You flicker on, like a lighthouse's lamp in the darkness.
You are the sun, when the sun goes cold, under the earth.
A shimmer of warmth that glows. That burns.
Drawing cold weary souls like moths to your flame, calling the strays, to your hearth.
Colored, shifting lights, soft on sore tired eyes, you are safe harbor to any and all,
your wings a shelter.
From harsh, flickering streetlamps, and solid shadow, a figure in the charcoal, in the smoke, in the night.

You are wisps and sparks, scattered, shifting, embers turning in the pitch.
You ache like hunger,
like yearning,
like wonder.
Bite like the blistering cold, draped like frost, ache like bones ages old

It has become a recurring theme for fathers to abandon their children
Leaving dust in their wake.
Carving out their children's hearts by their own hands, from absence, from an abundance of control.
Engraving a broken legacy of neglect and corrupted vigilance into the flesh and bones of their children, a path warped from dysfunction and lies.
It's a long standing debate, if the ones that leave, are as much to blame as the ones who stay, inflicting pain like plague that sets deep in the heart, left rotting and unattended.
As if they've forgotten you’re their lineage.
As if one day you won't be the only evidence that he existed at all.
23 of his chromosomes reside in your genetic structure.
I know what he gave me, which ugly pieces of myself belong to him, what he created, this ridge on my nose and the lies he spoke.
I still catch his words in my head, pouring out, thick like poison, hanging heavy on my lips like lemon and honey, too sweet or too bitter I can't tell.
I live only knowing that the truth of what I am left with is a lesson often I find too hard to swallow

My life is a battleground
I’ve led thousands of recon missions to reclaim the parts of me that in my younger years of captivity beneath tyranny’s reign, were ripped from me by the velvet gloved steel palms of my father.
I have been trapped beneath crumbling buildings of my own deteriorating self image, railroaded and betrayed at every turn
There is difficulty in moving forward, when years of debris weigh heavy on your back
Not the wreckage of my life, only his, burdens bestowed, yet not belonging, I was convinced were mine.
I made attempts to be smaller to fit into the shape of what was expected, to abide by his will
Belief, blossomed that perhabs, if I was small enough I could escape their notice,
Shrinking, I've found, is impossible,  instead I grew. Unfolding like each arc of the universe, too myself, and what he made me, to escape discovery
My father fed into my problem and let me expand
He wrote his mistakes into my skin, sunk an arrow of shame deep into my heart, until the pain was too great to remove it, he kissed his sorrow into my forehead and told me everything would get better, though poison of his actions had set my blood, my thoughts

Playing favorites, professing conditional love, I was made to fight, as if I was not worthy enough oh my own.
Simultaneously his reassurances made life all the more difficult, while my brothers and I, struggled against one another in hopes of catching his attention...
His approval....
His love
the wounds I was given me made me wise, it's best to believe that suffering does not make you kind.
It offers only a mirror, to hold up beside your past self, a means of reflection.
I’ve learned that struggle is how nature strengthens us, to humble myself and rid pride from my existence in order to hone my edges
That the twisted way he loved, was the only way he knew how, the only way he was taught. It gives perspective, and no comfort.

He never delved into lessons of battle and strife, but the art of war was not lost on me.
I waged wars with my brothers, raised my resolve, fortified my defenses, barred doors and closed hatches, rained verbal airstrikes against them. Fighting back was never a question of strength, only desire, the strong pieces of me, that grew when no light could be found.
I have taught myself how to hold a gun to my enemies intellect, to cut skin with the blade of my tongue, brandish a knife to my own skin to cut out the destruction of a dysfunctional youth, I catch razors between my teeth as I fought off, as I continue to fight off the onslaught of my own self hatred that rolls over me like tidal waves, uprooting foundations.
I am a rock to break the rushing wall of water, I will rise again, my islands will drain themselves of the bitter taste of sea salt and blood

If you look in the debris of my youth, my heart will show you
The lands of my mind and my body will be mine again, I am the king of myself,
I will reign again.
My rebellion is one incapable of being quelled
I will fight myself until I can take back every part of me that I lost.

I tried to be a girl today
Painted my nails red and blue so I’d stop biting them
Tried to be pretty
With unbrushed hair and acne and calloused fingers
The nailpolish chipped off and I peeled it away
My hands wrecking the paint in place, colors end up beyond the lines of my hand, its everywhere, its ugly, Its suffocating, I take it off.
I want to say its a metaphor,
Something about how I cant cover up what I am with pretty colors and shiny surfaces.
It’s got to be indicative of future and past behavior about how I mess up preconceived ideas or something about how I break the molds that others try to put me in,
It happens every time.
It smudges, curve of fingers, grooves imprinting the paint with traces that I am there
Breaking the construct of beauty
I feel I cant say its anything more than smudged paint, despite how true the metaphors would be
Nothing more honest than the disfigured coverup and what lies beneath

I tried to be human today
Felt alien in my own skin
Wounded as I fought the judgement of a species I dont feel I belong to.
According to my mother I am an enemy of God for finding a temporary yet more beautiful love with her than I’ve found with a man.
I tried to be who you wanted, it never worked then, dont expect it to work now.
The mold that was casted does not, has not ever fit me.
I’d apologize for failing your expecations but theres no apologizing for finding solace amidst the storm.

I’ve spent hours of my weekdays and weekends awake with you till moonlight fled and early sunlight touched the inside of my curtains. I know the flush on your face and and every the note of your bubbling laughter and the way your cheeks dimple when you smile like you were engraved into my skin
8 months of my life have been spent sailing blissful seas in this peace we call unconditional love
I’ve never touched you though your body crashes down on mine like waves when they reach the shore and yet I have touched you, built a home inside your heart the way you’ve built a home in mine
I touched you when we aligned the jagged edges of our fraying hearts together
Like the first strike of lightning in a thunderstorm, you are the electricity within my molecules, you are protons to my neutrons and electrons, balancing my equations with just the sound of my name leaving your lips. I cant touch metal without getting shocked
I’m shocked because I never knew I could love you this much
Never knew that you could spin me off my tilting axises and stabilize my twisting alterations bring calm to my internalized cataclysmic operations like a surgeon
My chest is a gaping chasm spanning into oblivion, my ribs the rafters over your head providing shelter and strength when yours fails
You’re like pandoras box but instead of letting out all the evils in the world when you’re opened you spill out infinite patience and adoration
You think the world of me and I know I’ve done nothing to deserve it but **** do I appreciate it,
I love you like dewdrops and grass love sunlight, like birds love the feeling of wind ruffling between their feathers
I love you like endless oceans of stars reaching towards forever, comprised of infinity and nebulas all twisting within my veins to create the single resonating song of your existence
Like we’d bumped into each other and mixed up our sheet music but somehow the two together made an even more beautiful noise than they did on their own
You are 11 hours away and in a month you’ll be even farther, I know you’re coming back  after the summer, continuing another year, 11 will be the number between our beds, the number of galaxies between my arms and yours, the amount of seconds I’ll have to wait when I see you before I scoop you into my arms
11 is the date of our monthly anniversaries and the number of times I’ll be kissing your lips to make sure you’re there when I hold you
11 is the number of times I’ll squeeze your hand, I’ll glance at you from the corner of my eyes, the number of stupid but silly jokes I crack to get you to smile, the number of beginnings and sonorous melodies
You are more mesmerizing than rainbows caused by moonlight, blue eyes deep as the vast void of space engulfing me in indigo flames, you shimmer like the scales of dragons and guppies, just as cute and magnificent,  
I wish I could paint constellations depicting your smile yet somehow I think even that would fail to do you the justice... No feat so great could profess my love as truly or as meaningful as sharing my heart with you,
There is no greater feeling of divinity than to whisper my devotion and have you know I mean it with every beat of my heart...
I could spend all of my weekends and weekdays awake with you till moonlight flees and sunlight touches the inside of my curtains

There is an ever growing forest within my chest, viridescent canopies endlessly reaching towards powder blue skies like hands extended upwards in prayer
Vividly mesmerizing flowers of imagination and life bloom in scattered unmarked paths for meandering souls
Sadness flows in endless fountains pouring forth rapidly rushing streams of velvet indigo and starlight
Crumbling riverbanks signal the beginnings of tentative doubts
I’ve become aware of the weight of heavy shackles curling around my wrists like thick vines and ivy twisting over old bricks
Nature reclaiming my insides, society disdaining and threatening to capture and drag me beneath the underbrush
I feel the unmistakable pang of hopelessness nesting its thorns just below my ribcage, etching itself into my skin like stonemasons carving their legacy into mountain faces
My body is sacred ground, a temple of an apathetic deity who’s staked ownership over the emotions that run deep like ocean currents in my veins
My heart pumps opalescent despair, washing up on the shores like waves on new sands of lands I’ve yet to see
My forest lays on an island within the bermuda triangle, unreachable by sea or sky
My emotions act as geomagnetic pulses and methane vents to  confuse your aeronautical and sea faring instruments,  causing your vessels to come crashing down and sinking into the vast expanse of rolling royal blue unknown
I exist for the sole purpose of straining inspiration and failing aspirations
Those inky black buds slowly unfurling in the core of my being, remnants giving way to wilting foliage, petals listless at my feet, eroding with the will of misery and time with vibrant colors burning to ashen corpses
With my lips I inspire hope, yet my own lack thereof hollows me out like rotting jack o lanterns
with light flickering despondently through gaping hole, my eyes, liquid light vaguely sauntering downwards, softly dripping into my hopeful reserves like torrential rain
Drumming like the thrumming of my rushing blood in my ears and the powerful thunder of waterfalls cascading in the distance, returning to earth from their perpetual perch atop towering mountains
A jungle of my own endless shame carves me like a sculpture, eroding me like oceans and cliff faces over thousands of years, with fear uncoiling like deep blue carpets of jagged glass running like rivers, squeezes the paralyzing uncertainty into my blood like an injection. Turmoil joins self loathing, they loom above like my own personal berlin wall, disappearing into the white clouds composed of nervousness and doubt, separation from all I long to aspire to on the other side

It was just you and I the moment dawn tinged the edge of the sky with vibrant colors.
Our backs to the rest of the world, we were fighters, two friends battling the rest of humanity though we knew we could only trust each other.
Together we faced the perils of depression and loneliness with our hands clasped, eyes locked, hearts synced.
Questioning reality frequently, wondering if there was another world out there where we knew one another. Another place much kinder, more open to our dreams.
We stood over the shadows in the abyss and shone so brightly we blinded the sun.
I taught you how to dance, to kiss, to exist in ways you were awkward to at first. I can recall moments in time when you didn’t mind the ****** way my hair had turned a fiery shade of orange because that's what happens when you mix plum and blonde.
On the 4th of July in the elementary school parking lot 2 years ago you tried to convince me that this reality was false.
Delivering this ideal with such conviction and intelligence you almost succeeded.

Sometimes I dream that you were right.

I step back to reflect upon your face and the deep pensive blue of your eyes.
I remember how sometimes your hands were clammy and even though I thought that was gross I still held them.
We cuddled close during movies, any opportunity, thriving off the attention and affection, as if a physical touch could possibly be enough to heal our broken parts.
What naive, blind hopeful creatures we were.
I gave the credit of opening my eyes and my heart to someone else when in all reality it was you, with your gentleness and soft uncertain voice and warm fingers twined with mine.

There were summers spent indecisively deciding if I wanted to keep you in my life like you wanted me in yours.
Times where I dragged both our hearts through rocks and glass trying to decide what the hell was going on, what I wanted, what was best.
Moments where our friendship caused us more internal stress and agony than it did peace.
As it dwindled toward a drawn out end I had a revelation, knew what it was doing..
had done, to you.
Its a hard thing to recognize your own toxicity when desperately clinging to friendships, what we both wanted was killing us, slowly but surely, closing in with thorns around our throats, hands, hearts,  

I still remember when the sun began to burn us back and our light flickered and dimmed against its harsh rays. The tightness of our  fingers clasped slowly went lax,
I gave you room to pull away, but for some reason you held fast,  clung to my fingers like invisible strings held us together, like you’d die if I wasnt there to hold you.
Your emotional state continued to compromise itself, worsening the longer we were tied to one another.
This left us with a single choice, the alternative was unacceptable
A decision that would flush our exposed hearts clean with a acid fire and erode our hands till they fell apart and broke away.

Mountains trembled and crumbled beneath my feet, I feigned my gaze to different horizons and I hoped, that in time yours would too.
I ruined us.
Ripped our stitches messily out until we bled clear
Our voices cracking like crumbling cities, structures breaking with distress, shaking with the magnitude of the San Francisco earthquake that set fire to an entire coast
How we failed to make something permanent in a time when we knew nothing lasted, how we'd attempted in vain to pursue and maintain something destined to break.