Have you no shame?
Tearing apart people's hearts for fun..
Have you no shame?
Putting yourself out there like it's nothin.'
You walk around
So proud of yourself, who and what you've done
While the rest of us
Are stuck behind tryna' learn how to love
Don't mind me
I'm just one of your many victims
No, don't mind me
I'm just working on trying to move on
Don't mind me,
Don't mind me...
I've been drinking
Pretending that it helps seal away the pain
I've been sinking
Drowning in this beer, these tears and this rain
I've been thinking
You said you just needed space
The stars been twinkling
And remind me of the brightness of your face
So lately, I've been up at night thinking
Since you been gone so much recently
I've been in my head and it hit me...
The ****'s the matter with you?
You break everything that's in your path
You're a monster, you're a psychopath
You move on, forget the aftermath
You hurt the only people you love you back
You're crazy, you're insane,
You think that you're the only ruler
You got it in your brain
That the rest of us drool over ya'
Have I no shame?
Using the few people that I have to move on
Have I no shame?
Sobbing over someone who's already gone
Am I okay?
I've been pretending that I am for a while
I'm not okay,
But I'll just throw the pain in the forget-about-it pile
My dad hates me, he said so
My mom hates me, she said so
My family hates me, they said so,
Everybody hates me, so I'll go
**** myself on main street
the driver will not see me
I can finally be
Somewhere that's more happy
Have I no shame?
Pretending like I'm sad, but what about?
Have you no shame?
Telling me I'll be forgot about?
Are we okay?
We're a mess, we really are, it's a shame..
Are you okay?
I love you, and I promise you are not to blame.

“Really, he’ll be—”
“But m—be-”
“There isn’t anything we can—”
“THERE HAS— SOM—ING”
“Sir, I’m going to—ask you to—sit—”
“DON’T TELL—DOWN—”
“…I assure you—”
“*******—may—then—weeks—”
“Sir, please calm—”

Home sweet home,
Next to broken promises
Hidden cries
Large, fake smiles
And swollen eyes
Home sweet home,
Live, laugh, love,
But we are not meant to live
We will never learn how to laugh
And love we know nothing of.
Home sweet home,
Next to a drunk mother
Holding an empty wine glass
Next to a father
Holding an empty child
by the neck
Home sweet home,
Take away the sweet,
Take away the life,
Take away the laughs,
Take away the love...
And you've got yourself
a home.

Little young lady,
I have missed your face,
and I know you're lying
when you say that you're okay
I notice your face,
your clear fall from grace,
No matter how obvious,
your family looks away
When all you need is someone to ask you
if you are really doing okay
everyone looks away
so are you really okay?

I have been so very confused
And my search history has turned into
some monument for you
"Heart stinging?" It's a sickness
"Too much loving?" Call a therapist
"How to not love you anymore"
nothing useful
just a bunch of wikihows
"How to stop loving someone who doesn't love you?"
Ouch, that's rude
seems a little too direct
but that's okay
it's your fault, too

"We grew apart,"
Though really,
You just left
Because you found
Someone better
And that's okay.
I don't blame you.

I say I hate that word
Does it scare me?
Does it excite me?
Does it entrance me?
What does it make me feel?
And do I actually hate it?

Or perhaps
I haven't found the right person
To hear it from

Because I love you,
Wherever you are
And I hope that if you're out there
You're not very far
Because I hate you,
whoever you are
I hate that you
Are so very far
I miss you,
If you even care
Because while I've been here,
You've been there
And there is a reason
For all this pain
All this sadness
And without any gain
Because I want you
Whatever you are
I'm longing for something
I will only find afar

Because I need you
Whoever you are
And I hope you're okay
Not wrecked in a bar

It is a strange thing,
to go back to the same light
that has burned me
so many times

My alarm in the morning screeches
And I woke up with a headache
And a strong desire to just
GO BACK TO SLEEP

I came out of my room
Skipped the breakfast
"What's wrong?"
****, I've been caught.

"Just... In my head, I guess."

I've been doing
Pretty horrible, but I hope you're well
I hope you're happy
Up there in Heaven, cause I'm stuck in hell
I didn't use to
Believe in Christianity, God, or anything
I read the Bible
As a mechanism to pretend you're okay
I hope, however
If there's a 'Heaven' that you're up there
Where are you darling?
I hope you're at least somewhere
Cause it's scary to think
When you die, you go nowhere. ...
So, here lies the love of my life,
I hope that they're somewhere

We talked about my future, and my skin began to itch,
Because I have no ideas for it that I want to pitch.
My mom says be a surgeon, my dad says just get rich,
So we talked about my future, and my skin began to itch.
I sat on my bed itching, trying not to cry.
My brother asked what’s wrong, so I knew I had to lie.
I said, “Oh, it’s nothing!!” He shrugged and said goodbye,
Leaving me alone to itch and just try not to cry.
We talked about my feelings, I started to itch my arm,
Because all this weight I was carrying began to bring me harm.
I told her, “I’m okay, love.” She smiled and said I had charm,
Then she left me all along in there, so I had to itch my arm.
The skin peeled off, I scratched and picked too terribly,
I cried and sobbed while my newly naked arms began to slowly bleed.
The skin was in my fingernails, a bandage my arm needs,
I got up to go and get one while the blood came up in crimson beads.

Today I went out on the balcony. I needed a breath. It’s been so long since I needed a breath. A breath without smoke coming from my mouth when I exhaled.
Just a breath.
I just needed a breath.
A breath.
Breathe.
Breathe.
It hurts to breathe. It hurts. My heart hurts, my head hurts, my everything hurts.
It hurts.
Just breathe.
It’ll be okay.
I miss him so much and it hurts.

He shook his head. “Is he going to be okay then?”
“Yes. We can add some meds to his regular ones to treat this, too.”
“Okay… how much?”
I looked out the window at the skyline, fogged up and cold. Matched my mood. It was rainy and the gray clouds covered up the sun. Kody sighed and rubbed his head. I ignored what they were saying and looked at the IV in my arm and rolled my eyes.

Jayden, look here.
Put down the beer
Even though you've no courage
To keep someone near
Jayden, look up.
I know that you’re stuck,
And you feel there’s no place,
For you to get luck.
Jayden don’t look back.
Keep going down that track,
And don’t you dare come back.
For you have gone too far
For your heart to start to crack.

When I see you walking around with someone else
I wonder if you might actually go somewhere

When we were little, long before nana found me on the side of the road, Kody’s mom made us lunch. Kody brought it to me and smiled. He was kind of like a guardian angel for me. I lost everything, but I still had Kody.
I always had Kody.
He would make me clean up my mess when I visited his house. Kind of like my mom. He even covered my ears when his dad got home.
When his dad came in the room, Kody made sure I was hidden. Either in the closet or under his bed. Either way, he made sure I wasn’t the one beaten. His father took one look around the room and then stumbled over to Kody for a drunken slap. For “being messy,” though really, he wasn’t.
Kody was bruised, trembling, shaken up and ******, but he smiled at me when he opened that closet door or looked under the bed. He smiled.
He yelled at me when I deserved it but always stopped quickly. Long before my father had broken my voice, I wanted to tell him something that made him trust me.
Kody used to get sad when he was mad at me. He cried after shouting. He said he didn’t want me to leave. He said he didn’t want me to be scared of him.
I just placed my hand to his cheek and smiled at him.
“Just breathe.” I said, “It’ll be okay.”

I want to cope,
But I cannot.
I try music,
You know, listening to it??
Singing it?
Writing it?
But my mom says shut up.
I try to sleep,
You know, until the next day?
When I sleep on it and it's better in the morning??
But my mother says I am too lazy.
I try,
But it’s not hard enough.

What would you have to say about the world if you were the last man standing?
No, not the last man standing on the entire planet.
Imagine you had just finished a war and you were the last man standing.
Would you lose your faith in humanity??
Would you recognize that you have just slayed real people??
Who had families??
Would you feel pride that you have defeated the enemy??
Or maybe regret?
Guilt?
Numbness?
Your face is covered in someone else’s blood,
You’re trembling,
You’re processing,
And you’re thinking.
Perhaps thinking so much that you forget how you feel??
What would you have to say about the world if you were the last man standing?

I'm not mad...

Just disappointed.

I’ve been throwing up a lot recently. I threw up in Kody’s lap the other day. He gulped and cringed, then gagged, but he just patted my back and told me to ‘let it all out.’ I threw up a whole bunch more. It felt like an ***** or two was gonna come out.
When I was done, Kody went to go get a change of clothes. I felt real bad.
I ***** about 3 times a day now, but now we keep the weird green baggies next to me at all times. It makes a nasty noise and Kody gags every time he hears it. It’s disgusting, but I can’t stop. I feel constantly dizzy.
My stomach aches and turns, I lose my appetite, I get real dizzy, and then I *****. This horrible and painfully repetitive cycle began just last week, but I’ve already grown used to it.
I feel sick.

Look at her go
She goes so fast
Time to let go
She grows so fast
Look at her run
She runs so fast
Oh, now she's gone
They're gone so fast
The train
The house
The quiet
Mouse
She travelled afar
With a mouse
Snuck on a train
Watch her go
The train's so fast
How the heat
Turned to rain so fast

I forgot the lyrics to the song I loved,
And now I don't even know how it goes.

With eyes the color of magma, he watches.
Those nightmare eyes.
Implanting darkness in the mind with a look.
A single glare.
Always glaring.
Why is he so angry?
All the time…
Just filled with…

Rage.

You try and speak
About your home life
And I go, "Yeah, felt that."

*****
Everything
Is always about me
isn't it

They showed me his body today. In fairytales, I would shut his eyes gently and say how peaceful he looked. But we all know this is not a fairytale.
He looked awful. Bruises were everywhere, his eyes had dark circles under them, he looked blueish and gray… he looked like his last moments were spent in pain.
I just hope Heaven can wipe his memories of all that pain. I wish Heaven could wipe my memories of him, while they’re at it.
Then maybe it wouldn’t hurt so bad.

Midnight by the window
I lie awake
Thinking about the things
I haven’t said
Midnight by the window
She lies awake
The moon
Looking out over the sky
Midnight by the window
The moon is lonely
And so am I
We sit alone
Outcasted by the endless sea of stars
That said we were useless
But we still do everything for them
The stars
The people
The monsters
Praised for their riches
“The stars are so bright!”
“They are very successful!!”
When in reality
It’s almost always fate that brought them to their money
‘Money.’
The variable that determines success
Midnight by the window
I cry with the moon
Her and I
All alone.

We've been
Migratory animals
Leaving under
Changing weather

She said we could spend time together.
A me and her day.
When I asked about it,
she got angry with me.
"I never said that,"
she says.
When I remind her that she did, in fact, say that,
she rubs her head.
"I don't feel good,"
She explains.
The kids at school are wondering why I'm so loud.
Being loud gets me attention,
And I don't have much of that elsewhere.

You're breaking my heart
Oh, don't start
with the
"Oh, but where's the what YOU did wrong chart?"

You're hurting my head
At least that's what I said
When you went
"Momma, I don't wanna go to bed."

I feel so ill
And that water bill
Has gone so far up
The bath is so large to have to fill

I feel so sick
And this feeling will stick
Because the pills and the bills
Are too much of a sick trick

There's too many kids
That drunk teenage kiss
Turned into something...
God, I never wanted this

Denial… No… Confrontation, forgiveness, and moving on.
Moving on.
I’m skipping town. I’ve got nothing left here. I left nana a note. She’ll be okay without us.
I packed a bag. I put Squid and our copy of To **** a Mockingbird in it. I’ve got plenty of money, not that I’ll need it.
I’m probably just gonna follow Shiloh, wherever he is. I won’t need this cash. I’ll leave it next to a note if I write one.
Shiloh is…
Whatever. It doesn’t matter now. I’m leaving.
That should fix everything.
…I hope.

I want to take you in my arms
We met 2 days ago
But you are so sweet
and kind and caring
and I have never known anything
Like that before you
So
Is this okay?
Or does love have its speed limits, too?

Listen
You know I love you
I really do
But you're
How do I say this
You're
Well
You're kind of ****** right now, mate.
I think you need to figure your **** out
Before you go to her

Blue and white balloons were tied lazily to cardboard sign with a scribbled on birthday invitation. Kids are squealing playfully in the backyard, chasing each other around. The sun is giving me a headache, but the water from an earlier competition of throwing water balloons makes the wet fabric of my shirt cling to my back, countering the heat.

It smelled like freshly cut grass, a smell I much adored. It was a near calming smell, one that reminded me of the way the street had smelt after the mornings my neighbor woke up early to trim his lawn.

How I hated that water, the water stuck to my skin. It was cold when the wind brushed over it, but hot when the wind left it alone. Couldn’t I just be warm?

All the rest of the kids were playing outside, playing a game of tag, and I sat alone on the front porch. It wasn’t a pretty view, there wasn’t much to look at other then the houses across the street and blue sky behind them.

Everyone was playing happily… And I was listening to music from my “Sad Hours” playlist. Skipping through the ones that were too upbeat whilst the other children were skipping along the grass, kicking dirt up as they went.

It was my sister’s birthday, and yet I didn’t care.

A man is making his move on me,
This I can clearly understand,
Though, I never learned how to say no.
I said I want to write, and that was the end of it.
I will wait until he goes to sleep.
He touched my stuffed rabbit,
And I couldn’t breathe.
I don’t like it,
But I never learned how to say no.
His tongue is jammed in my mouth,
He smells and tastes awful,
And something so wet should not be so warm.
I am uncomfortable,
But I never learned how to say no.
He says gross things.
“You’re pretty,”
“You’re cute,”
“I love you,”
It makes me wanna puke,
So I say ‘Ew’ and try to move on.
I ignore his ****** comments.
It’s awkward,
It’s uncomfortable,
And it’s stressful,
But I never learned how to say no.

But the bird came back, despite what you say,
Despite your thinking it’s better to go away.
The bird came back, the bird is fine,
It isn’t sore from all that flying,
It was just an adventure, one that was worth the pain,
And what would it be without a little bit of wing-sprain.

I’m in so much pain right now,
God I feel so drained right now,
I do not know my name right now,
I should have been well-trained by now.

My mother loved stories.
She quoted some of her own fictional realities to herself in her hospital bed to avoid the fact she would never see anything outside of the dull walls of the place she’d been stuck in for the past year and a half.
She always smiled when she saw me. “Oh, my beautiful baby boy.” She’d say. “How I’ve missed your company.” And I would always smile and say, “Me too, ma.”
She didn’t say anything more. All she did was watch cartoons on the television, waiting for the nurse to come in with her medication.
When the nurse came in, mother would always call her ‘Lilith.’ She thought she was my little sister. She wasn’t. The nurse just smiled and handed her the pills. She never knew how to break the old woman’s heart. Lilith has been dead for 10 years. Mom had a brain tumor along with Alzheimer’s.
Mother traced the outlines of the city with her finger when it was too quiet for her to handle. She always said the silence was too noisy.
After 10 minutes of noisy silence, she asked for my father. Every time, I had to be the one to tell her he left us. She sighed and said, “No, he wouldn’t do that.” And every time I just looked at my feet, unable to repeat myself.
I used to want to know more about my dad. She would always say the same sentence. Nothing more, nothing less. “He loved music.” She said. And every time I pretended to be amazed. Though, that was always something I’d already heard. And it didn’t tell me much, except we were alike in a single aspect. I sighed when she slept.
Until her last day.
She turned to me and smiled.
“He came from the stars.” She said.
And died.

She is a child of the stars.
Flawless and beautiful, though she doesn’t know it.
With her eyes like the moon,
And hair like the deepest ocean.
Flowing.
Adrift.
She felt as the moon would;
Alone.
Among an endless sea of stars that do not encompass her.
Is she a planet or a star?
What is the moon?
She is the moon.
What else do you want from her?
Do you really need her to be one of the stars?
Is it not enough for her to roam among them peacefully?
No.
No, the moon is not enough.
She must be just like the stars or she is flawed.
Not too noticeable or you’re an attention-seeker, not too quiet or you’re angsty.  
She is a child of the stars.
She is trapped amongst the stars.
She lights up the entire night sky almost entirely by herself, but no.
That’s not enough.
Forget your trophies, forget your beauty, forget your perfections.
Oh, poor moon…
Swimming in the sky, floating amongst traitors. Floating amongst regular.
Trying to escape the current

It's been a while, old friend.
Old razor, the one I put away.
I have been good, I have been okay,
But then I was not, and I needed to see you once again.
It hasn't been great, old friend.
I have cried too many tears,
and now I need a friend to console me.
Oh, how I've missed you.
How I have missed you dancing across my skin...
How I have missed the scarlet beads you summon whenever you prance by,
How I have missed the bumps on my arms and the burn in the shower.
How I have missed this feeling: The feeling that is not numbness, but cannot be described.
No, maybe it can... Relief.
Relief that I can still bleed,
and I am not a robot.
I am not a monster.
I am not evil.
Hey, old friend, am I evil??
Am I selfish?
Am I a good person?

It's only a place
It's only a place
It's only a place
"But it was only a place"

"And you weren't here."

Laying my head on your chest
Has never felt so wrong
yet so right

But I feel much worse
When I'm calling your name
Out of nowhere
When I'm calling to you
And you don't respond
And I grow heavy
And it grows bigger
Feeding off your absence
And I feel
Way
Way
Worse.

Stop trying to live your dreams vicariously through your kids.
I cannot keep up with all these assignments,
I cannot keep up with all these extracurricular activites
I can't keep up
Because you couldn't do it yourself

I asked my mom to teach me how to play piano.

She’s a prodigy, you know. She could play Beethoven better than the man himself.

She said, “I just took my medicine. As soon as it kicks in, I will come down.” She smiled, and I said okay and went downstairs to wait silently.

2 years later, I’m still waiting, I’m still laying down in my bed, because my mother should be down here soon. My room is messy, but I doubt she’ll be around to care. My blankets are warm, and even if she were to come down I would no longer feel like playing the piano. It is such a pretty instrument, and I do not have any pretty notes to play. How am I supposed to learn without a mother to teach me where to put my hands?

For no reason at all, I feel empty and alone. And I called my mom, but she didn’t pick up, and I called my dad, but he is too sick to spend time with me. I grew up around annoyed friends who were bothered by my clingy and annoying personality. For no reason at all, I grew up loud in class. My teachers and peers all roll their eyes, frustrated. It hurts when they call me annoying, but I play it off as a joke. And it’s funny, it is, but I keep forgetting to tell the punchline.

My mother doesn’t reply to the playful text messages I send her when I’m feeling happy, which is okay. That’s okay. Really, it’s fine. I’ll move on, I will. Which is why I know I shouldn’t be crying while I write about feeling confined to a bedroom that I could easily walk out of, and I would if there was a reason to. But there isn’t.

I thought about this today when I wondered how much I see my mother on a day-to-day basis. The answer I came up with once a day, when she walks through the door. She says hello to her boyfriend, Cameron, and she goes to her room. And I don’t see her for the rest of the day. I’ve no one to help me with my homework, so if I don’t understand it I just take the F and move on. My mom will be disappointed in my grades, but she won’t say anything to me. She’ll just glare at me as she passes by. My mom just… doesn’t talk to me.

Which would be fine, if it didn’t cause me to grow up an attention-seeker with attachment and abandonment issues… I lose more friends that way. I don’t have anyone anymore. I scared all my friends off, and it’s not like my mom is around to help me.
I am still so very excited to go to my manipulative father’s house, only because his lies require him to talk to me more. His apologies require him to spend more time with me.
The importance of an adult figure is commonly disregarded, and it is that neglect that has caused me to feel this empty and alone. Because I am constantly left alone with my very talkative mind, and the thoughts always make me question whether or not I am truly loved.

Am I?

Who knows. I’d ask my mom, but…
I doubt she’d reply.

I am in a very deep pit
I feel nothing will save me
You say, "it's okay,
I have a lot of rope"
I try to grab it
And wrap it aruond my neck
And you say,
"Don't,
Just grab on."

The nurse walked in. He smiled at us and then checked his clipboard. He turned to Kody, who was looking at him with an expression I couldn’t read on his face. The nurse gestured for him to follow and Kody got up off the floor. I watched them leave. Kody and the nurse both turned around to smile at me reassuringly.
What were they hiding??

Please come home
You spry little thing

Do not tell me to take a deep breath
You know **** well
I cannot breathe
That is just cruel
That is like telling
A blind man
To look how pretty
Your dress is.

This paper
Holds only sadness
And so
With my spare time
I'm gonna scribble

All over the newspaper.