From the tree you curse
Came your cross

While I looked for your
burning bush, forbidden

Tree was found.

I see her out of the corner of my eye
I look at her indirectly
Admiring her tattoo of
Golden flower pedals

She catches me looking
And our eyes lock into place
For that moment
Hers is the only face
I see
In a crowded train car

I start to think
If we took different paths
She could be another
Our lives entangled
Shared on solid ground

She gives me a smile
And I smile back
I don't know her voice
But I felt her words

The train stopped and we
Walk in opposite
Directions
But for that brief moment
I no longer
Felt alone

I search for bliss
Exchange my dignity
For chemical cures
Wrench my soul
From my anxious body
To sink ever deeper
Into the abyss  
Waves of ecstacy
Fill charred lungs
Resurface
Only to have lost you
Pain, red and hot
Scars my skin
Sell my heart
Ache replaces love
It is an all consuming hurt
Shatters bones on red brick
Cravings; deceptive serpents
Twist around me
Suffocating me
Forcing me to drown myself once more

i don't know when i started putting everybody else before myself
it was probably back when she called me obnoxious, or when he started ******* behind my back
or when you told me i was too absorbed in my problems, that i needed to "get my **** sorted"

i thought i was, in all honesty

i didn't realise it was such a crime to be open about therapy,
that talking about my problems was selfish of me,
that's what they tell you to do in therapy:
talk, think, open up, discuss
was it wrong for me to practice honesty about what's haunting me in your company?
maybe you just didn't want to know about that side of me
and maybe that said more about you than it did about me
but by the time i'd come to realise that much
it was already too late, and the doors had been shut

i have this one friend - she worries about me
she knows how many stories i listen to, how many walls i'm breaking through
she tells me that my health is important
i know this
but it's like it doesn't matter
not when it's me
i tell everyone that they need to look after themselves but i don't really care about my own well-being
maybe those rules just don't apply to me
maybe i'm a hypocrite, or perhaps self-loathing is a good excuse

i just want to help those who come to me
my self-employment doesn't make me any money
perhaps i'm the one paying the price
but it's okay because i know i've saved lives
that's not to say it doesn't wear down on me
my career is short-lived compared to those who practice this professionally
but i can no longer remember what it was like before i started offering arms and shoulders and pieces of my heart
without taking the time to replace the parts

i get thank you's every once in a while
i tell them, "honestly, it's never a problem"
"never" is a lie
but i wouldn't admit that, no, really, it's fine
i don't mind offering my support and advice
my insomnia means sleep is a rare gift and it comes at indecent times
but if you call me at four AM, even if i was asleep i'll stay on the line
sleep might be a gift but i'd rather preserve the gift of life

sometimes i ask myself how many times i'll have to talk down a loved one from suicide
my heart, with abandon, beats a hopeful rhythm of "never", and my mind whispers "that's a lie"
i recall to mind being thirteen, maybe fourteen years old,
curled into the bed post, night light shining
tears blinding, stinging my eyes
an arm-full of red and a yearning inside
that murmured "one more time and everything will be fine"

i swallow down the acid, even though it burns,
and force my leaden tongue to form assurances and love letters that speak of better days
so many of them have no idea how close i came
they don't need to know about that trigger
just another loaded gun
i'd rather them point it at me than have them aiming for themselves

i just want to help, make them know they're not alone
let my voice ring in their ears, "you will never be on your own"
have my friendship swimming in their veins so they no longer need to bleed
all those demons flooding their arteries will make no match for me
and when it all gets too much, i'll scream into some empty void
let them pour their sadness into me while i'm spewing out my own
i'm strong enough to bleed and carry on being what they need - they can spill their tears all over me, i promise it won't finish me

i'll ignore the salt in my wounds that shakes me to the bone
let them bury themselves inside these broken ribs and find a place to call home.

When you learn how to write they teach you
"show, don't tell"
to keep the mystery alive, to keep it vibrant, keep it flowing
They tell you keep it short and sweet, with details subtle enough to envision the beautiful girl you make the protagonist who beholds every quality you yourself are lacking but can compensate for in another, ficticious character.
And so you decorate her with
serendipitous flaws and stories that resolve once the page has turned
but as you type you lose who you are.
Show, dont' tell. So you make sure well enough that she glows so that all the readers know she is not hurting. You make sure her eyes beam and that her smile radiates so that no one knows you're breaking.
How do you show, and not tell, when the only thing you feel is yourself collapsing? How can you show that you feel nothing inside but outside remain alive and
how the **** do you show that you miss someone because they took so much of you when they left and tore the pages of you two out of their memory?
I cannot show that, I cannot tell that. And so I write.


You forget that what you did you cannot take back so you ensure
she does not make the same mistake unless the page reveals it was okay in the first place.
How we would **** for a story book ending as we beg for feelings that aren't pending, waiting for another reason to be happy that you cannot write back in

You discovered something as you wrote
you choose who hurts who
but in fact, you cannot choose who hurts you
so you write away the mistakes you've made
those ones you pretend you didn't
those ones that haunt you as you remember that
the person you once loved is gone forever
You finish a chapter hoping to forget that you are nothing but empty
writing does not fill you up
writing does not allow you to see deeper
it makes it easier for you to pretend that you do not miss him

It makes it easier to remember the nights you spent laughing as you make them into inciting incidents when in reality
they were tragic endings

my ears are silent
—i repeat—
my ears are silent.
i choked myself today.

poured my ventricles
dry to fill atriums with acid;
my lungs asphyxiated,
i'm dead, i'm quiet

i did my time screaming
and now i'm numb,
i’m deaf and dumb,
i’m sorry you had to see it.