all of a sudden I can feel everything
and then
nothing

Just do what makes you happy my mom says to me
I reply: What makes me happy is other people being happy
She tells me this is no way to live

Sometimes I just lay in bed breathing
Just breathing
Hoping lightning will strike and the world will feel as pretty as it does in pictures
Bright
Frozen
Illuminated
And then it will set me on fire
I will burn brighter
Feel more
Feel something
Something besides yearning
Feel fulfilled
Feel filled
Feel more than nothing
And then the room will go dark
But I will still be
Lying here
Filled
With lightning

Well misery loves
Company and luckily
I am always free

Hard is a life you feel out of place in
You slide into the spaces but there are gaps along the edges

You almost fit
You've mastered the art of almost
You are the man behind the camera
Inspecting your life and trying to get the perfect shot
Commanding the things that don't fit against the backdrop of all your insecurities

Tilt
Lift
Squeeze
Freeze
/flash/
There, almost

Chin up
Back Straight
Smile
Freeze
/flash/
There, almost

Quiet down
Be careful
Not too fast
Freeze
/flash/
There, *almost

I think I would not mind if I were not me
To be me is an awfully taxing thing to be
I live and I breathe
I hear and I see
I am grateful to live and breath
Hear and see
But I wouldn't mind all that much
If I could just be

Like the wind or a tree
Being just to be

Yes I think it would suit me
To just be

What happened to you?
Why are you like this?
The answer is nothing
I was born
I was born curled in around myself
Donned in barbed wire and caution tape
A princess of precaution
No hurt caused my recoil
I must have sensed it from inside the womb
Known that I would never be safer than I was before I took my first breath
Always careful
Not too fast, not too hard
Not too loud, never too proud
No action, no damage
To open up is to allow hurt

I've heard that it's worth it
but there are so many sad songs that I'm not sure
Nobody can break your heart if you don't let them

The barbed wire in my chest
Pokes and prods with each halting breath

Nothing is easy anymore
With it sitting there
Unwinding slowly

It rakes its claws against my insides
Around my bones
Into my lungs

Any sudden movement
Any risk
Any chance
Digs it only deeper

There is no room for error in this body of mine
I am a walking keep out fence

The biggest tragedy in this life is when
extraordinary things become ordinary

Not because their sparkle dulls
or because they refuse to shine

But because we have taken
their beauty for granted

It is a little death to be sure

When you meet someone you know could swallow you whole
You have two options

One:
Jump into their mouths
Make their teeth your roof
and their tongue your bed
Hang on their every word
Roll with the waves of their words
Let their hot breath shape your being
Fall down their throat into their hot belly
You have no home but here
Outside is no place for you now


Two:
Run as far away as your can from the gaping cave
Plug your ears against the siren call of their voice
Do not let the inhale of their lungs pull you
Do not be small enough that they could fit you inside
Stand on your own
They are no place for you

A dysfunctional family is not easy to break away from
You will love them as much as you hate them
The acid burning holes in your stomach will be soothed
By the smell of your fathers cooking
The bags under your eyes from being woke many a time by screaming
Will be covered by the makeup your mom buys for you

The hugs of your littlest brother will bind the pieces of your heart
that you swore had floated away in your bloodstream

You will catch yourself becoming them
Donning your battle armor
Hurling your fighting words into the fray

Don't
Take a step back
Remember love
Remember joy
Remember that this house is not to scale with the rest of the world

I just wish the world was softer
I am so overwhelmed by it all
I need muted tones
Feathery emotions
Fleeting fear
Wispy worries
Downy desire
It's all too much
Too loud

Today was the first day
The first day that you weren’t first thing I thought about when I woke up
The sun rose and I didn't think about you
I stood on the linoleum floor of my kitchen
The sun shined through the little window in front of me
And I did not think about you
My eyes joined my mouth as they crinkled in a smile
And I did not think about you
I must have thought of five hundred things today
Before I thought about you
Even though I did not make it to five hundred and one  
I hope tomorrow
I can make it to five hundred and two
Before I think about you

We are all just collections of words that mean something else
And when he said I love you I tried to decipher each syllable
As it fell out of his mouth

Words have a nasty habit of trying to be something they're not

I always thought words were my thing until I met him
I used them as swords and flowers
As poison and decor
But with three he brought me to my knees

He was like one of those words that he come across
And you have no clue what it means
And when you look it up all you find is another word you do not know

And it made me wonder if my vocabulary just wasn't big enough to hold onto him

Hard is a life you feel out of place in
You slide into the spaces but there are gaps along the edges
The light of doubt and insecurity shines through
If not here then where?