.

Always pack a toothbrush. Your mom isn’t always going to be around to remind you
2. Treat yourself like your favourite character. You never hated her flaws, they made her perfect to you.
3. Your mother is always a viable excuse as to why you can’t go somewhere.
4. If you can’t cry in front of your partner, break up with them.
5. Learn to change the oil in your car. Your dad won’t always be around to do it for you.
6. Laughing during *** is necessary.
7. Learn to make phone calls. They ****. Your mom won’t be around to make them for you.
8. Vote for the lesser evil.
9. Your sibling(s) literally have the same DNA make up as you. Be kind to them, you never know when you might need a kidney.
10. Call your mom. She isn’t always going to be around to answer.

Twenty-one: they called me in the middle of the night, the hospital smelled stale, like death and frustration and hope. Twenty-one: the woman who was supposed to cry at my wedding is gone, leaving me with only a tox screen that says her blood alcohol was at least four times the legal limit and the wreckage of a car wrapped around a pole. The police officer said there were no skid marks. My world falls out from under my feet... Twenty: we’re not talking. She’s picked him over me once again so we’re taking a break. She left a voicemail about Christmas but I don’t think I’m ready to face her yet. Nineteen: I’m travelling around Europe when my brother calls. She’s in the hospital because her boyfriend pushed her down a flight of stairs. I’m on a the first plane home, terrified that he’s the only one at her bedside. Nineteen: I’m leaving to start my life. Nineteen: she promises me that she’s going to leave him.
Eighteen: she tries to promise she’s better. Seventeen: silence. Sixteen: I move out without telling her. My entire life packed into a single dufflebag. It’s hard to breathe. Fifteen: we go on a vacation to Disney World - she slaps me across the face in the middle of the park. He tells me to stop being such a baby and grow-up. I can feel the ground beneath my feet starting to crumble. Fifteen: I cry myself to sleep to the sound of screaming. Fourteen: a pan flies through the air at my head. He screams at my brother and me as if he’s our father. Thirteen: his kids have stopped talking to him. Mom told us that it’ll be okay. He left angry and drunk last night. Twelve: my mom found out I like a girl tonight. She won’t look at me so, instead, I look in a mirror and wonder what I did wrong. Twelve: everyone says I look just like my Mom. Eleven: Mom started dating a new guy. He’s okay. His cooking is really yummy. Ten: my dad calls to ask if my mom’s still going to her AA meetings. I tell him yes, even though I don’t know what AA stands for and Mom hasn’t left her room in a week except to refill her drink. Ten: Dad and Mom got into a really bad fight. He left in the middle of a thunderstorm. It’s been two weeks, and we don’t know where he went.
Nine: it’s Christmas Eve. We’re at Gram’s house and the fire is burning and it’s so warm. Eight, seven, six: I’m not sure if I want to be Wonder Woman or my mom when I grow up but they’re both kinda the same so does it really matter? Five: Mom got home from work late acting funny. Daddy said she just missed a meeting and that she’d be alright in the morning. Four: my hand is held firmly on both sides while my parents swing me back and forth. The world is solid beneath my feet. I hope I can be as in love as Mommy and Daddy when I grow up. Three, two, one, zero. I wonder if while I was in my Mom’s womb she wished that I would grow up to be just like her.

His hands
as tight as a boy scouts knots
holding me down
even as I cry stop
I feel them
even now
waking drenched in sweat
ghost pains taking over my body
and how is it
after all these years
I still walk with this fear
A black stain
Across my soul
Almost as vivid
As the red mark my cheek bore
Born from his hand in a fit of rage
When he found out quiet wasn't in my forte
I wish
this memory would just go.
But then I wonder
Where would it find it's new home
I wish no one ever would have to feel this pain
Apologizing for what they had no choice in
Shouldering the blame.

I come from a workaholic and an alcoholic
and maybe that's why I'm so **** sure
I'm just a little bit pyschotic.

We all have bad days
Where we want to curl up and cry
But somewhere
I'll remind you
The sun fought the clouds to shine.

And I come from screams and fighting and blame
So maybe that's why it feels like no day is my day.

But you, my darling,
Remind me of yellow.
Bright and beautiful
Blooming like petals.

I come from darkness and fire
But what I have realized is
In this life
We are all from something, that's not what makes us.

It's where we're going that counts.

An Open Letter to my Best Friend**

You, dear are the strongest person I know,
And trust me when I say, I know a lot of people.

You stand, rooted as deep as an oak tree in my heart
Your eyes find their way into my dreams, burning with passion and fired belief.
Your sorrow matches the winds of the sea
Constantly badgering you
With the threat of drowning,
I'm so scared you'll take yourself from me.

Your voice is something,
I can only be thankful for
Coming to me in times of need
It has all the power to make my heart soar, suturing the bleed.

Your dreams,
You've been told,
Are far fetched at best
And unachievable at most.

What people don't understand
Is unicorns are shy creatures
Who just don't have the heart
To prove they exist.
Even though they run free,
Jump high
And take great pride
(Their horns are always meticulously shined.)

I think back on the times
You taught me to be strong
Without even knowing
You were consistently adding words  
To my life's song.

The melody just a little sweeter
While it plays in my head
Added like you do with sugar to your coffee before bed.
Sparingly,
But needed.
Oh so very needed.

You, my darling, have your roots dug deep
Your dreams being dreamed
Your life, I do believe
Is worth so much more than an amount that any bank could offer,
Is worth more than the english language can explore,

And all I need you need to remember,
The alphabet is composed of 26 letters,

Voldemort wasn't always in power,
take each insult
And pull a Tom Marvolo Riddle out
of the sorting hat.

Believe that the positive outweighs the negative,
And yes that means your scale is wrong.
Tumblr's idea of pretty girls,
Doesn't take place in my song.

So this is an open letter,
To my very best friend.
Darling, please know
You can always depend
and lean
and cry on
and hate
and call
and love
and trust

me.

Bring me back to
Holding hands in the rain
I want to see the drops
Running down your face
Hiding the tear tracks
Baby don't you see?
You're it for me.
So just
Bring me back to
Holding hands in the rain
Let me show you this world
Through prisms and rainbows
Jumping through puddles and
Singing.
Bring me back to
Holding hands in the rain
So I can tuck your hair back
From your gaze,
Smile while you laugh
At my racoon face
So won't you just
Bring me back to
Holding hands in the rain

I always wondered how many times
I could call you
before you wouldn't pick up

I used to test it
I'd call when I woke up
good morning beautiful
A call before bed
goodnight darling
Once when I was drunk
im so in love with you it hurts, will you marry me?
Another time when I found out someone was dead.
it hurts

I'd call at 2am
(just to ask if you were dreaming of me)
Once at 4:44 in the afternoon
(so you could share the time with me)
And once at midnight
(can you see the moon? I'm thinking of you)

Somehow without fail
You always managed to pick up
On the 3rd ring.
Ring.
Ring.

Until you didn't.
One day it was the fourth,
sorry I was cleaning, baby
The next the fifth
i didn't hear my phone
Until finally
You just didn't answer.

I'd always wondered
What the answer to my question was.
I was never prepared
To find it hand in hand with pain
In the sound of a dial tone.

Sleeplessness comes easily
Like an old friend
Never quite forgotten

I can’t shake these old memories
Comparisons of past and present
Even if it’s nothing the same
I still look for the link

Can it be true?
What the Chinese say?

Are we really all linked to
A lover through a single Red Thread?
And are we sure it won’t ever break?

Or is that our souls silently begging
For some kind of reprieve from this dark world

This place of hatred.

They said the world was supposed to end
That fateful day in December,
12. 21. 12.

But here’s the thing
I think the world isn't going to end all at once,
and really
it has already begun

Humanity is slowly falling

We may still be humans, but without compassion
Without care,
We lose the single thing that has put us on top of the food chain

And what can we hope for
Other than to find some sweet light
In this dark house
We're all searching for that single flickering candle

In the upstairs window

These images float through my head,
Things that never quite make sense
Like why is it called falling in love?
Falling just sounds painful
And isn’t love supposed to be beautiful?
Or do all beautiful things just hurt?

Like a red rose,
Whose thorns will ***** without mercy

Lighting that breaks across the sky
To burn down a tree

Or a mother bear,
So protective over her cubs that her own life is of not a single
Thought.

This world is a dark place,
But there are millions of candles
Millions of lights
For those willing to look.

And maybe the Chinese were wrong
For a man did a study
And it showed in 34 minutes someone could fall in love

34 minutes doesn’t seem long enough.

At least, it never did until I met you.
It didn’t even take that long.
I heard your laugh and was gone.

So really, what can we believe?

Is it chance?
Fate?
Destiny?

Or is this world just one big question mark?
Will we ever understand,
Or are we destined to be in the dark?

You see I only see my brother
On very rare occasions
And I've lost my mother to her lover
A man named Merlot.

Two years ago I thought about killing myself
And if I had to write a list of 20 reasons I'm still alive?
Six of them would be teachers names,
One for the girl who stood by me
The last thirteen all are the name of the boy who's birthday is forever inked
Into my left wrist.

These are all simple facts.

Much like the fact that I don't know how to cut the toxic out of my life
Or preserve the positive.
Similar to how I can't stop doing things that I know bother people,
Just for some kind of reaction.

I'm pushing
   and pushing
Because you see, I'm in the habit of full force shoving
(people right out of my life.)
Though I'm not sure where I got it from
This trait is a ***** dark part of me
That screams to be fixed.

The best part of this all is, well.
I'm watching myself doing it.
The problem is
It's like watching a family have thanksgiving dinner
While you stand looking through a window
In the pouring rain
yelling at them to
Just ******* look
In the doorway
Just ******* see the serial killer that's about to come in and destroy it
All.

It's the simple fact that I'm just standing there
Watching as they are slaughtered

Freezing
When the killer looks out the window,
Lifts their hood,
Lets out a sigh.
It's the killer staring at you and you staring right back.

It's realizing that you're looking into your own eyes.

That's what my life is right now, and I just can't find it in myself
To walk in and take the knife from my own hands.
I can't stop the slaughter even though every fiber of my being is screaming out save them.

My life is not moving
Because maybe saving them from yourself?
Means letting the slaughter happen.

I once loved a girl who I thought was perfect.
I quickly found she was far from,
So very broken, she begged me to fix her
But every time my hands went to pick up the pieces she would take a hammer to herself, covering me with glass shards that sliced at my heart.

I once loved a girl who was what I believed to be everything I ever wanted.
In the end she didn't believe she was good enough
Her passion burned bright, so bright it burned me and left me singed on the ground while she grew wings and flew away.

You found me on the ground. You like to say I found you, but I as I wiped at the grit in my eye,
There you were.
The girl with peroxide, tweezers and
Band aids in one hand.
Water and aloe settled in the other.
You leaned down and wiped at the dirt on my cheek and held out your hand whispering
here, come with me.
I once fell in love with a girl who wasn't perfect.
But.
She was exactly what I needed.

I once knew a girl
Who hated me at first,
But I quickly learned
She only hated what she thought I was.

I later found out
That girl I knew
The hate she felt for me
Didn't hold a candle to the burning pain she felt inside.
And once I learned
That her smile was simply
A Mask
Everything changed.

I watched that sweet girl fall,
deeper in lust
with a boy who didn't
deserve her trust
And later on
Fall in love
With the feeling of razor cuts.
She broke my heart
each time she cried
telling me she didn't believe
she deserved to be alive.
I'll never regret
A single night spent on that phone
Holding her hand
Fighting back the dark angel she believed
owned her soul.

She was desperate to see him again
I was desperate to make her stay.
My fight burning brighter each day.

I once knew a girl
Sweet as can be
I fell in love with her soul as
She taught me
That no matter who you are
Or how bright your smile
The human race
All wears masks for awhile.

I still know that girl
And hold her in my heart
Watching her grow stronger and stronger
Even though we're apart.

I'll never forget
The promise I made
I'll always stand by her
Until my dying day.

I was asked
If I believed in a god
And when I shook my head
Asked why not?
And that got me thinking,
Why not?

It's quite simple really.

I only see my brother
On very rare occasions
And I've lost my mother to her lover
A man named Merlot.

But I'm not the only child who lives this life.
Jose and Jack
Invade far too many homes
With promises of turning the clock back.
But I only know my story
And how God didn't step in

Two years ago I thought about killing myself
And if I had to write a list of 21 reasons I got there?
Six of them would be days the rain came down too hard for me to be seen,
Five for the amount of park benches I slept on before I learned how to ask for help
Four, for the number of times her hand should have been awarded a speeding ticket for racing across my face
Three for the friends I watched lowered into the ground
Two times I was left curled into a ball wishing I knew why he thought it was okay to take such an intimate part of me
And
One time that she told me that she never raised a ****.

In comparison it's sad
The list that kept me here.
Really, it's the number three.
One for the teacher who told me I wasn't alright.
One for the girl who stood by me and held me in a parking lot while I cried
The last for the boy who's birthday is forever inked
Into my left arm.

These are things I'll never let be seen.
The simple fact is
It's much easier to smile and laugh
Than to curl up
And ask

Why?

It's easier to say yes
Than to say no
Easier to give every part of myself, trying to help
Than cut the toxic out of my life
Or preserve the positive.
That's just something ingrained into me.
I'm pushing
   and pushing
Because you see, I'm in the habit of full force shoving
(people right out of my life.)
Though I'm not sure where I got it from
Maybe it was my mother
When she thought it would be easier
To send me away
Than take a look at what my brother and I were trying to say.
In the end though,
This trait is a ***** dark part of me
That screams to be fixed.
There's nothing more to it.

So when I'm asked
If I think there's a god
I'll just smile soft
Shake my head
And go on with my day.
Because it's easier than asking
How could He leave us this way?

missing you
is one of the most confusing things in the world
because it’s so ****
hard
but so *******
easy
all at the same ****

time.

see, it hurts, like I’m missing a part of me
like those tales you hear
of survivors who lose a limb,
and feel the phantom pains?

Well I,
I wake up at night
and can almost taste you

right there
right
next to me.

I can almost feel your breath against my cheek
and I roll over and reach my hand out to touch

empty sheets.

and maybe it’s a bit morbid
to compare missing you to losing a limb
but morbid used to be my forte
somehow, still just
is.

Simply put
to miss you is to blink
you’re my life line
you’re the reason for my
seemingly endless
cheese.

Missing you is like taking a step,
or inhaling and blowing out
that first kiss
turned my whole world about

so now

missing
you
is like breathing air
thoughtless
but always there.

Mother oh Mother. Why?
I find myself
Torn
Between two lives

Mother, oh Mother,
My future self and my past strife
They battle
As I watch with wide eyes

Mother oh Mother,
My head pounds
As my heart
Is pulled two ways
Splitting down the middle
Like the poems I wrote in the beginning of high school

Mother oh Mother,
They were ripped to shreds
And tossed in the trash compactor,

Mother oh Mother,
My heart can't take the same fate
As my first love letter.
Laughed at and ignored,
Set aside when it became a bore.

Mother oh Mother,
you once told me
Don't ever grow up
Well that was a sore mistake
Considering I grew up
Far too quickly
In order to make up
For your ****** up faith
In that ******* bottle

Mother oh Mother,
Do you remember the night
That you shattered it against the wall
(you had missed my head)

Mother oh Mother,
it made for a pretty metaphor
Representing
My life after you
Decided
Facing demons
Was best done
With a little help
From your friends
Jack, Jose and Morgan.

Mother oh Mother,
They never had any right
To take over our lives
Just like him
An invader
Nothing like kin.
No matter how much you insist
There's no problem,
Not even you,
Can begin to understand
What they've cost you.

Mother oh Mother
The memory is clear
As the night you wept,
"Don't grow up to be like me"
You whispered it quietly
Just past midnight
While you sipped on your wine.
Out of  that diluted cracked glass,
Sleeping pills in hand.

Mother oh Mother
Do you remember how I sighed?
Closed my eyes.
Hid my tears,
It never did me well to cry
Not with you.

Mother oh Mother,
That night stands clear in my mind.
I took you to bed,
Tucked you in, kissing your forehead.
Setting yet another glass of clear water, two advil down
This night was repeated far too many times.

Mother oh Mother,
Do you even know?
Every single last day
I was screaming on the inside

Mother oh Mother,
Mother oh Mother,
Mother oh Mother,
Why?

You see I have this problem:
I want to travel the whole entire world,
But night terrors have left me with bags under my eyes that would just
Cost me a pretty fortune to check.
At the very least, more than my plane ticket,
More likely though, the last bit of sanity I hold within my soul.
I do not carry my illness like a purse
Trust me if I could, I would.
I'd fill it with bandaids and mended memories of the times I was never brave enough
With love and strength and courage.
I'd stick it into a time machine, send it back to a littler me
But, my illness is not a purse. Not something to simply be set down when it becomes too heavy,
It's more like a backpack
Filled with rocks
And duct taped to my abdomen.
Night terrors and ghost pains have consumed my body
Leaving me standing here with what feels like
A fifty pound weight
Holding me down.

This is for the girl who you tore apart.
For that little angel you once called sweetheart.
Tell me sir, how is it you ripped her heart clean in half?
Did it feel good, maybe even turn you on when you pushed her to the ground
Made her feel like trash?
You forgot she was delicate
A sculpture made of glass
Your rough hands and cold heart adding crack after crack.
Mercilessly chipping away at her smile.
She was the painting you picked apart for so long you forgot to appreciate each intricate stroke.
The dancer whose music you cut far too short.
She would have been your saving grace
But you made her feel like a disgrace.
Turn around little boy.
She's was not your toy.
Maybe one day you'll appreciate true art
Just don't you ever forget
That beautiful sweetheart you pushed into the dark.
Turn around little boy.
She's was not your toy.
This one is for the girl you tore apart.
Rest in peace sweetheart.

In a world of zombified teens so loaded up on antidepressants,
anti-anxiety and anti things-
it must be asked.

Did that boy who jumped off the bridge just last week,
leap in an attempt to grow wings?
Maybe he did it just to see if he'd be scared?
Or perhaps.  
He felt just too much to live
with the numbness his medication offered
He was never looking for
A temporary solution to his pain.

What about that darling girl who's arms and thighs are
In a love affair
With an abusive razor?
Does she stay with him for fear of going back,
Again and again,
only to be called weak for leaving in the first place?
Or for the fear that she'll
Never
Feel the same exhilaration
From another's kiss?

The last question of tonight.
How is it that I am just noticing now,
How carefully he avoids the word
Home
Almost as if he knows the place
I grew up in
Will never be a home again.
Not to me.
Does he know,
It represents
Nothing but a return to the front line?
Just like being ****** back into the trenches
A still wounded soldier.
Nothing but a band-aid
Covering what once
Was a gaping bullet hole.

She still feels his hands on her.
They sound as loud as a grenade in her head
The slap of his hand traumatizing as an atom bomb,
She reaches for her lover,
Hoping he can distract her from the battle
All while
Neglecting
To acknowledge he brings with him
His own
War.

They all stand at his funeral
Holding hands and saying a prayer.
Hoping,
Praying,
He grew his wings.
Nobody understood
What could have led him
To choose the pain of
A jump
Over
The silence of a pill
Or the speed of a bullet.
Most of all though,
His mother just wants to know
Why he didn't tell her he needed to be held.

We all have our demons,
Skeletons in the closet.
What people don't realize is
Wars are fought every day
The trenches lie
Not in Dead-Mans Land
but
Inside our heads.

"You killed a man"
They say over and over
In his head
"You killed a man."
They repeat to him
Until he knows they can not be wrong.

He walks the streets
wondering if the eyes that glance him over
while they walk on by
know that on average
a person walks past a murderer
36 times
in their life.
"You killed a man"
He expects one of them to scream.

She is different
He knows this from they day they first meet
The voices go quiet
Almost allowing him to sleep.

He takes her on dates,
tells her
his hopes and dreams
though it is not until the night
they decide to combine their resources
in a cramped damp apartment
with a view of the sunset against the skyline
that he decides to tell her
the words that once were on
replay
inside his mind.

"I killed a man."
He whispers to her.
His voice bright
In direct contrast to the darkness
of the night.
As his hands tap the covers
Twice then once then twice again.

Her eyes caress him,
touching him in ways he knows can not be done
with hands
as he repeats
"I killed a man."
His eyes fixed on the ceiling,
Counting the tiles
To be sure
that 101
has not changed to 102
and the stain in the 81'st hasn't shifted to 22'nd.

He jumps at the feeling of her touch

Voice sharp
Hands soft.
"Tell me."
The demand
so quiet
he wonders if it was just the sound
of settling dust.

He turns to her,
Finds the question in her eyes.
It's a drastic change
from the haunted look he expected
if only to reflect
what he sees in the mirror every day.

"I killed a man." He says once again,
For the millionth time in his life
though only
the third
outside of his head.

Her fingers trace his face.
Thumb running across his lips.
She opens her mouth,
and quietly whispers the words he never dared to
even consider
"The man you killed,
was yourself."

"You killed a man"
They say over and over
In his head
"You killed a man."
They repeat to him
Until he knows they cannot
Be wrong.

He walks the streets
wondering if the eyes that glance him over
while they walk on by
know that on average
a person walks past a murderer
36 times
in their life.
"You killed a man"
He expects one of them to scream.

She is different
He knows this from they day they first meet
The voices go quiet
Almost allowing him to sleep.

He takes her on dates,
tells her
his hopes and dreams
though it is not until the night
they decide to combine their resources
in a cramped damp apartment
with a view of the sunset against the skyline
that he decides to tell her
the words that once were on
replay
inside his mind.

"I killed a man."
He whispers to her.
His voice bright
In direct contrast to the darkness
of the night.

As his hands tap the covers
Twice then once then twice again.

Her eyes caress him,
touching him in ways he knows can not be done
with hands
as he repeats
"I killed a man."
His eyes fixed on the ceiling,
Counting the tiles
To be sure
that 101
has not changed to 102
and the stain in the 81'st hasn't shifted to 22'nd.

He jumps at the feeling of her touch

Voice sharp
Hands soft.
"Tell me."
The demand
so quiet
he wonders if it was just the sound
of settling dust.

He turns to her,
Finds the question in her eyes.
It's a drastic change
from the haunted look he expected
if only to reflect
what he sees in the mirror every day.

"I killed a man." He says once again,
For the millionth time in his life
though only
the third
outside of his head.

Her fingers trace his face.
Thumb running across his lips.
She opens her mouth,
and quietly whispers the words he never dared to
even consider a possibility

"They were wrong."