my head is filled with memories that are not my own

and colors that do not exist

i feel lost

and i miss certain things

that i know never occurred

i want so desperately

to relive - or live

these moments

that happened while

i was sleeping

im too much of a coward to quit my job
so coming this friday
i will not show up for work
or the day after
or the day after

you taught me how and when to keep my mouth shut
and let the silence speak
to be selfless
i have kept my love for you a secret
and it kills me
but my lips will remain super glued together
it is the only way to make you happy
and i am afraid you are just a lesson
not a soulmate
lessons end when you have learned
i can’t come visit you next weekend
im sorry

im too much of a coward to quit my job
so coming this friday
i will not show up for work
or the day after
or the day after

underwater caves
limited oxygen tanks
and headlights tied around my head
you told me to go home
how the **** do you expect me to go home
when my blood has liquified into
40 proof, nose bleeding
from the white angels sent
from above
and vision double
wide like the target you
seem to of set

come back to ohio
come back to arizona
2000 miles in-between
baby i'd love to, but my mom
is passed out drunk on the kitchen floor
and i haven't seen daddy in a month
i heard he was dating some woman
in West Virginia
I heard that he was happy
without us

10 years ago i broke her cigarettes
hid them above the refrigerator
"mommy you'll die"
"mommy smoking isn't good for you"
she quit that april
and hasn't looked back since
the apple doesn't fall far from the tree
or so they say
i'm knee high in cigarette ash
and beer bottles
and i'm looking so far back
i'm like a reverse version of myself

and you wonder why i don't let people in
and you wonder why I'm so hurt by
you befriending that boy who
I embraced 100%
it's because he saw what i had to offer
and turned the other cheek
he ****** me on the laundry room
floor and then the next day
threw me down the hamper
it's like i belonged with the filth

i kissed a boy i had just met that night
and he had large bass player hands
and his fingers wrapped around my jaw bone
i was being consumed
and he told me i was special
and i did not believe him
but i still pretend that
that night met something to me
but it's already fading
i just want to believe him
but he meant nothing
to me

there are two houses now
separate lives
i haven't seen daddy in a month
and mom stashes alcohol in the cabinet
above the sink
it's 4 am and she still is not home
she's probably ******* some guy
or passed out in the street
and daddy is no where to be seen
they said they hadn't loved each other
for 10 years
10 years ago she quite smoking
I can't help but think she quit
her marriage that year too

i haven't hugged them since I was 7
and the therapist says that is why
I hate being touched
or hugged
or any physical contact
it burns my skin and makes me cringe
why didn't they hug me
why couldn't they of  just loved each other
it's never that simple
but it really should be

I was starving so
You gave me bread, it was delicious
But soon it lost taste

I took a shower
the water was burning hot
I stood and it went cold

the rain is vibrant
washing away the thick dirt
but the ground flooded

what we have is grand
golden touch and laughs for days
but I feel it ending

All I hear on the radio nowadays,
is my voice telling me
there is something better

I’m sitting in my room lights out window open
its raining so my pillow is wet
but I don’t think its from the rain
and there are clothes thrown around my room
it looks like something a ghost would do to make contact with the living but these are my clothes and I made this mess so I scream
“WHY AM I HAUNTING MYSELF"
into the walls and they just silently stare,
they know why - I guess I know too,
but I’ll never admit that I do

So here I am speaking tongues alone in my room and you are out shaking hands with the faces I have met once before

forgive me if I do not want the hear the details

Dream world in an alternate ground reality
where the black trees are shadows
lurking and waiting to consume the firefly
light illuminating my blood
like radioactive sludge pulsing
loving breathing
I want the transcendent mauve sky
to drown me until I am nothing more
than the ideals of humanity
murmuring of the metal birds
and mammals
humming harmoniously with the
beat of my ears
I am not awake
I have been here before
somewhere in a past life
I can feel it rattling in my bones
another radio frequency is found
tomorrow will not come because
everything is here and now
this moment expands as far as the eye can see
and then some
firewood burning inside my eyes
charring my iris
until the blue turns to orange
and the icy barren air fills my lungs
I am a wasteland

we sat on the boardwalk
pretending yesterday never happened
and the air smelled like dead fish

last night you kissed me
you were intoxicated and delusional
why are you pretending that you are now sober
why are you pretending that you
are no longer delusional

maybe it's all the **** fish
or maybe shakes and fries
remind you too much of
the girl who stole your soul
and broke all your ******* china

i'm just trying to help you polish your silver
and replace all your shattered porcelain
but apparently you like
walking on shards
and cutting your feet

you're getting blood
on the carpet

sitting here the air as dense as the tension between
our ongoing glances, but as hushed as we know we are
we are not
the piano notes strum your heartstrings and you say music
is your only escape from this worldly existence
but that is like saying dreaming is the only way
you can see the world
there is always a trap door waiting under your bare feet
all it takes is a little bit of intelligence
to open the locks
and i can not tell you how much this snags
at the threads of my being
but if you do not slow down
then i will jump out

i told you i loved you
my voice faltered in the absence of light
the words fell out of my mouth
ungraceful and ugly as ever
it is no wonder your touch went cold
the silence you chose not to sever
your reply was infested with mold
the distance grew and my chest sunk
"that's sweet of you, but i'm just too drunk"
and in that moment i knew
that i was wrong, i do not love you
not at all

There is a plastic wrap  cover
Laying over my eyes
Keeping me from my lover
Because all I see are lies

I am afraid to be close
Because when it is time to go
We will separate like velcro
The ripping noise almost unbearable

Should I run away before you do
Split before you go
I'm tired of this constant black and white
Monochromatic sludge

chalkboard dreams
the chalky dust coughing out of my lungs
forming words in the air that
I can not comprehend, but you
rearranged the letters
like magnets on a refrigerator
picking apart my insides
staples stuck in the skin of your lover
all I asked from you was an answer
but you gave me more questions

I like winter because it splinters your skin
The cold air slaps you in the face
Bringing you back to reality
Trees shed their summer skin
Leaving nothing but the bare bones
Branches reaching for the sky

I like Winter because it reminds you
That you are alive
And that frigidness throughout your body
Is real
So you
Must be real too

Waking up in taxi cabs
with knotted fingers and
black lungs ash under my
nails “where the **** am
I going”
“I am taking you home”
But the streets are brown
and covered in puddles and I can't
see anything except my own
reflection in the window
I feel like I am drowning in
clocks that tell all the wrong
times and he told me I'm here,
but this isn't my house
“get the **** out”
now the car is polluting away
and I'm walking down foreign
streets with no idea where to
go my phone is dead just
like your ghost in my bed
“what does this mean?”
I wish I knew, but my mind
is terrifying with nightmare
creatures oh my god I wish you
knew I just don't know what
to do

oh
      *no

I yearn to feel your tree bark arms
the moss settling in-between
your ribs, puddles of
rain water gathering
above your collarbones
I wonder if you smell
like dogwood
or lilacs
or overgrown grass

the wrinkles on the backs of my hands
are starting to look like
roadmaps all pointing
to you, even though
I don't know where "you"
is
somewhere drying up
underneath the sand
brittle bones
and cactus hearts

I have mustered through
futile attempts at growing
a garden with someone else
the plants never bloom
or die with the first
breathe they take
But I have
cleared out this space
in my backyard
for you
It may just be an empty graveyard
overflowing with dirt
and ghosts that
haunt me
when I am weak
but it is for you
and me
so we can
grow