The gears in my mind that used to wind and turn so fast, are slowing. The ideas that never become words, die off. The tick-tick-ticking of pestering thoughts give up. And urge me to give up as well.
Why can't I process this train of endless emotions that long to
become stories? There once was a place in my mind that filled and
toppled over with wonderful ideas. But that place is now empty,
full of cobwebs and dust. Lost, buried deep inside me.
  How can I find it again? That place I'd go when the world shut me
  out and I just needed to express how I felt.
   I miss the days I'd feel lonely, and escape to the world of wonder
   I'd get lost in. The words, the powerful language... And I'd create
   something spectacular.
    But that gift was taken from me, ripped from my heart leaving an
    empty feeling in my chest.
     My power of writing unique ideas is gone.
      How do I get it back? Can I?
      I'm too weak. I can't search for those ideas. I'll never find them
      again.
      I let those brilliant thoughts slip from my grasp. They drifted
      away, soon to wither to dust.
     I am incapable of writing. Incapable of thinking. Incapable of
     loving what I write.
     So I may be unable to find those old words, but I can create new
     ones. It'll take effort, it'll take time. It'll take practice.
    But I am willing, to get my thoughts whirling again. To take an
    emotion, put it into words, and form those words into something
    beautiful. I'll sort my language for only the best, the most poetic.
   My feelings in the writing will swirl up from the pages and enter
   your mind and make you think, Wow... Who wrote this?
  But I am incapable of such a gift... I always have been.
So I'll drown in the dread I've made for myself. I'll swallow the
water of hopelessness as I sink deeper and deeper and deeper... I'm
incapable.
But at least I could make a poem out of it.

Is this how I die?
Walking mindlessly, with fury pulsing in my veins, clouding every instinct, every flicker of logic or reason.
Only the sounds of my footsteps, the cracking of sticks beneath my feet.
Voices from every direction, and when I try to follow them, they go away.
I try to walk in a single direction, but every side of me looks the same—grass, trees, mountains, sky.
And somehow I've walked in a perfect circle, even more lost than before.
Getting deeper and deeper into the unknown, thinking only of the reason that brought me out here in the first place.
And soon, the reason has escaped my mind altogether.
And I am left feeling empty, confused, raw.
My heart pounding in my chest as I look around, completely lost and alone.
All because I let my horrible emotions take the reigns, walking me right into a trap.
A trap at my own hands, all my fault.
Tell me again, is this how I die?

Marks on my skin hold your bruises that ache when I stroke them, they ache of your hands which once touched me, your lips which once kissed me, the feeling I still remember yet have tried to forget. Your words and now empty promises echo in my mind, empty now but ever so full that night.

Acknowledging jealousy
Only validates insecurity
But why pretend
To be content

They told me to pick up the knife
That with it I’d be able to break the chains keeping me to the ground
And cut the rope holding my throat to the ceiling
So I wrapped my fingers around the cold metal
Only to feel a sharp sting as hot fire poured from my palm onto the concrete floor
But I didn’t let go
Even though I had grabbed hold
Ever so tightly
Of the wrong end

They told me to pick up the knife
That with it I’d be able to cut the rope holding my throat to the ceiling
And break the chains keeping me to the ground
So I wrapped my fingers around the cold metal
Adrenaline as hot as fire pulsing in my veins
I didn’t let go
And I didn’t free myself
Instead I brought the silver blade to my heart
Carving the words I wanted to be engrained in me forever

If I lie to myself,
Perhaps everyone else will believe it
Too

Lines on the corners of my mouth
From how much you made me smile today
Will they fade?

Lines at the edges of my lips
Will you kiss them one day?
Or will they fade?

Lines on the corners of my mouth
I trace my fingers over them in the mirror
I want them to stay

Lines at the edges of my lips
Lines like valleys, my tears like the rain
I want you to stay

Lines on the corners of my mouth
From how much we laughed today
I have you, you're right here
And you have me, I'm yours

But the lines at the edges of my lips
They fade, like you always do
And I'll wait, like I always do

My eyes wait for the morning
To see you
So I can smile, so I can laugh

But my heart waits for the impossible
For you to love me
For you to miss me
For you to miss the lines on the corners of your mouth
Like I miss mine

Every lull of life,
I find myself alone
in the quiet moments
When rain patters on the window,
streaming down the patterned glass
pounding on the roof above
Im now so very small
The in-betweens of nothingness
there’s no one else but me
I learn to be my own best friend,
lonely in good company
Myself was once my enemy
but how hurtful that became
I used to loath the quiet moments,
when my thoughts had space to speak
Now I learn to listen
I might have something good to say to me

Saying the same words
Louder
Won't make me listen

To love someone is to give them your all, I think. But most everyone doesn't see it like that, their love isn't real love.
How can you give someone else every piece of you without chipping yourself away?
How can you place boundaries in something as limitless as love?
How can you hold yourself back when you have so much more to give?
My love is real love. It is pure and it is everything to me but means nothing to anyone else.
My love is unhealthy, they tell me.
Too much, not enough.
I take it too far, they tell me.
Too big a heart, not small enough.
They tell me to love myself first before I give my love to someone else because it is special and deserves to be taken care of.
But a love so special, so all-consuming, deserves to go to the person who means the most to me, why would I waste it on myself?
I tear myself apart to rebuild the ones I love, and they would never do the same for me. Because their love is not real love.

is a concept
that I've been trying to constrain
into rigid lines
trying to explain
and define
like trying to collect water with your hands
it falls right through the cracks
or like trying to redirect
a forest fire

I wanted love to be
B L A C K and W H I T E
I wanted to make it make sense
like trying to make concrete
from a substance that would never set

"LOVE" I've dissected the word all my life
turning it over and over in my mind
it was a feeling I could hold, that would never fill my heart
it was a blanket I could fold, that would never wrap me in its warmth

"LOVE"
      the yearning itself
          ate me up
              from the inside out

I wanted someone
I wanted anyone
But when I met you I wanted it to be you

Well-spoken, well-written
Talented, gifted
Driven and willing
Broken but healing
Confident, capable
Ambitious and able
Beautiful, striking
Uniquely enticing
Mind full of brilliance
Strong and resilient
Kind and persistent
Bright and ebullient
Selfless, joyful
Trusting and loyal

A masterpiece the world adores
For she is everything I'm not and more

I suppose humans are rather complicated
Blurs of unkept promises
Broken dreams
Shattered motivation

Mistake upon mistake upon mistake
Turmoil
Distress
Insanity

How to cope in a world where nobody validates raw emotions
Or perhaps it’s only me who feels this way

I suppose life is rather complicated
Simply practice for the permanent emptiness of death

It’s strange
That even surrounded by the
Laughs and smiles of everyone you love
You can still feel terribly
Sad
And numb
For no apparent reason

Memories I’ve rejected
Leave holes nothing else could fill
Laughter echoing
While I shut myself away
Preferring to be alone
Little moments slip from my grasp
I used to cling as they fell from my hands
Now I let the water run
I watch the train go by
without chasing
I still feel left behind, I think I always will
But I don’t want to climb a mountain
or jump in a raging river
I don’t want to go numb for the thrill
Yet there’s still a strange numbness
from being alone.
Sinking in the silence,
I can let it consume me
Silence is more comforting lately
than the memories I’ve rejected

How can I possibly expect someone to love me when I can’t even tolerate myself.
How can I hope to be somebody, anybody, when I’m nothing but a blink amidst the infinite abyss of existence.
Even on my own planet my life won’t be much to remember.
An enemy to myself, a stranger to the world.
Isn’t it unnerving to realize that if I slipped away, the planet wouldn’t know any different.
The ground wouldn’t miss my steps and the sky wouldn’t grieve my gaze and the atmosphere wouldn’t mourn my breaths.
Just another body that doesn’t stay, only fades and eventually decays.
This is why legacy is so important, I suppose.
The only way a soul can truly live on.
Even if earth would go on just the same, even if history wouldn’t notice me gone.

An evening full of bliss
Dreams and infatuation blooming
Laughter and confidence radiating
Such an evening only results in a morning full of sorrow
As you mourn the loss of feeling alive
A feeling which only sparks but once every season

Blue when my life was one color
when the lines were blurred
Blue was the comfort, the sky, and the ocean
Vast and inviting, inspiring
Blue was every possibility on clear days with no clouds
Blue when my dreams were one color

Purple was more unique than I'd ever be
but it swallowed me up for years
Purple for the friends I made and the friends I lost
for the memories and the summer nights
Purple was every season, I thought it would be my forever
Shaped my growing up
Through every twist and turn
Purple was as safe as it was depressing
A childhood wound turned into a toxicity I couldn't abandon

Yellow was who I always hated but always tried to become
And when it came up like the sun
It was golden hour and then it was gone
Yellow was smiles and laughs and a spark back into my life
After the darkness, after the heartache, after the war
Yellow introduced me into a world with a purpose
I had never seen it like this
Crashing just as it began

Green when I can finally see
when I breathe for the very first time
when the walls of ignorance crumble around me
Green when I can escape in my mind
to a forest with evergreens and moss crawling up the trunks
Green when I learned to look myself in my own eyes
when I didn't see a monster anymore
when I could watch the tears settle like fog in a field
Green was the hug I was waiting for
the relief that I can trust my two hands to carry my own life

My hand trembles with the weight of the quill pressed between my fingers,
Each stroke an ever so remarkable miracle.
For my strength falls weak as I strive to write even more.
Though the ink has long since dried up, and all I am left with are scratches on a blank page.
Perhaps the fault does not lie within the weary pen itself,
But instead with the unstable hand that holds it.