Saying you care as you pin me down,
As I sink you tell me it's what's right,
Sunken in and sunken under,
Can't catch my breath,
Can't find the air,
All the while keep saying you care,
No hand directed  my way,
Not one fault of how your
Life turned out this way
should be mine; but look,
Look here, yes I am the one you blame,
Push me down and kick me out,
Still, you never let go,
Suffocating and regurgitating,
In everything I've come to know.
You won't leave my side,
But it's only for your own good. Not mine.
Laying and withering while I need you the most,
When we recover it never is over for us.
Before I can begin to lift my chin
To the sunlight, you pull me back under,
And you pull me back down,
Your helping is hurting me.
Forcing me into your rhythm and rhyme,
Striking me with sound and with song.
Repetition and refusal to hear me,
How can you not have the courtesy,
To at least look into my eyes,
While you destroy me and deny me?
One thing I ask,
Let me have one last daydream,
Of my own rhythm,
The rhythm of my feet, drowning
you out, to not hear your voice.
All I am asking is let me run free
I don't want to be you,
I want to find me.

Here we are on this Hell,
On this cold Earth,
Trapped in His Heaven*
Deceived since our birth.
Looking and searching,
for nothing we'll find.
Even when we think
it is found
It's always a lie
Living content, when we deserve so much more.
Still think it's found?
You're being fooled by sight.
Being filled with sound
You're not fighting my fight.
In lovers we find adventure and turn
Being stupid and naive, I wonder why you've been burned
Say you're in love with all you believe
Just keep following that perfect road
Yellow Brick Road of deceit.
Promise it's set in stone
Keep lying through your teeth.
Continue rehearsing the lines,
Love, fate, destiny
When really it's all coincidence
Chance, probability.
Believe there is something beyond
Cause there never will be.
Tell yourself the truth,
You'll never be happy.

Sometimes, when something is wrong
We stop and begin to hum a song
Of less importance than our problems.
The humming and the drumming of it all
Is what truly is our downfall.
We get lost in the notes and the pitch.
The goosebumps, the feeling.
We begin to fall in love with the dream
The dream that swallows us with the beat.
When's something's wrong,
We stop and begin to hum a song.
To take away the feeling
That's keeping us singing.
Singing, singing.
Helping us go crazy.
When something is wrong,
We stop and begin to hum a song.
We begin to hum a song.

We walk and we argue.
Either way it’ll be unfair.
You don’t want to be here
and I don’t want to be there.
We continue to walk home.
You clear your throat.
I fix my hair.
There are wars in our heads.
We know.
One of us will have to walk home, alone.

I miss having the entire upstairs.
I miss sitting on the futon on the landing outside of my room and writing.
I miss having three closets.
I miss the old fashioned doors I had upstairs.
I miss climbing outside of my window onto the roof at night.
I miss the outdated pink-ish red carpet.
I miss the 70’s wallpaper and how the wall by my bed was different.
I miss the silence.
I miss the sound of the train going right by.
I miss going out to the barn to practice trombone and play pool.
I miss summers there.
I miss walking home from school to the house.
I miss how close town was, yet it had a special seclusion.
I miss riding my bike to the cemetery.
I miss the long gravel road behind the barn.
I miss the willow tree.
I miss the neighbors. Even “keep off my lawn” Mike.
I miss the feeling I got pulling up to the house.
I miss being 13.
I miss the parties.
I miss my brother and sister sharing friends.
I miss living on Finn Street.

Not the unhappy everyone talks about.
Not just the lonely unhappy.
Not just the unaccomplished/unmotivated unhappy.
Not just the loveless unhappy.
Not just the careless unhappy.
Not just the “let down” unhappy.

I wish there was a way to better exert the meaning of what I’m feeling.
It’s the unhappy that makes me ***** before each occasion.
It’s the unhappy that makes me want to sink into the walls.
I want to break glass, break bone, break the unbreakable.

I want to rip and scratch.
Skin, lips, paper.

It’s like a downward spin that sometimes leaves me pleased…
and other times incredibly hollowed.
There aren’t any solid memories that explain why I’ve gotten so sad.
I do remember when it started though, or at least when I was old enough to understand it was not a good feeling.

Five.

Five years old.
Sitting alone in the heater room where my “tea table” was set up.
Tweety bird tea set.

I remember thinking about grown-ups and all that they do.
I remember not wanting to be a child anymore.
I’d get mad when someone interrupted my thoughts.
That was the first time I remember being depressed.

I’ve been depressed since,
but depression is a very small part of unhappiness…
or whatever it is that’s been sloshing around in my gut since age five.

All I know is that it escalates.
It always has and now I’m very afraid that it always will.

I opened my eyes once just to see if his were shut as tight as mine.
I could tell by the way he moved, how angry he was with her.
It was nothing between him and I.

It was pure emotion we couldn’t express to each other without imitating the act of making love.
We were the only ones left there for the other
or maybe we were just there.
Probability.

I do not love him.
…but he breathed like you. Kissed like you.
He was built like you, cried like you.

I hope you understand.

It was my only release.
It was not affection for each other that drove us into such a passionate entanglement but the restrained love we had for each of you.

The Anger. The Sadness. The Loneliness.
We were open journals,
and we filled each other with feelings that words could not express.

…I missed you so much.

He’s the only one who could ever understand how much I did.
While our bodies were dripping with shame,
what else could we have done?

I felt his feelings for her and they broke my heart.
There was no stopping.

The tighter he held,
the softer he whimpered,
the more it pulled me in.

The more I understood the less alone I felt.
This dismal place became less painful.

I was not out to hurt you.
It did not bloom from spite or revenge.
Not for you.

While his body did grind into mine,
I felt the pain of his anatomy and I used it against myself.
His body was my only way to repair and destroy myself all at once.

It was pleasurable due to the dream I had woven into it,
and I could feel his muscles forgiving me.
Forgiving her.

I wonder what he felt come from mine.
Relief, I hope.

Once the sweat and tears had dried,
and our bodies lay throbbing and limp
there was a sense of calm neither of us had ever experienced.

Although I’ll never be able to tell you how I feel,
I know I confessed everything I could that day with my writhing
and with my heat.

It was all for you.

Even though we did not let it happen through love or adoration
it was not meaningless.
Our souls confided in and approved of our scene.

That’s all I needed.
For it to be known I did not cheat.
I did not cheat you and I did not cheat myself.

Now, I don’t think I could love you as much as I do now had it not happened.
I found us that day.
Buried beneath years reconstruction and restriction.
More importantly, I found myself.
Lodged in between the freezing of time and heartache.

I’ll miss my innocence, but not my ignorance.

I opened my eyes just to see if his eyes were shut as tight as mine.
I had never felt so utterly complete.