what is religion?
it is stories
of one or two or a hundred
"higher powers"
that do nothing other than
give "faith" in the name of "God"
but what good does God do?
if you have ***, you are going to hell.
if you drink alcohol, you are going to hell.
basically, if you find pleasure in anything,
you are going to hell.
but you sit in church every Sunday morning
and pray
to who?
I couldn't tell you.
how can you be sure that God is real?
how do you know you're not worshipping the devil?
not that the devil is real, either.
should he be capitalized to?
I suppose calling the devil He could be offensive,
not that He isn't present in everyone.
people tell stories all the time
of seeing God right before they crash their car
or coming back to life after being in a comatose state for five days.
everything is a story,
passed down from your mother's cousin's aunt to your mother to you to your children to their children and their children's friends,
altered, changed, ultimately completely different than what is was at the start.
but your mother said God is real so God is real, right?
maybe God isn't real, maybe people believe in the qualities of Him,
he could be present in all of us, I suppose, but then the devil is real, too.
I've not seen either,
but then again I've not seen electrons but I got an A in chemistry.

I found myself on my bedroom floor,
dizzy from seven beers I stole from my dad,
thinking I could replace your memory with alcohol.
when I forgot my name before yours,
I tried emptying my veins,
but watching my blood run down the sink brought no closure.
my lips are cracked and my skin is rough;
your hands left burn marks where you touched me
and your kisses took every ounce of moisture from my mouth.
I know you're not the one I'm looking for
but I'm so cold and a fire is a fire;
I might be drunk right now but I'll still wake up
wanting to kiss you.

you are not the smell before rain, you are a ******* hurricane. you tore through every ******* wall I put up and now I'm left with broken pieces of your old coffee mug and ripped receipts with ****** I love you's written drunkenly on the back. my hands are numb but my mind is as sharp as the razor blade that kisses my wrist and I'm cutting up my arms trying to cover up the slashes you left on the inside of my collapsing rib cage but nothing pierces through me the way your ice blue eyes did when I woke up next to you. my head is spinning from brandy and coke and your voice is ringing in my ears and my eyes are burning but I haven't slept in two weeks. I started binge drinking tea instead of liquor and I guess that's a good thing although I'm just poisoning my heart with caffeine instead of my liver with alcohol. maybe I should start reading again but I'm only attracted to the beautiful things that are constantly destroying me.

today I
drank seven cups of tea
slept for five hours in the middle of the day
wasted fifty-two dollars on shoes I (didn't) need
wrote six poems (all about you)
smoked eleven cigarettes
threw back four shots
and made three cuts on my rib cage.

I don't know what happiness is,
but I'm pretty **** sure this isn't anywhere close.

I'd rather see crimson on trees than running down my wrist.

kisses from strangers don't taste as sweet as your *******,
but I'm so ******* hungry.
crimson paintings on my wrist don't rid my body of your touch,
but maybe in a few years I'll forget the burns you left on my skin.
replacing my blood with alcohol doesn't help me forget you,
but I might as well get drunk instead of seeing you in my dreams.
washing my sheets daily doesn't wash away the smell of your cologne,
but it's so familiar and I can't fall asleep without you surrounding me.
five cups of coffee don't wake me up as quickly as your hand on my thigh,
but hopefully soon I won't have to.

you are a mirror,
already shattered and left with razor sharp edges,
but made of the same pieces as before
you were dropped.
alcohol and meaningless *** are only a temporary glue
and five months time have worn it thin.
resist your predisposition to push everyone away
before hearing the way her voice shakes,
begging you to stay until tomorrow,
as you drown yourself in self destruction.
let the oceans of her eyes swallow the pills for you,
and her own scarred skin fend against the knives you pull out of your back.
you have rebuilt the broken glass walls of your mind
with your one-night-stand's skin-tight leather pants,
strong enough to defend against the words that slip out of her mouth
but not pictures of her bare skin.
use your hands to make something tangible,
like a hand-written letter to your mother
or a mixtape for the sweet girl you shared a cab with,
instead of giving yourself bruises and four second *******.
but *******,
you never once asked how I was doing.