they all come to watch
eyes ******* me
like i'm some kind of *****
they say they want more then just kisses
and desire more
then late nights at your house.
they want to wake up next to you in the morning
and
leave flowers by your gate.

the thought tickles you
and makes a little chuckle build up in your throat.
the thought of yourself caught up in something
like
love.
so you think to yourself
what a fun little game
why not play along..?
they do play the part well after all

they tell you what they think you want to hear
cram the lies down your throat
And before you can tell them the words on the tip of your tongue
They suffocate you with there lips.
they kiss you with there eyes
sweep the hair out of your face
and hold you tight
and you can see
as you look at them shaking
just
how much
they crave
to touch the only thing that can't be touched


your silly little
                heart.

intricate grooves
in wood
feel like keys
that take me too
doors i have never seen.
the
indentations,
tell stories
through sweaty fingertips
and numb lips.
time is the leaves that fall out of your ears
while playing a game of peekaboo behind your eyes.

doubt has turned me into an animal,
and love has surely turned my soul into a beast
so to fix this silly little heart of mine
i need to keep myself covered in roots to keep me grounded
and  build up walls of bark around me to stay strong,
swallow my thoughts
with a glass of water
and with a smile on my face
let the thrill of the unknown
and adventure
take over
because

*for today, the forest lives within me.

My names twenty two
and these are the things I never said.

The telephone wires above my roof always remind me of the nights where we'd lay on our backs on the roof of your old Ford and just look out at stars
nothing but love between us.
The storms outside remind me of our fights
beautiful, and desructive.
And the pillow I lay my head on reminds me of your chest
soft, quiet, and a holder of secrets and makeup smudges.
That pin you gave me when i first told you that I was suicidal I still wear sometimes to remind myself that you loved me once.
That you loved me once like
stars in the sky
eternal and never ending.
that you pledged your life to me at a mere seventeen years..
I still love you you're still my star
and
I could tell you twenty two reasons why you're beautiful
as I puff out smoke signals to try to make you come back to me and just hear me out
if you tell me twenty two reasons why you left me
In the noon of the day
as if
the stars were too much for you?
Did i shine too bright or not enough?
Where we ever forever or did i believe too strongly in us.
Regardless
my name,
is twenty two
and
You made me the happiest girl in the world.
full of spring flowers
and April showers

Because on the twenty second you told me you loved me.

i want to let myself feel something again
i wish you knew how bad
but
i don't know how to breathe
let alone
love myself
let alone
be okay.
i want to feel something again..
i want to fall in love with the shape your lips make when you talk
and the way you ramble on in the late hours..

i want to fall in love with the imperfectness that is you

but i only have two hands and one brain
and i don't know how..
and
i may seem strong now
but im not
and i don't think i'll ever be
because no matter how hard i try

**my bones will always break
just as easily as my heart does.

I love and forgive all of you.
I'm sorry.

What's the point of living, when you're just living for everyone else?

walking home in the rain
with "i'm alrights" hanging over your head
sad sayings you tell even sadder souls
you meet on the bus
over yonder


they sit in the back.
eyes
trained on you
waiting for you to answer the question marks they carry on their heads
and the burdens they carry on their shoulders
and when they need something or want to talk
they look to you
for breif bits of carbon dioxide
trade offs.
they're
spitting tongues
moving like motors
you sit and listen to the hum as it lulls you to sleep
but you're still here right next to them and  
you are
exchanging laughter now
that is
muffled by padded rooms behind your teeth.

i am not the wanderer
who walks along these empty roads
hands in pockets
looking for something they lost long ago
i will not look at every sunset and think of you (even though I want too)
i will pack my things
my suitcase full of broken bones and molten skin
and if its the last thing i do i will breathe in the colors of a love long lost
in hopes of maybe some day feeling alive again.

i wrote about who i was, in the sand.
and put my pictures of us on the shore..
im sorry for being a stick in the mud
but
i just can't forget you.

at least
not
today.


maybe it's these memories
sitting atop my shoulders
and in the trees
hidden
in the leaves
entangled in my hair..

you always were a little catty
i knew you were wild
but you won't come down
from that tree
on my head
and i guess
i've
built this sand castle
for us
to sleep in
for
nothing
.

im tired.
okay.

i need at least another eight hours.

scratch that.

make it eleven. eleven more hours to be free of you.

i can't grow in this substrate that you've planted me in
you've filled my veins with sand
and im a bit too hard for everyone's liking these days...
(if you know what i mean.)


i need to sleep
but all i can think about is how much
i hate you
all at once and
not at all

i shouldn't have given you a chance but i let my guard down
and i let you water me with your crocodile tears.

pathetic.

i should have realized we were toxic but you soaked yourself into my veins
and now im growing on the false pretense that you loved me.

once.

maybe..?

you kissed me.
and i foolishly opened my mouth to let you in.  
but you bit down on my tongue
and your holding it hostage
and suddenly you've turned into the kids who kicked over my sandcastle that one summer
and laughed at me in tears

i was so proud of that **** sand castle.
*******.


k.

i need to sleep
and its only eleven in the **** morning.
i got four hours last night
because i woke up to you
sticking sandbags into my skin
and i broke my back getting up this morning
as i tried to breathe

so yeah,
i'll cry you a river
i'll cry you a ******* ocean if it makes you miles apart from my mind
my house
my bed
MY
skin.
my town.

god do
i miss the days when i didn't have to write poetry to cope with this bone-crushing feeling i get
when i see your ugly girlfriend

(who i made out with, might i add.)

she's fourteen years old
and you're going on nineteen.

nice.

i wrote poems in the sand of who i was before i met you
the things i wanted to do
the man i wanted to marry
the person i wanted to be
i told the shore all of my secrets
and you collected them like seashells.
a little memento of what you murdered somewhere on the left side of my chest
and you know what keep that old broken down thing
what the **** would i need it for anyways

if love means leaving bruises on someone's legs
and making someone scared to go outside of your arms
then i don't want it anymore.
scratch that.
ever again.

i keep stock of the good times
and keep count of the bad
write your name
and my heart out
in the sand

and come morning
the waves  have washed it all away.

i wear no mask
no shining armor
you can see through my translucent flesh
i bare no weapon
no hidden intentions
for my skin is as clear as glass
you will look into my eyes and see nothing
except little marbles glazed over with discontent
but the planets are smiling tonight
and they want me to laugh along with them...
so I escape my mortal coils
and
unzip my skin suit, for now.
so I can dance freely
next to Saturn and Jupiter.
and I can push my organs aside
so you can pick and **** at which ever one you'd like to steal next...
i call him mr. nobody
the man who means nothing, to no one
but is constantly trying to be something.
he hates his name.
and each chance he gets he tries to steal mine out from under my nose
he doesn't like to dance
he just watches from the corner
with his eyes on his wristwatch
tick tick ticking time away.
he sliced me open
down the wrists, main artieries, you name it..
so I could make more room for him to weave himself around my bones.
like a **** he grew into my Skelton
and quite simply,
he became me.
he wore my skin like a mask
and used my body to commit crimes
that most people can't even pronounce.
I call him mr. Nobody;
a man,
a man with many faces
who in the dead of night just happened to steal mine.

I shed sour skin like leaves
Left to rot like crumpled music notes
churning like four day old milk in my veins
and you will be my branches
Dropped.
Fallen.
And
finally
Forgotten.

Oh, the way the world whispers when you shut off the lights and open your heart.
it speaks to you in the wind
the goose bumps on your arms and legs
the smoke that tickles your eyelashes
it sings to you in the way your hands tremble
the way your legs shake and your knees buckle;
and when your heart is free and your eyes are open
I guess the weight of the world isn't so heavy after all.

we are predators merely mating for the night
for
at dawn you will leave
and
i will be
cultivating this monster of ours
in this barren womb of mine
alone

two months of glass and rusty nails
and we are both finally alive enough to feel the burn that is growing in our stomachs.

you are growing bigger.
and the days are growing closer.

i can feel your little devil horns poking holes in my lungs
as if it was yesterday.


there is no love in this child
because there was none put into it.

you came in november
when it was cold
and
i held you to my chest
like loving mothers are supposed to do...right?
and you feel so cold, child
you feel so cold.
there is no rhythm in your chest
and no sparkle in your eyes
you don't babble
or coo
or breathe
you just stare aimlessly into the stars
listening to the pitter patter on the rooftop.

still
-
born.

climbing out of your fleshy cage

shell
shocked.

jaw unhinged as if you don't know how to speak
and
of course
  you don't.


it's
as if your existence itself tore the world apart.

he wrote you poem after poem
with broken fingers

taught you how to shoot a gun
with the safety on

he

showed you how to love

without
a
heart.

wild waves fade like the curly cues in your hair
urges are kept under the staircase
and the tips of your
fingernails.
winter worries
wonder if you're good enough to carry on.
but you carry on
still.
you walk barefoot
through the pine cones
and underbrush
to meet her.
the one who you once felt was the same.

hello familiar friend.
you are a stranger now.

if you look closely
under the moonlight tonight,
you will see that my vertebrae
mimics
the shape of birds taking flight..
darling boy,
see,
ive been a little bent out of shape since you left  
im walking around with a part of me missing and
i don't think you understand that i see you in everything i do..

but ill be fine
in the morning ill stretch my wings (arms) up to the sky
and
*maybe tomorrow
you'll think of me.

two more months, and it will be a year since you left.
and
i still have so many questions...

how come all i can write about is you
how come when it's late at night
and the dishes are *****
all i can think about is ball room dancing in the kitchen with you
and you laughing because i can't dance
for the life of me
and how come i still think of you ******* me against that cheap chinese made sink that always leaks
especially
in the heat of that one summer  
with
your mom
in the other room
and how we tried to stay quiet
but
ended up breaking into fits of obnoxious laughter

i always did love your one dimple
and how it always came out at the worst possible times

but ******* and **** your family
and **** all the lions in Africa
i don't need you to rule this world
or regain my pride

you opened your arms to me
and got so use to holding me  
tha you failed to realize that you started to hold me against my will

so
many nights
you drowned your common sense with that bottle of whiskey
and
so many nights you ate me like that birthday cake i made you
and so many nights you'd pin me down
and
**** me when
i was crying about my other ninety  nine problems
and i trusted you
and
you ended up being the worst one

and you would just hold me there
suspended in time
as you
****** away the day
and
my life
.

you just wouldn't let me go home.

my mom was in the driveway waiting
for me
and
i was too busy crying to notice.
shaken up
and over the top
like a cold coca cola.
waiting
for you to give me the okay
to put on my clothes
and buckle my seat belt
and lick the sticky sweetness of you off my lips..

do you
remember that one hot humid summer
when you hydroplaned
and crashed your car into that ravine
and nearly killed me
and all you were worried
about was the police figuring out
you didn't have insurance

and that guy with that lifted ford pulled your car out of that ravine and you laughed
and
shrugged it off
and sped away

well
despite what we thought
i died in that ravine
that day

and sometimes i wonder if you ever visit my grave
or hold me high in your head


do you..?


i want to go back in time
before the days
when no meant yes
and
your hands didn't feel like sandpaper

i want to tell you before you ever set your sights on a girl like me
to cut your loses
and let your expectations
and
me
  go.

i want to tell you all the things i hate about you
and that
i hate you for not letting me leave sooner.
and that i just
i hate you.

but
i
don't

in a twistedly
unexpected way


i think i forgave you a long time ago
but yet
i want to stab you in the throat and drink your blood like sweet wine..
so i can cherish
the ice that runs in your veins
and freezed
me over
all
those
frigid months ago
when no one bothered to save me.

possibilities grow at the ends of my fingertips
sprouting out and upwards
like a noose around your neck.
when i consider the possibilities
i often catch my self dreaming at the edge of a cliff.

(crawl inside my head and my thoughts will rip you to pieces.)

they call me young but they know that im bold
and i'd sleepwalk into a field of land mines
if it made me like the rest of you
mind numbed zombies
scared to die
or should i say scared to live..?

border line insane is what they call me
and here is my cage where they keep me at night
they swallow the key
kiss me goodbye
and forget that i was ever there.

go ahead and call me crazy
but even behind bars i am trapped in a world where people would rather take a pill
then face reality
where people would rather run from there fathers
there abusers
there misusers
even,
there own broken hearts.

so i dream
i dream of a better world
where everything's
wild
free and simple
where people laugh in the face of danger
and
live on the thrill of possibilities
and yes there's a chance i won't wake up tomorrow
there's a chance the world could fall to pieces
and this roof I sleep under could collapse on my head
but wouldn't it be wonderful if just for a day

the sun shined...
and the world smiled back?

i think i was born
cursed
with a lack of love
for
people
who
want nothing more
then to love me.