Haley Rome

Haley Rome Mar 2014

Eerie spinal crack crack crack
keeps me awake as I dream in and out of your beautiful self perception
you slippery queen
who inhabits my every waking sleeping seconds
like a crushed shell underneath my foot
you inhabit so many pieces
so many forms
so many truly fascinating listless traits
that you choose to give to someone that I am not
but that’s alright,
I say that’s alright
because your love is yours
and not mine
but if it were mine I know I’d do something ugly
like hoard it so that the world could never see it
until I die and rot just like the insides of my skull when you aren’t around.

Haley Rome Mar 2014

Insomnia

I don’t know where I’m going
but I’m not sure if that’s my problem
or if I’m unhappy
because I expect myself to.
I’m asleep, truly,
for I can feel the seawater dripping from under my eyelids,
seeping down down down through my pillow
and rotting my floors with dreamy mold
all throughout our living space.
No wonder we cough,
no wonder we choke,
no wonder none of us are able to have real relationships
we’re being poisoned by our dreams until nothing is left
but the choking exhaustion
of a day spent laying on our backs
and thinking that tomorrow is the day we’ll fall in love
or next week I’ll finally jump on that train
and away from all of them who do me harm.
I’m trapped in my own personal heaven that’s
halting me from bouncing into reality.

Haley Rome Mar 2014

This Is the Story of the Boys Who Loved You

so much love is spewing my way
from the boys who love me
and the ones who want to love me
and the ones I want to love me
but don’t think they can.
Christ almighty.
I’m melting
from all of this ****** liberation taking it’s time
too slowly drip dipping down my too young leg.
all of a sudden it’s not pretend,
it’s not fake,
it’s not painted on moans mixed with brushed gold caress
but a cardboard bite on my collarbone
that should feel good in my dreams
but only leaves marks.
these scars are real and won’t flake off into stardust
but will grow and bulge
until they swallow me up
just like I swallow up all those who ask politely.

Haley Rome Feb 2014

I Had A Panic Attack and This Is What Happened

I’m tired I’m tired of being so tired and so lazy and so dull and such a large mess of drip drip insomnia. No chance no chance I’ll get up? My body works for no one my mind frames itself day after day as the villain but will I ever be caught? Hit em right between the eyes hurt me crush me I need to feel it’s all so dull it’s all so boring help help help Christ almighty I’ve been thirsty I’m forever fat and ugly dull and smoggy fighting back and forth with the lies I’ve been wearing, disguise I’ve been blurring. Lightning bolt shoot me down out of the sky the sky I’m polluting nothing more to say my eyes are choked.

Jobs are useless. We are useless. Life is useless. Art is hard. Art is pointless. I feel I feel I feeel I feel nothing I try I try I try there’s nothing I blur I blur I blur I see nothing I fight I fight I fight for nothing. Bright future brute natures cracked backs make good snacks try too hard try so hard not enough not enough where’s the childhood? I’m a child still I’m a child still why the *** why the drugs why the painful throbbing in my head it’s constant consistent never misses a beat no no I try to make it far away with lace and *** and haleyhaleyhaleybaby cmoooon reality is a dream a lie told to you by the A team the ones who know who can make you last with drip drip drip into your pores your veins your poor veins your mind alright? mind your mind and mind your soul for nothing is real when chances are fleeting and time is a flat circle where you relive you relive over and over would you want to relive today? because you’re going to.

Fight the urge to resist to persist to exist to resist I need to find the new people the blue people the better people to lift me up out of my self pity sleep in my overdose chair made of silver and bones. Low self esteem low self esteem worthy of anything besides their life dream. Play with me so I know you aren’t asleep play with me so I know you aren’t asleep why do you want to hurt me why do you want to love me is this abuse or am I just happy we go out and you reject me I’m so low but so high high as the sky can’t touch the sky my fingerprints will leave a mark that’s too much, chocolate covered hands in my saccharine shell pulse pulse pulse little embryo crack your little sugar skull on this plaster world you’ve created berated manifested in this concrete overdrive over overdrawn and overdose stop telling me your story stop trying to change my life my door is not open close it close it keep it closed I’d lock it but then I can’t get out I’m a sucker and self esteem is a lie no one has it no one has it except for you and everyone like you we’re all alike, aren’t we? Same hair same eyes same heart same lies sleep with me sleep with me I’m really not a sad person but won’t you sleep on me and step on me where is my spine oh in a jar.

Haley Rome Jan 2014

Voicemail #4

“Hey Mark. It’s Hope. Um, hey. So I know that I’ve left you quite a lot of voicemails in the past few days. I just couldn’t stop worrying about where you were and…and you know how I get. So, finally, I called Rita. And she told me where you were. And now I get it! I understand why you aren’t calling me back. It’s not because you don’t like me anymore or that you’ve grown bored of me, no! It’s not that at all. It’s because…well, it’s because you’re dead. And I know that you’ll never get this and I’m talking into an empty void right now. I can almost hear you laughing at me, saying that I’m just a tree falling in a forest with no one around to hear. But that’s comforting, in a weird way. Especially because of the previous voicemails I left, before I knew where you were. I mean, Jesus, those were so embarrassing just thinking about them makes me want to die! But I’m not dead. You are. Um. Well, I just called because I wanted you to know that you…you were different. You are different. Just because you’ve died doesn’t mean you’re suddenly not sweet or intelligent or courageous or loving. Now that you’re gone my world is a blur full of colors and light but lacking all definition. I went to your work yesterday. All of your coworkers were swarming around me and I just stared and couldn’t recognize anyone. Not even Rita. I had to ask her name, I was so humiliated. And she…she did something that you used to do to comfort me. I doubt she even knew she was doing it. She must’ve picked it up from you or something. Um. She started to massage my hands, you know, like you would do when I would get too scared to breathe. And I closed my eyes. I swear, I swear that in that moment it was you. I know it was you. You were there calming me down, helping me breathe. And I finally could. For the first time in years, I could. But then she asked how I was feeling and I had to open my eyes. I said I didn’t know. I don’t know. I do know that I miss you. I think it’s funny that when I talk about you to others, and I talk about missing you, I can say it in the present tense but when I say that I love you, it sounds wrong. Like they expect me to say that I loved you, as if my devotion stopped the second your heart did. I still love you. I did and I do and I will. I just don’t know if I can ever-" *Message deleted. Press 1 to record again.

Haley Rome Jan 2014

Sad?

How fast can I make the days go by if I live them safe inside my mind?

How quick will time go down the drain if I'm locked tight inside my brain?

Daydream, daydream, hours blown away. Nightmare, nightmare, starts a brand new day.

All the people I see are alive. Shallow, frozen, realities of life.

I would rather waste my time away than be with them for one more ******* day.

Haley Rome Jan 2014

Dreams ( a song )

In a daydream I've forgotten all the things I know I should have said while you sit folding papers into imaginary things.
I stumble quietly along my path without your hand to hold onto. I wished you wished that you were here but lucky stars are falling.
Your leaving can't hurt me if I choose not to witness it. Your silence can't break me if it's not your turn to speak. You're tired, I see it, in all the things we could have been. My eyesight is failing if you are not there to see.
Kissing fingers, dripping skin, only memories to comfort me. I wish that in my mind there was a switch to turn them off.
In my dreams I see you there with scissors in your hands. I can't tell what that means, you're an imaginary thing.