It’s 3:00am; I’m sitting here in the dark trying to come up with something sweeter to imprint than all the dirt my pen aches to trail behind. I want to be sunny with my words because I feel sunny. I feel the steadiness of life mending every broken bone in my body. But I’m afraid the sunny road is not the honest one. I’ve begun to learn on this journey of written words that I do not choose what goes on paper and what does not; my mind feels before I do, it writes before I do. My mind is guiding me to write the pain I’ve already felt, to use it. —you didn't feel those feelings for nothing, so you could let them die in vain; take them, make them tears that perish in jars of untouched honey—. But I can’t offer honey without offering the mess and stickiness it beacons.
So as I plunge myself into a mess only made pure with ink, I realize that I am not responsible for the honey dripping on my paper,
but I am responsible for the taste it leaves when it reaches your tongue.

they never said it out loud but they
wanted me to grieve quietly,
behind closed
doors, grab the key and lock it!
they could see my demons clinging
to my flesh and peeking through the
darkest parts of my sorrow-ridden eyes;
it terrified them.
so they begged me to              
grieve quietly because they
knew that somewhere inside them
was the hidden truth that
pain, in fact, exists and as hard as we try,
as much as we beg, it cannot and will
not be avoided.

It’s the feeling of being borne back,
hidden beneath solace but thirsting to
be risen among the ashes of a shy tide.
It’s that same feeling that hushes me to
rest yet convulses me to wake. So I
wait here for the peak of that same
feeling to come simmering along at its
fullest potential, to drive me back into myself,
to find something, grasp it, and decide
whether to **** or breathe it to life.
This is what finding yourself is; a war waiting
to be won, blood needing to be shed,
sacrifices calling during the sweetest of dreams.
so we fight, ourselves caught in the riptide,
to find and to be found.

you reek of hope and 3am adventures.
you look like the kind of guy who
could save me; save me from the mess
that’s scribbled all over my skin. I have messes
people don’t dare to clean up but you look like
the kind of guy who could wipe me clean
without even flinching.
as if the monsters hiding in the closet
of my memories took one look at
you and headed for the wind.  

you look like a miracle on two feet.

I’ve always hated the damsel in distress,
but if you keep looking like that- like everything I’ve
ever hoped for-
I might have to become one.

you hurt me, you wouldn't stop
hurting me. you pushed my head under
the waves and counted down my
very last seconds before
you let me taste the air.

you unscrewed my training
wheels while I wasn't looking and
watched me fall to the ground
every single time. you saw the wounds and
bruises; you looked at them with pride,
as if each one was a trophy you displayed
in your trophy case heart.

years have gone by; all my wounds and
bruises have healed and you are nothing
but a forgotten cobweb in the corner
of my memories. you are nothing but
irony behind steel bars.

I wonder if you still go to that
trophy case and look at all the healed
scrapes and bruises that were once
fresh wounds.
I bet it kills you to see them
so untouched by you.

you filled my stomach with
gardens full of roses
but my, oh my has it
caused a tummy ache.
you must have forgotten to
check for thorns.

The saddest thing I ever saw,
            Was a woman who couldn't see her mans efforts.
                        Especially when I watched him rip his heart out,
                                     and she got mad that he got blood everywhere.