I'm tired of written apologies you don't have the guts to speak-
Poets use words and letters and metaphors to explain how they feel
but you, you use a paint by numbers
and it seems to me I've ran out of every color
so now you're just a blank page staring back at me
tempting me to write my own apologies
because I somehow feel bad for you having to say sorry.
These days can become the flat tire on your car on the way to a funeral
but I will always be there to bring you light
even when you take your lack of apologies
and use them to knock out the lights on the ceiling fan-
I will wait in the dark until you decide to change the bulb.
But you never do-
so I'm left there picking up shards of lightbulb
as my hands bleed and spell out your apologies
and I look up at you and ask for help
but it seems you are stuck inside your own mind
your own world until the mess is cleaned up
and the light returns and then I'm stuck here apologizing
for getting blood stains on your t-shirt.
I understand dismay, and the ability to be distraught-
but I don't understand being someone else's peacoat
there to keep you warm until its no longer needed.
I just want to be appreciated.

I want to trace sonnets into your fingertips,
because it's like poetry when you touch me.
I will let your smile be a blueprint
for the outlines of my heavy heart
so you know exactly what's been broken from those before you
so you know just what only you can rebuild.
I want to watch our world burn
and then rise again from the ashes at our feet
making rose gardens and hydrangeas out of the rubble
until the world that was once just ash and dust
becomes forests, fields and valleys of what can be-
I want to grow with you.

I try to speak through the silence
try to make a sonnet out of all the eulogized soliloquies
but all that I can seem to muster are endless apologies
and I keep asking myself what I could've done better
to make you want to stay longer
but I can't give myself an answer when I am choking
because the air in the room is being harnessed
by the elephant in the room
that's weighing on everyone's chest-
I want to say this is for the best
that those words you spoke to those you love
were just a cry for help and not an earth shattering insult-
I want to be sure
that the body you have made for yourself isn't empty
that you didn't spend your days trying to hollow yourself out
with full bottles that you made empty because they seemed like home
because you thought they resembled who you were
until they were all down the hatch and you realized
this is who you are now, empty empty empty.
******* why didn't I do something?
why didn't I wrap my hands around this insanity
and use all my strength and give it to you
because I would rather be empty
than have you laying helpless and alone
to where you feel like the wrists you possess
are your only logical way out of this ******* mess.
Please, don't leave me here.
Lord knows I have spent my days writing my own obituary
thinking about the things my mother would say about me
and maybe even my friends would write about me
when they were done hating me for leaving them
but I never thought the script would flip
and I would be sitting here writing this
and thank god this isn't your obituary
because we've all made mistakes
we live, and we learn from everything we do
and this has taught me what a precious gift life is.
How you can be hanging by a thread-
wishing in the dead of the night
you were dead like that night
and how it all comes full circle again.
My mother tried to **** herself once-
end her life like it was a shirt string you didn't care for anymore
but little did she know that string connect to a bigger picture
and when it was pulled everything else just fell apart..
You are a delicate piece of cloth
wash in cold water on the days you feel low
so you don't shrink yourself any lower.
There will be days when the spin cycles
you find yourself accustomed too
will become tornados and hurricanes-
but even at the coldest of times
you will find warmth again.
There will be warmth again.

When I was younger,
I always wondered why my mother was so easily scared
even at the slightest unexpected instance-
She jumped.
Jumped like her bones were no longer her home
and she was running away from the skin she was hiding in.
As I grew older she told me the tales of how
men had made her skin their throne
and took turns making her body their own-
bruised eyes became her routine
as the Xanax she didn't even realize she was being fed
filled her bloodstream, it became her heart-strings.
The heartache of many men filled my mothers eyes
and I realize now why stability isn't in her nature much.
So now as I enter a room I make sure these feet
hold steady on the ground to make a bold entrance
so she hears me coming every time.
I make sure these hands never grip hers too soon
so she knows I'll be there when she needs me too.
I still realize how she jumps when I forget
that her bones are still trying to rebuild themselves.
I still realize how her heart stops-
and how she went through hell to find the home in her own bones.
I still realize how even her own child
can make those bones feel like breaking again
as the paranoia of a troubled past sets in..
Even nowadays her bones will still sometimes shake at the sight of me-
I realize now, how it feels
to be a ghost.
And that's okay,
Because she believes in me-
Even on the days no one else does.

I try to push it away,
the angst in my heart and my overwhelming desire to run-
run far away from whatever makes it hurt so much to be alive
and the only thing that makes it worth living
is being outsourced and ostracized
and I can't seem to shut out all the negativity that comes with it.
In the dead of the night as the sun rests easy on my side of the world
it is working twice as hard somewhere else
and the moon continues to remind me of that.
Resting is never in the plans for the sun and the moon
and the ocean and the sands
because the sun always rises and sets
and the seas always reaches out for you to touch it
and I think that's what we both have in common..
always wanting to be felt and seen and touched
just admired and appreciated
for these tides make the world a better place
and these hands make your world a better place
I don't mean to be bigoted when saying that-
It's just the light in my life was dim
before you went and changed me
and yours was scolding with heat
so no one would ever want to try and change it
but hands heavy, and fingers that have written about darker days
I took the chance and changed you anyways
and now our days spent together are filled with light.
We are no longer two dimly lit rooms-
because there is me and there is you
and together we make mountains
glow upon the sunrise
and darkness seems just like a distant memory.
My hands press these keys so vividly
like Beethoven and his symphonies
and moonlight drifts through the air
like a silhouette and we dance with our bodies intertwined-
because I am yours and you are mine
and this darkness doesn't exist much anymore
only on days when the mind that writes these words
can't think of ways to write the inner demons away
but I know when that time comes
and I want to drown in the seas that once saved me
I will remember you are here with me
and we can float together to make oceans
of what we have been through and just swim.
Just swim until we know we are at our destination
because we are no longer two dimly lit rooms-
we are spotlights and sunrise-
the florescent shine in your eyes
when you're awaken by a brand new day.
We will eventually burn out-
but worry not because when the time comes
we can change together.

I would like to explain to you
how my insides burn down the cities within myself
I have spent days and weeks and months trying to rebuild
from the last time I set myself ablaze
but I cannot.
These hands cannot grasp yours and guide you into my dark mind
all the while still trying to hold onto any sanity I have left-
these knuckles are bruising and you can see the scabs
but you don't seem to realize how they got there..
This heart is aching and you stare and wonder-
how the **** it got so exhausted..
I could try to show you exactly how I feel
but your eyes would be blinded by naivety
and your desire to act like everything is okay
when it's not, when I'm not-
I'm not ******* okay.
And I can continue to write it down
until my fingers wither away
and become one with this keyboard
until my pencil fades and all that's left
are the marks from where I tried to erase everything-
these feelings are not made out of ink.
I can't just put them on a page and show you
I can't pour out the ink and make something beautiful
you will never know what it's like..
I was never really good at explaining things-
like the way you make me feel
or the color of your eyes when the light hits them just right
but I think I'm getting pretty **** close.
And you see this mind of mine
is more like a maze nowadays
because I can't get through to other-side
to find where the **** my happiness lays
and I think it's ******* hiding
because it's afraid of what I am capable of.
Because the last time I found it
I sat on top of my roof at 2am
looking at the stars and laughing hysterically
at every single passing car
because it reminded me of my life.
The last time I found it-
I tried to take it and fall in love with someone else's lonely
but you see that **** nearly destroyed me and my happy
so now I think my happiness is afraid of me-
and I think I'm afraid of my happy...
Because without my sadness and this pain in my gut
that causes me to sit here and have to explain to you
that I can't make this **** go away-
**** even the FDA can't make this **** go away...
it keeps me thriving and hoping and clinging
to this pain in my gut and these thoughts in my head
reminding me that at any moment I can die-
wither away like I don't give a **** about my life
but what good is that
when it feels so ******* lovely to be alive?

I would like to take a paintbrush
across your eyelids and paint for you
what it is I'm going through.
Maybe take a picture so you can remember
this battle I face everyday
as the emotions I posses weigh you down
and as the words "this is too much for me to deal with"
leave your lips and you wish you wouldn't have signed up for this-
I hope you remember what it felt like to wish you would die.
I hope you remember that everyday is a struggle for me not to-
I hope you remember loving myself isn't easy either.
I hope you remember as I carry the weight on my shoulders
the burdens you carry on yours
that my life isn't a cake walk
it's more like walking on a gravel road barefoot
and although I may not suffer as much as most
that doesn't ******* mean I don't suffer.
I have spent most of my life cradling the idea of betterment
in my arms and making sure the people around me were safe-
I have spent too many years-
taking care of who should be taking care of me.
Now it's my turn to take care of me-
So don't you dare ******* say, I'm not trying.

Someone once told me-
"you have too many problems for me to deal with"
and as the words made their way down my throat
into my stomach making a mockery of my digestive system
I was shaken.
The butterflies in my stomach wanted to fight back
tell them that "these problems are who I am so *******"-
but my mind shut out the butterflies and began thinking.
Tore apart who I was inside my own mind
my eyes began to water as they were looking into his
but I laughed instead of crying and didn't let my insecurity win
No, not that time- so I replied
"everyone has problems"

The boy I love once told me-
these feelings I possessed were more like a "burden"
rather than the blessing I made them out to be
and the butterflies began once again
demanding to be heard until the regurgitation made me listen.
I stood upright, cried until my knuckles bled
this was happening, all over again.
So I changed myself for someone who I thought
knew who I was and as the times changed
the darkness fell upon me much sooner than expected
and the love I thought I felt for him almost vanished.
But I realized I cannot push everything into someone
who doesn't want to carry the burden with me
and although the weight is heavy
I have carried it 19 years alone and struggling...
And yes, I now carry your weight with me too
on top of these burdens I own yours are not too far behind-
because with love comes sacrifice and strength
and I guess I'm just stronger than you.
So thank you-
for showing me the one thing I always really knew.
These emotions and struggles I possess do not make me weak-
I am not the burden or the nuisance around your neck
I am strength and the light that comes with early sunrise.
I am stronger than most and it scares people.

So as these problems shake me,
push me to the edge and tell me to jump-
I will clench my teeth as I clench the bottle
and I will clench my fist as it hits the wall.
I will remember the hole I just created
is a reminder I am strong
the bottle I just threw to the ground
is a reminder I am strong.
The silence of my cell phone
when everything is going wrong
and you have just too much going on-
is the constant reminder, I am strong.