no one taught me
how to love
without the mandatory
'i love you's, without
fabricated appreciation
just because everyone else
was doing it,
no one taught me
the rawness of it all
how the feeling
consumes you like
fire and makes you
speak in a language
you never knew
you could speak

no one taught me
how to express myself
in ways that don't
slip between people's
fingers like water,
with palms up
heart cut out and bleeding
every pad and print
facing the earth
each vulnerability visible
from the stars

no one taught me
how to keep my emotions
running like a broken tap
because for years
i'd switch it off
once i thought i was done
dealing with them
and afterwards i'd never
want to run my hands
through the water
ever again because
i was scared to feel

no one taught me
how to love how
to express myself
how to feel
that once i loved
i burned like rome
i loved people more
than they would ever
love me, i'd always
love them too much and
once i learned how
to be vulnerable i
ended up tearing my heart out
and giving it to the
first person that
would listen
once i learned how
to feel i felt
too much to the point
of drowning my hands
rubbed raw from
running through
the water one too many times

no one taught me
how to live in greys
so i live in
blacks and whites
all or nothing
too much or too little
a constant push and pull -
i just want to be whole.

i just want to be whole.

Dear Anne,
Your words are Life

Stronger than the darkness
Of the human heart

May you continue
To inspire hope
For generations to come

Alone in my house
Not a word, not a chirp, not a squeak from a mouse
And the more I think, the deeper becomes of my pain
I pick up the phone and send a message to explain
As best I could of my distress that traps me
Of the nightmares that never shall leave me be
But I could only give you a very vague taste
Of the story of how my life is disgraced
I want to drown it out in physical pleasures
But there is no reprieve from my madness that stirs
Deranged and damaged
My head has been ravaged
And I want you to know that I'll always feel sorrow
It won't go away, no such thing as a better tomorrow
But I just couldn't let it go in that very moment
Because I was too distraught, much too hellbent
I'm sorry if my sudden outburst was inconvenient for you
But here I wear a smile again, as I always do

You think you know every little crack, every crevice in my soul; yet there is so much of my life’s book that you haven’t read. My hair is a carefully styled mess, strategically placed static, and my lips are what they are- lonely. Sometimes I think you wonder about who I am, my origins; I can’t say that I don’t either. How’d I end up as such as mistake? You love me for what you say are perfections, yet you see not the real me, you see the front I put up, my acting. How can one be addicted to a person who doesn’t even know themself? Yet loving you makes me want to learn.

We both **** the life, the very being from each other; yet it is still not enough. I want to hook myself to you like an IV, to pull the gold running through your veins into my conciousness and let it light me. If there was a way to evaporate your essence and save it in a bottle for later, I’d be the scientist who discovered the way to do it. The very scent of you carried on the air from yards away is enough to register me for a few centuries in an asylum. You say you don’t even wear cologne, and I understand it. You wear yourself, a fragrance I wish I could rub all over myself every second of every day, every time I curl up in a ball on my bed after you drive home at night, wondering why it is you can’t just stay.

You belong to the road, you’ve sold your soul to the feeling of the wind in your hair. I can’t break your contract with independence, but I can tag along for the ride. Seeing you so happy, getting your racer’s tan, blaring the radio until the speakers want to scream. Why can’t I partake in your happiness? I wish there was a way for us to share the love for the world that you have; in its’ place in my mind is loathing. The only reason for living I have is you- and all I ask of you is to answer this one question; how have you fallen for this fallen angel, the outcast of society, the girl whom everyone forgot to remember and who you didn’t remember to forget?

Possessive and Dismissive
You have to do back flips to get her point,
She says she cares when she doesn't and
she says she doesn't care when she does
You can't worry about her because she can handle herself
But you have to worry
She snaps if she's in a bad mood
She snaps if she's in a good mood
She is New York and California
She is the sun and the moon
She is decisive and unsure
She seems a bit hard to love,
it's the only certain thing about her.