just another night
filled with spite,
without a kiss goodnight
or making up after a fight,
a fight that was never supposed to be a fight
a fight that wasn't supposed to ruin the night

go to bed without knowing everything is alright
feeling nothing but contrite
what a night

turn out the light,
sleep tight,
don't let the demons bite...

everything is gonna be alright,
*right?

if I cave will I collapse?
how can he be so close
but still just out of grasp?
& how much longer
will these fights last?
I need to know
that it's all in the past,
I'm falling
fast,
hope I don't
crash
×××××
can we please
go back
to before I said that?

Honestly...
                     what am I doing here?
Here,
            in this world,
                                      in this life?
I’m tired of helping people
                 tired of doing things
                           tired of life
                                   I’m just so tired
                                             I’m tired of numbing the pain...

I don’t want to talk
Think
Breathe
See
Hear
Feel...

Feeling overwhelmed
Feeling o v e r w h e l m e d
F e e l i n g   o v e r w h e l m e d

Feeling out of breath
Feeling like giving up
Feeling depressed
Feeling like quitting
Feeling like breaking down
Feeling like the world is spinning so fast
And it needs to slow down
Feeling like I need more
Out of life
Out of this empty world
Wishing I could erase my mistakes
Wishing the biggest mistake wasn’t me
Always wishing
Always hoping
Always feeling too much
Always too little or too much
Never just enough
*Never good enough

am I on the wrong frequency?
because I still can't figure out
why you won't speak to me,
I forgave you
so easily
though our passions rose
unequally,
& honestly
I need you to be
on my side
unconditionally,
we'll make up
eventually
won't we?

wasted time waiting...
alone, by the phone
for a message that won't come

apology arrival, cancelled
cellular network, disconnected
forgiveness, intercepted
affection, rejected...

               *I wanna be so numb  
     that I can't feel my feelings anymore
     I wanna scream so loud I lose my voice
     so I won't annoy you anymore
     it's not like I had anything to say
               have a nice day
     thanks for nothing anyway

distance is;
the marks my fingernails leave on my scalp,
the extra hair on my brush that I keep tearing out,
the faint smell of him on his T-shirt covered in my tears,
distance is far worse than any of my fears

here we lie
side by side,
wasting time
you & I,
keeping everything bottled up inside
just to avoid saying  
what's really on our minds,
I just wanna go back in time
when everything was fine

before everything got so ****** up
back when everything was un-******  
but **** happens, & we fight
so please just shut-up
I wanna kiss & make-up, tonight

so here I am
bottling up my feelings again
pretending I have nothing to say again
for fear that we'll get into a fight again
a fight over something ******* stupid again
          it's always ******* stupid
I can only hold so many of my feelings in
before I explode,
before I unload,
before another episode
I guess I should just bottle it all up, right?
push it down, shove the cork in tight
          blow it up with dynamite
                  * * * * * * * * *
those late nights
when we fight
& our demons intertwine
where the monsters come out to play
& the devil bites into your brain
it makes you insane
          *lovers' quarrel:
          your own personal brand of Hell

trigger warning:

i'm a wanderer
though most of my travels
occur inside the confines
of my chaotic mind

i wouldn't recommend you follow
because i will leave you behind

     tell me
have you ever gotten lost
                                        in your own mind?
i cannot remember
                              what i was trying to find
perhaps
               i've lost it.

send me a lifeline
the world is on fire
i need to go back in time
please believe me, this is dire
let me erase the chaos
& return to a world
where everything is fine
& things aren't in constant decline
why do things keep falling apart
it can't be good for the heart
i wish i could press restart
i'd give anything
for a chance
to reset this life

"places near you..."

faces near you?

     stop pretending

          that they can't hear you...

you're in clear view

& they're following you too

set me to airplane mode,
I feel like I'm going to implode...

my thoughts, they're spiraling,
there's a short-circuit in my wiring

this world beneath me has gone ablaze
& I cannot escape this fiery haze

I'm soaring toward a sea of flames
from our world without a trace

falling
fast

here
comes
the:
             crash

it is difficult to distinguish what is real from what is not real*

     what version of the world am I in?
these faces around me are so familiar but I can't recognize any of them

were we friends in a past life?
if we were, I don't think I'd forget
unless you were never a friend to begin with
but what does it matter anyway?
there are strangers surrounding me every day
& I just want to get-away

what happened to innocence? 

life is just a game of dollar$ & ¢ents 

& it's not making ******* sense

I thought I saw a ghost,
Perhaps it was just
A worn memory of you,
Akin to your favoured pair
Of tattered blue jeans,
Likewise worn
That old, deep blue couch
We once broke in,
Now nowhere to be
Found, much like
Your heart,
Conceivably occupied
By a new individual,
Or possibly left
Alongside the road
Waiting for a new embrace,
Her smile likely dimmer
Than the girl who sat,
Once beside you on that couch
In a warm grasp that has died,
Along with the feelings
We once shared
Sat upon that couch.

there are a million thoughts
racing through my brain
all the time

& i keep telling you "i'm fine"
because you don't know what it's like
keeping everything bottled up inside

getting older,

     growing colder

keep pretending

     you don't know her...

always giving each other

                                      the cold shoulder

                       yet you just let it smolder

         because she's only a placeholder

     but don't forget you never told her


 

she's just another back-burner friend

watching you cut off loose ends

like it’s the latest trend

 

     & if you lose her

          *it'll be like you never knew her

Shell gas station with little neon green palm trees
perched upon the edge of the frenzied freeway,
          a picture of plastic paradise
     strewn with bright green lights
     like spotlights of limelight
     shedding light upon city life
               never far from the dark side...
    
     nearby, I spy
an assortment of street signs
to guide you into the night,
     so turn right, & drive right
     fly past the stoplight
     into the glare of red light
          & beware the districts of night life

Potholes sprinkled across empty Detroit streets
     like bullet holes in ***** bedsheets

Found within the vacant homes of the forgotten,
     alive with reminders of what used to be

Before the neighborhoods became abundant in abandoned homes
     and awash with abandoned people

Yearning for forgotten yesterdays suspended far from reach,
     searching for a memory of something concrete

While wandering along the crooked, cracked sidewalks
     cemented with resentments;

Forgotten, forsaken, forlorn, foreboding... foreclosure
     crisis spray-painted on the brick of a blown out home

Hungry for habitation despite dishevelment,
     *explicit with endless nothingness

sometimes I just wanna get up & leave
everything behind me
just to forget
who I used to be,
get out there
there's a whole world to see

AVOID EYE-CONTACT

        / don't blink /

you don't wanna know what THEY might think

make sure your movements stay in-sync

                            * * *

   be sure not to draw any attention

     ignore the subtle apprehension

that you may be in an alternate dimension

                              * * *

       don't let your lips move while you speak

wipe off your tear-stained cheek

        don't let THEM think you're weak

just pretend you’re playing hide-and-seek

 

but don’t let them find you

& make sure you’re hidden from THEIR view

you don’t wanna get lost for good, *do you?

From the passenger seat of my boyfriend's car
I keep my eyes wide while we drive, & watch
The world as it passes me, bye...

I wave from behind the tinted glass
Safely secured from the dangers that lie outside

We turn the radio all the way up
So we won't hear it squeak when we hit another speed bump

Instead we're blinded by bright city lights
Neon signs, streetlamps, & traffic lights;
Green then yellow then red, then red & blue (watch out, they're coming for you)

In the flashing lights, I see the city covered in a fresh coat of graffiti
Train-cars & abandoned buildings, dark alleys & concrete fences,
A bridge overpass where the streetlights have no electricity:

*"Danger Reality Ahead"

They say if you're wide awake at night
You're broken or madly in love
I do recall having spent many a night
Enveloped in that insomnia
Broken as can be
Believing it was hopeless to ever fall asleep
Until I slept for months when the nightmares ceased
As they were left only as my reality
I thought I could put my misery to sleep
& so it fell, asleep, no longer with me,
Thus better I became
Unbroken as can be.

One day I must have left
The latch on my healing heart unlocked
As I seemed to have let it open to love
& so I fell, again
But this time it was different
I found myself again laying in bed wide awake
Though there wasn't a trace of heartache
I found myself staring into the darkness of my room
Dreaming about the curve of his smile
The sound of his laugh, & I can't stop
When you fall in love, real love
Some nights you won't sleep
Right now I'm awake & thinking of the way he looks at me
Sleeping is overrated when your heart
Would rather wake your mind & entertain you with what
You can call "mine" & my gosh, he is all mine

cookies & cachéd data,
digitally-programmed privacy paraphernalia
     are carefully collecting information
     following your confirmation
     to allow the invasion
     of all forms of personal communication

((( it’s hard to ignore the intimidation
of the internet’s alluring intoxication )))

     but between you&me
     life beyond a screen
     never felt so free,
     an anti-digital reality,
     life in an unmonitored galaxy
     is something     only the mind can dream
                    # # # # #

sometimes
when you take the leap
you fly
but i've never been happier to say
i fell
instead

adieu mon amour
please don't forget
while you're away
all the nights
& all the days
that we spent
together, please
do not let slip
the memory of me
for as you're not here
every day
i will think of you
& wish you had stayed

I don't know when it occurred to me I wanted you forever. But I think about every now & again. How a person could possibly want another person to hold their hand for a lifetime. I mean, ours get sweaty being intertwined for less than an hour. But I don't know, I don't know a lot of things. I don't know how I'm awake at three-in-the-morning only on the nights before I have an early class, or why the sky has that odd pastel glow on the nights when it's snowed, or how to drive, yet but there are some things that I do know. I know what shirt you were wearing on the day we met & that it's somewhere in my hamper right now, I know how to say the alphabet backwards just as fast as forwards & I know that my heart has never been more content in letting someone in than it has with you. I know, my love, that we're young & life's too short to pretend we're not perfect for each other, so I won't let myself picture a life without you in my arms. Terrifying to say, but the truest words I'll ever know, I want to spend my forever with you.

You were the first boy to tell me you loved me, over a text. Less than two months later I broke up with you, over a text. But you were sweet, I promise. A week after you told me you loved me you finally kissed me, & it was almost on the top of the ferris wheel but saved by the bell, your phone rang (vibrated) & then you almost got away with just kissing me on the cheek that night. But then you ran after me when I was going to head home & kissed me for the first time in the woods & I'll never forget how weird it feels to have someone's lips pressed against yours for the very first time.

２. It was a month after you asked me to be your girlfriend that we met. & the day we finally did I kissed you & you almost fainted because it was your first. You didn't say much & you wouldn't take your eyes off me, it was nice to be admired like you admired me, but I had to leave, I hope you understood why & that you're happier with her now.

３. On Valentine's Day I gave you your first kiss & probably a heartattack along with it, the way you looked at me then I'll never forget, but it was like kissing my brother.

４. After school one day I couldn't take it anymore & I just kissed you. You jumped back & had yourself a heartattack, something I commonly gave I guess. It was after you that I learned to be more careful, because your words cut like a knife, even after we stayed good friends back then.

５. It was so obvious how you staged that night, with the oblivion & the sunset & the music, but I'll admit, it was a very sweet first kiss & it almost makes me completely forget how terrible it was. But we kissed for almost a year after that until you gave me the last one, & I count that night as the last, not that stupid summer after where you dropped my heart again & used me. I'll never forget how hard it hurt to hear you tell me you loved me for the last time after you told me that I was perfect & kissed me with a pair of lips that sliced mine deep. I spent forever after that picking at my lips trying to remove every painful papercut your last words sealed with a kiss gave me.

６. I remember how drunk I was in love with the idea of us over a year before I got to kiss your lips. But when we kissed I felt nothing but lust, & it felt good then. It was too soon after the pain for me to remember how to kiss again, & you had to teach me, & then you taught me something else.

７. I dreamt about kissing your lips for almost every night of high school. & it was four & a half years later that I got to taste them. We probably could've fallen in love, y'know, but I'm glad we didn't. It was what it was & I'll take the memory with me, but that's all that was meant to happen between us.

８. My favourite number, & by far my favourite kiss. It was a blur the day you kissed my lips, but it was perfect. I guess my eyes were wide open but I can't remember a thing but shaking so bad I almost forgot how to work my lips. You were a brand-brand-new taste & I can only just remember the roller-coaster of thought from that day, freaking out about where it was all going & how to kiss someone new, for real. But I've been kissing you for over a year now, & my God, baby, I can't help but admit I'd sure love to kiss those lips for the rest of my life

I don’t even know
what to say
it’s not like I’m being heard anymore anyway,
when I say; I’m going away,
to Denmark
somehow suddenly, people listen
though once I’m back
they’ve forgotten I was ever gone
I can’t wait to go back & start over
*I can’t wait to forget being forgotten

there's a trace
of familiar in your face
but I just can't place
                                ( you )

remember, remember
the fifth of November?
because I do,
& I have all the words I wrote
from that night

i met a boy today,
he called it a date
*& I already must admit
that the way his dimples
are crooked, & his whole face
smiles, & the way
he loses his eyes
when he laughs
are my favourite
is it wrong to be in this limbo
with a boy
who is a mutual & very close friend
of your ex?
it doesn't feel wrong,
it feels like it could even be very right

we walked through the woods today
& it was lovely but
all too familiar
but I didn't even mind,
I just wonder
if this is the bridge I should take,
I took one today with you
& it was fantastic
I wish I hugged you tighter today,
I wonder what it will be like
when we fall for each other...

i feel like a ******* mistake
like a glitch in this ******-up system
an error that wasn't meant to exist

it’s like everything i touch turns to ****,
my mistakes are all i can create
it’s the tragic design of my fate

& most of the time i don't wanna be here
                                  on this planet anymore
                                  anyway, who cares if i stay?

it was one year ago, last night
when he walked into my life
& never would I have thought
we'd have fallen in love like this
but I must admit, I knew,
the very moment I saw him smile
that I might just lose myself
& want to stay awhile
because, my God, that smile
it made me believe
that love at first sight
was real as can be.

It's back to black, I suppose
Like they say,
Our plans, darling, they've changed
But you're still a character
In my story,
& I never intend to write you out
If it's with you it won't ever be boring,
Because that's what life's going to be
No, not boring, but just you & me,
On a different continent, sure
But with a love so much stronger,
One that is pure,
So I wait for you, darling
I'll wait for you to arrive
Sleepless I am without you, perhaps
Though hopeless, I'm not
The one thing I can count on, my love
Is for you & I to carry on
Wherever we are in this life
It won't matter
Because like they say;
"Home is where the heart is"
& darling, home is wherever I'm with you

I am an old, wooden paddleboat
Drifting across a still ocean of black,
At the slightest sign of wave
I could crack.

The inky sea surrounds me
Infinitely vast,
Alone I glide, below a moonless sky.

Dark clouds loom overhead, moving fast
I feel a ripple at my side,
In a lightning flash, I see the approaching tide.

The stillness never lasts,
I prepare for the crash.

First, a drop of rain
Falls from the sky,
Others follow, like tears
The clouds begin to cry.

Raindrops sting my splintered skin
In beads of blistering pain,
Following a rumble of thunder
I spy my foulest of fears,
Here comes the hurricane.

My oars are useless
As the storm advances,
I resist drowning
But the waves grow stronger
Lowering my chances.

Suddenly I am underwater
Fighting gravity,
Everything is a blur
As the ocean swallows me.

I break apart beneath the surface
For the thousandth time,
Submerged in the devastation
I wonder if being fragile is a crime.

houses of Sin
     drawing you (us) in
          strung with neon lights
               & forbidden delights
     meant to entice, but never quite
               satisfy the appetites
          of those who seek
     an escape from this reality;
          another milky-way hallucination… (1)
     will you accept the invitation
to take a virtual vacation
     from every obligation
without explanation?
     { let the games begin }

good-bye,
farewell,
such kind words
but bittersweet
easily spoken
yet less easy
to
     let
           go

(i love you)

disconnect me from this reality
i want to escape the
                                     gravity
of this: a n x i e t y

(i feel like it's consuming me...)

Why would I ever dare
To kiss, another pair
Of lips? When it's his
That make me believe
In magic.*

I've reached the point
Where I cannot see one
In ever wasting a moment
Trying to love anyone else
It's here where I belong
With him
With no one else.

i'm shouting into the void
a vacuum of hopeless eternity
can anybody hear me?

i just want someone to believe
that i'm someone worth knowing
or care where i'm going

(am i in love with being lonely?)
because i'm afraid to keep a friend
for fear they'll betray me in the end

lately i've felt:                 d e t a c h e d
from our empty society
i've been avoiding
my own mortality

is there anyone who can help me?
i'm still not me,
can't you see?
i'm just trapped
on the other side
of this augmented reality,
on the edge of insanity,
i think i got lost
trying to figure out
who i'm supposed to be

Half awake
I lie in bed, searching
For your smell
Among the covers,
Desperately chasing
A memory of you
From when we had been
Lovers.

november 8th, 2013*
i found these old sketches
of you & I
unfinished, & i'm erasing them
i don't intend to finish them
& it doesn't hurt anymore
it doesn't hurt anymore*

i forgot what it felt like
to heal
the feeling is back
& it's real

I'm bottled up
to the brim
but I'd rather be thrown
into the ocean
than opened up
ever again

I think I lost
my voice,
I couldn't stop screaming
I didn't have a choice;
there are demons living inside me
whispering into my ears
telling me all the things
I don't want to hear,
I'm running from myself
from my fears,
but the voices are getting louder
& I'm fighting the tears.

i had a dream
                            that i died

out if the blue
i wasn't alive,
& they drew
my chalk outline
with pink chalk
on the sidewalk
where my body lied,
delicately draped
across grey pavement
& through the cracked cement
a single yellow dandelion
appeared, in full bloom

when things work out perfectly,
it's always too good to be true,
my destiny was to be unlucky
& **** up everything i do,
no matter how hard i try,
i always do something wrong,
over my shoulder
people are watching,
telling me
i can't do anything at all
so what the **** is the point
of everything,
if fate says
i'm capable of nothing...

cold feet beneath the sheets
i close my eyes & try to breathe...
it's 3am & i'm dreaming of who i used to be
before everything fell apart around me

my life is a mess of regrets
& reasons to stay in bed
i still can't escape the voices inside my head

(louder) they're getting louder now
i try to scream, but there's no sound
no one can save me from my anxiety

so i try to sleep but the voices follow
the nightmares become harder to swallow
& i wake up feeling more hollow

just to have it happen all over again tomorrow...

i often find myself
devoid of the moment...
    ((( this moment )))
momentary in its passing
yet nearly fatal in its crashing

when did it become so difficult
to avoid an escape?
an exit from reality
from which we disconnect so easily

is anything real?
we're all searching
for a new way to feel
something
                      else