Pocket full of Marlboros I don't know when you started smoking
But I do know
That you still know me
Here on this darkened street corner
You still see me
And it scares me
That I could have pressed so much of myself into your hands
And that you didn't let it go
Even though the back of your hand is all I know
And I know that you know me
But is that enough to bring us back to the people we used to be?
On that sacred hill or in your old house in the city
Apathy isn't pretty
But I'd like to try it on for size
Somewhere inside of me in the darkness cries for all that we once were
That smoke doesn't hide you it just blurs the sadness in your eyes
The weight in your sighs.
(I'm not angry anymore, I'm heart broken)

And still I am screaming from the base of my arteries "I gave all of me to you and you turned away"
Swollen and drunk on a Sunday I make my way to the foot of the cross and call out your name once more
I am a mess of American habits and self centered longing but still I long to be taken back into your living room and told that I am all that I was the day I opened myself to you
The day I washed your feet on your kitchen floor
Drunken and bruised laughing swearing that no matter how long I lived I would never ask for more
You made me pasta and ran your fingers through my hair
On days when my world bit at my ribs you reminded me that I was still there
In simple gestures of midnight snacks and open hands
I found you
I loved you
and I lost
And now I find myself at the foot of the cross
Spitting out your name like sour wine
See the holes in my hands
See the holes in my feet bore from your absence
See the slash in my side from which a river of black pours
Of all the ways I loved you and you never gave back
And now I lie broken and small in my sheets
Praying for some sign or relief that I am rid of you
That the nights we spent are gone
That your clothes are off my floor and my body still moves the way it did before you
Honest and fully free in the gentle morning
That no part of me longs for any part of you
That my hands are full
That my feet are guarded and my side safely stitched
That all of me
 is all I am
Instead of the lack,
Instead of the work of your hands.

For our father,
Who art in heaven
Never hallowed your name.
Though he let your kingdom come,
And your will be done,
He will restore my spirit.
On earth
As it is in heaven.
He will give me today my daily bread forgive my debts
Though I still have trouble forgiving you,  unholy debtor.
Though you lead me into temptation,
He has kept me safe from evil.
For yours,
Was never the kingdom,
The power,
Or the glory,
Forever and ever
Amen.

And after long six years,
I'm still not sure if there's life on mars.
Maybe a life for someone else,
But not for me.

Rapid fire heartbeats sitting pretty on your floor
desperate to disappear yet longing for you to look over my way
typical.
and i'm twisting into the rug dreaming of a way out of here
overflowing in the empty bathtub hopeless obsessed with the fears I don't yet know
grinding into the concrete my open back with flecks of gravel and a skin full of bruises
oh don't tell me what the news is
I just want to disappear into this
and I destroy my walls and build them up again about three times a week
unclear and dissatisfied
lifted by my own skin set your fire into me
my sister and my brother gone on the open road
I don't care if it hurts I still want you all the time
and I watch others climb into another's skin and I can't seem to find the bottom of my glass
floating on something else
I write what I feel and that's all I can offer
no one loved the ****** poet
they just watched her wasted in the corner of the room
sitting pretty spitting blood
sitting pretty spitting blood
sitting pretty spitting blood
let it all go now
I'm not what you wanted and I never will be
I'm not going to haunt you or leave you wanting don't you see
I will be gone when I leave
and I will dismantle every bone in my ******* body if I can't have you
because lord knows I can't handle another disappointment
spiraling clean into the drink
just like I watched her from my satellite
just like I watched her prove that she was it all along
just like I watched her watch herself move
well I tried for years to get her attention or to pin her down but she never settled
so I settled myself down deeper into the cracks of my kitchen floor
scared shitless running down her street
don't give me the pill just give me the beat
and I'll run it out
I'll move it out
but I don't think I can go without you
want to dismantle your body in my mouth
run my fingers through your lungs and bring you to life
I think I could do it
I think I could
and my friends don't know where I went
leaving early staying out late dripping black gold in solitude they say I'm cold in my attitude
but I don't even remember my old name
just the constant call of
TAKEMEHOMETAKEMEHOMETAKEMEHOME
from every passing stranger on the street
I'd be lying if I said I didn't love them all
every one with pink in their lungs and ice in their glasses
severed twins of the lover left unknown
I'll still be there in the morning drunk on your **** carpet screaming that I need you to feel
until I glance at the door
and she comes again
she comes in waves of soft pink and promises left along the sides of the road
and she moves like the girls in the videos to keep from what she knows
and she'll sink her teeth into me
I know she's not real but she bites at my ankles and claws at my lungs
she won't stop till she takes the very breath of life from me and leaves me to rot
but it isn't so much what she is as what she's not
she revels in it all
and brushes my hair before bed
and I think I can see just beyond the morning light
I think I can see just beyond her smile
and I know that this time is my time and I won't be back for a while
raise myself out of my weekday and loose my phone
drown the nightmares out learn to be alone
I think I could
I think I could do it
but for now I'll suffer
moth wing heartbeats sitting pretty on your floor
desperate to disappear yet longing for you to look over my way
typical.

And I still think about you sitting pretty in that skin ******* shirt
The one with the holes in it, reminiscent of the holes in my skin
Reveal my boiling blood work and fragile spine
Eyes glued to the floor wondering what it would be like to be called 'mine'
and you're there on the couch wrapped up in deep brown talking **** to the pretty girl next to you
And I'm over here on my own knowing better than to try to make a move
When you're already preoccupied with someone else
I know I'm better by myself
Now it's nearly two months out and I'm watching you on a tiny screen in my room
Long limbs draped artfully over a guitar feet dangling in the pool tattoos indistinguishable in the evening gloom
And I wonder what it's like in your world
I wonder what it's like in your head
If it's raining or snowing or if you're choking on what you should have said
So now I'm slightly intoxicated on my back in my sheets
Praying for some sign of rain or some subtle relief
From switch screen wanting I don't even want any of you
I don't know you I don't trust you I don't know what you do
I know an idea
better left by itself
Better left alone so I can be by myself
Not for anyone else
Just me in my own skin
And you're a casualty of my sober vivid mind
An empty grave I don't want to find
An ocean packed with a thousand words better left unsaid
A persistent reminder of the emptiness of my bed
And in my dreams I'll move closer to you
I'll take hold of your calloused hand
But as I wake I know I'll run far from you
Because I'll never belong to any man
And hey I could be the tattoo on your left arm
Wrapped tight around your bones
Hey I could be the ice in your glass
But you will never be my home
No I'd rather be alone

Spoil me.
After all, I'm a vision wrapped in Writers block and winter storm warnings
falling apart on a Sunday night alone in my bathtub and I'm ready to be:
Yours.
If only for a week
Because the thought of you is killing me longing in a waltz tempo dancing across my winter skin
waiting for you to put your hand on my skin in the darkness on the fourth of July
Take me out of my head and into your arms
All tanned skin and light green eyes
Come on tear your teeth right through mine
Because I want you for this week and it's becoming hard to breathe in the absence of sanctuary in my body
After all,
It'll be cool till I disengage and retreat back into myself
It'll feel right until I can't look you in the eye or be by myself
But now I see you in pastel and in clean white and grey
The hand I sought to hold
The body I hungered to mold
The weight of the want
But I keep this inside of myself
Pin you up in poetry on my wall
I mean after all
this will only last until I cut it off
Until I cut myself off and box you away under my bed
Beautiful boy now a mere thought in my head
You will disappear because I will erase you
You will leave because I send you away
You will break because I bend you
This is all it can ever be
But for now it's gentle mid afternoon trips and cashmere shirts
Modern love notes and safety bricks
I'll reach for you if only to make you hurt because I'm afraid of myself
It doesn't make sense but for now it's how I know myself
And I know myself
So I build this up to let you go
I take the time and though you never know that I am fragile
So
be gentle with your hands
Bruise my skin and be my man
But I'll cut you off in the spring time and want you again in humidity
I am inconsistent and distant once you truly look inside of me
So please
If only for the week
If only for the car ride home
If only in the darkness of the movie theater
Spoil me.

even when I'm chasing someone else
I'm still trying to get to you.
You'd think eighteen years would be enough to shake this.
whatever.
I'll still see you in my sleep.

There isn't much left to say but,
I felt every part of this
from the hot nights spent with  friends hanging out the window on the interstate chasing feeling beyond cognizant thought
to the cold day in my back yard back when it all began when I realized for the first time that I was truly, and honestly alone and that nothing and no one could save me from the person I was becoming
no one, that is,
but me  
and some concept of God long forgotten with space and time.
and I see every fault so clearly
like my past is just a passage in my chemistry book with every misstep highlighted in different colors
one color for the effect it had on my existence

Yellow: to remind me that no matter how close to balanced I may come,
I will still feel the need to deconstruct every good thing I know
so I can understand the higher significance
and **** the magic and well being of everything I love.

Orange: for the bridges I burned
the relationships that if I had only been more gentle
or more caring
or more honest
or more careful
I could still have today.

Red: for the messes I made
to remind myself that no matter how much bleach I can pour on a stain
there will always be a slight discoloration.
doubt
trust issues
bad reputations
being held at arms length like one might hold a filthy child

I see every fault so clearly.

and I can move away
change my name
dye my hair
pierce my body
cut off my friends and family
turn the ******* page
but I will still be able to see the colors no matter how many pages I turn
all the yellows, oranges and reds bleeding through like some unholy sunset
staining my body and covering my eyes
So you can hear it in my voice.
So you can taste it on my tongue.
and there isn't much left to say anymore
I feel it all.

There is a place in me that sleep cannot touch- a place in which I cannot breathe
I go to the same places, sing the same songs, make the same jokes and still I am expected to be full,
Bursting with light,
The ice in your drink.
But I'm okay
I promise I am
But I am trying to understand the great divide between nature and man
The chemicals in the boundaries that separate us when all I desperately need is to collide and combust
To exist within the boundaries I set
The order I ordain
To be able to breathe
As if every breath were the first
As if I could some how keep inside of me all of heaven and earth
As if I could be
As I am
To be in the present
Though presently I am losing my mind  
This all fades and breaks in time
And in time
I will return back to you
Retrace my steps go to the same places, sing the same songs, make the same jokes and this time I really will be full
Bursting with light
The ice in your glass.
But for now I am winter
and the ice that has cemented my lungs and that weighs down my eyes is all I can begin to feel
That and the place that sleep cannot touch- a place in which I cannot breathe.

You tattooed the small of my back every time you took the round about way of saying things
Through your body and through your hands
Calculating our distance and the ways in which we failed our fellow man
Be gentle with yourself
At least be kind to yourself if you can't be to me
Tan lines and sunken eyes
We sit inside the dried up river bed right where the water once ran
dark brown and green
Right where used to swim and play pretend till we could not move our limbs anymore
I told you then I'll tell you now I could never ask for more
Than to be gentle with you
Once more in muddy water
Tripping over stones and catfish
Bruising spines and tender minds
Time be gentle with me
My legs are unsteady and my heart is a bursting ****
Freeing pent up oceans, plant life and messes of men
Time Go easy on me
And you
Walk tender with me
Because you cant help but permeate my body and ink up my soul
In hairline fractures of your brilliance
In jagged cuts of your ignorance
I cannot separate your imprints from me
I cannot clean up these tracks even though I know you'll just leave
I know you're gonna leave
I know you have to leave
But you don't leave me alone
You're everywhere.

Midnight blue stars descend on me tonight.
Clear intentions and dusty attitude I'm in love with the lines of my skin
Hesitant and bold,
I only wanted to own you.
I only wanted to be the ice in your drink.
New years afterthought of the rush of our voices together
The need to be more than just the girl next door
I wanted you, Bruising Smile, to keep in my bedroom for the nights when the stars don't fall
For the nights when my head is too heavy to hold
So I wanted you, Troubled Tongue, to hold in the center of my knowing
To know that I would be all you had to hold
To hold. And to be held.
And like the song says "I've written pages upon pages trying to rid you from my bones,"
And here's the proof: hundreds of pieces of poetry or pages from my journal all pointing back to you
And you haven't left me yet
But, the blush stays while my family bottles new wine on winter's eve
And don't you know you were all I wanted to believe could resonate within my tired form?
Scent like your mother's: safe and warm in your car.
I needed you to be the one but the longing went to far
The girl with the Tangled Teeth just wanted to believe you were hers.
Just wanted to believe you were mine.
It isn't easy wanting after a memory.

I loved you and I lost.

too little too late I sat out watching the embers fall from your bedroom window
and I saw the green glass that falls now across your eyelids
veiling the light and keeping the shadows at bay
and in this
I have begun to realize that every self defense comes with its own side effects
as I watch you seem to not recognize your home
the empty streets bare the same resemblance to the love you used to accept
just let me fill the cracks in your concrete
and the holes in your gate
but we sit side by side not saying anything at all
watching the ash and counting the seconds
or at least I think you do
But whatever is left I will sit and smoke with you in the park
and I will be the slam of your car door as you leave

The feeling sings pleasent discourse between the lengths of my young ribs
Swelling and rising like the tides of the fear I had long forgotten since the blunders my youth
The need
The want
The longing to not be left lonely again.
And I'm spiraling in the wave of the aftermath of your touch
Running scared in the ivory forest hidden under layers of skin in the base of my chest
Screaming with the choirs of my blood that this will not do
This is never enough
This is all that rings out in the cathedral in me
As all I am lifts my hands to the light
And falls to the floor in fear and wonder at the weight of it all
The breath in your being
The swing in your step
All illuminates the war in me
The fight in my own body
Between instinct and reason
Between love and lust
Within this bag of blood there is no trust
And though my wings are clipped I will still fight to fly from this
From this inner turmoil over your teeth
I wanted them and I needed them but now I can barely see
Externally stable but internally battling a boiling sea:
This fear of you and this fear of me.
The feeling wages on.

Bruised ribs I'm sleepless walking down this dusty road
Lost in thought over my dead weight but I just can't shoulder the load
And I tried to run it over my tight tongue in the bathroom
Singing quiet hymns to consol myself praying to god that now isn't too soon
And I see it in my eyes head on in the mirror
I can hear it in my constant questioning trying to understand why the path isn't clearer
But I'm no nearer to understanding than I am to touching my elbow with my tongue
I'm no closer to letting someone in than to embracing who I've become
And my need to run
And I'd like to see the light behind your bright eyes dancing on my skin
I'd like to risk the burn just to try and let you in
Warm arms and broad smile
Sit down and tell me to stay a while
I think I could pause for you
I think I could stop worrying about what I should do
Just staring into your kind eyes
Trying to figure out why that flame never dies
But here I am thin skined thing trying to protect my arteries
Laying alone broken in bed over how others seem to have responded to me
Like I've been sent out to sea on this twin bed in my sleep
Awakened in waves too caught off guard and timid to make that leap
So I'll sink my tired skeleton into the frame work of this mattress
And try to decompress my heavy head and restless mind
They say if you seek you'll find
And I'd like to find that light that lives behind your eyes inside my own skin
I'd like to risk the bruising and breaking just to try and let you in
Warm arms and broad smile
Sit down and tell me to stay a while
I think I could pause for you
I think I could stop worrying about what I should do
Just staring into your kind eyes
Trying to figure out why that flame never dies
But here I stand, Fire eyed girl that I am
spitting venom declaring I belong to no man
I am not who I used be and it's plain to see when I look at you
And think of all the damage I could do
Hoping that maybe some things aren't too good to be true
So if that's true,
And I'd like to see the light behind your bright eyes dancing on my skin
I'd like to risk the bruising just to try and let you in
Warm arms and broad smile
Sit down and tell me to stay a while
I think I could pause for you
I think I could stop worrying about what I should do
Just staring into your kind eyes
Trying to figure out why that flame never dies.

I don't know how
To tell you why
The days move slow
And so do I
Drawn out in your parlor
I am drunk off a memory
I am drink off the thought of putting my fist straight through your head
I can't forget any word of what you said
Honest open I showed you my world and you promised
You promised
But I'm the one you wanted to fill the void no I'm not the one you needed
I was your toy
And the date is set
The bed is made
Your heart is set
And I shouldn't have stayed this long
I'm just too busy picturing a 1000 forms of revenge
While you're too busy talking about the lines of your new dress
Spinning twirling the focus of the party
You talk over me and I sit complacently ready to tear you apart
You took root in my heart and walked away time after time after time
But the difference is that I'm big enough to recognize what fault is mine
So I'm seasick listening to the harrowing details of your relationship with god
All your devoted disciples sit at your feet so isn't it odd that
My fingernails are digging into the inside of my palms
Isnt it strange that
I'm acting like something is wrong
But as you continue to spit **** to all our mutual friends at somebody else's birthday party
I've decided that I will let you have no part of me
And so it's 2am and I'm coming clean in your doorway
I'm a mess of track marks and contraditctions but all I can say is
You're not my fix
No you're not my fix anymore
You're not my fix
I'm not your girl anymore
The date is set but I'm not coming around
No I'm not coming around anymore.

And I pray that the only satin in my coffin
is the green the grass that creeps softly over manicured lawns and hidden wilderness alike
A monument for every day I've walked barefoot and filled with wonder at all that god's green earth encompasses
alive and trembling I have fallen in love with every breath of life from the tangles of ivy to the solitary stars
I move
along with all the horrors and beauties of this life
I breathe
with every fiber of my being
if only to grasp the weight of existence as felt in the simple wonders of this never ending now
so that even when my body protests and my soul lays fallow and barren within my aging vessel I might find peace in the fact that
with every breath I take
I add to the cosmic dance of creation
that I move too with the ancient patterns of the sun
with the birth and death of each coming day I lift my eyes to see all that can be within this endless circle of being
I lift my eyes to see the light
And when my time comes
I will cry up and over and I will breathe my last breath with everything that sings around me
and I will return to the void that I was born from
from dust and light and breath of another
I will return to the start and finish of it all
a place beyond time
a place beyond any need to be
and I finally
simply and purely
just
be.
and so I pray that on that day when my soul leaves my body that the only satin in my coffin is the grass I lay face down in on those rare, tender days when the weight and wonder of it all set in
and I recognized the beauty and terror of it all
we are all just swimming in it
we are all just rolling with the tides
and we must learn to breathe with it
into our up and overs for lifetimes to come.

Isn't it funny how I feel less than feminine
When I'm stalking your tweets in the early am
Inadequacy runs rampant in the chasm of my tender mind
I brush you off again, then tell them all I'm fine

It's been a sorry six years of on and off dependency
I'm trying to understand why relationships get the best of me
I sleep in my clothes and hide the rings around my eyes
Meet you for coffee wait for another part of me to die

I know I run my mouth but
I'm trying to escape the inside of my head
I may not be the hero but
At least I say what needs to be said

Straddling white lines along the highway into town
I don't know what you're thinking about and I don't know where you are
But I know that some part of you waits silently for me
As I wait for you
And they talk of little soul mates like we've already met and I can't help thinking that I don't even know myself yet
Let alone know how to let someone know me
Leave me alone so I can just be.
I am a lantern just collecting light
I am a moth flying blindly in the night
I am a month or two left of routine
I am the face you've never seen
I am hungry for you
And I wait.

Sometimes I like you best when you've got nothing to say
Dog tired, **** out of luck, in the tender hours of the new day
I like the way you stare at the ceiling thinking about God or some feeling
You left long ago in another room back when these days weren't soon
Well we'll see it soon
And I know it hasn't been easy but I'm still thankful for this
Between failing grades and modern crusades this is an ungodly kiss but it's the one we needed just the same
It's  the one we needed after 4 years of destructive games
and this is the happiest I've been in years
Don't bother wiping my tears
I just want to sprawl out on your bedroom floor
Cds and video games spread out all over I am breaking at the core
I just want to talk like we're still in the 10th grade
Young and hopeful full of **** back before the mess was made
Back before we made them
But we keep on making them just the same
And I confess I've never screamed my lungs out like that before
But the fact that I could call you at 1 am no strings attached never meant more
I'm still stuck there on your floor

How the wonder years go

Modern baseball in my passenger seat you didn't say a word
Because you knew I needed just to be and that I needed just to be heard
Still sore from the lessons I had to learn
Still recovering from the bridges I burned
You still listened
And I did too
And I love the early hours of the morning when there is nothing left to say
Because we've been talking for the past four years and I think it's time to call it a day
And even though we can't we might as well try to stay
Just
stay.
for a second at least.

And maybe our relationship was brittle at best but still I trusted anyway and gave you my weight
A naive show of faith in what you gave before I had even stopped to consider what our delicate frame could take
And I don't know if it was god or some old ghost but something brought me back after every single fall
So bruise by bruise I somehow in my blind eyed optimism convinced myself that you were worth it all
That somehow there was something cosmicly important in the way you entered and filled a room
But I let you into every part of me before I was ready to be known I let you in too fast and far too soon
So now I keep myself up at night picking at our past trying to find the places I fell through
And I think it's pretty telling that whenever i tried to open up you only heard what applied to you
And I couldn't hate you
I couldn't condemn you to hell
But I can't love you
And I can't wish you well
Some things have to burn out on their own
But I never learned to leave fire alone.

God's green earth runs full between us
Late nights spent sipping on new wine and dreaming of all the ways we capsized
I don't sleep in anymore
I just chase your memory down the hallway
And I memorize all the lines you were so proud of
Rolling off my tongue in admiration of your thin limbs and Forrest mind
It's a shame the cancer stars hung low over you
In a way I guess it made sense
Retreating to your best friend sleep less and **** up
It's a pretty thing to grow up
It's a pretty thing to love the moon girl after she leaves you to gather dust
It's a pretty thing to have given your all only to find you turned to dust
Right down to our devotion we are the same
Steeped in isolation and dead leaves we were born out of the same fabric
And though the wall runs through our hands it's still thin enough to hear you sing
And I save all your shimmering tunes in the hymnal under my bed to sing for a better day
And in a different way
I'll chase you down again.

You can't survive on energy drinks and all nighters alone,
You need someone to love you too.

Life is such a mess.

And I walked through the fire and watched everything I held so tight burn
Warm hearts consumed by flame and that's how I learned
That the fire's been inside of me all along
That the fight has been what's been keeping me strong
Don't tell me I'm wrong
I know
I know
I know I'm right
And you do too.
And what did you expect from me? To quietly mold into the shape you liked best
To forfeit my destiny and roll over and sit back like the rest
I am not like those other girls before
I am not going to give myself up anymore
Not going to sit back shut up watch you dictate my place
I don't know what you wanted but I'm not just another pretty face
And it may not seem like some new reveltation but I am not some gentle flame
I am not some timid child waiting for you desperately to call my name
I don't wait for anything or anyone anymore
Is my spirit still gentle? Is my love still the same?
Is the change in me frightening? because I'm not the same
I'm not the same
I'm not the same
Let the flames wrap around my limbs and take you far away from me
Let fire consume all impurities and old scars until I am free
And I am free
Free
Free to be
Free from you and free from the fear of me
I was once blind but now I see,
I am who I need to be.

And I think it's time to face facts
That I don't really want to meet anyone new.
I just want the friends I had back when who folds what what time are you coming if you're even coming at all
was all that ever mattered
I just want you.

Quiet nights in my bed and family dinners all drive me deeper into myself
I spend my the majority of my time alone lost in Facebook memoirs and tributes to friends that never lasted through the storm
I am not sick in my heart I am trying to be well again
Trying to meet your gaze from across the room
To be able to accept your half assed companionship like any other functioning human who can summon up a smile to cover up the sparking of their discontent
But I can't hide it from you
And you know it as I watch you from across the room
That I am unwell with no intention of wishing you well
I gave that up last week
And this poem wasn't supposed to be about you but you are as much apart of me as the pen in my hand
A medium of my discontent
The serpent in my head
This wasn't meant to offend just meant to voice what I never said to you on that hill back in the depth of spring
And I can see it now
I can watch myself drunk breaking the glass against the wall on your wedding day
Cursing your name on the stage
It's a rocky road I'm on but lately I've been feeling my age
And 18 isn't kind
And even though we once breathed in tandem I'm not ashamed to tell you that I want everything you've got
Just to burn it before your eyes
Just to make up for all the white lies we've both said in common pleasantries
It isn't you it's me
Echos through the back of my mind
I am not fine
And you know it
The disaster in the cornor of the room aiming slowly gunning for you
What a joy it is to be the town drunk on your graduation day
You can leave this town but you're still bound to your age
And it isn't pretty but I've begun to embrace the abomination that I am
The screaming mess of crooked teeth no one can **** it up like I can
I don't need you
Except to write about when the quiet nights and family dinners threaten to strangle me
I am through with quiet complacency
Through with the regret breeding in me
In this there is no peace
In this I exist inside of me
Trapped within my skin
At least I'll never let you in.

If I could devour this whole city to keep you inside of me I would

And there's breath in everything
From champagne glasses to the long ride home
Flying down some golden highway singing of all that is lost only to find that my hands are far from empty
And I am fully feeling again
Scraping the tapestry of the night with my bare hands through the open window
Skin tinted gold
Soul whit hot accentuated by street lights and lack of sleep
And it's over.
It's over and done
It's a short dash to that finish line and I can taste the blood in my mouth
Finally reconciled with the fire within me I am only just beginning
I am only just getting started
So before I finish
Let me just set to flame every lie I ever let under my skin
Let me purge my body of every misconception or deception I took into my ribs with quiet reserve and called my own
I may be young but I've grown since then
And I won't pretend to be any less than myself  
I won't pretend to be the quiet shell of a girl who couldnt take her eyes off the ground or raise her head to stand up straight
That girl is dead
She died,
Not peacefully
But in a forrest fire
A fire that ravaged the wilderness inside of her and lay her bones bare on the blackened earth.
So if you're looking for all that she was,
You won't find her here.
You'll only find the fire that tore her apart
And the breath,
The same breath that binds everything together,
Stitched safely in between her ribs.

Existential doubt is cool or whatever but I know I'm not the first to freak out about breath
I know I'm not the first one to even wonder what the hell is death
I don't have to be the first
I just want to be the last thing on your mind
They say you've gotta learn to loose and to bind
And it's easy to bounce around these thoughts alone in my room
But every time I attempt to let someone in its always too soon
And I could write about the shape of existence or the tension of time and space
But I'm not getting any younger and I'm a too frightened to let any time go to waste
And I'm not sure what's left for me in this little town but I'm sure I'll figure it out in time
I'm not sure who I am anymore but I am doing my best to be fine
And I wonder where I'm going to be when I see you again
If I'll be stronger and wiser or if I'll have met my end
And even now I still think about the days spent on the edge of your knife
The nights alone the mornings crying the unwilling and unrelenting life
Falling leaves graveyard scenes I lost my mind on my 18th birthday
Confused and crying in the backseat I can still taste what I couldn't say
you never wanted me anyway
And Existential doubt is cool or something but I know I'm not the first to freak out about the need for breath
I know I'm not the first one to even wonder what the hell is death
I don't have to be the first
I just want to be the last thing on your mind
The last thing you see before you go blind
I know you'll follow me down just the same.
I just want a chance to look at you and sing what I never had a chance to say:
I never asked for you anyway.

And everything inside me is connected
From the isolation to the need to be in constant contact with everyone I've ever loved or seen
And I don't know what all this change means
All I know is that something in me is different than it ever was before and the rate at which the change comes is staggering and I am drowning trying to understand these new tides within me
From that still small place i learned to find peace in on those endless drives home
To that raging waring firestorm brewing in the base of my ribs threatening to consume everything and everyone I once called good but have since fallen from my hopeful hands

And I can't be by myself
But I can't be with my old friends either
I can't see inside myself
But neither can anyone else

And all I am gets wrapped up into some great swirling question that hovers over me as I sleep
calling forth the dreams I pushed so far down inside of myself that I mistook them for muscle mass or grey matter
And they rise up one by one and take my tired form between their teeth and remind me of why I buried them in the first place
Every failure or failing of my systems systematic switch screen horror stories of the terrible creature I once was
And I don't make much sense anymore
But I don't know if I even want to try to understand
Disconnect of fact or fiction I am a swirling contradiction stuck in static addictions fighting each new wave of self in fear and trembling
and in fear and trembling I reach with timid hands to grasp the veil about the face of my spirit
Calling out the life in me and raising up the dead
So that I may see what it is that is truly taking place within my head.

I am here (at a party I don't like)
I am there (at the scene of the accident holding my own hand)
It doesnt matter what they say it will never feel like home
It doesn't matter what they say they won't stay
It doesn't matter how you feel you'll be over it in the next few years