free
/frē/

adjective

1. when this house stops feeling like a brick covered coffin and your words stop clawing at your throat as you are riddled with epiphanies that blister your tongue and make your throat burn because of the awful truth in them. when you can learn how to make the planets move and break the shackles of the glow in the dark stars that don’t even resemble constellations

2. how it feels to have a vine curl around your finger as you lay in a garden of orange carnations and know you have time for it to grow around you. You don’t have to listen for your father’s pickup truck or wait for your mother’s calloused hands and cheap perfume smile

3. the broken glass of your bedroom window as your hand bleeds copper bright enough to attract the neon birds that will take you home. you say that you will always be afraid but your bruised knuckles show that you are willing to be brave despite that fear. God was afraid to make the cosmos too.

you know in early spring
when leopard frogs coat the road
their carcasses making it slick

i wonder if they know that they are going to die
when the rubber tire of their demise comes barreling forward
do they even try to jump away?

i think they do
because i once saw one leap out of death's embrace
when i bike almost squashed it flat

so that means
that they try and survive
their legs strain but they can't move

they're just too cold

i find it an odd analogy for love

read a love story without a happy ending
2. drown yourself in her lavender perfume until you hate the scent
3. play her favorite song on repeat enough times that you change the station when it comes on the radio
4. learn the stars you once danced under and realize that some were dead
5. understand only you can walk away
6. scroll through your camera roll and delete the photos of her you didn't take
7. then delete those too
8. fight against every instinct
9. don't look back
10. say 'i love you' for the last time
11. then say 'i hate you' for the first
12. realize both are true

reasons to let her go:
1.) holding on with break you both until you are nothing but dust on the wind of youth
2.) you can't help her piece herself back together. you are all battered knuckles and cigarettes, answering wrongdoings with screams and blood. you will never have what it takes to make her whole
3.) this love is wrong. keeping is alive will only fuel the fire of her destruction
4.) if you were to jump she might catch you, but then you will have to watch her tumble too
5.) she isn't good. she isn't delicate daisy petals and spun sugar. she is tear stained and nightmare filled. two sinners never made a saint
6.) she can't save you. you can't save her. you will just have to watch the other crumble
7.) you cant build her up. you are proficient in destruction not healing
8.) she has hurt you. left you again and again. answers is cryptic statement and ducks questions
9.) we are children. this will never last. why die chasing a pipe dream?
10.) loving is a foreign concept for your chipped hearts. your warpaint and scars could never be hold the other like they deserve
reasons to hold on:
1.) she thaws your jagged ice and despite yourself you love her. love her despite her sins and you've been told that good things are worth it

There was once a child who believed that heaven would save him
That God would reach out with shining hands and place him in his lap like his own son
That he would love him unconditionally and eternally
Blissfully unaware that heaven has raised him for sacrifice
Cultivated his pain until he was the perfect martyr
Only to become cared about when he's six feet under

There was once a child who believed that heaven could talk to them
That they could hear the whispers of angels in the oak trees and the will of worlds in flower petals
They spoke of sweet kindness and golden gates
Led along with the world to believe in glory and God
Sculpted into a prophet of lies
Only to learn after death the seemingly merciful had deceived them all

There was once a child who believed that heaven owed her
That it had to answer for the target it painted on her back and the weight it had shoved onto her shoulders
They said it was a necessary evil and she was their only hope
She never believed it for a moment
But she still allowed herself to be the messiah for the unworthy
Only if she had ever been qualified for sainthood in the first place

There was once a child who believed that heaven abandoned them
That it had shunned and shoved them away until they was forever an outcast
They left them isolated and alone, latching onto paper promises and prayers
They had burned their crosses and rosary beads
Already the pariah he wanted to leave someone else for once
Only there had never had been a heaven to leave

There was once a child who believed that heaven crashed with the citadels
Holiness shattering like the stained glass windows
They had never listened to heaven
They had seen heaven's plan for them and had opted out
Branded a sinner and a cheat
Only if they didn't already know that hell suited their bloodied knuckles and cigarettes more than heaven ever did

My hands are scarred from knife blades
Knuckles bloodied and bruised
Cigarette smoke clogs my lungs
Indifference coats my heart and I stare at the carnage I've created and smile
Because I met evil when I was only a child
I found it residing in my twisted soul and loved it more than I ever loved you

They say that if you want to know what a person is the most afraid of loosing, watch what they photograph

Half of my camera roll is of you

I wrapped my heart in pain-infused steel
To protect from the words you try to impale me with
'Just shed a tear, maybe then I'll stop'
Why would you want to make your child cry?
'To make you show emotion'
My silence is my emotion
If I move to defend you will just cut me down
With burning anger that is unmatched by even the devil himself
'You don't even care.'
But I do
I just learned not to flinch when faced with a predator

Your greatest enemy is hope
It makes you believe that maybe
Just maybe
You stand a chance
Because the person you thought you were over
Is back
And you are stuck hoping
That maybe
Just maybe
That the person that made you loose faith in love
Might just make you believe in it again

I always thought it would be you
We would sit on the sofa wrapped in each other's arms as we watched the ball drop
I would feel you lips on mine like the fireworks they always were
Welcoming in a new year
But here I am
Alone once more
Watching movies and writing poems about someone I no longer love
For not the first time in my life I wish soulmates existed
Maybe then I would have been spared
Maybe I would still believe in love
Maybe I would instead be filled with wishes instead of bitterness
Maybe I would still want a New Years Kiss

He loves me

He loves me not

He loves me
                                 
He loves me not

He loves me

He loves me not

He loves me.


   He left.

You scream THEM
You shout it from the rooftops
Bellowing until you throat cracks
But they hear SHE
'She' they say with sweet smiles
You continue your shouts
Begging them to understand
THEM you wail
Your voice breaks as you sink to the ground
They lay a comforting hand on your shoulder
Then whisper in your ear with breath like a poisonous flower
'She'

Tattered ribbons
Dented bells
Crushed light bulbs
A blood-stained star
All of that would be better than this
Sitting docile as your FAMILY slanders your name
Pointing out every flaw
Swearing at who you are and your beliefs
Then laughing it off as if it was a joke
But then again
These people haven't been your family for quite a while

Have you ever thought about how inconsequential we are
Less than single grains of sand in the hourglass of time
If any of us were to die the stars would still shine and the Earth would still spin
Anyone who says we matter because we impact the people around us are the biggest liars of all
Even everyone you've ever know still equal nothing in the grand scheme of things
Afterall...
We are just shapes

When you look into her star-filled eyes
And realize you love her
Your heart will stop
Because now you know your going to loose her
This was not supposed to happen
Because now you are cursed with the knowledge that you cannot save her
... ever

Golden laurel wreaths and golden wings
Crows that pecked at his eyes and legs
He had stopped fighting them off long ago
They were as integral part of him as the the tattoos on his spine that often nipped at his vertebrae

Koi fish with constellations glowing on their backs and lotuses growing out of eyes
Burning feathers steaming as they hit the waves
He had often watched the angel's fall
Many drowned when they sunk into the sea Wings of precious metals dragging them down into its depths

Bushes made of butterflies and trees held in the palms of scarred hands
Glowing leaves the only source of light in the dark world
He craved the brilliance of the sun
It's mighty beauty as it scorched the earth and dried the sea
Purging it of its demons

Glasses filled with moonbeams and dresses crafted from stars
Diadems of melted bones and cremated hearts
He watched from above them all
Burning the wings of butterflies and smoking cigarettes made from their ashes
Sweet smelling smoke drifting high into the void

We stood at the edge of everything
We needed to hold onto anything
But we found we couldn't even hold onto ourselves

They say that we are made of stardust
That when we look skyward we see our brothers and sisters from another time
That we were once placed in the sky by some long faded God beside those bodies of diamonds and destructive light
They say that the light we see is years old
Those brothers and sisters from another life may have collapsed years ago and we wouldn't know
New brothers and sisters would be born from their stardust
We would never know what star they were created from
We would never know what star had blinked out of existence for them to be crowned
We wouldn't even notice it was even missing from the cosmos
For there are too many stars to count
His brothers and sisters still strung in the sky would weep at his passing
They would look down on us and expect to find us grief-stricken
Instead they find us ignorant
Not bothering to notice the slightly dimmer sky
Most of us wouldn't be aware of the tiny miracle made of stardust that had just been brought into the word because of an ancient beings sacrifice
Long ago the stars looked down on us benevolently
Now they look at us with scorn
We have never appreciated their sacrifice
I doubt we ever will
At least not until the light from the final star blinks out of existence
Leaving only the yawning void for us to stare at during the night
But that endless ebony would've existed much longer than we knew
Because that star would've been dead for years.