Something in my throat made my unspoken words shake.
And something in between every aching memory made the lights seem like at any moment,
They would break.

The floorboards creaked with every step of my timid feet,
As the shattered glass dove in deeper and deeper,
Like it was pouring from the stained and sagging ceiling above me.
And as it opened up the scars that had just barely finished healing,
My skin screamed with pain and panic until the tears didn't want to fall,
But they did.
I could feel the sum of my strength weakening
As the first teardrop fell from my face
And landed on the ground with a vibrant shatter.
Then the tears fell like frantically racing raindrops
On a cold and stormy day.
And as they despairingly drained from me,
So did my strength.
And yet,
I thought it was all so beautiful.

But as the newly awakened wounds opened up wider and wider,
I could hear my heart howling in agony,
Hiding all alone in its quiet room.
I tried to give it something for the pain
But it just screamed louder.
So I tried to comfort it
But it just went back to hating me again.
"Tell me when you think it was that
We became so unhappy,
So hopeless,
So vulnerable;
Sleeping out of sync
With our dreams utterly
Severed and estranged?
Tell me,
How do we fix it?"

The constant weight of
Hope versus practicality.
I never minded it always blaming me for its mistakes,
I just made sure that I always held it
Close enough
And tight enough
During every single earthquake.
But no one is going to fix it for us,
Because no one can.
There's no one else,
There's never been.
It's just us two.
And we're not even two,
We're really just one.
And that's when things start to feel
Especially lonely.
But maybe it will all cease when I stop living my life
Staring into the barrel of a gun.

But maybe,
We're really just one.
Only one.
No one else,
No one else but me and my hardening heart,
Never apart.
Only one.
*Just me,
And my lovely counterpart.

Where are you?
Just below my chin
I've noticed
Just above my heart
It screams
And then that certain sting
Of grief
Of suffering
Just behind the ribs

Through the doorway
And straight ahead
And you were gone that quickly

Deep down
In some instinctual part of me
I crave the light of your energy

Looking around,
Finding no hope
Just more and more lonely things

This void without you
Like a home
But nothing left in it
Except for the windows

So this same part of me
It waits for you
Residing in this eviscerated home
Until the day you will see me again
And join me
Finally living there,
Together,
Again

But until then,
The windows ache for the sight of you

A subtle visitor,
You are more than this image
I hold of you
This image that is like a beautiful bunch of flowers
That I hold between my tightened fists
Every single day

You are like nobody since I have loved you
Who is the person that strings you out in bunches of stars
Like garland for the night sky?
Who is it that writes your name
In letters of smoke
Amongst the clouds?

Please,
Let me remember you as you were
Before you existed in this context

You are here
You do not run away

I know that
I will always answer you
To your last cry
Curl my love around you
As though I am afraid I might never feel love again

I love you,
And the pain of that
Bites my bottom lip
It bleeds
And swells a little

I love you
Again
And again

When did love become the same thing as pain?

It's funny
I woke up today with nothing to do
So I made myself a to-do list
Most of it was *******
But that's beside the point
The very first thing on it was
"Write some ******* poetry"
Maybe I should have written
"Write some ******* good poetry"
Because lately
Almost every single thing I write down is horse ****
It all *****
But nevertheless I keep writing
Finding myself to be more and more frustrated
Feeling more and more pathetic and hopeless
When will I be free of this evil and choking plague?
When will my hand start writing frantically and never stop?
Bleeding beautiful words onto countless sheets of paper
Forming passion into sentences
And feelings into all of the letters in between
Something that tugs at every part of your insides
When you read it

I woke up today
I made some coffee
And I sat down to write
When nothing surfaced
I said, "**** it"
And poured myself a glass of wine
And as I sipped on the poisonous drink
I wrote a poem

And it was still ****

Someday
He will forget
The bottle
And his
Reflection
Will make his insides
Scream

Shattered winds
Of vanished youth
The life drained
Definitively
From his very flesh
Pale and vacant
Void of
Everything good
He once had
In total awe
Due to the liquid’s
Draining
Power

Hollow
But sinking
Numb
But hurting

Weakness stands
At the door to where he
Once resided
It’s come for its
Fix
Thirsting for it
Burning under the
Control of
Its Addiction

But
He is
Nowhere
To be found
Lost
Somewhere else
Consumed
By something
Far more
Intoxicating

There is a longing you feel
To know the whole universe
All of its secrets
All of its flaws
Everything
You think about it and wonder if it feels light or heavy
Or maybe even a paradoxical combination of both
But you will never know
Because you do not realize that you are the entire universe
You are all of its flaws
All of its beauties
All of its secrets, all of its wisdom
You are everything and everything is you
You are forever
And you need to be loved
Just as everything and everyone else needs love to survive

Look at the clouds above your home
Notice the way water forms differently on every single surface
Muster every single detail
Increase your awareness
And you will soon discover the secrets of the universe
And if you are feeling sad and quiet turn to your soul and acknowledge your humanness
Love your human nature
Realize it is precious and valuable
You do this and you will feel the soft and kind hand of the universe on your shoulder
You will feel its presence within you
And you'll look down at yourself laying and feeling hurt and hopeless
Slowly holding on to old feelings and new times
You will realize it is time to leave
So you go and you write as you feel that familiar ache all over your body
Resonating from deep within every single corner of your heart and soul

You glance outside of your window and see the green of the trees and revel in their magnificence and beauty
And in that moment you realize how immaculate existence is
So you take a deep breath as you take it all in
Your thoughts are very much alive and pulsating
And your arms tingle and your soul emits strong and powerful waves of unadulterated passion from within
Joy waits at your fingertips as you reach softly
You constantly taste past times of pain and hurt on your tongue
Violently brushing your teeth every night in hopes it will go away
But it is always there and may go away at times but it always comes back
A constant reminder of who you are and what you have come from

Sometimes when you walk your feet feel old and you think about how you haven't even lived an entire lifetime yet so how on earth can you feel so tired?
You wonder when you will actually stop waiting
When a strong ocean wind will knock you over
Cold and hard
And you'll gaze ahead of you with bleary eyes
Your head still in a state of shock
And you'll come closer and closer to the reason that was dug out from the deepest part of your insides
Until everything feels soft and you can stand again
And you'll look to the sky and forget all of the pain
And a small touch of hope will be born upon a tiny spot on the surface of your heart
Beating hard and lovely and powerful

You think of the rain and how it falls completely
You think about how you exist and how it is okay there is no more innocence and just as much loneliness
You realize you've got to keep your dreams alive
You are thinking quietly
Your thoughts are kissing the walls of your mind carefully
"Oh, how beautiful it is to be alive and aware!"
You say in your head
And you wish to meet your perfect heart in the stars
And feel all of the care and warmth as certain waves of truth and ardor crash into you
A tree of sure sadness looks down upon you
Saying you are clean and new and beautiful
And that
It is okay if you do not spend the majority of your days feeling sad and lost and lonely
Until a quiet reverie born from stardust clouds your mind
You feel the secret tingling on the outer parts of your mouth
And things are better and you feel closer
You are no longer searching
And words have always been a dear friend
You are able to realize that now
You used to be broken
For a long, long time
So of course it is going to be extremely difficult getting used to life without being broken beyond repair
A part of you will always be broken
You know that and you are okay with it
Finally you embrace it
There is an ease and comfort with the going of sorrow
And you wonder
How it can feel so wonderful when your bones are free and you feel happy in the deepest part of you
Because really, what are you doing?
WHAT ARE YOU DOING???
You are living and that is all
You are embracing life and all that you feel and it is okay and when it comes down to it, you really do love it
But sometimes your mind refuses to hear that
It shuts itself off from everything and all you can do is guess for why it happens like this
So you take those two horrid
But so essential
White pills
And you sleep and sleep
Never awakening until your alarm sounds
And your lids open
And your lips bring in fresh air to your lungs
Your mind and your heart are engulfed in peace and never are they apart
Together they are one with your soul
The sunlight starts to kiss your face and you start to think about the years you have been living
And how the voice inside of you has changed over those years and the ways it has touched your life

So here you are listening to music
Lonely and sweet
With a strange feeling in your chest as your stomach rests lightly on the surface of your bed
Barely moving, your hand somehow knows how to write without your mind really thinking
You have always held your pen tightly and a lot of great and loving and bright words are capable of surfacing
Maybe differently than before
But even so
Your veins still continuously pump blood throughout your body

You get up out of bed and stagger into your bathroom where you stare into the mirror and know you are supposed to see yourself staring right back but really
You see nothing
All the while knowing your face is sober looking
And your skin is browned and soothing with the beauty of summer's presence hard and golden on your surface
Feeling crazy, your eyes are locked to a spot consisting of nothingness
Void of any control
In a realm that is almost reaching fantasy
Tingling and alluring
So you look for the window
But then it is gone and you feel an aching that gets stronger as the walls close in on you
And you notice the kisses full of blood that set the earth on fire
And you breathe with fear as death sits on your windowsill
Should you reach for it or push it away?
To die or to help this weak and troublesome girl who is far too used to living in darkness and not only asks for but needs trust?

The leaves on the trees don't stay dead forever
Open your mind and your heart and drift away
Far, far away
Your soul lives and exists in every realm of consciousness
You are safe
Even as your secrets build like smoke
Like wandering rays beating down strong upon you
Conquering your emptiness instead of all of the happy thoughts that reside and are inevitably known and lovely and consisting of everything except for unwanted goodbyes
Your heart shines on what it needs
Easy and lovely
And mostly, it has it
Your heart is the sun that shines on his face and makes his own heart race in perfect synchronization with yours
He is something you take like black coffee or straight whiskey because it needs nothing more than what it is
Everything it is
Is enough and beautiful and enticing because of that
But their strength is the most admirable
The sunshine gets stronger throughout the day just as one gets stronger throughout their own life
Accumulating more and more understanding as certain parts are more inviting than others
And still, others escape stability and their reflections whisper on your flesh and send a sense of desire across your cheeks until they reach the middle of your being and are forgotten

You have come close to death many times before
But now it is distant
So you close your eyes as you lie on the itchy, flat floor of your room
And imagine all of those and all of which you have met in the darkness
Staring very surely at nothing in particular
The sound of your heartbeat grows quiet
Changing the bad into nothing but tugging memories
Making you leave true despair behind as you not only grasp, but accept, the endless tears on the sand

Your mind is wandering
Walking to places both near and far
Trying to piece together the point and meaning of past lovers
But that doesn't really matter because nature fully forces you to not only imagine
But realize
The beauty and point of the present that is filled with growing wisdom
So you sit with your back against the wall
And your stomach burns with purpose slightly surrounding nature and the moonlight
And bliss surfaces like cigarette smoke floating then disappearing but still always present in the air around you
And you understand the ruined and intense thoughts of your past and the blessings they have brought
And the pressure you feel on your heart as you admire the luster of the sun on the metal of the railings
And the branches laying in rest
Void of hurt
But listening to conversations harder and more difficult with time
Solid
But struggling entirely with magnitude
Lifeless beings in a sense
But the raindrops make their hearts ache
Beaming ultimately away from conformity until they become another entity compiled of lust and beauty
And as you walk
The grass is loud and green as the dead branches lie hot and broken in the caress of the ground
Void of hate
As you watch the darkness pull them in and swallow them whole
Wanted completely
Written on your flesh with self supposed anxiety
Your kisses are longer and drown in a sea of meaning as you pray with clenched teeth
You feel on your arm a peculiar force and questions, smooth but loud, utter desperately within you as
Heavy but gentle hope swirls like incense around your nose until your spirit is calm and pain is hidden
And you find yourself to be trapped in nothing less than gold and passion
And that is when things were easy again

Unforgettable bones
Have been buried
The emptiness
Mutates
Fading fingertips
Break
Expanding wounds
Ache
And Innocence
Is replaced
By a
**Monster

a love like the way the ocean feels
a heart like that day you treasure with every bit of your beating heart
a face that makes you want to kiss every single freckle
a body warm like the sand under the rays of the beating sun
arms like the ocean’s waves, strong and inviting
a home like the way your bed feels in the morning

the pain that is left inside each cigarette she smokes
eyes that stare off and reveal her deep-seated loneliness
the cold and stale secrets she releases as she blows smoke out of her mouth and then inhales it back into her nose

never fully loved, she aches when she is touched
you think of all of the secrets that rest inside of her
she needs time with her hands so she can do all of the things that keep her youth

dealing with another’s touch is more of a blessing to her than it is a curse
her long and waving brown and reddish hair emits a warmth and shines bright in the light
every day she prays someone might remember her existence
forced with a beauty and flesh that is seen easier by others is difficult for her to accept and become accustomed to
the deep luster that sparkles in her perfect eyes that turn green in the sun

her head laying lightly on her pillow, she is broken and things are hard for her
she tastes times of despair in her mouth as she searches for her quiet voice
you notice how beautiful she really is not only on the outside, but more so on the inside which makes you consider falling for the gold rings wrapped tightly around her piercing pupils
but you know she won’t let you in
her eyes when she smiles remind you of a warm cup of coffee first thing in the morning
her lips are a curse in the darkest comfort of life and look as if they taste like bliss

but she doesn’t how how to picture forever and all you want to do is hold her hand as the two of you get lost in some form of nature
you feel weak as you think of her mind and all of the ideas that stay hidden in its deepest parts
you think of all of the people she has exhaled and all of the promises that endlessly resemble relentless stolen time and all of her inviting smiles that are ultimately never-ending
you can tell how beat-up but peaceful her heart is as she reaches out to no avail
you want to give her gifts and take photos of her face in frustration as her mind jumps in every single direction
you want to swear to her that you will provide endless embraces and chase her alluring irises with kisses
you want to promise her mornings of early alarms and warm company

you start to think of the sunshine that is instantly ruined with the apparent glints and bent pleasure of her daringly beautiful crescent-shaped smile
you see her as a drain, rare and spiraling, with acidic-like thoughts and emotions that disappear with the presence of a healing and loving touch
the extreme to which her deadly looks are stronger and more alluring than any flower and any paradise

you imagine her self-portrait and what she looked like with the pressure on her shoulders as she dug deep down and forced herself to acknowledge her looks and her charm
you wonder how she deals with being so tense as she tirelessly searches for reason and understanding

the stronger she puffs her cigarette the more desired are the intervals between each breath as she tries to find the right sentences and forget about how unbearable everything is
she is quiet and her face emits freckles that pop out at you as you gaze in awe at her beauty
she sits and thinks of the six prior people that have threatened her strength and ultimately left her heart broken and aching
there are newborn, salty tears that radiate on her cheeks as she mutters something under her breath in the doorway, she dreams of another dimension

her insides are constantly churning and you ache to know her habits and you ache to know how her molars taste with your tongue inside of her mouth
she is quite the commodity and you desperately want to blurt out everything to her
but her trust has been demolished and her heart has been metamorphosed and she wouldn’t know what to do as she would emptily reply “i am so sorry.”

you think of her as an enchantment and how she is really an inconvenience to your peace of mind
you rant on and on about all of the feelings that reside, and are upheld, secretly in the plethora of your thoughts that are diffident of being spoken aloud
her lifestyle baffles you as you try to contain your amazement and admiration of how disciplined she really is
and your heart aches and you feel worthless as you look in the mirror and stare at your eyes that faintly reveal exhaustion, appearing to be both passionately and tirelessly struggling to find some form of sanity residing deep within you

it is getting harder as she is loyal to what she needs out of life and what she needs out of other people
and it hurts as you think of all of the remaining endings for this eighteen year old ocean of beauty and difficulty and all of the interrupted conversations and the tingling sensation that a saturday morning brings
she is alluring as her body defines the sun’s rotting reflections that pry at her insides and the canals of her heart, possessing a revealed and evicted magnitude that could keep you in raw amazement for days
the thought of her lips, always faintly quivering, is like a weapon, as you watch her wandering about, never changing the perplexed look that rests perfectly on her face
you want to run up to her and beg her to stay
but the thought of the stress it would cause keeps you away
you try to delete her from your thoughts but that is starting to seem more and more pointless

you notice she has fallen and all of the feelings and words swell up inside of you and the thought of holding her hand causes you to run to her
but the world is mean and your teeth shatter under the pressure as you try to imagine the years you have spent without her
your heart emits a familiar warning and the sun seems dead and older and the tears start to form

you finally muster up enough courage to wrap your arms around her as you resist the urge to kiss her nose
you can feel how lonely she is and you hope to god you will be able to accept that later
you grasp her tighter as you listen to the despair that flows from the tips of her fingers that burn when she writes
her skin is smooth and her entire body is light with love but heavy with the vast amounts of pain and years of hurt that are imbedded into her skin and into her bones

you imagine her as the sea, apart from everything, but one with it at the same time
she is friendly, even as she remembers the forgotten hours of anger that used to torment her
you caress her soft cheeks and softly tell her to shut off the bad thoughts and forget those who have left her
you turn to reach into your pocket and you catch a glimpse of the moon
you feel your stomach fall as it reminds you of her; sometimes lost, part of her always hidden away, but full of strength and light and beauty
you had forgotten how much it resembles her until you look at both of them in the presence of the other

you look back down at her and notice how her lips long to be kissed and then comes the poem you will write in order to remind you of this night
you feel as though you are in the middle of a war and that you really need to sleep and everything around you is abnormally quiet, like there are blockades of passion built up and around you
you stand there, trying to look alive and say, with every piece of strength you contain, “i love you,” softly but assuredly

she looks at you like you are human and then she looks at the surrounding landscape and takes what seems to be a week, to say, “but why?”
you wrap your hand tightly around her palm and try to explain but your voice shakes and cracks and you can’t seem to find the words when suddenly a tree of courage and unadultered passion grows inside of you and you say,
“because you are beautiful and you are broken but you are trying. because you are human and you are one person and two hands and one heart. because i want nothing more than to clean your burns and bruises and make the wanderer in you build a home and stay. because looking at you feels like nothing i have ever felt and because you deserve to be loved, you deserve to be shown that another person’s love won’t turn into knives and anxiety and pain in your heart. you deserve to be healed and to be whole. i love you because you are you and there is no better way to describe you other than that. i love you because you are beautiful on the inside, no matter how many times you have been hurt. i love you because you light my insides on fire and because you never leave my mind. i love you because i can feel you, in my heart and in my bones and in every fiber of my being. i love you. i love you. i LOVE you. and i could go on and on telling you WHY but the desire to kiss your lips is so strong i feel as though my legs could give out at any second!”
you are breathing heavily as you realize her eyes have risen up to catch yours and she leans toward you
she looks golden under the moon light and the surface of her eyes are rapt with a soothing flare that burns into you as you gaze at the reflection of the moon in the circles of her eyeballs
you gaze at the beautiful curve of her body in your arms as her eyelids blink open and shut slowly as she quietly moves her lips as close to yours as they can get without touching, slightly moves away, almost like she is trying to prove something, then breaks your gaze as she closes her eyes and kisses you like you are something she has wanted and longed for her entire life

it is at this moment, as you feel her poking ribcage under the warmth of your hand and feel your body collapse, that you realize how certain and profound your love for her is
kissing her, you feel the ghosts that live inside of her, moving around as she clenches you tighter
you can smell the hurt that swells like water inside of her
there is a strong and longing presence about it and you can hear her heartbeat coming from inside of her chest, hidden underneath all of the sadness she has felt the entire duration of her life

kissing her makes you feel like you are kissing the universe, like it is a once in a lifetime chance
she pulls away and looks into your eyes and touches your face with her thumb so softly and so effortlessly that it feels as if you two have been doing this for your whole lives, loving each other
you can feel her wandering away from you so you grab her tighter and she snaps out of it and looks at you and says, “when i wasn’t there, you actually searched until you found me. no one has ever done that before. thank you.”

you can tell she is trying to forget old poisons as you read the expression on her face
she never said it back but that is okay because you know how terrifying those three words are to her and you know she will say it once she is ready

you let out a long sigh with the admittance of such a huge confession and everything is okay

you close your eyes and whisper, “finally.”

It all started one summer. It was a summer full of boundless love and mischief. Things were happy and easy, but non-committal. It was one of those times when you just felt happy to exist and that’s what it was. But nothing is ever permanent. He was leaving for college in the fall, moving half-way across the country, thousands and thousands of miles away. And it was the summer before her senior year of high school. Things weren’t complicated yet. But lofty anticipation is frightening and there was always something that held them back. They knew it couldn’t last. They knew their romance would soon come to an end. So they took it as it was and that seemed to be okay.

They spent their time venturing out. Each day was a new and different adventure. What else could they conquer with raw feelings and attraction? Kissing under the sun and loving below the moon. Every time one spent time with the other it seemed something of a dream to them. Summer dug its fingers deep down into them, brightened up their insides until their blood stream glowed golden. It guided the two lovers down the ***** paths of youth, carefree mis-happenings, and daydreams. Their heads were dizzied as they’d drift away with each other whilst sitting under a tree in the mid-afternoon.

He left and they were both sad but only for a little while. He will always have a special place in her heart, and she in his, but they were young and reckless and maybe that’s all they were supposed to be. They kept in touch by writing handwritten letters back and forth for the first few months he was away. She thought about him a lot. She was always at the back of his mind. He didn’t come home over Thanksgiving like he said he might. So her heart ached a little. About a month or so passed and he was back but things had already become complicated. Maybe even awkward. They were both sad, slightly bitter, but what else was there to do? It was over before it was ever anything, a lost cause from the beginning. Right? But it seemed a desperate hope kept bringing them back together, making their paths cross again and again. He went back to California and she carried on her mundane existence. Time passed. He finished his first year of college and she had graduated from high school. They were two completely different people than the summer before. Things became even more complicated, even more destructive.

They were reunited yet again and with liquor on their breath and old feelings wilting in their hearts, they got lost into the night with each other. The folds of the sensual darkness took them in and nurtured them only to poison them the next day. And the following days. And the following weeks. They would go weeks without talking. She even left the country for two weeks and they never spoke a word to each other. But things aren’t that simple and nothing ever ends that easy. He was scared and she was desperate for his affection. And still, something kept pulling them back together despite them trying to avoid the other. It was incapable of being ignored and brought with it a great deal of anxiety on both ends of the chain. Things were tense. They weren’t airy and simple like they were before.

Things are heavy now, there’s too much baggage. He says she is too good for him, that he doesn’t want to be with her because losing her is inevitable. He is consumed with self-hatred. He told her he hates himself too much to ever share any of himself with anyone else and it made her so sad. She said to him, “I just wish you could see yourself the way I see you,” and he just blurted out that he was in love with someone else. He apologized. It was someone back in California. But he still loved her, he was just confused and rightfully unsure as to how to go about addressing that. Her heart was weak as it dropped to her stomach when he said, “Can I kiss you? It’s okay if you say no.” And of course she said yes. And so he did. And then he left.

Just like love, just like how you know life
With your heart beating and your eyes big with wonder and awe
You want to feel each day slip away as you long to get closer to death
For death seems to be the only logical escape
The way you view the world, there is too much evil, too many horrible things going on
Not enough goodness, no justice
You long to possess the right to inform people about how mankind has managed to lose its soul and fervor to pain, hurt, evil
Evolving in all of the wrongs ways, developing all the wrong ideals
You try to say the words right, try to make them coherent
And at night you think and think
And in your mind, things look so little but so unattainable

You are a spirit of light
Your left hand longs to be held by another's right hand
Your face longs to be caressed, to be admired and remembered
You need some reason to keep on living
For on your own, you are just waiting for death to sweep you off your feet and take you away
It is the only thing that seems to feel right
The only thing that really makes sense to you

You choose to remain in your thoughts and in your head
For it is a good place to be
You can smile a new smile, take your hands and dig them deep within the sun and the moon
You can hold the universe and maybe even restore the hope that was once present and flourishing within you
But once you must leave your mind and your dreams and your thoughts
You slowly and begrudgingly come back to reality and your stomach falls to your feet as you hear the pangs of the outside world coming back alive inside of you
You ponder the concept of the word "home" and remember an old body that you used to seek safety in
Cold and dark tears contemplate falling and you wish to live in the sky, gone from the world, slipping away in your dreams, leaving behind the dreadful drone of your own existence
You ache to be left alone in your thoughts
Your mind travels back to the days that once consisted of innocence and simplicity
So alluring and true
Tangible
Withholding pure and utter bliss
Now, so unattainable and distant
Forever gone

You try to stop your mind from traveling further but you think about the person you used to be, the girl you once knew
Her lips are now forever gasping for more and more air and the feeling of fear is hard and sharp in her heart that is broken beyond repair
You long for better days, for better things to come to you
But there is something dark and black that rests deep within you and you cannot live a moment without noticing its lurking presence
You long to be free of it
But death is so far away and sleep is only temporary
Your eyes are open but there's a path behind them compiled of pasts years that you continuously walk day after day after day
And they don't taste sweet and your breath is trapped within you, making it seem as if blood tastes better than this
And once again, death and truth seem attainable but so very, very out of reach

The weather is gloomy and rain is falling from the clouds above
You stand and let the rain kiss every inch of your warm and tingling flesh and you feel happy as you turn with the wind and taste the raindrops on your lips
Your heart is red with fire and warmth, beating graciously as you believe each and every raindrop is a healing kiss to your troubled and aching soul
Times of hate and despair trickle down your body with the rain and you feel both dead and alive all at once, waiting for something other than hurt and emptiness to be your dearest friend, waiting for the loneliness that swims through your veins to go looking for someone else to invade with its poisonous ways
The rain is trying to help but the loneliness was there before the rain ever existed and it cannot die inside of you
For it is very much alive as it stands in the room behind your ribcage, holding out its arms, loudening its voice today and every day, this morning and every morning, until it is eventually noticed tonight and every night
With its feet imbedded to the floor of your body and your bones, forever attempting to taint the beauty of your soul
You try to forget, but instead you understand
You lay in bed and it all feels so real as you look desperately to the stars
The same stars you have been looking to and wishing on ever since you were a small child
And you recall the first time you ever saw a star, still so full of innocence and ambition and wonder
But innocence isn't a permanent friend like loneliness which lies at the door to your heart
Innocence is forced to change its shape until it disintegrates all together
Just as you have sat and watched the stars for all these years, you sat and watched your innocence slowly fade away with age and the progression of life and time
Then comes the wonder of the beloved memories when you still possessed that innocence and its hurts and everything seems lonely once more
So you write as you look to the moon and the earth and the song they sing each night
And even though you have grown accustomed to the darkness
You are sure it was once was something that took too frequently and took too soon until it became a friend instead of an enemy
Because what other choice did you have other than to form an alliance with it?
And soon enough the words flowed from your fingers and nothing mattered as long as you could write and feel something, whether it was the pain from under a razor blade or the earth beneath your feet or the taste of wine on your tongue
It was still something

Oh little miss silence, the quiet and unnoticed observer
Seen by no one, your head high in the clouds as you continuously demand the reason for why you are living
You lay and wait for the great and warm sea to scoop you up and break you apart until you are nothing but particles floating about, forming other unknown entities
But people lie and we are all terrible human beings
Spiteful and cold
Critical
Deceiving
Although you have always felt different from the rest, small and everything less than perfect
Always thinking thoroughly, slowly, deeply
Always acting as a caretaker to others and their wants, and needs, and feelings
You discovered at a very young age that helping others makes your heart dance and that fighting for those who are in need is of utmost importance
You always speak so softly because your efforts are never enough to change anyone or anything
You are kind when others are mean, strong when others are weak
Every single night you lay your head down to sleep and pray and pray for better things and better people to reign, just as you did every single night as a child
But things get harder as youth diminishes
And once it finally leaves, you find that you are the person you'd never thought you'd become
And knowing that is extremely painful
It is a constant, stabbing feeling

You look for peace, talk of it, listen for it
Longing to make your insides bright again
Searching for a reason to keep on living
But your mouth is locked shut and you hide with the trees and hold dear true laughter and listen to the music in everything as you see reality through one set of eyes, and the world within your mind, through another
You feel sorry as you look for some person or some place to build a home
And you long to grow with the trees that will rest beside it and to float with the clouds that will rest above it
A world to live and breathe comfortably in is all that you long for
But you are living in hell as this world is the farthest thing from comfortable
You lay beneath the sky and ache and ache as you listen to the voices that sing above you
And you feel apart from everything and the sad feelings surface once more and you try and try to escape but instead more things wake inside of you and walls build up and around you until your story is just another poem you will write in the future

You watch the tree from your window and try to remember what you felt like before you lost everything

I see something that faintly glints
In the back of your eye
I reach in
Dig deep
Pry it out
And find I am holding the entire universe
In my own two hands

The warm and inviting luster of your deep brown eyes
Whose gaze pierce directly into mine so perfectly
So beautifully

My heart melts

Fixed on your gaze
I fall into a trance
And get lost in the feeling
Everything around me disappears
And you are the only thing I see

My heart lets out a peaceful sigh

Standing in the presence of your magnificence
I realize I am so vulnerable to how you make me feel
What you do to me
How you affect me

My heart beats slowly

Without my consent
My eyes are always searching for yours
My body forever longing for yours
And my heart endlessly reaching for yours

What is this unending and intense connection between us?

“Tick, tock,”
says the Clock
No!
Not another day gone?
Just like that?

These days go by
like dust in the wind,
Slipping through our fingers
before they can even begin

Days that quickly turn into weeks,
and weeks that bleed into months
Until another year has gone by,
in just the blink of an eye…

So there’s one thing for certain,
Something wont to be denied:
The constant tick,
of the Clock’s tireless hand,
has us constantly saying goodbye
to Life, one measly day at a time…

And with that thought, I bid adieu
to this past year, too
And welcome yet, another one —
Let’s see how quickly this one dares to run

Yeah there's an undertow, but it ain't got me



It's kinda like
When you get really, really mad
I mean you're mad
And then something happens
Like a song or a certain cast of light
And you realize the reason you were mad is nothing like the reason red blood cells carry oxygen to your brain
Or the reason you love pineapple
It's nothing like the roots of the tree outside your window
And you feel pretty stupid
You scold yourself
"Stupid, silly human being"
Then you forget what you had just learned when you looked at that tree or took a deep breath
You're thinking about other things
You're thinking about what you're going to do with the time you've got before bed
Or what that rude girl at school said to you

And then it's kinda like
When you get really, really sad
I mean you're sad
And then you receive a much needed compliment from someone
And you think about how **** well you've actually got it
It's so unlike that sadness
It's just like those red blood cells and that tree outside your window
And here you are feeling silly and ignorant once more
You're thinking about all that time you wasted
But there are loved ones in your living room and a blanket on your bed
It's okay, right?



And then
Then it's kinda like blasting music in the car
It's kinda like being made to laugh during a miserable school day
It's like your favorite road to drive
Or your favorite pen to write with
It's like the rattling in your speakers
Or your brown eyes
It's like opening bottles with your teeth
Having plans for the night
Getting away with things you shouldn't have done in the first place
It's kinda like listening to your music too loud
Or brushing your teeth
It's like accidentally falling asleep
I don't know
It's kinda like that
I think
Yeah

My happiness was so thick, I could almost taste it
(Or so I thought)

I am thinking about love and how it is basically just happiness and more words and feelings set on fire

You make my heart feel like it is jumping off of the golden gate bridge
And each time it happens,
A small part of me emits a small warning:
"You'd think it'd had learned its lesson by now…
Beware: you will also drown in this same feeling."

You make my heart feel like it is falling off of the tallest skyscraper in Manhattan
But now, it twinges a little just before
A small surge of doubt and caution and everything in between
Zips through me
And before I feel all of the adrenaline, all of the good that comes along with it,
There's this tiny little moment that is full of a dull and aching pain
But especially when you say things that feel like peeling skin back
And it bleeding
When you say things that sound a lot like a dusty record
That skips a lot
Things that feel and sound a lot like black holes and hospital waiting rooms
And so, I ask myself,
Again and again,
When did love become the same thing as pain?

By: Evynne Doue

Hearts are broken
And the love has sunk
When did everything get so ****** up?

The world is coming down
Down, down, down
Falling down
Turning to dust and ashes

The world is coming down
But the walls are going up
Up, up, up

Nobody can break through
Anymore

By: Evynne Doue

Sitting here
Staring at the floor
Ransacking my stream of consciousness for
At least one solid thought
To write down
On this horridly clean
Piece of paper

I am tired
And alone
And entirely useless
(die, die, die)
Anywhere but here

Let's get out of this place
Go somewhere far, far away
Let's get in my car and
Drive and drive and drive
Until we forget why we left everything
But each other
Behind
In the first place

We might be dead by tomorrow
Come on, love
Let's go while we still can

I think of you as poison
The way you loved me so passionately
And then not at all
You metamorphosed my pleasure into pain,
My bliss into a broken heart
I am accustomed to jumping from one extreme to the other
But that doesn't mean this hurts any less

As I bleed this apparent madness
My fingers float lightly on the surface
It's a lot like shards of broken glass
Being thrown at me in random directions and at random intervals
Dealing with this profound, physical and mental ailment
Considering faster and faster which method of action
Will finally be the chess move that determines my demise

Faster darling, what will it take?
The chase tells me to forgive,
To give in to these seemingly "peaceful" desires
That are really more like permanent containments

But I lock it all away,
Trying to avoid the relentless tugging that tells me I shouldn't have to live a life like this
And how is that not counterintuitive, I ask myself?
I am passionate, genuine, and capable,
Is this tugging only temporary?
Perhaps it is residing in an incubator full of vast magnificence

The healing, the healed, the puddles of a lifetime

Entities possessing faulty perspectives
Ultimately revealed through the escaping of some previously immersed ideal
You can twist the **** and discover a newborn adult
Residing in this oddly frightening dimension

Surfaces are frequently misunderstood
They reside within varying intents, across multiple different slates
In this effortless actuality
Emitting a breathtakingly amount of moments
That mesh together into
One wild thing

I tell myself that simpler days will come
That this never-ending cycle will get easier
That the best moments will find me and swallow me whole

Breathing, dying, taking steps towards one or the other
I keep forgetting that my anger shattered my sense of hope
And these friendly pieces of tattered poems I keep finding in between my fingers are nothing more than my lungs swallowing destruction

I bite my tongue again and again
And it never stops bleeding
The taste of metal ever-present
And still, no matter how much I feel like dying,
My lungs continue to fill with air and my heart continues to pump blood and oxygen throughout my entire body

When I drink, it worsens.
I just sit there and expect things to get bad,
To get worse than they already were
Destruction waits around every corner,
In every moment
And most times, I will let it in with open arms and swollen eyes
The tighter this thing wraps around me internally, the less careful I am with my heart
I will just sit and watch these emotions create sharp tunes that are guaranteed to become buried worth

I meant to write more letters
And I am sorry for letting my fear of the future get between us
But I am left wondering if that even means anything.

I apologize for letting the weight of my illness creep in to every facet of my life
And I am sorry that the older I get, the harder this gets and the more relevant my illness becomes

Sometimes I imagine my aura reeks of blood
Wondering how anyone could ever fully love someone like me
A red glow that appears to be calm and gentle
But is really thick and thunderous and difficult to love.

Am I a song that bursts open in the darkest of times,
Or am I a clock that seems to always be displaying the incorrect time?

I am told that things will "get better"
That it will all be "okay"
By those who have never really known what it feels like to hurt in this way
To possess this type of pain
Especially, when the deepest and darkest part of me glorifies loneliness
This thing, and the pain that goes along with it,
Is really only a product of its environment
And, well, doesn’t that make you want to question everything?

By: Evynne Doue