I swallowed 36 pills today and just laid down ready to die.
You told me my sadness was beautiful... Like a flower drowning in the rain.

I laughed... Because all 36 pills were evenly counted out for the things that made me feel this way.

1. For the headaches, the nightmares and the lack of sleep.
2 for the memories of you kissing me.
3 for the heartache, the way I watched you walk off with her under your arm.
4 for the screaming, the fighting over my weight each day.
5 for the way my family just never understood the way I didn't wanna talk about my feelings.
6. For the long nights I cried myself to sleep for being so ugly no one would want me.
7. For the days I didn't think I would survive at work with a mental breakdown.
8. And last but not least, for the way I could never make myself stop worrying about everything. The way I couldn't figure out my future. The way i couldn't stop hating my entire existence.

36 pills hand counted and evenly distributed down the back of my throat.

Do you still think sadness is beautiful?

I woke up with a splitting headache,
I may drink too much but my parents dont need to know that.
I had to forget that wretched evening and it was my only way out.
My reflection was a dissapointment,
as always.
There were no letters with my adress and no messages with my name.
I was starting to act like my father,
it was unavoidable, I know.
But a part of me had no desire in a broken future,
I had cut a sliver of daydreams,
child's play.
But this was reality I was facing.
It wasn't facing,
more like nodding in agreement.
I had no fight left in me.
Nothing to lose.  
Nothing to gain.

Im now falling asleep at my desk,
adjusting for a new day ahead.
We're all adjusting, but no one is actually comfortable.
My arms are spotted with bruises
as the bottle settles my dreary mind.
I dont know how long I can perform this act.
Re-runs aren't appreciated anyway.
So why dont you take me off the air.
Or perhaps,
just shatter me into pieces
on the blood stained
kitchen floor.

I must choose
Between my father's happiness
                     and mine.
Knowing all is in good cause
But lifting a finger to say
Just cause I've been raised
By this man,
In this house,
On this bridge,
For connections of heart,
I have to
Am expected to
Make the same decision?

They make sponges of young
Take advantage
And force them to believe
Make them go to church
Of the same religion
that befalls
of their parents.
etc.

But I am a free heart
destined to make my
own choice
My mother saved me
from this prison,
This brainwashing
So I will defend my right.
I see the looks of
dissapointment.
But in my mother's eyes
there is triumph.

Then I fall back to:

"You are my last chance
of not being a failure
as a father."

Poetry has become my self harm,
I only write at my lows...
Instead of blood I see words,
Instead of a blade I have a keyboard...

I want to write about...
The wind dancing with the sea...
Or...
The way you smile and it lights up your innocent face...

I don't want poetry to be my self harm,
Because poetry is beautiful...
An art...
Not.
Just.
Blood.
And.
Scars.

I.
because I've never loved myself but I'm starting to, with you

II.
because I've never known who I really am and I hated that, hated myself,
there was always a pause, always something held back or misspoken, insufficiently explained
because I was never safe and I was never fully understood, and there was always something lost in translation

III.
but I've always hated that person, who hid his stutter, who spoke slowly so as not to let slip mistakes from his words and thoughts, never mention the things he really cares about because then,

IV.
well he would probably talk to fast and he would probably stutter he'd probably speak so fast and with so much excitement that he'd forget to apologize until he'd remembered no one cared, no one wanted to hear, and he'd slow down and regret so much, hate himself so much for bringing this upon himself

V.
except with you,
I talk about everything, and everything I care about,
and I'm not afraid of talking fast,
or tripping over words,
because I know you won't leave me if I fall, because you've done it so many times
because you just laugh and pick me up again and again and hold my hand and
you laugh like its funny
like its not ridiculous
like you can't even imagine wanting me to stop every time I trip
like you just want me to keep going and you'll help and
I love the person I am when I'm holding your hand

Railway sleeper
For a bed
With hollowed
Back buttocks
Heel and head:-

We like to think
Life precedes death

Why?

Does sleep precede
Awakening

Dream the real

Reality the ideal?

Before existence,
Prior
Existence a blow,
And afterthought
Of universal flow:-

Freight train coming

Lift torso from
Timber chamber
And move

Move on

Move
Sleep over
Exists first light

Then dawn

The teacher wrote a question on the board
large enough to see but,
still hard to follow,
in black expo:

If each color had a taste, what would sad taste like?
And the girl with crosses up and down her arm
mentioned once,
'blue tasted like flat soda pop,
cold and a bit too sweet'

The boy with the hair running smoothly over his eyes
pronounced sixty four ways to say 'azure'
and each time,
he tasted the iron of the
hammer that his father had split his collarbones apart

and I cried for each story,
because the color 'blue'  always
tasted like brandy, heartbreak and broken nails