I may be a bad person,
But I am not the bad guy,
I've learned a toxic lesson,
And now I see why.

I see how all my friends see me,
I see you'll never understand,
I see my people-pleasing tendencies,
I see all you want to do is reprimand,

But I see that everyone is a bad person.

Like a river I flow
To the ocean unknown

Like fire I burn
ashes I turn

Like silence
I speak
But unheard,
I remain

Blurred lines, through my eyes
Like tears, through years
Unclear and weighted by the fears.

My every breathe
is someones last.

It’s always,
Life and death.

Never,
Death and life.

Yet many of us live,
Neither or,
a mere existence.

My fingers tangle and trip
over sloppy knitting
like a deer
learning to walk on crooked
pencil legs.
Like a song I don't quite
know the words to.
I move unsteadily,
uncertain, with short shaky breaths.
Remember when I taught my lungs
to breathe again in August?
After so many mistakes that
I didn't know how to
reconcile.
I wanted to die out back
of a hotel in Montana, dramatic
in the weeds and grasshoppers.
Needles fighting, I
spread a mess of mustard yarn
across my fingers like
I need a napkin.
Has anything changed?
Dropped stitches, weary knots leaving
gaping holes.
I think of how I ran away
from it all.
There are days I still look back.
But I look straight into the sky
as if demanding an explanation from
God himself.
I have to shade my eyes
sometimes,
seeing blinding brilliance
in the sun now.
I can't live any longer only
by the light it sheds
everywhere else.
No, in births of light and bursts
of truth and slow, overdue breaths
is a song I'm finally learning
the words to.
You will not defeat me.
I rip out my knots
and begin again.

I find myself pondering,
Way too often it seems,

About the state of the union,
And lots of other useless things.

Like unicorns and rainbows,
Fairies and dragon heart-strings,

Foreign cars; and the cost of gasoline.
Summer time and sunscreen,

I find myself questioning,
Much too often everything,

Nature and art, and beauty;
And lots of other useless things.

Sometimes when dreamers dream,
They think of fantastical things,

Like love and hot air balloons,
Or fish that can sing.

They lead us down pathways,
To nowhere at all,

To fantastical places,
To dreams within dreams.

Where I go when I wander,
Over bubbling brooks,

Past dragons and lemonade stands,
Way too often it seems,

That I meet fellow travellers
And we think we’re a team,

That the lands where we roam
Could be ours to own.

What silly imaginings!
What fanatical reveries!

Far from home we went,
And lots of other useless things.

Like star-crossed lovers
We did our dance with death
And no one else will ever know
Exactly what was said.

Tomorrow, in shame, I fear
The sun won't show its head.