It’s winter and we’re sitting on the bench
And snow is falling and I’m cold
But your hands are twice the size of mine
And I think that maybe as long as they’re wrapped around me,
I’ll be okay.
We talk about her and you say that you lost your innocence there
But you lost your heart here.
You brush your thumb over my cheek to wipe away a stray eyelash
You hold it out for me
“Make a wish”

Its summer now and it could be the way your laugh sounds
Or how you let me try to count every strand of hair on your head
It could be the way you hold my hand and pull me down to the grass
Just to kiss me.
It could be those ripped jeans that you swear you’ll replace
It could just be that this summer boy isn’t my winter boy.
And I think you know that I don’t mind, and that I love the laughter in your eyes
And the gold of your skin.
You hold out a dandelion towards me
“Make a wish”

It’s winter again and I’m laying in your bed
And our legs are twisted together with the sheets
Maybe my clothes are on your floor, but all I know is that they aren’t on me
And that you just were.
Maybe it hurts me that you aren’t the summer boy,
Maybe that’s like a stab in my heart each time I think of it.
So maybe you know that somewhere deep down,
And you try to make it better and I try to let you.
You hold me and you make me laugh and you say the right things sometimes
But I guess sometimes isn’t enough.
So you let me slip past you,
My fingers ghosting over your bare torso and your breath a whisper in my ear.
“Make a wish”

It’s summer again and it could be just because it’s my birthday
But no one here is him, not the winter boys and not the summer boy.
But you’re here and you’re different from them,
So maybe I’ll let myself get carried away in your words again.
And I’ll lay in a bed with you and I’ll let you play with my hair
But darling, you aren’t him.
And I love your words and the way you write me breathtaking things,
But his smile was the only thing that could ever steal my heart,
And keep it.
I remember sometime that night,
In the middle of the music and laughter
Someone shoved a cupcake towards me,
With a candle lit right in the middle
And said “Happy birthday”
“Make a wish”.

It’s late and I want to be charming
and say that I’m still up because I’m
thinking of you, but I’m not

it’s just my brain chemistry has
been so off lately that if I let my
mind focus on emotion for even
a second, I lose control

so I’ve been pushing you to the
back of my mind because you
bring out the most life in me,

too much life.

so I’ll be up all night pretending
I’m not a hopeless romantic, smoking
cigarettes out of this 8th floor hotel window,
wondering how much I’d feel if I let myself fall.

- S.G.

In a world of zombified teens so loaded up on antidepressants,
anti-anxiety and anti things-
it must be asked.

Did that boy who jumped off the bridge just last week,
leap in an attempt to grow wings?
Maybe he did it just to see if he'd be scared?
Or perhaps.  
He felt just too much to live
with the numbness his medication offered
He was never looking for
A temporary solution to his pain.

What about that darling girl who's arms and thighs are
In a love affair
With an abusive razor?
Does she stay with him for fear of going back,
Again and again,
only to be called weak for leaving in the first place?
Or for the fear that she'll
Never
Feel the same exhilaration
From another's kiss?

The last question of tonight.
How is it that I am just noticing now,
How carefully he avoids the word
Home
Almost as if he knows the place
I grew up in
Will never be a home again.
Not to me.
Does he know,
It represents
Nothing but a return to the front line?
Just like being ****** back into the trenches
A still wounded soldier.
Nothing but a band-aid
Covering what once
Was a gaping bullet hole.

She still feels his hands on her.
They sound as loud as a grenade in her head
The slap of his hand traumatizing as an atom bomb,
She reaches for her lover,
Hoping he can distract her from the battle
All while
Neglecting
To acknowledge he brings with him
His own
War.

They all stand at his funeral
Holding hands and saying a prayer.
Hoping,
Praying,
He grew his wings.
Nobody understood
What could have led him
To choose the pain of
A jump
Over
The silence of a pill
Or the speed of a bullet.
Most of all though,
His mother just wants to know
Why he didn't tell her he needed to be held.

We all have our demons,
Skeletons in the closet.
What people don't realize is
Wars are fought every day
The trenches lie
Not in Dead-Mans Land
but
Inside our heads.