so, set my soul on fire
and let it be your beacon,
your lighthouse guiding this ship home.
but wait until i've conquered cities,
and stormed every gate,
i'm not done with this world yet.
and my fire hydrant eyes
can't douse every flame on your body,
i'm sorry i can't stop the burning.
i wanna be homeward bound,
i wanna be wrapped in gold,
i wanna be the sky,
and i can only do that when your starlet eyes
stop watching me like fireworks on the fourth of july.

*(a.m.c.)

and when you're bleeding out,
becoming an addict and an insomniac,
the rain is a salve to your brokenness.
it will chill your bones and soothe you,
will become your tonic and your medicine,
it will sing you to sleep when there's no one else.

there's something about a wet road
and a dark sky
that puts you to peace, and takes the graveyard out of you.

there's something about lightning
and thunder that shakes your bones
that takes you out of hell and puts you back on earth.

with menace and terrifying power,
the sky yells at you,
not in the same way a person does,
but its yells and screams put a quiet in your soul,
to where you can whisper back to the sky,
          "it
           is
         well"

*(a.m.c.)

every day i'm a ray of sunshine
a bubble of energy, laughing with the birds
give me a little coffee and i'm dancing
in the clouds

every night i'm sleeping with ghosts
letting screaming symphonies drown my ears
curling my toes until my feet cramp
into twisted knots

*(a.m.c.)

you hurt like ache
and adderall
and arnica

you hurt like bruises
and battle scars
and broken bones

you hurt like cuts
and *******
and countryside

you hurt like death
and destruction
and die-hard

you hurt like electricity
and emergency rooms
and edit-undo

you hurt like *******'s
and fire
and fallen trees

you hurt like garbage cans
and gonorrhea
and gang ****

you hurt like hell
and holes in the road
and heartache

you hurt like israel
and illness
and ignition fumes

you hurt like jaundice
and jugular veins
and jack in the box

you hurt like karma
and kissing
and kerosine lamps

you hurt like lightning
and love
and literary terms

you hurt like mother
and mary
and moses

you hurt like nakedness
and nosebleeds
and nervous breakdowns

you hurt like oil spills
and old yeller
and oral quizzes

you hurt like parkinson's
and parties
and panic

you hurt like queens
and questions
and quantum physics

you hurt like rogaine
and roses
and rope burn

you hurt like solar power
and stomach aches
and ***

you hurt like teeth cleanings
and tar
and tobacco

you hurt like ulcers
and underwear
and unrequited love

you hurt like viruses
and venus fly traps
and vapor rub

you hurt like warning signs
and weight gain
and war

you hurt like x-rays
and x marks the spot
and xoxo

you hurt like your mom
and your dad
and you

you hurt like zig zags
and zero
and zip ties

*(a.m.c.)

people romanticize the pain they haven't felt
i could write about how you pinched
crescent moons into my skin
and how your fists turned my arms into
a canvas of blue and purple and brown;
blood bursting into a waterfall
but there's nothing romantic
about nightmares that make you sweat
there's nothing beautifully tragic
about abuse and mental disorders
the thing is,
pain is a wave that crashes over you
and a box that your elbows can't cram into
pain is flame and my wax skin is melting

*(a.m.c.)

Tell yourself every day that you are competent, you are fierce, you are hard-edged and don't need anyone.

2. Lick your wounds. Heal yourself.

3. Ride the rain, let it soak your bones and cover you in ice until you're sick. Then, burn it off. Turn into fire and stone. Cover yourself in tarps and bury deep into the ground.

4. Skate and skate and skate. Let the concrete scrape your knees, let it break you on the outside but strengthen you on the inside.

5. Walk like you're Angelina Jolie. Walk with purpose. Never run to catch up to anyone, they'll wait on you. (reminder: you don't need anyone)

6. Turn into a dragon. Breathe fire.

today as i watched a movie about c.s. lewis
and his wife was dying
a thought raced across my mind,
death is weird

we live a certain number of years
in solid masses of skin and muscle
with something called a soul.
we feel more than animals,
some worship a God who created,
we love and we hate other people,
who are the exact same as us.

and then one day,
a different day
and a different way
for everyone,
we just
stop

today as i heard the news
that a four-month-old named zoe
died suddenly
a thought raced across my mind,
death is weird

*(a.m.c.)