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another friend going out the door

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for my last friend to leave, I only have to wait

I used to find pain
Behind every withered memory
Hiding under every word
Creeping alongside my laughter
But I have been opened
And the pain that lingered inside
Has taken flight like a startled crow
A black shadow against the black night
I appear to have been opened
And sweet things are trickling in
Where the pain used to be
They fill my soul
Not make it deeper
They touch my wounds
But do not hurt them
These sweet things that taste of honey
Smell of spring
And look like life
Repair my withered memories
Enhance my every word
And laugh alongside me
I don't know what the sweet things are
But they grow on me
And do not consume me
Now I have forgotten the pain
I remember what the sweet things are
They aren't love, they aren't happiness
They are little pieces of **velvet stars

My great-grandmother lived in a time when if you sang too loudly in a public place
Such as on the bus
With no audible music anyone else could hear
You were thrown away
Reported by the sanest of citizens
Locked away in the mental ward of Bellevue Asylum
By your own family

She was an alcoholic
Well, she was Italian
As was that whole part of my family
And Italians like wine
And she liked her wine
Maybe a little bit too much
My grandfather said that by six o'clock
Everyone in the house was screaming
Throwing things
Alcohol-tinged, infant-like fits
The lot of them
Drunk
Every night of the year

But my great-grandmother
She was the only one who carried her drink
In a little metal flask
Tucked in her ragged coat
Took it with her on the bus
On the way to work at a hotel
Where people with enough money
To boost the world's economy
Slept, ate and yelled at her
For forgetting to put a mint on their pillow once
But she just hummed away
Took the flack with a smile
Sipped her poison
And rode the bus back to work
The next day
Drunk
Singing
La Donna e' Mobile

One day though
Her brothers caught up to her
As she was boarding that bus
She was singing again
And smiled
Asked them what they were doing there
And they looked at her
Smiled
And smacked her

They threw her in their car
And took her to Bellvue
In 1947
When the idea of mental health
Was shrouded in ignorance
And scrutiny
And the word "medicine"
Meant electric-shocks to the brain
Submerging in below freezing
Ice-tanks
And
Fiddling around
In people's brains
Through their eye-sockets
With screwdrivers
"Lobotomies"

My grandfather was born in 1945
He was only two when they took his mother away
And only three
When they told him she died
Rotting in the asylum
Experiments done to her
That my family will never know the nature of
Never know how much pain
She ****** up
Never know if the cause of death
Was actually "cirrhosis of the liver"
Or
An officially administered
Botched
Brain-****

False prophet.
Web of lies.
Preying, grooming, seducing and sustaining
with the delusions of your own mind.
Grooming.
Grooming.

I avoid those serious talks
Ya know,
The ones about everything you hold inside
Who doesn't?
Oh yea
Attention ******
But guess what?!
I don't brag about my problems
I choose very carefully
Who I want to talk to
Most of the time I don't choose anyone
But things like that
Really kinda do need to be talked about
Lift that weight off your chest
But
It's hard for me to get started
When someone asks
"How are you"
I made it a habit to say
"Okay"
like yea
I'm perfectly awesome
And a tiny part of me wants that person to detect something in my eyes
But it never happens
I'm either a super good liar
Or they just honestly don't give a ****
And I bet I could guess which
I just really have a hard time
Like I get the urge to invite someone to have a coffee with me
Just so we can talk about all the bad things
Get it out of the way
I know...
How awful is that?
But I feel like my life is a huge secret to everyone
I need friends who know how to be honest
Who care and want to know me
Good and bad
I can't handle fake people
Or those people that are addicted to attention
I don't want to be one of those people who want people to pity them
I don't want pity or anything like that
#1 reason why I don't talk willingly
I just want someone to listen
And hopefully understand a little bit
And I'll listen right back
I need some kind of
Normal
Non dramatic
Serious
Equal
Friendly
Talk
Those people that either don't say anything at all
Or they give you advice on your problems
That's what I like
Those people that listen and then say
"Oh well I have problems like that"
Or
"Oh well my dog ran away"
Or
"Oh well I went to comb my hair and..."
Subject changers
They direct everything towards themselves
Attention stealers
It's like
Come on
I can't talk to you
Nothing I even say goes in your head
All it does is make you think about yourself
When it's like
I'm asking you for help
And your talking about yourself
That helps me a lot
Thanks
But seriously
Just a friend to keep updates with
Share our current situations
Back and forth
Equally listening and caring
Please tell me you know what I mean

We used to like to stay up all night
Drink from sundown until it shined again
******* inthe morning dew with whiskey tainted breath
Smoking cigarettes until our lungs blackened
We all knew, in the backs of our heads
That we were having a little too much fun
Coming home drunk and stumbling up stairs
Is only satisfying until you realize that people care

We liked *****, whiskey and ***
Irish breakfasts were the only ones for us
Getting ****** up was the only constant
Going to school hungover and not caring if we bombed it
We were in for that rude awakening
We never knew how far we had to run

Those fateful, wilderness years
Very well could've been the best time of my life
Underneath the alcohol, blood and tears
You could cut the immaturity with a knife
It's really all kind of sad to think
About all the things I can't remember now
Lost in the cosmic consciousness
Innocent brain cells killed in the name of cowardice

But now I couldn't be any more thankful
Those years taught what no person could
I was only nineteen but now I know
That if I want to drink, I should double think if I should
I'm only human, despite the previous display
Of thinking foolishly or immortality
The weird thing is that I regret nothing
Everything progressed as it would, naturally
After all