I still remember.

(Sweet girl, for your own good, don't read this, please...)

You may not remember, but I still remember.
I remember it all like it's happening again,
I can see the same pictures,
The same views,
The views from all those times,
When I hurt you.

You may not remember,
When we went to see the Akron Youth Orchestras,
At our High School on March 23,
When the Youth Philharmonic played selections from Les Miserables,
When you were singing along to beautifully,
When I was embarrassingly rude.

You may not remember,
But I remember the time I called you in the Spring,
When it was 45 degrees and pouring rain,
When I got mad about something that didn't even matter,
That I made you so upset you ran away from home,
Then suffered horribly in that rain.

You may not remember,
But I remember just after, when the rain dried up some, the next Sunday,
When it was still 45 degrees outside but not pouring rain,
When you and I went for a walk in the cold to go explore,
When we got a little too excited up on that hill, I think you know what hill,
When my fingers noticed the scabs on your arm, how you kept your sleeve pulled down.

You may not remember,
When we came back home, when I saw for sure, when we were on the famous sink-hole couch,
Oh, the look on your face, my heart sunk through the floor, because I knew what I'd done,
That you'd cried awake at night when you lied about being okay, just to make me happy,
You had cut yourself as punishment, when only I deserved punishment.
I still see the look on your face, wrapped in my arms, to my left, I still feel you shaking...

You may not remember,
That evening, how we talked for 4 hours,
How we just held each other, when we both felt so horrible,
When I was dying for hurting you, when you were dying from the pain,
How we both cried together, how I made you promise to never again,
Made you promise to never cut again, if I'd hurt you or left you, because I knew was a monster
(who would hurt you again)...
I still hear your sobbing when you and I were in each others arms in the kitchen...

I remember many more things,
They haunt me more than memories,
Because memories are the recalling of an event,
Recalling of how bad or good it was and nothing more,
But I'm cursed to recall everything as if they are photographs in an album, CDs on a shelf,
I see it all, I hear it all, I feel it all, and I have no goals except to tell you I'm sorry over and over and over...

Our story was written
in the empty cracks of our broken home.
Scribbled
in a million strokes,
symbols and signs.
Thousands of languages flew
from our wasted pen tips
and we could feel the ink drip from the ceiling like acid rain.
Soaked in the blood
from our pointless thoughts,
we attempted to feel.
We attempted to understand.

But our home had become Babble
and the bible burned our fingertips.

And they waited.
Waited for me to become more sane,
more acceptable.
They waited for me to decipher the sins
I had carved into my bedroom walls
for the last seventeen years.
But even they had no real shape or form.
Simply black marks
left from the paint on my bitten nails..

And so our tower crumbled beneath us.
And our pens kept pouring down.
And our story continued to write itself.

If only we had learned to read.

We spend all our time being jealous
For things that are not really ours
We beg for another perspective
To guide us without leaving scars
But we are the slaves and the martyrs
The ones who will never obtain
A simple oblivion ending
The heightening level of pain
And this be our chosen confession
The one we have kept on our tongues
"I want to be everyone else's"
*"I want to collapse my own lungs"

This neon world, so lit with colored glow
My midnight wanderings, they reek of you—
So hidden in the air, nowhere to go,
This nebula, it lies, and clouds my view.

You’ve stripped me of my solitude so long
I can’t imagine days without you there
It’s taken my whole life to see, you’re wrong—
My strength depends not on this sick affair.

I can’t be angry, no, for it’s my fault—
I let you shine your beam upon my fears,
Escort me in a red white blue assault
Red light, green—I hate what once I revered.

I cry, I scream, there’s no way to unbind
Illuminate my soul— Please! I am blind.

Silver winged of steel
Buckled up
Cocooned in a cabin
No phones, no emails, no Internet
Racing down the runway
Soaring high above the ground
Distant specks of life
Winged of steel climbs though the skies
Clouds below, clouds above
Seat reclines, put in my earphones, close my eyes
I lose myself, soothed by the motion of the flight
Just a seat, a window, sky, music
Suspended, moving above the earth
Windswept heights
Countries, oceans, mountains, forests
Dawn to dusk
Smooth and turbulent
Dancing through life’s path in the skies
My breath of Serenity

I'm fat and ugly and no one cares.
They treat me like I'm not even there.
I wither away slowly and no one sees.
No one knows how hurt I really can be.
So why do I try?
Would anyone even care if I died?
Who will listen, who can tell, that I'm not happy as I put out?
Everyone thinks nothing could be wrong because I come off as oh so strong.
I'm chipping away, I'm breaking down.
Will anyone turn around?
Who will rescue this damaged soul and help me be as loved as I am told?
I'm fat and ugly and no one cares.
Does anyone notice I'm still here?