i got my name from an
artist

in love with a picture
of someone he thought he knew

i gave it to myself
because he understands what it's like

to love an idea so much
you fall for the person that gave it to you

i wanted to write about
how my fingernails take off my skin at night
or how i leave bruises in places i hate

i still want to scream about how i don't use knives, anymore
and tell you all the lies that let me get away with my own
self destruction

all these scars that have explanations
i'm nearly exploding
and the words will surely splatter on the wall



but i don't want you to mistake a poem
for an instruction manual

when it is my time to be ruined
break me like a promise

sometimes
i wish you were the poet
because sometimes
i just want to be the poem

the only things i never outgrew
were the growing pains