I am in a constant battle for control.
I am hard to deal with
because my therapist says
OCD will not rest
OCD does not care what time it is
OCD does not care where you are
OCD does not care who is watching.
Usually when I obsess over things
I see my life falling to shambles
I see people not loving me anymore
I see germs sneaking into my skin.
When my uncle, my aunt, and my friend all died
in a matter of three months,
i performed rituals every hour on the hour
sometimes even more.
My therapist says this will not go away.
My therapist says to come see her so we can try to cope with this.
My therapist does not understand that WE are not coping.
I am coping
not her
not anyone else
me.
My therapist is a sick person
she is still recovering from alcoholism
so how can she help me
if all she sees is a bottle of bourbon when she looks at me.
I am not a bottle of bourbon
I am a bottle of OCD and depression and anxiety
I am a bottle of drugs and alcohol and death
I am a bottle being smashed over your head
I am not coping
I am drowning
And people have stopped loving me
And my life is falling into shambles
And I think I may be getting sick
so what the **** are these rituals even doing for me
anyway.
I have stopped taking medication because
wanting to die has become habitual
and I fear that will become a ritual too.
If I die
all people will talk about is how much they loved me
even if they didn't.
If I die,
there will be no room to have my life fall to pieces
because I will be in peace.
If I die,
I cannot get sick because the soil
will be taking care of my body but
who will perform my rituals
once I'm gone?

You were as stealthy as a slow gas leak, by the time i knew i was in love with you, i had succumbed to you. You were in the drivers seat of my car lighting a cigarette with the windows up so i could breathe you in. I quit smoking so your secondhand smoke was all you would allow. I watched as you brought the cigarette to your lips and dragged in as if your life depended on it. It was your third one today and i told you that you should stop, maybe breathe me in for a second. Do you know what i would give to become second hand smoke from your lips? All you would have to do is kiss me and i would vanish into thin air, become a noble gas in the periodic table but there is nothing noble about the element of disappearance. I have been shrinking away from you ever since you held my hand in that convenience store a year ago. I'm trying to convince myself to get over you because all i am to you is someone to **** slowly through your second hand smoke. I never knew I could get so addicted to nicotine until it came from under your tongue. When you're gone, it's hard for me to breathe which doesnt make sense because when youre here my lungs are filled with your sweet black tar. But you will be gone for months when you leave in two weeks. You said you'd write to me, but written words can't carry your second hand smoke. You can't build a home out of a human being, but that doesn't mean i cant find a home in your bed.

i wrote a poem. it wasnt about the leaves falling or growing back. it was about a boy that was too sad to
even look at himself in the mirror. sometimes he believed that if he looked in the mirror for too long he wasnt who he was supposed to be, sometimes if he looked in the mirror too long he became a monster and thats particularly the reason why he avoided the mirror at night because thats when monsters become real and he was tired of thinking of himself as a monster.
i wrote a poem but it wasnt about summertime or the way the sand feels between your toes or the cold rush of ocean water on a hot day. it was about the salty tears that he would cry because demons were haunting his room at night. and not the demons like ghosts but the demons from within. the kind of demons that you cant run away from.
i wrote a poem it wasnt about a bride blushing when the groom snuck a kiss when the priest wasn't looking it was about the funeral we gave you. it was about the hundreds of people who stood in line just to see your face one last time before youre put in the ground. it was about me staring at your chest from afar hoping that it would move that maybe this was one of your famous jokes and maybe your lungs would start working again along with your heart and your organs and your brain and maybe your eyes would open. perhaps itll scare someone whos standing right next to you but who cares bc youre alive. but you didnt. and now now youre in the ground.
i wrote a poem and it wasnt about me it was about finding the demons. i found the demons inside of you when you were put into the ground. i found the demons because as they lowered your casket into the 6 foot hole they dug for you i saw one slip out before they closed it. the demon was dancing on your casket and as they lowered you to the ground, i jumped. i didnt jump up i didnt jump back. i jumped in and i started hitting that demon as hard as i could because now that youre gone the demon had no place else to go. the demon knew he had won but even the best fall down sometimes and i made sure he fell as hard and as far as he could.
i wrote a poem but i couldnt save you from yourself. if i could have shrunken down and fought that demon before you left me i would have. but i couldnt. i had all these words left to say to you but they started in my chest and never made it to my throat and now im sitting here with all the words that couldnt have saved you anyway because the demons were trapped inside of you. the only way for you to be happy again is to cut yourself open & rip them out yourself, so you did. the demons were trapped & stuck inside you, and i know because i have demons stuck inside of me too. but sometimes i get so mad because if im still here then why arent you? if im still here fighting myself trying not to rip out my own demons, then why couldnt you have done the same? i needed you.
i wrote a poem. and it was about my demons being stuck inside of me and theyre crawling and theyre running around and sometimes they run to a dead end and they hit my fingertips and they bounce  back and run straight into my heart. they run through my veins, through my arteries. sometimes they break my ribs in the process but they heal so quickly that the doctors dont believe me and call me crazy but i promise them that theres a demon inside of me and hes breaking my ribs and hes breaking my soul and hes breaking my heart but i can still feel the demons running inside me. and i dont know how or why or when but i just want them to go away i dont know how im going to do that but i said some day i would. and i think thats the reason i cut myself open, to try and find a way to show the demons a way out but they run through my blood stream and i can feel them in my fingertips and i can feel them
in my forearms and i can feel them in my elbows and i can feel them in my shoulders and in my neck and i can feel them going down my throat. and i can feel it in my chest and i can feel it in my liver and i can feel it in my stomach and i can feel it in my pelvis. and i can feel it in my knees and i can feel it in my shins and i can feel it in my ankles and i can feel it all the way down to my toes and suddenly its like an electric current and it flows all the way back up to my head and shock the hair in its roots. it feels like i cant say anything fast enough or correctly.
i wrote a poem & it was about sometimes i believe that why i write & not speak is because i cant say the right words and maybe if i state at a blank piece of paper long enough the right words will come out but i know, i know they wont bc the demons are still stuck inside of me and i think thats why you wrote so beautifully that night and didnt ask for help. the demons knew that they were finally coming out and sometimes when the demons come out its the best time to say things.
i wrote a poem and it was about wanting peace. i just dont have peace but rather i have pieces of myself.
i will never have peace until my demons are gone. but im trying to find a way to get the demons to leave me alone without dying im not sure if i know the right way but im sure as hell trying. but the drugs dont work and the alcohol doesnt work and the cigarettes dont work and the blood doesnt work and the pills dont work. but i have to find a way to stop them before they eat me up inside and they tear me apart. in order to stop them ill have to tear myself apart and thats why i break things and thats why
i throw things because i have to find something to destroy other than myself and sometimes i pull my hair because i cant understand whats happening to me.
i wrote a poem and i started to see red for a bit but i stopped seeing red because the curtains are red and the walls are yellow. the candle on top of the cabinent is red brown and yellow and the book on the couch is  yellow and red the couch is yellow red tan green blue. the table is brown and the floor is brown but the carpet and the drapes are red.
i wrote a poem. maybe i should stop talking about them before they come back its like a taboo its like the  field of dreams and the saying"if you build it they will come" and i promise you that if i built a bridge from my heart to my brain the demons would make their way back & i would be consumed by them and im not sure if i can deal with that so ill cut the bridge in half before they start walking towards my brain.
i wrote a poem. and it was about me snapping that bridge in half and watching the demons fall down my throat and into the acid in my stomach, but that doesnt make any difference because once one does another one is born. so as long as the demons keep walking they will die with my secrets but the new ones will find  a new way to torture me, and maybe thats worse because if they need new ways to torture me then every thing will torture me. perhaps thats what happened to you.
i wrote a poem but im not sure what its about anymore. but i do know that its not good and im tired of speaking.

i found myself alone in my living room at ungodly hours of the night watching tv shows about politics and listening to poetry at the same time and trying not to say the wrong thing to tip off my friends that i want to **** myself because hey if i tell them then i can't do it and that's my problem. but then i started wonder why they're called ungodly hours. is it because god doesn't save anyone during these times? or did he just never save in the first place?

i found myself when i did not need to find myself in a higher power to find peace. how can you love someone else if you can't love yourself first? i spent an entire year researching and experimenting ways to "enlighten" myself (and i use that word lightly) and i think i finally found the way but when i introduced the idea of Buddhist meditation and chanting mantras of self healing and finding peace to my parents, my father told me i was tearing this family apart and "why can't you be normal?" and "this is not what our family believes in." and "what's wrong with the catholic church?" What's wrong with the catholic church is that i feel like a lesbian drug addict who needs massive amounts of alcohol to keep from killing herself whenever the priest looks at me, as if he can smell the gay on me like a dog who can sniff out a cancerous disease. What's wrong with the catholic church is that i feel like i'm stepping inside a political headquarters rather than praying to a god to help me not feel guilty about doing bad things and perhaps hoping he'll send something good my way even though i don't deserve it and i'm probably not going to heaven anyway because the bible told me that if i make love to another woman then i'm going to find a gathering of NHL hockey goalies in front of the pearly gates to keep me out. but my question is why people are so concerned with the sexuality of people that they aren't sleeping with, this was not the technical form of *** so i wasn't breaking two rules in one stone but i just "chose" the wrong sin. but hey, the devil said he's down to hang out with me as long as i don't mind the heat.

i found myself in the bed of a girl who always smelled like coconuts and had no respect except for herself and for me. she made me feel like i was at home even though i was miles away and didn't speak the language that well. i wanted to carve poems into the bones of her spine, she would never be able to see them but she would have the knowledge that they existed because her skin did. her existence ultimately created a contradiction for me, do i fall in love with a girl who could never love me back or am i able to stick to what my parents believe in but they'll never be happy with me anyway? i had to pick the lesser evils of the two, and she could never be evil to me. she could grab me by the throat, tell me to beg for mercy and i could reach out to shake death's hand and i would still want to kiss the fingertips the were wrapped around my neck. she could throw me down the flight of stairs and i'd still stare at her all the way down because if i were to die i want her to be the last thing i see. she could rip off my fingers at the knuckles and tie them around the christmas tree like the lights we use every year and i would still find ways to trace her body even more gently than before. she cannot cause harm to me as long as she is still within plane distance. as long as i don't have to give my life to see her again then i will always find myself in her. and even when we are dead and buried in the ground, i will swim to you like a mermaid of the soil just to be next to your bones.

i found myself when i started to get into fist fights with a god who forgot about me. i found myself when i started to call out death's bluffs, and death talked a lot of **** for a guy who couldn't follow through with anything. i found myself in the drugs and alcohol and my sudden stoppage of my use. i found myself in my yearning for death and drugs and alcohol but i found myself in my ability to say no because they only worsen my state of mind. And you only worsen me.

Never have I wanted to use your body like a piano until now,
play it vigorously until it breaks.
I don't know many chords
but the effort could be beautiful.
I could become devoted to your keys,
your sounds,
the difference between your sharps and flats.
I've learned to take pride in simplicity,
like three notes coming together to sing your moan.
Was it the right keys or an accident?
I've heard symphonies made out of you,
but i am still unaware of how to make you play for me.
My hands aren't big enough to play you properly,
there is always one key missing.
No matter how carefully i play,
I find it difficult to produce the same melody twice.
You were never meant to be replayed.
Instead, you are captured in one vast fleeting moment
praying to be heard by the ears of the restless
in hopes of making them complete once more.
But how can you yearn for the wholeness of others
if you will not fill me up first.
I long to fill this room with your music,
I want to hear you just one last time.

Today, I am sick.
My mental illness is shaped like a prison
and I am in the waiting room
wanting to ask
"What are you in here for"
like
what kind of crime has your head committed
that you are trying to lock it up
with prescriptions
and weekly meetings filled
with uncomfortable confessions
and numb palms from sitting on your hands for too long.
They say it's like playing in traffic,
a red-light-green-light game
where we beg for help
but don't know how to move
when we're asked to explain how we got here.
Do you even remember
what you're running from anymore?
Tell us about the days
where you can't tell if waking up
is a trench or a hill.
What has your head told you to do
and have you done it?
How did it feel when it was over?
Did your head congratulate you
when you were done?
Did you get a prize
like new scars?
Or three more handles of liquor?
The last time you prayed
did you have trouble unlocking your fingers?
Did the weight of God
keep your hands closed tight
in hopes that you wouldn't forget him
like the last time you saw Him
in the bottom of the pill bottle
and you smiled back?
Everyone here says the word Friday
like it hurts
because we know that the weekend is here
but we just can't seem to feel it.

Today we are sick
and nobody notices because our noses aren't running
we aren't openly bleeding in front of the one's we love
we do it in secret
just in case they ever catch us.
Today, we wanted them to catch us.
Stick out their hands
like a safety net
but it doesn't matter what height we fall from
because bones hitting bones
like a head on car collision
will never feel like warm sheets
blanketing our bodies
but we can't help but wonder
if the sheet they will cover us with
after they find us
will be warm too.

Today we are tired of being sick
tired of waking up looking like police chalk lines
tired of walking into the therapy rooms
like they are our parish
but we're too afraid God might smite us on the way in.
We shouldn't have to flinch
when certain words are said
that pull us back loading gun
but are too weak to pull the trigger.

Today WE are the triggered,
the empty promise of tomorrow being filled
with another prescription
another drink
another list of second hand hope
coming from someone who is probably
still trying to remember what it says.
We would rather tiptoe between eggshells
and take our time
than let you know we are struggling.
We are STRUGGLING.
And it makes us so very tired.

So today I am tired
and I will tell you that
instead of reminding you
that every day I am sick.

I can see it now, I was in 4th grade and we were all saying the pledge of allegiance with our hands over our hearts. "One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all." I always thought it was "invisible". One nation, under God, invisible. It suddenly turned our nation into a superhero with the sickest super power ever, invisibility. Our nation was leaping over buildings and fighting crime in the moonlight with a bad *** sidekick named God.
One nation, under God, invisible. That's what i have become to this sidekick, invisible. I subsequently have fallen victim to the rare oddity that is my brain and finally realized that God doesn't even know who i am. Suddenly, this nation was not jumping over tall buildings, it was blocking the sunlight and causing an eclipse.
One nation, under God, invisible. I am invisible in this darkness of the night. But i searched for the moon relentlessly, knowing that it was my only chance of finding my way out of here. And once i found it, i held it in my arms, cradled it like a sleeping baby and careful not to wake it up because once it awakens it must escape to the sky and will no longer be mine. But to no avail, the moon was awake and whispered to me, "Dear child, did you really think you could escape God?"

It was over a year ago, at the crack of dawn before school. I knew you always liked it when my room was clean so I cleaned it three times before you got there. After my shower, I walked in my room and I found you laying in my bed, your hips pointed toward the ceiling. I fell in love as soon as I laid eyes on you. You knew all of my secrets and monsters, you were surrounded by so much of me and yet you breathed in my sheets like the air was a hymn to the lord and my blankets were the mouth of God swallowing you in. You looked up at me and whispered Christ's name and smiled like you knew the entire universe's secrets. "Tell me that that body is mine." I would have told you anything if you asked and you whispered to me in Spanish, things that would have made even the devil blush. But your voice made it sound like you were softly singing symphonies into my ear. Your body was the tide kissing the shore every time it arrived. My skin was a wax candle and your body was the flame, so that explains why I melt in your hands. Every sigh of my name ripped my heart into pieces. I never liked my name until I knew what it tasted like dripping from your tongue. Each letter was thick and heavy with love. I get addicted easily, so I found myself suffering from withdraw when your skin wasn't connected to mine. Some nights you held me so tightly that I thought my body molded to yours. But when your arms started to loosen, I feared that I would lose your shape. I have lost your shape. And now that you're gone, all I have left is me.

I always had trouble with my keyboard.
Some of the letters were too tight and never moved,
you had to slam them in order to get the words you wanted
and even the most sincere love letter
could sound like a strongly worded email to the nearest Costco
because you found that same 3 pound box of popcorn at Walmart for like 50 cents cheaper.

But the other keys were loose and fell out,
I always put them back on
but I always seemed to lose U.
It was like no matter how much I put U back together
U always fell on the floor.
My friends all urged me to forget about it
and get myself a new keyboard,
they said "come on Alyssa,
you know you need something that stays longer than a few weeks"
but I was too scared that the price of finding something new
outweighed my frustration for picking U up
and just putting U back together again.

Sometimes I wish U could be tough,
that way I didn't have to be terrified of breaking U
if I didn't feel gentle that day,
in case I really was writing that strongly worded email to Costco.
Because there are days when I am not soft and warm,
when I feel more like the lawn mower than the soft grass underneath of it.
Some days I feel like ripping out the X on my keyboard
because it has not moved once since I got it
and replacing it with U
just so U could finally stay where I put it
even if it meant I didn't use U anymore.
At least I would always know
U wouldn't move without my permission.
But that would mean that X would be falling out of place,
and God knows that I need to keep my X's where they belong.

But this isn't about the X,
and this wasn't about U,
this was about my inability to change
and my constant fear of imminent loneliness.
You see I'm not so afraid of being alone,
but feeling lonely scares the living hell out of me
so I would rather find someone broken and patch them up,
make sure they need me a lot more than I need them
so I know they won't leave first,
than find someone who has all of their pieces
and is capable of staying intact without my help.
That is the one who knows that they are so much better without me,
that I am just dead weight
and I am more likely to cause their death by drowning them
than helping them swim to shore.

But for Christmas I asked for a gift card to Best Buy
so I could buy myself a new keyboard.
I just hope I'm strong enough
to throw U out
when it gets here.

Last night I was
experimenting empty body with twin bottle.
Spewing colors out of mouth,
like it's a ******* celebration.
Whispering "happy birthday"
for every friend I've had to put in the ground.
Whispering "happy birthday"
for every time I've wished I was one of them.
I was mumbling existence
until I became unconscious scientist,
collecting data,
hoping if i continue to announce births
that we'll all be born back to flesh
that feels like home, that sings
like porch light wind chimes
that stops the announcements of deaths.
Or at least, strings together
those who want to cut their ties.
Happy birthday.
Research shows my edges
were strung a little too tight,
holding needle in hand,
i plucked away the stitching
until I was all unraveled, stay spilling over
at the seam. Everything seems low.
6 feet under, making poppy flowers
out of freshly turned graves. Happy birthday.
My vice is bath tub overflowing with drunk bodies,
leaking love into the crevices of laughter.
Testing out the theory that arms
can be used as medicine.
Turning experimental phases
into investigations. You know,
people can be placebos too.
Happy birthday.
Happy birthday.
Happy birthday.

A piano I was born to be. But not just black and white because my fingernails are blue except for three of them. I feel safer in fresh white sheets and 8 foot deep water than I do by your side. You are a dangerous convict who has never committed a felony but you are also the vulnerable grandmother who has a mean right hook.

One time I sat and watched a tree fall and **** the ground almost, shot it right in the center and left a crater for critters to crawl. Adult hood should be a lot more scarier than my childhood. But it isn't. Fear of the Inevitable is irrational because God is inevitable and so is Buddha and Jesus and any other deities. Speaking of diets, my mother went on one and lost a lot of money (weight, too) because I could have told her for free but parents are a weird thing because they always say they're looking out for you but instead all they do is look down (or up depending on how tall you are). I'm 5'3" but I like to think I'm 5'2" but I act like I'm 6'4" but I feel like I'm 4'3".

And every day is a struggle when you aren't the same height as you feel.

The gas in my car goes quick and so does my temper and my friends. When waterfalls crash another boat is built to break. Whoever created the car also created the car crash and that deserves a round of applause because it is beautiful and destructive and just the way i like it. I'm a ******* so when people tell me to cheer up I take it to offense, but a fence gouged my stomach once and I told all my friends it was my appendix which is an appendage you don't need like your heart when it turns cold because no one can thaw ice without melting it to a puddle.

The problem with being the strong
one is that people forget
that sometimes you
need a hand
to hold
too.

In my house
Opposite Day meant
breakfast for dinner.
Food anarchy
in the form of
scrambled eggs bleeding ketchup
and melting the opposition in cheese
while the toast was a golden brown
and the win was spread easy over top of it.
My mother defended our tummies
with sizzling bacon lining our stomach
not allowing any gross vegetables to stake their claim.
I never tell my mom
but I secretly wait to eat until dinner on Opposite Day.
I know I should eat breakfast and lunch
but it’s just one day.
Plus sometimes
it doesn’t feel too bad.

The emptiness of my stomach
allows more room for comfort,
more room for the entrance of someone else.
I’ve always been so full of love
that I can barely eat
and I never really figured out
how to fill myself back up
once they’re gone.
I count those calories
like the table-for-two
that’s only seating one,
like half-empty beds
where I find myself
curled up darkness
to its waning moon,
only to roll over and uncover
its everything light
and I am trying my hardest
not to feel so heavy.

When your parents start to notice
you remind yourself that it’s Opposite Day
and you’re really telling the truth
when the lie comes out as
“I already ate before you got home”
and “no, I promise I’m not hungry”
because you can feel your stomach
devouring itself from the inside-out
and I guess that can count as a meal
when other people’s stares have made you feel
roasted-pig stuffed full with an apple in mouth.
But doesn’t that mean
that even food should eat too?
This is when you become vegetarian;
smaller menu to choose from
and more of an opportunity to say
you can’t eat what mom made for dinner.

When the weight starts slipping
so does your relationship
and he tells you that he blames himself
because at first
he didn’t notice you were shrinking
he just thought you needed some space.
Your skin, molding to your skeleton,
allows him to count each fragment of bone in your hand
as he takes his heart back from you
and all you’re left with
is the sinking feeling in your chest
that started the starving in the first place.

I know this constant, raging war
does not seem like it will ever end in happiness,
only in uncomfortable settling;
but you should remind yourself
that you should not feel guilty
for nourishing your working body,
that these sturdy pillars
cannot remain standing if you keep chipping at the cement
that one day
you will wish to be soft and warm,
not just for a lover
but for a beautiful crying child
who points at the dimensions of a Barbie Doll
and then at her own wonderful body
so you can envelope her in the love
you wish you had back then, too.
you will tell her
that skeletons are meant for the grave
and not for her hands to play with,
she should not find comfort
in the spaces between her ribs
only in the space between your arms.
you will tell her
the soft edges of your hips
are what love feels like,
so if there comes a night
where she has been empty for too long
and all of her battles seem lost,
you should turn on that frying pan
and melt her opposition in cheese,
and spread this first win
over her golden brown toast
and hopefully this will stop the emptiness
from staking its claim anymore.

It's been 3 months since you've had a cigarette and you're doing just fine. The Marines whipped you into shape and you've lost ten pounds since i last saw you. Your muscles have been trained to be lethal and i think i would let you **** me if you had the chance. But you've kicked the habit and now your body no longer craves the daily dose of nicotine it so desired for a year. I never wanted to be your cigarette, you only used me when you were bored and stomped on me to finish me off when your lips couldn't. I only wanted to be your drugs, let you die for me. But it seems you've kicked that habit too. Now I'm not sure where i belong because your lungs seem so much stronger without me.

The naked truth about men is that they are ferocious creatures of the night, constantly preying on the lonely and the weak in hopes that they'll get laid and maybe rip a few hearts out in the process. They believe that if they consistently make the muscles in your face turn towards the sky that they can finally make your undergarments fall to the ground. The can stick their claws into the holes of your vertebrae and rip out the nerves wiring from your neck to your tailbone in one foul swoop. They will sink their teeth into your flesh and only tear at it inch by inch because they know you will become numb to them soon enough if they tear you apart too fast. But if they take their time to shred you to pieces inch by inch, the pain becomes almost as worse as the anticipation.

The naked truth about men is that once they've seen you naked they think they own you; body and soul. They begin to taunt you with things like love and dinners just to see you naked again. However, you must comprehend that once they see you naked, a part of them dies inside because there is nothing left to explore. Everything leading up to your nakedness is just the chase of getting you naked. Once the act is accomplished there is nothing else to chase, nothing else to acquire. The truth is that you will eventually become an old toy to the man that saw you naked. That man doesn't love you, he loves the sight of naked flesh against his own. That man doesn't love you, he loves the sound of tearing clothes. That man doesn't love you, he loves the taste of your soft skin in his mouth.

The naked truth about men is that this doesn't apply to every man, but a grand majority of them. The naked truth about men is that it is hard to figure out which man is a good one and which ones are there to throw you away in 4 months and 6 days. The naked truth about men is that only 1 out of 10 men look good naked. And the naked truth about men is that 10 out of 10 men will like you naked.

I tricked myself into thinking
you were sunlight
and i was a flower.
I drank in your rays
until they seeped through my pores.
You turned into night
and i gazed up at you
But you are not a star
and this world is not a garden
and i am a human soul
who needs more than warmth at night
and i do not need validation
you do not keep me alive.
it took too long to know this
but i am not a flower
and you are not my sun.
you don't decide when i get loved

You have wrinkles at all the creases of your appendages, which gives me no other choice but to believe that angels were the ones to sew on your extremities. They took thread made of silk and carefully attached your body parts together, one by one. With one small kiss from above, the silk dissolved into your skin and the scars turned into wrinkles that i would someday memorize with my eyes closed. Not only did the heaven's create every inch of your body, but your soul as well. You're constantly telling me that old souls are common among those whose bodies look worn in close proximity. But in close proximity, i can't help but see lines of life, not death. You see tire tracks and old skin, but i see footprints in the sand and a body reborn. You see muddy brown pools inside of pure white, but i see a coconut cracked open to let the milk absorb into your body and maybe that's why you melt in my hands. Your voice is like the sound of every hello ever said to me at once. When you sing to me, i hear every soft "goodnight". I would always tell you to not let the bed bugs bite, and if they did, bite them back. But your teeth could never harm a being so vulnerable standing right in front of them, which is why i never bled because of you. I only received tiny black and blue marks on the soft flesh that connects my neck to my shoulder. When i sighed your name, my mouth tasted unworthy and frightened that if i spoke too loudly you might shatter. The thought of you is so fragile and intoxicating that i am consumed by you for hours even after you're gone, wondering if you're safe and tucked in your bed or if you're tucked inside of somebody else's. When i spoke to you, sunflowers sprouted from my tongue just so i could trap my words in something tangible enough to give to you by the handful. But mostly, i swallowed my words along with my pride and sunflower seeds that rooted into my spine. If you're quiet enough you can hear the stems snapping with all the pressure.

When I remember that angels created you, it also dawns on me that you must have fallen from the heavens. There is only two explanations that i could possibly think of for this: 1. You slipped out because you saw that i needed help. Because that is what we do, that is what humans do, they stay alive for each other. 2. You are the devil in disguise. I have to remember not to trust you because the devil was once an angel too. He was the most beautiful angel of all. And i can't help but think, as you lay in front of me with nothing but your grey bed sheets and a smile on your face, you are the most beautiful, astounding angel i have ever met; and i can't help but fear that underneath the hairpin curl of your lips is the devil's tongue.

Mom is sweet,
only likes candles that
smell good enough
to cause cavities.
I make sure to get her one
every year.
Become supplier when
her warm vanilla sugar habit
burns down the last wick.
She says it makes the house
smell home.
Turns bitter taste of argument
into something she can swallow,
wants to be able to inhale love.
Says that when candle smoke
feels more like a lover's arms
than your actual lover's arms
there's something about her that
burns out too.

When warm vanilla sugar//mom
cries
she melts.
Divorce making the cavities
in her mouth rot
faster than she can burn out
this flame. Her bedroom
the wick and my father spitting lighter fluid
while swearing he loves her.
I'm sure he does
but this wildfire of a marriage
cannot be contained in this house.
Needs to branch out,
call in reinforcements.
My policeman of a father
was never a trained fireman,
can only call in a blaze when he sees it.
So I stood by and watched while
their marriage burned
but never kept the house warm.

Now I cannot light a candle
without feeling loss. The memory
of my parents slow dancing
at my aunt's wedding
sits shot gun in my car.
It's the four lighters I carry
around with me at once.
It smells like ash.
But my mom says she'll buy
me a candle for christmas,
one that smells like family dinners,
one that smells like coming home
to both parents.
She says I can burn it in my new bedroom,
says we don't have to live in
the memory of a house,
can live in the parts of us
that go home for the holidays.
The parts that smell like
warm vanilla sugar,
a lover's arms,
a wedding's slow dance.
And maybe one day
every day can smell like that
too.

My mother always told me to be careful what i say in mixed company, for some words could offend one party but not the other. But instead of being cautious of the words i spit out, i am more scared of the words i swallow. I have caused a rip in the balance of life, taking years from others i am undeserving of. I should have died a long time ago, but instead i am here stealing oxygen from those who need it more.
I was told that when i sleep, i mumble incoherent sentences. But your walls hear what you say in your sleep, and thats where all the cracks come from. I have choked on bits of the ceiling that has broken off from my sorry language and i think thats why i wake up in fits of not breathing. That persistent feeling of falling is not an illusion, its God trying to tell me He wants me back, that i am not welcome in this bed, so Hes trying to find a way to pull me through my roof but He is not stronger than the forces of suffering. I am Suffering. I am the sacrificial lamb that must be given back to the heavens. I am the ambrosia stolen from the gods and they're descending to take me back.
Every ***** in my body has the natural instinct to survive, but my heart is telling me to escape, that it'll fight off the rest so i can do what needs to be done. My heart is the kindest of them all, it has met my soul that is too old for my body. My soul is crying out to the clouds, wanting to be released but thats why i have refrained from sticking that knife to my veins for nearly a year in fear of what i might let out. Sometimes its blood, sometimes its  pain, but sometimes its freedom and tonight i will be drunk in my liberation until God has seen my insides deflate, watch a sadness so heavy that it grinds my bones to dust. God does not know what this body is capable of, God has seen nothing yet.

Today is grandmother's birthday. I have to watch her deteriorate at an exceedingly quickening pace as more days pass without you here. To watch another human being fall apart and live with no life left in them is more excruciating than if it were happening inside of me. She refers to you as her baby boy, although you were nothing short of a man. 28 years old, decorated in art from your neck to your toes. But nonetheless, you wore battle scars in the form of collapsed veins and sleepy eyes as if you never got enough sleep. You were My JD, mine, JD. When I think about you, I am left with a hole the size of the Pacific Ocean in my chest, which is truly appropriate because I drown in your name. If you could walk into grandmother's house, you would probably drop dead again. Her entire property has become a shrine to your existence, photos are overwhelming the premises enough to the point where you could walk into a maze of JD. Grandmother has not removed your sweatshirt except to bathe. Although she would still wear it in the shower if she did not fear to lose your smell. Sometimes I catch her close her eyes and breathe in what's left of you when she holds the cloth to her nose. Grandmother is smoking again. Nicotine and tobacco smoke kills the taste buds on the tongue, but she tastes you every time she drags in because you, JD, are everything she is. Mother gave up her dreams to take care of Grandmother, Mother dropped out of art school with a full scholarship because her only art was the life of Grandmother. And you, JD, were selfishly stealing the life from Grandmother that Mother worked so endlessly to retrieve. Now, I am not accusing you of being a bad man, JD, I know too much of you to know you as a bad man. You were intelligent beyond belief, knowledge swarmed in your brain and I think that's why you were always so sad. The ****** was to **** the things inside of you. The methamphetamine was to **** the things inside of you. The alcohol was to **** the things inside of you. All I wanted to do was to bring those things back to life because you saw them as a burden instead of the gift that you could harness and control. You were a good man, you made bad choices, but you were never a bad man. You have been the only man to make me feel like a princess with just a smile. JD. I saw you in my dreams, and you smiled like you knew the whole universe's secrets and I believe maybe you did because you are up there in the stars. When I saw you for the very last time, I kissed your cheek and cried. My JD, you are still the only man capable of making me feel like a princess and prisoner all at the same time. Grandmother has shut off your phone so the texts I have been sending you daily are not delivering and soon someone will have your phone number and those texts will be sent to someone undeserving of your 10 digits, digits as in numbers or fingers? Either way, no one was ever good enough to hold your hand other than mine. I was never ashamed of you. I hope you know that because the last time I saw you breathing, I'm not sure if I told you any of this. I am unsure if I told you I loved you, but if there was any way to fill this Pacific Ocean raging in my chest, I would hope it would be because you visited me in my sleep for the rest of time. I would settle for never dreaming of another boy as long as you held my hand in my dreams.

Are human beings programmed to stay?
"Beginning to end"
could be programmed into a person's make-up but
disregard of human design is detrimental to
everyone around that human.
For everyone involved,
getting hurt is inevitable.
Help is not on its way,
instead you are left to fend for yourself.
Just waking up could become impossible,
killing yourself slowly through
love or cigarettes or
more drugs and alcohol than the city could handle.
Nothing could ever
open up the world of
pain better than
quarreling with your own demons.
Reaching out for a hand that
stops reaching for yours
teaches self-harm better than
underdeveloped scars ever could.
Veins are paint trays begging to be opened,
watered down with the
x-ray's of splintered bones from the first hit.
Your pain is inevitable,
zipping with the force of unrequited love.

Bodies were galloping around,
almost forced to breathe in the other's
carbon dioxide due to close proximity.
Mouths were salivating
at the thought of another drink,
another boy,
another girl,
another blunt.
You could smell the stench
of body odor and drugs
throughout every corner of this house
that belonged to a girl whose face
and name i did not know
nor was i cohesive enough to remember even if i did.
In mid thought i felt strong hands
grip my hips and turn me
in the direction of the stairs.
"I'll get you out of here"
the voice said but i wasn't sure
if i had asked to be saved.
The 75% proof ***** in my blood stream
reassured me that it was a friend
not foe
so i let the hands guide me
through the house
up the stairs
through the door
in the bed.
The face i saw was no friend
no foe
just stranger.
Rough stranger,
tough stranger,
my way or your dead stranger.
Tall stranger,
too strong stranger,
i don't care if this isn't what you want stranger.
Forceful stranger,
stealing stranger,
tell anyone and i'll deny it stranger.

They describe in text books
how women should protect themselves
by kicking and screaming and punching,
but they didn't write about
how i wouldn't even try to fight,
how he would spit on me after he was done like a pile of trash,
how i would repeat the word "no" until it was worthless.
I started guessing names
because I wanted to put a name to the hands that defiled me.
Michael, Jacob, Aaron, Eric, Ryan, Brian,
****** bag, *******, *******
*******
*******.

He left me screaming into nothing
because the music was too loud for anyone to hear me.
I yelled at him
I'M SEVENTEEN
I'M SEVENTEEN
I'M SEVENTEEN
Maybe he thought that's what my name was
because he never bothered to ask.

I was Seventeen, but to him I was Consensual.

The trouble with never sleeping is that you start to develop weird habits and because of my diagnosed anxiety disorder i am constantly paranoid that i will develop ocd and perhaps it will take over my life like mtv true life tells me it will. insomnia is crippling and demeaning because no one understands that i only remember what day it is because i have a ritual every morning at 3:47 am that i cross out yesterdays date and now it officially begins today. the demeaning part begins when someone asks me why im so tired and i have to explain to them that i dont remember what it feels like to sleep for more than 3 hours or i just say its been a long day because who has the time to listen me talk about my sleeping habits or lack there of. in fact, i dont even have the time to listen to myself talk about it even though i’ve had almost 76 hours straight to hear myself talk. i didnt always have insomnia, i think it welcomed itself when you left because i always used to sleep with you, in both meanings of the phrase. i was afraid of the dark so you bought me glow in the dark stars and stuck them onto your ceiling and wrote little love messages on them so when i couldnt sleep at night, i could watch the stars you made for me.

Not laying in your bed anymore caused a **** load of thoughts to come racing back to my head. i thought about the crickets who always stopped chirping at 2:38 am, i thought about how i could hear her mother's coffee maker gurgle from the kitchen even though i was 200 feet away and you always liked to snore in my ear. i thought about the way you painted your room a different color because you thought it made you more grown up. i thought about zipping the back of your dress up before a party almost 10 months ago. i thought about you leaving me to go overseas one day. i thought about the seas. i thought about a boat fighting its way through the ocean and wondering why it wasn't moving anywhere because the captain forgot to pull up the anchor. i thought about not being able to breathe because you're gone. although you're probably home asleep in your bed. you're not over seas. you're not under the seas.

Sometimes you don't need water to drown.

You were a wild, wild man.
Not only did you provoke my search of eternal life
but you also showed me the strength of death.
Your soft brown eyes have seen ungodly things
you watched your father's name turn to dust in your mouth
as you spit out things to call him.
His absence has not only caused a rip in your being,
but a restlessness in your heart as well.
You've chased after women and power
and all you've gotten was broken pieces.
I patched you up the first time only to be left,
only to be bruised and battered
physically and mentally.
But you have returned to me,
seeking shelter and guidance
which I will gladly provide.
Your talk of loving my body and skin
has produced an unwelcome feeling in my stomach.
I know I will be left,
bruised and battered,
but I do not mind the broken skin and purple marks
with a sweet mouth like yours.
I've only got two things left to ask;
one will bring you hell
and one will bring you heaven,
will you hit me like a man?
and love me like a woman?

Have you ever started hanging out with someone new only to begin wondering why you want to bathe in their shampoo and make poetry out of the way their eyebrows look?!
WELL NOT TO WORRY!
I have a few simple steps you can follow to destroy those feelings.

Step 1: Imagine your grandma's lips every time you feel compelled to kiss them! THIS is a surefire way to never want to look at them again. The embarrassment will hit you like a train. Unless you do like to kiss your grandma. In which case: (shrugs)

Step 2: Keep at least 3 feet of distance between you at all times. You will soon become obsessed with the inches between you instead of the warmth of their body on yours. If you get cold, buy a blanket.

Step 3: Leave yourself voicemails until your inbox gets full. That way, when you ignore their calls, you don't have to say "no" to their voice, only to their name on a screen. That's if you even want to respond them at all, because we all know the best way to get out of doing anything is to completely ignore the problem!

Step 4: When your friends start to ask where this person's been, tell them you don't know; even though you've been keeping tabs on their tweets to make sure they're still okay without you. Make up lies to tell your friends. Tell them they left you, so your friends will feel compelled to tell you how they were never good enough for you in the first place and that this will get easier with time. The truth is, that you don't want to talk about them again because their name adds to the clockwork ache of your stomach like you've been skipping meals since their absence.

Step 5: Stop making room for someone who's not coming, stop saving seats for imaginary bodies.

Step 6: Get rid of anything that reminds you of them; your favorite tshirt, the art piece they bought for you hanging above your head board. Matter of fact, get rid of the headboard too. Make your room even emptier without them. Don't let yourself remind you of them either because you'll have to get rid of that too. So start running, change the shape of your body so no one will fit next to you like they did. But just in case, maybe you should just keep running. Don't slow down for anyone.

Step 7: Give yourself a new name. It will get easier to hear from someone else in case they say your old name the way the person you're running from used to. Tell yourself that this is okay because you've been starting to feel like a stranger to yourself anyway.

Step 8: when the house in your chest starts burning down, leave your old self inside it, leave the memory of them inside it. You always talked about how romantic it would be to die together anyway. Wear your smoke drenched lungs like a medal of honor, let it hang from your neck like a noose that snapped from the weight even though you promise you stopped eating your meals without them.

Step 9: hold your own body close at night. Keep the pieces of youself pressed together tightly with your own palms. Don't let their broken ceramic promises crucify your hands, don't make a deity out of them if they're not the ones dying for your sins.

Step 10: Everything is in place. Stand in front of your mirror and try calling yourself by your old name. Recognize the foreign language leaking from your tongue, understand that you have turned yourself into an empty tomb, a massacre disguised as a new body. You never knew pain until this moment, placing your hand on the reflection in front of you knowing you can't even get through to yourself. Ask yourself, was this worth it?

When I was a child
I got told my heart was the size and shape of a fist
so I grew up using it like one.
The masochism I have developed
caused an opening for something destructive
and you slipped right through it.
And unable to deny your sweet prowess
I granted your re-entry without hesitation.
I threw words at you
praying to god they'd hit you in the torso
because your empty chest cavity
needs to be filled with something.
My words bounced around in your ribcage
until it cracked one of them
and flowers sprouted out of it
allowing a place for the words to rest.
Wrapping my arms around your body
feels a lot like a snake killing its prey
because you don't see it coming
and when it happens,
I squeeze you until you give in.
If my heart had knuckles
they'd be ****** and bruised
not because of the beating its taking
but because it's trying to break free from my chest.
Every time you're near
it won't stop fighting my ribs
and now I get why it's called a cage.
My heart is an untamable creature,
relentlessly fighting for what it wants.
But i'm learning to forgive your ribcage
for being closer to your heart
than I ever could be.

It was 3 o'clock in the morning
and everything hurt.
There were ads for some movie I now vowed never to see
because I saw the freckles on your face in every dot above the "i",
I saw your arms spread eagle
the last time I saw you yelling
in every lower case "t",
I saw myself in every capital and lowercase "P"
because I can't remember
how many sentences I started or ended with "please"
and just in case
I wanted to cover all ground.
Not like spreading myself across the cement
because I don't quite want to jump,
but you were the only rooftop I've ever visited
that I haven't felt the urge to leap off of.

You, with the soft heart and heavy tongue,
you with the debatable blueprints but wonderful execution,
you with the kaleidoscope eyes and binoculars in hand.
I saw the potential of how much I could fall in love with you;
you didn't have to be the building with the most windows,
you didn't have to be that small flower shop
with the butterfly stickers next to the bank,
you didn't have to be the mistletoe
in the middle of a dimly lit street.  
You just had to be the rooftop to show me it was there.

But when the depression hit,
you locked the door
and I was stuck in the stairwell
staring through the windowpane,
trying to remember what the streetlights looked like in the dark
but you were so certain that everything shut off when you did
and you didn't want me to be sad too.
I tried to remind you
that when the sun comes up again,
everything will still be there,
everything will come alive in the morning
you just have to stay intact long enough to see it.
But I couldn't stay awake long enough to stop you from crumbling.

I woke up to rubble,
yellow police tape and detectives,
crowbars prying your locked door open.
I got invested
and now I'm being investigated
and interrogated
and "WERE YOU THE ONE WHO PUT THE BOMBS HERE".
No sir,
I only told him I couldn't stay awake for him.
I didn't mean to make him think
that I would rather be unconscious
than watch him self-destruct,
I just meant I felt comfortable enough
to wait until he opened the door for me again.
But he can't now.

And I can't lock my doors anymore.
"Aren't you afraid of what you'll let in?"
I'm more afraid of what's being let out.
Your ghost follows me around
and is far too large to fit through the dog door,
and I don't want to look at you when you leave.
So I stay right where I am,
sitting on top of my roof
but your cement blocks will never feel the same
as my slate shingles.
I would rather be made rubble by your ruin
than made shelter for someone else.
When I shut down,
the streetlights are still on,
that means the sun will rise
and I with the heavy heart and soft tongue,
I with flawless blueprints but too anxious to start,
I with the color-blind eyes and microscope in pocket,
will try again in the morning
to not look so much like the police lines you left.

I have never felt so alone
or distant from the human world
in my entire life.
I don't have my life together
and the more i try to grab at the seams to pull it together,
the faster the stitches break.
I look like i'm playing a game of Jacks;
i drop the ball
and i see how many things i can grab
before the ball bounces back down
but i've grabbed too many things
and they're falling through my fingers.
I feel like a torture victim
with a wet cloth over my face
and pouring a gallon of water on me,
sputtering water out of my mouth and gasping for air.
I don't belong to anyone;
no friends
no love
no one.
I am a nomad trailing through the west
stopping at the villages for food
and then continuing my uncertain journey
almost hoping to die so this will be over.
I think a lot about killing myself,
not like a point on a map but rather
like a glowing exit sign at a show that's never been
quite bad enough to make me want to leave.
But i keep telling myself that
the sunrise will come
all i have to do is wake up.
But that's the problem,
i don't wake up because i don't sleep
and when you don't sleep you can't have dreams
and you always promised me that you'd see me in them.
But now
i close my eyes and think of you
i imagine what you look like in your sleep.
They say that when you can't sleep
you are awake in someone else's dreams
and i'm hoping that's what caused the insomnia.
I feel detached from my body
almost like a zombie that feeds on sadness and pride;
i can't swallow back either of those
long enough to tell you i love you.
This journey has gotten too terrifying to continue much longer
i apologize for the short notice
but i think i want to die today.
The show might finally be over,
everyone else seems to be getting out of their seats to leave
and i might just have to follow.

I met a man
who found monsters in the mirror
rather than himself
and for the first time
i felt as if i could give everything
and hold back at the same time
and this man would understand.
There was no pressure,
no expectations,
just time and patience and comprehension
that verbal confirmation of demons
was the only thing that made sense to us.
I have only known this man
for days
but his soul says years.
I have this weird theory
that some people are drawn to each other
because their atoms were near each other
when the universe was created.
Now, i am uncertain if this pertains
to him and i
but his friendship comes easy
and his words even easier.
I've told him about struggling
and how i am expected to be strong
but he told me
we can't all be strong forever.
Not even Atlas carried the weight of the heavens
for all eternity.

Baby ever since you left,
i couldn’t be
happier.
i’ve felt compelled
to shout to strangers
how easily i fell out of love with you.
Baby i’ve been fine.
and i mean the
shower-singing,
curtain-opening,
chinese-food-because-it’s-*******-delicious
-not-because-i’m-dep­ressed fine.
Speaking of which,
ever since you left baby,
i started eating again.
Not because i’m trying to
fill up this space but because
you stopped demanding so much of it.
I wanted to be skin
and bones for you,
expose every inch of my
flesh-tight ribcage, laying out
the pieces of me like showing you
all of my cards.
But you taught me the meaning
of a good bluff. Always pokerface,
always blank stare and
hoping i translate that as “i love you”
instead of “i’ve got more cards than you think.”
Baby you left me elbow deep in my
red dye 40 spill of a dorm room shower,
grabbing a mop
instead of stitches.
You’ve never been one to get
blood on your own hands. Baby,
baby ever since you left
i’ve had wind chimes in my bed springs,
i’ve never heard music
begging me to get out of bed before.
Brass wind instruments
making symphony of my footsteps,
creating keyboard music sheets
with each imprint.
Baby, i feel good.
Feel like that first paycheck
after a month of drought,
drinking in all of my wealth.
Ever since you left
i’ve been rich, the
juicy bite of a fresh picked apple,
the sweet lick of warm brownie
that needs milk to keep the taste from
owning you.
The whiskey glasses that kiss
the red back into my cheeks,
now that you’re gone baby
that
no longer owns me.
I can doll myself up rosacea
without having to put
a decimal point at the bottom
of my cup. Getting sober
has never felt like holding my own hand.
But baby ever since you left,
getting sober feels like my own hand,
letting go of
lipstick stained bourbon glasses
and picking up the
fingertips to the rest of my life.
it feels like nail polish
dipped in tomorrow
i have no other choice than
to keep painting myself into the picture.
and i am not sorry,
baby,
but with each brush stroke of my future,
i keep blurring you out,
making you unrecognizable.
baby, the next time you see me
i will be singing good mornings
from the soles of my shoes,
standing spinal cord straight
with a full stomach
of proud. and i will eat,
and you will wonder
how such a masterpiece
could fit onto my finger beds.
and i will wear my sobriety
like a promise ring
instead of handcuffs.
baby ever since you left
i couldn’t be happier,
even the strangers know
i will be fine.

Before I start,
I want to warn you that I'm not very good at dealing with this kind of thing.
It's been a while since I've thought about you this much.
I tried talking about you the other day,
it didn't really work out so well, I mean
I haven't talked to you in seven years
and even then I never really knew how to explain you.
With your middle name being Patrick,
I celebrated you like you were a Saint
and the entirety of my days were March 17th.
You were all wind chimes and four leaf clovers,
brand new horseshoes and rabbits feet.
I never told anyone what you meant to me
because I never had to.

I knew that things at home were getting bad for you
and you told me you didn't want to talk about it.
But you should have told me when you stopped sleeping,
because I could see the bags under your eyes
like they were carrying your burdens
instead of your shoulders
instead of me.

I started wondering why your boyfriend stopped hanging out with us
but I knew it was because your parents
were giving you black and blue islands as welcoming gifts
and to be frank, I never liked vacationing
so I didn't want to dive into their oceans.
But you cried so often that I could have.

You said
"If I'm gay, why can't I feel like the rainbows
instead of having to explain them?"
I tried to tell you that not everyone knows what to do with a *** of gold when they find it.
So when your parents kept having to take you to the hospital,
that was the only way they knew how to spend the fortune they found.
They spent those gold bricks
buying you therapists who validated your feelings
but pacified your parents by telling them you were "getting better."

But one morning before school,
the phone rang like church tolls.
And my stomach dropped through the floor
and went six feet past the dirt
like it was digging your grave for you
before we even had a service.

On the other end of the line
a woman's voice was broke in half
trembling out the words
"we found him this morning"
like they were her hands reaching for the rope all over again.

Leo, you know how you said you wouldn't break me?
Well my twelve year old heart,
it had broke.
It spilled on the floor like the metal pieces
in the game of jacks
and the ball kept bouncing
but my hands were too clumsy to know how to pick all of myself back up at once.
All of the nerves in my body were malfunctioning
and I swear to God I think I apologized for breathing
because I felt like I was stealing it from you.
The air was all fire and ice,
dancing in my lungs like Armageddon;
the final battle between my breath and yours
and it seems like you lost
but I never won.

It's been seven years since your death
and I still don't feel properly equipped to deal with it yet.
I still haven't finished the letter you addressed to me
and if i'm being honest I can't even get halfway through without crying
or wishing it was me.
But you started it off with
"I am so sorry for breaking you"
and I never made it to the funeral
because I never told my parents you were dead
I just thought it'd be easier to deal with this alone.
But it's been seven years
and I am alone
and I still don't know how to deal with it yet
because you were my *** of gold
and not everyone knows what to do with one when they find it.

I want to put you back together again
Piece by piece.
I want the struggle of not knowing where things go
And i want the victory of finally making you whole.
But you are more than just a game
You are the shattered fragments of a glass vase
That i vowed to return back to its original state before mother gets home.
You are the superglue sticking to my fingers making this messier than it should be.
You are that small shard of glass i stepped on after i thought i picked up everything.
You are my constant reminder to breathe.
You are my constant reminder of battle.
You we my constant reminder of time.

You reached in
and grabbed me out of my skin.
Your hands on my waist
demolished the barriers i placed
even though i wanted to keep them there.
I have been swimming
in a sea of desyrel and prozac
and more often than not
I drown.
"There are worse things
than being alone"
I know, i know, but
i'm always at a low
ever since he had me at hello.
He told me once
he must have told me 30 times before
he's just a man
taking what he needs from the store,
and i am always serving,
giving him shelter from storms
giving him bandages for sores.
The tables are turning
and when i ask for guidence
all i get are bruises
there are no more soft kisses
no more tracing your name
into my skin.
You flip a switch so quickly
i am left terrified of your prescence.
I walk on eggshells aroud you
but they always break,
you told me i am too heavy
but i am trying to fix that.
You used to make me feel pretty,
now you only make me feel ******
and frankly i like the bruises
because they tell me i need to be stronger.
I want to fit so badly into your arms
but you are not her.
You are a replacement
until she comes back home
back to where she belongs.
I never loved you
i just love what you do to me

You caused a dive-bomb reaction in the pit of my stomach.
10 days until you're gone.
In ten days you could fall in love
if you try hard enough
in ten days you could get addicted to something
like nicotine or your hands on my waist
in ten days you could learn a new language
and whisper it on the crook of my neck
like every night when you told me
me pareció mi hogar en ti
which roughly translates to
i've found my home in you
i am constantly trying to convince myself
that you can't make a home out of a human being,
but when i'm lying in my own bed
i can't help but catch myself saying
"i want to go home"
there are still nights that i lie awake and wish you were next to me
although the love you had for me died
as soon as you found Rachel.
I have always felt like a girl,
but around you i felt like a woman.
you made love to the curves on my hips
without ever having to remove clothing
and i had no idea that fingertips could cause liberation
until you kissed mine.
As soon as your lips touched my skin
i knew i would dream about you for as long as i live.
You always had what i needed,
drugs, alcohol, love, emotion, friendship.
Every day for years i would make my way to your house
and you would have a the drugs waiting for me
and as soon as i felt i could fly through the clouds
i ended up swimming in your body
unable to force myself to stay above surface level
because you always drowned.
The screaming matches that were produced
about you wanting to die
scared the living hell out of me because
i realized i was not enough for you.
you told me nothing was sacred,
that no spine was too straight to snap into submission,
that every layer of skin could be clawed off,
and that's why you feared the scars on my body.
Your first stare was a look of horror,
but then it was a look of love and you knelt down next to me
and kissed every inch of my body and i thank my body
for learning how to thank yours.

In ten days you will be gone,
and you can never love someone as much as you can miss them.

there was a time when i thought that maybe i could start to be alive. i stayed away from drugs and alcohol and i trained for hours every day and learned what not to eat and practiced a religion i had no idea about. but i felt something was missing and i had no idea why i felt so empty. i saw the people i love start to turn sad and gray and most days they couldn't lift their head out of bed. i soon began to realize that i had stolen all of their happiness, all of their hope and all of their motivation to live. it was like once i started to feel happy i drained all others of theirs. of course the only moral thing to do was to give back their happiness but i did not want to.

i am selfish and i am selfless and i am without self.

i felt it was mine, not theirs. i worked so hard to be happy for the first time in my life. i was independent, i was hopeful and positive, i was everything i had wished i could be. but i understood that this happiness was not mine and so i drained myself with cigarettes and bottles on top of bottles of old liquor and a different drug every day. i began to dream feverishly of fresh grass and old tasting food and sickness. i began to dream of my death. death was an old friend and he did not mind reuniting. i had dabbled with death for a long time, always testing him and some times begging him to take me with him when he left. he always knew the right times to kiss me but he never followed through.

death talked a lot of **** for a guy who didn't know how to take a hint.

i prayed to a god who didn't listen to me. i constantly got into fist fights with a god who forgot about me

You are not 21, college did not grant you 3 more years of life. Please be careful, this is my body too.
2. If you have come across beautiful minds to explore, don't be so quick to build a home yet. Start with a tent. And if they help you pitch it, things will be less likely to unravel.
3. On the first day, pack up your tent just in case. Because you are never the only being in a forest.
4. Don't bring a map, build one. Ask to explore the mountains and valleys and hills of them. Tell them it's for your geography project.
5. Don't really have a geography project.
6. When you come across a river, there will be no bridge. Others who have traveled here have probably turned back. Shock them, and swim.
7. People may try to stop you, but remember they may be the ones who don't know how to continue. Not everyone you meet is a blessing.
8. Not everyone you lose is a loss.
9. Listen to your mom, she's been through this before. Even though you are characteristically different, college is always the same.
10. If you find yourself missing someone who doesn't miss you, remind yourself that that is not love, that's co-dependence.
11. The difference between love and co-dependence is that one of them will burn you.
12. Love will never start the fire.
13. You don't need to be an architect to build your walls around you. Some people will tell you that you need blue prints but my father never once looked at directions and he created your home.
14. Don't bring the problems of your home with you. Nobody wants to see those shackles. Find the key, unlatch yourself, and run.
15. I know you are tired, but this is the way.
16. Keep your room clean. The clothes on your floor hold on to stress. If you keep everything in order, life will stay intact.
17. Know when to speak. Sometimes words are not as necessary as actions.
18. Step in love with yourself because if you fall, that means you have to find strength to get back up. Always keep yourself upright.
19. You are a universe in yourself, a crowded nebula of light. It's okay to get lost in yourself, because you will be immersed in the stars.

Bill Wilson sat down for his 10th
and 11th drinks tonight,
drowning out World War I
with shots of top shelf
bullets.
Pulling the trigger on his own body,
satiating the burning in his gut.
He almost forgot what a
sober night
tasted like.
This kind of alcoholism takes
patience, practice makes perfect.
Months of one drink as too many,
and one hundred as not enough.
Written off as a man destined to die,
Bill downed bottle after bottle,
leaving the shelves heaving for
company, wonder how he drank himself
solitude, empty?
Or was he full gut war,
bodies stacked to his brim,
leaking post-traumatic stress into
everything he touched.
Each ****** drink a reminder
of too many sober deaths he caused,
each granite countertop
the cold touch of tombstone, the silent
wish for his own, not sure when he started dying
but determined to make this pub
his own battle field. Metal of honor turned
Jack Daniel’s bottle top, wearing it noose
hoping it won’t slip off, needing to
cap his own demons.
This kind of alcoholism takes
steps, 12 to be exact.
Bill created AA for people just like him,
Each meeting pouring out
unquenchable thirst, trigger warning written
inside the door next to the exit sign.
Trigger warning: real life
Trigger warning: you’ll wish fire hydrants were taps.
Trigger warning: communion wine looks devils blood,
looks so good.
Trigger warning: the small girl who wrote this
is shaking from withdrawal right now.
The creases of her palms ache in absence,
in remembering what sobriety tastes like.
5 days sober and her mouth waters
at liquid death, her own southern comfort.
She is daydreaming of the three years
she spent intoxicated, sitting down for her
10th and 11th drinks of the night.
Her expertise in lower-spine life
has recovery seem dishonorable discharge
with no health benefits.
Seem loaded gun, cocked in mouth,
brain matter saying brain doesn’t matter,
saying swim in the trenches of this
World War between Russian *****
and German schnapps. Would take this
over the war in her own head.
This kind of alcoholism takes
patience, takes steps,
practice makes perfect.
Bill Wilson made AA for the nights
I would drive by the meetings on purpose,
trying to trick myself into entering.
Bill Wilson taught me that the need
for liquor is laying dormant in my bones,
a monster who i know is only sleeping,
waiting to make me eternal dirt nap.
And i am just
so god ****** exhausted.

You are the spectacle of love that I am trying to forget.
But somehow i can't get your image to be removed from my brain
like it was branded on the inside of my eyelids.
All I ever saw was you.
You made flowers grow in my lungs
and although they are beautiful
it's getting a little too hard to breathe.
I am asthmatic
so when I started to wheeze,
you lit a cigarette so I could become addicted to that too.
I never knew I could need nicotine
until it came from under your tongue,
a numberless cigarette lit twixt your fingers,
burning like the bridges
between your heart and mine.
You started to need the tobacco
a lot more than you needed me
and your body frame started to dwindle
because i was not enough to keep you stable.
I blame myself
because at first I didn't notice that you were shrinking
I just thought you needed some space.
Your skin became tighter,
your knuckles turning so white
I couldn't tell if it was your bones
but I could still count each fragment with clear definition.
That night i buried my heart in your backyard,
like a dog trying to save a treat for next spring,
but I never came back for it.
It's been three months
and i'm still picking shards of you out of my skin.
You dug yourself so deep into my flesh
that you almost became a part of my DNA.
But just like the wrong blood type
my body rejected you
no matter how much i thought i needed you to survive.
But my mother did not raise me
with a wolf in my chest
so i can howl every time i lost you.
You are not the moon,
you are not the sun.
And i am not a flower.
I need more than warmth to get me out of bed in the morning.
This world is not a garden
and you are not the rain.
You do not decide when i get to be loved.

You are the wind shoving me backwards,
the hands of corpses dragging me down,
the pit of fire i am bein tossed in,
the ocean of water in which i drown.
I am trying to beg you to save me,
but i am not quite sure how.
Perhaps the sad boat that i am sailing
has caused me to become shark chow.
The monsters in my head have consumed me,
and i fear that this might be the end.
Well maybe im not really fearing,
i was just hoping for more time to spend.
But my time has come, the bell has rung,
and i am finally dead.
Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but i want them to break my head.
The words you say sting like poison,
and your hands bruise but they dont heal.
Although you try your best to hold me,
i cant help but be made of steel.
The home in my chest is a forest
and i go deeper and deeper every day.
I try so hard to get lost in there
because there really is no other way.
No matter what you say i feel sorry,
because perhaps this is all my fault.
I think i just need you to love me,
but what i really need is a brand new heart.
For mine is broken and shattered,
and it is damaged beyond repair.
And maybe if i destroy all my flesh
i'll **** all of the monsters in there.
Now all of the bugs are crawling,
i feel them all on my skin,
i bang on the door on the home in my chest
and i beg to be let back in.
Because i know that the bug are not real,
its just the demons who haunt me at night.
They like to play tricks and make me get sick
because they know im not feeling alright.
Oh God why did you do this?
Please tell what i have done,
im sorry if i have deserved this
but life is no longer fun.
Please tell my family im sorry,
tell my girl ive loved her for years.
Tell her i said thank you for everything,
tell her not to shed any tears.
Im finally done and over with,
this poem is the last thing i'll write.
The monsters in my head have taken over me
and they will all win tonight.
Im sorry for all that ive done,
im sorry for all that i couldnt do.
But i will finally be happy now,
and you all should be too.

I am selfish enough to want to get better
but i am backwards enough to not take any steps to get there.
I like the sound of Mozart in the morning
if your voice is unavailable.
I am willing to take a man
and hide him away in my pocket
as long as no one else can see him.
I am more than a human being
but less than a ship
because I can drown on command
but have no external survival devices for those around me when I'm gone.
I am like water
because I can slip through your fingers
but I am able to stay solid as long as I stay away from your lips.
I am like the sound you hear
in unbearable silence
driving away at your eardrums begging to be heard.
I am the branch accidentally tapping on your window
because he made me do it
and the Wind is a hard fellow to deny.
I am that three-leaf clover you mistook for a lucky one
so you split one leaf to make four
just to make others believe you've found something great.
I am the illusion of a father figure that your father should have been
although he is still here
and you have not found enough space in your heart for forgiveness.
I am the claw marks on your back after you've been ******
not by a man who loves you
but by a stranger who's sole purpose was to not let you get away.
I am composed of sweet smiles and sad eyes
of carbon monoxide
of unimaginable poisons and tales.
I am the fear of your future wrapped up in a bottle
I am the fear of your tomorrows molded gently into pink raised lines on your body
I am the fear of yourself suspended gracefully in the air disguised as smoke
but i am indefinitely known as the words you are afraid to speak
in fear that they might shatter.

I am not
    tall
not jack and the
giant growth spurt,
been small bean
tiny roots my
whole life.
I am
adult child
tippy toes to kiss
those who turn
their cheek every time.
I am not
sunny enough for
anyone to live off me.
I am
9:30 pm
blacked out drunk
photo in front of
my universities chapel
because i never remember
when i find god
or if i ever
really did.
i am
that last bit of
cough syrup you saved
for the day you
got better,
the autosave
on google drive
before your laptop ***** you
and crashes in the middle
of your midterm paper.
I try my hardest
to make you better,
keep you intact,
but i can’t change
why you needed me
in the first place.
I am not
made right,
cookie crumbles
instead of melt in your
mouth
i am hard
to swallow.
151 christening
the back of my throat
while you whimper
after one shot of
strawberry lemonade svedka.
That’s sangria to me, that’s
water
to me.
I promise you
I will teach you how
to chug,
how to make wince
look like wink
look like smooth
waterfall thunder
crashing into gut
as long as you
are willing to open throat.
I am not
batten-down-the-hatches
outdoor basement lock
i am
panic room
all the food and drink
you need in me
i am plentiful
i am enough
sometimes
i am too much
i am the
over drinker the
too ****** the
too much fight
too much love
not enough balance
i am
clumsy
not enough equilibrium
between my ears
maybe that’s why i am
queen of miscommunication
queen of misunderstandings
queen of “can you
say that again? i
didn’t quite hear you.
I am drowning
through waves of
something that looks a lot
like water but it
burns good enough to
quench”
I am
******* disguised as
train wreck
i needed an excuse
to be in the hospital
just to check out
of life for a few days,
lay in bed for a few days
feel too small
to go to work for a few days
because i am
tired of having to act big
seem tall
when i am
small bean
tiny roots
have been my whole life.
But i am
starting somewhere
i am growing
going somewhere
i am
just waiting for
the next rainfall
to wash away these
pesticides.
I am waiting
for the day i become
balanced and
i can stand up without
bumping into some
other clumsy part of me,
i can look at her
and ask her why she’s still
here because
i am
here now.
i am
plentiful
I am
enough.

I remember the first time i knew i loved you. We were sitting on the stairs of a pool that didn't belong to us and you were smiling at me like you could see something good in me. The sun rebounded off of the water and made your eyes squint like they were trying to smile like your mouth was. But the first time i was allowed to tell you i loved you was the morning before school when you wrote a poem for me to tell me that you loved me. I didn't even get to read it all the way because i saw those three words before anything else and my face blushed like it was 100 degrees even though it was winter. I say that i was finally allowed to say it because i was afraid that if i said it first you would run away, because you were a dream that finally came true and you were my best friend, my savior, my first love, my whole world. We didn't see each other as often as we wanted, but that's how i knew i really loved you, because our relationship didn't require *** or physicality to complete it like every other relationship. We were terrified of life, but mostly i was terrified of you. The thought of you was so fragile that I was afraid of speaking your name out loud in fear that it might shatter. But your voice was like every soft hello ever said to me at once, and when you left it was like every shouted goodbye. I can still feel the curve of your giant hands over mine, making me feel like the smallest human being possible, but in a good way. You consumed me. I had never met a man that i loved with everything inside of me until i met you. I loved you until i was blue in the face and couldn't feel my lungs. You were the best thing that had ever happened to me. On new year's, i ran to you and you picked me up and spun me around like a sappy 80's movie that makes teenage girls cry. You kissed me and told me that you didn't care if the world ended in 2012, as long as you had me. But then we grew apart, which was ironic because we wanted to be with each other so bad that we couldn't stand each other anymore. I loved you for a long time after that. I thought that we would spend the rest of our lives together, you saved my life and i tried to save yours and it was me who got you help that December. I thought that maybe you would be my first everything but i guess that won't happen. We've both changed and a lot has happened since then, but I still love you but in a different way now. Tonight made me remember what it was like to be your best friend again. My face still blushed and i didn't stop smiling one bit and it was nice to hold you again, even if it was just for a second. I missed your laugh, that was always one of my favourite things about you because the creases of your eyes wrinkled together and you smiled with your whole face, not just your mouth. But i missed the way you said my name, it always sounded safe in your voice. You make me feel safe. Thank you for teaching me how not to drown.

I told myself that if i were to talk to you first then i was losing the battle, but i was unaware that a battle had begun seeing as though we haven't exchanged more than a few words in weeks and haven't seen each other in months. But the fact of the matter is that i am still hopelessly in love with everything about you and you have no idea. It's around that time in the fall where we went pumpkin picking and you were so happy because your parents were getting along and you kissed my face and picked the smallest pumpkin and cradled it because you thought it reminded you of me. you had me take pictures of you while you posed in weird ways for facebook and then we ran away from everyone in the sunflower maze and suddenly i wasn't lost anymore. We went deeper and deeper into the forest of flowers and you picked one for me, and a butterfly landed on it and i couldn't help but smile because beautiful things happen when you least expect them to.

We all sat in the hayride; your parents, your sister, and you and me. And you looped your finger in the belt loop of my jeans so you could latch on to me in someway and somehow along the way that need for closeness died. In the last few months of our friendship, I slept in another room, in another bed, and i could hardly keep eye contact with you because you were always talking about getting something for some girl hundreds of miles away or you managed to bring up her name over 17,000 times and i just couldn't take it anymore. You loved me once, you needed me once, and all of a sudden it vanished with the newest toy. I don't even know if you're still together. Probably not. You always liked to have a new person around that you could **** and **** over. It demolished me that i turned into one of those people, and it hurt so much to the point where i couldn't breathe. Do you know how hard it is to take away a persons lungs without having to perform surgery?

But i dreamt that i knocked on your door on Halloween and said "trick or treat" and the trick was that you loved me but could never see me again, and the treat was that you killed me.

"There's comfort at the bottom of a swimming pool,
I'm holding my breath for you."
....except i'm not.
You are the shallow end of my pool;
dangerous if i dive head-first.
You tried to warn me before I jumped
but you forgot to show me your signs
and I never asked.
I just assumed you had more depth.
It was like you were trying to get me to drown for you
so you could save me
but you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party,
you can't be the car crash
and the paramedics,
you can't be the flatline
and the CPR.

You are the reason the lakes at my summer camp
have signs that say "Look Before You Jump"
because there could be creatures down there
that you don't want to touch you
but you are the deep sea monster
that National Geographic didn't want to discover.
They cower in the corner of their bedrooms
when they dream of what you're capable of.
You can swim among the krill
but still scare away the whales that eat them.
You had the ability to hold up my sinking ship
but you could still slip through my fingers like tap water.

I ******* want to kiss you sometimes
and others I really do want concrete
between you and my skin
like the small bridge next to my house
almost as if you are the babbling lake
and I am the jogger at 6 am.
The sun isn't quite up yet
but you haven't stopped creating noise in my head
since the moment I crossed your path.
I remember the reflection of the sunrise in your body
and the beautiful shade of pink you turned
when I tried to take a picture of it.
I was a little too out of breath to stay much longer
but you were quick to remind me that you'd be here again tomorrow morning
but I think I slept in and missed you.

I don't hold my breath for you anymore
because I'm no longer drowning.
I am not submerged in the Sea of You;
the tangled tendrils of your seaweed have let my ankles go
and I am free to swim back to land.
And although I know I haven't been to the ocean in weeks,
sometimes I still find sand in my hair,
sometimes I still feel the waves crashing over my head.

God doesn't hear you unless you say things out loud.
So if you talk about how great the weather's been lately
and the next day it rains,
it's not called a jinx
its a joke.
Our God is known to punish
more than forgive
so it's no coincidence
that after I told you I loved you
that you left.

I never knew that God could be so ruthless
until I watched the days pile up without you here.
You are the clothes carelessly thrown on my floor,
the empty bottles on my night desk,
my wrinkled sheets that are never smoothed out.
You are a burden
but something i cannot bare to part with
in fear that i'll need you once you're gone.

If i iron my sheets
i'll miss the indents they made on my body
but i'll miss your body more.
Your absence has created a void
that can never be filled,
an empty crate that's too small for books
but too big for my words,
a hollow sorry with enough tears to fill up a baby pool
but not enough to drown me in.

It's been 42 days since we've last spoken
and I can still hear your sigh in the back of my head.
But God only hears you when you speak
so when I whispered Hello,
He arranged for a Goodbye.
I've never been good at them,
I always stutter when the words start leaving my throat
like the letters are ripping their way out of my chest.
No wonder why it keeps throbbing
because it seems that I have a gaping hole inside of me.

I've tried to right myself with the wrong people,
the wrong ***,
the wrong drinks,
and usually i'm left feeling emptier than i started
which is hard to do
seeing as though i'm always vacant.
I've started to become concave,
allowing more room for others
and I can't help but continue to apologize for the space I occupy.
Someone once told me
that i make a better door than window
and I wonder if it's because when you look at me
you can see it's always raining on the other side.

God can only hear you if you speak
so that's why I breathe my words
in fear that if i say them too loudly
He might make them shatter.
The broken shards of syllables
and chipped letters of your name
falling gracefully around me;
raining down like a slow motion hurricane.
I thought about grabbing on to your vowels
but you vowed to never make me bleed
so i stuffed my hands back in my pockets
only find your broken ceramic promises
digging deep into my palms.
I felt crucified and wondered
if one day Jesus would tell everyone
that I died for their sins.

Give me your poor,
your weak,
your sick
and your ******
and i will find a way to make them live forever.
Scream their names into the sky,
fracture the clouds with their stories.
Make the lightning bolts crumble
before ever leaving their homes
to give God an accurate representation
of what it feels like to want to die every morning.
Because I have crumbled long before the lightning,
long before the fractures in the clouds,
long before the names being thrown into the sky.
I have known the days
before silence became almost as excruciating as the screams
because God only hears you when you speak.