I left my soul in ink on paper and I’ve
been writing ever since trying to get it back
When it left me I became hollow
I only feel complete when I’m burning
my mind in black
In words
In feelings
In worlds beyond imagination
But when that book ends,
When that final word leaves my finger tips
When the ink runs out
I lose my soul all over again
I left it in ink on paper
and I’ve been trying ever since to get it back

  --Is that why writers are always lonely?

i have turned to thunder
a response to your lightening gaze
i refuse to be silenced

I think
There is a morbid beauty in the way we rust
Water and oxygen and minerals
Color out of steel
Weakness out of strength
The things which give us life
Slowly breaking us apart

     --She is always smiling
          But teaches me nothing

I stitched for years
Pricking my fingertips until they bled
A slow steady bead of red rising to the surface
Reminding me I'm human time again
But still I stitched
Thread into thread
Feather into feather
These wings supposed to make me fly
Taking much longer than I estimated
How large they needed to be to support me
To carry me into a place where I could break apart the universe and understand it better
But when that time came to jump I couldn't
The fear of falling so much more terrifying than the prospect of rising
And I guess if Icarus can walk then so can I

Not so much rare as spontaneous
a tightness of the chest
a heating of the face
a trickle from my eye
      I have never done well with criticism

but it demands my attention,
however ignored it may be
cold shoulders throw a lot of heat when aimed correctly

listening to silence can be disturbingly loud
you may call me a sensitive soul,
but it's been a while since I've felt so outcasted
    I retreat into myself

inside, I can scream and I can cry
throw a tantrum like the child you make me out to be
sometimes,
I can feel it leak

there's a dam that's been carefully crafted
years of maintenance tirelessly scheduled
--day in--day out--
but recently it's been cracking;
maintenance lacking with the feeling of safety

I think I need to patch it
because of you

She loved me I knew, but that was difference
between us.
I was totally and completely in love with her.
I had fallen into an oblivion of skewed rationality in
her midst,
and she would never cease to catch my breath in
my throat,
or fill my lungs with her radiated serenity.
I fell deep into a pool of which she
would only see the lilies of the surface,
but it would never ripple for her.
And so, I had to let her go.
If there ever was a poisoned reason in this life,
it would be falling madly in love.
And I would rather breathe that poison
every second of every day of every year
just to see her floating in ecstasy with someone
else
than to be wading wrongly in love with me.
She would never love me as I her.
She would never lose balance in my kiss,
or become drunk off my scent like I did hers.
She would never stand in a hurricane
just for a chance to hear my voice calling in the wind,
And she would never fall into a tragic romance with me.
She loved me, I knew,
But that’s where the power of words come in.
She loved me, but I was in love with her.

    --An attempt to write romance:
       from my high school years

I could breathe again in your arms
my ear directly over the mocking of your heart beat
it's fake
        it's fake
               it's fake
yet I stayed

--hindsight says I should have trusted my intinct

My tap shoes spoke words louder and
with more confidence than my voice ever
could

  --They still do.

If loving him was a cool shower,
falling for you is a warm scented bath.

---For so long I was stuck in that stagnant place between freezing and boiling

I take my fingers and lodge them into the skin barrier above my heart --
Tearing the skin and breaking the bones: a gateway to the kingdom of love.
And as I remove the king from its throne, fluttering and warm, I inspect him for damage;
Scars and healing;
A sign of progress and growth.
This is a ruler who has fought and braved the front lines, walked steadfast into battle and came out the other side.
Sometimes he was victorious, other times taking more damage than his enemies, a truce the only resolution to the fight--
But he is still beating and strong and guiding and ruling
And with his beats mimicking war drums, I am urged to march forward
steady.

Sometimes you meet someone and later realize how much you should have remained strangers
But your paths have crossed and now you can never be the same
Tell me you feel the same
I'm begging

I'm sorry too
I'm sorry I'm a toxic depressing person who gives others her bad vibes
I'm sorry I didnt see how much you were hurting in these two years
I'm sorry everyone thinks I changed you
I'm sorry if I did
I'm sorry if I ever pressured you into anthing
I'm sorry that I haven't always been easy to talk to
anxiety often plays well with me and those around me
I'm sorry
I'm so sorry
But I can promise you this
I will never be sorry for loving you
For giving you my virginity
For trusting you with my secrets
For spending two years of my life with you
For our sleepless nights naked in bed just talking
For the songs I sang you to sleep with in the first few months
For the stupid road trips that always ended in rain
I will never be sorry for loving you

A part of me longs to be alone
A part of me fears to be sitting in my suffering
Clawing my hands through dirt
Nails ***** and filled with grime
I'm trying to reach the clay
I think if I dig far enough
Past all the heavily packed imperfections
I can break it up and move it enough to find the one thing that I can form and hold to my will
I can change myself into what I truly want to be
I'll spin the wheel and make something beautiful
When you use it please think of me

I'm no longer asked what I want to be when I grow up
That question has changed into what I wanted to be as if my young 21 year old self is out of time, is out of drive, is out of dreams because I work retail
Three time college dropout doesnt show much promise for dreams
Three time college dropout can't handle the pressure of school
If you just had a degree you'd be further in life
A lie my parents pounded into my head
My neighborhood white, and judging, and privileged,
And I'm not disregarding that or am denying my privilege, but it made me feel like I was supposed to be more than what I am
Never living up to the expectations of suburbia
Parents not understanding how someone who had so many opportunities could destroy them all and work retail
I destroyed them all but not by choice
It was a decision made a gunpoint, hands leaving fingerprints slowly bruising my throat, air choked out my answer with tears in my eyes that I would fail in yours
I had asked for help
But my privilege should have been all the help I needed
The opportunities and material items subsidizing serotonin
How could anyone with all this be depressed?
A counselor once asked me where I saw my future and I told her I didnt think I'd have one.
What's the point in planning for a future where that spot on the timeline was already ripped off the page
Life ending too soon
Too abruptly to allow for any success
My success is being here today, alive, and breathing, medicated for some feeling other than emptiness and my parents come and visit my bare apartment with judging eyes
I call them more often than not to ask for some help---pay for a doctor's appointment here, cover some rent there, my car insurance is coming up and I dont even know what agent we use and can you cover it because I'm still trying to get on my feet
Recently my body started to deteriorate
My right side joints failing with some unknown illness I had to walk with braces and a cane
I couldn't go to the doctor because I dont have insurance
But I'm not sure if what I'm seeking at this point is medical or emotional


I'm scared to talk to you because I work retail

Boxes are piling up around me
Memories packed away from happier times
A part if me finding this purge therapeutic
A part of me finding it painful

It's raining right now
A tepid song against the window
Reminding me that first you must rain
First you must drown
To understand the love of air
Or the sun

And this rain
Will cause me to root
Will cause me to grow
Will cause me to bloom

When she tells me that it's bad
I want to laugh in her face
she calls me pessimistic, stubborn
I call it realism.
I can change all I want
I can choke down all the pills
I can write in journals until my fingers cramp and the edges of my palm and pinky are stained with black with ink
it doesn't change the fact that when I leave I will go home to an empty apartment
one that I pay for but can't truly call "mine"
one that encases me in the safety of its walls and tempts me with the subductiveness of my bed
it doesn't change the fact that I am nothing, will go down in history as nothing,
and will be remembered as another case file on her desk and a prescription for medications given out like candy

--I'll still be me when I leave I'm struggling with that

I know it looks like I'm okay
but I only advertise the parts of me to the world I want others to see
you don't see me in my desperation
in my sweat riddled bed I can barely lay on--
so much is taken up by depression my body doesn't fit
I haven't showered in two weeks
there are dishes in my bath tub soaking
they've been there for weeks
I tell myself I'm going to clean them
so I can clean myself
instead I'm in my bed riddled with crumbs and empty wine bottles
ashes have painted the pink sheets black
I'm self medicating and it isn't helping
but it's the only thing I can bring myself to do
I'm not okay
I don't know how to tell you that
or how to make you understand

Can we go back to a time when I didnt know you?
When I didnt have these feelings everytime I looked at you?
When I couldnt read you with a glance?
Back to when I didnt realize how important you would be?
I want to meet you again
I want to talk about the trivial things--like what your favorite color is or what you wanted to be when you grew up
I want to relearn your little habits and ticks
Relearn all the things that set you off
Like how you have to chew your food the same number of times on each side of your mouth
Or how you pick at your ******* on your left hand when you feel uncomfortable
I want to go back to when I met you
When I didnt know that you were the other half of my soul
When I didnt know how fragile and beautiful you are
When I didn't see that you had been broken so many times before
But you dont need to worry anymore
My mom worked with fine China so I will treat you like porcelain I swear.
Let's go back
Let's watch the stars again
And stay up talking for hours again
And rediscover each other
Let's fall in love for the first time again
I promise this time it will be easier
I promise this time I wont take you for granted
I promise this time I will treasure every moment
Let's go back, okay?

   --Time traveling?

Like some terrifying ****
Stealing my voice
Gluing me in place
Driving a knife in my chest
I know the words she spat like a book
I had read a hundred times over,
Yet it always seems like the words
rolling off her tongue are fresh ink on the page.
Oh how I wish I could stop them

    --When I look in the mirror

After vitals have been taken
Before I really wake up with
Cloudiness still fogging my brain, I remember
Depression brought me here; the light
Eases its way through the closed blinds
Fully sealed windows
Galvanized metal toilets
Handrails not fully formed
In case anyone gets any ideas; ideation
Jumps to action quicker than you'd believe
Knowledge of this fact binds us--
Little me would not be proud--
My mind is swimming
No one is really listening
Once I'd like someone to understand
Progress is pointless without a destination
Quiet, winding roads still call to me
Reaching scenery I've never
Seen before and may never see again
This is freedom
Under open skies
Venturing further than I thought myself able
Wading through still waters
Xylophone tones from the nature all around
Zoned out, free, finally calm and content and
     alone

I'm biting my tounge as tears run down my face
Iron and salt meeting in a macabre
I always surrounded myself with grey
I didnt mean to press that color onto you
Maybe I shouldn't have wasted my time or my poetry on you but
I will still bite my tounge bleeding evermore before I apologize for loving you

I am crying through the dishes
and I'm struggling so hard to get through them
you do not see my war
you percieve laziness
procrastination
this---
I tell you
-----is not laziness
this-----
I tell you
-----is sitting on my bathroom floor at 3am exhausted but unable to go to sleep until I do the dishes
this is not showering for two weeks because the place I go to get clean is murky with filth I can't bring myself to touch
this is disgust at myself and my brain for letting it get this bad again
this is crying while I scrubb with a deep anxious pressure on my chest---

doing the dishes makes me feel like I'm being held at gunpoint
the anxiety so real and heavy and demanding

I put it off
and I sit
and I wait
while it grows
and practices
and sculpts
and perfects
and becomes more menacing by the minute
and I cower

this is not as simple as doing the dishes
not as simple as getting it done
not as simple as just pushing through it
this is                   wrong

doing the dishes is wrong in a way I cannot describe
and I feel nothing but absolute fear and terror and shame

and shame

They told me stay true to myself
never change
and I'm nodding along
like i'm paying attention
hoping they won't see how much I already have

Ink to paper:
a simple thing to most,
but I struggle with more than that most days
I sit in a constant battle of wills
both of which are my own
conflicting and demanding my attention
I do not feed it
still I watch it grow--
ever encompassing, abundant
I try to move, but I still sit
stuck to the fabric of my bed sheets
my flesh becoming one with the fibers until I am truly trapped
in this battle of wills,
I do my best not to become complacent as complacency always leads to depression
and while we have been much more than strong acquaintances,
neither friend nor enemy quite seem to fit

It's difficult to describe the emotions tandem with its presence--
upsetting to say the least--
but anger and fear come close

Still, I try to leave the tangle of my bed sheets,
fibers pulling at my skin,
ink willing my hand to write, my mind to steady, and my feet to move.

Its heavy
Claustrophobic
A dry drowning
Each breath labouring and deliberate
And time moves slower
The metronome of my heartbeat just a little off
When I'm asked to explain I am choked by imaginary hands
There's a ghost over my shoulder clasping his hand over my mouth
Whispering in my ear that speaking wont help
So I keep quiet
More scared of your rejection than the possibility that I will be met with some understanding
But I'm telling you now it's heavy
And claustrophobic,
A dry drowning, each breath labouring and deliberate
And time moves slower, so much so that even the metronome of my heartbeat is just a little off.

She sought refuge in the inhales of a panic attack
Rapid breaths as loud as the waves of a roaring ocean
She could hear promises in the threats they made
Loud, fierce
Rapid and strong
Reassurances that she was allowed to live

I'm sitting in a waiting room
TV on for distraction
and it still hasn't hit me fully yet that I am here
in the waiting room
my next step
the passage way to a better tomorrow
and I know it's only been a few minutes
hours have yet to pass
and although I've never been here
the waiting seems intimately familiar

---I haven't been in this room before
the waiting is the same

There are 3 cigatette butts on my patio
Relics of talking and tears and hard decisions I wish we didnt have to make
I said --and I meant it, still do-- that I would support you as a friend
I want there to be more
You say you need to do this alone so that we can be more
I know realistically holding out for hope that you will come back to me is probably foolish
Taking a break is never just taking a break
And it hurts because I love you and I know you love me too
We talked last night about marriage and our future together
Of the life we would and wanted to build
In your exhales of nicotine we agreed
But when you left leaving only your butts on my porch as a reminder you were there
You and I disagreed on what to do

---I can't bring myself to throw them away because it's like an admission of throwing us away too.

It's a prison-- but it isn't
--although I imagine the toilets are the same and probably shares many features
here I use paper spoons
here I use pens that are just an ink reservoir here I'm supposed to get better

I'm here to get better
my concept of the term loose and evolving "better" is never achievable
only not as bad
I am trying to be honest
this is my best

I gasped my way through the drought
Course, dusty particles abusing my lungs
Gulping down whatever little water was given--no matter how stale.

I was digging my hands through the cracked ground for so long---
Searching for a well, a spring, even clay I could use to build shelter from the scorching heat--
Head down;
I didnt notice the storm clouds brewing overhead
I mistook their darkness for the routine calm of night

The flood is here now and I thought I would have been more ready
Instead I had been ****** dry for so long that I had forgotten how to swim

I think it says a lot that I was relieved we weren't allowed visitors
I struggle with the idea of you caring when in the past you've done little to understand
I'm here for me
I know somehow you'll make it about you
I can make it about you all the same

How you'll never be satisfied with me
much less proud
this time spent will be marked in your memory in embarrassment or anger
you never like to show me off anyways
why else would your favorite picture of me be in black and grey?

We can watch the stars play off the water
Until we're certain enough to know that we can't tell the difference between the surface and the night sky
A nostalgia tangled grip of your hand in mine
The only truth I can hold on to
I still have trouble telling apart my left and my right,
But I can always find my way back to you


--You smiled and I felt it in the beat of your heart