Empty spaces
Blank mind traces
Of what I could once do
Wonderful descriptions
Unfinished stories
Of children running
From banal dangers

New depths of mental pain evoke
Change in me
How did that child think?
I can’t find the words
Or remember

The grapple for more adult structure
But simply lack the
Vocabulary
Once proud of a sentence
Now every letter is saturated with
Insignificance

What does it matter how old?

Don’t you know
that you’ve plateaued?

What are you waiting for
when all your dates are already told…

It’s over before it begins;
you’re dead before you’re born.

Now I'll spend the day
trying to remember all the things
I’ve said…

All the things
I’m going to say…

It matters not.

Both ways are dreaming.

Everything is so unreal…

Reality is screaming at me.

Can you believe it?

I’ve done nothing wrong,
but that’s where it lies.

The wrong I’ve done
is being alive.

He tasted like cigarettes and baser intentions
The spiced hint of whiskey on his thunderstorm tongue
The kind of rebellion that young girls lie for
With soft, swollen lips, and nowhere to run

City of rust punctured by stone
Where the rain only stops for the snow
Painting with a palette of opiates and pocket change
She'll christen the night with a smoke

When the walls falter,
crumbling within
                  realities windows,
                                  shattered inwards
by the tears that are dwindling emotions.

There is no place to smuggle,
        to hide within hollow walls.
Because when everything falls
                               were all exposed.
And everything is but a shell revelled.

She stands where the river blows her hair wild

no youth and no favor for her
no hands to clean the salt licks on her skin
her palms are dreams wrinkled dry
yet craving an offer.

You come from a distant land, she says,
heavens bless you.

I got no small change, I respond,
my mind drifts to ponder,

a small change, I need that too,
always hungered for
and faltered through
like I missed the vessel narrowly
to be on the river's other side.

Maybe when I come back,
I turn toward her.

She was gone.

you are chaotic, and beautifully broken
standing stoic and silent
but the earth thrums with your screams

there is no romance to be found in pain
fret not about idealism and misconception;
i know how you suffer

but there's so much love in you,
you could make the soulless feel again
too much passion for you to know what to do with

never shown enough compassion to understand
that your mind, ill as it may be, is gorgeous
you are not awful, but awe-inspiring

hard work wears you down
but your hands are still so soft;
they were meant to be held, and kissed

you were born to be adored
and feared and wanted, to confuse with your complexity
so that only the best of people will stand with you

side by side with you, with open eyes
and open arms and open hearts
there is war in your chest and these friends will bring you peace

the world has, since birth, shown you destruction
volleyed hatred and scorn in your direction
but here is its reconciliation:

these people that love you are soldiers
ready to help you win the wars that explode in the spaces between your ribs
they will help you breathe, and smile, and sleep