1) Don't
2) A strange presence near the woods. Soft lips. A decline in finger tips. You were the child that jumped off of the swing and I guess that's why you occupy your time with things that will only last a moment; the romantic way death bites your lip.
3) When the addict consumes you, remind yourself that you're just another addiction. Once you have exposed yourself, completely, remember that this will not cure their affliction.
4) Refer to step one

the water washes over me now
floods the Great Plains of my mind
the dripping faucet that is my heart
can no longer bear the weight

heavy still
I feel like my brain is a dusty attic
hippocampus filled with boxes
unopened
speak softly or forever hold your peace
come at me
broom in hand
sweep me off my feet
dusty books filled with blank words
tell stories of girls just like me

unable to speak
they’ve always been told, speak only when spoken to
be wary of storms in people for they have no boundaries
and sometimes dusty attics get picked up in the tornado
twisting about their lives

Loose in their hands
They follow
Jagged razor blades
Raining down feathers on a horizon
Blessed by currents
Dressed in black
Enveloped by an ocean
Strangled by casualties
Leaping onto a path of nothingness
Shadows, slitting their wrists and screaming
And all i hear are broken plates
All i see is the color red
All i feel is the intense movement of my body
Raining forward into a tunnel
Tell me why i always close my eyes and wish for something?
When i know that at the end of the tunnel there will only be light
Freeing my hands from broken glass
Broken plates
Swept up and thrown away
I am soft petals being torn by anxious hands
An energy disguised in limerick
A moon flushed by hungry eyes

An emotional ******
a collector of sorts
experiences kept on the top shelf
lovers on the one below
moving with the wind
never against
afraid to lock eyes with someone
because that, in itself, is too much commitment
an outward confession that I too, harbor emotions
the emotional addict
the adrenaline of shooting yourself up with a new feeling
terrifying
knowing that the drug will not suffice
one day
crave much more than the ache one causes you
one day, want to trip on the heartstrings of another
but most frightening is the possibility that people
will cease to be my fix

in hopes of bringing a puppet interest
A glass of thick tar, light

I need to learn that people are not antidepressants

When the bear faced me
Standing in the forest
Looking downward at the sun
I found myself standing in a river bend
Hand laced in hand
Round rivers, whispering wolves
Chants to the gods
Colorful skies
Mountains
Growing
Towards the seas
Ladies dancing in evergreen

Little girl
Red dress draped across her
Detached from her body
Humming lullabies next to the willow tree
Tearing of pieces of the bark
Breaking them into smaller pieces
Whispering willows speak delightfully about the girl in red
The girl spends afternoons sitting off the pier
Toes emerged in the salty blue
Sometimes dangling her head off of the pier and reaching her fingertips into the water
She spend hours staring at her reflection
Sometimes washing the water over it
Disfiguring it
The sun has set now
The cicadas buzz around her
The air, sticky and hot
She lay down on her back
Looks up at the night sky
Stars sprinkled across-

Miraculously
A door blows open
Not a single person stand behind it

I walk in and sit in a bathtub
I dream that this bathtub is floating in the Dead Sea

she told me music is her religion

                            so I started listening to her favorite songs

and studying lyrics

her body is my temple and I pray everyday

                      have you ever looked up at the sky and prayed to no god at all?

if you continue to use people

you will walk away from the burning church

confused and unscathed