I’ve hit a point where crashing no longer gives me whiplash.

Collapsing is normal, bruises are common.

I got lost alone in the woods at 3 am and prayed I wouldn't find my way back,

I’ve been swinging on the ropes a little too long.  My arms are tired.

24 years. 24 years. 24 years.

Cover me in chamomile kisses
And lukewarm lullabies
I'll dance in the haze of your eyes

Watery eyes stare at the ceiling
As aching limbs stretch across the bed
Grasping for a hand that left long ago

A skid, a screech
A moment veering
Bang
More skidding
More screeching
A loud **** to the left
a desperate plea for right
I am ******
Why am I ******?
My mind
Where is my mind?

Sudden suffocation and relapsed restrictions, we colored ourselves in silver sets and party dresses.

Half hearted laughter amid animosity hidden by sly smiles and fragile friendships. Our wicked world was perfectly painted in shades of doubt.

Stop. Evaluating. My. Thoughts.
They are not yours
They never were
They are mine.

Stop. Pretending. I'm. Yours.
I am not
I never was
I am my own.

Stop. Inviting. Me. To. Your. Hell.
I have declined
I will not ever accept
Mine is better.

Burn with the paper you write your notes on.
And leave me alone.

Strike a match and light a candle
If night becomes too dark
For our eyes to see hope
Perhaps our souls are dim

I wrote about how the birds still sang
The morning you left me
And the trees were still green
I wrote about how the world doesn't stop
Even when mine is crumbling

I keep coming to the same blank pages
Hoping to fill them with my mind
I have so much to say
But words won't fall

Could we please just go back to the start?
Where our eyes were burning with dreams
And our hearts ignited with hope.
We can take a few steps back
And have our footsteps align again.

Can we go back to breathing together?
Woven finger tips and tangled limbs
So close that every breath seems to echo
In the others mouth.
I'll hit rewind if you hit pause
I wish that moment was my forever.
I'd give anything to feel your lips
Just one more time.

I slipped up on the word hello
You choked up on goodbye

Our hands lingered but never met
Our minds brushed but never touched

I saw the way your eyes bled
When I said no

You saw the way my soul shook
When you asked

They called you desperate
I called us separate

We are moths and love is our flame.

I'm trying really hard
To put the cap back on the pills
To set the bottle down
To throw the razors in the trash.

I'm trying really hard
To look past the present
To block my memories
To move forward.

Mommy, I'm being bullied and I don't know what to do. I can't escape them and they know just what to say.

Dearest please explain, for your friends at school love you.... The teachers say you love to play.

Mommy you don't understand, they're deeper. Mommy they're in my head. I can't control them now and they all want  me dead

Light to the touch, weary and meak
Stumbling over words
That come in heaps rather than syllables.

Bent over and hunched, crumbling
Struggling to breathe in
The air is drenched with regret.

I fell into a world
Where glass slippers
And shiny chariots existed
I danced on floors of marble
And crystals shown in chandeliers.

I spent awhile living in this dream
But glass shatters
And chariots became fuel guzzling cars
My feet grew sore on marble floors
And the crystals grew dull with dust.

Are you really wasting time,
If you wander?

Are you really making memories,
Behind a desk?

Are you really doing nothing,
When you're laughing and thinking?

Are you really living,
When you work the 9 to 5?

You are just a cloud
To distract me from the sky
If love was ever cruel enough
To tease the sun
You would be the one
To get burnt.

I understand you don't want me to go That's fine.
But I can't watch you dig through your car
For money for tonight's numbing.
You can't call me names
And still call me your daughter
And just because you offer me a cold one
Doesn't mean I'm playing your game.
I tried to give you a chance to prove
That your words were worth an ounce of truth
You may have been sober for months
But it's been two weeks of slurred speech
And several days of you
Not leaving that door
For anything more than a bottle.
Why the **** would I want to stay?
You keep saying that
No one here will hurt me
Too late dad, you've made your mark
In the form of six packs and cruel words.
I was better off without you for 10 years.
You have never been daddy.

Before the dawn is the dark
But that's when the streetlights glow
They flicker in the night
Calling for you

And every whispered dream hangs
Over the sleepless nights
Tossing and turning
Waiting for you

So go on, my love
Freedom was never free
Pick up the pieces, dear
Love was never guaranteed

How dare I say I loved you
How could I?
I was broken, bent, weighed down
By my mere existence.

You picked me up
And I held on.

I was too busy being lifted
To see your breaking shoulders
You became my hope
And you began to lose your own

I never learned your dreams
Not in depth anyway
I was too busy with my sadness
That you tried to take away

I wish I would've asked to see
The talents in your grasp
The music you made
The world's you created

But I was a flooded river
And you were the shore
It's hard to say
Who swept up who

I wore you thin
How long can a man carry
A dead weight
And expect to be strong?

You began to pull away
And you began to slip up
You found solace in a familiar dance

Unprescribed yet medicated
Dosed with doubt
And lack of love

And me?
I still needed you
I still expected you.

And I blamed you
For not carrying me
When you were broken

We were twisted around each other
In substance and lack thereof
We crumbled trying to hold each other up

How could we?

How could I?

How could you?

None of this was supposed to happen.

I'm sorry.

Stop counting the roses that never came
Stop waiting on a perfect tomorrow.

Stop wiping away tears that are only half way out
Stop scratching at skin that doesn't even itch.

Stop listening to strangers with harsh messages
Stop trusting fools with guns.

lingering spells of sensation whirring on my skin
the pounding in my chest meets the pounding of the beat
flashing lights and flashing skin
this sin's the highest of all.

inhale the sequence of lilac and rose
i trip and hit the beginning of the sky
i listen to the drops of rain on ivory skin
I'm getting lost in the fall.

We sit in silence
To others we are awkward
To us we are infinite
Propelled by the fuel
That sits in our cups
And the lust that echoes in
Our sighs.

She was born with and old soul
To die young
In a cruel world

In the light she both shimmered
And shriveled
Her name echoed off the lips of strangers

Each phrase was harsher than the last and
Cut deeper
Messages that she'd already written in her head.

Suddenly she couldn't see her path
She was lost
Her hands shook as she held them in front of her

Searching for help but all she found
Were thorns
So she retracted into herself

She swallowed nothing much except
Her words
Wincing at her own reflection in the eyes of others.

She became a wisp clinging to the grass
Lonely and sad
Gasping for affirmation

Blown away in the night's quiet whisper
She disappeared
The voices got louder, louder then ever

They bowed their heads and wiped their tears
"How tragic"
They said, as they moved on to the next.

Sleep taunts me and bad dreams haunt me
Lying awake only to fall into a nightmare
Waking up crying, screaming, panting
Grasping for air that can't come quick enough.

Work work work
Money money money
Work work work

Work work work
Die slowly
Die slowly
Die slowly
Money money money
Work work work

I'll paint a picture of your eyes
And get lost in the depth
Of my oil paints: only jewel tones
In blue green and amber
And just like in reality
I will fall in to the realms  of eyes
So stormy that to capture one moment
Is a sin.

I wish the whirring in my head would stop.
Just like the joy did, years ago.
It's been so long since I've smiled for myself
Now I just grimace in a daze.

I'm tired you know?
Whatever I'm doing, it's exhausting.
I need time to catch my breath.
It seems I've left my mind back a few yards.

They say to fake it till you make it,
But I'm all out of false
I just want some honesty
Without a hint of doubt.

Bend me down and out and over
I will smile as I wither
You can not shatter someone
Who loves being broken

Breathe deeply, stand tall,
For gravity only pulls
When you come back down to earth.

Pleasure surges through my skin
It's electric, moving in waves
As his eyes dance over my body
Soaking my essence in.

Tonight, I am his.

Tell me again how to fit
Into the gaps of society
Designated for a woman.
Tell me all the ways my words
Are less my own
Than they are a man's
Tell me how my body will always be
Questioned
The cup in my hand
An excuse.
Remind me of all the ways
Today will never be my day.

He looks at me, the corners of his mouth curling upwards. His eyes aimed at my lips.

****.

He takes a few cautious steps, arms out, like Jesus ******* Christ.

Save me.

He's close, so close. He dives as I swerve and tangle into him.

Oh.

We part, his face twists as he looks at me

"Why won't you let me be with you?" He whispers.

"Because I can't"