Unlucky 13,
I feel your pain.
Your loneliness.
Those around you are seen as normal.
You do not look very different,
Yet, for some reason, you are marked.
I've followed the same path,
And I've found myself
On the sometimes non-existant,
13th floor.

We're more than tired conciounce tied to broken frames,
More than crying eyes linked to broken hearts,
More than clenched fists wired to ****** flashbacks.
We're a species.
We feel
We  ARE
We experience love, hate, pleasure, pain, jealousy, empathy, greed, guilt and countless other things no beings ever have.
We've spread our reach beyond our world.
We've created monuments that dance with the stars.
Our buildings kiss and rise over the clouds.
We were born from the heavens.
We created both peace and war,
And have each for the other's sake.
We **** each other in droves as new life flourishes within our race.
We are both a balance and an imbalance.
A creator and a destroyer.
We've made mistakes,
But we try to learn from them.
Hello,
My Name Is Human.
Welcome to Earth.
Population: Boundless
We're a strange people...
But we're not so bad really.

If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve to  be around at my best

A fair point,
But you know me.
I've never been good
At drawing my own map.
There's too many
Straight lines.
Besides, my hands shake
Too much.

I've wandered that path,
And I beg you, please,
Go back.
Take the other path down the road.
Be stronger than I ever was.
Don't lock yourself down,
Once done it's almost irreversible.
Don't cause further damage.
Look at me.
I bear scars, bruises, broken bones.
All healed,
But none of them gone.
Needles, knives, razors,
I've even turned a boxcutter on myself.
A fishhook through the finger,
An exposed wire to the skin...
I've done it all.
And I tell you it's not worth it.
I'm going to tell you what no-one ever told me.
It gets better with hard work.
You're important.
You matter to a few people not pushed by pride.
Pain is not a release,
It is a bind.
A crutch.
Don't be like me.
You don't want to end up with shadows as your only friends,
And anger your only salvation.

I've worked for months,
Trying to build something sustainable.
But when I get angry,
I feel an urge to burn down everything,
And start over somewhere else.

I should be sleeping.
The clock reads 0220,
She's snoring softly next to me.
But all I can think about
Is what's happened before.
Instead of what should happen
Next.

Nightshade creeps low,
Leaves raking through the dirt.
Between the daisies and the petunias,
The roses stand tall
Until they are strangled.
Petals dance for a final few moments,
And the tendrils retract.

I'm not sure.
It could be anger or sadness.
All I know is that it rises,
It freezes,
And my chest is packed with ice.
An unbearable burning,
Like a frozen fire.
Fists clench,
Until all anger melts away,
And I'm left with nothing.
Bring the end unto me.

Every night,
I feel I fall deeper
into the dark.
It's a safe place,
A small sanctuary
To be myself.
The shadows pass no judgment,
They understand the ups and downs.
I can do what I need to without guilt.
I can sit and think,
Scrawl hate on a page,
Or punish myself for my misdeeds.
I am but an artist.
And though it may be morbid,
My body is my canvas.

Under hesitant moonlight,
I listen to the thrum of the world.
A silent pulse that seems all to loud.
A world in pain,
That absorbs all felt by her inhabitants.
The wordless screams I've felt inside
Now reverberate between blades of grass,
Echo from the clouds to the ground below,
Carried by jagged bolts of lightning,
Burning and scarring the mother.
Causing her pain.
Pain from ours.
Ours to hers.
Then we die...
And she dies with us.

I must be honest,
I miss the way things were.
It was easy to love,
Almost second nature,
And even pain acted
As a teacher.
I miss herding shadows,
And the ******* the stage.
I regret our story was never finished.
I miss roaming the woods,
Hugging the shadows
With the rest of my pack.
I miss Mr. Mystery,
And how he changed
My self image.
It's been a very interesting
Couple of years.
I didn't always make
The right decisions,
But then, who does?
I'd like to thank you,
Yes, you!
For making these
Memories with me.
And I'd like to ask you,
Yes, you!
How many of these things
Do you remember?
-Mike-

A
Few
Too
Many
Times
Have I
Lost it
Never to find it
Again
Dead
Gone

I inhale nicotine
Exhale amphetamines
And cry carcinogenic tears
But I still can't become
Numb enough not to care

I never claimed to be a prophet
Nor an intellectual.
I simply sought to see things
To interpret them as I could.
The line between poetry
And mediocrity is muddy.
I admit to creating both.
But to know that a single
One of my writings was ever enjoyed
Brings me peace.

I was wrong.
Eventually, a rifle warms up,
After you put a few hundred rounds through it.
People, however,
Grow increasingly colder.
They're much more difficult to operate.
I'd rather hear the percussive beat of a bullet firing
Than I would the angry, unfounded accusations.
The recoil into my shoulder is better
Than the pangs in my chest when I realize she never cared.

Well ****.
Ha, that could be the name of my autobiography.
Anyway...
Once again, people have grown infatuated with the words rolling off my tongue.
They sound pretty...
But do you really understand them?
You see me every so often,
But do you really know me?
I'm sorry.
I don't do it on purpose.
I don't want to sound conceited, but...
It just happens.

War is not the only outcome,
If it pleases you,
We can just as easily find a place to hide.
***** walls too high for the dragons to cross,
And too thick for Death to walk through.
I can patrol the corridors,
Claws clicking on the cold stone floors.
You can stay in the keep.
Live a quiet life of no fighting.
No alliances.
Just us.
Wonderland isn't so bad
If you're living underground.

I wouldn't call it normal.
I drink until I'm numb
Trying to suppress
The same shadows
I used to be so proud of.
A half measure
Not entirely effective
But it's the only thing
I have that helps.
I'd rather find sanctuary
In someone else.
Someone who understands,
Who helps me to feel.
The problem with fire
Is that it will always burn out,
And every song has an ending.
They help for a while
But they always go away.

As a boy,
I frequented the crossroads
Conversing with Paimon.
The Demon king was loath
to be summoned by a child,
But so it had been.
Of many things I learned,
Of gain, loss, love and hate.
But the most useful thing he taught me Was: "To thine own self be true."

The demon king
Had much to tell
Of those that had
Twisted his actions.

They had summoned
And questioned and
Bargained and laughed
But Paimon will always
Get vengeance.

Stay true to these words
To the story they tell
Keep your mischief
Separate from magic.

If you summon Paimon
Unwary to danger
His darkness will
Swallow your soul.

These things he taught me
A young mortal pup
For to me he had
Taken a liking.

So released him I did
Fair winds he bid me
And he continues to
Bring on his mayhem.

At crossroads and crypts
In ****** and theft
The demon still marks
With his hand.

Yet I walk unfearful
To attacks born of evil
For Paimon yet walks
Our land.

I could paint you picture perfect,
Then burn the canvas,
Making the paint run,
Distorting the picture until it seems you're screaming.

Are you kidding me Mike?
You're crying?
This is priceless.
I knew you couldn't do it.
You failed at everything else.
Now you can't even hide what you've hidden for years?
You're feeling regret?
You're feeling remorse?
Wow.
I'm disappointed beyond belief.
But not surprised.
You were always ******* pathetic.
-Mike

I keep thinking,
I can't wait to get my first tattoo.
But then I realized,
It's just a scar,
Covered in ink to make it pretty.
But the difference is,
I think.
The difference is I'm getting it on purpose.
But in reality?
The rest were purposeful.
I wasn't attacked.
They weren't ****** upon me.
Nobody forced the blade to my body.
It was intentional.
I was taking my anger out on myself.
Is it the same?
I wonder.
Am I doing it to express anger?
No, I'm doing it to show who I am.
Exactly.
And these are meant to be visible.
I won't hide them,
Like I did the others.
They're different.
They're...different.
Aren't they?

It feels plausible,
Like I'm living a play,
On the stage across from hers.
Sometimes between shows I sing,
Not very well,
But because it feels right.
And she sings in reply,
And we go back and forth.
More often I play small songs,
More pieces of songs really,
And if she knows them she'll sing as I strum.
We trade paper airplanes,
Secretly holding notes.
Talk quietly across the room,
Over the heads of an unknowing audience.
It feels strange to have a friend so far away.
It shows that there are friendly places in the world,
Though few and far between.

They'll never see us.
The real us.
The broken ones that have nothing to lose.
The 19 year old lost in his sorrows.
The 15 year old who hates her body.
He drowns himself in ***** while she forces her fingers down her throat.
The girls that do what they shouldn't to find love in the wrong places.
The guys that can't hide everything.
The kids that hide razorblades in their dresser drawers.
The suicidal, the lost and forgotten.
The ones that are different.
The boy who clears his conscience using poetry.
We make up the majority yet are powerless to change the way things are.
Nobody wants to help us because then they become associated with us.
Then they become us.