I think
my chest is heaving,
I'm
grieving,
perceiving
a person that I don't
understand.

Where has the time
gone?
I'm growing older and older,
I can't
climb,
now I'm falling.

Still.
My feet are still, but I'm falling.
Screaming out,
calling for a friend.
But, no one's here.
Is this the

end?

When I die
I hope my passing disturbs
the universe so much
that even Atlas's knees quiver

when you are young and naive,
your guardians will sit you down
and give you a speech about
how you can be anything you want to be.
they will look down at you with soft eyes
and say "anything you can dream, you can be"
and, you will believe it
because you are naive.

when you are a little older and a little less naive,
your guardians will sit beside you on the couch
and they'll say with hopeful eyes
"what classes will you pick?"
and they will give you a speech about
how you can be anything you want to be
and you will think for a moment before choosing.
and you will ignore how your guardians look away as you do
because you are naive.

when you are even older and even less naive,
your guardians will bring you out to dinner at your favorite place
and order your favorite food even though it is expensive
and they will look at you with nervous eyes as they ask
"what do you want to do with your life?"
and you will wait for the speech about
how you can be anything you want to be
but, it will never come
and you will stay silent for the rest of the night
because you are not naive.

It's 2 AM and everyone I know is asleep.
And, although there's no sound coming from the apartment,
it's not silent.
Because I'm still awake
and my mind is still racing,
the factory inside producing treats of despair.
They look so tasty,
despite the horror that I know lies in the middle.
But, they're calling to me.
Begging for me to bite into them,
maybe if I do I'll discover something.
Discover me.

It's 2 AM and everyone I know is asleep.

Inside a head that lays on red pillows
are thoughts of chaos.
Old and new, bright and dark.
And when hollow eyes look at
bland ceilings under soft moonlight,
the chaos gets a little neater.

Everything a person can do creates a thought,
a car that runs through a persons mind when they are
trying to sleep, but they can't.
But, with a poet,
a thought isn't a car.
A thought is a wave of water,
it's a dunk tank at a carnival
and everyone has perfect aim.
It's a soft touch on cold skin,
one that feels like a lost lover.

And when a poet writes,
and a thought is used,
it lives forever.

How long did the water clog your throat before you could finally breathe in death?

Reflection.
It’s in everything, everywhere.
in the water you run away to when things get hard,
in the glass shards on the ground every night,
in the spoon you hold while you eat breakfast alone,
in the screen of the phone you use when you have thoughts.
Reflection is everywhere, in everything.
Almost.
Because it’s not in the mirror you stare into,
when it’s 2 am and you’re desperate to know yourself.

I am not Atlas.
I can’t carry the weight the world on my back,
Watching from below as
symphonies become sorrows
And hopes become hopeless.
As hearts stop beating despite the flowing
Of blood through the veins along scarred wrists.
And bones fracture after words stab into
Discarded bodies with lifeless heads.
And maybe Atlas didn’t have this problem.
Maybe Atlas could bend his knees,
Perhaps they were sculpted to shift that way
But, even if I wished upon the brightest star
My knees would not bend at the hands of chaos.

I’m filled with lightning.
It shines bright, flowing through my wrists.
It cracks through with everything I do.
My smile, my laugh.
The way I walk and talk.
It’s electrifying.

That December,
I was a mess.
A pile of broken bones
And discarded hopes.
Skin clammy and lips cracked,
Devoid of anything.
You ignored it,
All of it.
Now, it’s April.
Two years later
And I’m still a mess.
I’m still a pile of broken bones
And discarded hopes.
My skin is still clammy
And my lips are still cracked.
I’ve still devoid of everything.
But mostly?
I’m devoid of you.

Cracked lips hurt the most.
You learned this when you were young.
Naive and overwhelmed by the things you felt.
You didn’t understand them and so you ignored them.
Pretending that your mind didn’t scream at you,
Smacking at the ****** fingers that tried to pry at the closet doors.
Then you met him.
And you remembered that band aids exist.
That alcohol can clean the wounds that cover your skin.
You were so caught up in feeling something,
That you forgot liquor stings when it hits flesh.

Bodies crash into foreign sheets
and lips mold against currents.
Drunken declarations of love,
filled without meaning or thought.
The world fades to black
and slumber takes over.
Hands clutch empty spaces
and lift cold pillow cases
to realize that it was never real.
It was just a night weaved through time,
forgotten one day to never be spoke of.
Lonely people discovering what it's like to feel alive.

Light shines through windows,
painting on comfortable carpets.
Stairs creek after steps passed
and throats clog after whispers caught.
Waves crash against sand,
playing soft symphonies in lonely ears.
While hearts break as glass smashes to floorboards
and bodies fall into pieces.

I knew a boy once,
beautiful and broken.
He made rules out of construction paper
and lived by others ideas.

I knew a boy once,
who saved birds from annoying teenagers
and despised shoes with a burning passion.

I knew a boy once,
who couldn't swim
and floated on water like he was weightless.

I knew a boy once,
who could swim
and seemed as though he was born from the sea.

I knew a boy once,
who met a boy
and they saved each other.

Allow the young to grasp the hands of death,
pull the strings of their brains,
shape them into monsters
and make them endure the worst.

Create tragedy from their touch,
give them guns
and send them to war.
They are hollow,
their heartbreak written in the spilled blood.

You took their hope and exchanged it for hell,
yet still they breathe
and stand tall
as their knees quiver
from the heavy burden of the things they've done.

You walk through fires,
hot as Hades for the ones you hate
and swim through oceans,
cold as ice for the ones you love.
But when you're stuck at a cliff
and the only way back is a broken bridge
who rebuilds it for you?

Fragmented nothings
And sullen crowds,
A life dreamed in color
Under dark storm clouds.
And all the while in wonder,
A fairyland awaits.
Disrupting the hands of time,
To anger the fates

Three months ago,
I saw your face in the rear view mirror
Of a beat pickup truck.
And now,

I can still feel the sting of your cold fingers
As they glide across my heart and grasp at it.

I can still taste the hatred spewing from your
Teeth and flowing into my head.
Telling me i am not enough.

I can still smell the burnt scraps of my soul,
Lying in a pile by your bed.

I still feel like I was paper,
Crumpled and unfixable.

"Life imitates art"

As if the wasteland we call being alive
could become something so beautiful,
full of vision, voice and hope.

As if this hell could write symphonies
about the flames that infect our soil.

As if a pile of bodies
who felt their lives would amount to nothing
could be a masterpiece in a museum.

Life does not imitate art, it opposes it.

I was young.
A child.
Barely able to comprehend simple math.
And you told me that I could be anything.
Anything at all.
To pick who I want to be.
I think you wanted me to pick nothing.

Seconds.
That’s how long it takes
For you to be gone.
To walk away and leave me behind.

But, you said you wouldn’t.
You said you’d never leave me behind.
But, if someone better came along,
I bet you’d leave me behind.
In seconds.

I knew a boy once.
He wasn’t anything special,
Just a boy sitting in the back of a noisy classroom.
Taking up space.
He wore the same T-shirt three days in a row
And he sat by himself at lunch.

Then I thought about myself.
I wasn’t anything special.
Just a boy sitting at the front of a noisy classroom.
Taking up space.
I wore the same sweater three days in a row
And sat by myself at lunch.

Maybe,
We aren’t anything special.
Just people sitting in noisy places.
Taking up space.
Wearing the same clothes three days in a row
And sitting by ourselves.

I'm frozen.
Standing in place,
my feet still on the cold concrete I once called home.
I can see the spinning wheel.
Constantly turning,
but never changing time.
Like a vortex without energy
or a lamp without light.
It's nothing,
just there.
It exists.
But,
do I?

I want to run away.
Not very far,
maybe just down the street.
To the home of books upon dusty shelves and checkout cards,
I could get away from reality and just read.
Read about fairylands and mythical wastelands
where the heroes end up winning and all the monsters die.
There's no fear,
no hatred.
Just happiness
and I'll squint at the paper pages,
trying to read the small print
as the sunlight drips over it like a fresh oil painting on a hot day.
The sky will shine like a kaleidoscope array
of precious pinks and bright blues.
I'll lean against an old tree
and my back with probably ache several  days later,
but the solitude is worth the pain.

I want to run away,
but my wings won't seem to fly.

I yearn for that ability,
to feel human without ease.
No binder grasping at your ribs as your breathe,
no **** being stuffed into your pants.
No having to see if your hips stick out in those jeans
or if your chest looks weird in that shirt,
just being human.
Sometimes I think I never will,
because feeling human is a privilege
and the different don't get them.

Monsters,
they don't have
reflections.
They sense rejection
and think they're not worth
it.
worth love,
so they get rid of.
themselves.
Their personality,
morality turned upside down.
Originality is,
gone.
So think.
No reflection,
no connection.
Are you a monster too?

I remember the time we met.
I was a broken tea cup,
a prince without a crown.
You were a cracked bottle,
a princess without a gown.

But, life isn't a fairy tale.

We caught eyes
and continued on,
a broken boy and a cracked girl.

Maybe we would've fallen in love.
Maybe we would've healed.

Somewhere,
maybe,
we have a happy ending.

A boy sat alone
with books by his side,
in between shelves
and out of the eye.

His thick glasses hung low
and his face wet with tears.
He'd spent all of high school
hidden in fear.

He always looked back
when he walked home from class
and slept with all the lights on.

He locked the door
and hid from his parents.
They yelled and they screamed.
Arguing every day
and always the boy wished
someone would take his life away.

I met a boy today,
similar to me,
with hopeful eyes and yellow teeth.

He looked like death,
smelled like it too.
With skin made of gray
and hair that flew.

A mind made of magic,
graced with such life.
Soul of beauty
and a backstory,
tragic.

He fell in love,
with a girl from the sea.
His heart was a lock
and her's was the key.

He slipped
and he slipped
until he drown,
dead.

The auburn girl burned still in his head.

We met
and I felt
                      a
                               l
                                      i
                       ­                       v
                                        ­               e
You broke me
and now I'm struggling to
                                                        *s
                                               u
           ­                          r
                          v
                i
        v
e

Punch me,
kick me.
Scream at me in color.
A kaleidoscope of reds and blues swirl around my eyes.
Mute the tones.
I won't speak.
Put a filter on it
and pretend you loved me.