I am in love with a boy
And all of his friends
Because they are so nice
So kind
So smart
So good to me and each other
And I want to hold them
And never let go
And I want him in me
Forever

i'm taking you with me when i go
and most people would think that that's a threat
that i am trying to drive you crazy
both been there, both done that
but they're just ******* idiots
just ******* idiots interjecting themselves for the thousandth time
only just to make their bubble-wrapped lives
look all the more impenetrable
i am taking you with me when i go
because i can finally stop thinking long enough
for the good to outweigh the burden of caring my heart around with me
because, you
you, alone, will always be the good
and your love will always make me feel at home
it is just so hard to hurry along with me
but i am taking you with me when i go
and i refuse to think myself out of something to wonderful

They want me to be soft.
They want me to bend under the strength on their hands, under the pressure of my curated thoughts. I feel like I am dying under the weight of it all. Every day I wake up and wish I were dead, but then I accept that I am not and realize there is nothing else to do but go on and so I go on, shuffling my feet along the same roads of everyone before. Along the same roads they have paved for me, entrenched me in.
I want me to be soft, too, but it seems to come at a price. The others tell me that hard women get **** done. The others keep saying that I can be the same and more, that I carry the armpit of the women before me, that I can be just as strong as THEM.
I want to be soft and safe.
I have been so hard, so calcified for so long, that my knees are forever creaking and my wrists are always sore. I know that I am hard. I know the power it brings.
I want to be soft.
I want to feel the things I’ve been deprived of for so ******* long. These pretty blondes around me are so thin you’d think the wind would break them. I want to be like them. Happy? Soft? Cashmere. Let me experience the luxury of living in a padded world.

i'll give you a book of one hundred poems
all worse than the one before it
i'll give countless lines about
his fingers in my hair
and my hand in his
and the way his breath would
tickle my neck
cause an earthquake inside of me
and i'll give you all the lovey dovey
all the happily ever after
and all the heartbreak
that always follows
that always gives us something
to hold on to
i'll give you hundreds
i'll give you thousands
and it'll all be a ******* lie

you won't know any better
no one ever knows any better

she died in the garden that they built together and raised with separate lives He called her home through the glare of the sun and the evergreens They left the maple tree in her place

She is forever trying to understand what it means to be soft and what it means to be hard and how the two are nearly the same thing but given different connotation. To be soft is to be loving but that is also to be hard. To be hard is to be brave but that is what loving is. She doesn’t need you but she allows you to rejoice in her, because that is what loving is.  Being soft is being open and being hard is not?  To be hard is to be ready to be confident to be challenging. Is that not what loving is?  To be soft is to be hard is to be soft is to be HER.  You have required a division of the good of the great of the unstoppable inside of her because you are nothing.  Being soft means being hard and you must watch her do it all.  You must watch her NOW.  She is rumbling.

dense as fog.

she couldn't
look past
him
but she could
walk
straight through
him.

every day.

in the hallway
as if she
was the one
that no hands
        no ropes
        no hearts
could ever fully grasp,
could every fully keep,
could every fully convince to stay.

she walked
                    past
                    through
     ­               away
from him
as he
continued on to
his new girl
      new **** buddy
      new toy to distract from how he could never stop himself from killing
      everything
         he loved.

my english teacher scolded me,
told me,
               "'sad' is a dead word.  use something else instead."
                                                                                                     i laughed,
said to myself,
                          "she doesn't know the half of it."
                                                                                    i replaced it with 'dismal',
                                                                                             turned in my paper,
                                                                      and went home for lunch because
                                                                                                      i forgot to take
                                                                                                                 my pills
                                                                                          before i left for school.

everyone tells me
"people write what they know"
sure
okay
whatever.

******.

i guess that means i
know heartache-
though i don't recall
ever
meeting him
personally.

interesting.

i guess i know more
than i think
if i have
so much to
say.

dangerous
territory
i'm trekking here.

when was the last time i woke up and didn't feel as if the day was already over?  i know the sun is out but it might as well be the moon.  both are the brightest when i'm trying to fall asleep.  and when was the last time i cut myself and didn't question if it would really stick this time?  sometimes the blades don't hurt as much as they should. they never scar dark enough to remind me later. and when was the last time that i looked up and didn't wish it was the floor beneath me?  i've always wanted something dense enough to fall through.  i'm so sick of standing.

he cups my face and asks me
how is your mind today?
and all i can do for him
is lie
all i can do for myself
is lie it all away
he takes me upstairs and lays me down
i missed you
and i want to cry because
i know i'll miss him more
i know it'll hurt me more
when it's time for him to leave

i let him hold me after
let him own me
*please, don't let me live after you've gone

Shatter me? do it and you’ll suffocate under the pieces of me, under the pieces of me that you wish you could eradicate. You do not like me tall you do not like me standing you do not like me in your way when I’m walking my own line. Shatter ME? you’ll die trying.  I’ve been torn apart before, I know how this goes. Flexibility has kept me alive while we sit in your stagnant world. Shatter me. I’ll only become a greater beast.

it's 9:25 p.m. and i
can't help but think
that i haven't stayed up
this late since before
i started taking
melatonin to offset the
insomnia
my medications cause.
                                      i haven't stayed up this late
                                      since we stopped talking
                                                         ­           and kissing
                                                         ­            and getting caught by the police,
parked behind the grocery store with all the windows of your truck curtained by fog
                       the steam from our efforts to forget in the only way we knew
                       how to at the time.


it's 9:25 p.m. and i am ******* tired of
going to bed earlier than usual
to prevent the dreams
                          the nightmares that come with heavy eyes and tired minds
of you coming back
just so you can leave again,
just so you can cause a little more damage
                           make a little more noise
                           lie a little more to yourself
                                                                ­       so you can stop crying yourself to sleep because you don't know how to be close to anyone important to you.

greasy hair
sticky legs
prickly
sweaty
burning in the rays
of their stares
she's ugly,
pretty,
smart,
******* weird,
invisible
(who is she?)
where is her place in this world?
(away from us)
God, it's hard to speak,
breath,
be
she wants to go home now
(where is that?)
tired eyes
ragged nails
messy messy messy
(take her to the landfill)
her chariot awaits
calloused hands
hold on tight

I'm writing again
So does that mean I'm
Getting bad again?
I thought the pills were working
I always hope they will
(stop ******* yourself)
Things are looking familiar
Maybe in a different light
It's sunnier, warmer
But more callous all the same
(the perfect illusion)
Things are rough
Rough enough to make me new
Keeping rubbing up against it Big Bear Baloo
(it's the itch that never stops)
Pain changes people, right?
Every good thing comes from
Terrible, terrible evil, right?
(keep rubbing)
Let it rip you apart, stupid bear
New docs, new meds, new
Reasons to stop this - whatever this is
I am tired
Not ready to die
But barely hanging on.
(my knees ache)
I must be getting bad again
I keep seeking out sharp edges
To haphazardly maneuver around
Just to circle back for more
When the job isn't done
A ******* life down the disposal
(i'm not supposed to think like that, he he)
Wait a little while more
And you'll see the blood
Mine
Yours
(it's all the same)
We're all ****** the same

and i don't want you to look at me that way anymore because once the time is gone we'll never get it back and after you scrape your knee once the skin will never be the same and once i leave you will never see me again.  because the world isn't the place they told you about in high school.  it's not a place for cotton candy clouds or smiling face or hands like yours that grip too hard in all the right places.  don't you understand?  we're living in a time capsule buried beneath the earth and sooner or later someone is going to find us, let the air infiltrate us. then you will have nothing, and still, i will have less.

because
when it came to you
it was always incomplete thoughts
because no one
in their right mind
wants to be logical
when in the presence of a
connection so supernatural
some people don't
believe it even exists.

when it came to us
and keeping promises
and planning forever
nothing was as solid as the doubt.

we were living ghosts-
and loving every second of it-

acting as if hands can keep a  firm grip on love
                                                            ­                  hope
                                          ­                                           mist and
never know longing.

how many threats does it take to equal a follow-through?

ten shattered plates and
a burnt piece of toast later
and she still can't
do it-
she still can't
make her words
be anything more than hot air.

she'll stay awake every night for the
rest of her life
imagining
a world where
everything goes her way.

she'll never realize she's the problem
                                               solution
                                               point of origin.

tight top
             no bra
short skirt
                 long socks
messy hair and smudged lipstick from
                                                        *******
                                                                ­    licking
                                                     ­                          swirling
that cherry red
lollipop-
done so perfectly that
it's sent the healthiest hearts to urgent care rooms-
and eyes so innocent
they bring blind men to their knees.

you've always said
                               "i want to be someones' hero
                                                            ­            villian
                                             ­                            confirmation that they're more than what they've been labeled.  i want to be someone that can hold fragile things without fear."

here's your girl.

I didn’t think this is what would be happening

At this point in my life

I wanted to be okay(?) with it

Whatever it had become

I had no understanding of


How to be able to live with this(?)

is there anything more lonely than having everyone you love less than a days' drive away?  because they are so close, so easy to find when needed, but far enough away to maintain distance.  is there something worse than that? i can not imagine a more terrible thing than being able to have contact and yet never acting on it out of practicality.  funny, really, how the world makes it so easy to close in on those we love and still so hard to finally touch them. it's as if we are meant to die alone, and so the road hints that to us.

i only wash my hair every four days
and i never shave my legs unless i'm going somewhere that requires a dress-
         or no clothes at all.
                            and i never remember to put on deodorant in the morning.

i only ever brushed my hair after practice
and reapplied makeup
and made sure to douse myself in the perfume you like so much so
                  you could run your fingers through something more than steam,
                                              you could let your eyes roam without hesitation,
                  you could call me at two in the morning and tell me your clothes  
                                                       ­                                             still
              ­                                                                 ­                          smelt                   
                                        ­                                                                 ­         like                                      
             ­                                                                 ­                                           me.

i only ever did anything
                                       for you.

so here we are.

it's been three days and you already forgot how to keep this thing
              this monster
              this dying tree
                                        alive
              even though I've been doing it for years     on my own.  
                     sometimes people mix up the permanent
with the
air they exhale with every new touch.

                        silly us
                                     trading stories like buddies
but
      hurting like lovers.

my hands are covered in paint and glue
my hands are not new
they are old and
i'm tired of hearing about them
what have they done
that i can be proud of
nothing

sometimes
my mind forgets my body
and the pain i've put it through
it trudges us along
the path of bad choices and damning denial
it drowns us
in false hope and sickening pleasure
beats us with the harsh
metal of reality
someone
put the **** thing to rest
let us rest
we are falling apart under the pressure
of it's tyrannic commands
something
something has to give
as it continues to take

LOVE HAS ONLY EVER BEEN A RAFT TO CLING TO IN THE WAVES OF MY SHADOWED MIND BUT NOW IT IS THE ACCESSORY I PUT ON EVERY DAY, THE SIDE EFFECT OF BEING ALIVE AGAIN, AND IT IS THE MOST TERRIFYING THING I HAVE COME TO KNOW IN THIS NEW LIFE.  LOVE IS NO LONGER ALL-ENCOMPASSING.  LOVE IS NOW THE THING I CRAVE AT NIGHT AND ON THE WEEKENDS.  IT DOESN'T KEEP ME FROM KILLING MYSELF BUT IT KEEPS ME FROM THE DULL MONOTONY OF HAVING NOTHING TO THINK OF WHEN I'M GETTING WORSE.  HIS LOVE IS LIKE A ******* PUNCH.  I HATE IT BUT IT HURTS MORE WHEN I HAVE TIME TO BREATHE IN BETWEEN THE HITS.  THIS FEELING THIS FEELING THIS FEELING IT TEARING ME APART.  THIS FEELING THIS FEELING THIS FEELING I CANNOT BEAR TO EVER LIVE WITHOUT.

all these people
writing about
and looking for
and craving so whole-heartedly
love
in the form of another person.

they don't know what it is exactly,
just something that
has to do with sharing
labored breaths
and not wearing any underwear to the movies.

these idiots think that love
is what they need
in order to be
happy.

do they not already have love?

the sun shines and the trees grow and grass cuts their bare legs and lets them know that they are still alive.  the earth is continuously apologizing by giving flowers with petals so soft you could mistake it for someone you
once held
in your arms.

love is not the answer-
the aftermath is:
destruction.

the only good
and pure
and completely
true things
in this world
come from the
ashes of the
generations before
them.

we have been born into love
but mistaken
       tricked into thinking that destruction
                                                   utter obliteration of the soul
                                                            ­                         the mind
                                                            ­                         the heart
                                                           ­                                         is not the answer.

love is not found in people
but places
                 and their hills and valleys and flowers and water that refreshes the eyes of every tired man.

love is found in the
people that have been broken down.

only they are then able to look at what has been in front of them since before they were born,
only they are able to see what the content will never know exists.

only the lost will find happiness.

And I am dead to the world
Dead to your voice
And dead to your hands
Especially your hands
Because they've always known better than the head behind them
And I am dead to the garden out back
Dead to the bed we shared
And dead to our tiny dreams
We've both made new ones by now
And I am dead to you
And it is not because you have chosen someone else to get your fix
I am dead to you because I want to be
I do not want to live on in your memories
Get me out of that place
Get me away from those claws you call your feelings
Get me away from the razor sharp teeth of your hindsight
I am dead to all of it
Dead
Let me burry myself in peace
I am dead to the world
Because I am dead to you

when i look at him
i think of all the times
i have been wronged
beaten down
by the stupidity
of so many before him
that looked the same
and smoked the same
and held me like i was water
but this time
i am not afraid of him
of it
of myself and my tendencies
to throw away used hearts
used bodies
weathered lips

i know that he will stick
because i'm okay with staying
and he's only a frog
sick of being a ******* prince

every time my candle flickers,
i think to myself,
                             maybe this is God, maybe this is God telling me that he    
                               is real and i am not alone
                                                          ­             but then
                                                                ­       the flame stills
                                                                ­        i go back to work
                                                            ­            and i think to myself,
                              *i knew it was too good to be true

an ugly color for an ugly girl
brush your ******* hair
mommy didn't want you
mommy didn't care
mommy didn't notice until
you had the knife to your throat
mommy still didn't care
mommy, mommy dearest,
i'm not so close to home anymore
mommy, mommy, mommy,
you lost your
first born
a very long time ago
first to cry
then first to die
mommy, stop hiding my pills
mommy, mommy, MOMMY
let me paint my room
let me make it match
the reject inside of it
ugly colors, ugly hands,
ugly, ugly, ugly girls
don't last long
oh, mommy
you know it best

i like my new journal
because
the cover is of
soft leather that
i like to rub
my hands over and
pretend
it's you
that i am touching.

i must say,
i really did
love
your little friend
down
         there.

he
was always wanting
to jump
    skip
    hop
          into my hands
                         my mouth.

and you
were always so willing
                           and wanting
so very much
to give me a
play-by-play
                    a reenactment
of all the shooting stars you saw on the inside of your eyelids.

your lips
were never quite firm enough
but it felt all the more
better that way
when you would lick down and around
                                                          ­        and then further down-
kisses of a feather.

and it made
                    the *******
feel that much
stronger,
              that much more ******.
it was the only release from so much anticipation that you could truly
                                                           ­                                                      give me.

our nights
                 in the back seat
of your truck
were
        well-spent:
                          full of **** and *****
                          and steamy windows
                          from showering in each other
                          and two whole people
                                                          ­     free from expectations.
                                                   ­                                                   a real rarity.

we both
found
something close to safety
in the pores of each other's
                                            skin.
       ­                   
                                             ­        i wonder
                                                          ­          if it all feels the same
                                                            ­                                            when
                ­                                     you're with
                                                            ­her.

I know that I haven’t always felt this way.
When I was younger, I was nervous.  I was quiet and shy and it always took me a while to warm up to people, even those I saw on every holiday, birthday, and graduation.  But I wasn’t like this.  I wasn’t like the other kids, but I was happy.  I could go about my day without an onslaught of questions running through my head without any reprieve.
I could ******* breathe.
There was a breaking point.
I know that now.
I was sad but I wasn’t like this.  Yet.  I was drowning but still unaware of the fact.  I could get by if I needed to, wanted to, and I did.
Now, a hangnail can plunge me into darkness.
I don’t know how to get back to the before.
I don’t know if I will.
I don’t know if I can keep going on like this.
Hopeless.  
Lifeless.
Every rise and fall of my chest takes a tremendous amount of effort.
Every morning makes me sick, and every night reveals more that needs to be fixed.
Fixed.
They gave me pills.  I went to therapy.  
I talk about it. I talk about it with anyone that will listen.  I know that somehow it helps me, even if in the moments, it makes me feel like I’m helping dig my own grave.  It’s heavy.  It’s tiring.  It comes spilling out of me like a ******* wild fire.  All it needs is that one spark.
God, I’m sick of the natural disaster metaphors.
I know that I’m not a disaster.  I know that this is normal.  I know that there are millions of people around the world that feel just as bad as me.  A lot of them feel worse than me.
But right now, I feel like I’m the only one who has ever known this kind of suffering.
I know that isn’t true.
It doesn’t help.
The air conditioner sounds like a rainstorm.
I miss the rain.
Last Christmas, I got really bad again because the days were so short and my job kept me in the dark and out of the sun every single day.  I forgot what the day is like.  I forgot what it meant to be awake.
It didn’t let up for a long time.  
I had to quit my job to get out of the bad place.
I ended up in another one, though, because then I didn’t have any money and I wasn’t eating enough because I was too anxious to leave my room and I couldn’t focus in school and I ****** my grades up.
I don’t know if I’ll get into Cal Poly.  I kind of doubt it.  
My GPA is average.
I probably had a better chance of getting in in high school, and I still got rejected.
I know I wouldn’t like it there because the people are too normal.  Too white.  Too rich.  Too blinded by their privilege and the pretty bubble they live in.
The happiest place in America.
We’ll see about that.
Maybe.
I used to be like them.  I could have thrived among them.
I’m different now.
My life is divided like that: then and now, before and after.
That’s how I know there was a break.  A shift inside of me.
I can’t see anything the same way.
I hate the people from high school that I used to so desperately want to be popular with.  I can’t eat steak.  My hair is green.  My skin is pale.  Football just doesn’t do it for me anymore.
They’ll tell me it’s loss of interest, a common side effect.
It’s not.
I’m just different.
I don’t eat eggs.
Where is my life going?  Do I need a purpose?
I suppose.
I don’t really want one.
The whole idea of being here on earth for a reason is terrifying.  Angering.
I don’t want to have to do anything.
I just want to live.
But even that isn’t enough for me.  I can’t keep going through the motions.  I love my routines, need my routines to keep from falling apart, but I think they are killing me.
I don’t know any alternative.
Routines keep money in my bank account, good grades, enough food in my stomach, strong legs.  
I would be nothing without them.
They are the ******* replacement for the purpose I loathe to discover.
I know where I am headed.
I will get bad again.  Just in time for the holidays.  And I’ll lose my grip for a while.
The anticipation is a *******.
I can feel the pressure building inside of me.  I can feel the vibration.  I can sense the change before I can recognize it.  
A volcano.
And then what?
I live on my own.
If I go down, I go down alone.
Alone.
Alone.
Alone.
Maybe that’s what get’s to me so much.  I know that I need human connection because it’s basic biological fact.  I know it I know it I know it.  I refuse it.
It’s too hard.
It’s takes more energy than I can spare right now.
I hate that I have to think this way.
Because it’s a need, not a choice.  I can smile and laugh and tell myself I love life and all the little joys it has to offer me, but it doesn’t change how I really feel, what i really know about life.  I’ve felt the pain.  I’ve ******* made it my wife.
It’s raining again.
I can hear every whisper in this **** library.
I can never find a book.
The medication is plateauing.  There’s only two more doses after this one, and I’ll have to try something else soon.
I did this to myself.
I know that,
It doesn’t help.

if i talk too much
it because i've spent so long
withering
to a single flame
a forgetful spark
and i am only now beginning
to feel the oxygen
to let the air fuel me
and i cannot stop the avalanche
of words
of thoughts
of lost meanings
from collapsing out of me in a
wild flurry of
sore throats and swollen tongues and
savage cries that for once
aren't for help

if i talk too much
it's because i've got so much
that i never had the chance
to say

what am i doing? here? with my life? where am i going? why do i always want to die? am i one of the people meant for longevity? am i one of the people meant for young tragedy? am i meant to be here? why do i have all these questions? and why do they never stop pestering me? is this my life? does this qualify as living? as existing? will i be gone soon? do i want to be? does this ever end? what is wrong with me? what is right with me? will it always be this way? why? WHY?

i don't have a ******* clue.  but you smell like vanilla, so i'll hold onto that.

his **** is
nothing spectacular
but it's hard-
for me-
and it's smooth
             and soft
             and ready to be held
                                         tempted
                                         shown how to stargaze while the sun is still out.
but he
grabs my hand,
pulls me up,
                up and away
from the
only part of him
that will ever beat for me and my blistered hands and chapped lips.

"i don't love you"

and i know.

he lowers down
and kisses my chest
and *****
         licks
         bites
         my ****
and rubs my ****
and that
is all i want from him.

it's silly to read into drunk texts
as if they are coded messages
with all the hidden meanings
you've been longing for
it's masochistic
that silly boy
with silly hair
and not so silly fingers
(wink, wink)
doesn't love you
and you don't love him
you love the way he makes you feel
the way his drunken slurs make you feel
you love that he makes you feel anything
in the first place
his drunk texts aren't your open door
they can never be your salvation
silly you

that phone of yours
that mind of yours
is playing you again

and he loves me
but he's scared of me
terrified of how he looks
at me
and can't say a single
bad word about me
other than
i want her so much it makes me ache
and i love him
and i tell him all the time
because i want
him
to know that i won't hurt him
like i did the rest
he makes me want to be good
he's a little boy at heart
trying to stay safe
without the guidance of
a mother
the hand of a father
he is shaking
in the air that surrounds us both
he loves me
i love him
*i will give him time because it is all i have to offer

empty cups
curtained windows
and a bible that hasn't been opened since they told you there's a chance.
clusters of papers-
                             rejected-
                                          coupled with
that old journal you vowed to never open again.
the orange bottles need to be
                                                refilled.
unma­de bed
beat up tissue box.
                                                            ­                  no one gets it.

this is sanctuary.
                            this is how you start to live again.
                                                          ­                             no one knows about
                                                           ­                                            the used to be.
the full cup
the bolted windows
the brainwashing
the attempted letters
and the pages decorated with a different kind of ink.

they don't know about
the thoughts before the pills
the never-empty bed
the fits of anger.
                                                          ­                       this is how you start to live                        
                                                                ­                                                    again.