your spirit wrapped it's hands around me,
cold fingers with chewed on nails brushing over my collarbones
"you are certainly worth getting to know better."
"you make me realize what I am worthy of becoming."
"you see the good beneath my bloodshot eyes."
demons do not scream
they do not possess children
they do not leave trails of black on your grandmother's white carpet
they kiss you
they lean in to your ear and tell you all the ways you two could be one day
"I want a house, and three girls,"
he would say, his hot breath filling my eardrums
"I'll be a pediatrician, so I can save lives,"
he would tell you, his hand on your thigh
"I'd never leave you,"
he would yell, in between thrusts between your red and gray sheets
lies
it was all a trick
demons climb under your skin and lodge themselves beneath your bones
they seep their ethereal words into your bloodstream so that it can flow straight to you heart,
so that it'll be the first sound in the air when you take out your blades yet again, to release your demons into the atmosphere
they leave the taste of their secrets in your mouth so that they come to mind every time you speak
they break your heart and pour bleach into your eye sockets because if they don't want you then no one else should.
I remember how it felt
to sit on your bedroom floor
I see it in black and white blurs
there used to be color there
but it left with you
"you're the most intriguing girl I've seen in a long time,"
says the boy at the business conference,
he's trying to get you back to his hotel room
"you deserve so much more than this,"
whispers the baseball player,
he's trying to be polite
"I wrote you a song, since you remind me of music notes,"
tongues the musician,
he's trying to stop drinking
they're all trying
trying to be
nice
better
different
so many demons without souls
one put his hat in my locker last fall,
he wanted me to wear it,
I didn't.
one put his arm around me last spring,
he wanted me to taste his lips,
I didn't.
one put his sketchbook in my hands last winter,
he wanted me to realize I was art,
I didn't.
but sometimes you miss demons
one left me because
I wasn't loving enough
one left me because
I wasn't slutty enough
one left me because
I wasn't confident enough
I was
closed off
with closed legs
and closed lips
I missed his smile
but he missed my body
I missed his hands
and he missed where his hands went
I missed his eyes
and he missed my bed

the day after his cousin died, he stuck his hand onto the hot frying pan when his mother wasn’t looking. she cried rivers all the way to the emergency room and the only thing he could say when she asked why he did it is “I touched her last. I touched her last”
the doctor came into the sterile room and said he lost three out of five fingerprints on his right hand, but he would be okay and so would his shaking mother. the boy had hugged his bright-eyed cousin before she shot herself and I think the bullet hit him too
let’s not tiptoe around coffee-stained details, that boy didn’t grow up to be an inspirational anti-suicide activist. he put up defense mechanisms and lined his entire body with barbed wire, and he’s been piercing people with his touch ever since
truth be told, I loved that burn marked boy, I did
but he threw me to the wolves when I got too close and maybe he felt guilty about sending me to the bottomless darkness he lived in or maybe he still can’t forget the way his cousin kissed him on the cheek before she put ammunition to her head, but I saw him at the gun store on the corner two weeks ago
it still hasn’t sunk in that he followed the exact path his cousin did that destroyed him when she was seventeen and he was only ten. he walked in her blood-traced footsteps all the way to the end of his existence, didn’t he?
he bought the gun, he loaded it
he probably started a note
do you think he started a note?
how many times do you think he’s tried to write it in the past seven years, broken pencil ends and the smell of tired lead
how many times do you think he tried to write it on Sunday? Sunday is God’s day, right? that’s what he always says to me
said
it’s a past tense
that’s what he always said.
I wonder how many pieces of notebook paper he crumbled up before he decided that his final words weren’t good enough to be seen by the people he was leaving alone on Earth
he always said he wanted to fly and I wonder if they can fly up there like all of the stories say when they talk about angels and I wonder if he can actually fly now
I wish that I could see those scribbled lines on discarded pieces of paper just so I could know why he did it
but maybe I’m lying to myself
maybe I already know why he did it
I knew it the day he said he couldn’t take it
the day everyone told him to stop being so overdramatic and grow up and be a man
I remember the exclamation points at the ends of his sentences like lines and flashing lights that screamed “help me”
the days his smile would say everything’s okay but his eyes looked like he was already dead
I wonder what his eyes will look like now
I wonder if he’ll still be the simple kind of beautiful when he’s in a coffin
what do you think his mother will pick out?
she always loved that red shirt
but he hates it
he likes blue
he liked blue
he liked a lot of things
he liked running and baseball and 3am movies and math and sometimes English and never science and most of all, he liked self destruction
I wonder if he gets to see her, if there is an afterlife like all of the Christian books he studied tell of
I wonder if she would tell him that there was never anything he could have done to save her back then
I wonder if he would regret letting himself float away that night
I wonder,
was there anything I could have done to save him?
why didn’t I?
I saw it
I saw the scars that were a little newer than the ones I had memorized before
I saw the sadness in his eyes on Friday
why didn’t I do anything?
but…I did
I asked
I asked him if he was okay
“I’m fine”
“I’m great”
“I’m happier than i’ve ever been. It’s okay. I promise. I’ll never go back to that bad place. I just have to keep my head up and keep going, I’m amazing lately”
exaggerations
false truths
lying through his teeth
I always know when he lies because his smile gets a little too wide, too artificial, and he can’t look me in the eyes unless he’s telling the truth
but he’s never going to look me in the eyes again
do you think it hurt?
do you think it was instant?
I wonder if the hurt made him happy like it used to when he scratched lines into his skin and ran until he collapsed
I don’t know if it actually made him happy
he thinks he deserves the pain he inflicts on himself
a sadistic self destruction is what he thinks he deserves
thinks?
is it thought?
this hurts
turning every present tense into a past tense feels like someone stabbed me in the chest
or maybe even shot me
how funny is that?
not at all
maybe a little ironic
the police will investigate the blood stains on the hardwood floor his father installed back when he was half sober and they’ll write down every scuff they see and they’ll have a sketch artist draw the green eyed boy who offed himself
he’s just a statistic to them
just another case
just another rotting body that they get paid to sign a death certificate for
they don’t know him
they don’t know where his scars came from
they don’t know that his dad gets angry when he drinks, and he drinks a lot
they don’t know his little brother
they don’t know what style he writes his paragraphs in
they don’t know him at all
he’s so much more than just a casualty
a casualty to suicide
another number that the hotlines can use to try to get money to save teens with razor blades and sad thoughts
another percentage
BUT HE’S NOT A PERCENTAGE
HE NEVER WAS
how would he feel about this?
he loved math
he was good at it
how would he feel about being another tick mark on some scientific research paper about the risks of drugs and alcohol and falling in love and teenage suicide deaths
falling in love
did I fall in love?
can you be in love with someone who is dead?
someone whose heart has stopped beating
maybe his heart stopped beating a long time ago
right with his cousin’s
did I mention that I saw him Saturday?
he was in the batting cage when I took my sister to the park right beside it
we talked and he said he was great
but I watched the news today
the news, can you believe that?
I only watched it because I had a terrible feeling in my stomach as soon as I woke up early Sunday morning
it’s Tuesday now and the police issued a report and my mother brought your mother a casserole and a bottle of wine
the police told us what happened with blank stares into the TV cameras
you died early Sunday morning
in the middle of the night
you always loved 3AM things
I saw you at 7 that night at those batting cages
I asked you what was wrong
you said you were okay
I knew you were lying and you were bleeding internally and I was scared you would fall into pieces of skin and broken boy right before my eyes
I put my hand on your shoulder and asked again
you didn’t look me in the eyes
you never did
you never will now
never again
you said you were so happy
your eyes pleaded for help, didn’t they?
I hugged you
it seems like a dream now
I hugged you and told you to stay safe
and then I left you alone in that batting cage
and I had no idea you were still planning your demise
more police reports
the news is informative
that’s what my grandpa always says
your parents were out of town
your parents were at a family reunion a state away
one you didn’t want to go to
phone records show that you didn’t call anyone after 10AM on Saturday, the robot officers in blue repeat
oh my God
I’m not supposed to use the Lord’s name in vain, that’s what you always said
that’s what your cousin taught you when you were eight
but you aren’t here anymore to correct me
I’m watching the news with shaking hands and I think I might break into sad molecules right here
because I know my bad feeling was right
the pit in my stomach wasn’t lying
God,
I did it
I held the broken boy before he shot himself in the head because he wanted to be sure that this time he would actually die, unlike the time he slit his wrists on his bedroom floor
it’s true,
I touched him last

they'll tell my story someday about the pretty little blonde thing that fell too ******* a hot sidewalk that burned her eye sockets out
they'll talk about the blue eyed gem that wasted her life away and ruined that pretty little heart of hers because of a silly boy
they will relish in the memory of a sing-song soul who let a green eyed demon eat her from the inside out until she was only a shell
they will take peace in the fact that heartbreak is universal and her skin is under his ***** fingernails, screaming to be free
they will whisper the poetry of her demise and of the hospital bed she sat at when he tried to die, and how they turned off her life support in the same sterile bed
they will scream out the truth of the falling out and how all the candles melted into her heart and she can't even feel anything now
they can cry and fail to understand why she let his snake skinned lips silence her free will but even she can't explain it

and for some crazy reason, I'm crying in this synagogue parking lot at 6am
I needed to believe in God again
because I couldn't believe in you anymore
but every Christian church I go to screams your name and I can't stay there
all I can think at a Catholic Church is how you loved God forever
maybe that hurts because you didn't love me even for a second
my face is like a waterfall and now I'm banging on the door
who thought to have preachers ready for confession twenty-four hours a day?
I want to thank them
this isn't like the church I go to
he brings me into his office, a coffee mug in the corner of his desk
it makes me nervous that it might tip and spill, maybe shatter all over the floor
I'm always afraid of things shattering
he asks me if I'm alright
and I ask for the Bible
I turn to the page about love,
soulmates and pain and betrayal
and I rip it out, right in front of him
I tear it and I tear it and I tear it
until I'm in tears again
he looks at me like I sinned
I tell him I did
I wronged God
I wronged the world
I hurt someone
and it was me
I hurt myself
he hurt me, the boy with bright eyes
and I've been destroying myself ever since
and now I feel like if I scream your name loud enough maybe God will hear me and
fix it,
fix us
fix everything
he's looking at my like I'm insane
am I insane?
you always said everyone was insane
I wipe my eyes on my sleeve
I don't remember our state being this cold
maybe I'm only freezing in your absence
this thought makes me laugh a little
the preacher has wide eyes now
"are you okay?"
"are you sure?"
"are you hurt?"
"God is here"
"God can help you"
"God can be your constant"
God, God, God
WHERE WAS CHRIST
TO GIVE ME STRENGTH THEN
WHERE WAS THE LORD
TO HELP ME
WHEN I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF
WHERE WAS THE SAVIOR
TO RESCUE ME WITH FAITH
WHEN I WAS ON THE EDGE OF A BRIDGE,
YOUR NAME CARVED DOWN MY WRISTS,
LEANING AND READY TO JUMP OFF
where was he then?
actually,
where were you then?
you told me when we were thirteen,
that you would be here for me always
so why is it,
that three years later,
I'm dying and you're living?
the man with bags under his eyes,
and a picture of his family on his desk,
picks up his phone
probably to call the cops
or maybe call my mother
or maybe call my grandmother
when's the last time I called her?
Christmas?
no,
Thanksgiving?
it's only the middle of October
I called her on her birthday
in September  
I can't even remember the day
I can't even remember her face
I can't even remember my own face
he's dialing
the old man is dialing the police, I think
to come catch the crazy girl
"she's intoxicated," he says
"high," he claims
"on coke," he states
"no," I whisper
"I'm not high"
"I'm not on drugs"
"I'm not filled with alcohol"
"I'm just heartbroken"
and now I'm laughing again
like you used to every night under the stars
I jump up so fast that the coffee crashes,
straight onto the hardwood floor
I don't even see it, I only hear it
I'm out the door
stumbling onto new mistakes
6:35
your house is just around the corner, isn't it?
I remember your mom's pasta
I remember your blue bedroom walls
I remember your two dogs who loved me
I could walk there right now
what's stopping me?
on the way to where you've lived all your life
but there's a homeless man
on the side of the street
and now he's breathing alcohol into my face
"they'll come for you"
"they'll break you"
"they'll destroy you"
too late, right?
I destroyed myself
"what happened to you", I ask
he smiles, missing two teeth
his eyes are the horrible kind of sad
"I broke inside"
and now my eyes won't stop flooding like when Jesus made it rain for 40 days
"me too"

you were just a baseball player with green eyes who went to church on Sunday but the thing is that you don't know from the beginning who is important in your life and who will just be a background character. you stole my heart on a Friday and tore it to pieces on a Saturday only to arrive at church bright and early on Sunday morning with a new ******* your arm. you'd give her a silver cross necklace and a hand to hold and tell her that you had never taken anyone to church before even though my pink flower earring is still under the third pew. you would take her to the abandoned park across the street after the service and spill to her the sob story that is your childhood until you have her almost in tears for you. then after her pity for your sadness is planted in her mind like a poison, you'll tell her it's okay and you're fine and you'll lean in real close, so close that she can smell the cologne that you got for Christmas last year. you'll whisper in her vulnerable ears that there has never been anyone like her and that if she can just save her soul from the evil people of the world, society will be blessed with it one day. you will tell her tales of girls with fangs for teeth who tore out your heart valves and of parents with strong hands and angry words. her eyes will grow wide as you spin the paragraphs with memories of lonely and dark nights where you almost jumped off of that ledge your mind put you on. then you'll lean away from that young girl's ear and you'll look in her eyes and tell her that you didn't jump and you're okay and it's okay. but it's not, is it? that's what she thinks, and you know it. you seem vulnerable, but strong and brave to defend her from all of the toxic waste the world holds. but what this girl, with bright blue eyes and a soul with barely any scratches doesn't understand, is that you are the demons you talk about. maybe once upon a time, in another world, on another street, you were a normal little boy with big dreams and a lunchbox your mother left notes in. but somehow that little boy went away and was replaced by the shadows that lingered under his bed and in the corners of his room painted in blue. the boy with the hot wheels cars turned into a heartbreaker in a baseball cap that didn't care about anybody but the person he saw in the mirror. you'll tell her that her dress looks pretty and you'll go on and on about pointless little things that will make her fall for you. your tongue will wind around syllables that tell her about how you love kids and your favorite food is Oreos and you hit your first home run when you were five. her eyes will see hearts and her innocent little heart will break into pieces for the boy she thinks you are. her clean and new soul will now have cracks and bruises, but it's okay, because she thinks you'll actually stick around long enough to help her heal them. her mind will listen to your heartbreak stories as you sit in the sand of that old park, and she'll mess with that necklace because she realizes that all of these girls who tore you apart are prettier than she thinks she'll ever be. but you already know this. you planned on it. picking out the nicest and most self secure girl with big doe eyes and watching her break down piece by piece, as she continues to think you're a god. it's a game and you always win, no matter what the cards are. this girl will go home and wonder about you and stress herself inside out trying to think of how she can fix the boy with the hole in his heart as you load your gun to put bullets in hers. you'll talk to her all night with sugar on your lips about your favorite constellations and you'll slip in that you ran away once, mentioning it for long enough that she feels your pain, but for such a short second, that she feels shut out. you'll shriek into the receiver in the middle of the night telling her that someone broke into your house to crush your essence but you'll lock all of the doors and windows before she even gets to your gravel road. go ahead and repeat your patterns so that I can sit from the sidelines as it passes by like clouds on a stormy day. show her that you're bleeding inside and your lungs have been punctured and bandage them the next day as if it never happened at all just so she feels the right amount of hopeless. give her the key to everything you've ever been and will be but change the locks the day after. whisper names of loved ones you've lost and tell her of your past as her lips brush yours and make her feel everything you hold like an anchor dragging her down. show her the trees you climbed as a child only to finish by mentioning that you broke your leg in the fall from it's branches. kiss her in September and drop her October because things like that are easy. she'll sit in her room at night six months later wondering why she never passed the test and why someone so sweet would throw her away like that. she'll spin your phrases and quotes in her mind instead of sleeping until she's utterly convinced that it was entirely her fault. she'll write in her notebooks about the perfection that is you and the disaster of her that ruined any chances she had. every time you pass by she will be absolutely tortured with the want to run up to you and scream until all of her organs fail. maybe after a year, she'll finally get you sat in front of her again on a cafeteria stage and you'll spit up every blood soaked lie you can manage. apologies and random nothings will climb up your throat like parasites, leaking into her and latching onto her bone marrow until they drain her dry. she'll laugh with you once again and it'll feel like heaven to her when it's really all a dysfunctional daydream, and as soon as you leave, so will the color from her cheeks. maybe eight months after that she'll start to forget that you ever existed, and she'll finally be able to see dugouts the same way again. but you can sense it. like an animal that can smell fear miles away, you'll come right back and only stay long enough for her to question everything she knows again, then you'll vanish. you can't handle not being in someone's nightmares and dreams, it feeds the fire where your heart was supposed to be. from now on, she always fixes her makeup to try to look like those girls you used to talk about. she always tapes her eyelids shut at night so that maybe she won't see your face. no one with green eyes will look exactly the same, and she hasn't attended a baseball game without thinking of you. her hair will always be brushed, covering her ears so that no one can whisper any lies into her thoughts. but it's all her fault, because after all, you were just a baseball player with green eyes who went to church on Sunday.

there's his boy I once met at the corner bookstore across from the liquor store that all the kids bought beer behind
this bookstore had red shades on its door window
maybe to represent the blood of broken hearts that had found therapy inside of its walls
I found this boy writing poetry on a bar-like stool from a leaky black pen that looked like someone had used it and then left it to die
I didn't know what to say to him
hazel eyes that were a little too intense
so I reached into my purse, and I pulled out a pencil
"Here."
"Yours looks kind of broken."
"It's hard to hold broken things in your hands."
he just smiled and laughed
"I would know."
and that was the end of that.
but it wasn't
was it?
I went back to that bookstore later
on a cloudy Thursday afternoon
"Do you have any information on that boy who was here?"
"I was just wondering."
"Tell me if you can."
the clerk laughed
"he's banged every ******* this street."
"his father used to hit him."
"he leaves his poetry books here- in the back."
information upon information
I learned a lot from those books
so let me tell you about this boy
his eyes turned green in direct sunlight
he loved someone who didn't love him back
and his skin was stitched together by the words he wrote on paper
he had spent months under sheets that smelt of various perfumes
he had spent weeks inside of girls who's lipstick smudged on their too-long-nails
nails sharp enough to slit a throat
he spent years looking out windows,
while on his bed,
or maybe a girl who asked him home,
and wondering if the moon had broken the sun's heart when it turned to darkness
no one ever told this boy that you can't destroy love by faking it
the only thing he was really destroying was himself
but writing this is destroying me
and my pen is leaking all over the bookstore's new coffee tables
a church donated them
so I think I'm done

They tell me to write how I feel but all I can think about are all the memories swirling in my head like an outburst of an addict just waiting to happen. And maybe I am an addict. But instead of shooting heroine in dimly lit basements with boys who don't give a **** or doing **** in an abandoned farmhouse off of highway 54 with the greased up girls from the stop and shop corner, I'm addicted to something so much more dangerous. Because instead of costing money or teeth or my mental capabilities, it costs the spirit of my soul. I'm addicted to spending rainy Thursday twilights tossing and turning restlessly under my laced flower covers thinking about how many lips your lips have touched since that far away time when you actually cared about me. I'm addicted to letting my eyes wander over old journal entries from back when this all began, letting myself imagine every picture perfect feature of the devastating war that ravaged my heart. I'm addicted to spending hours mouthing all of the poisoned syllables you breathed into my lungs before every letter and feeling burnt up into flames of gasoline. Before all of those silly, stupid ashes clogged up my throat just enough to silence the sobs of missing you. I'm addicted to driving down that road you took me on, just so I can pretend for a single second that things are almost the same and when my heart stops in a worn down, useless church pew or lying in a sterile, old hospital bed, my parents will shout drugs or stress, and my best friend will cry ***** or pills or a drunken suicide haze. But the doctor will come into the room with his fake empathetic eyes and his white coat pockets full of greed-earned money, and he will say in his calmest, most detached voice, that I, was an addict. And I, was addicted,
                          to you.

"I want to lose a few pounds"
"I want to love myself"
"I want to be thin"
one step
two steps
three steps
four.
you're in
it's got you now.
probably forever,
maybe longer.
you started with some healthy foods,
but then,
it's harder to eat anything at all
"Make me skinny"
"Make me happy"
"Make me perfect"
the little butterflies of teenage girls,
screaming inside their minds,
fluttering their wings
anorexia is glamour
bulimia is ease
eating disorders are the way to go,
right?
it's so easy
who would have guessed?
distract yourself here,
skip a meal there
but then,
your body starts to feel it
it hurts
you hurt
everything hurts
you mess up
you eat everything you see
your body craves nutrition
you can't have that
you have to get rid of it
stupid, stupid, stupid
how could you be so disgusting?
you read this online once
those girls...
the ones with eating disorders
they eat a lot,
and then they throw it up
one time won't hurt,
right?
it's just once
you feel better,
almost instantly
10 pounds
20
50.
everyone is worried
you seem sick
you look sick
you are sick
they're crazy
you're not "thin"
you're not "happy"
you're NOT "perfect"
you're not sick.
"Recovery will save you"
"Recovery will guide you"
"Recovery will rescue you"
no,
you shouldn't
no,
you won't
no,
you can't
but you have to.
the doctors are everywhere now
then comes weight gain
you can't even look at yourself.
10 pounds
20
67
you're fatter than when you started
but it's not so easy anymore
you keep eating
and eating
and eating.
puking ten times a day,
maybe more
but you're not getting rid of enough
"You look so healthy"
"I'm so glad you're better now"
"You've gained weight, I'm proud"
every mirror is a mental breakdown
you can't be sick
you're fat
you're revolting
you're a pathetic excuse for a life.
lose it,
lose it,
lose it.
tears fill the empty plates,
the ones you used to eat breakfast on...
when you ate breakfast.
you feel trapped
you can't get out
it has you.
it's a cycle, isn't it?
you realized too late
like so many other people.
it's not glamour,
it's not easy,
it's a living nightmare.
"I want to be thin."
"I want to lose a few pounds"
"I want to love myself,"
"But now I can't."

One night when I was younger, before I was cracked and bleeding in every crevice of my soul, my father took my mother like she was a rag doll. They always fought, but this was different. They were arguing about infidelity and the price tag on the new stove, and then the volume was so loud my little ears could barely take it. My mother said go, and we were out the door. For a few seconds, minutes, maybe hours, he screamed at her to stay. And before I knew it, his hand was on her throat like he was trying to force the life out of her. It was his house and she was his too and all I could wonder is if this was what true love was; possession. My mother set of the car alarm and we drove down the streets, the music up and her tears flooding down. I tried to tell her that I forgot my bear and I couldn't sleep without him, but she told me to hush and try to stay peaceful. What was peaceful? Was it the way Dad yelled at Mom when she didn't do the laundry like she was supposed to do? Was it the way Mom liked to find happiness with boys that weren't Dad?
My mother and I fled that night, without my bear, and she told tearful stories about how we would never go back. But in a flash, we were home with Dad apologizing with tears and telling her that he only did it because she made him so mad. I didn't understand but whatever he said made Mom say she would stay. Dad took me into the bathroom with his hand on my shoulder and told me how sorry he was and how he would never do it again. I didn't want to forgive him if he hurt mommy, but he made it sound perfectly logical. And I remember, that I could taste his tears. But they weren't salty with sadness. They were artificial, bitter- forced. I looked into his eyes and I knew that those tears were not from his heart, they were from his mind. He smiled and laughed and said, "So do you forgive me, honey?" My throat burned with the truth only I could see, that Dad was an imposter and Mom was a fake trapped in a web of sadness and illogical thinking, but I said what I was supposed to say. "Yes, Dad" My lip trembled because the storm cloud in my mind was getting ready to leak its own tears,
"I know you love Mom. You hurt her because you love her."

people don't truly see a masterpiece until the artist is dead and maybe that's why no one could see her beauty until she was in a coffin
she cried and scratched at the edges of the wooden casing but they could never hear her screams even when she was alive
she was writhing in sadness and terror while he was trying to figure out which brand of gun was the most reliable to shoot and **** an animal, or maybe even a person
the funeral march played and the congregation sang prayers they had never blessed her with when she used to walk through their cemetery trying to find her soul
everyone teared up and were secretly happy because it was not them in the ground and the entire back row whispered about how she ruined herself
she wasted her pretty face and perfect cheekbones with vile injections of poisonous boys
death. it was the only thing she could control, and he knew that. he was inspired by her to end his own existence. it was the only constant.

the street was as dark as our hearts in a cold October that made everyone shiver until they couldn't feel their toes. it hasn't snowed, but the sun had been asleep for years it seemed. the orange glow from flickering street lights fit our complexions like the shade of lipstick your mother liked to wear to the silly school award ceremonies that even we skipped out on. the night was dark and those lights danced across our skin like we were nothing more than two pale canvases. and that makes sense to me because you had always reminded me of an art exhibit. greens and blues and ***** grays with birthmarks and freckles and scars that were sometimes by accident and sometimes not. they had given your display case the perfect amount of little spotlights because I couldn't see a single flaw. every line was perfectly contoured and the texture of you felt perfect against every inch of my body. I had the sudden idea that I could never reach anything better than what I had in the warm crooks of your elbows. my mind became convinced that you were the Mona Lisa to that small town, and I was only a pencil sketch, but display cases always make things look prettier than they seem and lighting can be deceiving if masterminds know how to angle the rays. I was blinded by those pretty display case beams like I was stunned by those walnut avenue street lamps the night we danced in the dark and you told me about how your mother taught you half the constellations before you were five and that my eyes reminded you of the brightest stars that night. but stars always explode and that's what mine did in the art showcase that was so misleading to me from the start of it all. you had a frame as glowing as the gold streaks of Midas. but somehow, wooden splinters came out of a gold frame the afternoon you expressed in angry screams that you were fine, even though I could see the breaking of your glass heart. you were beautiful, more so than dragonfly wings or water color portraits. you were a new genre, we are a new artistic creation and we belong in galleries, locked up tight because we can't trust ourselves not to fall over or shatter or spill our own colors onto beautiful pieces and end up ruining them. you spilt your paint splatters all over me, didn't you? I saw a masterpiece covered in stardust and I tried to touch it, even though it wasn't mine. I put my fingerprints all over that mess of creativity and genius, and it left a mark on me too... you left a mark on me. my hands hurt and my heart ached and I wondered what kind of chemical they put in those acrylic paints, but it wasn't until I backed away, covered in your greens and blues and dusty shades of gray, coughing up all types of maroon, that I read the sign below your breathtaking display case:
    do not touch

roaring ambulance sirens
chill me to the bone
they always make me wonder
if you are dying behind those flashing lights
you were never very stable
the strings holding your soul together tended to break often
like the morning you ran
through 5am dusty gravel roads,
until your legs collapsed out from under you
a string breaks
snap
your dad screamed a lot that night, didn't he?
his glass seemed to refill itself
over and over and over again
scotch and whiskey slipped into his words, like always
alcohol strengthened his grip, didn't it?
or maybe the afternoon,
at 2:35pm on a Sunday,
when you filled notebook after notebook
with reasons why you weren't worth everyone's time
snap
the pills they gave you never really worked, did they?
your mother cried in her bath that night
she clenched her hands into fists,
and pulled her head below the water
she almost forgot to come back up
or possibly the evening,
behind white and sterile walls,
that your little brother,
had to say goodnight to you in a hospital bed,
asking if you were sick
snap
his big brother couldn't handle his demons, could he?
he was only nine then,
but your mom didn't tell him
that she found his hero bleeding out,
in their brown two-story house
your father blamed you, didn't he?
it was your fault for being so weak
that's what he said in angry whispers,
the minute your mother left your bedside
could it have been the night,
seven years ago this month,
when your cousin couldn't take the voices in her head
the house was quiet that day
until a gunshot echoed down the stairs
and the atmosphere turned to copper
snap
you didn't fully understand, did you?
the police officers crowded in your aunt's living room
questions and tears and badges,
a monotonous start to your development
angels can never handle being on Earth for very long, can they?
I think it was the twilight,
when the city hall clock said 3:06am,
as you sped past it on your way to the bridge
in tears, hearing your father's voice in your eardrums
"what kind of man shows so much weakness?"
"what are you good for?"
"what a shame you haven't succeeded yet."
his tyrades between liquor bottles always lingered
"you're never good enough"
"you're a waste"
"you're nothing"
snap
you stood on the edge of that bridge, didn't you?
you were ready to do it
you were tired of being sick,
and sick of being tired
but you promised your little brother,
you would help him pick out school supplies
he was going to be a sixth grader,
school was only two weeks away
you hesitated
snap
you got back into your car, didn't you?
you woke up the next day
and pretended everything was fine
spiral notebooks were on sale
your brother bought a new kind of pencil case,
with as many jagged edges as your unstable soul
it's been a year since then
and every time I hear the whining,
of ambulances rushing through town,
I get scared
that your last string finally
snapped

I'm trying to write something beautiful but I can't stop thinking about the way your eyes looked when you told me about your past and I can't stop biting my nails over you even though my family hates the habit. It's like the way your little brother corrects himself whenever he accidentally mentions your father's drinking because your mother told him before he could process it that what happens behind closed doors stays behind closed doors. It's how the thought that you can never be anything less than exceptional is woven into your bones because your parents love boasting about their college-bound son with the baseball talent but they always forget to mention the same green-eyed champion has tried to **** himself three times and hopes that every fire he fights voluntarily might **** him, because maybe then he would die with dignity. It's in these fires that you find yourself because the smoke in your lungs temporarily pushes out your demons just long enough for you to do some good and save someone's life. But it's through these flames that you consider inhaling too much or taking off your safety equipment just to die right there because it would be so easy to just go with the dignity of being a hero rather than to die on your second floor bathroom tile with a pistol in your right hand