angel,
it occurred to me last night,
I've never wanted to live

so much as I do
when I think of a life with you

Something bad happened,
I was down for a few hours.
With the weeks and months
and life I've had,
I'm in awe; I didn't disintegrate in guilt.
You're constantly cleansing my mind.
Picking me up, nudging my chin to the sky. I don't think you know how easily you ameliorate my uneasiness.
After all this time, babe, I've learned to save myself. I can't let you be my everything, I can't let you be the sun.
But **** if you don't light up my world.

I have lived too much life
And it is not my fault I was born with love bleeding into my chest
I have a thousand things to apologize for, but I have always given full disclosure
Printed warning signs on my hands
Before I ever touched you
I'll tell anyone endlessly how I can't promise much anymore
I really am to blame for saying things I should not have, that's something I've mostly grown out of, I hold my thoughts behind my tongue for months and years sometimes until I am sure... But I can't change the words I gave you in a younger time
I can't wish hard enough I'd left you alone
And it's all for nothing while you bleed
You look at me, see what you need to see
I just wish you knew that I KNOW, and it makes me twist in ****** thorns understanding both sides.
I'm sorry.

baby
baby
I wanna make your stomach flip
but I have never been deserved by anyone
I have always been too good
too kind
too much too soon
too ready to be loved
the way
I always should have been

do you understand that i have loved you above all else in this world? at times, i have placed you all too high over my own head.
there are songs i swear you wrote for me
there was blood
there were tears and ***** shot glasses
there will be nights i have to go without you
when i still need you
need is an overused word.

might be the most honest thing i have ever said when i come to admit
i have never tried this hard for anything

I don't agree or like how it isn't normal or common or nice to say that I don't know if I'm supposed to be with you.
you make me feel so empty sometimes. like when I think of you saying her name or telling me those stories that send my heart to the bottom of my torso
how am I supposed to know if this is how it's supposed to be? sure, baby, you make me so happy. you make me ache with want. is that how it's supposed to be?
you know and I've said
love has never been worth it for me
and God it's never made sense
this doesn't make sense.
you make me feel like I'm running on empty, babe
you make me feel drained and sorry and restless and forever seventeen
you make me jealous and angry and you make me feel just as notgoodenough as the rest of em, love
why can't I just say this to you? it's not like it isn't any of your business. this could be a feeling that keeps my ring off your finger.

baby
baby
I wanna make your stomach flip
but I have never been deserved by anyone
I have always been too good
too kind
too much too soon
too ready to be loved
the way
I always should have been





I wish you would have been the first

wait
wait
i can't keep trying to skate
right over the ice of a heart never healed
scars poorly sealed
this sickness is unreal
and
the pain i feel?
surreal
slow down
slow down
as i drag you along at the speed of sound
i'll pick you up and pretend it was you
whose body smashed into the ground
but, please, take me around
show me your town
do you know what's happening right now?
of course i don't, i won't
i still am what i swear i am not
i will still love you when my body rots
a line on my leg is a tear on your face
when i am myself, i can't hurt you that way
it's still flying past me
a million miles
a millisecond
burning
aching
yearning
waiting

Quietly accepting.
We could let this drift away,
but I don't think you would.
Your poker face has even you fooled, love.
But over and over I'll put my cards on the table and I'll try not to stand up on my chair to tell you all about my heart and the things I know.

I was sure you were gone and sure you were the one.

i start by telling her i am convinced there are almost no moments that matter,
like really profoundly matter,
and i am subliminally convinced of this, especially when i am alone.
but then i swear to her, there i was all alone in a basement staring a small, blurry two dimensional copy of you,
and when i look at your smile in the photo, mine grows bigger
and i let out this soft, unintentional laugh,
at the exact moment i feel tears rolling down my face, and my body seems to know before my heart does, and my heart knows before my mind does.  
and i knew then.
i knew then that i was wrong, that i was not stuck in a series of inutile moments that in grand design, meant nothing at all. if all the other moments i thought a waste led me here, i valued them.
this moment was a brick wall and a cleansing rain. it was the absolute moment i knew i would spend my life happily earning your trust, your time, your heart.
i tell her this with relief on my breath because the hurricane in my head named after you has settled, and i am more than ready to start building back up.

What if I don't make it to where I'm supposed to be before I have a chance to change it all?

broken again.
it comes and goes, right?
or what do you call the spaces between
where i've mastered how to human
throughout the day,
the times when I can say hello and goodbye
and laugh at unfunny jokes
and do what's expected
and take my medicine,
would i call it unbroken so long as i am not sobbing in a ball on the floor?
it hits when it hits.
and sometimes it's one thing at a time.
sometimes i am struck with the notion
that his heart breaks in his chest every day and that it is my fault
and sometimes i only recall the times he was kicking me in the stomach
and then it's both
or maybe it's the life we lost or all three
or a completely different loss of a different person or a different fallout
or a different pain that i caused
a different wound i am responsible for
or a different time when my heart was ripped from my chest
occasionally i get slammed with memories from a time when i should have been protected, sometimes i remember things that can't possibly be in my range of memory

sometimes it's more and sometimes it's less, sometimes it's a combination, sometimes it is none of the above. it is never gradual. it hits, it hurts. like concrete and broken glass. i can't control it, but i am broken again.

you should have stayed
you should have stayed

           i'm over that now

and here i am, screaming inside,
screaming in your heart
"i couldn't hate you and loving you
might be destroying me
LOVE ME
LOVE ME
god please,
love me"

here i am, on my knees,
watching a clock with broken ******* hands,
with my broken hands
trying to make it work

Years pushing the darkness back into the shape of a shadow
even when she was slicing my back open to get back into me.
Years of lies after years of embracing unspeakable happenings. How could I have known it was okay not to be okay? I missed my chance to fall apart and heal properly. Then all I wanted was to forget his hands taking my breath and my voice and my love
and his cruelty taking... Everything else I had ever wanted.
And I wanted to forget the way I had let myself fall into an ocean of her love only to drown in it and beg for more to fill my lungs.
So I forced it all out of my mind because, Lord, I have finally faced it: as soon as my mind finds a way out, I take it. I take it and I run with it. I run wild trying to heal my barely beating heart and I hide, pathetic and alone in corners of the world that no one would think to look for me. I do not linger in pain and wait. I take what I can like a ******* thief in the night and hastily sew my heart together and calm my mind and lungs until I can carry on.
It worked for years. And years.
I... thank you for a moment of peace to think while you shelter me from the world of pain and reality of love and loss.
My eternally unsettled mind will continue and my heart will as always, try to keep beating.

I misjudge my own feelings. I change my mind constantly. I have to make the wrong choice five times before I make the right one and understand why it’s right. Sometimes, quite often, these faults --no--habits will confuse you. I’ll tell you I need to be left alone ten minutes before I need you more than I have ever needed you before. I will be most energetic when I feel I will soon collapse into a sea of sadness. I will infuriate and disappoint you while I make countless, hasty, bad decisions as I try to alleviate the symptoms of life. I will say it once but not more: I am sorry for these things about me, only because they will sometimes negatively impact you. I am me. I am worth it.

Leave me out with the waste
This is not what I do
It's the wrong kind of place
To be cheating on you
It's the wrong time
She's pulling me through
It's a small crime
And I've got no excuse

did i ever tell you how
i fell in love with the moon?
yeah,
she lit up my dark world with her infinite beauty,
so i spent my life following her.
i wore myself down running after her.
sometimes i felt she was drawing closer,
but then she was distant as ever,
so maybe i was just going mad.
sometimes i felt i was giving up all i had.
but the moon was all i ever wanted.
so i stripped myself of the earthly things weighing me down.
i knew i had to learn to fly.
and to learn, i had to fall, so i fell.
but there's no way in hell
i'm giving up my chance at heaven.

There's nothing I can do
There's nothing I can do
There's nothing I can do
There's nothing I can do

I'd give anything to give this heart a rest.
If this were easy, maybe it wouldn't be worth it. But god, is this worth it? I'm cutting myself open, I'm letting my heart tear itself apart, I'm causing hurt and harm. This is something I cannot handle.

I don't want to talk about you moving on
I don't want to discuss your future
I don't want to hear about you cutting off the dead weight to fly free and happy while I fall to ground and break the concrete.

We'll speak these words like sadness doesn't drip from every one of them.
We'll put on this act like everything is just fine while our hearts hurt in our chests.
We're going to hold on to what is available even though it's like gripping razor blades while we dangle over a black hole.
If we let go,  we're going to fall into the abyss, so we might as well stay with our bleeding hands.
And we will not mention the every-so-often feelings that will wash over us with yearning and impossible want, because what's the point in saying it out loud? It only kills me a little each time when I swallow the truth. What a small price to pay.

You said "you need to be stronger"
So I pulled my armor on
Can't keep this up much longer
And it was my fault when you were gone
Because I wanted you too much
And I needed you, too bad
And I always said I'm sorry
But you took advantage of that
There you are months after,
You're joking that I could never win a fight
With you and it broke my heart
That you were right.
Cause I wanted you happy
I couldn't stand to see you lose
I wanted you more than everything
So I stayed, for you to use.
You were hurting and I couldn't see
That maybe there was some way
You weren't right for me.
But how could that be?
I wanted you desperately.
So you left and you took my heart
And it was never harder to be apart
I was longing for you in tears on my bed
You didn't care how many I shed
You drove home in silence
And I tried to stop crying
And I spent the next months
Trying and trying and trying
But it wasn't enough,
You called your own bluff
Said you couldn't do this
But couldn't you have figured that out
Before you found my lips to kiss?
Anyway
I found a way to survive
Fake it til you make right?
Just smile and you'll be okay in a while
Doesn't matter if you're falling apart
That's the best lesson you gave me,
Along with how to break a heart

You light my darkness.
You explode into nothing.
I really miss you.

You're right there.

Tell me everything I've said that still haunts you. Tell me what you wish I'd say. Tell me all the things you think are too unimportant to bother saying. I promise I'll be interested. I'll always want to hear.
Tell me where your mind goes when I mention I'm unhappy. Tell me what would make you happy.
Tell me what you went through while you were missing from my life. Tell me about that really dark time when you didn't know if you'd make it.
Tell me about the happy times when you knew you'd be okay.
Tell me anything.
I want you to know,
I want to know
everything.

Don't do it
Don't do it
Don't
Do
It

never believed in much
just people
and lord knows they let you down
but maybe you, gripping your holy pages, will find peace tonight
maybe you'll get to sleep.
maybe you don't have to feel like you're going crazy, losing something you never had. maybe.
but me? oh,  for heaven's sake, i am getting by.
i am losing my grip and getting lost in worry and wonder
but i am just fine.

I'm too tired to consider this good work
My message is simple and then I'll drift off

-I will not feel bad
-I do not deserve to feel bad
-we all make choices, I can live with mine
-it is not my fault, it is exactly the opposite
-I am doing the best I can
-I will be okay

i envy the ghosts
who get to spend all their time where they want, with whom they want
i envy their transparency
that would allow me to watch over you
eradicating facades, destroying pretenses
i'm really getting quite jealous of the ghosts, how they are able to drift silently around you, gazing at you, watching you laugh, cry and live.
but i know now that i am a ghost
and sadly i have my limits

i just know i made you feel so alive

time will build us up and tear you down
love with fill us with hope and **** the life right out of you
and i just stood there, unaware and naive,
crying in my driveway
i'd give anything to believe in it all as much as i did then.
i trusted that everything would work out.
it's nothing compared to what could be, but it was everything.
some lessons should have never been learned. some may have ruined us. some made us strong by turning bones to stone, skin to ice.
beautiful melody,
my lyrics fit you perfectly.
but for a heart so cold, a mind so numb,
perhaps silence is the remedy.

hard, unfair, hopeless
silence.

she would come to you falling apart at the seams. she would confess all her midnight tragedies and she would beg you for answers that she knew she would not find in you. she would cry and scream, it was not fair. you, scared to your core, glimpsed what a soul could go through and you told her it would be okay. you had no way of knowing that. you lied so as to keep her from slipping away into her deep sorrow and late vulnerability. and mere hours later, the sun would rise, and you would never be invited that deep into her mind ever again. you would never again feel her soul. she knew to look somewhere else for answers next time. she knew you did not understand.

all you had to do was
look and
see
what was right in ******* front of you

i won't ask for help unless i'm certain i can make it on my own
because if i'm not going to, no help will help

i don't talk about my real feelings
i'd rather to pretend to have the ones i should
so why should anyone trust me?
i'm a liar
i'm a good person, but am i? i say i don't judge
but of course i do; this world is too ******
i'm ****** up from the get go
before my real life started, i was destroyed and just when
i was supposed to find freedom
i had to find survival first
i'll never say what i want; i don't think i deserve it
i will not ask for anyone to understand
i always think i've done something wrong
that's a feeling i am used to

i'm supposed to be most dangerous because i know i can survive?
how about -- i'm your weakest link because i am deathly afraid to go back to where i've been?
i'm supposed to know i have the strength
i'm supposed to use what i've been through to my advantage
how about -- you could knock me out with a good plan and a nice final leaving line?
how about -- you could hit me in the face and i would feel, deeply, that i deserved it?
what if i told you i feel that i am the most vulnerable soul walking the earth, and i can barely stand to type it because, well... who is going to use it against me?
they tried to crush me when they thought i was strong.
they did.

My head is heavy
My hands are weak
Guilt on my throat
I can never really speak

My neck can't hold up my thoughts
Jesus Christ, you're all I've got

Never would have let this happen
Too much on the line to lose
But maybe it's better than the other way
Maybe I really needed you

The truth of the darkness is
I carry broken hearts with me
Scars and stars and all kinds of
Bittersweet

But I'll use razor trails as notebook lines
And write a story on my skin
I'm brave and scathed
And I swear I'd do it all again

I ran wild, I didn't hide my emotions, I screamed them and threw them everywhere. If I wanted to do something, I sprinted towards it. I sang my songs so loud and made mix cds and playlists that were so bomb I still have them and listen to them and find comfort in them. I said the words I wanted to say, I fell in love with my own slang and quotes from books and movies and I swore I'd get them tattooed on me. I painted for hours and I sketched the monsters out of my mind. It's funny that I hated me then. They told me I was crazy, I was reckless, I made no sense and I would someday settle down.

I did. I still have urges to paint and I still listen to music like it saved my life, 'cause it did. But I can't get upset and drive off in my ****** car and return 6 days later and tell people they were overreacting for worrying. I'd lose my job and I'd feel bad for making them worry. I guess I'm a grown up now.

The point is, go crazy while you can. I'm not done with my crazy, not by a long shot. I'm leaning on the street sign "20s" and I can't see the end of the road, it's just a horizon of drunken nights and learning experiences and trips all over the country and love so hot you wanna pass out.

"don't let them tell you what to do, how to feel"
No. They are going to tell you, and you can't stop them. It is okay to pretend to listen while you fully know you're gonna do things your own **** way. It's also okay to scream at them to mind their business. It's okay to scream and run and follow your crazy heart, you may never feel it so full of passion again.

whispering words of wisdom, let it be.
let it go, free your hands from your mangled heart, let it heal. in all kindness to yourself, don't go back. you held your breath, even if it hurts to breath again,
it's time to breathe again. lying on the floor in a mess of hungover emotions, so strong you tremble at the mercy of your thoughts. at any moment it could all hit you, you would fall apart in front of all these people you have carefully, manipulatively fed lies of okay-ness. what if it crumbles you? stand back up, because I swear to god if there was one universal truth that I could convince everyone of, it would be, "there is no shame in the truth of emotion." so why am I holding all my feelings and truths like ***** weights? if I believed for myself the things I believe for others, if I just allowed myself to feel the way I accept others do, would I be so messed up? boxed up? maybe if it were for these words, I would explode.
maybe if I went back, changed how I withheld, changed how I gave up, maybe

Oh god

maybe...

There is a recurring guilt instilled in me. I know that it will not ever go away. It will quiet itself with "the past is gone now, nothing can be undone" "you did what you had to" or "don't cry, everyone is mostly okay now"

But then I'm crying myself to sleep with 7 shots as a bedtime story, and I'm listening to all the songs that make my heart hurt and my head numb with nostalgia.

And then I'm doing what I have to do throughout the day - I'm keeping it in and I'm holding on and I'm telling myself it's really gotten better since I last fell apart and I answer my questions with forgetting

Then I'm back in bed. And I'm so close to drifting away from it all but my face is cold and wet because it's winter again and I'm still sad

And then, oh God, I am back four summers ago and I'm wearing my favorite jeans and too many bracelets and I am RUNNING from you. I watch myself leave and I recall every word I put in the goodbye letter and then, I imagine how it destroyed you.. because I ******* promised I would stay

And Jesus Christ I wake up and I know what has happened since and I know that I hurt you when I didn't have to

The ******* guilt is eating me alive again.

I've got a few tethers, each one is stretched. I'm trying so hard to do right.
I've never followed rules, even my own.
It may have been easier alone.
Resistance to give, that's all it is.
But couldn't we just run away from it all and live free,
walk tall and just be?
This is getting a little ******* me..

Every day brings me farther away from the past,
I'm so thankful for that.
For someone who always felt out of place, out of touch,
belonging is a graceful wonder.
I messed up so bad,
went too close to the edge,
walked right up to the end,
turned around.
I got tangled and mangled and strangled.
Then I pried the hands off of my neck
and broke them.
I was belittled and betrayed,
so I stood up and walked away.
I grew taller with every step,
so I didn't dare stop.
Every day further away from the past is a sweet reminder that
it
gets
better.

I went numb for a while, 'cause it was easier than all the questions
and all the depression. But I also think maybe I was numb before that,
probably a little more each day since I lost a bit of myself, and then I lost a lot more.
Life is just too much to let it all in, you know? How is one young soul supposed to absorb it all?
I think we shut it all out and we get selfish, because it is one hundred million times easier to focus on our own silly little problems than to think of those that suffer horrendous crimes, families who starve, or even to think of the brutalities animals face so we can have a dinner we prefer.
What about the lonely people?
How could you live a carefree life if you let in the thought of how many people you've hurt, or how those few hurt you? God, no.
Why would you? It'd be torture. You let that go, even if it takes a while.

But what if you can't? What if it turns out, you aren't like the rest? What if all the sadnesses and tragedies keep you up at night? What if you're 19 and you're pretty sure life is eventually going to be so ******* much that it will inevitably crush you? What if you are scared to death that you operate so differently than other humans, that you won't make the cut?

What if you're shaking and crying in bed at 11:58 pm, after a day of putting in all the effort to act normal
and you are burying yourself in music praying to fall asleep before it all really hits you
and it occurs to you that empathy and worry and fear is going to drive you six feet under?

What will happen?

you call out
"god help us"
in the quietest voice,
and I hear in it a desperation to be heard.
it's the way a mother would die for her child, as if it were no choice at all.
and the same sort of love that it takes
to stand between bullets
and your sister.
it's how a husband will do anything and everything to protect his wife.
it's what matters.
it's the way it should be.
you would lie down your heart to save what it beats for.
and at the the end of the day,
at the end of time,
it will be what saves us all.

I had a dream that I could
Fly out of your reach
And you could never find me
I had a dream I was free
                     You had a dream that I was always in reach and
I would always return to you
And that you were all I knew    

While you were dreaming, I was leaving.
Because this wasn't love,
It was a jail for the worst.
And maybe your dream would've come true,        
If I hadn't woken up first.

You told me to come out of my head,
and I told you I was a prisoner there.
You told me I had the power to change it all.
I told you that you didn't understand.
You insisted I could ignore the thoughts that haunted me,
and then I tried to believe you.      
I was a goner for sure,
but you spoke to me like I meant something to this world.        
And I think you saved my life again.

**** everyone who hurt you.
They were never worth your heart.
**** everyone who turned on you.
Everyone who left after they promised they would stay.
**** all your so-called "friends"
who wanted nothing more than to see you fall.
**** everyone who changed.
Everyone who swore they were different from
everyone else.
**** all the people who lied.
And those that did it behind your back, continuously?
Goes double for those backstabbers.
**** anyone who ignores you.
You aren't worth their time?
They aren't worth one more thought.
**** heroes, you don't need them.
You can be your own.

she loves you with her whole heart
but isn't it way too easy to make her fall apart?
in some numb trance from the words you said,
she kept on her clothes and lied down in your bed.
few words spoken and nothing close to a touch.
you probably didn't know that your words hurt her so much,
because she faced away from you and silently cried out her whole heart.
it's just way too easy to make her fall apart.

Must have been something I did, right?
Or have I just convinced myself of that because I am still completely sure you're flawless?
It's funny, but it's really not, how quickly you changed.
Is it the boy? Come on. Boys are silly. You told me that.
Was it because so many adore you, that it simply wasn't fair?
Or did you get ******* over too many times by those who swore allegiance to you?
Maybe you're just too busy. Yeah, that's the one I tell myself the most. I hope it's that one.
Or did you realize you don't have to care anymore?
You never really did have to. But I thought the world of you when you did.
Why would such an amazing person spend minutes and hours
trying
telling me how to survive
improving me
just to leave?
Maybe this is a test that I'm just barely passing by not saying anything.
Trust me, I am d y i n g to say something. Everything.
But it really does seem like you're gone. I don't care what they say.
They never really knew you.
Maybe I didn't either.
Maybe I am mistaken for thinking you cared.
Maybe you were just being nice. You were so nice.
I won't be angry, though. I can't be. Because you still helped.
Your words saved my life. You told me to be still and suddenly the world was clear.
What did I do? Did I ask for help too many times
without following through?
I tried, I swear to god, I tried so many times to just.. listen.
To stay in one place with one solid thought,
and I tried to make myself better.
Maybe you gave up. That's okay. You wouldn't be the first.
But no matter how many times I say that I am over it, and that I don't need you,
I'm lying. Lying to myself and anyone else who dares mention you to me.
I'm sorry if this is just me clinging to you because you saved me once.
I'm sorry if it's pathetic.
But I'm also really sorry if all the things I think are true.
Because if you really have changed,
if it's not just me,
if you lost that incredible person that you used to be... well,
that's something everyone should be sorry for.

Heartbreak and loneliness,
poetry and sad music,
depression and hopelessness.
That's what I'm good at. Experienced in.
I've always planned for day it didn't work out.
I thought of the songs I'd listen to,
the lyrics that would take over my statuses,
the sad, sad words that would fill my journals.
I would cry at the quotes from movies
about love and loss.
I wouldn't speak to anyone else,
I wouldn't start anything new for quite some time,
because,
well,
I wasn't going to get over you.
I wouldn't be ready to move on for such a long time.
There would be an era in my life devoted to you
and the hole in my heart
and the playlists about you
and the darkness in the middle of the night
and tears pouring down my face
and screaming in frustration why I couldn't keep you.
All I've envisioned for the past year
and three months
and two weeks,
was the horrible, awful time I was going to have
when you left me.
But I never planned for the day that you would stay.

you want to know me
see me
in ways no one has.
but that isn't how you know me.
i wish it were,
i wish we could sit in your car
on a cold winter night
and i'd tell you everything.
trust me, there's so much i want to tell you.
and i would,
i'd turn myself inside out in front of you.
but
that isn't how you know me.
you'll know me in little pieces
and just a single one at a time
like ripping the tiniest bits of paper up
and throwing them in a
glass jar with the words "rainy day"
written on it in marker.
i'll sing to you, i promise
and i'll show you all my poems
and paintings
and you'll know everything.
just so long as you stay
stay with me
love me
wait for me
to show you
me.