the golden hour often comes when we least expect it
but we pay it no attention and proceed
unaware and naive

i wake up more often than not with a sore tongue
sore from having to keep my mouth shut for so long
for even a single word can ruin so much of what i have

i feel the safest enclosed in a white box
enclosed in a larger box in the middle of the city
where the previous cannot find me

but eventually, sore feet drag me back to the place i dread the most

"welcome home."

i didn't come to you for salvation
i didn't enter the circle to be saved
i was lost

i was looking for a leader
i was looking for advice
i was looking for directions

but now you tell me that the moon will deceive me
the sun will destroy me

the heavy heartbeat in the back of my mind
doesn't make me want to come back
because i know you want that more than anything else

and i don't owe you anything

don't we all wish we could go back and change certain things?
don't we all need a period of rest and reflection?

i think about the past a lot.

not a certain time period or memory, but all at once.
i don't quite think it's good or bad, it's just there.

waiting.
ready to strike at any moment.

throwing me into a nervous frenzy.

i.
i've met god
he's lying six feet deep
in the rare greens of chicago
where the trees make up for the emptiness
the loss
the silence

the grass seems so frightening for its purpose
but yet so full and comforting
i don't blame the slumber

i blame the normality of it all

i think about you every time i brush my teeth
you feel much more like home than this bathroom ever will
the reflection of the light in the tile matches the ones in your eyes
every single one looking back at me with smudged mascara

your absence burns the back of my throat
saliva trickling down my chin the way watermelon juice does yours
and it's a haze outside
i wish i could wipe it off for you

time slows the second you start laughing
the sound of your jewelry pulling me back like an alarm
so close i can see every time the sun has given you a kiss
calling me a coward from it's place in the sky

all these moments replay in my head like a broken vhs tape
all fuzzy and glowing
i'm afraid if i eject the tape i'll forget
but it would be a good excuse to recreate it from scratch

i find myself wishing for this feeling to come in familiar patterns
instead
it's erratic and various

it never comes the same as before
and it never lingers as long

but is that a sign that i'm getting better?
or is it a habit of ignoring it after a while?

at this point
i don't know anymore

i just feel entrapped by the fear of not being good enough
and the hollowness of not doing enough

sometimes i look outside from the suffocating box i sleep in
the sun is usually out and keeping a watch on everyone
i just sit there
nothing changes
i usually still feel the empty parts of my body ache

sometimes it takes awhile for things to change
or at least that's what i try to believe
lately that hasn't been the thought

but what i seem to forget is that it's okay to stop
it's okay to stop something that's affecting me negatively


im not a nobody just because i quit something

i have more power quitting it than continuing it

i like that we're loud
despite all the noise complaints
and weird looks in the early mornings

when we drag ourselves to breakfast down the road
when we drag ourselves in from the freezing cold
or blistering heat

i like that we never leave a location singularly
that we're one large support group
that we're a hive

i like that we're powerful
when one of us hurts
it becomes everyone else's pain too

i like that we have each other no matter what
we don't let each other fall
we never let go

i don't think i'll ever let this go

"countless nights of wandering thoughts
limited daylight of questioning and prose

a follower very trusted in our words that we built

she never told me no until it got bad

fire for fire
anger for anger

just how i am

and how i'd wish she wasn't

but this is where it ends


it's been seven days
and i have no hope

but i never really did


i know in a year from now she'll still be gone
and i'll still feel like ****"

it's nice to share that feeling with another person
the feeling of uncertainty
not knowing whether i'm going to wake up tomorrow

it's a nightly ceremony
laid out across the floor
right in front of the tv

vhs static echoes through the rooms
a transformative light dancing on my shoulders

it's more like a funeral these days
because tomorrow is always a myth
and so far i've been proven otherwise


but there's always the one chance



that i'm not

lips red
eyes glossy
heart beating
tired of the things you cannot control
feeling like a failure

but what you don't know
is that you're the voice that tells me no
you're the person that lets me know
that no matter how hard things become
that i will always pull through

because what i can achieve
is up to me
it's in my hands

and i'm always in your thoughts
or so you say

my body is in two different directions

almost like it wants to split apart

i catch myself thinking of the past more often now

i've stopped following my own advice

i was such a fool
such an idiot for thinking that you'd protect me

you were foaming at the mouth
eyes glistening
like oil on the pavement

slick
pitch black
always wide open
just to watch me fail

waiting for any instance
where i let you in
if i slip up and let my guard down

how selfish do you have to be
to find life through others
who didn't deserve to die to keep you alive

and i won't be among the casualties

many different sounds can cause someone to go mad
i didn't think that a few seconds of eye contact could feel like hours
or if it would make my bones crumble

i used to hate the silence
i used to have to distract myself at every waking moment
just so the panic wouldn't settle in

but now it's the ticking clock
the loud. spinning fan
the noises that sound murderous

and vain

it doesn't matter how much time passes
if someone is really that bad
they stay that way

no matter how many changes they say they'll make
no matter how many chances you give
no matter what they've done and it's severity

you can't save everyone
you can't tell them enough to make them listen
you have to let them go eventually

a seven hour vacation away from conscious life
a seven hour movie presentation
a seven hour time frame somewhere else

how funny it is
that back in 2002 we thought this was permanent
we thought our lives couldn't get any better than this

we were all so wrong
but very right
depending on various ideals

we didn't get the future we were promised
maybe that's a relief
or a panicked thought

no matter what year it is
i still have the same dream
the one i thought about for seven hours a day five days a week

a dream of my freshly washed hair
being dampened once more but by freezing rain
the impending feeling of doom

the goosebumps and standing hairs
the soft lights of the world grazing the snowy clouds
and for those few moments


i felt that i was the only person in the world

there is this soft innocence when the sun rises
when your mind is at its weakest
eyelids heavy
bearing the burden of the past
and its memories

the most pure is the softest light
that the sun can bestow onto you

a gentle reminder that the day is new
even when all the days seem stagnant
and sleep is but a distant task

i wish i felt as cool as i did in the summer of 2016
and i wish i could feel the slow fade into the fall all over again

screaming our favorite songs out the car windows
while the neighbors hastily shut their curtains

in those moments i was free
more free than i ever felt over the weekends home from school

more free than i feel now
more in control than i am now

i watch the way your fingers touch the kitchen counter
so thoughtful and unaware of contact

when i notice my own fingers
they're gripping at the seams between the tiles

your eyes, half open and searching for words
when the night becomes dense and the world stays quiet

sometimes i feel it only stays quiet for us
for as long as it does

i miss your tires fighting the pavement under our legs
i miss the wind slipping into the cracked windows
i miss how everything turned into slosh as highways stretched

it always seemed as if they only elongated for us
all packed into one car
sharing slushies and eye-roll worthy jokes

nothing else mattered in those hours where we shared space
nothing else seemed more important than each other's company
nothing else sounds better