I'm old now
though they say I'm not
I only notice when my
back isn't sore
as it is here
reaching for the last
shelf of the final bookstore
the only still standing
woolly mammoth
and it's poetry, the writing worth no money
so no one bought,
silly ideas of love married fraught
all other ideas fall between the lines
of valentine hearts and blood clots

I wished
I could look into your mesmerizing eyes
and see your bright warm smile in person
instead of interpreting it in a text message.
To hear the words uttered from your soft lips, unfiltered.
And not as a digital voice through my phone that I'm trying to listen to with my headphones to intensify the sound.
To feel your presence, to touch your body with my own hands
Instead of plainly touching you with my words.
To smell your perfume on you
Instead of keeping a bottle with the liquid in my closet.
I wished my senses were attuned to you in distance...

Dragging my knuckles* on the sidewalk
      I find myself hoping for a *spark
     that would confirm my mechanical makeup
        Titanium and servos buried mere inches beneath faux flesh
        Scraping concrete

         *Friction, it would seem,
           is the only force powerful enough to reveal me to myself

history is an old cassette tape
                     being rewound
and repeating
        we need a new tape...

You say I'm running from myself
I guess you're right
Maybe I am
All I know is that the reason
I hear my heartbeat so clearly
Is because my chest is hollow

I am made up of layers
Too many layers
As if my skin
Was preparing to survive
Out in dead winter at the South Pole

I'm annoying
  I'm distrustful

    I'm stubborn
       And I'm doubtful

           And secretive

Maybe downright manipulative

   But most of all I'm exhausted

Exhausted of the nothingness
   That I float around in
Exhausted of everything
  That comes and goes
    Ensuring chaos
Exhausted of everything and nothing
  And all things in between
         Exhausted of
                     **living

Lately I've been homesick
For the girl I used to be
Im in the same place with the same people
But the loneliness lays in me
I'm a hopeless romantic who's found love
Yet my heart has been ripped from my sleeve
Deep down, all the things I used to cherish have been shoved
The crazy, tea-drinking, book-reading girl is who I grieve
I'm a mere skeleton of the free spirit I was
I've been chasing a warm cozy feeling but it was never retrieved
For the home I've been feeling for is inside of me
My life may be onto better things but still I reminisce
For the girl who would so simply find bliss
My problems have been solved
So why does it hurt?
Maybe it's time
I put my heart back out onto my shirt