All I seem to do anymore is
cry
      and sleep
                     and cry
                                  and think.
The thinking is horrible.

Worse than any salty tear
burning the cuts you left on my cheek
from your razor blade lips.
                                     ◇
All I seem to do anymore is
pass out
            and dream
                               and pass out
                                                    and scream.
The screaming is horrible.

Not because my vocal chords are straining to keep up with my upsurge of emotion
But because it sends a shudder through me  every time the illegible shouts start to sound like your name

I envy those who can eat without conscience
I long for the infamous day when "things will get better"
I strive for an impossibility that I can feel within my reach
I expend the necessary energy to achieve a negative net
My mind rattles with number and limits
Counting the minutes 'til my next meal
Portion control and restrictions
Fighting the urges of binges
They say I'm just skin and bones
But what I see is all I'll know

Eat till you're sick
Just as a big ******* to this *****
This ***** inside my head
Who won't stop until I'm dead
She puts tape over my mouth
And a scale under my feet
Then the worst part is, she'll make you believe without a doubt
That she's doing you a good deed
Like she's doing this for you
But what she really does in fact
Is take your whole life and refuse to give it back
And just when you think you have a reprieve
Like you've actually escaped her spiny clutches
She yell at you that she'll never leave
And about how you've lost your muchness
Then you'll eat a little something
Just to show her who's boss
But then something turns to nothing
And you're obsessed by how much you've lost
This ***** will whisper snide comments at you all throughout the day
Pounding away at your self confidence so all that's left is self-hate
A high residual between who you are and who you ought to be and how the only thing standing in your way is all these ******* calories
She'll make you turn on things you once loved
Till food becomes the enemy and she turns you into something that only she loves
She'll tell you lots of things to get you seeing bones
But what she won't tell you is that her methods are never condoned
What she won't tell you is how she paints on your mirror at night
That way you see what she wants and not what's right
What she won't tell you is that she's just a scared little *****
Who's not even real
No, that ***** won't tell you that it's okay to have a meal

I feel the cool rim at the end of the barrel
It's pressed up against my temple.
One action and it could all be over
I knew something of this nature was inevitable.

My life should be flashing, but only one thought comes to mind
I really wish you hadn't believed me when I said I was fine
It's cruel that you're the last thing that goes through my head
     (Well, second to last, really)
My world is running out of time

I click off the safety - nothing safe about this anyway- isn't that what you always said?
I inhale - I can smell the metal and your fading cologne
I count to three.
One - I'm alone
Two - You promise you'd stay
Three - You left
You forget about colors when your whole world is grey.

The heavens called the ocean to the sky and released bolts of liquid lightning
With the recently renovated target on my heart, it's no surprise one found its way, colliding with my body in a splash of salinity and electric sparks
The collision ignited my every cell, sending everything into overtime
My heart fluttered rapidly, my blinks keeping tempo
Time pasted in a turn of the head, blurring the scenery into a waterlogged painting
The day the heavens called the ocean to the sky, it released liquid toxins.
With the recent renovations, it's no surprise one found its way to the target on my heart with your name scribbled in salty letters across the bullseye

This right here, this exact situation is the reason I keep my hopes down low. Why I practically walk over them, keep them dragging under my heels. I didn't want to end up like this. If you don't expect anything, you are contented with what you knew was inevitably going to happen. You can go about it in an I-told-you-so pessimistic manner.

But when you have even a slight hope of improvement, the reality drags you lower than where your hopes should've been. It's the lesson they give.
Now, things are complicated with too many loose ends. Too many people. People are loose ends. Too many appearances to unwillingly keep up.
Things would be so much simpler if there was no one.  I would spend my days blissfully alone, maybe even get done what I need to.
But now there are bridges that would be burned if I let loose the hermit inside me.
Lousy excuses for bridges, more like strewn pieces of driftwood in a creek, but passage nonetheless.
And however feeble they may be, they're still there, and destruction always leaves an aftertaste.
A smell of ashes in the air clogging your lungs when you come near.
Not to mention the other bridges that whisper about the fallen and create gated barriers of words.
Soon enough you're not in blissful solitude, but rather isolated speculation. You don't go unnoticed, but rather alone under watch.
Well, consider my lesson learned. Never make ties out of hope. Both with be weak and unfashionable. A fallacy at the very least. And you?
You'll end up being water under the bridge.

You know that feeling after you've downed a drink when you find youself breathing a little quicker

That's how it is being with you.

I'm drowning at the bottom of your glass, always gasping, breathless
Struggling for air after another swig of your emotion
But you're still oblivious, clinking your glass under the false pretense of giving Cheers

Is it a coincidence?
I think not.
It's not just one of those serendipitous happenings where both times we meet are budding from me ******* up.

I may be staring intently at something that isn't there
but I believe it's a sign just as much as the one you always ignored at the intersection.

Me ******* up equals me seeing you.

It's not a perfect formula but I'm still working out the kinks
God, you know how I love math
I'm probably just grasping at something and anything that means I can be with you for just one more instant

I know you see what I'm doing here
And I thank you for playing along
Do whatever you will
Just don't correct me when I'm wrong

I'm trying to **** up

It wasn't the fear of failure that sent me plunging into the pool of electric currents, it was act of failing.

I go into everything with a "**** it" attitude, with low expectations so I'm never disappointed,

But when things start spiraling down my immediate thought is to abandon ship.

If there's a chance I'm going to hit rock bottom, I want to get there on my own terms, before anything has a chance to drag me down.

Failed a class? Might as well drop out

Had some ice cream while on a diet? Might as well eat the whole tub

About to get pushed onto thin ice? Might as well start jumping til it cracks

If something is going to go, I need it to either go all wrong or all wrong

Wasted
thoughts
But im perfectly coherent
Perfectly sober
Which makes this all the more difficult.
It's reality hitting me across the face
No mercy. Just pain.
Tears fall and my vision's blurred
Food, food,   numbers
Cut, cut   red
I can't hear my screams they're
Drowned out by the poison mix
I'm alone on the floor
God how I wish I couldn't feel anymore

Now
it's day
The day's ahead
The day's yelling at me to wake up
Social pressures tell me I'm fine
And I relay it back to the people that tell
me they care
They don't give a ****
They all hate you
Look at them laughing
They're laughing at you
Why can't you be normal
Just tell them you're ******* fine
Push them all the **** away
It wont mattet they'll hate you all the
same
You're a failure
Stop being stupid
God look how fat you are
You're a failure
Stop being stupid
God I can't believe you're so fat
Worthless, worthless, worthless
Day's over
Time to drop and break down
Day's over but nights just begun
No sleep, just war
No mercy Just pain
Day after day
Cycles of wasted thoughts in a sober
mind
Why can't I just stay sane

It's too bright and yet there's not enough light
And my eyes are losing the fight to dilate
in the darkness
Pupils never big enough to see
The inconsistent haze that has become my
life

I look at the clock and somehow 3:28 a.m. spells out your name

I had just been through the worst year of my life
A ten month marathon of running, running, running away from the pain that was always biting at my heels
And you were there, but not there, every single day.
Not even on the sidelines
Not even noticing my lack of breath
Oblivious to the one that you're supposed to always be there for
It was the worst year of my life and I went through it all alone
So forgive me if I seem a bit surly, but I'm still trying to catch my breath.

She screams in all lower case
In an indifferent monotonous voice
Like life has drained all that was once good from her
And it all went down the drain in a crimson swirl

Something inside has died
Like her soul's numbered days are up and her heart hasn't got with the program yet
It still strives on in strenuous trudges

Her are lungs caked in blackened purpose from inhaling death 20,000 times a day
And taking a perpetually tired drag on the night  
Her eyes reflect the moon in the daytime as they pierce through the implemented reality.
The true reality is parasitic and will eat away at you and infect your mind
Only those with the eyes of the moon can see through the masking light
Beware of them, for they have lives encased in shadows.

I sit around observing everyone carry on with their single-faceted lives.
How simple would it be to be only one person? Instead, I am left to deal with the repercussions of myselves.

    It's not my fault I'm different with every person, including myselves.

Or maybe it is. Maybe there's something wrong with your brains.

Perhaps, though whatever the reason, I believe we can all agree we are utterly mad
                                                       Agreed.

How funny it is to have someone deny a characteristic of my personality. For all they know, I could be everything they hate covered in a chrome mask reflecting everything they love.
It is of this I think when one expresses a liking toward me.
That affection is vain, they are admiring the qualities of themselves.
No one, not even I can see all my selves at one time. Some come along, new to my surprise
If I were to find a being who values things at more than, for lack of better word, "face value", then I may show them my selves and we would discover our selves together.

How odd would it be to look in a mirror.
     Oh now that is too many faces to look at
   Yes, but perhaps I would discover the gravity of it all - what's holding it together.
                     Enough of your nonsense!
                                Back to work, the lot of ya!

How many times are you going to lie to me?
How many times am I going to believe you?
Every time.
Every time because I need your words to be true

I know I'm setting myself up for disappointment whenever I talk to you.
And yet I find myself at your table every **** day.
Your voice draws me in and keeps me within your grasp.

You are my favorite song.
You are my favorite lie.
You are my favorite "how many times..."

I feel like there should be a great poem spawning from this blatant attack on my heart
With linguistic tips and turns coinciding with my emotion
But that's just it.
There is none.
You have drained every last ounce of feeling from my body
So, naturally, when you made a big and public spectacle of how you desire her
I stood there stone-faced, frozen in stoical silence
The perfect poker face, you'll never catch my bluff
I saw that glance in my direction and smiled in return
That classic fake smile that never meets my dead eyes like a forged signature on an oath that avers everything's all right

Why must everything be masked with metaphors and merciless meanderings?
Is it considered insufferable to say what you want
Stripped of any ambiguity?
To just have it out in the open
Vulnerable and exposed?

It's not difficult, just follow my lead
I  l o v e  y o u
Or on a more negative note
W o u l d  y o u  s o  k i n d l y  g e t  o u t  
o f  m y  l I f e ?
Say what you want!
Exercise your first amendment  
Shout it out to the world!
Make it heard! Make it known!
This is what I have to say now **hear it!

What am I doing?
Reading, stressing, revising
On **** that will in no way further me in life
Why am I doing this to myself
Every day, semester, year?
All the stress, all the tears?
Pushing me past the breaking point and then pushing a little more 'til I'm going going gone

And yet I can't stop.
I can't just say "**** it" and forget about it
It has to be done
I have to be better than everyone
Who cares about mental health when there's a ******* exam tomorrow?
Goddamn,
Please be an
**A

It was kind of like you were injecting me with yourself
Except you keep missing the vein.

The bruises on my arms became the out-played artsy reminder of your actuality
Though you made sure that when the reminder faded and healed you were right there to bring me back into your world of needles and twisted gravity

What makes you think you can leave for weeks
You're standing near but you've never been further away from my desperate grasp

The withdrawal of you is excruciating
Like a recovering alcoholic in a liquor store except there's no automatic door or transparent window to reveal a salvation on the other side.

The only salvation is taking another hit of you
So, that is what I shall do
Until the day I overdose on your *intoxication .

Everything I've ever done up to this point has been futile
Because I'm never going to be the fantasy I've always envisioned
It's all I can do not to take this **** knife and shove it through my veins
How can I be beautiful and happy when I destroy myself everyday
When I can't even get myself up off the floor
I can't
And I refuse to suffer any longer

I gestured toward to miles of despair ahead

And you told me that the lonely road doesn't end here

Well ****. I could have told you that.

I had just turned to walk away, muttering profanities about a pretentious *******

But then you piped in with a soliloquy of your own

You told me that the lonely road doesn't end here.
It keeps on going and going with no particular destination.
But along the way there are pit stops of joy. Times when you may actually feel happy. Like the road wouldn't be too bad as long as you were with that person who's always at the pit stops, fixing you up and making you better

I turned around then, but you weren't there.

Where the **** did you go?
This was an open road we were standing on and now I'm just here alone.

That was when I realized that the only pit stop I needed was you. I'll only ever be happy when I'm with you.

See her / right there
She pulling / her hair
She's stressed / and scared
She screams / they stare
But they / don't care
Her skin / she tears
This pain / she fares
Too much / to bare
She climbs / the stairs
The ledge / she dares
Suspended / in air
Escaping / the lair
Of scars / to spare
Her heart / she shared
They dipped / in despair
She's gone / but now
They say / **"I cared"

I
can't breathe.
Every *inhale sends burning acid to my
lungs
The water drowns me and pulls me down
And I'm falling deeper

The only moments where every breath
doesn't feel like I'm swallowing fire
Are when I sing along to the music that
delivers my soul
I can hear it through the waves, distorted
I scream out the words in a gurgle but for
that moment it's *less like I'm drowning
and more like I'm treading water
I breathe out the words which bubble in
front of my face
I feel lighter and more vulnerable
Any moment someone could turn off the
stereo
Or the Sirens could change their timeless
mythology
And I'd be left to sink once again
Even so, I can't stop singing along for
these songs are my lifesaver giving me a lifeline in a life of waterlogged lungs
And every line, verse, and chorus I'm
rising to break the surface

Hello / goodbye
bent on / goodnight
Can't sleep / just cry
My dreams / I die
Don't live / survive
Im losing / the fight
Demons / unite
Take over / my mind
Can't see / I'm blind.
Get in / and drive
Away / behind
we're out / of time
People / they try
They ask / I lie
They hear / they buy
While I / stand by
And whisper / **"I'm fine"

Dye my hair just to add a little color into my life
Stuff my face just to fill the void
Slice and slash just to make sure I'm real
Paint my face just to hide the imperfections
Starve, starve, and starve again just to fit
the standard of beautiful
Sew in a smile just to appear sane
because it's not like anyone cares
anyway
Cry in the night just to have a release
Just to have an escape, go and get
******
People all around who will swear till the
end that they love and care for you
But when it comes right down to it you
know you're alone

I used to wake up with texts
But now there's no one left
I dream of you but wake up alone
Everyone's gone, out doing their own
thing while I'm still waiting here at home.

Left behind and forgotten until we meet
face to face
Then, suddenly, "I miss you so much,
won't you please stay in touch" it's
suddenly a different case

But I do stay in touch, as per request, but
I'm met with oops I got to go
And the host becomes the guest.
Once again I'm here left alone

I could try to make new friends, meet new
people, but that's easier said than done
I'm still not sure how I made the old ones
They weren't the best but we still had fun

Maybe it's me, I know I project bitterness
And that can get hard to be around
But give me some warning, tell me the
reason, I promise I won't be angry
But that's just it, I'm always angry,
always bitter.
The second I step in, no one is to be found.
In a room of people, in a town of
strangers, I sit and stare at my twiddling
thumbs
I begin to block out my lonesome feelings
until I'm hazily numb.
I think it was for the best in the end,
because my time alone showed me how
to be my own best friend.

I knew what I was last year
I was depressed
I was highly suicidal
I self harmed
But now I'm just...broken
Just hobbling through life with a limp leg
All the cuts of war have dried
And the battle field lay vacant with languor
I've made it to the other side by myself with nothing but my hands while the enemies came loaded with amo and chemical warfare
But now that I'm here, there's no oasis
There's no recovery retreat
There's just emptiness
The other side is just a drop off into oblivion
Maybe I haven't recovered.
Maybe this is just another level in the same Hell.

Honestly,
people have been telling me my whole life about **** I'm going to have to do.
Exercise, eat right, good grades,
hard work.
And you may call it weak or cowardly, (though, I do prefer the term loophole),  but I gave up a long time ago on doing any of it.

I gave up on life, and I've never felt more free.

I remember we used to play Kick the Cactus until we realized...
                
                  *****, this hurts

You told me to descibe myself using metaphors.
I thought about this for a long time.
I am.... what? What am I?
I could go for the classic "plastic bag in the wind" but that even made me gag
I was just about to tell you some faux banality to sate your mind when it hit me

I am a metaphor.

I am a metaphor, never quite literally meaning what I say.

He smokes all those ******* cigarettes.
All of them every ******* day
I don't know what makes him think he can smoke the sadness away
But boy, does he try,
He tries so **** hard.

He tries to blind his demons by fogging his mind
He comes to me high, saying he can't feel a thing
And I say I know what you mean, boy, I know what you mean
But you can't chase away the pain with drugs and a drink
He doesn't always need to be so tough
I wonder if I could make him forget
I wonder if my love could be enough

How can something so broken make me feel so beautiful?
He takes a party mix of pharmacuticals, he's ready to self destruct
Balancing between living and dying I've never seen someone more on the cusp
God, how I wish I could make him happy
I wonder if my love could be enough

But I'm just part of his problem
******* up his emotions even more than they were
It's like setting fire to a train wreck and I'm the instigator
Putting my flames to his propane, maybe a raging fire is the cure

He tells me he needs some space
So I back up a considerable amount and yell if it's enough
But he just whispers back
You'll never be able to fix me
It can't be done
I'm too far gone
Nothing can fix me, not even love

and I finally had my answer

That was my smile.
A little uneven, a lot of perfect.
That was mine. And you gave it to her.
**You really ought to stop giving away my things.

There's shattered glass on the floor still
The spidery cracks running from where my fist collided with my reflections
How long have I been here?
How long have I been wasting away in this tainted wonderland?

Controlled freedoms oppress my mind
Which is banging on the inside on my skull, wild with a fury to escape

I can't be out of my mind when all my problems lie within it.
Social pressures mean nothing when you're at war with yourself.

It's not easy when the thoughts in your head become twisted and tangled like Christmas lights.
No matter how hard you try to keep them straight, year after year, you're stuck fighting.

I gave up God knows when, throwing the thoughts on the ground in defeat
Watching the colored light die out
I'd always preferred the darkness anyway.

But even with the numb, there is still one thought protruding in the abyss
A small flicker in the outlet.
It lives on, thriving in the emptyness.
It ***** you in, limb by limb, 'til you can no longer breathe.

But that's what you wanted in the first place, wasn't it? Not to breathe? Not to be alive?

           I wonder if you can see the suicidal in my eyes.

Nothing is stable
I'm just waiting for everything to collapse around me
Or maybe morph into something unknown because
nothing feels real right now and
I'm not sure I believe in existence anymore

It's probably just an illusion and we've all
been playing into the hands of a higher
power's experiment.
We are the guinea pigs of life and I refuse to be a mere
scientific "what if".

Now everything shatters, I've broken the curse
of the glass house.
Tell big brother he's now an only child and I've killed his flies who just so happened to
fancy perching on my walls.

I've uncovered your veil of secrecy
And I intend to expose your lies.
Goodbye im off to a place composed of
realacy for ground and infinity for skies.
Don't forget the perpetual hope for humans that is found so very seldom here.

Oh, what a place.

We could be a famous romance, you know.
Writing the story together, it would be whatever comes after brilliant.
My metaphor, my metaphor please let down your guard
Write to me in your personal tongue
Scream at me on parchment
Let's be the vintage cliché we've always admired.

God, I love it when you talk poetry to me.

We wouldn't just burn bridges. We'd set the whole godammed world on fire with our writer's love shining in their eyes,
blinding them with the metaphorical questionings of two adolescent souls resonating in their skulls.
But God knows this world has aged us far beyond our literal years.

Write to me, love.

Poem for poem, line for stanza 'cause we both know you can convey a message on a fortune cookie and have it smack harder than I could with a 700 paged memoir of the broken.

Let's carve history with quills writing in our blood.
Our unlived story thrashing in its nonexistence dying to become reality

I passed you in the stairwell today
All I could manage was a cracked-voice
"hey"
It was a quick encounter with the devil
The devil that takes my guts away with a glance
Paranoid looking over the should just for
a chance
I shrink back against the hand rail so I
don't fall
'Cause that's just what don't need, a
plummet to the ground where I'd beg and crawl
To be back on my feet

Which you so gallantly swept me off of
You were my King and I couldn't help but
bend to your will
But now I see the pedestal I just stepped
you off of
But you seem to think you're on it still

On something, I'll give you that
To think you can touch me like that and
you'll magically be back
In my good graces but goodness
gracious are you far from it
Remember the plummet? Remember
your games and how I loved it?
Because
I couldn't say no to competition and oh God
there was so much of it.

I wanted to be the winner but I don't think I ever wanted the prize
Just the thought of being the best and
honorably succumbing to your lies
Beating the other girls you so often
enticed
But it's all in good fun, these games and
your vice....right?

Playing with my emotions like old toys
left forgotten
But you've forgotten the best part
You can't take something that's not there
No, you can't take my heart

I'll lead you on again, say hi again on the
stairs
Make you think you got me right
This way you'll know what it feels like to
be a player
but never win the prize.



*******.

Your scent, once cemented in my memory, has now faded
It comes back occasionally
A fleeting reenactment of the original
Nonetheless, it still soaks me in nostalgia
And I find myself needing to catch my breath
Just like it used to catch whenever you showed up

We're just a bunch of ****** up teenagers

living in a ****** up society

and people wonder why we're all

hitting the self-destruct button

It hurt to smile, her stitches were too tight. Drinking her feelings away, she reaches for a Camel Light.
Scarred beyond recognition, she silently sits in waiting.
An agreement with the devil, alone sitting shaking.
Longing to be gone but the dead cannot die.
They creep in the corners and find a way inside.
Nestled in her chest where her heart used to be,
Lie fragmented dreams of the girl she should be.
Old toys left forgotten, now residing in the back of her mind.
There's nothing left for her so she breaks down and she cries.
Family abandoned, friends never there
She's the girl in grunge pictures with the molten blue hair.
Always a mystery with a rough exterior
Scars like tattoos of feeling inferior.
She's boarded up and let's no one in,
No place to call her own, her home is her skin.
You look at her bold beauty and think
why can't that be me
But she would trade all that and more if
**she could be free

I really wish we were better
I wish we were the scenarios that I never stop creating
Because all this time I kept telling myself we would be so perfect
And yet it's been 10 months and I still can't seem to construct a logical sentence around you.

I really am witty and capable of speaking, trust me
It's just when you enter my vicinity you take all my words and smart-*** remarks away
All I can focus on is how beautiful you are and the fallacy of my ever growing affection for you

So I understand why you don't talk to me and
I don't blame you for wanting someone else

I thought I could get better over time but obviously that isn't the case
I'll just remain worth this strip of duct tape over my face