i immortalized you
and you don't even know

i rip open my skin
not much different than i rip the band aids off of it
tossing it aside in much the same way

thirsty for the secrets my body is keeping from me

the needle slips and my finger bleeds
i put it in my mouth and feel like metal

tasted like one of your apologies

tw// homophobia (especially due to religion)

a small, clumsy child
in a room full of glass
is told to look, but never to touch
and it's the child's fearful obedience
that makes the parent revel in their victory

a naïve, desperate teen
is admonished for looking at someone
they never should've touched
(for a bible verse told them so. even kissing was a sin for them)
and it's the teen's desolate silence
that helps the parent sleep at night

don't worry, parent
now i know not to look or touch
please rest easy
my life will not be broken glass

how do i reconcile my warmth with my machinery?
mechanical contraption checking the boxes
poet longing to form a beating heart with only words

the colder parts of me suggest i have some sort of surgery
creativity can be threaded to the bone with stitches

the softer places whisper in my ear a cure of sugar and cinnamon
logic is only an imagined intention

but i feel the pendulum swing
and it stops not for compromise

i take my coffee in the form of hard candy

because if i drank it
the warmth would remind me too much of you

what my english teacher tells me is
logical fallacy

i've held on to for as long as my blood was blue
it's as close to a religion as i will ever come
and maybe i don't see wings in my reflection

but i'm done being told that i'm going to fall when i jump

lover is a day
by cuco

time changed
we're different
but my mind still says redundant things
can i not think?
will you love this part of me?
my lover is
the day i can't forget

furthering my distance from you
realistically i can't leave now
but i'm okay as long as you
keep me from going crazy
keep me from going crazy

straight up ahead
you'll find a sign that says you can't get by with a lie
but if i stayed away by a thread from the glory path
and made my life harder lying 'bout the stupid **** i say
then you wouldn't know a single thing about how i feel about you
and those really dumb things people feel
i'll take the bumpy road
it'll probably break my legs
as long as i don't show you what's ruining my head
funny thing about you is you read me pretty well
but you haven't found me yet
at the bottom of the well

annoying you with smoke signals
asking you for help
cause your immediate presence lifts me straight away from hell
me and mr. heart, we say the cutest things about you
how you seem unreal and we'd probably die so quick without you
suffocated from the radiated air around us
full of happiness
we don't have brightness
got so dark without you girl

time changed
we're different
but my mind still says redundant things
can i not think?
will you love this part of me?
my lover is
the day i can't forget

furthering my distance from you
realistically i can't leave now
but i'm okay as long as you
keep me from going crazy
keep me from going crazy

family calls me crazy
and my friends say i'm degenerate
but you tell me i'm so generous
and my self worth isn't hideous
this psychedelic canvas of the person i'm becoming
went from horror movie on tv to happy ending princess me
processing the information
transferred from your mind to me
at light speed like the falcon from the original star wars trilogy
feelin' like a free ol' me when i was 6
and no worries would stop me from reaching the stars a million miles from me
sick in the head for ya and no cure has been discovered
like a plague hitting my body
except if i fall i'm just fallin for ya
conscious beyond knowledge
alterations are acknowledged
and the beauty you've inflicted is always in it's action
lovely day today
perfect time to open up to you
but i know you're having fun
wouldn't wanna mess this up for you
but i'm happy that your happy
at least i do that much for you
always glad you're with me
this emotion will be gone before you know

time changed
we're different
but my mind still says redundant things
can i not think?
will you love this part of me?
my lover is
the day i can't forget

furthering my distance from you
realistically i can't leave now
but i'm okay as long as you
keep me from going crazy
keep me from going crazy

time changed
we're different
but my mind still says redundant things
can i not think?
will you love this part of me?
my lover is
the day i can't forget

furthering my distance from you
realistically i can't leave now
but i'm okay as long as you
keep me from going crazy
keep me from going crazy

tw// language. self hate.

do something, do something, do something
*******, waste of space
what are you even doing with your life?

please please just get up
i'll leave you alone if you do something
anything

brush your teeth, please, you smell like death

do something, do something, do something
******* just get up

fourteen missing assignments, and that's just one class
you dumb ******* i hate you

get up
you're the reason for every bad thing that has ever happened

y'know what?
don't do anything
sit there
you're gonna mess up anything you try anyway

are you going to cry now?
of course not. that's doing something.

don't go to sleep

your lungs could collapse right now
you could die
no one promised you forever
you only get a now
and you're spending it on your twin sized bed
might as well be in a coffin
you ******* waste of decomposable matter

do something, do something, do something

the mirror sits on the edge of the desk
shining with anticipation
for the day
i find my first wrinkle

mirrors, more than most things, know
that youth is fleeting:
skin does not stay tight
eyes become hollowed out like melons

but mirrors, like most, have a fatal flaw:
they hope too far

i pray they don't weep
when i'm buried
before i find my first wrinkle

carbon and gasoline
drowning the world in black

that's okay, i was in the mood for a swim anyway

i say every smoke
is the last one
because it's fun to pretend

but i'm starving for another
and i can't even make believe that it'll be my last

my skin is under my fingernails, now
a daisy caught in my throat
maple syrup dripping from my eyes
bloodshot heart from reading your texts past midnight

i'm not sure if you love me
even though you wrote the words all over my neck

my stomach is full of rotted apple cores
i have a cigarette for dinner and wash it down with four unread messages
tripping over expiration dates on my way to bed
i don't dream of you for the first time in a long time
i dream of ***** dishes

why do you like my ****** poems?

please break my fall

my knit sweater holds tears in
i fantasize about the old man that might have worn it
he used to smoke, i think

i dream about his mahogany pipe
with it's european engravings

in another life i might have cried at his funeral
but i just have his sweater

and i promise to remember him

i still listen to our song

i just cry at all the parts
that are supposed to make me smile

my coat buttons rolled down the drain on 4th street
i watched them as they were carried away by wind and rain
the ring on my left hand got caught in between the couch cushions
i left it tangled up in the coffee-stained threads
records go on playing until silence fills the room
i don't even take the needle off

but i wish i were the buttons, the ring
i wish i could put the record away

i just want to want something

who can tell us
that clawing the thorns out of our chests
is wrong?

these roses aren't for you

feelings
[file: move to trash]

items in trash for longer than 30 days will be deleted automatically

[delete forever]
are you sure?

[yes]

i heard that laughing makes you live longer
you make me feel like i could never die

i'm a candle man
with no dreams or plan
i just want to kiss your lips,
press my heart to your fingertips

you always say just the right thing
to light a fire on my short string
and i burn for you, melting
as you hold me close, smelling

all the yearning, dry on my tongue
and the hopes that we will stay young
so we don't have to have any dreams, or a plan
and i can always be your candle man

sunflowers seeping into her skin like rot
an uncontrollable summer cancer
bones breaking ahead of time
a tombstone blissfully cool

smoking to die
living in the expletive
relishing the waste

for wasting must mean you have

i don't want to smell like the flowers in the lotion you gave me
i want to smell like i could break my own bones

i'll always need constant reminders
because i feel like i am one

i need you to remind me that the world is beautiful
because i feel like a reminder of all the oil spills

i need you to remind me that love is kind
because i feel like a reminder of every time i broke my own heart

i need you to remind me that i'm human
because i feel like a reminder that monsters do exist

and mostly, i need you to remind me that you love me
because i feel like a reminder of all the reasons you shouldn't

i'll always need constant reminders
because i feel like i am one

i wish i knew how to manipulate time
the way you manipulated me

i beg my lungs not to let go
as they hold in the million scents that make up
you

i wish your smell was like muscle memory
always coming back to the tips of my fingers

like those songs i still know how to play on the violin

i'm no poet, no artist
maybe that's why i can see
we're a lot more beautiful
when you're just you, and i'm just me

on the last day of september
my bones
aching in my skin
i can't help but feel
that i have lost
much more than i gave

i'll never get back what i gave
to 3am

we lit up
on the flame of one another's company
the smoke doused us in laughter
and the sky
was big enough,
just for a little while

we were infinite:
more terrified of blinking
than being too small

chewing on black holes
just to pass the time

leaving a fingerprint
with no identity attached

but the black holes got sour
and we spit them out
with the stray embers
caught on our bitter tongues

we buried the cigarettes in the dirt,
footprints their only grave marker

don't ask me
how i'm doing
ask me
what i'm listening to

you didn’t set up your voicemail box like i awkwardly texted you to at 11:48pm last month (so i could leave you awkward voicemails)
and you don’t call me back this late at night
(because somehow you're still afraid that i will be asleep)
but i’ll keep one headphone out
just in case the phone rings

symptoms include:
brushing my teeth in the middle of the day
wearing my pajamas three days in a row
failing classes i understand
listening to regina spektor's old albums on repeat
wearing your flannel to sleep
talking to myself, forgetting you aren't around

fatality rate:
high

recommended:
a soft kiss on the lips at two am
as we fall asleep
talking about committing arson

you haven't answered my calls in a few days
it shouldn't mean so much
but when the phone line lay empty,
i told the trees all about you through my tears
i left out the part where i said 'i love you' first
because i still pretend it was you

the moon listened when the trees went to sleep
and i asked her if she could keep a secret
she said she could, but i know she told the stars anyway
i whispered real quiet, so the wind couldn't carry it too far away

i'd love you, even if you broke me

writing poems in the notes app
on a cracked iphone 5 that doesn't have a sim card
well past the moons rise into the sky
thinking about leaving this
dry, cracking, miserable town because i'm done
aching for rain

there's too much of you and i here
and i'll never forgive myself
for folding all those paper lotus flowers for you on valentine's day
i now know the dangers of
putting so much of yourself into something so fragile

sick and tired
of eating until i'm sick
and pretending i'm not tired

your voice over the phone makes the butterflies in my stomach rush to my head

and it's the kind of blush that needs to be kissed away

i boiled down all my water
to make room in the cupboards for apathy
but i've been using it in every recipe
and nothing is never hot enough

i should be exploding
but i'm just eating homemade spaghetti with too much oregano

your languid lines
under my calloused hands

we see clearer in the dark

holding hands
in the farmers market
all sweat and skin

the smell of the blue sky
so close
to our intertwined fingers
that we can almost
breathe

and your dimpled smile
made everything perfect

all tangled up and stuck together
with wax

i'm a mess i'll never learn how to clean
and i'm vegan
so i can't use glue

you are so far from me
that i can feel the earth turn

you hid your red flags well
i didn't find them in your avoidance or stale apologies
i couldn't see them when your hands were open in mine
everyone said they should be glaring

but you and i stand under red streetlights, so your flags
look like scarves to wrap our bodies with

it was only when the sun came out
that i could see the blood all around me
and i cried tears of white
i wove them into a flag of my own
wrapped it around your neck to pull you in for a sober goodbye kiss

your ****** tongue dripped, tastefully inviting
but somehow i found the strength to walk away
only looking back once as you stood like a column bearing my white flag
blowing in the wind