Portentous corpses always found a way
Of capturing her soul
In ways that serenading chrysanthemums never could
The golden skies we would
Rejoice in
As we felt the warmth dusted upon our blushing flesh
Always faded too quickly into
A deep rustic bronze
And soon dust
Whenever she began to take notice

The whispers of whiskey sang
A sweet lullaby
Every night
When she gathered all of her
Albatross thoughts in the empty bottle
And sent them sailing away
With each encumbering sip

Becoming less and less aware
Of her tragic state of reality
Was merely a method of survival
So that when she laid her head down
Each night
At least in that moment
She feels complacently numb
And dignified in the fantasy world
She has created for herself

As she slips away to dreamland
She cannot help but think
She has never felt more at peace
Than in the moment when
Reality all but vanished
To make room for what will never be.

I would rather
Sleep outside in a tent
With you
Than in the comfort
Of my own bed
But sometimes it gets
A bit too chilly out at night
And I could get a few
Too many bug bites
And there's always the danger
Of any wild animals in the woods
And well,
You see love
I can't help but think about
All of the things that could
Possibly go wrong
And ever since that night
When you offered your tent to me
I have been sleeping in my bed
Waiting for the day
When I convince myself
Your love for me
Overpowers anything
That could go wrong
But the fear
Of all of those horrifying possibilities
Seems to reside
Closer to my heart
Than any thought of you does
So I'm so sorry dear.
I am not certain
How much longer you will be waiting
How much longer your tent will be there
And I promise I would sleep out there
With you
In a heartbeat
I really would
But for now
That heartbeat will have to last
Long enough
For me to see
That it's okay to leave my bed
Despite all of those possibilities.

It's like I have been
Letting the beaten path
Take hold of my marionette strings
Through every step onto the grassy field
And every hug
And every smile
Has been half from love and happiness
And half from my autopilot tendencies
The truth is I don't want to be sad
I am ready
This is life
And it demands to move forward

You can either see that life is full of lasts
Or see it is full of firsts
That was my first high school graduation
And now it is the first time I am ready
Fully capable to spread my wings
And all of that corny *******
But it's all true

There comes a time in life when you must decide
Do I fly or fall?
And I have been planning to soar
The past is beautiful
And I'm sure nostalgia will eventually come
Knocking on my heart's door soon enough
Striking with pangs of emptiness
For the realization that childhood is over
But it's not lost or forgotten
It is simply time to move on
Holding those memories in the most central part of our souls

I will miss it all I'm sure
But firsts are always too exciting to think about the possibility for lasts.

To suffer death but not die
How tragic that must be
To be caught up in a web
Spun sadistically for thee

Each spindle spun
And delicately placed
You didn't even realize
When it was constricted around your face

Until you were stuck
Left there to die
But we know the black angel's lips
Never told you goodbye

You were never given the courtesy
To go off in peace
I suppose that is the punishment
When all your life you lived as a beast

Now you lay there still
Only your eyes allowed to blink
And we watch as your heart beat slows
But it will never slow enough to sink

An eternity with your blood pumping through
When you would rather be left cold
You are now forced to remember
Those deaths placed in your hands to hold

Now you wish for their deaths
That came by your hand
But you must stay in this misery
And never be six feet under the land.

I've walked that path
So many times
But something slows me down
When I see your eyes

A burst of light in the dark
I followed willingly
Believed in them with every ounce
Even when I felt the rigidity

Even when I found the hole in my sweater
And found your blade that held the missing yarn
Even when my heart gushed out
And I lost feeling in my arms

I believed when I felt the tape
Placed over my mouth
Cutting off my every word
Forcing my thoughts south

But still I kept them north
I kept on seeing that light
Except that was not so much a light in your eyes
As it was a glint out of spite

You turned out to be such a sadistic soul
You cut into every sweater I own
So now when I step outside
I will feel the winds harsh cold moan

I will feel that burst through that hole
Placed right on my heart
You have left a permanent reminder
I never realized you were that smart

You mastered the art of suffering
You placed it on me so well
So that we all live with your demons
And reside in our own versions of hell.

If you shine the light
Just fast enough
And at the perfectly imperfect angle
At the peak of the most treacherous time of the night
You will be able to see all of the shadows
Of ways in which you have gone wrong

And all of the mistakes you regrettably made
All of the fossils left behind from
Childhood selfishly induced fights
And hear the dead leaves crunch from
The times you ran away
You will be able to paint with
All of the blood spilled
When kisses would have sufficed
Every scraped knee and bruised shin
Will be reflected on the ground before your feet
You will see all of the broken
And taste the salty pool of tears that needed to be shed

These times of hurt will cling to you
They will developed you in ways you will rarely see
But you need that shadow there
So you will always remember the sting
Of your broken arm and of your broken heart
Let it guide you but not define you.
(Pain is only relevant if it still hurts.)

And still
My throat is clenched
And my breathing gets
All too heavy
To the point where
The sound of each
Inhale
And exhale
Echoes in my head
As though
Every other noise
In the room
Has been swallowed up
And my fingers
Start to perspire
With anxiety
Seeping out of each pour
You still have the power
To make me get this
Lightheaded
Dizzy
Nervous
Exhilarating feeling
And make every
Potential word you will say
Get caught up in my throat
And I cling onto it all
With the only justification
I seem to be able to come up with
The only feasible explanation
For this
Occasional momentary insanity
Is that
You were the first.

All that was left was fog
Which made the mundane task
Of looking down
To see your foot print in the soil
An arduous task
And it was all too frustrating
Such a simple task made to be impossible
Without vision
There was nothing
How do you step forward
When the ground beneath you
Cannot be seen
And the fog never ceases to roll in
Forever making the world
A blurry mystery
And mystery can be good
When taken in small doses
While following the exact instructions
Written out for you on the bottle
But not when it becomes all you know
Where is the sliver of truth
You can cling to
As an anchor
When everything starts
Spinning around
There is no solace
In indecisiveness
This coming from the girl
Who never even had
A fantasy future job
As a child
To  be a princess or a lawyer
Because making any finite decision
Was too much
So yes,
I know
I understand more than I hope to.

As a poet
You would think
I would live my life
A bit more
Poetically

Instead of
Crashing
And
Burning
With every move I make
Causing natural disasters
Every time
My feet make contact with the soil

You would think
That when I become intertwined
With another human being
Bells would chime
And doves would take flight
Instead of the ashes that form
Right under my fingertips
As the skin begins
To disintegrate
Crumbling to death
Under my touch

You would think
I walk on clouds
And view life
Solely as a metaphor
For beauty and love

You would think
I fall in love
With the buds sprouting
And the fawns grazing in the sunlight

You would think
I embody the poetry
Formed by my lips
And live by the words I preach
Instead of being
Such a cynical hypocrite

You would think a poet
Would be more in touch
With the beauty in life
Since we are so in touch
With our emotions

Instead I sulk in the corners
Capturing spider webs
And finding beauty in that
Perhaps I have made a connection
With the wrong emotions
How unfortunate.

The words rushed out
I had no control
I never really meant them
But I didn't want to see that hole

The hole that is caused
When you resist and don't speak
When you don't say what they need
And leave that trembling silence so bleak

I hate when that happens
When the silence gets too loud
So I spit those words out
And for that I am not proud

I wish to say what I mean
Not what you wanted to be true
Now I live in regret
And lost sight of what I knew

The truth can be hard
Harder than all those easy words
When they pile up high
And tower over the birds

Soaring over your head
Threatening to crash down
And expose you for you
When you can't afford to have them around

There was part of me
Who wanted to live that lie
Who wanted to become those words
No matter how they left me blind

I am grateful though
Living in my regret
For now I am free
Free and able to someday forget

So goodbye easy words
I wish you well
You tumbled out so freely
When it was too soon to tell

Goodbye, goodbye
Farewell to you all
I am free and ready
To brace myself for the fall

I will suffer and agonize
If it all means well
That I can move on from those words
And never again yell

I will never say those poisoned words
No matter how tempting
For they lead to destruction
And only left me empty

As the sun dips down into the vast expanse of water
I think about how my weary feet are buried in sand
And how my nose stings whenever I apply sunscreen
Because it's past saving
And I think about how if I could just reach the sun
Before it dips down into a short lived oblivion
Until it's faithful return the next morning
Then maybe I could finally be with you
Or maybe if I could just believe that if I reached out my arm
And felt the warmth of the suns rays one last time
It could be possible that I could feel the warmth of your breath
As you whisper into my neck
But I know that you are across that great expanse
And I cannot just wish or believe
Because you are an ocean away
You are an ocean away
You are an ocean away.

Banging and banging
Open the doors of the cage
Let it all out
Liberation is what keeps me
From embodying the fictitious feelings
You so kindly spared for me

My heart is a bird
Since a day in which I cannot recall
Locked up for my own vitality
The constant trials and failed escape plans
Have left me no choice
But to unintentionally fall down
To the misconceptions I thought I had once denounced

The only hope being to get out
Fly to you
And sing you a song
More melodious than
The sound of lilies that bloom
Rather than petals which sink

Trapped in here by your will
With the only thread of hope
The only glimmer of light
Being to some day break out
And be with you once more

Where I will pour my painfully veracious emotions
Into your falsified heart
And tragically attempt to not turn into dust
While you become every ounce of human
I had once prided myself on.

She's the type of girl
Who tells herself
To remember what it feels like
To really smile
For fear that
She may never get the chance
To feel that way again
And in the process
Therefore ruins the perfect moment
By thinking such sinister thoughts

She is the girl
Who clutches tight to her
Books about romance
Out of fear that
She herself will never feel that way
That she will never actually feel
Anything at all

She reads over that line
Again and again
When the boy tells the girl
"I love you."
For the first time
For proof that
Love does actually exist

She drinks tea
Every night
Religiously
At a feeble attempt
To warm her soul
In a way that she fears
Another human body never will
But she just ends up in tears
When it never works

She tries to sculpt her body
To look like a work of art
So someone
Anyone
Will appreciate
The aesthetics she
Knows she does not possess

She is the type of girl
Who tries everything
She can imagine
To feel whole
To feel normal
And she fears the day
When she realizes
It is completely hopeless
And stops trying.

I can breathe in the passion
Of your coke and pop rocks kisses
And feel my hot lava tears
As I feel you touch me one last time

I can feel the beauty
Pounding down the bricks
Surrounding my heart
As blood starts to seep through
Every crevice where I purposely
Didn't put enough grout
Hoping someone would care enough
To come knock all four walls down

Each embrace is played again and again
In my head before
I lay down in a field of
Wilting daisies
Waiting for you to come
And bring them to life

Forever hopeful is my patient heart
But I have been warned that patience wears thin
After years of wear and tear
And I have heart ghost stories
Of lilacs that stop blooming
When they've been picked so many times

Maybe love does leave
When you hold out so long hoping for its truth
Maybe these beautiful hopes
Strung out for so long
Are more sinful than soothing.
(I won't lose hope.)

As I read
Each line
Of permanently evanescent truths
I felt small
Demonic fingers
Crawl out from behind my eyes
And snakes
Coiling inside of my throat

Misunderstandings
Were always the death of us
Turning butterflies to ash

The curling up of lips
And mellifluous hums
Of once forgotten tunes
Turned to bashed in taillights
And withering tree bark

I don't know why
But the phrase
"I'm sorry"
Seems to pop into my head
All too often
I know that would only make you angry
For you never blamed me

But you should never
Have had to take that ax
To your ribs
Chopping down your body
Each little bit at a time
To see a rainbow emerge
From the overwhelming cracks
In my heart.
(It's all my fault)

it started out the same way
such a fantasy story
of when boy meets girl
sparks did in fact fly
and electric currents
were exchanged between skin
with every touch

but there was something else
it was always there
yet not quite visible
disguised by the vegetation
that encased it

you foolishly sped up
just as any girl would
accidentally on purpose
you uncovered what was hidden
so deep
ripped off the disguise
of that horrifying fate

and just like that it became
your fate
your reality

in the blink of an eye
your story
was no longer
such a cliché

it took a turn for the worst
as you dug up roots
of old oak trees
which led to tear-streaked letters
and old wooden boxes, clawed
with ****** finger nails
you looked away
when you came across
the daisies with half the petals picked
the idea of not knowing
if he loved you or not
was instantly too much to handle

because in her feeble, sick mind
it would all turn to dust
if he could just lay his lips
upon hers
for one last time

the glorified truth
was a pill
she had learned to down
on many occasions in her life
to ease the pain
of what was too much to bear

and with the touch of the lips
of the man with the dynamic
crimson blue eyes
everything became amicable once again
as bad as he undoubtedly was for her
he was her panacea
he embodied every solution to the problems
he himself caused
his effects mesmerized her
and there was nothing to be done
about it
the half picked daisy vanished
from sight
as long as she was in his arms.

In my half daze of a slumber I remember how your scruff felt brushing against the skin of my spine
As you laid soft kisses down like you were planting rose buds in the soft of my skin to stay long after you left
And the way our bodies radiated heat together deep under the covers tucked away from the world
How easily I dozed off to the sound of your breathing against my neck
And your erratic twitches of a nightmare
And your arm protectively wrapped around my waist up until our hands interlocked
I remember how our hands melted into one another that they felt like one
Beautiful and synchronized
I could have laid there with you all day like a work of art, never moving from the comforts of your bed
I remember thinking, maybe it is possible to fall in love
And maybe one day I can fall in love with more than just the idea of you.

The stars just have this way about them
That makes me want to fall in love
So deeply
That it hurts
In ways I never thought a heart could hurt
While still pumping blood

I want to watch your fingers
Sprout flower buds
With every touch upon my cheeks

I want to hear the crickets harmonize
With the beat of your heart
As my head rests upon your chest

I want to lose my breath
As we part ways
Because you are now my only source of oxygen

I want to wake up the next morning
And finally understand all the hype
I want to understand
The whispers of the wind
And the messages from the stars.

I've come to accept
That it's okay to miss you
It's okay to wonder how you are
And question if you're still thinking of me

It's okay to miss you
And the feeling of your lips on mine
And think that someone else's lips
Feel so foreign to the point of tears

It's okay to think in my head
"This isn't right, this isn't you"
As he runs his fingers over my skin
Because I have the power to live my own life

It's okay to wonder
Why we ended
And how you feel about it now

It's okay to wonder
If I pass through your thoughts
And if you understand quite how you did me wrong

And it's okay to feel pain
It's okay to hurt every now and again
Thinking about the what ifs
And torture myself wondering what went so wrong

It's okay to feel the pain
Of your absence
It's okay to miss the normality
Of having you as a constant in my life

And eventually
It will be okay to move on
I will feel okay to hold someone else's hand
And cuddle in close to them between sheets

And it will be okay to know
That I deserve more than you could have ever given me
And that what we had was not all there is
And that it's good that we ended
And that I'm so much better off

Because we were not pop rocks and coke
We felt right, yes
And I felt the way I did for a reason
But there is so much more

And I will be ready for it
Eventually I will be ready for it

Yes, I'm not completely over you
And I miss you on occasion
Despite how you treated me so wrong
But I've come to accept
That I'm so close to moving on

And it's 1 am
And I'm drunk
And I don't want to text you
And I'm happy
And that's all I need.

I hope that my tears
Can write the script for you
When I am at a loss for words
Because I never know how to form the phrase
"I don't have all the answers"

I've trained myself
In the art
Of mask making
I have learned how to
Sculpt perfection
And mold it to my face

A disguise so that they don't see
The boiling black
Of the god-forbidden unknown
So I don't have to see
Their bewildered looks
When I respond with indifference
When my life plan was meant to be
Tattooed on my forehead
For that would be better suited
To calm their nerves

I don't have all the answers
I don't have all the answers
I don't have all the answers

I wish I could give you more
I wish I had more to give
But all that's left of me
If you dare uncover the mask
Are mascara streaks and
Hallowed out, fear stricken eyes

My shaky hands tried to draw the map
Everyone was shouting at me
But I have since broken
The tip of the pencil

I don't have all the answers
I don't have all the answers
I don't have all the answers.