Stay in bed
Close the blinds
**** the lights
Listen to your breathing
Listen to a faint pulse
Listen to blood gushing through your ears
Listen to your head
The thoughts you can't describe
The blood in your ears
And try to breathe
But anxiety lays on you like a heavy blanket
And your chest heaves to no avail
Blood in your ears
Get up and move but there's no where to go
Limbs are too heavy
Blood in your ears
Pulse elevating
Suffocating under some invisible demon
Gasping, gasping
Blood
in
your
ears.

When you're on the hunt for your own blood,
You'll beg hypochondria to **** you.

When I was sixteen
I picked up my life
And moved across state lines
To a town full of strangers
And emptiness

And though the emptiness seems cliche
There is nothing as full and rich as your home town
With its familiar faces
And places
And ways.

And so that first summer there
I floundered
I slept too much
And I ate too little
And I ached for a home that didn't even want me
Or so I thought

But it's not that I abandoned it
It's that I was taken from my home
And told to replant and cultivate roots in impossible soil
But my roots have not cracked the surface of this new "home"
But when I go back to my real home
I go to visit my roots
Where I could have grown strong and sturdy
And maybe not lost the boy I loved
And the family I'd cultivated
And the memories I missed.

If absence makes the heart grow fonder,
Then maybe I've fallen too hard for my home.

But love is love is love is love
And I love and miss my home.

I poured myself a bowl of stale cereal
To satiate a hunger that was real
And biological
And a product of
Constantly forgetting to eat
Now that I have too many other things
Not to worry about.
Because time passes so quickly
When you stare at a white wall for
Five hours a day
And wonder when
The phone will ring
To break the monotonous routine.

But the phone always rings.
And someone is always pulling
At the hem of my non existent skirt
Trying to get me to feel the same things
They do.

And I do.
But I can't cry when I'm sad
And I don't always laugh when I'm happy.
But you and I are the same.

Someone once told me "you just don't want to accept that you're normal."
But maybe I'm just crippled from embarrassment by my unwavering normalcy.

I have an affinity for ice cream.
I can eat bowls upon bowls at a time.
I impress myself.

It's funny how the things you love grow from the things you never questioned;
Never appreciated;
Never even noticed.
Jumping out of the car the last day of school.
It was hot.
But it was California.
And it was home.
And my dog waited in the backyard.
Happy we were home.
And I stared at our pool and I wanted to jump in;
But I didn't have the courage
       Because I didn't want it enough.
And the refrigerator would be full of Drumsticks.
      (chocolate on mint)
And I would eat one or two a day.
And sometimes the ice cream man would come.
      (he was terrifying, but he had ice cream)
And I would stand outside and eat my ice cream because we weren't allowed to eat it in the house.
And my brother would finish quickly and go inside and play video games.
      (or run down the street to see his friends)
And I would try to be a cliche
      (just like in the movies)
And put on the roller skates I rarely used and try not to lose control as I shuffled down my driveway.
But I never had anything of value to do over the summers.
I never went to camp.
There weren't any summer traditions.
I had ice cream and board games and my dog and the pool I was afraid of.
I counted down the years I still had left at home
      (petrified of what would happen after)
And I didn't understand why mom wasn't as scared as I was.
      (1,2,3,4,5 years left at home; 1,2,3,4.....4 years left at home)
They never taught me how to ride a bike
And I never learned to love the water
And my skin never browned
And I had to stay inside
Except for when there was ice cream.
I could always go outside for ice cream.

Nineteen years of life.
My mother hates ice cream.
She tells me I'm just like my father.
My temper, my moods, my impatience.
Sometimes she says I get his savvy;
His ambition;
His humor.
Sometimes.
My father loves ice cream.
      (I love both my parents)
      (I think they love each other too)
So I took my father's ambition and ran across the country
Where I'm hopefully learning to be a good doctor
And I met these people that I love
      (that I call my family)
And we like ice cream.
We like ice cream and pie.
And going to the beach when the weather is nice.
And ice skating.
And coming home to each other.

I'd say I have an affinity for love;
I'd say I have an affinity for life
But you can't eat love and you can't hold life
Because both are fleeting
      (but so is ice cream).

Ice cream is the summer before 8th grade
When I spent all my time with a girl I loved and learned to hate.
Because we fought over boys.
Because that was middle school.
And 8th grade was horrible.
And I never ate ice cream.
And I never tried to roller skate.
And California became too hot.

So if I were to develop my own ice cream flavor,
And call 31 and tell them what it would taste like,
It would taste like a pensive child
It would taste like mint
It would taste like chocolate
It would taste like missing my friends
It would taste like missing my parents
And I would call it nostalgia.
And I would laugh while I ate nostalgia
Because the thought is absolutely absurd.

We trade in those who love us for nights of melancholy that depreciate our value and **** the glimmer from our eyes.

We sell our bodies in search of love.

We sell our souls in search of self.

We trade in those who love us, because love is too much.

Love costs more than it’s worth,

So we pay nothing for nothing,

And think back on nights of somethingness,

Preceding the nothingful blur of today.




I never thought I could see nothing,

Until I let something walk away.

I’m writing here because my Twitter followers are going to get annoyed.

And this is 2013 and all my friends are digital.

Except for when I used to live near people.

Now I live near houses.

And every so often I think I reach out to find someone to live within

Because this young body is breaking down

And I can’t contain what’s inside.

It’s all about to burst out in an exploding flurry

And everyone is going to fall out of my life

Because I haven’t trimmed the fences

(That grow like vines; higher and higher)

In hopes that when my body dies

I’ll still be able to hold myself together.

But when you live within a poison

That eats through more than your body

And sleeps beside you

And touches you

And tells you you’re the poison

And you feel guilty for trying to understand his fences

And why his body is breaking too.


But you did what was right;

You criticized the arsenic for being what it was

And tossed it aside to save for when you were ready to go.

And that’s where I’ve blindly sat for four weeks and a couple days.

And searched the internet for answers as to why.

And told the internet that I’ve become a poison.

And cried because it’s 2013 and all my friends are digital.








And mourned the life I used to live
When I used to live near people.