In all honesty
I don't know what I want
I want for death and to be all the things that I'm not
but if I am then all the things that I'm not now
and I still wish that I was something else...
what do I really want?
and how do I keep the idea long enough to hold it down?
the truth is...I don't

I find myself within the darkest night
One with inescapable pain
And rocks chipping me away
I am in the dark night of the soul
One of the worst times in my life
I wonder how the moon ever looked bright

'Will I ever come out of this night?'
'I don't really know'
My mother told me when I was thirteen years old
I was already tired of life
Worn down to a crackling wire
That sparks to the touch
I'm dangerous to those who know me
And even those who don't, know enough
I'm trapped in the dark night of the soul
Can someone please open a window?

The dark night of the soul
Envelopes me in its embrace
Smiles as it kisses my face
'Hush,' she says,
'Everything will be okay'
But I have run from this night that has taken me, hostage
I have escaped this cage of the day unlit

It's a bitter dance with fate.
He twirls me and I reply by stepping on his toes,
because I can't dance to such a foreign beat.
And fate is whisking me away,
moves unreliable and messy,
barely better at dancing than I am.

This can't last forever.
Eventually, we'll grow tired
of the confusion and unpredictable moves
each other will make.
And we'll break away to take our own steps,
off the dance floor and towards the buffet
where we gorge ourselves on the future
we choose for us.
The things we know will be what we want.
Fate cannot control us here,
He cannot lead us away on a mystical journey
going off into the misty evening.
At least, not until we open our eyes and realize:

We always come back to the dancefloor.
and Fate comes in many forms.

Someone must understand
The way that my mind works
I am human after all
And writing for anyone to see
But quite a few folks
Look at me as if I had three heads on my shoulders
And I can't say I don't
Because that's just how my mind works
Someone must understand
Out of the 7.7 billion people on the face of the planet
Someone must know what it's like
To be trapped with three heads within one
Someone must understand
That the sky is falling when I finally come home
And I rest my head on my pillow
Pretend to sleep
In a restless daze
Someone must understand
Why it is I am this way

Sometimes I think of killing myself
How the end would be so nice
How the darkness would swallow me up
And how the numbness would suffice
My need

For all the voices of the feelings
That constantly keep me reeling
To softly slow to a hush
As my brain starts tur-tur-turning into mush

How wonderful it would be
To have that powerful silence
Not even grasshoppers would bother
To wake me

My cells would stop dividing
My brain would stop the lying
Myself would stop denying
What I truly want

But but but
This is just a reckless fantasy
A way to elude one’s own reality

Because as I sit here on the floor
Tears drip drip dropping
I realize there’s those who care for me more
Cherish me more
Love me more
Than I love my own self

The crickets chirp
I put the pills down

Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t just been the backseat of your car,
Intoxicated. My first drunk hook up. My first. Period.
I picture myself being champagne on Valentine’s Day.
I picture myself being you, nervous in the car, holding Starbucks
because you know I love coffee. Sometimes, I picture myself as her,
calling you a stalker and ignoring your calls,
but then I see myself. I call you beautiful,
turn you into poetry, laugh at your bad jokes,
I see myself as I become your drunk Wednesday night
when you’re sad. I see myself as I say no,
I become a “this is not a good idea”
and you a “we’ll deal with the consequences in the morning.”
We laugh because this hurts too much.
You take her out for dinner and I burrow money
for Plan B because you forgot you don’t like condoms
and clearly have no idea how children are made.
I have already named him. He has your curls and
my anxiety. He is smart. Except, I never wanted kids and
you would be a great father. Instead, you tell her
the beach reminds you of her and I cry in a McDonald’s
bathroom with my friend as relief floods through me that
the test comes negative. I stop talking to you,
move forward, meet someone new and before long
see myself becoming you. Because isn’t that the cycle?
Bad men turn good women into bad women who turn
good men into bad men. I’ll set him free so he can hurt
someone like me, and I drink red wine as I read her
poems about him and me.