My thoughts have been
closer to you lately.

My tongue, my mouth
beg to help me speak of you.

My arms, they want to reach out
and ask you to help them hold us together.

But I keep thinking
I'm being ridiculous.

I talk about anything and everything else,
to keep the swelling down.

I glued my arms to my side
to stay still like good little children.

Living like this is a cold existence.
I want to scream, I want to dance, I want to fly to a made-up world.
I want to climb mountains and lift cars and breathe fire.
Sometimes I think I can.
Mostly, I know I can never.

For a second yesterday,
we had fallen into our old pattern.
Become our old selves again.
It was warm, familiar, sweet.
It brought me up and I soared like an eagle.

But it didn't last long.
One, two, three messages and you were gone again.
I fell harder than I ever have before.
I'll have to face you again tomorrow,
and I'll know that you will pretend it didn't happen.

Sometimes I wonder if you're not pretending.
Maybe you have multi-personality disorder.
Because the You that I see with Her
and the You that I talked to yesterday
do not exist parallel to one another like they should.

I hope you fill up her whole brain,
and drive her insane because there never seems to be an end.

I hope you fill up her mouth,
with ten thousand secrets she will never tell.

I hope she aches to be
next to you for any amount of time at all.

I know that she will never have to wonder,
"What could have,
what should have,
what would have,
Together been like?"

If I could reverse time,
if I would have known that she was going to show up
I would have welcomed my thoughts about you.
I would have told you everything I knew and then some.
I would have hugged you one million times over.
And then,
then she would be the one wondering.

I do not feel sad or ashamed.
I do not feel anything.
I just am,
here in this pea green box.

The windows and the clock
are placed together strategically--
window, clock, window--
to mock the inmates

The windows stand at attention to our right,
twin soldiers with everything to hide.
They are useless in their
colorless uniform.
I think sometimes
they giggle at their own stupid jokes.
I can hear them when no one else is talking.

Between them floats the clock,
a prim and proper gatekeeper with everything to hide
small and round, untouchable.
I watch him move his hands
round and round they go.
I think sometimes,
he gets nervous and slows them down
because everyone is watching him.

It does not matter why I am here
why any of us are here.
When the bell rings,
we are free of guards and silence.
We become part of One again.
It is impossible to tell
the difference between us
and the rest of them.

The only proof will be the paper warriors
that dragged us in by our hair.
Tomorrow they will disappear.
They won't exist for a while.

I can feel in my gut
that release is close.
My insides shake
and I am ready to be outside again.

I can almost taste the sunshine.

Gone from you
is the charm and the humor
and the sparkle in your eyes

Gone is the Happy, the True

She took hold of you,
and left nothing for me to cling to.

And Gone is our kingdom!
that place we shared,
all those stones we carried
to build what would be the prettiest palace
in all of the cosmos.

It's in ruins now.
I visit it every day.
Have you seen it lately?
It'll be written away in the history books
as some heroic king's lost land.

There are no people dancing in the square
and no princesses swooning over handsome paupers
and no kind dragons to save damsels from peril
and no evil wizards casting archaic spells.
All of it is Gone.

We were going to rule the world!
take away the hurt
bit by bit
sit upon our thrones and make
life, a better place.

But gone are the things I _ about you.
Gone is the ability to speak the word aloud.
I loved You before Them.
I loved You before That Girl.

All I have left of it
is a whisper of something I cannot name;
deep down in an underwater cave.
I've been searching for a year now.
Come, now, help me find it.

Somewhere inside me
is a heart beating drums together
boom-ba, boom-ba, bang
it goes.

Anyone can hear it if they
listen close.
Anyone can hear how
broken I am

But I'll keep
wandering;
looking for that heart
that beats in tune with mine

Baboom-boom, shatter,
it might say.
Click clack clang,
it may go.

But to mine I'll hold your heart close
because for mine it was meant.
Two halves of a lost puzzle.
We'll patch each other up
with our matching hears.

I remember everything you tell me.
Every conversation, every joke, every compliment;
stuck there in my head with a staple gun
replaying forever.

It started the day we met.
I liked you then, too.
That was more than a year ago.
Time with you goes by so fast.

You are just a box of stupid cliches.
I scream and I scream
"Get out! Get out! Leave me alone!"
I kick and thrash and throw things.

Why don't you come sit with me?
Feel the pain that you
put me through.
Swallow your pride and look what you've done;
how you've broken me.

I wonder how much you know.
It hurts really bad.
Sometimes you bring me to tears.
Me!
Such a strong fearless little girl.

Nothing makes me cry.
I am the greatest war hero to ever live.
I've been through Hell,
and came back without a mark
But this thing is worse than that.

The worst of it all
is when you tell me pretty things
Meaningless, insignificant things
that drop on my head and flatten me to the ground.
It's wearing me out like nothing else.

I only hate to imagine
what it would be like without you.

Even though it hurts,
I'm glad you're still here.