you call me creative
but my mind is the place
dreams go to die

they embark on a quest to impart me with
gold stained teeth that smile with some kind of weight

but they drown soaked in the ash
of too many stale apologies and
late night '*******'s screamed at the sky
so hollow they ring on their own

i'm so tired of pretending my words have meaning
but the only things bouncing in my skull are the nightmares
that survived me

so i don't go to sleep

i write down all the things i am not

poet comes first
and the ink cries out of my pen

i want a smoke
to fill all my empty places
(**** there are
so many)

but it can't fill my
arms

so i guess you'll have to come and do that

i've decided:
i don't like christmas without you

my nerves made me a
'pleasure to have in class'
even as they chewed through my sanity
like a caterpillar through a cocoon

keeping to myself made me
'mature' and 'independent'
even as i made myself the **** end
of another self deprecating joke

people don't notice when i'm
'quiet' because i'm always 'quiet'
but being 'quiet' made me unproblematic;
the only thing i was good at being

so now that i need
help

i can't-- i can't

i wasn't ready to be a butterfly
i wasn't ready to fly at all