speak up be up own up break up
When you can just sit back and enjoy the ride?
The calendar will end it for you soon enough,
What's the point in saying it before time runs out?
And she's a smart girl right?
She'll figure it out on her own,
She might not even need you to say it.
Score.

Or how about your friend that you didn't stand up for?
No, you'd rather keep quiet
While your current and ongoing **** buddy besmirches a friend's reputation.
Why step in, none of your business,
Right?
Why risk losing good ***?

Whatever happened to vigilante justice?
Whatever happened to standing up for what was right?
So focused on physical altercation,
You can't see right in front of you the damage being done.
Don't you see that sometimes justice doesn't resemble
Dressing up in skate pads and a leather jacket?
Sometimes it just takes a sentence,
"Hey, I heard what you said about my friend,
That's not okay."

Too scared to let someone you love down,
Even when it's the whole hearted truth.
A truth you **** well owe them if you know.
Too scared to stand up for your friends in the face of ******* and ****** gratification.
A quite literal ******* coward.

What did I ever see in you?

Slate, black and still.
It's for your protection
Imitate slate, cold, impersonal rock.
Don't let it show

The turmoil and chaos reining inside
The frantic thoughts,
The panicked breathing
Be still as glass on the surface
Like a rip tide, undetectable.

Take a deep breath,
And pretend.



                 I can't live like this anymore.

Tell me something beautiful.
Tell me something that will have me
Sitting on the edge
Anticipating.
Whisper to me
Those tumultuous intricacies
You carry in your chest
Let magical phrases
Flit across your tongue into the air
Like butterflies
Akin to the ones in my esophagus.

Tell me of tomorrow
What adventures lie in wait for us
Where you'll take me
What we'll see

Weave a blanket from the tales of the past
That I may wrap myself up into
While you're away.

Tell me what's good
What's bad,
What's sad
What's bothering you,
Making you mad.

Spill it all
Like the milk our mothers didn't cry over,
Like the blood, a brother's pact,
Like the ink on the page,
Like the beans, as they say.

Open arms, ears, eyes,
I'm listening.
Tell me something, Beautiful.

the moments before art happens
are Agony.
like giving birth,
you're forcing out this potential for greatness
pushing this creativity
out of tiny pores in your skin

you feel like you're exploding.

brain battles heart
inner turmoil erupts
just like the layers of your skin want to do
and it all plays out to the soundtrack of
"i can't do this"

pain of birth, of explosions, of erupting
for some it is all too much
too much to bear that
we let our fear

take Control
and we cave.
put down the brush, the pen, the music,
and we step away
into regret, into sadness

the moments before art happens
are Agony.

I find my thoughts of you hiding out in the shower
They float effortlessly on air, peaceful
But the moment I turn on the water,
And sit,
They attack,
Descending upon me mercilessly.
I pull my knees up for protection,
Curl myself up like a fetus
All to no avail.

*You’re sitting across from me
As I try to avoid the scorching hot water
You lean in, unflinching to the heat
And say to me, “You’re beautiful.”

Remember when you first told me?
How you told me a story about a comic strip first,
Then you uttered the words through your teeth.
"I love you."
Do you remember the electricity of that moment?

I do.
I treasure the memory,
And the memories of all the times you told me after.
How we would laugh at its newness,
And the feelings that came with it.

I remember how those words could light up the dark,
Like the days when my mood turned stratus and murky.
You would stand close and whisper in my ear,
And still, we could laugh.

But now, when the night has come,
I remember how you say it less and less.
I remember you stopped laughing
That you don't seem mystified by it anymore,
And when I stand close and whisper in your ear,
You dimly mutter back,  "you too."

When all this is over,
I can say
That I remember
The beginning of the end.
And still,
I'll love you.

The faeries are out today
I can feel then tickling my skin
Riding zephyrs like kites
Dancing on the branches
Rattling leaves like maracas
Crooning like sirens in the alleys
Hear them howl

Fall is on its way

"I'm happy for you."
But I'm not.

Okay, maybe that's not really true.
I'm happy you can wake up each morning
Warm, not alone, safe,
Smiling.
I'm glad that you have someone to go home to,
Someone to sit beside at the bar,
Someone to get brunch with,
Someone to go vegan for,
But I'm not happy it's her.

Something in the way she looks at me
And what she says about me when drunk
Something about her fake glasses
And her fake hair,
And, apparently, her fake smile,
Makes me worry about you,
About our friendship.

When the time comes,
When she asks you to choose,
What's going to happen then?

I waited.
You never showed,
I'll bet you never will.

You say that you are the rock
And you dare not ask me
To be your eternal bearer up the mountain,
That you are a burden
Meant to be left behind.
You tell me you are the moss,
That you cannot be the cactus I once claimed,
And I should let you roll on
Alone.

But don't you know who you are?
Who we are?
You are more than rock,
You are stardust, realized.
We are the exploding, near-eternal fires that light the night
And paint the sky
We are constellations chasing head over tail
Around this globe
Always a horizon line out of reach.
You are the flames of summer,
Offspring to Prometheus,
The King of Wands,
Sacrificing your lungs in an ancient ritual
Of flames that bear your name.
We are born from fire
Our very strength forged in the pyre.

You are no succulent,
Though your heart may masquerade as one sometimes.
You are stealing after the sun,
The first sign of life in a rocky wasteland,
You come with the lichen,
And you cling to existence like a cliff edge.
Allowed to thrive,
You are soft and yielding,
Laying yourself down for the comfort of others.
Seemingly simple, but within,
You turn the very stone into life.

A curse and burden, you are not.
You are the rightful heir of fire
To stars that sing your name.
You may seem to drown in the wasteland,
Surrounded by endless void
But, love, don't you know what those lungs can do?
Breathing life into stone,
Come alive.

Someday, maybe at 35 (or 25),
You may no longer need Sisyphus.
What then?

Even after
All
This
Time

You still captivate me.
Picturesque in your passion
Like a lighthouse,
Channeling your energy, golden.
You shine

And though there are times when it hurts to stare
I can't look away from your flame.

I want to wake up
With the first tendrils of morning
Peeking through the curtains
And feel the warmth of you on my back.
I want to roll over,
Breathe you in,
And sigh with all the content that my chest can hold.
I'll look at your sleeping, relaxed features,
Recalling all the mornings and midnights like this one
Where I lay beside you and smile
Disbelieving.
Your skin is hot and sticky from the cramped space of my toosmallbed
And your breathing tends to light snores
that lull me to sleep most nights.
Your arms are stretched above your head
And I run my finger over their graceful lights and shadows.
Your back rises and falls with every glorious breath
and your eyes flutter, hidden beneath those long, dark lashes.
Blissful, I smile,
And wrap myself into you,
Wanting to soak up your essence,
And sleep in the high of your presence in my bed.

My touch rouses you briefly,
Just long enough for you to turn on your side
And wrap your arms around me,
Accepting.


But it's time to wake up for real,
And realize that all that's left
Is the memory of your embrace.

You miss me.
At least, I think that's what this means.
That when our eyes meet in passing
And I can feel your melancholy from 20 feet away,
That when you confess you've been listening to mixes made just for you,
That when I had to leave and we embraced
It felt like clinging to a cliff-face,
That maybe it all meant that you missed me.

When you went looking for me at work,
When you squinted into the windows as you passed
Looking for me to be there
Were you thinking of me?
Were you missing me?

Tell me something,
When you're with her,
Do you think of me?
When you're kissing her neck in passionate moments,
Do I ever cross your mind?
When you're about to fall asleep at night,
Those moments before unconsciousness seeps into your skin,
Am I passing through your thoughts?

You miss me, maybe.
I can't quite tell for sure,
So I rely on hope.
But darling,
You beautiful, shattered, bittersweet soul,
I miss you to the depths,
So much sometimes that it steals my breath.

They told me what didn't **** me would make me stronger.
They lied.
What didn't **** me made me damaged,
Defective, unable to function at "acceptable" levels.
Traumatic experiences didn't build some great wall to fortify my resolutions in life
Instead, they shook my foundations with ferocity,
Slashing cracks down my walls, crumbling rooms to rubble

They planted bombs for later,
Little surprises once the aftershocks faded
With triggers tucked away safe, wrapped up like gifts.

No, what didn't **** me made me want to disappear
Over, and over, and over.
And even almost 7 years later,
There are still detonators being uncovered.

Sure, now I know the paths to avoid
The piles of broken memories, loneliness, and displacement
To keep out of sight.
And still,
There are some days, but mostly nights
When the bombs go off in succession
And I have to bring myself back from the dark
Over. And over. And over.

And there are some nights
Where I'm the one holding the switch
I'm the one willing my world to explode into shrapnel.
And someone else has to bring me back
Over. And over.

They lied.
What doesn't **** you doesn't make you stronger,
It makes you a survivor, even if you sometimes don't want to survive.
And it leaves you with the scars every survivor bears,
Seen and unseen.

Funny how just the mention of your name still makes my blood race and breath quicken.

Potential.
Enough to graze your fingertips across
The kind that enduces goosebumps
A soft weight dangling from your limbs
A nauseousness pumping adrenaline into your circuits
The Almost.

And now it's over.
The precipice,
The "one ill-timed-slip" into seduction,
The conscious choice to stay on the cliff
To not tumble into selfish indulgence,
This once-favored hang out, gone.
Nothing but a meadow,
Grassy, blooming, safe.

The adrenaline, the temptation, the choice
Vanished.
Nothing but a humid breeze to imply movement
A hint that something was once here, before.

And now, just another memory.
Another secret.

New beginnings?
Yeah, the universe has a sadistic
Sense of humor.

So many years of lies and cheating

I have to keep reminding myself,
You are not them, you are not them, you are not them.
You are not texting hookups behind my back,
You are not saying you love me to make me stay,
Nor are you with me out of pity, trying to fix me.

It's such a fine line sometimes, trust and naivety.
But I have to keep reminding myself,
You are true, and you are not them;
You would not do what they did,
Or say what they said.


They never tell you how hard it is to actually be happy once you've made it out of hell. It haunts you with every unexplained smile.

Like two overstuffed pillows long forgotten in the attic
Slammed together in a great concussion of sound
BLOOF
All those particles of god knows what flying into the air,
We call them bunnies
because it's safer than acknowledging all the creepy crawlies now flying into our nostrils
I am shaking the dust off of these lobes in my head
Clearing out proverbial cobwebs
And beating bad habits with broomsticks
Like you would an old rug.

*Shake the dust off
And start writing again.

My grasp on the English language
Is far too insufficient
To explain what is happening inside my head.
It is even more futile,
When I attempt to explain what transpires
In my body.
There are no words
For what causes the disconnect between the two.

These are the only words I could find:
I'm sorry.

Was there ever a time
When fear and neurosis
Didn't slam dance their way out
Of the birdcage between my armpits?

When did my ears not ring with tinnitus
Lines on repeat like
"They don't care."
And
"You're worthless."

When did I stop treading water?
When did I start using loved ones as life rafts,
Shoving them beneath the surface
If only for one quick gasp of air?

When did the sadness get so immense,
It formed its own gravitational pull?
Like a black hole in space,
******* in all the surroundings.

When did I stop feeling like enough?

Like the moment a meteor earns its "-ite,"
Epiphany has struck and leaves a trail of realization.

All that remains
Is the decision to make things right.

My insides are dancing a nervous jig,
And my toes are taptaptapping the crazed beat.
All the sudden I am six again,
That scared little girl, afraid of being in trouble
But I've been accused
Accused of misleading, manipulating, and lying
To the man I trust
By the man I trust.
A capital offense, I would say.

So I lay here,
Playing the waiting game of
Figgety fingers, tapping toes, and absent appetite
Wondering where I broke your faith
Searching my motives, coming up empty-handed
Lost as to why you'd stay if you believed me false.

How can I show you the truth?

I was just a scared and lonely girl
Who wanted to share a piece of happiness
With a scared and lonely boy.

I am not here to chain you down.

I wonder if the birds in the sky
Truly do look down on us lowly beings.
All we can do is walk,
While they fly
Our skill levels are subpar,
Even as we learn to walk, to run and swim and...
We'll never be as good as them.
Do they know it?
Is it a conscious thought
That birds are superior
To us walkers on the ground.

Do they think about how boring it must be for us?
Do they think of us as lesser than them?

Even though it's true,
Like many things in life,
It would hurt worse to know
That they pride themselves on their superiority.

I know I chose this
I put myself here,
Chose to walk this path
Instead of all the others.
I could still be your best friend
You could still be mine
I could pretend to have casual *** with you
If only to have those still moments in the dark after.
Instead I chose the alternative.

No more smothering you in hopes,
Expectations we'll never live up to,
And affection you don't want.
No more fighting over who gets the outside of the bed,
Or whose fault it is that I take too long in the shower,
Which position to fall asleep in.
Little spoon.

They keep telling me this is right,
This is what's best for the both of us
Since we two are in different life chapters.
(I claim chapter 46,
when Woodpecker tells Leigh-Cherie
that Love is the ultimate outlaw)

The rift I conceived when I pushed you away
Holds nothing but echos
Memories.
They tell me it's time,
But I don't need to make room in my life
When I already found my person.

I want to tell you all of it
Every syllable I could summon up
To explain
But all I can muster up are fighting words


**And *******,
I miss you.

Make your move.
Go ahead.

Forget about me,
Not that you don't already
Every time you walk out that door.

Bury your guilt,
Your pain, your hate, your love
Go ahead and bury it
In any girl who will take you to bed with her.

Forget about me,
About you
About us.
Take your onemancircus to the next destination.
Don't get help.
Don't fight those demons.
Let your fear and self-hatred rule you.

I guarantee they'll get you far.
But they might also **** you,
In one way or another.

Living on the precipice,
Dancing with the shark in your head
Induces the biggest rush, sure.
But when you trade emptiness for loneliness,
Friendship for lust,
Health for adrenaline,

You'll end up hanging from that precipice,
By your fingertips.
How long can you hold on?

Breathe in sleep, my dear
For, waiting in the darkness,
Hopes and dreams await

Looking at you
I know
Broken things are still beautiful

She said, "Usually in my experience, Jon isn't ******* fine."

The closer you get to her, the further away you become.

Ten words cannot express the full story.
You love her,
And it scares you.

Scares you into others' arms and legs
Scares you into silence
Scares you into distance
Scares you into over-thinking
Scares you into pushing her away

And it scares you
And it's scaring her.

And the pressure is on.
What comes next?

The panic is setting in.
It started in my ankles,
Shivering its way up
To the sweat on the back of my knees.

Creeping,
Crawling up my thighs in goosebumps
Chills.
It reaches its slimy, mangled claw
U
P
And clenches my stomach,
Digging into my diaphragm
And pulling down.

Breaths turn fragile,
Like butterflies taking flight
Light
And shallow.

The panic
Has set in.

I want to wake in the middle of the night, only conscious enough to recognize your scent, to the sensation of you pulling back my covers and climbing into bed with me. I want to drift off again, only after you’ve enveloped me with your body, to the gentle whisper of your breath on the back of my neck. My last thought before unconsciousness settles back over my mind will be your name, and how I’ve missed you.

Some things, my dear,
Are worth dying for.
Especially happiness.

And the prospect
Of not having one's happiness
Pried from one's weak, aging fingers.

Sometimes,
It's better to die young.
I think.

breathing breaths
into beautiful bodies
hands that hinder passage
into hidden places
sacred to those
only enough.
toes and fingertips trembling
at the tickling terror
in those beautiful broken bodies
and love like lilies lying
lies across your lips
open ears earning no trust
in eyes too blind
to notice the pattern

I am worthless.
Useless.
A failure.
All attempts turn to tar in my hands.
Frustration builds up behind my dam of calm
One more self-loathing thought delivers that defining, final crack
And all composure crumbles.
I hold my breath yet I can't stop the heavy breathing
Anger
All directed at myself
Leaking out of every pore
Every fiber burns
Destroying me
Turning me to ash, waste.
Because that's what I am.

A failure.
Useless, good for nothing.
Lazy, prideful
And worthless to the last drop.
I drop everything I touch before I destroy it
And it destroys me.

Feels like returning to the scene of a crime
The walls have seen horrors,
Lies unspeakable
It's like their laughing at me, in their stoic, white silence.
And that bed,
She's flat out staring me down.
There she lies,
Like a naked *******,
Daring me to call her shame.

But I cannot.
Instead I turn my back,
And jot down a few lines.

Now to put on that brave face.

Everywhere.
Cracks in the brick pavers
Branches in the trees
Water stains on discarded cigarette butts
All resembling lovers mid-embrace.

Dizzy spells,
Deep breaths,
Strained muscles,
Respite.

Gritty acceleration of my car
Climbing wrung after wrung
Descending and reaccending staircases

Today
Has me thinking of you
Everywhere

You're going to be just fine
You've suffered greater losses
Than the likes of me.
Hell, you suffered for me.
It's only fair that I relinquish any hold on you
Set you free from the charcoal chamber of my heart.
I can feel the grates cracking beneath your clenched hands

Run.
Run from here before I devour your light.

Seek the daytime,
Embrace the sunshine, my friend.
No more rainy days
Here comes the sun.
Just for you.

I keep tripping on brambles
Scratching my exposed shins,
Ripping at my shoelaces,
Yet somehow I keep upright.
Leaving my well-beaten path behind,
I had forgotten how difficult
Striking out anew always is.

I know I cannot return to the
Comfortable, clear, circular, cyclical path
I'd been wearing down for years.
Looking behind me,
I'm not sure I could even find the way back.
A path that lead only to itself,
But ****, how I miss those views.

My ribs clench at the memories
The smells, the warmth, the ease
But it grew crowded,
No longer a private reverie
No.
I mourn the loss of sacred space.

I keep stumbling, tripping, fumbling forward
Brought back again to this moment.
It's time to cover new ground,
Whether I want to or not.

Some things are better left unsaid.
Some secrets are better left untold.

It's the nasty, sticky, slimey truths that we bury
That come at us like serpents with our names on their tongues
The ones that reveal the true character of those we love
The ones that make our beloveds ugly in our eyes

What have we done?
Are there any bridges left that we haven't burned?
What have you done, love?

What Have You Done?

"You disgust me," she says.
Yeah, I know. Me, too.

It's like some well-kept secret...


Shhhhh, don't tell Evie!

Funny, what the human mind does to protect itself.

He was broken, as I was
And I thought I could fix him.
No
I thought I could be a solution.

I wanted to be the answer
That the universe whispered in response
To his nights alone in drunken tears.
Wanted to be the perfect fit
To the gaping hole in his chest.

But I was not prepared.
I gave up my heart and soul
before I really knew what that meant.
I gave him my mind and my will;
Everything, anything he wanted that I could give
I gave
I let him take all that he wanted from me
Let him run my soul dry,
and what was left,
What he didn't want
I threw away.

I was too young,
Too naive to understand
The gravity of my choices.
That is,
Until he told me
that it wasn't enough
I wasn't enough.
I was not freedom.
Commitment is not a freedom
And he didn't want any part of it.

So there I was, left with only pieces
of myself.
Not enough left to put back together
To make a whole.
Just a hole.
Empty and lost.

I was in love with him,
and to be fair,
He loved me, too.
Not for who I was,
But for who I became for him.
When he tired of that,
He found someone new to sate his interest.
And failed to mention the change.
Coward.

It's so fuzzy now.
Hazy, even.
Like looking through a ***** windshield at twilight.
I can't even remember a twinge of that love.
Not even a pinprick of the agony.
The holes in my soul don't ache anymore,
Not for him.

Funny, what the human mind does to protect itself.