fall out boy is always
in season
rain or shine
sweat or tears

i honestly get
tired of having
problems but
doesn't everyone?

i'm escaping
stumbling into some
false reality on the other
side of my mind's eye

sometimes i get to thinking
about alcohol and
cigarettes and i get scared
for who i'll turn into someday

and sometimes
when i can't sleep i play
what a catch donnie
on repeat until i cry

"said i'll be fine
til the hospital or
american embassy"
gets me every time

leaves an actual pain
in my stomach
the ache of something
i want more than anything

to die
or leave
to no longer be
choked

convulsing on the
scratched wooden floor
legs twitching and
forehead sweating

i can't breathe
and it's not just
the humidity
it's the thoughts

it's the scars that are
too new to talk about
and the ones
too old to care about

eyelashes are
scraping irises
hands are
always sticky

how pain
is normalized
and anxiety
just happens.

the song is over
play it again
shuffle and repeat
until sleep

i should have stayed home
i always should stay home
but i don't like
home anymore

i never did like home
and it's mostly because of
who i find there
when i'm all alone.

if i woke up tomorrow
in omaha bay
would every anxiety
be decades away?

if i shattered tonight
into normandy blue
would the stars still shine
and waves lap adieu?

would the pale old cliffs
splashed chalky with fright
stand still and watch
the blooming dawn light?

once upon a time
on this battle-stormed beach
hundreds were bleeding
dying just out of reach.

things quieter now
in more recent years
stone shore washed clean
by ocean deep tears.

but try to squint
in eventide dim
and once you look close
you'll begin to see him.

one soldier remains
crawling into his death
grasping at gravel
and fainting for breath.

if i woke up tomorrow
in normandy blue
would that soldier give up
or come along too?

if you went back in time
and found my eighth grade self

you would find long sleeves
pulled way down her arms
and you might notice
she was hiding something
that she got awfully tired of hiding
and tired of stares when she wasn't

i'll give you a hint
my ninth grade self
had bright red scars
seared into her shoulders

my tenth grade self
was still finding leftover
pink horizon lines from
safety razors on her thighs

my eleventh grade self
found all her skin remarkably
pale but her coping
mechanisms still unhealthy

and my twelfth-grade self
she was the weakest one of all
just had the strongest
jaw to hide behind
and enough self-confidence to
stretch thin across her neuroses

but if you could go back
and find my eighth-grade self

please tell her
something for me
she won't believe it
but i just have to tell her

that in four years she will buy
the most beautiful sleeveless
white dress with navy lace
and she will wear it with
sneakers and bruises on her knees
a smile the overexposed
color of her insecurity

and nobody
will say a
**** thing
about her scars
bleached into
a memory.

i didn't understand half
the words he said
and i don't understand half
the words you write

michael jackson
and waylon jennings
wrapped in a paper towel
"papa would be proud of you"
scratched in the back of
a children's book

it's the oddest thing
to no longer miss
someone who's been
gone so long

an odder thing to sit
in silence on your bed
with the fitted sheet all pulled
off the side next to the wall
feeling your best friend's
little sister's scratchy blue
nylon mattress rub
up against your sore feet

and open card
after card
after card
filled with glittering
words of praise and
monetary gifts

and then read about all
the things about you
that people think are
worthy of mentioning
and you start to
see a pattern

"thank you for serving"
"humor"
"creativity"
"imagination"
"let God lead you"
"keep rapping"

(thank you
and by the way
i don't rap only
occasionally slam)

it starts to feel like a
bulletpoint hallmark eulogy
like you've left your body
and are reading about someone else
reviewing all the better
more visible parts of yourself
the parts deemed loud
enough to be acknowledged.

and you start to see
what's lurking off
the edge of the card
and the words they didn't write
the places that you
went wrong

the question marks
behind their eyes
wondering why they
haven't seen you for two months
why your hair is a different color
why someone else is in your seat

and the semicolons in
your stomach
when you realize that
you've made a mistake
and even with all the hurts caused
you've still got a family out there.

i'll say this
when it comes to
graduations and funerals
you find out who your friends are

the people who matter
will show up in the end.

am i mislead in thinking
that sometimes people
don't say everything they
think or feel until it's too
late because it takes a
loss to make them realize?

the price of coffee has not
necessarily gone up
most people are just buying
the wrong brands.

i didn't shed a tear
not one
i'd lost them all two
weeks before
and my waterproof
mascara laughed at
my mother's assumption
that i needed it.

for someone who is
loved i suggest a tombstone
but for someone like me
cremation is better
because there is already no
question of the likelihood
of eventually
being forgotten.

i found a tension rod
in the hall closet this week
i don't know where it came from
or why it was there
but i know that when we find
something we've been wishing for
chances are we will commandeer and
use it for our own selfish purposes.

pearls in a pill bottle
cursive handwriting on a silver tray
ivy up the noose
razors with the rouge

i don't think it's romanticizing
suicide
i think it's showing how normalizing
suicide
becomes when it's always
in the back of your mind

when there are many
many days where you spend all your
spare moments contemplating if
your out is a better alternative to this.

they thought i was lying
when i said i didn't care
but i wasn't lying
at least, not about my hair
if there's a truth that's found in lying
that's something i'd gladly dare.

it's 2:53
is it wrong of me
to think that sometimes
the devil turns us
against each other
for his own schemes?

hours past my bedtime
but i can't sleep because
i'm over the edge and
if i turn out the lights now
i'll be awake until the
sunrise with panic attacks

it's 2:54
is it wrong of me
to think in terms
of either-or?

i'm a little weird
in that most of the
music i listen to lately
is just ambient noise
instrumentation
designed to make
me feel less
choked

2:55
a pain in my chest
i'm afraid of death
even more to stay alive

i get scared
of myself
sometimes at night
when i'm alone
because i know
i'm the only one
with the motive
the power
to destroy
myself

and i start feeling
powerless
helpless
i know where the
knives are
i know where the
pills are
i know i'm smart enough to
figure out how to tie knots
but sometimes i don't know
if i can talk myself
down from that ledge

and i get scared
of losing control
i don't really want to die
i don't think?

is it
3 yet?

i'm still a little
shifty
sweaty around
the eyes

slightly
mushy
in my undeveloped
frontal lobes

falling into an
abyss between my growling
stomach and the
sweat on my neck

into where
my eyelashes
are replaced by
blackened teeth

the neon chemical
fruit smell of
raspberry hair dye
and johnny cash
i never think anything
through
or maybe i do
i just chose to keep my
thoughts silent and
lie about them later

if i could wish for
one improvement
upon my wardrobe
i would wish for my
father to stop rattling
on about the way jeans
never used to come
pre-faded and how
work was the only way
you added holes to knees

just when i like the way
things are going when it
comes to my past is
just when i am forced
to relive everything
i ever hated

it's not
purple
let me tell you something
it's not
purple
i'm not repeating
pink
it is
raspberry
get it right.