(I'm screaming)
You told me I was being too loud.
It's silly,
to be neither seen nor heard.

(I'm hiding)
You scold me for interrupting too much.
Even that
Doesn't really seem to work.

I guess I don't want to
seem overbearing
but my senses
are blurred at the edges
and my substance
doesn't feel so substantial at all

Creeping insecurity
that those shooting stars
didn't really fall through
and my wishes
of invisibility
are fading into truth.

I am independent and sentient
and patience has never been my virtue
expectations only lead me to hurt you
because with a broken heart
my hairs raise
my eyes ablaze
and my edges sharp
so as you attempt
to clean up your mess
you cut your
pretty face
on the jagged shape
of my  e m p t i n e s s

contracting breaths
between the sentences
of those faceless giants
that surround me
without a comprehensible sound
lost
and not quite yet
found
you'll come around,
but only once I've given in
sin, skin, and cigarettes
fleeting hope
and looming regrets
in overcast limbo

fool me once
shame for life
you said you'd never hurt me
but the pain came twice

tell her that she's alone
that she deserved it
she's on her own
well I won't let you take
her voice away
she likes to ****
but you like to pray
kiss and makeup
because there is plenty else to hate
and your ignorance is out of date

your loneliness is just a phase
but hakuna matata is just a phrase
and happily ever after
is just a ghost in the wall
high, tripping, and falling
into ink
into dreams
into distant ****** up haze
of your forgiveness
which I am expected to accept
even when you took away
until there was nothing I had left
an intolerable possibility
that I should be so willing to receive
your gold paved poor intentions

pour them
into my poor eroded throat
just to be evoked
from a bottomless pit
where my insides should be

no clear beginning or end
to myself, or identity
like a blurry negative
or a softly fallen tree
keep the change
the empty promises
the debt and the punishment

but I'm breaking the mirror
and not the habits I loathe
dissociation
a celebration and emancipation
from the tunnels of my mind
winding and finding
yourself
so undone

this is a war that can't be won
without losing

hello potential
stare me down
carry your judgements
but don't make a sound
except the crack of your smile
and our feet on the pavement
beating a pulse
the night is so vacant
except the howls inside us
joining the wolves

I can feel you beside me
taking it in
please don't falter, potential
we're about to begin

keep putting off
what you anticipate
because you can't let go
of some form of hope and
jump
in
to
that
water

so murky and romanticized

feel the rush of realism
of lucidity
when you stop waiting
and start your own story

bittersweet dreams
like
that
gaping old victorian
with dusty stairwells
only swept by drifts of passing wind
calling you
with echoed longing

empathetic with
the rarely seen or heard
little soul
in the walls
occasionally tip tapping

up        above        your        bed


dancing on your head

those shooting shivers
sent from the grave
forgotten and walked on
and oh so,
******* beautiful

feel endlessly alive
like those nights that you attempt to forget

you introduced me
to a poverty like none before
it seems it's difficult to see
how deeply you're lacking
until you've been full

with such audacity
you tucked my heart away
and with such disgusting subtlety
I taste the distance as you stray