They think I am normal
if they even think of me at all.
But oh, if only they know
my mind is
black and frying
grey and booming
white and blinding
brown and dying
purple and bruising
blue and flashing
green and living
yellow and shining
orange and glowing
red and bleeding
pink and kissing
chaotic
amazing
too much
for me
to
handle

I checked my coat pockets
but I can't seem to find
my motivation.
where did it go?
nothing but scraps and an imagination filled my drawers
I call for it
or I try to
my voice is a faint mist across the mountain tops
"motivation," my sigh escapes
"come back
I can't seem to find you
anywhere
and I
want to
stop looking."

buckets of water fell from the sky,
some would call it an angel's tears.
great booms struck the sky
vibrating in her toes
as if she were at a bowling alley.
the sky sometimes lit up
with crooked purple flashes.
the story weather
matched her stormy mood

the reason why
some people hate poetry
is because we tell the  t
                                         r
                                             u
                                                  t
                                                      h

which is what they most fear.

the night sky looks sickeningly beautiful to an insomniac.

poetry is the only escape from the nightmare we call living.

the words are so hard, that they chip my teeth
they feel unnatural on my swollen pink tongue
there are too many, that all want to come out at once
so I choke on them, saliva rushing out past my gums
my lips split and blood gushes down my chin
leaving rust marks on the pale milky skin.

It is the color of clasped hands,
of disease spreading through the town-
clogging the throats of young children,
making mothers scream and curse their God.

it is the color of dropping eyes,
of rubber bones and leaden limbs-
struggling to raise their arms for a chance of victory,
making bodies collapse and smack the concrete.

it is the color of tight lips,
of darting eyes flitting from face to face-
wondering who to trust with the heaviness,
making heads spin and sweat drip.

it is the color of the aftermath
of scars trailing up and down your once soft skin-
crossing up and down your limbs, carrying guilt,
making young boys and girls howl at the moon

he drew constellations on her skin in the finest, darkest wisps of his soul.

you are so very inconsiderate
you do not taste the sweetness of their
s o u l s  like I do
you do not savor the ice from a man's veins,
cooling your white bone snappers
like I do
you do not study a blue green brown black red purple yellow orange
i r i s
like I do.
you do not live
with other people's hearts
deeply set
in your marred palms
like I do.

we keep them in cardboard boxes
old and frayed
with holes poked in the sides
so the gut wrenching wisps of
a flashback
can sneak out
and attack us
in the middle of the night

I knew a boy who liked to draw people
(with guns pressed to their temples and blades at their wrists)
he liked to tell stories
(about a girl with a chafed neck swinging from her closet)
sometimes he wrote these stories down and submitted then to the school newspaper
(but no one likes stories about sunset thighs)
they thought he was crazy
(did you hear- let us chat now now now)
but he was not crazy
(just suicidal)

the tears
are the worst part
of depression.

the choking
the little sobs that sneak out
making you feel         p a t h e t i c .

you wipe your eyes
rubbing them raw
and wait for them to stop leaking.

though
it
takes
a
while
.

the knock was loud and booming
my bones vibrated under my skin
I twisted the **** under my palm
and let my monsters in.

there is no feeling equivalent to that of scribbling your thoughts down in a crowded public train.

I say I am okay
I am peaceful
blue waves slipping on to gritty blankets

but I know, deep down inside,
that Hysteria is bubbling on the edges of Her cauldron
she crackles and tells me to think of Her

she is lava
scalding and burning your tongue
lapping at the edges of my heart

I try to shove her away
but she eats my fingertips
exposing white bone

"lovely," my voice seeps out
under 3 blankets and 4 layers of darkness
"don't leave. I'd be empty without you."

and her carefully planned words leak in to my ear,
"darling," comforting in the chasm
"I'd never leave you."

I'm going to rip my insides open
and bleed out drugs and cigarette ash.
watch my face contort in to pain
without my ink and guts.

at night the insomniacs come out to play

they grab fistfulls of their hair and howl at the moon.

the day you died,
was also the day
that I died.
the only difference is
that you're six feet underground
and I'm a ghost
trapped in an ugly shell.

my eyebrows raise
at their
insurmountable
abundance of
ignorance.

my mind is a mess
of spilled ink and fluttering pages
of nameless faces and faceless names
of pink sunsets and choking waves
of dying grips with icy flesh
if spreading smiles with no conviction
of e v e r y t h i n g .
and it is too much to handle.

So delicate
Fragile
A glass figurine, standing on tiptoe
Frozen in a ballerina's dance
One gentle tap
And it shatters
Glass shards
Cover every surface
Digging in to the soles of the feet
Surrounding it.

Even through the wars,
When society kicked my feet out from under me,
Even when my knees were scraped and bloodied,
When hot fire tears burned my chapped lips,
Even when I snapped like a worn rubber band,
Whipping your skin and making you yelp,
Even when my words were dipped in poison with barb wired tips,
You were there.

You,
With your white silk feathers,
And permanent glow,
And undying flames in the hushed snow.
You,
Holding out your hands,
Palms facing the sky,
Pulling me off the dusty floor, covered with glass shards.

The words are too hard
To leave my soft lips,
So I write a quiet message
That should be screamed from rooftops:

Thank you.

moonlight reflects
and your skin glitters
like the stars.
you are translucent,
I see the icy chill of your veins-
a striking blue
against the ghostly surface.

an apparition,
contrasted against the dark ink
of the 2 am sky.

i can feel the string threaded beneath
the thin skin on the inside of my wrist
it is my substitute veins
full of nothing but nothingness (so sim
ple) and I want to burst in to
a million trillion pieces of brightly colored
tissue paper that is not meant for noses
but the string becomes tighter
and tighter
and tighter still
until I feel the cotton ***** stuffed down my throat
and my lungs are constricted and set aflame
I can not find my sharpened scissors
let me check the other drawer

ink smudges stain
my callused
fingertips.

my lungs are whispering
softly, quietly
telling me secrets they heard
from my heart's beating
i cover my ears
trying to block out the murmurs
but the words slip past the gaps in my fingers
and slither in to my ears

my breath fogs up the glass,
wet vapor forming puffs
on the surface.
I raise my hand
and pound,
the sound is deafening
but the boom is only in my ears.
for they are separated
they hear only
the warm flickering candles
that smell like apple cinnamon.
the glass is chilled
against my closed fist
it freezes my fingers
and glues them together
but I know
that it is warm
loke their heavy breaths
on the other side.
I scream
but at the same time
they joyously laugh
and their happiness
drowns out my pain

I am your canvas,
your lips are the brush.
decorate me with bruises
the colors of the universe.

sometimes he'd sit in his room
feet on opposite thighs
holding a kitchen k n i f e
tightly in both palms
ready to a t t a c k
the m o n s t e r s
if they got too close
to his q u a k i n g
shoulders.

my words are a way to scrape my insides
and bleach them clean
without the foul odors.

1.
'poem'
swish the world around
notice how it rolls off your tongue
it leaves a faint mystery behind
urging you to follow the clues given
find the wonder and magic

2.
a 'poem'
is a heart
dissected and laid out on the cold, metal table
for all eyes to see
or for no one to see
it is there,
just to feel pretty...

3.
a 'poem'
is a newborn life
full of light
and dreaded
(yet welcomed)
darkness

4.
it is a beauty
like no other

they check the arms for angry crisscrossing trails

but they never look anywhere else.

my bones slowly rot
as if the second hand smoke
inhaled through my nostrils
stained my insides brown
and made them crumble.

I think I finally found a person
worthy of my metaphors.

I will say he is sunshine after a long week of rain.

I leak butterflies from the slits I'm my wrists
their wings flutter against my palms.

she missed the red hot trails
covering her thighs and bones.

they were her  a r t w o r k .

someone  c u t
off my crisp white wings
with a pair of
broken
rust covered
scissors

they ignored my desperate  p l e a s
and cries for help
and shouts of
"you are destined for hell!"

they left me  b l o o d y
with stinging tears dripping from swollen corneas
and scratch marks littering my and
and sunsets blooming on my thighs

I am
n o t h i n g
but the body
s t u m p s
on my back

There was once a man made of beer bottles.
they clanked together as he walked
and the sound echoed for miles.
his mind was hazy and full of slush.
the bottles' weight made it difficult to walk.
and he could not hear his wife's screaming

                   his daughter's sobbing

his son's pleading

over those **** clanking bottles.

the empty static
on the old boxy television
show the sorrow
of a million lost souls.

life is an opportunity with skies filled with pink, showing us we can be whoever we need to be.

and I absolutely
hate
the way my voice
shook
as if an earthquake suddenly
struck.
and I absolutely
hate
how I had to
pause
and swallow the
words
that wanted to
escape.
and I absolutely
hate
the way I looked
away
so you would not see the
pain
hidden in my
eyes.
and I absolutely
hate
how much I absolutely
hated
myself in that
moment.

every night
I am scared to close my eyes

for the fear
that I may never wake up again
is so overwhelming.

she paints the sunrise
at 2 a.m.
when all is dark.
the colors
will forever remain
blazing in her memory.
— dreamer

I am nothing but a bag of unnecessary rocks slung over your shoulder. I am nothing but the wisps of smoke drifting from a cigarette, slowly fading as I travel in to the night. I am nothing but the cracks on a stranger's windshield after their hit and run- a flashback that will bring pain and guilt in to your shell. I am nothing but a hindrance, a fleeting thought, a horrid memory.

beautiful words weaved with the ugly
to form a
p o e m .

words
are the blood
in my thin
yet bulging
                              veins.

sometimes I wonder
about him
and if he really gave up on me
or if I pushed him away myself.

you see the scars
but not the reasons.

life is an inevitable sadness ready to cascade around our shoulders and swallow us whole.