It's not my fault,
That I can't leave the house.
I can't stop
Being self conscious at all.
It's eating me alive.
It's taking my soul.

I wish I could leave the house
As easily as
Every other teen.
I want to be like them.
I wish to fit in.

Most days,
It's hard to breathe.
Most days,
I struggle to eat.

I hate me.
I hate who I am.
I want to leave this shell I'm caged in.
I want to be someone else.
Anybody else.

You don't see what I'm putting up with
How I am lying here with gritted teeth
And a stomach full of acid
Creeping its way up my throat
You said you didn't want someone with a heart on his sleeve
So I tore it off and it stayed where it dropped
For someone so obsessed with looks
It sure was easy to sew these eyes shut

Are we moving in the right direction?
Someone who is strong
        You know I had a dream about us once
         And we were up on the roof
        I was afraid to sit on the edge
           But I did it any way
I've listened close for any sign of moment of betrayel in your camp

But not so much as a scratch from a mouse

All I see is your power

Your strengh

Your unwavering courage

As wind billows through your tall bright banners

Always a thousand reasons why not

With only one reason why


If I never would have read your words I never would have known
How you can spill black couldrons of malice, but show beauty still
You can open up the sky with your words
Build a storm in its belly
But still feel pitty if it rains down on me

I can feel your combat boots

On my front teeth

At my groin

Snapping my ribs

Still even then, you reach down for a kiss

It's time to say goodnight again
Time to climb down off my high horse
I lean my pride back against the wall
Or at least what's left of it
There's a place that I can go
Where life is slow
The wind and snow
Where mountains are green and full
Of fiddle ferns as long as your arms
There is a wooden house on the hill
With a drive that turns around
And I can climb those stairs
I can lay next to her in bed
We try to make sense of the lone lightbulb above us
Reach our fingers up and see who can hold their finger the longest
Where you carved our names in the wall with a pocket knife
Where all is forgiven.
But a small barb aims me still
Right between the ribs
When I think on my sins

You judge me
Harsh as sun on snow

If I am a wild flower
You came to me
As an early frost

So you picked me clean
Snapping her locket off my neck
And twisting my fathers gold ring
Off of my finger

Tokens of spring and summer and winter

You bit your nails
And paced the hard cobblestone floor


You buried me there

Underneath every brick you dug out with your perfect fingers
Tracing the mortar dust with your finger

You wrote a message on the floor

You stand above me

In your cold dark cellar

Your tokens jingle in your pocket

You lay the cold stones against my skin
And filled in the cracks

You sit at your old wooden desk
By the smoke of your little cigar
As you look with a glass at your new toys
And you roll the gold around in your fingers
You giggle to yourself


You look at the locket there on the wood desk
Smiling at its shimmer under the bulb

You find your fathers old chisel and hammer
Crude blacksmith tools
You smile

You smile so wide and laugh all alone
Whispering things you wanted to shout

You split the lock
With one tiny tap
And the pieces fell down with a snap

You laugh and smile your eyes closed with excitement

You laugh you smile

You whisper your shouts

Until you opened your eyes

A start

Your picture was in the locket
That once lay on my heart

What shall I do?
When I'm in the gunner seat
Of a B-52
Your picture is taped
On the rail of the gun
Where I'll have a good view of you
If we get shot

I got it in your letter
Although three months late
But its a picture of her naked
Looking over her shoulder at me

I read your words
And smelled your perfume
I read the Bible and thought about you


They sent me home to you in a pine box
My head was shaved clean and a flag on my chest
Pictures of you naked safely hidden in Songs of Solomon

I'm
Amused
Take your clothes off
Boot lace tracer
It's hard to face her
With her sole pressed to my chest
Homemade tattoo
Made you blue
Lemonade shade
Jaundiced and thin
The gods shine on you
And your polished black blue
Pressing on my throat
And your dagger presssed between my rib
Blood begins to drip
So fast
It could have been a shotgun blast
As you tore my mast
Spit on my sails
Wails
A clean ****
Black leather
Whether or not
Your gonna do
What you've been born to do
Betrayed with a kiss
Your miss
Thirty pieces of silver
And bread with no butter
They say shes a cutter
But she just wants the blood
Pulsing with *******
A torrential downpour of pain
As you cross that concrete bridge
To sin

Everyone asks why
Why must I hurt myself?
Why don't I stop?
Why does it give relief?

I ask myself what
What is wrong with me?
What is it about the blade,
That keeps bringing me back?
What did I do to end up like this?

Questions I am unable to answer
All I can say is it helps

Tortured by her own soul
Trying to break free
Of this hell she is trapped in

Screaming for help
Can anybody hear her?
Will anybody save her?

Or will she leave this hell
For a place unknown
Just to escape her own mind