I saw your name
And this car ride
Turned into a game of Russian Roulette.
Amazing how the very thought of you
Can reverse my body chemistry
In a matter of seconds.
Smiling,
I didn't even have enough time to blow my cover
Because it hit that quick.
Now I sit, rigid, in the passenger's seat.
God, my legs are weak.
My fingers are cold,
And I have to clamp down on my leg with the tips of them
To keep my voice from shaking.
She can't know.
She can't know that my happiness has been left behind
Like you leave your insides at the top of a steep rollercoaster.
Later it will catch up, slam into me with its new claws, and wrench the food from my stomach
No matter what you've said.
But not now. Not
Now.
I am afraid
To get out of the car when we stop.
Will I collapse to the ground like a newborn colt?
These ****** legs
Shake
And itch to run.
My only composure
Is in my secrecy.
I can sit three inches from my own mother
Silently imploding
And she will never know.
She can't know.
She is all I have left to protect.
My heart rate has tripled
And even when I take deep breaths
They rattle in and out of my lungs.
It feels like there is an electric current running through me.
It feels like I've just lost a lot of blood and the adrenaline is vibrating through my whole body
To make up for the injury.
Every time we hit a bump
My knees seize up
All on their own
And a shiver passes through me.
My white hands flutter before me
Like moths
And if I don't concentrate
My lungs stutter in air uncontrollably
And little pinpoints of light stud my vision.
She can't know.
Just get home.
Bump
I grip the seat.
Bump
Sweat slides down the side of my face
Cold
Like the point of a knife.
I swear I can see it glinting out of the corner of my eye
But its only my white cheeks and glistening eyes reflected
In the blackened window glass.
The girl there is ghostly and deeply shadowed
And for a moment our eyes find each other
In terror and then in
Resignation.
This is our trip
To the gallows
This is
It
This ride
This car eating up the still damp pavement
Lights making the steam that billows from it swirl and dance.
This metallic taste that fear floods into my mouth
Is my last meal.
This is my chariot
And death doesn't know she's driving it
But my number is up
And I stare down my execution in the oncoming headlights of someone else's car
Someone who can probably breathe right now.
Lucky *******.
My ears ring
And the music from the speakers sounds like it's underwater.
Thank god I don't have to talk much.
Almost there
Turn, bump
And my heart tries to climb out of my ribcage
My veins cold with
Fight or flight
But some cruel little part of my mind laughs at my body's frail defenses-
I've known for years that neither
Can save me.
Almost there
No
Please-
I don't want this to end.
Because it's hell, sure,
Sitting here with a nuclear holocaust ripping through my organs,
But I know this devil.
I can systematically lock myself down,
Keep it in,
Keep it quiet.
But the second I leave this car...
The moment I get home,
I will have to know what you've said.
I'll have to face whatever you think of me
And that
Is the most terrifying thing
I have ever sped towards
So ******* fast.

Do the trees still stand
In the pouring rain
Does the west wind sigh over grass and plain?

Do the rivers run
And the owls call
Do the mountains judge as they sit so tall?

Can the men still see
Do the women cry
When the blues and greens dance across the sky?

Will we ever know
How we all exist
In a world as vast and beautiful as this

Forgive me
in summer
if I were
to buy you

some roses
one morning
with fraying
red petals

for they’d be
so frozen
bespeckled
in silver

so you’d know
how it felt
to be cold
just like me

I am nothing (but naïve).
You are everything, and beautiful.

My special talent is being tough.
Not being unreachable,
Not being invincible,
Not being unaffected, but taking blows.
It's a dubious gift, to be sure.
But I think I can no longer deny the fact that my biggest strength in this life is my ability to take a hit and come back.
Yes, there are people who don't even feel the blows that life deals out.
And on the other hand, there are those people who fall to their knees and collapse whenever something hurts.
But right in the middle,
Between apathy and fragility,
That is where I live,
And I think it's the hardest place to be.
To brush off attacks is one thing.
To let them reach you and go on through the pain is quite another.
My special talent is SURVIVING.
My therapist says I need to learn how to thrive.
Maybe she's right. But with my life, I've not been allowed the chance.
What I have had some kickass experience with is enduring.
Surviving.
Going on.
Finding something to live for when everything I've lived for in the past has been knocked down like a line of dominoes.
And yeah, my acceptance of pain makes me vulnerable, but I spring back.
I absorb the force of what life throws at me and throw it right back.
I spend the time I need to crying, hurting, fearing.
But I always rise.
Always.
If you decide to edit the cast of my life, I learn to love new people.
If you take my chances from me, I make new ones.
If my dreams are shattered, I create new dreams.
I am not impenetrable.
I am not an island.
People touch my heart,
Leave handprints in wet paint, leave scars, cigarette burns, leave graffiti, but I
Go on.
They do not destroy me.
They can take, but they can never demolish.
My backbone bends in the wind, but it's made of steel, and you'll never break it.
I am tough, it is my special talent.
I fight wars every day that you will never know about.
I rise ****** each morning from battles against dreams of your arms.
And I will tell you this, my darling, my tyrant:
You can conquer, but you'll never win.

Poetry's there to touch.
But, touching without consent
is bad, isn't it?

I love what people
tell me, because I am too
dull to see what's shown.