I'm so sick.
Talking about him,
talking about you,
telling my friends about us
like your name is someone else's.
If you're listening
at this party,
I hope you
hear the times
I hold back
from cracking jokes
with you.
Or at least
notice when
my lines
aren't
landing
because I catch
your eye
and
my
frame
breaks.

The movement of your lips when you smile curses my dreams, and
I beg to forget the wrinkles that formed around your eyes from years of laughing too hard.
If only I could find the words for what you smell like other than fire and spice,
then maybe I could forget you someday like how I've forgotten others.

Though you're not like others, I have hope the thought of you will drift away like the fading scent of summer.
While we had our winter fun, it's time for allergies and pollen to clear my sinuses of your scent.
I fear the day your memories will leave me, but inside I rejoice at the possibility of being free.

is a paradise
a sleek, marble throne for two
more than twice I've envisioned myself there
with men
all of them are different
the fleeting stranger I'll never see again
a one night stand I'll never forget
and the one I foresaw wearing my crown, grasping a scepter
seated beside me on the adjacent ivory throne
there are traces of a king left but ultimately he's gone
sometimes I catch the shadow of his reflection
with the other men, all of them different,
in white stone beneath my feet
I'm left to wonder if I'll ever see them again outside the altar

I'm not sure that I feel emotion
At other times, maybe, there will be a flow of thoughts, feelings
Tingles, nerves
I feel numb
Right now I'm feeling very numb
I'm not sure if numb is an emotion but I'm feeling it so it must be

"Do you wish to go back?"

'Back where?' I find myself asking. The voice seems to echo throughout this blackness where there is no ground nor air.

"Do you wish to go back?"

The question booms ferociously like the lion's roar above the mountaintops, making those in the quiet valley below pause and shake.

"Do you wish to go back?"

'Oh, you're still here? I thought that if I stayed quiet you would go away.'

"Do you wish to go back?"

'Back where?' I find myself asking. 'Back to the times that I wished the letters that spilled out of my lips tumbled into different words than what they came out to be?'

"Do you wish to go back?"

'Back to the times where I felt quarantined when in a group of friends? Back to the times where I felt the grass wrap around my ankles to root me in place? Back to the times where I heard the leaves gossip my name?'

"Do you wish to go back?"

'Further you ask? I assure you that's not a time that I would enjoy going back to.'

"Do you wish to go back?"

'I do not know.'

"Do you wish to go back?"

'Will the words I said make sense? Will I not feel so trapped in my groups of friends? Will the blades of grass release my feet and the whispering cease from the abundance of leaves? Will I find love, happiness, or defeat? Will I find something that makes sense to me?'

"Do you wish to go back?"

There is a pause, a stillness in the dark. I wish to speak but I feel that I have no words left. I am the letter in an envelope of shade, swallowed by the surrounding shadows. Then it comes, I feel the ground beneath my feet and air above my head. It slowly churns from my stomach up to my mouth where I then said,

"I wish to go back."

I can't hear his voice without my forehead burning up in a fiery cold sweat of both lust and fear at the same time.
His existence is something I can never be a part of anymore yet my body is so used to the acquaintance of his being that I can't hold myself back from trying to be in his life.
I shouldn't exist in his existence: it feels like bad religion, a sin I can never forgive myself for, but the euphoria I experience when I commit this sin is a stunning sort of infatuation, I never want to leave his side, though I don't believe I was ever there.
He used to care,
he used to notice,
he used to be able to tell when my feelings were bare.
Now I am here,
two seats away from him.
I try to joke, to communicate, and he smiles lightly, but
the glow from his eyes is not as bright for me, anymore, as it is for everyone else.
I ****** up.

Sometimes                                           I            ­                      feel like an oreo
Always caught in                       the middle                    of two great forces
I'm haunted by                            decisions                  that I regret so much
But I know that                          the choices                    I could have made
Would still make                              me                                     feel the same

I ****** up big time
The clock won't give me the right change in dimes
I'm trying to find
A way out of this life

I'm running out of lines
To write my rhymes
One day I'll make you pay for your crimes

I'm no slave to you or the things that you do
I hate the way that you make it seem fine
But no matter what I do I can't escape you
My clock's running out of dimes
I ****** up big time

White picket fences
Four family houses
Checker pattern apron
Pie left to cool on the windowsill
Watching Andy Griffith
Paying some old television bills and hoping the kids will notice
Anything but the coldness that lies outside the front porch
The one with the swing

This is the American dream
Not really knowing what "minority" means
Fighting for a penny to put in a candy machine
"Oh, where did it go?" Some people ask
As if corruption was a thing of the past

I want to be in a happy place, I want to be where I feel sane
I want to sleep and I want to dream
I want to love and I want to leap
I'm afraid of everything but I am courageous and strong
I am me, all day long

There is no one quite like me
I think that's why I'm scared of me
No one to compare to, no advice to digest
My brain is full of wires: it's congested and depressed

Yet the day goes by and a few say "Hello!"
But they feel empty, cold, and frankly shallow
I know people care but I don't feel it inside
I just go back to my room
I go back to where I hide

I'm tired of you invading my sleep, perusing my sheets, directing my dreams
It's the pain in my stomach I can't suppress, holy ****
I'm depressed

Honestly it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the voices, the pins and the needles
The diversions in my speeches just to make me seem okay
The silly face I put on to play pretend, to stay sane
If only I could make you feel the empty hole inside
The one I feel every night every night every night

But in this hole there are knives and spears
poking
At my veins but not splicing them just yet, oh no not yet
It's torment and torture that's all in my head
I can't stop thinking of the same things in dread
No one loves me no one loves me no one cares
Oh God, I'm so lonely

It's manic
I panic
Oh God, I'm not sane
But no one I've found ever feels the same

Oh God, I want out of my body I want out of this dream
It's so hazy and lucid but this is reality

I want to go back to sleep
Oh God, please let me sleep

The sky looks like cotton candy
Pink and blue are its pastel hues
"When do I ever tire of you?"
Is what came out of your liquor lips
That smelled of cherry gum drops and old wine

Something only old money can buy
You treated me like a queen and
"Now what are we?"
Is what comes out of your liquor lips
That smells of smoke and gunpowder
"Even I don't know." I retort
But let's live life like I'm not your last resort

The wrappers fall to the ground
"Pop!" goes the sound of the bright pink bubbles
And it gets cold in this tomb
Thinking about our licorice loops
And the memories we made
On this cold bed until we became warheads

But it'll be over soon

I'm crashing from
Your sugary
Arteries

The sky is a fading blue
As the ground turns grey I lay here with you
Our heads start to spin as the ceiling fans dim
Filled with pink thoughts of a greater tomorrow

But our color is draining; we're no longer rainbows
The door swings open and here comes the fables
That we have to speak to save our skin
From being stripped of our colorful sin

Does this seem right? Does it seem fair?
This planet is dull and filled with despair
"Be who you are, unless you are you!"
Is what the old men are telling our youth

I'm forgetting how to speak
So all my words are bleeding out my eyes

I'm safe in my room
This glorious tomb
Afraid to leave and scared to be
Faced with all the possibilities
That the cards show
In sick, steady flows
The future that won't happen
The future in my head

So happy birthday to me
You annoying ****
I hope your day is filled with happiness and luck
And that you're not lusting after that guy
That rejected you every time you tried
Because you've come to accept that
The future is in your head

The arms of the clock are reaching high to God
As I lay on my floor thinking in contradicting circles
Contemplating the words I need to say
To save the friendships I've just made
They're all so precious to me
But I see them slowly

Becoming less, and less
And less, and less
Interested in
Me

Where are my thoughts?
And where is my head?
I'm filled with static channels instead

I feel no heartbeat next to my ribs
As if cold metal replaced my limbs

How do I get off this drug?
And give up lackadaisical hugs?
When I'm a television set
Repeating reruns until death

Porcelain bodies
Breaking at the carefullest touch
Shatter silently
In a room filled with loud thoughts

We fall
Into each other
Our cracks
Getting wider
My sleep
Is in disorder
My eyes
Are heavier
My sentences
Are
Now
Shorter

A silent blue engulfs the metallic body that I lay in
I'm slumped against the side of the door, gazing at the minuscule droplets microscopically reflecting my stare
Rumbles and mumbles tumble through the clouds like badly kept secrets fan faring with a flash of purple lightning

My body is filled with nostalgia as my father cranks up the Yankee game on the century old automobile radio
My mother conks out, snoring louder than a booming stereo at a high school football game

These are the rides I like to remember
When no one is yelling
Or crying
Plastering smiles across their faces when hidden discomfort is making their nerves shake violently
Everything is quiet
But the white noise speaks more words than I ever will