It was my cousin's wedding reception,
And I wore some creamy lacey dress
That had to be approved of by my mother
Before I shoved it in a bulging duffel bag to endure the
Six hours of Dunkin Donuts bathroom stops
And that weird stop-and-go traffic that makes me
Feel like the color green.

As I stood at the brim of the dance floor,
Trying to ignore the half-drunk staggering relatives of mine,
I thought about whether it's
Polite to pry your eight inch
Torture-o-thon heels
From your swollen toes
Before anyone else bothers.

There was a boy on the other end of the disco lights,
A silhouette that I knew to be slightly more muscular than the last time I'd seen it.
Just about my age, or maybe eight months older if you had to ask him,
Which I had about thirteen years earlier
With some sand in the crotch of
My Gymboree bathing suit.

I tried my best not to look over.
The lights mostly blinded me,
But I still wished to glance at him to see how straight his teeth were and how his acne had cleared up
Because of
Neutrogena SkinID Plus
Or something.

I could tell that he was looking at me,
At the too short lacey dress
And my straight teeth
And my peachy skin
And I wanted so badly to peek over.

I wanted him to ask me to dance,
Please oh God ask me to dance.

(Of course he didn't.)
He was a shy kid, even at seventeen.
He didn't say a word to me all night,
Even though we'd gone to the beach together
Since I was in Huggies.

That I'm cute
Beautiful
Pretty

And I tell them that
It's okay that I'm not
Because I know I'm not
But I don't like being lied to

I know I'm not
Because I can't let tears
Drip down my cheeks
As they shimmer in the dim light
Of the movie credits

I sob until
My face is red and damp and puffy
And I'm clinging to your sleeve
And just crying so uncontrollably
That people sitting next to us
In the dark theater
Might glimpse over to see if maybe
I have a reason to cry so hard.

Does shehave cancer?
Is she missing a leg?
Did her crack-addict mother die when she was an infant?
Why is this bratty straight white blonde girl crying while watching Selma/Dallas Buyer's Club/The Help?

I have to brush my hair
Instantly
When I get out of the pool
In the summer
(Hopping from foot to foot of course
Because the sun has baked the concrete)
Because if I don't
It becomes a half-curly knotted mess.

And if I don't braid it directly after that
Then it dries
In resemblance to a Yield Sign
In a somewhat triangular form

And I'm chubby.
Not fat. It would be better if I were fat.
If I were fat then things would be
Proportionalish
But instead I'm just
A 5'2 and 3/4" girl
With DDs that no one wants
Because "***** don't count when you're chubby"
And baby fat that lounges on my stomach
No matter how many kilometers I row.

My fingers are too small for my hands.
My glasses make my eyes look huge.
My lips are forever chapped.
My cheeks are overly red.
My eyes are too dark to be pretty
And I know it.
I know all of it.

I've lived in my body for longer than you have.
So don't lie to me.
Don't tell me that I'm cute
Beautiful
Or god forbid pretty
Because I really
Really
Hate being lied to.

It made me
Sick.

The kind of sick
That books describe
As green,
Ghostly skinned
With red rust noses.

Sick to my stomach
Like when you wake up
At 2:00 AM
And realize that
Something
Is
Not
Right
Before you sprint
Down the hall
To the bathroom
And ***** pizza bagels into the
Pristine marble sink.

It made me sick like
When it gets so bad that
Blowing your nose hurts
Because the extra soft Kleenex
Have scratched your skin raw
Over
And
Over
Again.

It made me sick
When I realized
That it wasn't you that I loved
But the feeling of being loved.

I guess I just expected
Something else

It happens every year,
I get excited
Hopeful
Giddy
That maybe
This year will be
Different.

Maybe I'll find an awesome friend
Who does my nails
And answers calls at two am
Like Nicole did
Before she moved to California

Or she could be like Kayla
Who would be silly with me in
Drama class
And use chocolate sauce for blood
In our Black and White movie
Before her dad died in combat
And she went to bury him in
Some foreign country
Where cell phones
Don't count

Or a boyfriend like Louis
That I could see a future with
Sitting listening to Relient K
In a college dorm
With a million years to spare
Before he left for London

But the girl in front of me
In English
Pops her gum for the boy
In the next desk
And could poke my eye out
With her fake straightened hair.

The girl in my drama class
Cakes on her mask and
Participates in pageant after pageant
And calls her anorexia
A diet

And I heard the rumor
That the boy I thought was cute
In chemistry
Was caught ******* his
Girlfriend
Under her desk in
Español Dos.

I didn't think my standards were too high to meet.

I have a boyfriend
I shout to myself,
Pinching my upper thigh
And blinking away from
The sight of them.

She giggles and I notice
Her laugh is lopsided
And she's too short
To be that loud.
Her shoulders are too far forward
And even I notice the
Gross stain on her
Upper left canine
Between her braces
That are bright, neon green.

She's my best friend.

I don't mean to think of her in that way,
I love her like a sister.
But it pops into the front of my brain
When I see them together.

I don't even like him
In that way
Anymore.
I have a boyfriend,*
And all he was
Was a whispered fifth grade crush.
That's what I tell myself.

He looks at her like
She's a million bucks.

Her crooked teeth
Earn her six cents,
In my opinion.

I take it back within a second,
But the thought was still there.

Jealousy makes me into a monster.

My heart goes numb
And my stomach turns sour
When it becomes apparent
That best male actor
Has been won by a man
With an alliterative name
And I still have
The same number of
Oscars
As Leonardo DiCaprio

He came to my house
Wearing his dark jacket and
Cold fingers
With no prior notice.

The doorbell echoed at
Nine oh six
And my mom said she'd get it.

I was watching Netflix
And shoveling semi-melty
Ice cream into my mouth.

He said hi to my mom
And he rushed up the stairs
Into my laundry-flooded bedroom

He wrapped his arms around me
So tight that I wasn't keen to let go.

He smelled like bitter outside
And broken trees
And choking regret.

I smelled like
Fake roses
And ***** pajamas
That were freshly cried into.

My shirt sleeves were wet.

When he kissed me,
I tasted like
The aftermath of
Black cherries
And sad music.

He tasted like love.

I shattered today.

Shards of love
And splashes of blood
Scattered to the tips of
My fingers
And
Toes.

We were in Starbucks
And I drank coffee
And you didn't
And seven months of
Surprise kisses
And
24/7 text messages
Ended abruptly
Like a cliff.

The funny thing is,
I broke up with you.
It was still me
Who spent the last hour
Listening to our song
And bleeding emotion
Riding on tears
Into the sock monkey
That I named after you
Because I loved the middle name
Ryan.

You were over it,
And I was not.
You showed up
With the bite of coffee
Crawling up your nose
Expecting to
Break
Up
With
Me.

I'm not exactly happy that we think alike anymore.

They sit in their
Wide neon cocoons,
Cozy and warm
With hot air
Dribbling out of vents
And swirling around their bodies.

A thin sheet of metal protects them from
Nine degree weather
And bone-freezing winds
And sheets of shivering ice.

And yet,
Every day at
Exactly
Six twenty-four in the morning
They come around
Like wide neon caterpillers
And slink toward where I stand,
Legs frozen to concrete.

Doors open,
Burning cold air rushes in
And rubs against them,
But they wait and smile
As I climb three tall stairs
And greet them,
Welcoming the nice hug of
Warmth
And
Coziness
And
Comfort
And love.

They love me,
A stranger.
They love me enough to
Rescue me from
Becoming an ice sculpture.

So I fumble with
The Thank You in my pocket
And ****** it toward them
In my haste.

It is enough for them.

I glare at it
During last period,
Jumping too high
But not high enough
To reach the swinging rope.

I'm in history,
And some glazed-over teacher
Is pointing at the
Chalkboard which has
Tiny scratches that look like words
Scribbled all over.

But I don't look at my notes,
Because my neck is craning
Too far back
To look at the rope
That is
My two and a half hours of freedom.

A single note is released into the halls
And the students chace it
And I leap into the air
Because the rope
Is reachable
And I grab it.

I begin to climb.

I sit by you on the
Dirt-dusted tile floor
Outside the gym
And we work on algebra
Or english if it's a good day.

And don't get me wrong,
I hate the familiar stench of homework
As much as
The next
Hunchbacked highschooler.
The rope stings my hands
While I climb.
You numb the burn.

But I have practice
And the rope is easy to climb
And I reach the top
In two and a half hours
And you get into
The yellow sardine can
That goes to your neighborhood.

And all of my muscles ache when you go.

I can't fall asleep
On those nights
When I
Don't even know
If you'll be here
When I wake up.

Those nights
Are
All nights.

I hate airplanes.
I hate them
More than
Anything
I've ever hated.

Except the flight
From Dulles
To Ft. Lauderdale.
I like that.

Especially at night
When it feels like
Stars
Can be caught with
A thin fishing line
Twenty feet away

And eventually you
Go off the mainland
And can't tell where
The water starts
Or
The stars stop.

Then you see a
Sudden line of lights below
And beyond that
An infinity of bright bursts
Of lights
And lamps.

All darkness,
Then suddenly
Light.

I really hate planes.

But not the flight
From Dulles
To Ft. Lauderdale
At night.
I love that.

I think
I'm finally
In a place
Where being so sore
That walking up
A flight of
Thirteen stairs
Makes my legs burn
Feels good to me.

They say I'm getting stronger.
I think they're right.

We're locked in a race
And the only way to get out
Is by
Winning.

It's silent.
Stealthy.
Unspoken.
Secret.

There aren't rules
Or guidelines
Or officials.

The way it works
Is
Whoever kills themselves first
Wins.

That instinct
You have
When you're this depressed
And
Every time
You're in the
Stainless Steel kitchen
And your mom
Is stirring soup at the stove,
And a dribble of
Tomato basil
Slobbers down the side
Of the black pan.

And there's still
A knife out
From when
Tomato intestines
Sprawled across a cutting board,
Which is now in the
Soap-water sink.

You feel it,
In that second.
Instinct.
Need, really.
To take it
And slice open your wrists,
Or maybe just one,
If you're having a good day.

You seriously consider it.
It isn't just a thought.
It can
Scare you, really.

You want-
And one day, might need-
To pick up that knife
And do bad things.
Things that good girls
Wouldn't dream of.

But you don't do it,
And you won't do it,
Because your mom is right there
Stirring soup
And ignoring tomato drool.

And it's such short notice,
You haven't written your note yet.

I'm having one of those days
Where my thoughts go South
And breathing gets tough
And icicles stick to my
Vocal chords
And the snow is so thick
That my blood striped hand
In front of my face
Disappears.
And eventually
After a while
I need a map
To find my way back
North.
But I'm so far South
That my fingers are too frigid
To make a snowman.
And my mind's too numb
To think South anymore.

And I wish you would know that
I know how you feel.
How I know what you've been through.
And how I've been through it
Too.
Because then we might talk,
Shattering unscratched glass with the first sentence,
"What did you get for Number Seven?"
You would say, "Negative eleven, just factor..."
Maybe one day you'd text me and
Ask what the homework was
Because our teacher didn't tell you
From when you were sick.
And eventually, after tons of small talk,
After "How's the weather?"
Got old,
I could finally tell you
That I know.
I'd tell you that
I'm here, not the fake kind of here,
Which sounds like,
"I-know-and-I'm-here-and-you-can-talk-to-me-goodbye-forever­."
Not like that.
But the kind of here
That asks what ****** about your day,
And sends you links to cat videos,
And the kind of here
That texts you at two in the morning
And asks if you're alright
And doesn't take yes for an answer.

I'm sorry
That I text you
At four a.m.
When
I
Can't
Breathe
Because of
Anxiety attacks.

I'm sorry that
I can't make serious phone calls
Or order at Subway
Around the corner,
Even though I know
I like thinly sliced turkey
And chipotle dressing.

I'm sorry that
I forget things like
Birthdays and middle names
And I'm sorry
That I don't know how to
Kiss.

I'm sorry
That you think
When I don't take a compliment
I'm fishing for you
To keep going,
Because in my rotting skull
That option
Isn't even possible.

I'm sorry.
So sorry.
That if you're
Nice to me
I will never
Ever
Believe you
Actually like me.

I sent it
At three AM
On one of those nights
Where silence gets violent
And I'm alone in my head.

I told you about the
Tiny pink pills
And how
If I took eight
I would sleep forever.
I gushed that
They were hidden
Under the toothpaste slathered
Countertop
In my bathroom.

I told you I loved you
But that
You weren't enough to stop me anymore.

I did actually consider it.
It was one of those nights.
But at some point,
As I laid on top of my comforter
And shivered under the fan,
I realized that
You weren't going to wake up
And convince me out of it.

I also thought
About how my mom was
A light sleeper.
How the floorboards would sound like
Orchestras
And the cabinet
Would be the symbals
To her.

I fell asleep
Numb,
But naturally numb,
And woke up wondering
What you would say.

You didn't say anything.

You said you're "okay"
But I know
You're not.
I could tell by
The way you
Took a little breath before
You spoke,
Like I could hear the words.
"Should I lie to her, too?"

And I
Was so stuck
On my own
Little
Problems
That I totally
Missed
That you were
Suicidal
Too.

I hate that you're depressed
because
you are so
beautiful.

I do love you,
even if
we just met.

You are perfect.
Those scars on your
thighs
are
destroying
you.

I hate how it
Poisons your
Bloodstream,
Making you cut open
your skin
in ribbons.

Stop

Please stop.

To me it feels like a worm
Wiggling its way
Through my bloodstream,
Making it icy and cold
And my heart turn
To frigid emotion.

It makes its way into my
Mind,
Slowing the thoughts
In some parts,
But giving the other parts,
The nervous parts,
The parts that hyperventilate
And have panic attacks,
Caffiene.

Breathing gets hard
Because
I'm underwater,
Or underground.
Buried alive,
Or sinking slowly.

I.
Can't.
Breathe.

The worm,
The worst part about the worm?
It feeds on my life.

He touches
My hair
All the time,
Plays with the
Edges and
Fragments,
And sometimes reminds me that
"I can braid,
You know."
Sometimes he does.

Sometimes he mimics me
In History class
From across the room,
And he laughs at all my jokes,
Even when they aren't funny,
Just
Stupid.

And occasionally,
When I'm sitting in my little niche
Between his desk
And Ellie's,
Right on the cold tile,
He'll attach his forehead to mine
And just look at me.
Sometimes he'll whisper,
"Nose,"
And point to it,
And I just giggle
And break the stare.

I don't even think he feels it,
The wishing to always be near him,
To have his fingers in my hair
All the time,
And for his laugh to be
My soundtrack.

I don't think
That when he stares into my eyes
He wants to kiss me
As bad
As I want
To kiss
Him.

It was supposed to be fun.

New school, new supplies,
Thin, neon highlighters glowing inside
Vera Bradley backpacks.

Skinny folders assigned to
Pointless subjects,
Which would be fattened
With pointless homework
By the end of the day.

It was supposed to be fun,
And for a little while, I forgot.

I forgot until History.

The new teacher hadn't lived here
Longer than a week,
Which was why he was
Excited
About teaching.

He had on a brand new tie
From Banana Republic
Which was obviously tied
By his wide eyed fiance.

His classroom was bare, as he explained,
"Don't worry,
I ordered posters yesterday."

The teacher wasn't the problem.

The problem was,
Between Richardson
And Roberts,
He still existed.

At least in the school system he did.

"Ashley Paulette?"
"-Here."
"Abby Richardson?"
"-Here."
"Bennett Rill?"

And my life shattered all over again.

The silence felt
Deafening.

Remembering how he wouldn't be there.
Not ever.

"Bennett Rill?"

The teacher was confused, looking around the room
For someone
Who was buried six feet under.
Someone who the teacher might've thought
Was sick, or vacationing.

It was supposed to be fun.
But then I remembered

1: Am I the only one I know waging these wars behind my face and above my throat?
I'm all alone
2: When the waters rise in the storms of life I will stand secure in you
You are all I have
3: If I could then I'd shrink the world tonight so that I could find you and me inside
I can lean on you
4: Just cause you think it don't make it so
Can I trust you?
5: Baby come on over I don't care if people find out
No
6: I know what you think in the morning when the sun shines on the ground
You aren't worth it
7: Why are you strivin these days? Why are you tryin to earn grace?
I'm not worth it
8: Never win first place, I don't support the team
I'm not worth anything
9: Go ahead as you waste your days with thinking, when you fall everyone stands.
I'm invisible
10: I just want to run
No one will notice if I die
11: Hello my name is regret, I'm pretty sure we have met
I want to die
12: When life leaves you high and dry I'll be at your door tonight if you need help
You can't save me from myself
13: Be careful what you're wishing in the dark
Will anyone miss me?
14: You're killing my resistance now I have to let go
It's time
15: I can't take them on my own, oh I'm not the one you know
Thank you
16: There's no way to say this song's about someone else
Thank you
17: I should ink my skin with your name
Thank you for saving me
18: I don't know where you're going or when you're coming home I left the keys under the mat
I miss you
19: Night falls with gravity, the earth turns from sanity
No one will care if I die
20: Oh, well imagine, as I'm pacing the pews of a church corridor...

I thought you liked me
As a friend
And nothing more
Which killed me.

But I liked you
As so much more.
As more than a friend.
As that guy
Who would tie my shoes
And open my doors
And kiss my forehead.

As that guy who
Texts first in the morning
And last at night.

I loved you.

And now I know,
You will open my doors
And tie my shoes
And kiss my forehead.

And text me all day,
Not just in the morning
Or night.

Because you don't like me as a friend.
You like me as so much more.

And that gives me life.

You were one of those boys
Who I'd known since I was 4,
And who got confirmed in the
Christian faith
Six weeks ago.

One of those boys
Who joked around in class
In a way that made the tescher smile.

One of those boys
Who I was happy to have in my squad
For gym
Because I knew we would win
Team Handball.

He was a guy
Who was completely comfortable
If I referanced second grade,
Even if my memory
Embarrassed him.

Someone who was so happy
To go to highschool
And be on the football team,
And who had already made friends
With all the players.

And he was one of those boys
Who we all knew
Would be the one to score the winning goal.

I thought that he would always be there.
Because boys like Bennett Rill are rare.

We know it by the
Huge blinking lights
From rides that
Tend to make people
Throw
Up
Dairy Queen.

We know it by
Those big, intricate
Winding tatoos
That snake up the arms
Of half of the attendees
That have a message
That I can't read.

We know it by
Little children
Clinging,
Terrified,
To the hands of their
Irresponsible mothers.

And we know it
By inhaling so much
Secondhand smoke
That we're almost positive
That a little lung cancer
Has invaded our privacy.

We know it by
The Herndon Festival.

And we love it.

I'm that friend
Who you ask to the mall
On those weekends
Where it's so nice
And sunny
That everyone's at the beach.

I'm that friend
That you walk home
With
On days
Where everyone else
Has mountains of
Homework.

I'm the friend
That you ignore
When they text you
Because they're so
THICK
That they're
Too stupid
And
Desperate
To take the hint.

I will never be your first choice.
But I can settle for last.

If it means
Going to the mall
With you
On those weekends
Where it's so nice
And sunny
That everyone's at the beach.

If it means
Walking home
With you
On days
Where everyone else
Has mountains of
Homework.

And if it means
Getting that one text
Saying that
You
"Have to go"
And you'll
"Ttyl."

I'll settle for that.

He got expelled this time.

He wasn't sent to
In-school suspension
Or lunch detention
Or the counselor's office.

He was expelled from
Fairfax County Public Schools.

And his friends all freaked.

They sat outside the school
Every morning
And wouldn't go in
To protest.

They signed a petition
That called him a
"Well rounded student"
And
"Well loved by the student body."

I didn't love Brian.
I hated Brian.

Brian was the kid
Who always
Made the class
Stay late.

He was the kid who
Went through the halls
Grabbing peoples butts.

He was the kid that
All the guys wanted to be
And all the girls wanted to have.

And instead of sending him off
To West Point
Where he would have to
Shave his Bieber hair and
Follow the rules for once,
The county revoked the expulsion.

And to me
It seems like
A celebrity murdered someone
And because a thousand fan letters were sent in
They got to go free.

I think that
They believe
They can hide me
In a box
Forever.

They
"Only
Want
To
Protect
Me."

But it isn't
Protection
When
The surface
Isn't
Permeable.

Nothing gets in
And
Nothing gets out.

And
There isn't
Air to
Breathe.

I
Am
So
Bored

Civic
Studies
Oh
My
Lord

Droning
Teachers
Boring
­Class

Chances
Are
I
Will
Not
Pass

Half
The
Student
Fell
Asleep
­
Zero
Knowledge
They
Will
Keep

Civic
Studies
What
A
Bore

Good
T­hing
I
Like
English
More

When we were little
They used to call them
Spotted
Orange
Lizards.

I think they were trying not to scare us with
The words
Standards
Of
Learning.

Standardized testing.

Those things that you need Number Two pencils for.

Those things that they prepare you for
Every year
For months.

Those things that if a cell phone goes off
The entire class comes back
During the summer
And retakes it.

Those things that they give you hours and hours
To take,
Out of our normal schedule,
Even though they only take
Forty-five minutes

Those things that don't even count
Towards our grades
Because
"They're really assessing the teachers--
But it's important to do your best."

SOLs.
Those things that people stress over.

Even though your answers
Are only
Tiny gray dots
On a
Scantron sheet.

She may be ******.
And she may check my fingers-
Slam her hard metal pole down on them-
Each time we practice lacrosse.
And she may roll her eyes
At
Me.

But I don't hate her.
I feel sorry for her.
Because I think I'm the only one
Who pays attention
Through the laughter and fun
That
He touches her.

And she makes a joke out of it
So her minions snap out of their dazed state and
Chuckle a little bit.
But his crawling fingers are greedy
And her words are scarce.

All of the brain-dead minions
Laugh when she jokingly screams,
"****!"

Except me.

"Oh, hey Emily, will you be on our team?"

It was the very bad ending to a very bad day.

Three tests, forgotten homework, stuttered lines,
And this is what got me in the end.

Those girls,
The ones with the
Perfect long blonde beautiful hair
And the pencil skirts
And uggs,
The girls who even manage to make gym clothes look good.

We had lined up for
Captain ball
Which is really just
A mix of
Soccer and basketball.

And we had to line up,
Every inch of back touching the wall,
And the first seven people from each side would play, and then the next seven.

But of course
Those girls
The ones who can't bear to be
Seperated
For two minutes and forty-seven seconds
Had to have the perfect team.

No.
Just no.

I won't "be on your team."

There are no teams.

I sat outside
Lauren's LS classroom
While everyone else was at lunch
Chewing up and equal mixture of
Soggy bread and lunch meat.

I sat outside
While my back went numb
Against the cinderblock
From leaning a little too hard.

I sat outside
While other kids
with different schedules
Wrote elongated essays for English
Just to make 500 words.

I sat outside
Of Lauren's LS
While she tried her hardest
To explain to me
Why I got 17b wrong
And
Of course
How to fix it.

And I sat outside
Doing test corrections
For a poisoned class called
Geometry

I sat outside
Because of my 57% score.

I sat outside,
And I decided to study.

I'll miss you so much,
I'll miss you so bad,
The past three years to date,
Are the best I've ever had.

And while we are apart,
Of times together, we will dream,
And when we are so sep'rate,
I'll be bursting at the seams.

Is just what it sounds,
First you're up,
Then you're down

Can't decide
Of what to write
Of hearing? Of taste?
Of smelling? Of sight?

And you run in circles
But nowhere you get
Because writer's block
Has you in its net.

Cemented shoes
And silenced talk
It's even hard to describe
Writer's block

He threw invitations
Through the halls.

They rained down
In an endless stream
And it seemed like everyone
Ended up with two.

There are over a thousand
People at are school.
But nobody wanted to go.

Not one person came out and said,
"Brian,
Everyone
Knows
You're
A
Pothead."

They all were "too busy"
Or their parents would
"Never let them go."

But everyone knew.

And so everyone went.

He used it this morning.

Kevin Robinson,
Who has thick curly hair
And
Thinks
He
Knows
Everything.

And I told him,
"What kind of a word
Is
Irradiate?
It isn't a word."

And he told me
In his
Know
It
All
Way
"YES, it IS."

And he spelled it for me.
Because he's into spelling.

I
R
R
A
D
I
A
T
E

So I huffed
And left
Kevin Robinson.

But Randy Weidman
Whose last name
Has a whole different meaning
Had his fancy
New
iPhone 5
And during
First period
Which happens to be
Geometry Honors
He took out
Sira
Or
Whatever
Her
Name
Is

And he asked her.

Sira did not understand.
Sira is not so smart.

But autocorrect is.

And it turns out that
Irradiate
Is
A
Word.

Once upon a time
At a middle school
They decided
That we didn't need
48 minutes
Of lunch

(Even
Though
We
Do)

And now we have
LS

(Which stands for
Learning Seminar)

((Even
Though
We
Never
Learn
anything))

And they
Sneakily
Subtracted
Eighteen
Minutes
From
Teen
Wolves
Shovel­ing
Food into
Their mouths

To sit
Quietly
In a room
And read.

You tell us to
Spread
The
Word
To
End
The
Word

But you mean the word
"*******"

And you think it's mean
Because of
Mental retardation
And how it hurts
Their feelings.


Stop that word.
I won't mind.

Just don't turn around
And call
Him
A
******

I called you early
Because the last time
You
Showed
Up
At
The
Curb
20
Minutes
After
I
Called

Do
Not
­Yell
At
Me
For
Showing
Up
Late.

1 I've seen life through the eyes of a different soul
And maybe I hated what I saw
2 On the floor of Tokyo,  one down another town to go.
I'll go anywhere to get away
3 If you want to get with me, theres some things you gotta know
And I won't open my heart for you
4 All this trouble that I know, every swing I take, and stone I've thrown
They were all aimed at you
5 Rule number one is that you gotta have fun
And I will always avoid it
6 Automatic, systematic, come on don't be so dramatic
I'll do whatever I want
7 To all my friends, the night is young
Live your life
8 I can see our fingers are intertwined
But I want to untangle them
9 She, she ain't real
But neither am I
10 I got this feeling on the summer day when you were gone
And so I left
11 Give me love, my God. Lately I've been waking up alone.
Come and find me
12 I'm waking up to ask and dust
Someone save me
13 Look down from a broken sky
Why didn't you come?
14 What I see is what's to be, cartwheels to eternity
You aren't guilty
15 Be careful making wishes in the dark
Don't forget me
16 All I know is the morning when I woke.
I never woke up
17 I wanna be drunk when I wake up on the right side of the wrong bed.
But I won't wake
18 This is the story of a girl who cried a river and drowned the whole world
And she even killed herself
19 No sir, well I don't want to be the blame, not anymore.
It was never my fault
20 Lights go out and they can't be saved
*I could never be saved

You left
For England
Saturday
An it was raining when you left
An when you got back
It rained still.

And you were gone
For one week
Seven days.
Which is five school days
For me to squeeze through geometry
without you
(And
I
Can
Barely
Survive
With
You)

And Sarah asked
For a Union Jack
T-shirt
And told you
Not to forget.

And you brought it
For her
And
Got
Nothing
For
Me

But you told me
"You didn't ask
But if you want something
I'll get it for you
Next time.
I have to go back in
Six to eight weeks"

And I thought
You would have
Bought me something
Not as a
Souvenir
But
As
An
Apology

For leaving my alone
For a week
To live lonely

And yet
You'll go back
To England across the pond
In
Six
To
Eight
Weeks

Sometimes I doubt you're actually going to England.

Sometimes I forget I have a father.

How did it go
Around and around
Thick and thin
Slivers of beads
And evil piercing shrapnel

Bangbang
Two swipes
And gone were they
From the world.
No one knows
Where they went
But they are so far gone
That no hospital machine can bring them back.

The trees
Behind the checkered screen
Of my window
Are silhouetted skeletons
Against a black and white
Cotton candy sky.
And limp dangling pieces of flesh
Cling to the bones
Refusing release.

And they forgot about me
Let sin take over
As soon as Eve
Laid a pearly white finger
Upon the flesh of the apple

For those first poisoned bites
Sent wedges
Like earthquakes
In between us.

A huge crack of rubble
Uncrossed,
No bridges to connect

And dust filled the air between
To cut off breath
And to cut you off from me
So you could not see me
And you could not hear me

But I want to know you
I want to hear your voice
I want to know you more.

I want to touch you
I want to see your face
I want to know you more.

And that injection
That sin
Coursed through your veins
And thickened the blood
That connected us
And made it thick and dull and cancerous
Until it was still.

And one day
I hope for a cure
To this evil disease.

Something to help blood flow
Like a river from the crimson heart.
And I will send
A
Bridge between us
To connect us once more
And make a swept
Breeze to clear the air.


I will send Jesus.

Today she finally
Painted over her toenails
In that icky
Sticky
Thick
Bubblegum pink color
That her
drunk father
bought her for christmas

And it had a number
On the cap
And she didn't know what it stood for
But she thought that since the number was
783
Then it didn't stand for the kind.
Because who knew L'Oreal sold
That many bottles of nail polish?
How many different kinds of pink
Could there be?

She actually didn't care.
Because the only reason that she was doing it
Was to cover up
That bluish
Tint
That you get
In your finger and toenails
When you don't eat.

And before she could paint the last toe
Her drunk father came in
And shot her dead.
But she felt nothing
Because the squashed up metal
Bullet
Went straight through her stomach
Which was
Empty
Because she didn't eat.

And her toes were
All the way dry
By the time the police
Showed up.