One letter can make you remember everything
And lead you to regret
Ever wanting the acknowledgment
Of what you never did fret

Take me back to when it didn’t matter
When I was an adventurous explorer
In a jungle wide
When I was younger
and never knew what next
When life went my way

Take me back to my bewilderment
Before my life went astray
Take me back to my ambitions
When life was as a mission to be played
Like soaring through the midnight sky
And blowing stars out like candles
When I could look at life
And say that it was easy
It was easier not for me to see.
It was when the joy of a single day
Could fill a lifetime of todays

But it seems as we get older,
The envelope gets stamped,
The shuttle falls out of orbit,
The nighttime fades to day,
And before you were ready to send the letter,
It evaporates into thin air
And the chance you had not taken
turns to sail away.

Andrew W.
1-28-20

I thought I was safe
I thought I was protected
I thought I was  strong
I thought I was capable
I thought that no one could hurt me more than I’d already been hurt
But I was wrong

“Don’t fight it”
They said
“Look at the ******”
They said
“SHE’s crying”
They said

But even after
The world said,
“You asked for it”
And
“What did you expect”
Because
“You didn’t fight them off”

Everything you said
Made me lose more than I had already lost

I was never safe
I was never protected
I was never strong
I was never capable
Because everything
I did
Was wrong.

Andrew W.
1-26-20

Your stomach drops out.
every hair on your body stands on end
your chest is tight,
so you go numb
you can still feel your heart drumming in your ears
A battle cry of life.
Your lungs filled with lead
So nauseated, you can’t fight.
And you see the spots of your vision dancing around you;
a sickly ballet
Then you can feel his hand
Pressure under your chin,
Forced to look at the sky
Looking at the dawn of night
I should have never let you in.
feel his fingers wrapped around your thigh
His nails digging in deeper with every breath he takes
The splitting injury that you can’t describe
An axe through your gut.
The unbearable torment that spreads throughout.
The collapse of fear
beating through your heart.
Permeating every sense with a sharp pang.
And with a rough sigh,
he is done.

Andrew W.
2-23-20

It’s a feeling you can’t explain
A yearning to break out of here
To get out of the silence
It reflects in his eyes,
The murmur that echoes behind you;
your bones are grinding together

The anger after people won’t take you seriously
I could be lying
We wouldn't want to ruin his reputation
it's all about him

It’s all about his future
Never mine

At fourteen.
My childhood was still with me
But he killed it
Reality shattered
An entire future, gone

But it’s about his future
It was just one moment of weakness
But in the aftermath
All of my weaknesses
And all of my pain
is unimportant.

Think about his future...

Andrew W.
1-27-20

Although you are a person
Albeit a different one than me,
you are a person nonetheless
and so I value you, as you would value me.

And as mere humans
we are plagued by regret
always awaiting the next chance,
but only getting more upset.

A human waiting for a goal
is impatient as the sun
waiting to rule the sky
after the seasons have gone cold.

The soul will soon get bored
and decide that it must leave
and pursue another passion,
whatever that may be.

For as you soon may see,
the only way to learn
and to truly live as free
Is to live your life by honesty

Andrew W.
1-27-20

I wanted to be far away
So you could never see me
But when the distance widened
And the pain didn’t heal
After the time passed
The memories were still real
I realized,
I was a fragment of your story
A ripple in the sea
And so you caught my entire pane,
And ripped it away from me.
After all this time, it seems
You were the hurricane
Who brought me all this pain.

Andrew W.
1-27-19

Hear the pitter-patter of rain against my window
A soothing beat of drops on a pane
The distant chitter-chatter of the television next door
A whisper through the wall
Mumbling a soft murmur of bliss
An utterance of a memory long gone
A day spent lying in the damp sun on a Sunday afternoon
An eye drifting to unconsciousness; the bliss of warm sleep
A disregard for time, an innocence that has been framed
The calm wave of bliss is no more
Instead, a future caught in the wake of pain.
Pain that grasps you by the ankles,
Pain that starts with a kiss.
A feeling that is seeped into your core like blood on white threads
One that you could dismiss,
Perhaps a perverted illusion that you can not understand
A touch moving down; one you wonder if you feel
A confusion of a frantic mind that has you bound in chains
And you say to yourself, illusion is not real
A feeling, a memory, and illusion,
I can not tell if it is an illusion at all

Andrew W.
12-23-20

Isn't it funny
How the human mind
Needs its own concept of time

How our age can be simplified into numbers
Our entire experience divided by the hands of a clock
All of us separated by the title of our generations
How our seconds can be a shield
And yet still a barricade

Our perception devalued
And our stories erased

“They’re only teenagers”
“They don’t know”

But in an instant
We will find the path
You had never seen
and you will never know.

Andrew W.
1-26-20

The moment in time
The  split second before you fall asleep

The split second after
When the world stops making sense
When you are ejected
Cutting through the current; breaking
into nothing.

into Darkness.

Cold and bleak
a damp cellar in a burning World

reality is blurred
and new becomes clear

Unseen reality emerges
And everything fits in;
home.

Then it’s rejected
Flying away with a gust of wind;
into nothing.

Andrew W.
2-3-19

Sometimes I have wished
The world was safe
That we didn’t wake up and wonder
Is this the day that is the last
Is this the beginning of the end

If the time we spend here
Could be easier
If the fight wasn’t all around me
And knocking around in our heads
We want to believe in our future

We’re so worried about losing our chance
What if our one chance passes us by
What if we never get the chance to be as great as everyone wants us to

What if?

It’s all about who people want us to be
We are not your clones.
I will not be like you
Because I can see the outcomes of your failures

You think that because
I am not a lawyer
Or a doctor
Or a CEO
I am not worth anything?

You wished for a better future.
We will be the ones to make it.

Not by obedience,
But with confrontation.

Andrew W.
1-26-20

When you feel too much
Of what you already have felt
And it repeats
And it beats
Like its stinging in your blood
When your chest hurts
and you can’t explain
How you can always feel it in your veins
And how it’s driving you insane

An ache that runs through your soul
And passing through the core
And turning the inside grey.
One place that will always stay plain

Like a tree split by lightning
That’s been left out in the rain
It can feel the water
Running around inside itself
Wishing the memories that were left
Would just go away

That tree is just like you.
it has too been changed
And that tree knows
some wounds that already healed
Will always remain.

Andrew W.
1-29-20

She pushed you away
But still, you persisted; you’d stay

How ‘bout one last game?

What she didn’t know though,
Your game had already begun
Your grip on her soul
was strong.
Like your hand on her thigh,
you wouldn’t let go.

Don’t cry
You’d said
as her buttons came undone.
One
by
One
By
One.

She thought that was the last time.

It was just the one time.

But soon,
You became the rhythm to her rhyme,
the dollar to her dime.
Her dependence was your leverage,
so you’d insist that she was average.

He’s the best I can do.

Maintaining she’d be shunned.
But only if she told.
You knew she’d never be that bold
She wonders if she’ll ever push through.

And she was different from the rest.
You’d say,
We’ll never be like we used to,
It’s all because of you.

And then you were gone.

I can’t get through.

But no one could save her from you.
she was just his game.

I was only yours.

And now she lies in your absence,
Drunken hours passing time

He was never mine

Her altered reality
never again the same.

Her restricted autonomy
never yours to take.

To you, she seemed
inconsequential as a pawn.

She’s left trying to drown it out.
She can’t sleep,
confined by the memories of you.
She’s nearly worn through.
The strings of her heart unraveling,
Her rosen blood dripping into a pile
on your grey bathroom tile.
She’s coming undone
choking on the thoughts of you.
Frozen in your lingering presence.

can’t be here any longer

can’t lie here forever

But that's all she can do.

Andrew W.
3-3-20

jardin d'amour perdu

There is a question that lingers in my mind
Because a month ago you were mine
A text that said
Good morning love
that I saw as I lay in bed
I thought about our first Valentine’s Day,
Only weeks away

And it made me smile
So I got up, looked in the mirror, told myself I’m fine
So when I got there, I recognized in your eye
How you wouldn’t look in mine
You introduced me to another friend, a cordial greeting and a smile
A tell in the way you leaned; tells me to leave,
Followed by a wave
And a walk away

The end of the week comes
But no Good morning love’s
And so I send
I’m scared you’re upset
Are you ok?
I hope you’re alright
My chest is sunken in, I feel you spreading further away
A future we planted in our heads,
A house in a French suburb
Our lives intertwined, you and I

And like a computer, you say
Thanks for checking in.
And I read
I’m sorry.
I haven’t loved you since the summer.
And that’s all you said.

You had said you were mine...
And that’s when I realized
the house was in my head,
The city of braided love that emerged from your mouth
that roosted in my heart
Was counterfeit

A crown of Ivy turned to brambles
And then I knew what it felt like
To be a naive gardener

To give all your water to a vine,
It wraps around your heart,
Through your waterless haze,
you see it,
Fruit in your mind,
an illusion of reimbursement
You give everything
But no fruit is there

four months it drinks from you,
when you believe
I love you
Again and again,
you let her seize you

I let her use me.

When you realize,
It’s too late.
You’re waking up in an empty field, caked in mud,
And she is gone

She was never mine,
but I was hers.


Andrew W
2-13-21

I see the whites of your eyes
Through the blur of my tears
I feel your hand wrapped around my throat
As you pull up my shirt
I feel my heart stop as you hold both my ankles
I see the pink and yellow sky
Fading to dusk
I feel the cold shudder of fear run
Throughout my body
As you wrap the hem of my shirt over my eyes
And your fingernails dig into my kneck
I feel the rush of panic as you pin me down onto the sand
Making your way throughout my body
The one that I never wanted you near

All those times I told you no
They meant nothing to you
As you held me under
My head in the surf
And the salt burning in my eyes
And I couldn’t scream
When you ran your hands down my body
And I choked on the sand
And I didn’t tell anyone
Why would they believe me
When even I didn’t believe myself.

It wasn’t what I was wearing
It wasn’t what I was doing
It wasn’t who I am
You wanted control and you took it from me
You took my autonomy
I can’t forget it
But I can’t remember it
It’s everywhere and in everything
You took my passions from me
You took my time
You took my energy
And you took my will to live

And I had no idea
I shoved it so far down
I didn’t even know
I didn’t know what was torturing me
I don’t know myself

Tell me
What is worse
Going insane for no apparent reason
Or knowing how people have hurt me
I can’t escape the torture
It’s always there
Replaying in my mind
It’s like I’m always drowning
I’m back where I was on June 6th

Andrew W.
1-26-20

Notes flow in Waterfalls
Spilling over the edge of an endless chasm of rhythm
Pulling up a song
keeping it afloat
While a bucket of rocks Pulls it back into the river
Riptides waiting to sweep You back Under
Into its arms

Glittering like smooth white petals
Drifting down in the glowing sun
Or coals smoldering with a raging fire brewing underneath
Burning through the thicket as fast as wildfire
Churning like ice in the rudder of a barge
Breaking into fragments of what it once was

Lyrics fly in a torrent
Like bees Buzzing through your ears
Filling your head with courage
Pulsing through your veins like liquid fire
Sun shining on your skin like a sun on a snowy winter day
Glistening through the sleet
And Melting ice deep in the ground

But Only for a short while.

Andrew W.
1-26-19

There is no way to explain
The splitting shriek of the pain
And still, I know, it was no fault of mine
But these thoughts continue to take up all my time

I can’t help from thinking
I will never be normal again
Because I was only just surviving
when your memories came around
And burned everything I had to the ground.

I wanted to be normal
safe in my own mind
I wanted to live quietly
and never forced to fear
Half the population
That we’re all raised near

And I know still
It can not be all.
But in your society,
Or what you call,
it is far too normal.
And I still am left wondering
When will be the next time

But now I guess I’m normal
As normal as can be.
You don’t want to be normal.
Normal just like me.

Andrew W.
1-29-20

How fortunate would it be
If we didn’t have to think
Not to live in inconsistency

If the world were bright and sunny
And the storm had never come
We would all live in harmony.
Everything but one.

For I am the human conscience,
That you can never shake
The voice in your head
That moans and groans
And rattles until you break.

So we have to learn to live
Without the safety of our friends
Waiting for the day that they would leave us too

Andrew W.
1-28-20

I can hear a screaming silence
Hear it scrawling down my name
On their chalkboard of compliance
The ringing in my ears is them cheering for my pain
Tiny echos filling up my brain
I can’t climb the ladder,
Their tiny claws digging in my skull;
A vulture cleaning off remains.
I am alive but weak.
And though my head is full
Of thoughts, I cant compile
I hear the silence shreek

Andrew W.
10-17-20

The girl in my nightmares,
She speaks soft and low,
is always still as stone,
And passes the weeks
Who is numbing out the pain
With her tears of shame

That girl to whom I asked,
“Who is he?”
As you pulled her close

She never answered though
She was still too busy yelling,
“Get away from me”
But I knew she didn't know.

Reminds me of the nightmares
where I never see your face.
And that girl that no one knew
Because you took her to that place

The place where the light rarely shines
And the happiness is erased
And so you think,
I better keep that razor
Maybe just in case.

And that color that I saw
Was the color you saw true
When you reached into me
And tore my heart out too.

Andrew W.
1-28-20

Guilt.
What a wonderful thing
To feel as though everything is your fault
Even something you know you didn’t do
Something entirely separate from yourself
A crime you didn’t commit
A tragedy you witnessed
But didn’t experience

But I did.
I did experience it
And it doesn’t make sense
How no one noticed
Feigning oblivions
There were dozens of people
Who didn’t notice
Who didn’t care

But also.
It’s my guilt for a person I never knew
A person I never got the chance to know.
Guilt because I could have changed the outcomes
I could have known the person I was before him
And I could have been the last.
Its guilt for the suffering he put them through
The ones I couldn’t save
The ones that he ***** next
Could I have protected the ones I never knew?

Andrew W.
1-27-20

Life isn’t easy
I have always known that
Death isn’t the only option
Even I know that
I never thought I would have to question it
Whether to live and so to die
It’s easy to die but yet so hard
How will I know death is the better option
life is torture.
no one knows
what comes next?
It’s the crisis of conscience
The last song before intermission
The big bang before the second act
I’m in the turmoil of the storm
I know where I am
I can never stop it
It’s true,
the chaos always comes in the first act
what comes next?
That’s a gamble I’m not
willing to take
Not yet.
I’m wounded
But these scars will heal
and this.
This is my second act.

Andrew W.
1-17-20

A token of humanity wrapped in innocence
An idea of morality that exists in only openness
A broken idea of warped unknowingness

A faith of unapparent that lurks below
A naivety broken in harshness
An unspoken vigilance
A film protecting light from dark

A cellophane heart

I see you appear
As unconsciously as the tide
You conjure in my head
Like the poltergeist of my psyche
Your voice rattles the wall of the castle my mind calls home
Books fly off of shelves of knowledge into the array of ambiguity
A certain fear of uncertainty builds into a tower of the unknown
The novels telling histories of us
A history of war and **** that exists in grisly repetition

A fear I can place
One that belongs in the deeps of the ocean
Next to a jetty lies the remains of my innocence
The despair of recurrence in a daily scene
Only recognizable by whom it passes through

An image of the possibility of the future that man holds
The woman you pass on her way to work
The boy riding his bike around the culdesac
The little girl you see holding her mother’s hand

the recurring possibility of the purge of innocence
It lies beneath the skin of each body
Creeping in the crevice in the sidewalk
Looking up the skirt of humanity
Waiting for the opportunity to strike
A slithering creature lying in wake
A creature that is man

And I am ashamed to be seen as one of them

Andrew W.
10-20-20

I wonder if the sky is blue on mars
Or does it only reflect the stars?

Do you think there is another way?
One that is not
work, then play
work, then play
and work, then play?

If they’d found it do you think they’d tell us?
Or maybe we would be too jealous?
Maybe they’d make us pay

If the stars are the only truthful; thing
We can never know the plight that the future will bring.

Through the moon’s light
And the suns sorrow,

All we are promised is the uncertainty of tomorrow

Andrew W.
10-17-20

Then the rain fell from the sky'
While the winds tore
Bringing their uproar

So the other birds fly by
Thinking they knew why
The rain goes Tat Tat Tat

As the seasons washed by
The waves rose upon the shore
In the horrible War
And there he sat
Searching for glee
For where would he flee
If not for the twisty tree
When the rain went Tat Tat Tat

But perched in that twisty branched tree
The wise bird did stay
And so When the wind does blow
He will sit in the old willow
Until the rain turns into snow

Thinking,
When will the others know
What peace does lie
Where the old willows do grow?

For who could say
What the wise bird may
When the rain went Tat Tat Tat

Andrew W.
5-16-19