Today I stopped believing I was a good man
I know about these demons
All of them by name
The vices they have gifted me
Conversing with my addictions
Making plans for the future
And tightening the chains

Today I stopped believing I was a good man
I've identified all the leaks in my hull
Letting the Atlantic rush on in
Duct tape can not fix every hole
That you have left in me

Today I stopped believing I was a good man
I do not care about this body anymore
Wishing to rid myself of it
Liberation will be the song I shall dance to
Once this heart has forgotten it's rhythm
And my blood pumps in tune again

I'm homesick when you're not with me.

What day is today?
I haven't done much sleeping.
          I can't guess that look on your face...
     I pass right through you --
       Or you through me.
                                      ...The feeling is the same,
                                No matter the details.

          "The invisible hand,"
                                They say it guides us all.
            That, in combination
                                                  With your well measured affection,
                                           Is perhaps why I feel
                                                    so small.

Bleed in to me
If I cut myself open and peal back the layers
Will you come inside
Can I fold you into me

Pretty little dolls
With their makeup on
and their clothes just right

I once was a pretty little doll.
I wore my makeup.
Had my pretty clothes
and my hair done nice.

But I was still never liked.
No no.
Never an ideal,
Society didn't want to play with me
I was not to their standard still
I was looked down on by Barbie.

She was the pretty little doll I could never seem to be.
... I don't want to play dolls anymore.

I hope you're happy
And I mean that.
It seems to me my hair is now longer
My pants are no longer darker
And you live a little farther.
Now happy is not black and white
Happy was spelled with a Y
Back in junior high.
Today it's spelled with a joint
A bottle of jack, Oh, I forgot the exclamation point.
In the end it seems okay.
It's been ten years, for some four, for some less.
Nothing can break us, nevertheless.
It wasn't like the movies and it wasn't like the books.
Some got lost,
and we don't exchange looks.
But I won't forget the windows down,
The music loud.
I hope it meant to you what it meant to me,
And I hope you're happy.

If you give a girl a with a big heart your broken pieces,
she will gently pick them up and carry them in her soft hands,
and pay no mind to your sharp edges.
She will try to glue you back together
and she’ll do it in a way that made you forget you were ever broken.
With scratched finger tips and ****** palms,
she’ll lift you up to the sun,
letting it's blinding rays shine through you
to show you that even the worst things have things to love in them
and that even the shattered can again be whole.

If you give a girl with a big heart your body,
she will study you like an archaic God.
She will learn your curves and surfaces like braille,
she will adjust her hearing to the pitch of your laughter
so that no matter how far apart you become,
her ears will perk up like a dog's when you giggle,
and she will smile, knowing that you smile.

If you give a girl with a big heart your time,
she will make each second feel like infinity,
and each sunset like the end of the world.
You'll forget that the universe is as vast and wondrous as it is,
because you will be so captivated by the light that she emits
right where she sits,
by your side.

And if you take from a girl with a big heart,
please,
for the love of God,
do not take it all.

If you take from a girl with a big heart,
please remember that her love is not a renewable resource.
The wind and the sun and the water will forever be there to serve you but
she will run dry, and become another fact of history that will one day be forgotten.

If you take from a girl with a big heart,
please remember how sharp your edges were before her,
how lifeless your body was before she touched it,
and how meaningless time was before she made it into something magical.

I write my name
My label, my identifier
My word, my definer
I write my name
And it looks wrong, outgrown
Do I have the power, the control
The grip
To change it

Get a grip
Stop slipping
State the facts
Stop tripping

You’re 17 and you’re young
You’re 17 and you have metal in your head
You’re 17 and you have metal taste
Stuck on your tongue
Dripping off when you talk
Forming the puddles in which you walk
Pooling in words that burn
They are a curse slipping through the smile
That reaches your eyes
Only because you painted it there

With brown eyes you can't make friends
With brown eyes you cried until you couldn’t
With brown eyes you smile like it’s free
You quit dancing
You quit schooling
You quit pretending
You started pretending

I am not the same as the infant born 17 years ago
I am not the same as the name that they gave me
I am not the same as the others that held my name
I am separate from that title
I am something new, beyond
Something true and someone gone

Scar after scar twinkles in the light
Hair after hair is torn out every night
What do you call a work in progress
Incomplete is not my name
I am not quite obsolete
To many I appear petite
To many I should just retreat
What a privilege to be given something to cling to that you never desired to own
No, rain is not the same as snow

A name is not a name
My name is not my name
It is a label I stole from fame
Nicole Kidman is not my role model
But her role was my model
My mother was her model on set
But this is a stage on which we are players
And I will not give a verse a name that is not of my own creation
I will not credit the broken, glue-coated, splinters of myself
To some foreign and separate person
No, not to someone else

My father hit me.
Hands strangling my neck.
I was just a kid,
he said it was my fault,
I believe that it was.
He said I didn't deserve to live,
I believe that too.
I believe his screams
and the bruises he laced my body with
I believe his words
that I'm nothing
that I'm garbage.
I blame that monster
for breaking something inside me
that 7 years later is still not repaired.

I blame her for never calling the cops.
For calling me a liar
for telling me I gave the bruises to myself.
for making me feel guilty.
I blame her for telling me she wished I was one of her miscarriages
I blame her for telling me I'm good for nothing
for telling me I'm fat
for telling me,
like him,
I deserve to die.

I blame them
for the anxieties
and anger
and fears
and panic
and the scars on my heart.

I'm scared of the world.
I'm scared of it's people.
I need help.
I'm dying.
slowly.
quickly.
steadily.
and not at all.

I feel everything,
every word
every breath
is a dagger to what once was a heart
when every day
you're told you're wrong
you're told you're a mistake-
an inconvenience-
that could never be loved
it takes an effect
you cannot fight
and just when I think
maybe I can get better
a single word
sends me spiraling
dying
crying
suffocating
and scared
wishing someone would touch me
in a kind, gentle way
would hug me till I fall asleep
and love me
even though I cry a lot.

I was told
the blame was on me
that I ruin
and poison
everything I touch,
but I blame them,
so much so
I can't get better,
so maybe we're both to blame.