At dawn I found a hollow girl,
fair, with metal in her veins.
She spoke of narrow hallways,
with dew upon the doors.
She warned of fading quickly,
        her soul poured upon the floor.

She tugged and knotted at her hair,
as she spoke of horrorful woes.
She huffed, and sighed; it wasn't fair.
Then she felt cold water on her toes.

The shocking sting stunned her at first,
yet the needles slowly rised.
She hoped it wouldn't be the worst,
but still the needles rised.

They figured they couldn't mend her,
leave her broken on the floor.
There was nothing they could do
before she'd pass through that door.

"What else?" they'd ask the actors,
"What speech could we write next?"
They'd give her a special one
and for this she'll be blessed.

As they molded plaster
and preened her oh so nice.
They painted her a smile,
and emerged her into ice.

I sacrificed to the
constant back and forth,
to the anxiety, and the worries,
and the last barrier wall.

I shielded myself with
whatever I found I might have.
I let the darkness take its toll,
and gave up everything
I had wanted; I gave it all.

I was beaten by the ticking,
and the slowly beating pulse,
that drove me, with my madness,
to my final batting call.

When the worries set me motionless,
and I felt the boil in my veins,
like the beating in each of my wrists.
I was lost to the course of the ocean,
and the tears, and the pain,
but no wish.

Then, like a steady candle,
that I hadn't seen before.
Like a tiny shattering whisper,
that, I hadn't heard at all.

The light came in a second,
when I couldn't hear it's noise.
It came out of nowhere, like,
a shooting star, a meteor,
a call.

In time I'm finally seeing,
these things I can't handle on my own.
I was a martyr to the shaking,
I was afraid of the dark I had bought.
I was scared of what was out of control,
and I knew that it'd take it's toll.

I'm finding that, in the darkness,
when the tapping comes around,
like when the music comes to a holt,
and the sudden feeling beats me down.

And when the Sun decides to fall down,
and leave me out in the dark, in the cold,
I've realized that it isn't half as bad if
I have a hand to hold.

It's 12am and you're not here.
I don't think you ever will be.

I am a small collection of do's and don'ts.
I am way too fickle for you, I'm sorry.
But perhaps you were so secure that
I could sit here and worry and you might
sit there and read your paper, and sigh.

I don't think you'd really understand,
why I do what I do, or say what I say.
You couldn't possibly understand.

I don't understand either.

I know you care for me, maybe,
more than I care for you. But,
sometimes I think I care more deeply,
while you seem to care more completely.

Does that make sense? No.
No, I don't make sense.
But while you say that
you love me,
I am too busy
loving you.

I'm not a painting,
you can't frame me.
I'm not a statue,
you cant leave me be.

Don't string me like a row of lights,
I'm not made for that.
Don't leave me like a half read book,
only reading me when you want me.

I'm not a bec and call,
and if you thought I'd be like that,
you never really knew me at all.

I shut the lights and locked the doors,
don't bother knocking, I'm not home.
And even if I am, I won't be naiive
enough to open up the door again.

I'm scared, and I'm fragile,
so I'll probably never get better.
I hope it resonates in you;
that you've ruined me forever.

I've built the walls that held me,
and helped me fall apart.
And even when I try and knock them down,
I'm only breaking my own heart.

It's something I'll have to live with.
It's like a rock in my shoe.
I can't shake it off,
and it'll always be there.

Yesterday I wrote my thoughts
with the overspill of red wine, and,
bandaids that fell from my cracked finger tips.
I wrote the words I hated saying,
I wrote the words I said too often,
I wrote what you said when your lips bled.

Your lips bled eight times that night;
your lips bleed when you lie.
I watched you scrape tobacco from
under your nails.
I watched you melt away like a candle wick.

Yesterday I wrote my thoughts.
I cut my hair with razor blades, and,
painted my lips that color you hate.
I burned my favorite photo of you,
I burned the tips of my fingers on the candle,
I burned the dinner I had on the stove.

Yesterday I spilled wine on the couch,
I wrapped my fingers in band-aids,
and I wrote.
I wrote about how your lips bled,
and bled.
But I won't write about that tomorrow.

He traces constellations on my back
while I'm asleep.
Last night he kissed each of my fingers,
'one mores one more moment.'
I cracked my knees when he looked
at me.

I'm not much for telling lies,
sometimes the truth stings twice as hard.
He slumps over the counter,
a tower of defeat, of falling,
the tower of a fighter.

My name is carved on his forearm,
with red lipstick and fruity perfumes.
The color of his eyes bleeds when he sees me;
I'm draining him every moment he holds me.

He's weary but he's not breaking;
I falter every time the wind blows.
He grabbed my arm when I fell that way,
I fell into him instead.
My hands broke when I grabbed him.

He corsets up my ribs for me,
I hold him when I can.
He carries constellations in his palms,
and he releases them just for me.
I always cry when he looks at me
like that.

I saw him yesterday, like for the first time.
A flame I lit myself maybe years ago.
Our eyes are never empty when they reflect
each other.

I imagine love would be like that.

Let me take your name,
and stamp it on my hand.
Let me take your story,
and thread it in my sweater.

Let me freeze your photograph,
the colors of your eyes.
Let me hold your scars and palms,
and compare the lines to mine.

I'd like to steal you quickly,
and place you in my book.
Let your heart come to your sleeve,
and only let me look.

I know you love honesty,
you rub it in your hands.
You carry all your stories,
in the pocket of your jeans.

I'd love to listen to them,
watch them paint your lips,
that will never tire me,
it will keep me hooked.

Please, just let me trace you,
even if it's quick,
I'd love to capture such a pretty thing,
before it leaves my finger tips.

I trapped my soul in a music box.
The pearls around my neck sit upon
an empty set of hollow bones that
creak whenever you hold me.

I'm not beautiful.
The pale and curve of my skin doesn't
radiate with sunlight and bring out the
green in my eyes or the flowers in my hair.
I am the negative of a photograph you'll never take:
I am the mistake.

The blood pooling around my finger nails,
the heaviness of my chest every night, the
same time it came yesterday.
I am a prisoner to a mind that never ceases movement;
I am a consistent mess you'll never hold.

My soul sits in that music box,
buried beneath boxes of old magazines,
bags of couture, and the crates of
everything you prefer over me.

My biggest mistake was
recording the noises only I heard.
I knew they weren't real;
I wasn't hearing them correctly.

My biggest mistake was
pretending I was alright when I wasnt.
People began to blur over my feelings,
as if always being 'alright' meant I did not have any.

My biggest mistake was
thinking, even for a moment, that I could.
That I could fathom any bit of the situation,
and spit it out so it made sense.

My biggest mistake was
believing that I had even
made a mistake in the first place.

Etched in floor boards,
underneath the **** rug
were my initials before they
changed.

Carved into my forearm
was my favorite date,
when I had changed and
become a better person,
but the scar healed over.

I have lost the original sting,
the pain I had given myself
to make me feel again.
And I shielded it with bandages
and ugly rugs that hid my pain
and my floor. My low points.

I am a curve ball without a
place to land,
and though I hate it,
it is starting to feel like
home.

The veins in my wrists are
being removed one by one.
I am relieving myself of the pressure,
and giving myself all my doubt.

I've drained myself of all my feelings,
because I could not handle them as well
as I should.
And I disdain the feelings I get in my fingertips,
then I crave the dissatisfaction that attaches itself
to me.

And you.

And you are weeping like a person of stone,
and you are making waves with the pressure
and the discontent that surrounds you on and ordinary basis.

And I.
I am a mess that even you cannot figure out,
nor piece together to make sense of anything.
While I let you down, and you fall because I am not
strong enough to hold both of us up.
I let myself fall so often that it makes it more difficult
to lift you from such a crater.

So I.
I hate myself every time I attempt to make things
right again,
by placing banner outside my door frames, and,
pretending like it's all okay again. Because I know its not.

And that mockingbird does not sing anymore,
and we say we are trying but I think we've both given up.
Because we seem happy in the company of unhappiness,
but when we are in our own solitude cell of our misery
we can no longer sustain ourselves.

So I am far too weak to make things right,
or cure things, or you.
Or fix things, like you.
I am not the savior of this story,
nor am I the villain.
I try to be the hero but I fail at that
as well.

And I.
I am sorry that I cannot be a statue for you.
Or a tower of arms that can serve as your protection.
Because I am weak, and I am wrong, and I have
sacrificed myself to all of my insecurities and
I have let you down in the process.

The tiles are much colder when
you are cemented into their core.
When nothing can erase it, and,
you can't get off the floor.

Settle into darkness,
my name without a face.
Because something tells me honestly,
there's a virtue in need a replace.

And I'm twisting like a knife,
but the only thing that's stings me is
my heart, and
I never knew I had one,
and now I wish I never did.

I feel it like a poison but
its only my imagination
because every time I cry,
it isnt killing me but I hope
you know it feels like it.

And I cannot stop my sobbing
because I am not as strong as
I think I am, and I am not
as emotionless as everyone
says that I am.

Because when I weep at 2 am
I know I am real, and I know
that I can feel,
and when you leave I feel a
void that only hits me and makes
me falter even more than I have
the night before,
and it hurts me with a greater

pain than one could even imagine.

and there is nothing I could do
after that because then
i am broken
and i am lost
and i am gone forever.

My eyes didn't look green anymore.

You played that song over and over,
til those pretty words meant nothing.
I didn't notice: I sang along too often.

Your smile was toothy,
but I didn't say anything.
"Green isn't my favorite color."

My lips were painted pink,
but I wished they were purple.
That's when I remembered that
you didn't care.

You tore the locket off my neck.
"Say something, just speak."
But you won't like it,
green isn't your favorite color.

You don't remember me,
my name was crossed away.
You ripped my picture up.
You don't make me smile anymore,
anyway.

I forgot what green looked like.
My eyes were bright but I was not.
What does green look like?

I sang those songs you hated,
those words became my favorites.
I searched oceans, maybe, but
I could be lying.

My lockets broken but I don't care,
that was not love.
My favorite color was softer,
just like my own, old, sweaters.

My golden hair is better.
You don't smile toothy anymore.
Thats what happens when light leaves,
but,
my eyes are green again.

I've been
saddled with a loneliness,
that only clarity controls.
With a subtly of insanity,
where a sane man takes his tolls.
Because someone like a jester,
with no royal, hateful, crown
has pinned me with a series of
unspeakable, lazy, downs.
If someone has ever viewed me,
they might laugh and smirk in my face,
because someone, like that jester,
has controlled me with their fate.
I didn't try to make a duty,
of the things I couldn't do,
when fear was binding me at my wrists,
and telling me that I wasn't there.
But the loneliness came crawling,
and it settled upon my back,
because for some reason that
horrible jester,
deems it funny to throw me
off my track.