I feed them laughter
Until they leave
With stomachs full
Of my own self deprecation

I am my own worst enemy
I let Ivy vines climb
The walls of my lungs
In attempts to replace
The vacant space
With something beautiful

I’ve been told I draw
A crowd
That people tend to love me
To love my endless smile
And warm embrace
Once I was told my heart
Could be seen for miles
They mistake this
As a choice
My empathetic heart
Has never known
Any other way to live
But little did they know
I’ve been at my journey’s end
For years now
I have been running on empty
No time to stop and think
When you are preoccupied
With everyone else’s thoughts

People are always around me
I have been told they tend to love me
Sort of in the way
The drunk loves the bottle
Or the addict loves the needle
In a way that we all love something
That can take the pain away
I am nothing more than
A dependable habit
A catalyst towards peaceful sleep
And a calmer mind

People are always around me
And it feels a bit like
Being stranded out at sea
Billions of living creatures
Surround you but you
Are the only of your kind

I have been told people
Tend to love me
Sort of the way
A child loves the comfort of
A soft blanket
Or the feeling of
Safety it brings them
And while the addict
May love the needle
And the drunk, the bottle
The child, their blanket
They are not IN love with them
They will never be IN love with them
They are simply dependable habits
A catalyst towards peaceful sleep
And a calmer mind

So I let the ink spill from my chest
as if there was never a heart there
to begin with
just streams of poetry
flowing through bursting veins
If my heart never existed
it was never broken
in the first place
So lets pretend
my mother never heard
my heartbeat
that my father didn't spend
my childhood teaching me
the scariest monsters in this world
were never after my blood
they were after the pounding
piece inside of my rib cage
but its just a hallowed out cavity
nothing resides there
it was only ever a black hole
swirling vortex
******* up all people had to pour into it
never spits it back out
just disappears
So let the ink pour from my chest
I'll write you another lovesick memory
play pretend, splash around before if dries
so I track it with me everywhere I go
If my heart never existed
it was never broken in the first place

You promised me the last time
was the last time
but here we are again
stitching my heart back together
threading myself through
with hollow promises
feeding myself self-help lines
"Everything will be okay"
"You are better off this way"
It doesn't make the ache
drain from my chest any faster
but I will smile anyway
smile like I always have
It's the only way I ever learned
how to make it through
because when the world
around me is so loud
the only thing I can quiet
are my own words
so I swallow them down again
they never taste any better
on the way back down
but the bitterness of my own words
are still sweeter than the feeling
of heartbreak
but here we are again
stitching pieces together
hoping this time really is the last time

Bright eyed boy
with stars littering
his midnight sky mind
I could never tell him
how he meant the world to me
Or the way it took everything in me
not to run and wrap my arms around him
All I want for him is clarity
but that is no something obtainable
with my moonlight beams blinding him
so I try to create distance
I try not to fall into the gravitation
Of his orbit
but it has never been my nature
to run away from the things
that set me on fire
but I will not give into my desire
of the feeling of skin against skin
and lips intertwining
not when it comes at the cost of his sanity