To hear your two syllables
Fall off the lips of the person
Beside me.
To brace myself
And not to wince
Of the name from which I’m hiding.
I buried the thought
Of you away
In the corners of my mind
As the sound of your voice
Begins to fade
In the collection of time.
And with that name
She gave you life
Brought you from the grave.
I once again must find a way
To bury your thought
Back where it should have stayed.

silhouettes and silken sheets
biting skin while climbing trees
we held the candle for too long
made a wish, held my breath
and now...it's gone.

august nights call my name
familiar voice but the face is not the same
he held my hand, told me sweet things
I closed my eyes while it was happening
friendly touch with the coldest sting...

he had soft skin and the kindest touch
flames caught fire, I loved him too much
said I was suffocating him
but I couldn't breathe without him.

he had a different face, hid behind a mask
stupid girl, stop chasing the past
it only comes back to hurt you
no one can hurt me like you do.

I swear I've seen your face before
he had ocean eyes and a deadly smile
that made a heart stop--stop and bleed for a while
but ****, that smile.

count the years that you held me close
broke my neck when I trusted you the most
you had the loveliest lies...
water fills my lungs
as you hold me down
said I was suffocating him
when it was the other way around.

I want those ocean eyes to glisten
like crystals in the sun
take my hand down alleyways
right where we begun
I want to be shiny and new
so not to lose you.

I've been painting a smile
I've been hiding behind a mask
I don't know what I'm running from
but that I was running fast
for nothing to settle
for nothing to repeat

all my life has been halted by
the fear of meeting peoples eyes
the fear of meeting the mirror
don't hold me close to hold me back
I've been searching for this meaning that I lack
and I can't find it in your eyes.

trust me, don't start a conversation
don't fill your head with expectations
I'm teenage angst waiting to break free
don't hold me, don't say I love you
don't start now and make me want you
when I don't even want myself.

This morning I awoke clutching your name
with such reckless devotion that it turned to dust,
each letter fell to the floor. I know where you went,
long before you vanished inside of your name,

long before the grave. You sank into your body
like a river, guided by the low light burning
on the horizon. I know how you found us:
the pipe is a beacon. The pipe is a lighthouse.

You wanted to know how to remove the emptiness
from yourself. We never understood it cannot be
removed. It is not a pulsing seed in the gut, or a peach pit
run into the mud. We weren't drug addicts, we said

we were scientists. We experimented each day.
Sent the smoke down into the deep mine of the chest
as though it were a rope with a hook at the end of it
to pull the emptiness back out. We partitioned ourselves
away to the dark piece by piece, we did not remove
the emptiness but further became it.

The mind of the addict is cunning enough
to convince the body it is not dying.
Houdini doesn't have **** on an addict,
he was able to convince everyone but himself
he had vanished. Addiction is the ethereal art
of forgetting that you are still here.

I know where you went, before the syringe perched
in your arm and whistled through the vein
like a steam engine, before the crack rock broke apart
in a blaze of light as though it were an egg hatching fire.

I know what it is to walk down an unlit street at midnight
and have a gun cocked in your mouth. I know what it is
to discover the gun shaking in your own hand.
The most dangerous neighborhood
is the one in my own head.

This is a game of masks.
A Rorschach test of the mind.
QUESTION: what do you see?
Anything I want.
This is the magic of perception.

The difference between an addict
and one who is drowning
is the one who is drowning knows it.
The addict will drink the sea until it becomes him.

Even now, five years sober and when I smell whiskey
from across the room my mouth still waters.
I have not fed my skin a blade for nearly a decade
for fear of what I might let out.
What sleeps must one day wake,
even when you sneak through your own life like a thief.

I having spent whole nights lying awake asking why
I made it and you didn't. I can still hear death pawing
at the outskirts of town, as you vanished inside
the needle in your arm and I swayed
from the edge of a bridge, neither one of us
was any more deserving of this life.

I feel ill to even think it, but I have to thank you,
some days your death is all that stands between me
and a drink. There were days I went as far
as to hold a bottle in my hand,
but couldn't bring myself to swallow
because your name was stuck in my throat.

There were weeks I couldn't walk two blocks
from my door without being asked
if I wanted some kush, some glass, some white,
some snow, some jack up, some jelly beans,
some dust, some rock, some good ****.

And each time I heard your voice ask me,
"how badly do you want this life?
you didn't deserve it then, but you got it,
so what are you willing to do, to keep it?"

with detachment, he stole my world.
the very breath from my lungs,
leaving only the hollow ache in my ribs
and mourning holding my bones on fingertips.
our room is silent now. and you told me it
would no longer be ‘our’ room. but only
after you stained it red with hollow intentions
and empty promises. the memories, your
voice is a deafening numb that pulses through
my ears constantly reminding me of the weight
of your absence. the dark shades that hang
from my eyes rock me to sleep as your
voice sings Moon River.  
memory has never failed me until I try
to recall our last kiss, the last truth from
your lips. because I can’t remember how
your smile tasted or the gentle glide of
your hands but their scars are all over
my body and they won’t let me rest.

Does he kiss your eyelids in the morning when you start to raise your head?
And does he sing to you incessantly from the space between your bed and wall?
Does he walk around all day at school with his feet inside your shoes?
Looking down every few steps to pretend he walks with you.
Oh, does he know that place below your neck that is your favorite to be touched
And does he cry through broken sentences like I love you far too much?

Does he lay awake listening to your breath?
Worried you smoke too many cigarettes.
Is he coughing now on a bathroom floor?
For every speck of tile there's a thousand more
You won't ever see but most hold inside yourself eternally

Well, I drug your ghost across the country and we plotted out my death.
In every city, memories would whisper: "Here is where you rest."
I was determined in Chicago but I dug my teeth into my knees
And I settled for a telephone and sang into your machine.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

And I kissed a girl with a broken jaw that her father gave to her.
She had eyes bright enough to burn me. They reminded me of yours.
And in a story told she was a little girl in a red-rouge, sun-bruised field
And there were rows of ripe tomatoes where a secret was concealed.
And it rose like thunder, clapped under our hands.
And it stretched for centuries to a diary entry's end where I wrote,
You make me happy oh!! when skies are gray
You make me happy oh!! when skies are gray and gray and gray.

Well the clock's heart it hangs inside its open chest with hands
Stretched towards the calendar hanging itself
But I will not weep for those dying days.
For all the ones who've left there's a few that stayed.
And they found me here and pulled me from the grass where I was laid.

Does he kiss your eyelids in the morning when you start to raise your head?
And does he sing to you incessantly from the space between your bed and wall?
Does he walk around all day at school with his feet inside your shoes?
Looking down every few steps to pretend he walks with you.
Oh, does he know that place below your neck that is your favorite to be touched
And does he cry through broken sentences like I love you far too much?

Does he lay awake listening to your breath?
Worried you smoke too many cigarettes.
Is he coughing now on a bathroom floor?
For every speck of tile there's a thousand more
You won't ever see but most hold inside yourself eternally

Well, I drug your ghost across the country and we plotted out my death.
In every city, memories would whisper: "Here is where you rest."
I was determined in Chicago but I dug my teeth into my knees
And I settled for a telephone and sang into your machine.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

And I kissed a girl with a broken jaw that her father gave to her.
She had eyes bright enough to burn me. They reminded me of yours.
And in a story told she was a little girl in a red-rouge, sun-bruised field
And there were rows of ripe tomatoes where a secret was concealed.
And it rose like thunder, clapped under our hands.
And it stretched for centuries to a diary entry's end where I wrote,
You make me happy when skies are gray
You make me happy when skies are gray and gray and gray.

Well the clock's heart it hangs inside its open chest with hands
Stretched towards the calendar hanging itself
But I will not weep for those dying days.
For all the ones who've left there's a few that stayed.
And they found me here and pulled me from the grass where I was laid.

I’ve been holding, breathing in your skin
Breathing your words, breathing your sins.
When you’re walking your shadow away from me
Knowing you’ll be there tonight in my dreams.

But this time I have decided
You’re not longer welcomed in my head
No longer tangled in my words
No longer hoping for the worst.

I’ve been holding your bones along
To the words of this tired song
Stuck in circles, stuck in replay
Time to move on but I’m oh-so afraid.

And it has been decided
To leave these thoughts in my head
You need’ t hear the words left for dead
My love is for the broken
My love is best unspoken.

And it has been decided
I’m no longer your wanted sidekick
No longer the girl you write of
No longer the girl that you loved.

clouded lungs, charcoaled black from swallowing storms
lightning dances through my veins, hot and cold
scars that map my body tell of where I'm from
but not they make no sense because the way is gone

I'm the shadow, stay in corners, dancing in the night
and I keep my words in my head to be closer to the fight
confronted every day, but their faces never stay
their knives are in my back but I feel no pain

there is so much pain...

I am the means to my own end
people offer tears but there's no use for them
time is speeding up, turns out the gun was held in my own hand

take me back, make this disappear
I'd do anything just to get out of here
but time is speeding up and I am stuck holding the gun

Suddenly I am a wildfire.

My warning rolled off my lips,
as you threw matches at my feet,
retreating from the angry burn.
A smile on your face, you knew
the game I was unwilling to play.

I was your martyr, and you,
the sword through my throat.
Baptizing me in my own blood,
painting me every hue, yet still
I was not the right shade for you.

This is more than flint and friction,
this is arson by your hand. It was
your breath that gave life to the
immaculate inferno that I am.

Suddenly I am a wildfire

and I am out of your control.
I am more than your narcissism,
a maelstrom of malice to the blistered
fingertips that had scared
this sacred skin.

Hear the sirens sing my name
while no one whispers yours.
The damage is done and out
of your hands, nothing more
that you can say.

I am the fire that will never
truly die, see my essence in
the embers and how even when the
heat subsides, cleansed charred
grounds give new life and you
will realize that while you were
merely the fuel, I was the force.

my fingertips pulse blue and black and all feelings flow away to nothingness. the air that bites my face with razors reminds me of how much pain I hold while being completely and consumingly numb. there is a hole in my chest and blood gushes, trying to making up for the vacant space.
will winter give me his arms, carrying me to sleep? will his lips give me the words wedged in unused  vocal chords? I am missing something and am devastatingly alone.
he left early with the sun and I long for him as a summer day. I possessed nothing but the company of the dark. as time passed, I finally appreciated the company of stars.

aaron carter
my slobbering , always smiling labrador
the words of sylvia plath
the cold metallic feel of razors
and death.

but now, i think myself might be a candidate.

Rehearsal’s meant for perfection, but this is another stage.The act of doing. Blinded by the spotlight, struck still by the paralyzing heartbeat in my throat. And this is not the first time that I have been here, I am not proud to say. And I am unsure of which part I am more ashamed of: the fact that I felt the need to do, or that I lacked the courage to follow through. So here we are again, brought together by the forces of the wind. Being pulled together by the strings of our hearts, playing each other in the selfish game this has always been. It’s physics, no matter how far we run from each other, no matter how much blood was shed when I tried to cut you free, no matter how many cold shoulders we rested on at night; we always return to the same place, this same state. A vicious cycle that every time steals more and more of my sanity. I feel it slip through my fingers quicker each time and I claw and I claw my way to regain it, but there you are, holding it in your hand. A trophy. You’ve claimed everything of mine; maybe it was unknowingly so. But I have no tears left to shed, ducts dried and shriveled. I have not felt the knife of anger and sadness in my side for a long time, nor the relief of laughter and happiness; even on Friday nights when I’m laying next to you, under your covers. Just this terrible, aching numbness. This inhumane indifference that curdles at the pit of my stomach. I cannot daydream because I always somehow return back to you. And most nights I can’t fall asleep, but I’m more so afraid to. Of believing that you really are in front of me, brushing the hair out of my face and kissing my neck, just to wake up to a bed filled with haunting memories and a body aching with the desire to be held.
This cycle has to come to an end, and here we are. I stand there before you, silver blade of the knife shining from my hand. For the first time in an entire year, I finally evoke emotion. Your eyes grow wide with shock and fear like I’ve never seen before. I’m sure a while ago, accomplishment would have coursed through me. But I am only here to end this. To end your prolonged chapter of my life; overdue.
Give me an hour or so, I could name all the wrongdoings you’ve ever done. I could document and chronicle the periods of pain that have filled these past two years of my life, only to be broken by short bursts of shallow happiness. Although this is all true, I still love you. And I know once I walk away from here, the thought of you will continue to haunt every step of my life. Only worse, there would be no possibility of ever seeing you again.
There is no freedom from you in this world. Miles away, everything still reminds me of you. There is no killing you.
So I looked into your eyes, one last time, as I drew the blade through my throat.

I saw the way it lit your eyes.
Since childhood the thrill of
melting wax and hissing fuse
spurred such excitement for
being alive.

Whispering wishes to lightning
bugs, carrying light to the crystal
chandelier, lighting the miles ahead.
There the world stood still.

Your eyes circled
With shades of black
From the late nights
Of dealing with your monsters.

Life retreated from those blues
Many years ago.
I watched as the light faded,
Casting a dark shadow over your vision.

Death consumed the soul
You claimed you never had.
Becoming infatuated with the end
Than life itself.

Living for what tomorrow holds,
It wasn’t living at all.
Sensing your absence
Even when you were right in front of me.

You told me there is no God,
That this is all we have:
A cruel world
Crawling with greedy creatures.

People who have judged,
Took you in and threw you out,
Leaving scars and ghosts
That take residence in your mind.

There is no escape for you
Except by the means of a needle.
Apparently chemicals give you
Far more than I ever could.

You retreat into the darkness
The hole you dug yourself
Fleeing from the light.
From the world. From me.

Going through great lengths
I tried to save you.
But you didn’t want to be saved.
And you hated me for that.

The monsters escaped your closet.
No quarantine can save you now.
Because they not only reside in us
But in you as well.

You ask, “What’s the point
To this absurd life we lead?”
Constantly kicked to the ground
But this time, you can’t regain footing.

Exhausted by disappointment
Drained of emotion
You just want to end it all.
It would be easier, right?

You just want to feel loved, desired.
But babe, you are unable to see
How the blanket of intoxication
Blinds you from what’s before your eyes.

You say you hate everyone,
That no one understands.
Then who was I?
I was nothing to you.

I could have chose a simpler path,
Spare me this obnoxious ache.
Intrigued by this dangerous flame,
I was unable to resist.

I came too close,
Now scorched by the fire.
And I am unsure of when
This pain will subside.

With clear vision I can see
How our story will conclude.
Not only destroying yourself,
I will be capsized. I will be the one that loses.

You will end me,
My darling.
Take this knife from my chest
Before it sinks any further.

I’ve tried and I’ve tried.
You kept pushing me away.
So maybe this loneliness that accompanies you
Is more self-inflicted than realized.

I love you, my dear.
And that’s what makes this so difficult.
But I cannot continue searching for
What does not want to be found.

I can’t save you from yourself,
The monster that’s inside of you.
But I realized I can spare me
And I’m afraid that’s what I must do.

im afraid i have lost my touch.
try to crack the stone stoic surface
skin crystalized to rock of
the most expensive yet mundane
shine stolen diamond.

i find myself here, alone,
sitting in the study room of
a school i never wanted to go to
in a town i never wanted to call home.
alone, picking at the surface,
pricking the tips of my fingers for
just a single drop.
by the ax will not crack the exterior
the uniformed exoskeleton
will not harvest any value.

whatever is in here is deeply buried,
swept away in the black currents
and silenced by the quiet smile of
'really, im fine.'

expression perfected by painted porcelain.

why did you tear away from me?
why did you have to go away?
I still feel your skin on my sheets.
your smell hangs like morning sunlight
through the windows watching you go.
give me these Saturday mornings
and I will give you Friday nights
leave me kisses that stain my skin
and rose shades to color the light.

Elementary days colored in sunshine, filled in its rosy shades. We were just two kids, you and I, running around the playground. Playing tag and soccer and more so often, sitting underneath our favorite tree in the graveyard, picking the wildflowers that grew around the cracked exterior of the headstones. We were just kids, inductees into this crazy role of life. It had just begun for us. Two young kids laying underneath the shade of elders, cozy in the resting place of those much older than we.

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.

In middle school you fell for me. And to this day, I am not sure whether that was good or bad. But we filled our days in classrooms of Catholic Schools, passing notes and mix CDs, filled with Green Day songs. Sneaking into PG-13 movies and playing guitar at your house. You were honestly one of the closest friends I’ve ever had because everything felt so natural with you. I remember my father driving me home from swim practice, American Idiot blaring from the radio. I still have that CD to this day.

So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time.

In eighth grade, you began missing school quite often and I found myself lost amongst the crowd. I had no one to sit with during lunch. No one to entertain me during Math and Reading. You said you had the stomach flu. How I wish that was so. A month later I received a phone call from your mother, informing me that you had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. My end of the phone was quiet, and she waited for a reaction, but all I could do was fall to the floor. Shocked. My dad caught me and answered the phone. She told him everything. I silently got up and walked to my room without a word. And so I laid in my bed that entire weekend, no emotion, just this terrible numbness freezing my veins and paralyzing my mind. Now that I think about it, that numbness never did leave.

So take the photographs and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time

I didn’t see you for an entire year. You practically lived in Kansas City. You practically lived in that hospital. And the thought of you, confined in those four gray walls, assembled with wires and tubes, killed me. Because that wasn’t how you wanted to live. Every night I prayed for you and every night I cried. I begged for it to be me, because you did not deserve it. And when you came back to school, you came back with a victory and I was so happy to see you. But something had changed. You were not yourself and you didn’t want anything to do with me. Your parents told me it was natural for behavioral changes in your condition, going through as many surgeries as you had. I just wanted my friend back.

Three years later that ******* returned, trying to claim your life once again. And this time, it won. It succeed and I had to do something that horrified me for the past 4 years. I perfected my stoic facade. And I sat in the back row at your funeral. But then Mrs. Durbin, our Social Studies teacher, sat next to me. Embraced me, weeping, saying how sorry she was that I lost my childhood friend. And then your father came up to me and hugged me. He asked me how I was and I said “okay” because it would hurt too much to say the truth. But then he held me at arms length and looked into my eyes and knew. I crumbled, breaking the emotionless mask I had been hiding behind, and he held me as I sobbed.

Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial
through what it’s worth, it was worth all the while

That night, I had laid to rest one of my own. My childhood friend. My brother. And as you would like to know, they played your favorite songs, ranging from the Ramones to Green Day and I couldn’t help but to smile. I’m not a religious person, but because of you, I hope there is an afterlife. So hopefully I will be able to see you again.

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end that’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

The bullet cracks your teeth, your tongue burns against
the hot metal, cooled down by detached touches and
mute denial. I have never felt such pain as when you painted
my cheeks with your fingertips. The blood still stains your hands.

I hear autumn calling me and I wish to go her way, however
though miles away your hands still hold my waist, asking me
to stay. My mother always said the devil was near.
I never expected him to have such blue eyes.

No amount of bourbon could erase the scars your
lips left behind. No matter how many words pile
on top of each other, your voice remains clear.
And even when I sunk into my old habit, he wasn’t you.

September has always been kind to me.
But this year seems so cold. The miles stretch
me thin. I feel myself drowning, they are saying I can only save myself.
But I still find myself here, drinking the sea.

to cut. to open up veins and let the reddened river rush, releasing me. to have the sobering throb of sliced skin dull the agonizing ache from within. it was my little secret. self-harming is a taboo subject. viewed as having no control over emotions or thoughts...well, i guess they weren't wrong. in the davis household, we do no have room for feelings. we were trained not to bring unpleasantries to the table because heaven forbid someone became uncomfortable. heaven forbid if someone caught a glimpse of the tiresome face behind the painted porcelain.
in middle school, the sickness started. the tumor grew inside my chest, making the task unbearably difficult to just simply live. impossible to drag myself out of bed because i couldn't find one ******* reason to pick myself up and face the day. it metastasized to consume my body. everywhere the darkness touched. blinded my eyes and deafened my ears to where i was left alone with it.
i became bitter due to the obvious state i was in. scars and fresh gashes striped my wrists and legs, razorblades and knifes left on the nightstand. few would ask and fewer i would tell, offering half-assed coverups. but they bought the weak stories because if they didn't, they would become involved. heaven forbid. and my parents didn't notice a single thing as i was destroying myself before their eyes. all i needed was for someone to reach out. someone to care enough to tell me to stop. to grab the blade from my hand, look into my swollen eyes, and tell me that i deserved better. that i was worth more. to say that they loved me. they took me to therapy because i needed to talk when i have been screaming this whole time, they just never listened.
so uncomfortable in my sobriety, i searched for any escape. anything to distract me from myself. and i sought for love, because i thought that was what was going to save me. but all paths, rocky and disastrous, led to dead ends and i found myself more alone than ever. i needed love. but i looked for it in all the wrong places. i would not find love in the stranger laying next to me. i would not find love in the meaningless touch of another. i couldn't. i had to find it in myself.because the love of yourself offers the sturdy foundation on which others can build. without that, the wall that they had constructed would be in vain, collapsing with the slightest gust of wind.
we were taught that to be alone is a failure when in fact, the real failure is being unable to be alone.

It has been 10 years since I’ve first seen your face
and, around your ankles, the weight of  generations
of blood that bit their tongues behind silent lips.
It has been 10 years since I accepted that I was
never going to be just as ‘happy’ as other girls,
I was an observer behind the windows when all
I really wanted was to go out and play.
I hated you—no, I loathed you--but that could not
be true because you didn’t let me come close
to feeling so human. You stole birthday parties from me,
you stole my mornings as I laid in bed, unable to
move, crushed down by the burden of you.

It has been 8 years since I detached myself from
this body, when I decided nothing could destroy me
quite like you. I threw myself from tall buildings,
hoping that someone would care enough to catch me.
The ground hurt worse and worse each time.
You taught me that being suicidal does not have to be
an active effort. That its undertones lie in the
carelessness of crossing the street without looking,
That it is in the silence of distancing myself from
every friend I had because ‘it just makes it easier’ if I was alone.

It has been 4 years since I allowed myself to admit
that I simply could not carry your body alone.
I refused to be ashamed of you because you
were never my choice. I can still remember the
way my mother’s eyes rimmed with tears as she
realized just how long you have been residing in this
household.  Since that day, you began fade. You disappeared
the way the monsters under the bed retreat from
the flashlight. Your presence was much more overbearing
breathing down my neck than when I looked you in the face.
But even now, sometimes I find your fingerprints pressed
against my window, and your glazed eyes gazing back
at me in the mirror.

Sometimes, I know you only
as your absence, hanging in the air.
I befriended her, she knows my name.
I learned to love her, or to love
the gift she gives: a pain to call my own.
A knife in my back is inherently mine, after all.
On the days where the sunlight
seems to vanish she is there, waiting
to embrace me. She’s more beautiful than you,
her skin shines like gold, her youth preserved
like a stained-glass saint. She is the only
thing that withstands time, a monument.

You are more than aching arms outstretched to
the empty air, than the frustration of beating the
same dead horse. You are the sound of
shattering glass when you walked into
the bar with someone new after you canceled
our plans once again because you were ‘busy’.
You are the noose around my neck, looking down,
smiling at the sight of me strangling to escape you.
You are words written on fogged glass,
vanishing before being read. You are
the cold beds of strangers and my tear-
drenched plea for you to stay, just this once.

Every time I try to construct the perfect opening line, my mouth floods with venom. Nails clawing my palms to remind myself to keep composure, not to inflict unfixable damage.
I don't know if we have ended. I don't know what we are. But I know I am no longer in your thoughts. No longer in your words or your smile. I know you no longer have room for me.
And I know how you see me. You think I'm a mess. That I can't stay sober because of my boredom. That I push others away by taking them for granted. That I took you for granted.
But you don't know me and I no longer know you. And you say that you don't judge but I can feel it every time I speak to you. And it's probably my own reflection.
It kills me that I don't know you anymore. It kills me that we no longer text each other until the first hours of the morning. That I no longer see you and that you no longer care. I can't stay sober because there is no happiness anymore. Because I would give anything to forget the reality in this situation. I push people away because what's the point when even my closest friend doesn't have room for me in his  life anymore. When we spent six years building this relationship only to be standing in ruins. I no longer live because I am haunted daily.
You said you've changed. So has everything. You like yourself now and I'm really trying to be happy for you. You have so much going for you that I understand how my absence doesn't phase you. But it was the old you I fell in love with. It is the old you that I long for, that I miss with my entire being.
But to read your words that those six years together had been a waste, that even to you, I am the villain, cuts deeper than any blade across my skin.
That's life.
And I genuinely hope you are happy.

he was a man of relief.
feet calloused by each mile
that he ran in circles
to escape his own reflection.
he shattered all that shines
and then wondered why
there was no light.

his secrets were the currency of trust
and I was bankrupt.
what I would do to crawl down his throat
and drag the words out.
to be the cigarette laced in his fingers,
tracing his lips ever so softly.
to breathe me in, use me.
let me be your high.

inject me and allow me to bring you
the purest peace that you will ever know.
let me in.

I’m not sure where this path will go
but I will cling to this chosen road.
there’s no turning back now
the bed is made and the secret’s out.

I feel detached every now and then
that my life is some work of fiction.
the written ink is bleeding through
pages torn, my spine in two.

I can’t breath now,
walls are closing on me now.
whiplash of the ups and downs
take a toll on my mind.

if I draw first
it’ll be on my own terms.
kiss cheeks with the traitors
that were friends of mine.

watch as their words break
shattered mask they made
revealing the teeth of snakes,
hidden the whole time.

the next steps are predictable
cut hair and written notes.
medication to concentrate, but
with broken means there’s none to make.

I can’t breath now,
my chest caved on me now.
they tell me to calm down
but I’ve lost my place.
can you find me a center?
stone to place my feet first
before I slip even further
to the ‘no escape’.

will this fade with age?
cover the walls with paint
that were stained in blood?
from the second that I was born
my lungs cried with remorse
of the sentence begun.
but now no one’s by my side.

will you know when the deed is done?
my name a whisper off strangers’ tongues.
there’s no turning back now
the bed is made and the secret’s out.

lick my lips
to see if my words are real.
you claw my flesh
to see if I’m standing before you.
you tell me lies
to take me through the night
and you wonder why
I just can’t seem to shake you.

I saw the way it lit your eyes.
Since childhood the thrill of
melting wax and hissing fuse
spurred such excitement for
being alive.

i can't forgive.
i won't forget.

I don't know what's wrong with my mind. I have no inspiration. I have nothing. I am nothing.

My living is simply waiting for my death.

Even that seems to be exhausting.

I feel that maybe the only way for people to take me seriously is to actually do it.

That it will finally validate my sadness and finally it wouldn't just be 'all in my head.'

Maybe then people will feel their obligation.

He hates the way that I take pictures everywhere we go. He tells me I am too distracted, that I need to learn to live in the moment, to enjoy it. But he doesn't know that my heart is overflowing with excitement and joy that I am rarely ever granted. My days are mostly void of color, of feeling, that sometimes I doubt whether I am actually alive. He doesn't understand that I carry my camera around to freeze these colorful moments, to stick them in my pocket for days that I can't even see the sun through my window. So I can remember what life was like not black and white.

the truth is that I miss you.
that I thought we were best friends.
I still wish the best for you,
and I hope to see you again.

we’re on the corner of main street
drunk on whiskey and wine.
I feel your mind wandering off,
leaving me behind.

I could never just move on
I’ve always got to tear myself down
I can’t read the red lights,
can’t refuse a losing fight
and it leaves me on the ground.

I saw the way it lit your eyes.
Since childhood the thrill of
melting wax and hissing fuse
spurred such excitement for
being alive.

Whispering wishes to lightning
buys, carrying light to the crystal
chandelier, lighting the miles ahead.
There the world stood still.

We breathed in the shadows
sighing their cries into the oppressing silence.
I threw myself from tall buildings
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to fly.

Spending nights in graveyards, dancing with ghosts
Memories were always my favorite friends.
But now they all have your face
and I find myself running away from home.

It's gotten to the point where I break down in tears while watching Disney movies. Finally let out but I'm too ashamed to tell them the truth. I just don't have time to deal with my mental illness yet it demands to be felt.

you said you loved me
though i knew the words were not true
but i held on and followed along
always chasing after you.

the pain persists as i still miss the days spent in your bed.

i don't know what to do with myself.

my psychiatrist tells me to find the source of my hate in order to defeat it. in order to manipulate it back into a positive effect.
my source of hate is in myself, of myself. of the stupid, childish things that i mistakenly and purposefully do. like letting people in. getting attached to them and exposing them to...well...me. i'm embarrassed of myself and i don't want other people to be punished by my presence. i hate myself because i get to know these beautifully ugly people just to push them away...or let them slide through the creases of my fingers. i hate myself because i drove myself insane. i refused help when i knew i needed it and then lashed out because i was all alone. i hate myself because i couldn't even succeed in suicide. i hate myself because i hate living. i hate myself because i loved him more than anything. i hate myself because i allow him to continuously abuse me. i hate myself because i chose arkansas. i hate myself because i had the chance to live with him and so i'm the reason why we're not together. and i have to live with that. i have to live with wondering whether he's using again or if he returned to that *** crusted blonde *****.
but most of all, i hate myself because i can't be happy with what i willingly chose.

i love myself.
i don't need a reason for that.

“When I was younger, I thought all I wanted was to be alone. Cramped in that two-bedroom house with my parents and siblings, with no space to think or to even take a **** without someone knocking on the door. I wanted to go to college just because I thought I needed space–space to breathe and to become my own person.”

“And now?” Mallory asked. Each word that left her mouth wrote itself across the pitch black of December and I stared at each letter until I could not only make sense of the question, but to realize the answer.

“And now I realize that my own person is someone that I don’t like very much.”

The words were as unkind slipping off my tongue as they were sitting in the back of my mind. Now they’ve materialized, holding an undeniable presence and their heavy aftertaste made my stomach turn.

I don’t know if I was looking for sympathy. If I was waiting for her to reassure that I was in fact not a terrible human being. That her company is not a polite obligation. But she sat there saying nothing, and that was louder than anything she could have said out loud. I looked to my right, at the woman I wordlessly fell in love with. Her blank stare into the dimly lit street below pushing me farther and farther away and suddenly I felt the need to say anything to anchor me to her before she drifted too far away.

“I left. And I get that it was my choice, but there was no way I could be satisfied staying in this town for the rest of my life like everyone else. Moving to a city where I knew absolutely no one; it was a change. I went from speaking to the same people everyday for four years to not saying a single word for multiple days in a row. I couldn’t be gentle anymore; I couldn’t be vulnerable. And if that makes me a bad person, then I guess I am. But I did it to survive. You can’t criticize me for my methods to survive knowing you.”

to hear my name fall from your lips
in the old familiar tone
to have you pull me in
and not walk away.

back to the days that i so miss
when you called me your own
to the times where i wake
to your face the next day.

I wrote a poem that is so painful and personal that I'm afraid to even put it on here for anonymous people to read.

depression is a sickness
an inability to pull myself
up from the pit of darkness
that clings to my skin.
it's not that i choose to be
this way, but it simply
is not possible. at first
i think it's because he's not
here and that i'm lonely.
but i've always been this
way, even when he was
around. i've always been
filled with hate, anger, pain.

it was me, peering through the shattered mirror, leaking fresh crimson flowing down in steady stream.
it was my lap in which he laid, the glazed blues gazing lifelessly into mine. touched his dark brown hair, now long enough to slightly curl at the ends. soft as usual, rich in depth.
it was in my hands that held the means, the balance to the situation. my revenge. and so i claimed it. over and over, sinking it into his chest to truly find out if he ever had a heart for i could never tell. over and over as the blood hallowed his body like a **** god. over and over, wanting to hear the screams, the sound of agony that i have only internally known. but there was nothing.he gave nothing.
and so i laid with his lifeless body, but he was dead long ago.

i'm training him
not to say those
three cruel words.
that tug on my
heartstrings, playing
along to his childish
game.

the words with the
ability to paralyze
me in mist of angry
tone.

i told him
i could not love a liar.

so he no longer tells me
'i love you.'

I'm happy for you. No. I'm proud of you. And it feels weird saying that, as if I stand on the podium of a proud parent but no, you are in fact the one that is raised to the light. Our eyes have never met level anyways. As a friend, I am happy and overwhelmed of what you've become.
I'm afraid I do not have beautiful words to say to you. I've misplaced beauty a while ago. All I can offer is a smile and a goodbye.

you were not meant to stay here.

you held me like the empty promises
that slid through the cracks
you said I clung too closely
before you broke my back

the pain persists as i still miss the days spent in your bed.

i don't know what to do with myself.