“Ok” says the shy kid
To a block of text of advice
That won’t ever break the barrier in his head.
He's got those sky blue eyes
And a deep rooted soul
With a wide fake smile
And compassion,
But he doesn't say much,
If he says anything at all,
And he looks like he’s forgotten,
So I asked him,
“Are you okay?”

He just smiled,

And so I asked him,

I asked him,
“Are you okay?”

And he responded with an endless stream
Of messages that were carved in deep
About how he knows he's not good enough
And about the lies he receives
That he believes
Because he's shy,
And I wonder ******* why,
And he explained the abuse he gets at home
From a caring father
Who screams and breaks
Any fortitude within
The shy kids brain,

So I got to school early the next day,
The next day,
The next week,

And he told me
He told me suicide
Was a way to escape
The awful lies, words, name and hate,
And I cried for him to stay;
I cried his name,

But he secluded himself to the point of scarcity
And concerned me until
I had to tell somebody
Because I couldn’t lose the shy kid
Even if I broke his trust.

He told me of a caring father who cared about grades
Instead of headspace, nor thoughts,
Or mental health at all,
Just a punching bag for words
To exhale the stress of his work,
Supplanting all trust and love, in his child,
With desperation cries in hate;
I cried his name.

I cried his name.

“Ok” says the shy kid,
Who doesn’t know what he wants to be
Or what he wants to do with his life,
And so I’d spend every waking moment of the day
Trying to convince him that he was good enough for me
Enough to stay, in this place,
Even though it is really all hell and pain,
And he went quiet,
And then I realized I untracked his train
That headed past the barricade
The one time of day
Where he could get away.

And I asked him, “what’s wrong?”
Already unhinging the train, I thought
I should be there to dull the havoc I caused,
And so I asked him, “what's wrong?”

And he typed,

He typed,

“I’m such a disappointment
A disgrace, an imperfection
Not even wanted,
Just replaced so easily my name
With words outpouring
Digging in through my skin
Parasitic in my veins,”
He said “can you help me?”

“Can you help me?”

I said, “idk”

“Can you help me?”

I said, “idk”

He said “it's fine, I'm fine”

He said he's fine,
But now I’m sure he was thinking
That it was fine
That his friend didn't have time
To hear about how the wind
Was nearly blowing him from the edge
And it wasn’t but a breeze
Blowing light

He said he’s fine,
And now I'm sure he was thinking
That it’s fine living in hell on earth
When wherever you walk is burning
So you can't tell the difference between
Compliments and insults
Because they all feel the same
When all you hear at home
Is taxidermied words
That fake life or meaning
And are just a coping method
For a caring father
To give the shy kid
Instant appraisal out of anger and screaming,
while at school you hear popular girls
Laughing at your reactions to their words,
How can you tell?
How can you tell when the the basis of the day
Is verbal abuse, school, and bad grades?

I wonder if you’re doing okay

Just thinking of the day
I laid in the snow
Wishing myself away

I wonder if you’re doing okay

Just thinking of the day
I laid in the snow
Wishing myself away

And cried his name.

Is a life worth living
If I only live to keep on living
To see another sunrise
But reject the many pleasures
That don't come free
After all, as my shadow grows longer
With the light behind my eyes
Slowly setting
Setting the sky of my mind on fire
With beautiful colors
That signal of my brain's decaying
My body starts to slow and ache
As everyone I know dies off
Because I chose to live for living's sake..

But is it any better
To live for life's pleasures
To trade a rusty *****
For an excavator
And accelerate the digging of my grave
A life that's short but full
Of tastes and experiences
To become a smiling gluttonous corpse
Spending every future sunrise I had
For instant gratification
For the joy
Of never having to tell myself no
Escape the fate of a long burning, dim star
To be a shooting one
Shining bright but only for a moment

Should I fear the sunset
At daybreak?
Should I be numb?
Or should I gild a mask
And live out the rest
As though
Acknowledgement
Of the bell toll slipped
And pretend.

One day
Has through been marked
And life goes on.
No beginning
Can avoid the end
And certainly
Not one such as I,
I’m a piece of the puzzle
A star to blaze
In the night.

The only question on my mind--
Will that blaze carry on
Through the night sky
Careen through
And outshine
Andromeda,
For galaxies
From millions away
To be awe-inspired
And unite if only for a moment,
Or will it be snuffed out
Only to be left
In the memory of few.

Of all the scars
Amassed from misadventures many
Beside the ones I'm proud to have survived
And the ones I've humbly taken a lesson from
There is one scar I can't bear to see
A small scratch of a scar
But it's being so mild that drives me crazy.

This scar was created
By separation from someone
Who I once tried to be one with
Yet it is not the fact they left
That covers my taste buds in bitterness when I recall
But the fact that they only left

It's a small scar
And should've disappeared by now
But I can't keep myself
From reopening it to keep the pain fresh
In hopes that feeling some small pain
Over and over
May someday satisfy my desire to be punished

They left me with this scar
But I left them with many more
The deepest kind that comes from trusting
From believing in me
Before I believed in myself
And I betrayed this trust
This belief

Not once.
Not twice.
I left you with three deep cuts.

In moments of apathy
I lost sight of what you meant to me
I lost sight of everything
And with the will to live resigned
I told myself you deserved better
As if I had any say
A naive ******* and a child.

I hid behind these excuses
Believing I was a victim of my sickness
To deny responsibility
And whether because of exhaustion
Or some small part of you that still believed
I was granted a pardon
You would only leave and nothing more

But now that I've chosen to shoulder the blame I deserve
I'm sick to see this small scar is all I have
For all I've done to you
But maybe the punishment I want now
Is not the one I deserve.
Maybe this is justice
To ever so slowly burn.

Why do I let you steal my sleep,
With tattooed memories of
Your eyes before you kissed me,
Or the way your breathing felt,
When my lips could feel
Your intendedly loud exhales
Against your throat?

You’ve stolen my will to dream.
I just pull at my hair,
And burn my arms
With streaks of red  
From fingernails scratching
Away my skin,
To appease the temptation,
To ignite my masochistic tendencies.

I am scattered as a vase,
Let from fingertips,
Whose will was promised strong,
And fidelity was faked.

I’m nothing but a train
Wailing the horns
With no brakes,
My memories of you are replaced with scorn,
Opposing my heart--
Too stubborn to be convinced
Of your lies.

I’m sputtering, with a loving
Heart that never predicted
This path to take.
I have nothing to say.
You had a lot of firsts in my book,
But never would I have thought
You’d be the first I erased.

Honesty was a trait I once admired
Within you, but now,
I wish your hypocrisy
Was hidden from the light;
The smoking gun you handed me, yourself,
I wish you kept it out of sight.
Why must I be forever scarred
Knowing the one I loved,
Shot me in the heart?

Why does despair hold me tighter,
Than your words or the touch of skin?
Fall witness to your impiety, pray,
And victimize the weight of your sin
And be forgiven.

For the grudge I hold might beg of me,
In my own impiety,
Onto my knees, praying, myself, that you won’t be,
But cursed are we who think,
Any control is given within clasping hands,
And narrow teeth;
Cursed are we,
Who speak
From the backseat,
On revenge’s itinerary.

I woke up breathless and gasping
My heartbeats almost too fast to count
Even my dreams now
Are riddled with anxiety
Like blood dispersing through clear water
The blackness swirls elegantly
Spreading gently to every part of me
To lie in wait
Until the stress comes
And when it does
The inky blackness that settled gently
Into my muscles and bones
Contracts all at once
Locking me in place
Squeezing the air out of my lungs
Accelerating my heart towards burnout
Setting my mind on fire
Until I can't focus to have a single thought
And dissolve into panic

It's days like these
That make me wish I was bored again.

Wringing out a cloth
Of blood tinged indescribable,
Will you accept the loss you’ve gained
Are you scraped within the shadow?

Life is springing from that material
As though the one who lost,
Has made a new
Through the stains
That will never be completely flushed.

Color will be reimposed,
Washed will be the hands riddled with red,
Deep breaths will be regained
After the brutal adrenaline subsides,
But the memory of the sanity lost
From such an impulsive enclosure
Proliferates rancid transcendence
Within your lungs.

Will you be able to live with what you’ve done?
Are you lost to the silence
Ringing in the blood flow
That cannot be unimprinted?
Your hands too cold to feel
Your blood too clotted to boil into an outpour
To let a scream reach inside
To unrestrain your throat.
No way you’ll endure
You’re just a second
From realising taking a life
Isn’t something revenge restores
And the punishment is written in your eyes
I wonder if you’ll keep them closed.