i listen to your words
watch your eyes move with each new line you drop

i wish you didn't love me
you'd be so much better off that way

i'm sorry
i can't hold your gaze

i want to
i swear

i beg you, please
believe my promises

i haven't let you down yet
have i?

just let me inside please
all i want is to see
your china cabinet of my memories

im bigger than i was before
none of you can hurt me
anymore

gun to my head id still choose drugs over you
knife to my neck id still choose scars over you

im as stable as ive ever been and my rage will destroy you soon

Blood strange to mine, I could get ready to stay dead
I would hate my father for ever having planted me
A tall bird hunched in cold weather
Wild out of the darkness, I knew that living was terrible
The reason for living was to get ready to stay dead
Fear was invented by someone who had never had the fear
Pride, who never had the pride
Love, he called it
My aloneness had been violated
Words are no good;
Just a shape to fill the lack;
Words don’t ever fit.

slumped against distress,
she moaned.

heavy-hearted comfort
disappeared.

upset,
           the stone
                           skips across
                                                   w  a  t  e  r

           f o r g o t t e n.

lead-colored
mother of heaven

we are drifting
             without charts
                              our sky is
                                              un k n o w n
w e a r e  d  r  i  f  t  i  n  g

the stars
heavy with despair,
strangers
brought to rest,

"lower sails
drop anchor"
as children.

the pendulum of a recovering darkness

some hope of rescue
                            maybe

        help
                      maybe                  maybe

                                     maybe-


clatter of anchor chains

the new sick

to all those
that ever wonder what it's like
to have delusions
or hallucinations:

touch your nose
or your lips
or your hair
or your ears

touch anything.

you know that your nose is real
right?
you know that whatever you decided to touch
is real.

now
imagine everyone
and i mean everyone
is telling you that it's not.

that your very
very real nose
isn't there.
that it's fake.

some people will scream
others will treat you
like a baby
some will pretend with you
for awhile.
but all of them
their goal will be at first to convince you
that your nose isn't real.
and when that fails
it will be to make you feel so ******
that it doesn't matter
because they don't care about you at all.

and one day
maybe
you'll break.
like me.

you know your nose isn't real.
it couldn't possibly be
it makes no sense
it's stupid
it's just in your head.

but you also know
that it's still there.
that it's still very very real
and you know
it has to be.

so
next time someone
confides in you
or slips up and you see inside

don't say anything negative.
we know.
it hurts.
we just need comfort.

i carved your name into my thigh
because you asked me to bleed
and i would not

i carved your name into my thigh
because i wanted to bleed
but you did not

i carved your name into my thigh
and then i left you
or you left me
i dont know

i carved your name into my thigh
but it is gone now
and so are you

i am better for it
but i will never forget
how i carved your name
into my thigh

you made a playlist
of songs about
car crashes

not because you
want to die
but because
your mind
does

i am sick
but not just
in the head

sheet metal leather
belt pulling itself
tight
around my waist
and around my
neck

empty bursting empty
can't fill my
stomach
bursting empty bursting
too much in
stomach

nausea from breathing
too full yet
hollow
lungs can not
get enough oxygen
in
out
in out

frozen stiff and
trembling but strangled
by clothes and
by my own
skin

food poisoning flu
indigestion cramps panic
stop

please please just
please just please
stop

where are you?

not gone,
you promised.

not answering.

where are you?

i need you.

where are you?

im sorry,
i was gone.

where are you?

please respond
i am scared
i am terrified
i need you

where are you?
not gone.

isn't pretty
isn't happy
and
isn't fun

my december is
losing hair and
coughing until
i'm about to pass
out

my december is
loss of appetite
and aching joints

my december is
heightened anxiety
and sensitivity to
those around me
and their
emotions

my december is
sickness
in more ways
than one

but it is my december
and mine alone

ill throw away my blades this time

they let their sticky humid hands
hold my glitching hologram body
against the scratchy playhouse
walls and drag their clammy
claws where no child should
think to rub all the while
whispering into my vacant ears
how they would beat me and
bite me and cut me and kick me
if anyone were to ever find out
our little game as tapeworm
tears sludged from my sickly
sweet rotting eyesockets and
down my shiny shaking dust
stained cheeks silently over my
cold and closing throat and
when my dad finally ripped the
splintering wooden door across
the sandy shifting floor i was so
pale pink blue i could have been
six hours dead save for my
fracturing porcelain and
plexiglass heart destructive and
bashing and shattering itself
through my frail and brittle
crumbling ribcage whispering to
me how badly my dad would
scream at me for the way we
were playing

my mom doesn't want me. she'd rather no daughter at all than one who is "sick". she says i make her life harder and that she is embarrassed by me. she says she is jealous of "normal kids". i dont blame her, i am too. i hate being "sick". but she didn't phrase it as if she wished i didn't suffer, oh no, she phrased it as if she wished she didnt have me.

currently i feel like downing my 90 day supply of fluoxetine, the 30ish days of sleep meds i have left, all my moms pills, and the hydrocodone we have left, take a bath, and slice my skin till im nothing but cuts

andrew

solemn silence
sleeping
seeping through

rites of
solitude

rites of
sleepless nights

weeks of
isolated
self medication

rites of what

sick silent solitude seeping through

rites of silence
of solitude

rites of sickness
deep within

slowly i learn
to push away the thoughts
of blood and bleeding
or pills and puking
of starving and loose jeans
of tragedies to other people unseen

slowly i tell myself
ill be okay
maybe

slowly maybe
i learn to recover

drinking and drowning
slowly i fall back
maybe i cant

slowly maybe
im stuck after all

slowly i pull myself
back up
i learn to shower
and eat and sleep
and exist again

my body destroyed
more and more each time

slowly maybe
i learn to love scars
and stretch marks
and chub

cheerful faces fall
slowly maybe i fall
back

but
slowly maybe
i learn to survive

and it makes me so ******* sick that any sort of mild ******* inconvenience makes me wanna **** myself
but i guess that's just it
the only solution in this miserable life

arm the so-called enemy to
shove the war down citizens throats
throw the blame onto anyone but yourselves

im sick of this smell
i hate feeling like the hospital
//
it feels like the hospital
cant sleep
ears hurt
stomach tight
mouth dry
smells like the hospital
pillow hard
walls cold
too warm
//
does the city feel a little bit like home or the hospital

i layed forever just holding back dry tears and when i finally got the courage to move i went through the motions of going to bed
and i got upstairs and i grabbed my guitar and i held it and i tried to play but i couldn't it kept getting worse so i just stood there
guitar in my hands and i was shaking and i couldn't breathe
so i layed down and i waited to be told goodnight and i layed on my side choking on myself
and then i couldn't move and i couldn't do anything and i tried to write but it didn't feel good so i layed in my side choking on myself
and i tried to draw but it almost made me cry so i layed on my side choking on myself
and i grabbed my guitar again and put it down and layed down on my side choking on myself
and i just couldn't break away and
it was the most awful feeling on earth
and i could hear so many things being said and i could see
so many things happening inside my head and i couldn't shut them out so the tears started to seep but i couldn't cry and i could feel myself choking
on myself and i couldn't do anything about it
choking on myself and
i couldn't do anything about it
choking on myself

put it under your arm so it doesnt choke you in your sleep
just watch the road and don't think too much on anything
through the windshield in your dreams
just watch the road and don't think too much on anything

i just want to scream at them that theydont get to care now
they dont get to pretend that they never hurt me
not without saying sorry
not without telling me why
why that for years they ignored me
no matter how hard i tried
no matter what i did or said or didn't do
they never tried for me then
not when i needed them
not when i was screaming for help
but now
now that im okay and can handle myself
they care

and it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth now
to see them all so blissfully unaware

Drag out of

Bed and into

Clothes for the

Day. Stumble into

The bathroom and

Brush, rinse, spit.

Line eyes: one,

Two, three. Each

eye, each lid

Gets three. No

More, no less.

Slide down the

Stairs but do

Not forget the

Gate. Throw on

Shoes and make

Way into the

Kitchen. Grab something

To eat – wait

Don’t. Coffee won’t

Make sick so

Just pack a

Lunch for later.

Leave for school

And brave the

Day, take it

In threes. Count

Your steps: one,

Two, three. Earbuds

In; can’t hear

A thing. Class

Passes ever so

Slow, sludging along

Until all the

Threes are up.

Make playlists in

Threes to make

Sure it’s enough.

Everything done is

In threes because

Anything else would

Be too much.

Even in twos

Or ones. Take

Care of body

Of mind of

Living space in

Threes. Clean and

Nourish to remain

As healthy as

Can be with

Allergies and sensitivities

To almost everything.

Do the best

That can be

Attained and maintained

Without a toll

In the long

Run. Remember to

Go by threes.

Listen, breathe, be.

One, two, three.

I try to believe
That he does not torment
Me. Not in any
Significant way, at least.
Blacker than any void
In space or dark
Matter. Featureless yet
So distinctly humanoid,
More human than humanly
Possible. A presence so
Unnerving, not physical
In the least yet so
Completely suffocating.
Darker than the absolute
Absence of everything,
All consuming – he
Follows me.

The harbinger of
Tragedy and downfall,
An entity designed for
Destruction. Determined
To desolate every
Last piece of me.
I will not give in
Easy. I refuse to let
Him take me. I
Refuse; he will not
Shatter,
Mutilate,
Ruin, or
Tame me.

I refuse to
Succumb.
He has no
Control.

He
Will
Not
Exterminate
Me.

To you I am grateful
Unwavering and graceful
You have been my support
You alone hold my heart
By my side and never gone
Through all I have said and done
Unequalled in idolatry
My rapture, nirvana, and ecstasy
“You’re not in this alone”
You blare through headphones
“Follow your bliss”
The one I never have to miss
“Burns a hole through everyone
Who feels it” never alone
O Music
I thank you

Insides crawl with a monster

Writhing through

Devouring all it can

The Eater slithers

Through and slices

With it’s skin

Outsides twist and deform

Wrenching from

Inside out The Eater

Destroys from within

The Eater annihilates from within

Ravaged and Mutilated

The Eater wins

All alone with no place to call home
A vagrant called The Wanderer roams
Destitute and resigned to his solitude
No one to miss him or care that he’s gone

Immortalized with the mark of Sloan
He thrives amongst forgotten gravestones
To restore their legacy is why he intrudes
For systemic erasure he believes society must atone

All alone with no place to call home
A vagrant called The Wanderer roams
Destitute and resigned to his solitude
No one to miss him or care that he’s gone

Empathy drives this misguided untomb
Generations of oppressors he seeks to dethrone
Reality remains an unfamiliar interlude
For to delusion The Wanderer is prone

All alone with no place to call home
A vagrant called The Wanderer roams
Destitute and resigned to his solitude
No one to miss him or care that he’s gone

All alone with no place to call home
A hero called The Wanderer roams
Complacent in his intrepid pursuit
Unfaltering ‘till the world sees glory of Arawn

Gone too soon
We will always see you
As you were before us
Our eyes so deceived us
You reached for our hands
Yet no one reached back
And gone too soon
We will always see you
As you were before us
Wounds and our ignorance
You reached for our hands
And we tried to reach back
But gone too soon
We will always see you
As you were before us
Lost and then found
Yes gone too soon
But we will always see you
As you are before us
And what you were and
Forever will be
Gone too soon
But meaning so much
To me and everyone
Around us
So wonderful in life
And merciful in death
To you we owe our lives
Gone too soon
We will always see you
Andrew

Mother, Father, where are your heads?
Swimming with ignorance and memories that don’t exist,
Engulfed by your self-delusions, so remiss
Could you tell me: do you know your kids?
Did you know they’re busy avoiding their eyelids;
Scavenging wretchedness for momentary bliss,
Scouring for a second of relief in a static abyss?
But you’re too busy using the methods you forbid

Mother, Father, we scream in silence:
Do you know mercy, or are we to live in blind compliance?

Panic is a bathroom sink,
Grime-covered and overflowing,
Tearing the skin off my hands
With its vicious heat splashing,
Burning cold through spilled ink.

Inexorable dripping
From the rusted faucet,
Straight to its slimy veins
Sliding effortlessly through my entire being,
Puke mixed with minty paste
An attempt to be free.

Cerise-stained and overpowered
With bleach, an attempt to be clean.
Rotten all over and
Drowning in sour suffering,
Innocence and purity forever
Lost underneath.

Incessantly imbued and
Utterly consuming,
Panic is a bathroom sink.

Unborn and already
A path has been chosen
By those that are not them -
To become another cog
In the inescapable machine that is society.

Born - early, half dead.
A step toward failure in
The eyes of their creator
For what they cannot control -
To be fixed and set right
On the path that they will learn to detest.

Developing - on time
To the doctors’ surprise.
The creator gives praise,
But the approval never lasts -
The environment is unsteady and
Unfit for angels to properly grow.

Learning - to please
Instead of exist as one’s own,
Matured in the wrong ways
For an angel of that age -
Molded to never cause concern
No matter the magnitude of circumstance.

An inconvenience to their maker
Unless they could be shown off
For the benefit of the creator -
In private often belittled
And ignored for so much as being a child.

In public a model,
A display of perfection -
Quiet, reserved. Listens well.
A miniature of their puppetmaster
(As what the creator allowed to be seen).

Yearning - to deviate
To become their own
Without the wrath that
Has always followed a stray
From the carefully chosen path
That their master has made so
Impossibly unachievable.

Desperate - attempting to remove
Their wings, Trying everything to
Fall from grace -
To be cast aside and never acknowledged
Or cared for again.
An attempt to be free
Executed in the worst ways -
Broken and bleeding they
Almost always return to
The way it was before as
Their creator sees nothing but
A way to start over and
Mold them once again
Into something unattainable.

For the rest of eternity
All the angels who taste individuality
Pursue endlessly that
Momentary tinge of
Identity; willing to
Try anything and
Everything to become
Angels of their own
Once again, well
If you could call them that.