What are we
Where do we stand
Is there a we?
Or is it just you, is it just me
Living symbiotically.

Why can't you be horrible and full of unforgivable flaws?
Why does it gets worse and not better inside my stupid, devoted heart?
Why do you still feel the same to me?
Your skin hasn't lost that scent I knew
The scent I still know and can remember by simply closing my eyes
The scent I still desire and find familiar
Even if it really never was

I can fake my identity and try to look happy,
but its all just a cover.
Take a swig from the flask and remove the last mask
only to find another.

There was once a time when I knew myself,
but now I'm not so sure.
All semblance of self-worth lay eroding in the dirt,
and its all thanks to her.

It's not really her fault, I'm truly to blame.
I grew selfish out of fear.
Afraid of being alone, I couldn't let her go
and now she's nowhere near.

You know the story of the bullied who becomes a bully?
Have you heard the tale of the rejected who becomes the rejector?
Put up brick walls to cover the footprints where you left
Wordless
Numbing
A piece of me in your back pocket
Did you lose it?
Because I am nowhere to be found
And though you look upon me now
Puzzled
She is here
She is
No
She isn't
No longer
She won't
No longer
Physically present
Mentally distant
I hold smiles at arms length
Look for intent in a compliment
And now when he holds out his hands I check them for blood
Looking for the women he's left in the soles of his shoes
They say trust is a bridge
And I'm thrashing in the current below it
Cognitive distortions
Singsong anthems
"No closer, no pain"
You taught me
Sweet babe

The music of my words falls on dead ears
You could care less for my poems
My sadness
But oh
How you care for my body

Funny how
I write poems on my phone in class
Inconspicuous enough
Ignored enough
To be passed off as texting
Camouflage
Blend into the line where cool meets socially acceptable
Cowardly fingers pause in thought
What metapho-
Er
Reply
To type out
He notices
Smiles
I am ashamed
Of either my actions
Or my cowardice
And I'm not sure which
And I'm not sure why

My mother should be an author
She carves her soul into millions of pieces
Leaving it behind all of the family photos
When I see my mother
I see a woman
Who wants to hide her soul in a needle
Just so the screaming can stop in her mind,
These bottles are rattling in the living room
You see they have put shackles on her heart,
She can't love anymore
Without having ***** in her water bottle.

Where is she hiding her beer?
I feel like my mother is giving me a scavenger hunt
From the shards of glass that were left on the baseball fields
My mother used to take me to.

You know she always wasn't like this
She was strong minded and had a big heart
Tonight I will tell you the story of a woman
Who lost her soul to the Keystones to the Miller Lites
To the ****** Mary’s.
Let's rewind time
See ******* the soul in ten years

10- I look into my mother's eyes and I start to cry
Because I'm looking at a woman who I don't know anymore

9- I refused to bail her out of jail again
Because I'm afraid her kidney will fail if she drinks again

8- My mother staggered into the theater and disrupted the whole play,
My cast mates turned to me and asked, isn't that your mother?

7- I had to hold my mothers hand
Because she was throwing up the cocktail of drugs and alcohol

6- Daddy had to get mom out of jail she was drinking again

5- My mother throws the bottle across the room
And told me the reason why she drinks is because I'm Autistic

4- My mother overslept for my piano recital,
I didn't think it was a big deal
But I remember she spent the whole night crying
With a wine glass in her hand.

3- Mommy I didn't know your prescription came in a needle

2- Mommy the prescription say 2 pills a day
why are you taking 6?

1- My mother went to the doctor
Found out that she has Rheumatoid Arthritis
I don't know what that means,
But I know she will still be strong right?

0- She took me to a Dodger game for my birthday.
I remember Sammy Sosa hitting a home run that game
She told me that the only person that can **** your soul is yourself