If I seem angry
it’s because I miss you
and I have a tendency
to have to translate my
feelings in another way

I change where I don’t
need to
because I don’t
want to
change where it
matters

I don’t know
which part is which
do I not understand
the world
or does the world
not
understand me

I’m leaning on the
past
and I’m facing
the future
and it’s only when
I fall on my back
that I see the
present

so at some point
I have to decide
where I will go
and who I’ll
leave behind

I heard it
was only
good once
and the rest
was to stave off
the withdrawals

I see in your eyes
how many times they *******
or ****** you over

Everyone wants to feel
better about themselves
because they want to
feel better
not because anyone
else
does(n’t)

Thanks
for knowing what
it’s like
to wake up
wanting to die
I like holding
your hand

if I seem angry
it’s just because
my passion for
you
is somewhere
else

because now
I
burned out
and
I’m exhausted

Youth was masturbated away
to cheap candy and commercials
and their time ended quickly

Bicycles and pavement
and the unpredictable spills
scabs and limps
and flesh on the track

Children fought like their ancestors
throwing fists and sticks
and crying when
they lost
their virginity to pain

Bee stings and bright shoes
and slamming doors behind
dropping food on the floor
and never hesitating to
pick it up and eat it

Stomach aches
and bad dreams
it must be awful to be a child
to only remember anger

Cross legged and thumb wrestling
name calling and falling
and car rides home

Their eyes in the clouds
wishing they were grown up
and the parents look down
with a contradiction they’ve
thrown up

it spends the day/ eating away
tearing through dreams/ soft decay

and you can’t strike or cry
five years burned my eyes dry

My dad is a leprous powdery-white cord of rot
that draws out of my throat lisping past tonsils
through the spaces in between the teeth.

All my life I wait for him to remove himself from me,
only to bite down as the last inches are about to pass
from my mouth.

He almost escapes - I swallow hard,
suppress the gag reflex:
he remains within me.