black as night
chiseled stone
spirits ramble
orphans roam

lover's eyes
masquerade
9 to 5
come out and play

drop of blood
alabaster
frozen heart
encased in plaster

open mouth
parted lips
shared breaths
sway and dip

swish and flick
atmosphere
moody blips
no need to fear

stormy skies
vivaciousness
gentle touch
tenacious kiss

cotton candy
flushed and wild
sapphire eyes
mother's child

wide grin
break apart
fleshy dawn
beating heart

Dearest,

This thing is claiming me again. I write only to express a great need to see you, or call you, or maybe even crank up the engine of this beat up junker I'm sitting in now. I'd very much like to see you again, or once more, even if it were just your eyes. It's been three years. Three years since I last heard your voice, or laugh, or saw you smile. ****, do I miss that smile. It's been three years since you left without a decent goodbye, you ***. You never had a ******* clue - but, anyway. That's not why I'm here.

I was thinking of you today, as I have every single one before and will continue to until my breathing ceases. Did you know it's the anniversary of when I realized I was hopelessly in love with you? Of course you don't. I never told you about that moment, or how I really felt. I swore I might, before you were gone, but it's been three years and I never did. So that's that, I guess. This is such a waste, writing to you. Yet here I am, painstakingly scrawling these thoughts whirling around in my brain on to a sheet of loose leaf paper. The best part is knowing I'll never send this to you. This is going to sit here in my pocket until I wash it, or burn it when I'm searching for the cigarettes I don't smoke, or even lose it on my walk through the city.

I walk every day, and not just to and from places. I walk to think. I walk to clear my head. Instead, I will pass somewhere you've been -- somewhere we've been -- and I will be right where I started again, plagued by the ghost of you on every new corner, in the middle of the crowds, and at the foot of the subway stairs. You are everywhere, darling.

You'd be laughing at this point, probably. You'd be thinking that I ramble like I used to and still don't manage to say enough to ever convince you that I'm true. Or maybe you'd be thinking how wasteful this is to this sheet of paper. How unfair that this piece of paper gets to carry this nonsensical message to you -- or not, actually -- and how unfair that it gets to sit in my pocket, close enough to be lost. Or maybe you wouldn't think that at all, and you'd be just blankly reading all of this and wondering whether I'm just bullshitting around the truth, like I've always done oh-so-well.

Or maybe you'd just be thinking that this is so typical of me, keeping things I'll never do anything with for the sake of keeping them. You always thought I liked the act of keeping things rather than the things themselves. Perhaps you're right, because I've always wished I could both keep you and be rid of you and the toxicity you bring.

But at the end of the day, I'm the one writing you. Maybe my feelings learn towards the former of those two extremes.

Anyway, you would have been right about the bullshitting thing. I'm really writing because the emptiness is back, eating me out and wringing my guts inside out, and it isn't even pleasurable. I wrote because I haven't done so in some time, and it's been a long time since I wrote one of these one-sided letters to you. I used to write more; I used to have dozens, even, though I never wrote those on loose leaf paper in an old junker, heat off in the middle of winter. Really, I'm freezing right now. This is ridiculous. And I've got to stop bullshitting to you, I do.

You know, I can almost hear you responding to this. I can hear your voice somewhere in the back of my mind, answering me. And maybe that makes me more insane than I ever was. Maybe this hollowed out body has finally been done in, and I'm just beginning my descent into the clutches of insanity... or maybe I just can't tell you the truth.  You know me well, you do.

The truth is that I ******* miss you so much, it hurts to breathe. It physically causes my chest to ache, for pain to shoot through my entire body with each pump of my heart. Unfortunately, my heart is beating ceaselessly and my breathing has yet to stop by choice, so it hurts every day, every single second. I am always missing you. There is no other truth but that.

I think that, by allowing myself to write this, I'm hoping this idea of you can save me. I know already that this is the dumbest thing I've let myself hope for, more stupid than letting myself hope for you and for change and for happiness. The point is, letting myself do this at all is stupid, But I can't stop myself. You are worse than any drug I've ever known, and I pity those whose lives you have touched only because I know what it's like to be cut off from you. God forbid you leave them, someday, and they end up like me. Or a few shades less crazy than me.

I haven't even eaten because of this emptiness. I can't eat, actually. If I feed the monster, it erupts and soaks me with self hatred. I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid to do anything to infuriate it, and it's always angry. It's always whispering to me, sexily and sweet, asking me to do things that are so wrong. I'm not listening, and I'm staying clean, but it's hard, dearest. It's so hard when you've got nothing to cling to, nothing to even dream about hoping for.

This emptiness takes and takes, and it does not give back anything but empty caverns and the memory of what it was to feel. It takes everything I've got and it dumps it on the ground, spreads it around and sullies it. And when it's tattered and worn and filthy and unrecognizable, it crumbles it between its fingers like it's nothing but ash. I hate this behemoth more than I hate living through it. It's never-ending, the terrors it brings, and it pounds against me when I trap it away. It is invincible though, and it will always win. It's invincible in the way I believed we once had been, a long time in the past. Like us, I am not as invincible as I dreamed.

I'm sorry if I've worried you. I didn't mean to tell you, not truly. But now that the words are out, I seem to be a bit less empty than I was. Maybe I'll find my way out of this... maybe. I hope you are well, and smiling, and the world treats you kindly. I hope the night sky is beautiful where you are, and the lights glimmer in the distance exactly as you've imagined them. You deserve it a thousand times over me.

-A.C.

sleep is nothing more
than pressing pause on netflix;
our minds are put on hold,
our worries forgotten for the duration
of a few REM cycles.
the events of the past day,
week,
even our whole lives -
all of it is suspended,
frozen in the clutches of time -
lurking in the back.
Grendel in the shadows,
only woken by glaring sunlight
and the sound of joy.

the beast slinks inside
and it interrupts
the tranquility of transgression
with splintering, mind numbing, earth quavering reality.
and consequently,
reality is nothing more
than an empty space in a too cold bed.
it is nothing
but a series of unsaid goodbyes and
pleas for you to return;
but only in the mind,
because the words are burning holes
through my lying tongue.
the only reality left is sometimes,
i catch an icy blue glare in the mirror,
haunting and devastatingly familiar.

sleep is escape
if only to a universe where we
were not;
if only to a land where what is done
can be undone,
as easily as pressing undo while typing.
at least there, where i dream of you once,
again,
you cannot leave nor hurt me.
and we always have happy endings,
because i always pictured
that that was all you could bring me.

i never dreamed i couldn't dream,
or that the monsters lurked not in the shadowy alleys,
but instead, inside of me.
and i never imagined them seeping into reality.

i never knew losing you
could **** me.

so close yet so far
minuscule in my mind until
suddenly
there.

looming over me and
overshadowing my insignificance;
coloring it dark with your smile,
larger than life
itself.

as you move,
i breathe -
now, i am
whole.

the worst kind of Sad is not when Sad tries not to be Sad.

it is when Sad hides in your closet,
threading it's claws through the slightly healed,
fresh scars
that litter your entire being
the way that Freddy claws
at his victims of sleep.

it is when Sad creeps up upon you
as you listen to your favorite song
and it suffocates you -
suffocates you with your own scarf,
letting you fade in and out of life
as you lose yourself in memories you'd like
to forget.

you know which scarf Sad uses, don't you?
it's the red one, with the black stripes,
the one you threw in the furthest corner of your closet
because it reminds you of that day,
and summer sweat,
and the aching empty feeling that consumed you
until you were swallowed up
completely eaten alive.

Sad is only Sad when it keeps you from precious slumber
and drives you to the brink of drowsiness, all the while
weighing you down with
bone crushing, eye drooping heaviness;
Sad hibernates there, sound asleep behind the cavity in your chest
and it makes you think you're okay again.

the worst kind of Sad
is when it resurfaces -
though only when you're alone -
and replays your entire day,
a constant loop through each dragging second,
until you doubt it ever happened.

the worst kind of Sad
is not Sadness itself;
it is not even the chest clenching feeling
that it brings, forcing you to think
about each breath as you make it
but rather, the worst kind of Sad
is the one that breaks your ribs with the strength
of a wrecking ball
and prematurely reminds you
that someday
they will be gone - for good, forever,
a ghost haunting your life.

the worst kind of Sad is the
inevitable and unalterable reality
that there is nothing you can do
to stop it.

(I bit my tongue a thousand times, but had we reached the thousand and first, I would have told you the truth. Why are we allowed to become close now when you are sure to be gone before I can blink my eyes and gather the courage to say goodbye?)

-a.c.

"it's nasty," she says,
the words dripping
dancing acidic ballerinas
tumbling from her lips
pirouetting between
decayed yellowed molars
and exhaled
like tasty, toxic, treacherous
nicotine.

nasty? how?

nasty like the way it tastes
when you roll my flaws
around like a toothpick
and pick me apart like a corpse
on the side of the road?

nasty like shoe polish medicine
slipping down your esophagus
just to ease the guilt for a night,
dragging you away to a restless
rem cycle where your troubles
melt away?

nasty like your childhood and the
scars on your shrunken skin,
like the memories that smell distinctly
of top shelf gin;
like the echoes of the places
you used to haunt, the denial of
what happened there hollowed out
and gaunt?

nasty like denying yourself freedom
in the most euphoric way
because you never learned how to ask,
command, what would please you
if only you had stayed?

nasty like the marriage
you stay in every day,
a dead end since you met,
fated to be a prison cell to whom
you're confined?

or nasty like the way
you can't look at yourself
in the mirror
without finding something that
you wish you could change?

We are all part of the Dead Poets Society,
in that we are all adeptly capable
of free thought and expression.

The difference, between
true romantics and the (in)expressive realists,
lies in the passionate mumblings which echo across prairies.

The difference is simply that we
cling to life, to dreams, to desperation and to death
as though they are the buoys of a great journey - invincible.

While the realists puncture holes
in dreams and death alike,
sinking with abstract thoughts like great boulders - motionless.

The difference between two polar opposites
is the brazen stroke of being
and the frenzied, wild dash of living.

beside you
breathing you in
watching you from under curtains;
curtains of feathery black.

cologne and heat and dryer sheets,
a scent more like home than my home,
your lips quirk
and your eyes widen
and my heart
skips.

you speak
and i am lost
in your voice,
in the melody that you sing.
you shine; i fade.

you pause, and now
i have observed quietly for too long.
my eyes drop back to
the bitten nubs of my fingernails,
and you continue speaking.

i pull every word from your lips,
twist them,
tuck them into my brain
for another time
when i can imagine the sweet things you could
say.

but these words,
they are not meant for me
my mind wanders,
and my heart misses some beats
one,
two,
and i find myself helpless
watching you, just out of sigh
so close yet so terribly far
unattainable.

i am gasping for air when
you smile -
sudden and fleeting -
my heart skips, once more
then
nothing.

i lock the words away again,
the ones hanging precariously
at the tip
of my tongue
as some things are better left
unsaid.

this is americana.

this is the sound of family get-togethers,
or the lack thereof.
the sound of awkward pleasantries
because we see each other
twice a year on the major
holidays. there are birthday cards
sent back and forth, necessary
games of monotonous tag and we
bleed our thoughts in between the
general conversations, we look
into each other's eyes and share thoughts
telepathically. we are not close,
but we are joined.

this is americana,
small town edition.
they call you family as
they look through your cupboards
for ***** dishes. they smile
and laugh with you as they dish
out gossip and revenge. they
stab a knife into your butcher-block
counter top. they sever your spinal
cord and make you a puppet, a
voicebox spitting out the message. they
make you their ***** and they call it
friendship.

this is americana.
grilling burgers and hot dogs
on the fourth of july, fireworks
across the town, city, nation.
you drive on interstates for miles
and miles and miles and every tree looks
the same even with mountains behind it,
until there's nothing but a great red
stretch of desert and you wonder if
the cactus really holds water, but the
honda civic or the minivan or the f-150
is going too fast to stop and find out.
you end up in a thousand starbucks,
a million mcdonalds, a billion little places
filled with a trillion little life forms
and you think about the way home smells,
how your mom made the home baked goods
when you were little but stopped as you
grew because not everything stays
golden.

this is americana.
united we stand, divided we
fall. we repeat a pledge from birth,
more often than we call for our parents
and before you learn what you're
promising. they say our nation is a
melting ***, free of religion, discrimination
and hate. we see a different truth;
we still say "god" as we pledge to a bleeding
country; races of every color suffer, every
gender is beaten down by society, and
we are not allowed to define, to own
ourselves unless we're white, rich, "powerful".
americana is a genre, a taste, a sugar-coated
glimpse into promise and unbeatable dreams.
the truth is we're all in debt, we're being
drowned out by the wealthy, we're all falling
prey to the powers that be.

we are americana, and we are broken.
whatever you believe, let us pray
that there is a chance left to
heal.

drowning;
i'm drowning.

pools of blue
cast their spell
and then i'm
floating.

defying gravity,
breathing you in -
captivating,
hypnotizing,
teasing.

one world flolats in
those two pools of blue.

I.
when i look at you,
i feel a mixed reaction
as emotions collide
inside this feeble cavity we call
a chest. in general,
there are three things -
the three, most important things -
that cross my mind.

II.
butterflies. my stomach drops,
on its own personal roller coaster,
engineered by your smile.
another part of it drops because we
dance around each other, on tiptoes,
sometimes painfully. other times, we are
one, and in sync. and occasionally
we are both lost in separate worlds,
lost in thoughts and dreams.
i don't believe in prayer, but maybe
you could pray for me.

III.
desolation. loss and grief course
through tired, worn veins. already, you're
intangible. sitting right beside me,
i'm hindered by the space between us, the span of
space and infinity and this parallel universe we're
trapped inside. with time passing at snail's speed and
slipping away at jet speed, i can't
hold on. you're still here, still a concrete noun,
but you feel like an abstract dream, a haunting
memory. if you look out the window someday,
and you catch sight of the moon,
i hope it reminds you of me.

IV.
greed and begging and hope. all of it, every feeling,
encased in my thinly veiled heart. the strongest of
fortifications can't suppress my petty,
jealous words and my leveling glare. these feelings,
though unwarranted, are mine. you should be mine.
i wish my fate line crossed yours, but i'm starting to see,
trying to convince myself,
that we aren't meant and these worlds don't match. i can almost
believe it, and deep down i know it's true. i know that we can't
exist, not based on likes and dislikes when what we want,
where we want to go,
are so diverse and specific that it
(we) would never work.

V.
still, the overwhelming feeling
that sparks my reactors
is that gnawing, pleading one.
the one that i have to choke down
in an effort to make things semi-okay.
the one where i tell you everything,
and apologize, and explain my reasons
for it all. the one where i tell you i miss you,
where i tell you i will miss you,
where i say i can't imagine life without you.
the one where i confess this pathetic,
undying devotion,
even when i know this is the last
time i'll ever see you
again.

VI.
you won't ever pray for me,
or think of me when your vision
latches on to the moon. we won't ever speak
again, because that isn't how it is,
not with us.
i miss you.
don't leave.
don't go.
stay.

VII.
please, i'm begging you,
get out.
be everything you want.
do everything you need to.
and above all,
be the superstar,
the exploding supernova,
the entire galaxy
that you are.

these stubborn lungs
just won't give it up
dandelions, clovers, rabbit's foot
for luck
i've been trying my hardest
not to aim too high,
to shoot for the buildings, not
the petulant sky
wide eyes, open heart
concave hopes, brand new
start
aching and craving
thundering worlds anew
awoken to beauty
among a faithful few

Some blades sting
as they slice through skin;
laced with backhanded
compliments, a withering glance,
and the steady hand of
an executioner, they aim
to demolish, stick by stick
of explosive hatred.

Some blades have poisoned tips,
dipped in a brew so wicked
that it lurks from vein to vein
and blacks you out, strikes you
from existence by hijacking your senses
and drowning them with intense,
heady emotions like loneliness, and fear,
and fiery anger.

Some blades are disguised as a handshake,
one that grips and cracks your bones into splinters,
shards of what once was dignity
and pride. A grip that convinces you
to admit that you are nothing, that you are
less than, that you are inferior.

And then there is the blade,
tipped like a pen,
upon which I ****** myself. This
blade, unlike the others,
is choice and stupidity and release.
It is a forfeit, a crushing defeat
that the writers succumb to. It is this
blade, ink pouring from our pumping aortas
to our gnarled, stained fingertips
that dance across a page, that charm
our own minds with the drowsy lullabies
and delusions of omnipotence so that
we can spill the deepest, blackest pits
of our shriveled peach hearts
and spit them out into the universe.
A million voices collide and create the void
where we all end, where we all begin, and
forge the path of self-destruction it takes
to fish out a handful of temperate words,
biblical verses, even historic epics
to release ourselves of our woes
and of every singular thought.

Some blades are caused by the average,
the ones who would not ****** a dagger
through their chest, not even
for the truth.
But our blade, the wicked fiend,
sweeps through every bone and ligament
until she reaps what is due;
the words you're reading,
my thoughts scattered out
for you.

It's starting again.

I can feel the emptiness nestling in my joints.

With each drop in temperature, the
evils begin spiraling inside
of my mind as I fall
to the hounds.

I don't care. I don't blink.
It has no effect on me
anymore.

In my mind, I am smoking away
the tears and choking fears. Wispy tendrils of
heather gray caress my thin, chapped
lips with love. I am wearing
leather and black and there are
silver knuckles
gracing my lily white skin, marred
only by my ******, bitten nails and
your ink. I am
embracing
the demons, letting them drive
me away on chrome plated chariots, just
to get away, to run faster than God
itself, to the end -
the finish line -
they can't catch me;
they won't catch me yet,
not today.

In reality, I am buried
by layers of fat and years of secrets. I am
nothing but easily forgotten, and I
breathe in the esse of other lives, as if
they can save me or take hold, can grab
me tight, can pull my head high above suffocating
midnight waves. I am an
actor only by the smiles that convince me of a performance
well done. I am a liar, a
**** good one.

I'm not even excited for Christmas.
The tree, the lights, the frosty
air does nothing to arouse a festive
spirit or a hopeful mood. This is my only tell.
I have never lost
this one hope, this sole
light. Never have I lost
all - just you, though that has
always felt like a loss
larger than life.

"**** it all," I whisper.
Because no one cares, and we
are a selfish race. We are self-
absorbed, drowning in our own sorrows, and
clinging to desperate attempts of connecting.

It's starting again, and this time, I can
taste it on my tongue. Bitter, copper, heavy and
foul. Perhaps, if I believed in salvation, I
could afford
hope. For now, though, hope is an
empty bottle of water in the Sahara, and it is
foreign and massive and dark and looming.

Eating me alive.

gentle                                        but kind, your
touch                                         sends shivers through my veins,
down                                         my spine, across the plains of my
skin.                                          you are
careful,                                      as though i might be startled and
run away.                                 you're wary, and with good
reason,                                      because i am restless and a flight
risk.                                           i am the whipping wind and the weighted
anchor,                                     the concurrent push and pull, rise and
fall                                            of the churning tide. your fingertips slide across
my                                            skin. my gut rolls and twists, tightly coiling, injecting my
body                                         with venom and excitement and lust and longing. you
ignite                                        my neuroses and sparks fly; firecrackers bursting against a
clear,                                         star-lit July canvas. splatters of paint
coat                                           the world and my sight blacks out for light years and milliseconds
all at once.                                i shiver but bite it back, revolting against the warm
chill                                           clutching at my bones, vying for survival.
powerless                                  to you, even when i know in my heart i have to
accept                                       that there is nothing to become of
us, no                                        more than the dance of two partners at a
masquerade                             whose fates are only temporarily entwined. thread tickles my wrist,
i laugh,                                     and i hold my tongue. i hold back
every ******* word,                like it's a dam about to burst and sweep away everything,
devastating                              the entire world. my words could
destroy                                     what i have gained, what i have settled for, what i have
done.                                        what have i done? .  .  . but the words slink back
inside,                                      always on the brink, never to be heard or
seen.                                        i wish to see you gone, like the sun to the moon and like the moon to the sun.                                        yet there was comfort,
knowing you'd return.          knowing that you'd
always                                    circle back around, constantly on each other's tails, a
thrilling chase.                       the end is nigh, the sky is burning red, the world is on
fire.                                         flames lick the tips of my toes, race up my arms, and
ashes                                      of my safety net tumble and glide
down, all around me.            hazards surround me. i am a
hazard.                                  you are a road block and a shortcut, one i find myself led to in
temptation.                            let me free, guide me home, be
the one -                                 or perhaps, maybe... no? the
bittersweet goodbye,             the final tears - i hope- will be
freed                                       in five months time. five months is not even a
moment.                                not when you're praying that time
slows, crawls, halts.              the harder i cling, the further away
you go.                                   your fingers leave my wrist,
leaving                                  behind lilac string as a reminder. my heart
collapses                               on itself. five months is not enough. the twenty
seconds                                 were not enough, not even as you
touched me.                         shaken, fighting laughter and fears and
tears,                                     watch me shove it away. the
inevitable                             only comes around, only is real, when you're forced to
face it.                                  and i will not accept that you're gone until you're finally, actually
gone.

they say that darkness falls.

they believe it overtakes the
Sun, in all its brilliance,
at the end of every day.
in their eyes, the clutches of night
abduct the light that is exuded
on to our haste-driven,
humming lives.

per contra,
black waves have never conquered
the biting bars of golden sunlight;
instead, it has always billowed
from opposite ends of the Earth
to replace a fickle Sun, one
that forsakes stars and city stripes
for new moieties, and
new existences.

at night, a duvet of ink swirls above us,
blanketing bodies and nature alike
under enchanted, glittering tapestries
woven together with the glittering tears
of galaxies out of reach, sewn and fitted
to the quintessence of shadowed alleys,
whispering fields, even
the dimply lit room where two beating hearts
unify.

they say darkness falls,
when the truth is, it rises.
darkness always rises like the calm, gentle wave.

it's been a few weeks, and
i'm trying my best,
though i can still hear
some voices in my head.
i'm trying to go blind,
trying to do and not
escape from real life.
but it's hard to stay here,
standing ramrod still,
when there's dancing around me
that's making me ill. i can't
find a shortcut or some way out
so instead i'm just looping these
feelings around
and around, like a cassette tape
being rewound,
looping and looping the same
tired sound.
taking all of this in is a bit
of a struggle and i'm finding
that i'm drowning
inside of this puddle and god,
i'm not much of a believer
but i sure think i'd like
if you could send me a sign. i need
some reason, give me a rhyme because
i'm trying to force these words out
but here i am typing and i can't
hear a sound
it's like radio silence from every single end
and i know it's just school
i know it's just them
and i know it's that friendless
might be my middle name,
right between selfish and
still-can't-tell-you-the-game,
can't give you a clue,
can't bring you the truth,
even though i'm advising other people
on how to do what they do. so maybe my
first name is hypocritical and my
last might be *****,
but at least that's an itch i'm
quite familiar with,
and oh god i think i'm crazy
i can't see straight right now,
the typing of keys, the clicking of
cows, i might need a break,
i'm getting one now.
but i still see your face, and
try as i might, i'm fighting
your sweetness,
oh my god i hate this,
can you stop it please?
dear god can you hear me,
can you consider my pleas?
i'm not very special and
quite wish-washy,
but i think i need your
guidance because i'm lost and
without, help me decide
where my heart is standing,
help it find solid ground so i can make
a soft landing.

"I'll be right back",
"See you soon",
"I love you" -
all code words for goodbye.

In a society of easily forgotten,
casually replaced, and faulty
relationships, I am one of them;
one of the ghosts.

Not privileged enough,
not quite as sharp,
nor do I have a fraction of their
glittering, Golden luster.

I fade instead,
floating in and out of view,
opaque in body;
I am naught.

With their gleaming teeth, sharp
wit and poisonous
tongues, you outshine all
in my unseeing eyes.

Through objective eyes, you
are equivalent to the ones I loathe,
and perhaps the Highest
Priest of the Golden.

Just as monstrous,
with poisonous fingertips
injecting my skin by accident,
intent to ****.

For you cause my chills,
and elevate my pulse,
and corrupt my nervous system,
eliciting pure, electric desire.

Maybe I do despise you,
the same as the other Goldens.
I might hate your grin, and
your silky, alluring voice.

Or, maybe, I only pretend -
confusion is the question,
yet your clumsy touches
are the deadly key.

in life,
where do you dream to go?
is it nashville,
new york city,
or maybe tokyo?

where will your heart
lead you towards?
out of my life,
through wide open doors?

how long before
i see you again?
wednesday,
next year
towards the end?

will you remember me
in ten years, twenty?
when there are crinkles
by your eyes,
or when there's gray hair aplenty?

one thing is for sure,
i could never forget you.
not tomorow,
not ever,
not even when i'm eighty-two.

but if you forget me,
i won't hold a grudge;
because life is too short
for you to trudge
through old, forgotten faces
and memories long buried,
or to revisit old races
that you've already won.

i don't ask you to remember
my visage, my dreams,
let alone my name.
just please remember
my voice, and dancing
in the rain.

i feel a weight in my lungs,
a pound on my chest;
i can't salvage my body
with only the band-aid on my head.
i stare with empty eyes at beating,
living hearts; in my mind's eye, i
contemplate my non-moving parts.
loneliness blossoms in the corners of my soul,
the stars hang lonely in a blacked out Seoul.
though my time is short,
my night seems long.
though my corporeal form
stands here, my mind has gone.
dreams are blank, no longer a refuge, and
unreality is a mirror, a rainstorm sending me askew.
each breath is a mystery,
each laugh a crater in my chest,
each moment i'm alive is one step
closer to death.

every other line, underlined;
a life preserver sewn together with words,
ink circling my wrists like it could
anchor me here in existence, even if
it's nothing short of a distracting illusion.
in them, i saw my own struggle resurrect
itself, still a burden from my past
haunting me relentlessly since i was
thirteen.

isn't that a terrifying thing?
that kids of this generation
swallow pills like candy, cut wrists
like ribbons, drink liquor like
sweet-and-sour medicine? they give us
a bad reputation for hyperbole and
self-diagnosis, like the things we see
in ourselves are any less valid,
like the science and drugs they "cure" us
with have any meaning when our
mental mortality is broken and sick.

they say it's for attention, but
breaking news: it isn't.

why would you want to fake this
disease? it's a miserable, dead end cave
that collapses around you daily and suffocates,
squeezing until your insides are a barren wasteland, until
time ceases meaning anything and the clock ticks, ticks,
ticks, until we feel
the ticks of time teetering towering above
our heads, and we wait for the minute hand
to come slicing down like a
guillotine.

i remember that summer night vividly,
in muted colors and looming black screens
three a.m., weighed down by
self-loathing, wishing for an escape route.
they don't tell you about it; there's something
taboo about the slithering double s slipping
through your lips.
but every year, people succumb to this battle
they can't win, because they're so unaware,
frighteningly ill-prepared.

it's twisted how "i have a headache"
can be an acceptable reason to stop
trying for a day, but yet
"i can't get up today
i can't get up at all everything is
pointless and my body won't obey won't
perform basic survival functions and i
haven't eaten haven't slept right in days
i don't care why should i care
i don't care i don't care i don't
why do i keep going on like this like
a dead man walking like nothing
is wrong like this smile isn't badly mixed
plaster like it isn't chipping away
cracking breaking the ice around me
drowning me in the never ending black hole"
isn't quite good enough.

i never knew it affected anyone besides
adults. adults never realized
we kids could get totaled, too,
that we could be hopeless and
hollowed out, walking infinitely
in darkness and dissolving each
second. so yes,
when i found quentin, i wanted
to change his end. i wanted
to make things better, because i remember
finally finding a name for the churning beast
in me and crying with relief, no longer
alone or empty, even if the feeling was the fleeting
shooting star in a the vast dark cosmos.
i want to save him from the violent end
because i have to, because i owe
every kid like me an ear to listen, an
understanding smile, and some battle tips
from someone with invisible scars.
i'm healed, now, but quentin and so many
others have already lost, and
god forbid we lose another
to the parasite in our brains.
in his words, i hope someone
can find a steel lifeline,
and that they learn to let go
of tricky ticking time.

i think about what kissing you
might have felt like;
butterflies landing on skin,
gliding across uncharted valleys
and plains; waves
gently lapping at the tips of
electric toes, returning home after
witnessing battles and carnal instinct
and bottles drowning, cause of death
stories that never found the desired
reader because the ocean is a selfish
being, rebellious, desperate
for shreds of humanity in
the middle of vast wilderness,
tenacious, ferocious jungles
kissing you might have been
gentle like the girl in pastel
pink, pale thighs quivering, mountains
of goosebumps erupting across her arms
when the indie rocker with an
"always" tatto and a phoenix teardrop
swirls galaxies into the milky
way that is, what her Lord sees,
sin
it might be the hummingbird heartbeat
of a first date, the aftermath of gunfire,
slow as toxic death. or kissing you
may have set me ablaze - a living, breathing,
burning bush. it might have been
the anchor i thought i
wanted, needed, pleaded for.
perhaps you would have forced me afloat
instead of seeing me drown
myself, not stopping it, turning away. kissing you could have felt like oxygen
being pumped into my lungs if i had
courage, wits, half a brain, a heart.
kissing you could have sewn
me together or ripped me apart.
kissing you was the end, kissing you was the start
of
everything.

hollowed out
a vast ravine
my vessel is vacant
with rooms for lease

empty
my soul is weary and tired
blackened
crumbling to ashes in its cage
a crater
poignant with despair
while beasts with crimson claws
eat their way inside

like the shadow-lands
my body carries carasses
of past evolutions,
and my previous sanguine mask
made of paper mache
falls
apart
as icy winds strike,
raking sharp fingernails across
my skin,
marking it read, black, and blue.

rooms for rent until july,
until life has ended,
until the black becomes a champ,
capturing the beating of my heart
and stilling my insides.

there were days of gold -
just yesterday, i swear -
but they are as coy as spring,
always replaced by the inevitable,
irrevocable plague
of the vicious winds and icy breath
of monsters
rising from hibernation,
taking their rightful place
and murdering the light
starting to reappear in my eyes.

married to fate, chained to the future
my wounds won't heal, not even with sutures
the roulette ball rolls; who knows where it'll land?
will i know to take hold when you outstretch your hand?
each day my doubts plague me, gnaw at my soul
and sometimes i wonder if this is why i thrive in the cold
what prompts us to write, to shove words out in the open?
who can look into our eyes and know that we're broken?
the pen is a blade; my heart is a trigger
this place is a maze; my blood clumps thicker
three years ago, i thought i would be different,
thought i'd be bigger, or less worried about insignificance
i thought the world would turn on its' axis boldly,
and that i wouldn't crave days where i want someone to hold me
three years ago, i wonder if my sails had a stronger direction
and once upon a time - i swear - i had more connections
fear still finds me,
a panther stalking its' foolish prey,
and time still blinds me
with how quickly it ticks away
is success just a feeling? is it only a name?
is it even a level, a possibility in this game?
is passion a feeling, or just a thirst for fame?
is home a person, a place, or an imaginary plane?
my mind still haunts me, with its' rattling doors,
and sometimes my demons whisper that i'm doomed to bore
questions ignite my being, setting me ablaze
as i wonder if i will ever be ready for the adulting daze

i'm trying to map my way
to happiness, to reach that feeling
of euphoria, of bliss,
and not follow it up with a
"i'm never going to get this feeling back"
thought.
it's like i know there's this bundle
of energy inside of me, waiting to
be tapped into; i can feel it
sometimes, when there's something
so funny i can't breathe, and my legs
collapse at the same time my lungs
do. but even then there's this
mantra in my head, this "oh my god
do they think my laugh is horrible
i wheeze like an old lady just like
that boy told me once in the fifth grade
and it's not attractive, and it's not like i've
got a lot going for me now, not with
a hundred pounds too many
and these hideous patches of
irritated red across my whole face"
and i can't hold on to the buzz
of joy and pleasure and living;
it's like getting high for the first time
and crashing back into reality with
sickeningly crystal clear vision,
and then you feel like everything you
do is this act, this mask that weighs
twenty pounds and hurts
so much that when you take it off,
it's like crawling into yourself
and falling unconscious for the next
15 hours.
and i'm trying, i'm trying to
reach this inexhaustible
source of happiness and golden light
but it's like everyone else has found
the key to happiness and peace
and life, and i'm drowning in the middle
of the night in the moats outside the gate
because i can't ******* swim and
there's monsters coming in from
every angle. and i just
accept it, because it seems like
despite all the effort i put in, there's
this bitter ***** that's seeping through
and she's angry, she hates everything
and she wants to ruin it for
everyone else if she can, and behind
her is the little girl cowering that
wants to believe in fairy tales and
saving people and flying
and Peter Pan and God,
and she's whispering
"Look, it's right over there,
let's just fly over that wall!"
and she can't see that life
isn't that simple, you can't skip
the middle bits to get to happiness;
you don't get the laughs without tears
and the better bones without a few
breaks and stronger hearts only
come around when you've gone
through enough that you
feel it turn to dust behind your
ribs, when it first beats to life
again at the sight of the blue
eyes sitting in front of you
in english, or the shiny black hair
that swings across your desk
smelling like lavender and cigarette
smoke and you want to be okay,
you want everything to be okay
but you still can't pass the **** gate
and there's no key to be seen
so you're left hollow and
desperate, filling yourself with
anything that makes you feel,
food and music and words and jewels
and things from your past, holding
on until your knuckles are pouring
blood like a waterfall.
you get so full that all the oceans
and seas and bays and lakes
lap against the walls of you and
push while sufficiently weighing you
down and slamming you to a
stop and you're lazy and you can't
get up, can't get out of bed without 12
hours of sleep even though you're
only getting five on good nights and
you can't even get ready in the mornings
until you can clock the time left in at
10 minutes, and life is ticking around
you in milliseconds while you're
pushing through, and you can see
the light at the end of the tunnel because
you've pushed through so much already
and you're only 16 milliseconds in,
there's at least 50 more to go and that's
a whole lifetime.
and you wonder "what if that lifetime
isn't enough? what if i need 70 milliseconds
ore than 16 and i only get 23 milliseconds
for my whole life? what if i die right now,
cardiac arrest, or i step out into
a car going 180 miles-per-hour,
or i just go to sleep and don't wake up,
not even when prince charming kisses me?
what if i die before i ever get past
that golden gate? what if i never get
to bathe in the glow of that ball
of glee sitting behind those
ivy covered walls?
what do i do
if i die and never grasp
the true concept of day to day
happiness?
what if i'm like this
forever?"

there are beasts inside me
with yellowed claws
and gaping, black pits
for mouths
who grin with sickly teeth
that are dripping
with the blood of
my past selves.

selves that they have carved
into shreds and chunks
until all that was left were black stumps,
ashes, and fragile bones
left to rot,
to poison the remaining
pure
pieces that remain.

and in the dark
i can feel them.

i can taste
the venom
pulsing through my translucent veins
as it slides through my system
effortlessly blighting my mind,
soul, and body
with twisted, dark thoughts
with loathing, weariness,
and with concepts that are rooted in truth.

they remind me that i have no place here,
that i do not deserve to waste
the precious oxygen
required to keep me alive,
nor am i worth contributing to
the depletion of natural resources
that will someday
run out.

a voice that once whispered seductively
from the outskirts of my dark,
tortured brain,
and trained me on ways to rip myself from life
with only a bottle of pills
or a blade,
now screams at me.

costantly reminding me that i am not good
enough
or that there is
nowhere
for me;
no matter how far i run,
my ghosts will follow.

as these ghosts are not the people
or this town
or even corpses that rot,
confined underground.

my ghosts are all the same,
and they are all
me.

i am the demon,
the murderer,
the ruination of my past,
my present
and, eventually,
my future.

i am the monster in the closet
beating against the doors
and pleading to be set free.
i am the behemoth who is suffocating,
forced to breathe in my own virulent air
and i am the demon
that i have battled,
the demon i have conquered
over and over again
if only for the time being.

the black war that
rages
inside of my mind
is the monster's fault
and by extension,
this battle -
all of these battles -
can only be solved by myself
and perhaps,
if i were a hero
i could win.

but i am just a mortal,
straining under the weight
of one fraction of
the world
and no mere mortal
has ever been
their own hero;
no mere mortal
will ever win
against
their shadow twin.

it's been a lonely night
the stage has been set for fright
with gaping pits full of twisting slides
my heart is trapped on this ******* ride

this soul is heavy with black marks
permanent testaments to my wicked heart
and so i'm the hidden show in town,
where they gawk upon the freaks

in the black of the night i dare not put up a fight
and the circus clowns tie me down
but with you as my ghost
they're forced to slit my throat

and like us, the facade comes crumbling down

demented and sick, you smile something sick,
prize fighter of my mind.
you sneer with my eyes, my lips twist with lies
and poison dances across my lips.

you wicked teeth gleam, sink into my skin
but like a light, i slip
heavenly waves crash across my brain
blurring the edges and lines

you press against me and i implode,
and as the blood rain falls
your cackle reverberates in a mirrored hall
as i'm dragged down,
         down
into the chasm of fire

i blame you.

the demon, my midnight muse,
the human with fangs, a vampire in plaid,
you monster,
you boy,
you mutt with a chew toy,
you impertinent child,
who stomps and quakes
holy ground.

don't leave,
and don't you dare
say goodbye.

i am not crying
because you will be gone -
or, i'm trying to pretend
that that isn't the case.

i am crying
because you're like my safety blanket,
and my inspiration,
and you were once my best friend
i am crying
because i need you,
even if you don't need me.

i need things to stay the same,
and you disappearing,
moving to bigger cities
and starting a new life
is not the same.

i want to hear your laugh,
obnoxiously loud over things
that are never quite as funny
as your reaction
i need to know that you are somewhere,
close by,
thinking and living and breathing
the same way i am
and i need to know
that when the moon shines its beams
across us at night,
and i am looking at the stars,
that perhaps we are thinking the same thought
just in different visions;
relative, like the way
every person
perceives things differently.

i do not want to
forget
you, or anything you've made me feel
although i do know it's time to
move on.
but i must admit,
when i am in class,
and your name somehow stumbles its way
to the front of my brain,
it will hurt that much more -
like a sudden shock
caused by an imbalance of electrical charges.

i do not want you to leave,
and thinking about it now hurts too much.
i guess i knew,
always,
that this was coming
but i never realized it would come
quite so suddenly,
or quite so soon.

adulthood.
some restrained feeling
of weightlessness. some glorified
illusion of freedom. someone's swan song
towards the next novel of their fleeting life.

graduation.
ceremonial sacrifice
to the beings well-versed in
control. we dance for the puppet
masters until we are nothing more than
cogs in this twisting, rusted machine.

change.
excuses aren't acceptable;
shut up and do what they say.
be the person they're molding always,
every second, as the sun falls down and the
moon reminisces on your beaten down dreams.

thought.
an unadulterated process,
at least, it starts that way. we start
like a blank state, tabula rasa theory and all.
we end up "cultured", crammed with discrimination,
hatred, disappointment, and drowning in the media's grip.
we are all slowly dying, becoming the very thing we swore to
forget.

these ***** white tiles,
slick with someone's hot
pink nail polish. the caress of a piano key,
the strum of the guitar resting upon your knee,
the ashes of those walls you once demolished.
these hallowed halls, laughter bouncing
across those cinder blocks. by the office
desk, i must confess,
a Cheshire smile suspended. textbooks
stained with that starry name, eyelashes clutched in the hands
of the clock. the bracelet burning against my pulse, Facebook
and those pictures by the dock.
this gym stage has ****** you in, while
the volleyball net whistles show tunes.
embedded in lined paper, explosions of blue behind
closed eyes, kneeling before the kitchen sink,
dancing at prom where, in the shadows, ghosts slink.
white trucks are soiled, and go karts too.
singing is yours - it'll have to do. in my heart of
glass, in silver bleachers where i quivered
like grass. there in cloudy days, or when the sun slants
just so, or in the buzz of my anxious phone.
i can't watch grease or hairspray ever again,
even the Bible is full of sin. church pews
moan, wailing for you. microphones plead to
be touched by kindness, and candles burn, gentle
and steady.

i see you in everything. Casper can't hold
a candle to your transparency. i see you in the white hot
part of the flame, i saw you in my first fireworks on
new year's eve. i feel you thrumming through my veins,
and i hear you in my favorite lyrics. i will
always wonder where you are, if you're okay. i hear
you in the static of the radio, in harmonies of a choir, in her
dreadfully happy face.
i can see you in everything.

i am craving your touch,
gentle as silk, drifting across
hidden crevices and valleys,
unearthing my follies and defects.

i want your laugh, languid and airy
as you huff it against my skin,
erupting goosebumps -
as though they are volcanoes -
in its wake.

i need to feel your love,
need to be scorched by the dry brushfires
your lips create
when they are pressed against
mine.

i am desperate for your breath,
in quiet exhales of sleep and laughter and desire;
desperate for you to inhale the toxic fumes
of old books and shared
oxygen.

there is a physical need
to have you near,
orbiting around me
as a steady constant,
much like the Sun;
never fading or disappearing
unless it is for the quiet echoes
of the night.

i wish that you words
could be sewn
into a tapestry of wisdom,
a blanket of both security
and inadequacy,
a reminder that words can never be
enough
to describe how you shake me
and leave cracks and indelible stains,
or the fragments of yourself that are
embedded
in my skin, soul,
and mind.

i am aching for you,
so delicate yet so whole,
both sure and uncertain;
a comforting enigma that requires
a lifetime
to unravel.

there is an ache,
rooted deep in my soul,
that can only be quenched
by you.

never has my life looked
so open, so vast with words
leaping to greet me, lapping
eagerly at my fingertips
with undeniable zeal and
delight for a new life, a
fresh start and beginning
i could only dream to see
with you out of the picture,
with you far from sight,
i am reigning supreme --
in this kingdom, you
will see me step up to
the role of queen --
and i am ready,
prepared to take flight
should the duty call
me to the skies,
prepared to send
you floating down
the river like the
unwanted child
(and always is
something i shall
mean forever, but i
need to spread my wings
before i lose all these
glorious feathers)
never again do i plan
to see your face, except on
my facebook feeds,
never again will your shadow
stand so greatly over me
i'm free --
DO YOU HEAR THAT,
THE ROARING OF THE AIR?
CAN YOU SMELL THE SEA SALT
OR TASTE IT LINGERING RIGHT
THERE INSIDE OF ME, DARE
I EVEN BLINK, DARE I
LOOK UP TO SEE THAT
FINALLY I CAN
THINK?
never again will i
bow down to your influence
because you are gone
and, finally,
i can rebuild
theses run-down
ruins.

"it's been this way from the start/i need some rest/i'll go to sleep at a decent time/when i find something worth waking up for"
- "sleep", flatsound

It seems like I only come here whenever my head is swimming - no, floating - in the ocean of thoughts flooding my brain. And yet, the page always seems so daunting. It's like every single time I know I should come to write my feelings on these lines, my boy rejects the effort before it begins. Some part of me, unsurprisingly, enjoys the suffering induced by denying myself the animal instinct that inevitably overpowers me, and I find myself here in the end even if I know it's only a temporary fix.

Even when I don't write, the words come, and I'm not sure why they scare me or why I suffocate them before they have a chance to live. I think endlessly, often drowning in thoughts, feeling the weight pressing down on my shoulders. When I try to write like this, the thoughts are stilted, stale, unoriginal, yet I continue; we continue, even though our very existence is as unoriginal as these words. We go on and on, repetition coded into our bones. All desiring the same things: love, money, power, ***, to be wanted, to be known. We all want to leave a mark, yet we as a whole tread paths worn so well that the bones of the Earth can be seen peering out from beneath our tired, aching feet.

Even worse, we all have something to say, all want to be heard and remembered. I'm astutely aware that my words, my thoughts, my entire being is a shout that sounds like a whisper. We scream our lungs out, thinking we are trees falling in a forest with no one around, when in truth our words and prayers and heartbeats are all minuscule layers of a complex beat. Rather than the bang, we are the whimper, going out without a second thought.

The year 2015 has ended; I swore I'd end it in another journal, but I'm fickle and flighty and I want to start over. I always forget that each "start over" is code for giving up, letting go, closing the door - on what, I'm never sure, but the past never remains gone or forgotten, and I truly wonder why I continue spinning in familiar circles at times like this. I slept through the celebrations and the change in year. Lately, my energy is lacking, and I have little hope that things will change. Any optimism this soul held has vanished again, it seems. I'm not sure I've hit the lows of my past, but this exhaustion is taking more to come back from. The longer I'm left alone with myself, the more I feel my presence fade to the ghost-like state it appears in - flashes of sincerity, importance, solidity, only to become nothing again as the times change.

I wrote a bit online a few days ago, and one line came out that didn't surprise me, per say, but made sense in a way I wasn't consciously aware of: "Still, I can't help but feel that I'm yearning for some place I can never quite reach..." Maybe this is the exhaustion in my being right now? Though I am more happy than any other emotion, this feeling still presses in on me with a fierceness I didn't expect. I'm neither here nor there, and perhaps it's always been like this. My skin has always itched to fin somewhere I belong, somewhere that is home. I am terrified that this may never happen, terrified at the prospect of never truly feeling satisfied in or with my life. The horror of adulthood and the future looks like a city skyline, dark and foreboding despite the deceiving glimmers of life lighting up the windows.

It all comes to this, I think; I cannot know how things will turn out, if I will be happy, if things can change. A million small fears stem to this one, and I can only hope for some meaning, some lasting reason to exist. There are billions of lives, so what makes mine significant? Though this thought runs the risk of making me sound like the rest of foolish humanity, it's impossible not to feel this way. Do I matter at all? I believe in things like fate, but it's difficult to imagine that I have any effect on the paths Earth and humanity both take.

-a.c.

my blood's running through my veins
ice cold, so slow
my mind's stumbling over memories
from a lifetime ago.
my eyes don't shed tears,
but somehow they cry,
as i listen to the sound
of a broken heart die.
you listen to the lies,
i listen to the feelings,
bleeding through the words
that float to the cloudy ceiling.
watch the angel's wings,
last breath in her eyes,
wings spreading wide
as she chokes out her goodbyes.

a heart full of love,
couldn't see the dedication.
you loved her like she was
a prescribed medication.
when you saw the light, and
made a fresh new start
you threw away the pills,
stabbed a dagger in her heart.
so when the love ran red and
the truth came out,
you held her hand, just once,
as the rain poured down.
in her last living moments
you swear to keep her safe,
but in the end, God's hands
tore her from this wretched place.

i have long since
closed
the book that i desperately
attempted to pen
about "us"

there never was an "us";
there was me,
desperately in love,
clinging to to someone who did not
feel the same

there was me,
foolishly thinking that someday,
in another world, in the future,
whenever,
that things could change

they will not change

i am not
the girl that you seem to seek
i have tried, for three
long, hard years,
to fit that mold

as i come to terms
with who i am,
with what i believe,
and with where i am going,
you do not quite fit

and that is not a harsh truth,
but honest reality;
we are on different paths,
heading to different loves
and to new lives

i have not wasted my three years
that i have so carefully
handed my heart to you,
and let you stomp me into
pieces

but i have realized
that another day spent
fooling myself
into believing that we are fated
is another day lost

in this world, i cannot afford
to throw away
precious time just to
write of how your eyes sparkle
when you smile

and so,
it is with a great struggle
with the girl who still believes in
a false dream, and the girl who knows
there is more

that i must, finally,
admit the truth to myself;
there is no "us",
and there never
was.

but i still hope that you have
a wonderful,
full,
wish fulfilling,
life

farewell,
first love, first heartache,
and the only one that i
would have stayed
in Hell for.

if i had the energy,
maybe i'd cry over the fact that
i can't get the words to flow in this paper,
this assignment, this tiny grade
swimming in a lifetime of letters and numbers
all meant to determine my worth.
if i still had the energy, the perfectionist
buried inside of me would kick in and critique
the work; it'd tear apart the letters and mangle them
until they came out sounding somewhat intelligent,
until everyone glosses over the fact that this
paper clearly has no point, no direction
(like my life)
and no energy leaping out to greet the reader,
a.k.a. my professor and literally
not another soul.
if i had the energy, i might care
that this reminds me a little too much of three years ago.
i might try and figure out what the **** to do
in order to make myself care.
then again, if i cared,
i wouldn't be in this position in the first place.
if i had the energy, i'd stop here
and fling myself off the roof - at least,
i would, if i didn't think dying would hurt
like hell and death wouldn't be terrifying as ****.
if i had the energy, maybe this paper would already
be finished, and i could be sleeping, instagramming,
living. but the energy and my soul are dried up,
and the words won't come,
and i keep clacking on these tired keys,
a desperate prisoner trapped in dizzying
whirlwind college days.

tonight, as you danced
on a platform of heroes,
surrounded by a blur
of faces you have never seen,
i was ****** back
in time.

as dresses swirled,
visions of a distant time
assaulted me. i could
envision
you and i
swirling the way the actors did -
the way you did -
in a ballroom
with souls fitted into
ballgowns and formal suits.

i could almost hear
you laughter
burst above the
orchestra, and
the buzz of excitement
zipping through the air.
i felt your hand
against mine;
one gripped my waist,
scorching my skin
and marking it with uncharted masses
of land.

as you lead; i follow
you twirl us around,
until we float
far above the crowd,
the clouds, straight
into the stars
when suddenly -
a flash! a spark! -
and i am back.

alone in my seat, and
stuck in a different world.
no longer twirling,
towards the land of the Gods,
but spiraling back
to unwelcome
reality.

i don't give second chances.

if you hurt me, over any
tiny, insignificant thing,
then i will push you away.

and even if, someday, i let you back in,
it will never be the same
because as a rule, second chances
do not change
a person whose character is
flat.

however,
the day i met you,
something changed.

i let you rip my heart
into bloodied shreds;
i watched as it fluttered down
and landed in a pile
that included my dignity,
my sanity,
and what was left of
my innocence.

i watched, completely detached
yet insanely aware of
how you could look at me
and of how i would do
anything - no,
everything
to make things okay for you.

i would move earth,
crash my car into a wall,
even sew my lips shut; i'd do
all of it
without  complaint,
especially if i knew you'd grant me one
second,
minute,
hour
of the attention i craved.

so it was no surprise,
that each time i declared
to be done or
pushed you away,
that you could always
find your way
back in.
there was always some kind of
charm, lurking
in those crystalline eyes
and tucked into your laugh.
there was always,
always - no matter how much
i changed, or moved forward -
some part of myself that i
left with you;
some part of myself that -
while i don't even want it -
i will never get back.

so it is no surprise
that you smile at me on a friday,
or that it is so painfully familiar,
or even that it strikes me down
as hard as the first blow
Cupid aimed towards my heart.
no, the surprise lies in the sharp ache,
the realization that part of you and i
are still lodged in our past;
we are still just kids,
still best friends.
there is still a part of me
that wishes to rewind time
and return to the golden era
of us.

there is still a part of myself
that would give you your twentieth
second chance
if all you did was
laugh.

"if you count to ten, do you feel
any lighter at all?"

another night. another set
of infinite numbers.
every one that i
count weighs down on me,
pressure building behind my eyes,
boulders on my shoulders
and shackles to my wrists.

another day. alienating
everyone.
pushing
for the sake of pushing,
kneading at pressure points -
boom.
pushing and pushing every button
like a kid in an elevator.
punching at raw material until it sags
and self-destructs, until they
whip back and attack me,
make me feel the anger and hatred -
oh, the hatred -
that i feel for myself.

because i want to feel this way.
i want to be alone, because
i deserve it.
i deserve tears and blood and burning.

i deserve isolation.

i am terrible.
i am not human.
i am the monster,
every form of it.
i am the oozing jealousy
and the sting of cruel
wit. i am the slow burning
loathing and the white hot
rage at something so inconsequential.
i am the deepest pit of
black and the void that
cannot be filled, that
vacuums every living thing
down into its belly.

i cannot feel lighter when
the whole of this world i've
swallowed rests on my
back.

no, i'm not lighter. i'm
weaker. the weakest, most
wicked beast
to roam these halls.

it is all too much.
all too much.

i deserve the weight.
let it drag me down into
black oceans, because
i won't fight it anymore.

i don't recognize you anymore
it's like starting into
blank spaces,
your words are hostage
between your frozen pages
a story left in the middle of the action,
your timing is drowsy, undeserving of
reactions.

when i walked outside
one fine summer day
the waves of sunshine
left me in such disarray
that i had to gasp for a lifeline,
claw for my breath,
and as i cleansed myself,
somewhere behind me you stood -
i left.

i don't miss you anymore
not much
days go by where i don't think
not about your laugh, your sea urchin
touch
and ****, it feels good, not to worry
and fret,
over a boy i once loved, whose poison
i thought i'd never forget

how lovely it is, to stand alone
no longer waiting for calls that won't come
i don't quiver with fear, nor do i
ooze regret
how free i am, at last -
i am home.

i want to crawl inside of you,
know all the things you know,
duck in the corners of your mind,
drink your pain and swallow,
slurp every toxic shot down, down,
my throat, lose my inhibitions,
fall down the rabbit hole

i want to dig myself into
your godforsaken bones,
wrap myself around you and blow,
squeeze some life into your eyes,
those blue-black, bottomless holes,
the windows to your battered, ravenous
soul
let me breathe into your mouth,
hot and wet and whole,
until i'm drowning and you've been
sewn, sewn, sewn,
broken heart beating again,
until you've been filled to the brim,
until my body runs dry
and i remember i can't swim,
until i'm a canyon of ruthless
desolate despair,
until i'm just a vessel
that Hades found of use,
bleeding through your fingertips
to scorch me inside out,
and all is dust and ash

sacrifice is such a common theme;
i'm ruined so entirely that it's beyond tragic,
yet even Juliet never looked
quite so **** classic

Little star, shines so bright,
guides us through these frozen nights.
Little star, glittering,
someday you will reign supreme.
Little star, kind and sweet,
lighting sparklers on the street.
Little star, lean and tall,
you hold us together, don't let us fall.
Little star, the bravest knight,
holding steady after every fight.
Little star, mighty and true,
you can't see how I think the world of you.
Little star, handsome and bold,
you strum so pretty with hands so cold.
Little star, destined to be great,
You gotta explode; don't be late.
Little star, do not fear strife,
for you will be larger than life.

the echoes in my mind
reverberate off empty walls
the lights flashing in kind
whisper that time is so, so small
the butterflies gnash around
a sea of expectations
the urgency is drowning now
under the weight of communication
suddenly, my sight is clear
though my eyes cannot see
the way time has ticked off the years
and how i've grown to simply be
in this shrouded concrete jungle
we all run rampant in daily races
though the rest all have their angles
i can only match their paces
the rain shudders on to the sidewalk
impatiently unwilling
and though i hear someone talk
their words read like tired billing
our hands brush and i'm paralyzed
i've never been touched
you move on and i'm terrified
i think this was all too rushed
the sun shines, my skin burns
your words sink deeper still
the moon shines, my heart yearns
my mind still runs like a ******* mill
the terror overtakes me
the people clamor in throngs
and even as my fear attempts to flee
i let go, and fall quick
the wind carries me gaily
the ground is near, i'm feeling sick
the news reports on these kinds of things daily
a failed attempt, or not, perhaps?
perchance this was a failed mishap?
regardless, the world spins on its axis
and i sit here, still attending my classes

Your skin is kindling
and I am on fire. Burning,
hands outstretched in the white-hot
heat of the flames, palms up.
Beseeching, like my mother when she says
whatever but means I do not understand you.
Palms up. It is not a request but an admittance,
a compromise. She will never really know
me, a confused daughter standing still
in a bi-pass, straight passing bi. Cars passing
in sets of paired tires. I count them, take note
of matching treads and wonder where my other
half rides, if my mother would mind a tire
from the same brand, with all the same parts.

Your skin is a wildfire. I let it rage,
thinking that if this is a death sentence
and your hands exposed wire, electric
on my skin, I’d gladly take the chair. Sit
down; let me touch you, suffocate
in the carbon dioxide you expel. Let this not
be a dream. I have been asphyxiated for so long
in dreams my mother had. I was to be wed
to a nice man, to have the children she lost.
Create new souls to take root in the lifeless
plots of her prime. I think that this moment –
me, throwing myself on you, pyred
like a Salem Witch, would disappoint her.

She would love you if you were a man,
or at least if you could ease me into complacency.
If you had put me in that box that she or society
or guilt has built me, that casket-like thing
moving down the river like a Moses myth,
she might love us both. She would love me,
I hope, if she knew I have wanted men
the way I want you; singed and parched.
Palms up: an appeal to my senses. I’ve come out
of them already, and I am holding your hand,
on fire. Palms up: my counter-appeal. I become
Joan of Arc. She knew herself; she, at least, didn’t beg
to be heard in her final moments. She became
silent ashes and trusted her God. He would love her
even as every back she’d ever loved turned away.