it really should be so simple
to do the right things
remembering to eat
and going to sleep
but i stare at the ceiling
unless i take certain measures
and my tongue turns to cotton
my appetite has surely been better
so uninterested in what's left of life's pleasure
unbothered to set myself out to dry
sitting on shower floor
using my little alone time to cry
and life's actually never been this great
in many ways i'm growing
but i only see things i haven't achieved
and pain i'm not showing
its so weird to be in between
healed and healing
for the last couple weeks
i couldn't explain what i've been feeling
but maybe it will come back
the hunger for something more
until i'll just alternate
between being uncomfortable, suffering, or bored

i'm counting down the days to go
i'm marinating in thoughts
i'm chewing on the worst of them
as i burn a hole into the clock
with my drying eyes
and ache for this time to come to a close
i've sat here for long enough
i've entertained every sorrow i know

i can imagine them all huddled up
laughing at my misfortune
repainting the picture and denying my character
my actions warped and my words distorted
the blame falls down on me
like an anvil in a stupid cartoon
i'm unable to defend myself
but for their acceptance, why would i even want to?

i've been ready to leave for a good long while
but i held out to see if i was mistaken
but the proof found me and i protected myself
and that somehow made me satan
so yeah i walked away and i'd do it again
i deserve more than to be of use
i believed you and what did that get me
other than abandoned and misconstrued

so have your little party and vilify me
burn me at the stake if you please
my worst crime being reactive to the abuse
and finally choosing me
over phony peace i only had
when i would bend to your every whim
compromise was never an option
and you were never a friend

words are unbecoming
i'm restless in my consideration
around every corner lies a brand new issue
my peace pilfered and my worries proliferated

i think about you
i drag about myself
i wonder about them
i weigh out everything else

and in the end it amounts to nothing
i'm alone and no one understands
i account for every inch and note areas of concern
when things never go to plan

i'm dying for something to just make sense
everyday is a game i never win
are you a burden or are you a friend in need
i cant tell anymore and i'm tired of it

it's about that time
everyone's moved along
i'm straggling per usual
always the last one to catch on

never the first one to leave
i never anticipate the end
so it always gets the best of me

i'm never ready to say goodbye
or planning to let go
clenching so tight my knuckles turn white
overly attached and it shows

but my love is genuinely
coming from a place of care and hope
a feeling where i can't eat sleep or breathe

until i know you feel it too
our hands on different sides of the glass
its scary to even consider
could you ever love me back

yet now the seat is cold and empty
you're gone
and i don't know what to think

maybe i'm too eager to try
or too predisposed to reach the finish line
am i too broken to find a home
or is trying to trust people a waste of time

you were right

about this shirt
i do like it

sometimes i wish i didn't though

sometimes i want to light it on fire in my backyard
and use my bottled up rage to keep it going all night

but you were right
it does feel like me

last night i was dancing around sleep
and like an immaculate conception
the answer revealed itself
completely occupying my mind's eye

you
were the first
person i ever trusted
time i wasn't scared to laugh
person i looked to for a long long time
time i felt safe enough to love

the experience changed me forever
and for the longest time
i thought you were the key

meant to open up what i couldn't on my own

but you're gone
and i'm still here
and all that intensity and purpose
still swell and shift within

i'm not sure you were ever my friend
but you were a friend
emphasis on the were

one day i'll be neutral
and i pray to feel grateful for all the good
and i'll keep stomaching the bad
and working on myself

i'll never burn this shirt
and sometimes i hope you think i did

you are this all encompassing sensation even now
a change in my heart rhythm
and smell in my brain
a peace and hell wrapped in one

banishing the best of our time together
is like sending a piece of myself away

i can't ignore the reality
but i don't want to forget why i tried to stay

i want it to all be worth more than the lessons i'm being learned

tilling the soil and blessing the earth
in this life people rarely get what they deserve

needles and pins
if not now then when
a thought makes me wince
i loathe myself for needing

to be high for this
and thinking about him
might not give into my whims
but it's not a good way of thinking

staring out but lost deep within
hearing nothing but the wind
phantasizing fingertips
i feel shame for dreaming so freely

but then again
i'll never touch another skin
so does it even count as sin
if you knew, would you leave me?

i'll put myself back together
staples, glue, and thread
and get the fact that you don't love me
through my stupid head

and i'll start from scratch
relocating my sanctuary far from yours
rebuilding brick by brick with ****** hands
until i'm better than before

i'll take the lashings
and accept painful truths
i'll find a silver lining
and even try not to hate you

but with all of my humility at stake
and the maturity i've managed to show
i'm still mortified
by the customs you forgo

my best efforts
don't absolve or garnish your transgressions
nothing makes it better
but at least i learned my lesson

flesh separated
from temple to toe
cracked like an egg
scored clean through the marrow
scraped of all utility
disregarded past my prime
left as a pile of rotting innards
futility found to be a punishable crime
and as i lay in waste
extinguished and razed
borrowing hope
and counting my days
i realize that my dereliction
is a symptom not my being
i have a purpose beyond your shrinking views
you would never free me

that's something one can only do for themselves
and the answer won't be found in anybody else








(you lied to me and i believed you)

the drop of a hand
the spoiling of plans
trying to understand
how unfounded i am
how reckless i became
the risks barely scaped
how i find myself in shame
how i'm the one to blame
for the loss incurred
i swallowed your burs
and weathered your worst
even drew blessings from a dying curse

but now it's my turn
my lips have been pursed
and it's a poor choice of words
but i've had it worse
not to compete in the slightest
or to complain or rescind kindness
but in recovery from my blindness
and a surfeit of your highness
i call forward to motion
my efforts and devotion
the letdown of vows found broken
the swelling and tender underbelly of emotion

that which you carved with relish and concentration
channeling something much deeper and primal than hatred
an appetite darker yet related or fairly adjacent
drawing up the last of my fading patience
flicking the needle but being careful not to waste it
and i smiled in wan vacantly complacent
unaware of the future rapidly reshaping
nothing i could do but plant myself to brace it
coming face to face with my very own replacement
coming to terms with such a draining arrangement
that ****** up my mental but you don't want to claim it
i still grieve for you but i don't want say it

with the blink of an eye
you made a different life
didnt even try to fight
barely even said goodbye

that hurts me more than i wish it did
but i guess i gotta live with it
bury my stake in the high road and draft my penance
what crossed your mind when you called it good riddance
i'm so confused then abused by your ruthless decisions
you cared about me until you just didn't
recanted before i crashed out but wouldn't admit it
you waited until you found something to pin it
on me so you could move on without feeling like a villain
the last of your efforts just costumed resentment
taking an early check out on a solemn commitment

i prayed everyday not knowing
my hopes were sisyphean
i broke my jaw and choked on my tongue
and suffocated when i grew tired of screaming

might have bowed out so regretless
to maintain a clear conscience never to consider
carrying yourself with such faithlessness
won't leave you feeling very chipper
and one day if it wasn't worth it
and you see my name hiding in your coffee mug bitters
the universe would be playing a cruel joke on you
it's quite uncouth to become a belated gravedigger

i sit and ponder
everything that's gone sour
making sense of the guts
and grinding the bone to powder
no suffering should go to waste
gotta make it worth something
the gracious aren't unscathed
and the privileged aren't forthcoming

i can't in good faith
say everything happens for a reason
because there's much depravity and injustice

and for all of the pain
i might never break even
but at the end of the day i learned something from it

hold your loved ones a bit closer
count your blessings and kiss goodbye
even in anger we are loved
you can give up but you still gotta try

i'll never be healthy
if i continue
monetarily
emotionally
boundlessly
supporting these people
no matter mow much i love them
it makes me want to die
that i have to watch them
suffer to then
repeat these cycles
and bring more lives into it
the world feels like such a miserable place to me
i know there's happiness out there that exists
in some shape or form
but i don't feel like it's going to find me
unless i let go of everything i love and know
but if i do that
i wont have anything to hold onto

do i just float away at that point?

if i set myself on fire
i would die knowing i gave and i gave
but it'd be all for nothing
cause nothing might ever change

i stared into the fire
and the flames bent to form an image
no one else could see

i sat out in the rain
till my fingers turned blue
and ran my hands under cold water

it burned like a *******
relatively scalding
and i hate that this is where i am

warmth sounds almost unbearable
compared to suffering i know
don't tell me i'm not feeling enough

i've felt so much
i open my chest
and swallow the world with my eyes
and dissect all the ways that it hurts me
and regurgitate what little sense i make

is it wrong to not want to stay in the cycle
am i wrong to leave you behind
i don't wanna contribute
i never did
that's why i won't have ******* kids


i told you to your face tonight
how shallow my well of reasons draws
to keep playing such stupid games

if love isn't enough
then what even is
i was born without permission
and i live in this world
but i'm never gonna change it

yeah
that's it for me

inside my mind
i imagine
throwing it all into the fire
and forgetting it all
the clothes off my back
a fresh start
of sorts?

but is the inherent value
of all that ive built
worth trying to restore its former glory

or i'm pouring even further into a sunken cost

is it harder to kiss it all goodbye
or to realize i never should have left

lake of fire
tucked away
coyote cries
not so far away
simpler times
never come our way
we don't wanna
but we always find a way

no faith to find in hell
so we can only question this existence
why our parents had kids
and why theirs did and the ones before them

how could you do this to me
to us
ungrateful unsatisfied unfruitful
as ****

dying flames
topped up another time
the locust choir
fills the night
in these moments of respite
the stakes are still high
the world at my fingertips
but at the cost of goodbye

i don't want to reach out for dreams
because they might underwhelm me
but the unexciting reality
itself grows expressly underwhelming

it's better to have love
than to lose it all pursuing phantasm
always grateful but too young to be choosing
to live in contempt or indulge in bad habits

to shed my hesitation
and finally go rabid
does the real thing feel this good
after you've had it?

i don't know and i won't ever
if i keep myself in check
i like being here with us together
it's just so easy to get swept

up by ideals
and things so contingent of following ungrounded reverie
i come home to you for all that is
i'm not heartless in my revelry

i build it up in my mind
so grand and tall and unreal
it rises as i stand on top
thrilling yet scary to feel

and when our time is cut short
and it becomes do or lie
i give you a hug
for the very last time

ousted from my safety
made to walk the plank
so off the tower i go
though i wanted to stay

you'd think i'd be crushed like a bug
but you see it's all in my head
so the time i could feel this way
could just never end

never needed one
so there is no floor
there is no you
not anymore

but if it's all my imagination
why don't i just fly away and forget
i wonder everyday
as i lose my sense of direction spiraling in the pit

hope you had a ****** day
know that's really ****** to say
but if i can't play an active role
and have to make sense of all this pain

then i think it's okay
to hope you have a ****** day
it's been dark a couple months now
and my sunshine through the rain

is hoping you're having an even ******* day
that my absence ruins your means of escape
thinking 'she should be here'
and remembering you pushed me away

that everytime things are looking up
you feel a bit ashamed
it didn't have to be this way
i already had enough on my plate

so yeah it's hateful of me
but what else can i say
i won't do anything to make it happen
but i hope you've been having some ******* days

what happened to naming your first kid after me
and the cow themed kitchen of our dreams
can you explain why any of this is happening
because it never made much sense to me

i want to be mad and i have many reasons to feel jaded
but i know holding grudges serves no purpose
logic writes off every course of frustration
acting out of emotion would be a disservice

but i can't do anything right
except for walk the other way
i do it with a pain in my chest
but i did everything right at the end of the day

and all of your shortcomings
and betrayals and cruelty
one they they'll be nothing
but old ******* news to me
today it hurts
but i gotta breathe and find truth in peace
not dedicate my life and death to punishing you
for being selfish and marooning me

because one day i won't cry for you
and all of the things you wouldn't do
when fidelity fell short
the times i waited for you to never come through
in contrast with the blood that i poured
on the altar built just for you
it'll be in ruins in due time
til then i just have to make do

and i'll make do
till i'm doing well
and you'll make wrong turns
till you've confused yourself
which is none of my concern
not since the day you abjured
at least i've gained perspective
from the wrath that i've endured
and maybe one day you might change
but that's not for sure

and i'm not rewriting history
by letting new information alter my position
it's okay to be wrong
and even better to make informed decisions
praying i'll never learn this lesson again
knowing my part in how this ended
i won't ever walk on water
but my life will be more than chosen affliction
i loved you
but you're not welcome not even when you are forgiven

i'm staring at the door
no one is coming
no one said they would
but i'm burning a hole in the wood with my gaze

sometimes i think about what life would be like
if we hadn't lost you and the life you deserved to live
and while it's not productive to pander
and break my heart over and over
considering all the what ifs

i wish with all my heart that it would've been me
if i could trade my life for you to have a fair chance i would
no doubt and i wouldn't regret it not one bit
but that's fanfare
and impossible to achieve

so instead today i want to think about what you gave me
the lessons i've learned in your absence
because you loved me and i know you'd want me to keep trying
and that doing less than my best would be shameful
and make your suffering null

i live with a purpose
and i love for a reason
and i am grateful even when i'm jaded

i choose to be kind
and remember to give grace
even when i'm over the world and clouded by hatred

and while it's not what i wanted
i'm glad to be on the other side
seeing what i was so blind to before

so its not a waste
and you should rest easy
knowing you gave me something to live for

i still miss you
every ******* day
and i still don't pray
but i repeat your name
everytime i wanna quit
and give up and walk away
know that you did that
it's because of you i'm saved

i didn't know love before you left me
and its a shame
but i have that knowledge know
and i wont stop drilling it into my brain

thank you

it's confusing
how the storm dried up just like that
and the sky inked to black
at the quiet entrance of your memory
my focus pilfering

normally i'm so ragged
pulled in too many directions
but when i remember you
all stands still like it's a crime to breathe
the world goes on without me


i'm not afraid
but i don't understand
and its like you're speaking to me
but its too soft to be true
muffled like conversations in another room



but i pick up and i carry on
never the same but in demand
and if i told anyone it'd be too late
your whispers cloud my soggy brain
but i don't want to be sent away





cause then we couldn't talk anymore
and i don't want to live without you

say it to my face
set the record straight
instead of letting me postulate
but, no, you're just gonna walk away

and let me sit here and debate
if i should choose love or hate
when if you could just mean what you say
there'd be a set of truths on which i could operate

instead you're proud of your cruelty
finding pleasure in the ****** up **** you do to me
closing in on my already shrinking sense of community
knowing just how much it will ***** with me

reveling in the mutiny
disappointment isn't new to me
but man you played the part beautifully
i really had no preception of this outcome truthfully

funnily enough today i was just cursing your name
someone mentioned you and reminded me of the pain
i pushed aside and bury everyday
even now i feel the venom in my veins

i tell the story again through my strain
how you abandoned me and left me to hang
how you have nothing to say to me so you say
how it wasn't supposed to be this way



but then you 'run into' all my 'friends'
and say it's nice to see them
sighing my how long it's been

but i don't to that to you
promptly mailed your stuff back too
you're the one who started acting brand new

and you know what's just peachy
after five months of chances to reach me
two and half to do this **** easily

there was a package on my porch when i got home
it was smashed and ugly and so overdue it is gross

you truly let us go
but you'll never say so

i feel so rotted through
my bones ache
and my eyes are sunken
my stomach touches my back
my arms leaden
my feet broken
my heart slowing
my fingers struggle to output
the resignation of my mind
the desecration of my time
the devastation of my life
it feels like my life is over
and i just keep going
like the last round of hurting wasn't enough
to convince me thoroughly enough
that this world isn't for me
and these people aren't either
but i just keep going
i can't give up now knowing
my problems are someone else's blessing
i'm just tired of the universe testing me
i lost my brother
my sister almost too this saturday
the little family i barely have
not my blood relations
just my only reservations
my few considerations
still i'm well aware
everyone is gonna go
whether they leave me now
or later
whether by choice
or by nature
why is it so wrong
i want to do it on my own terms
youth is no excuse to enable suffering
if in the meantime all i can do
is be punished for trying
it's unsuprising
i'd be so romanticized with dying
i know he's lying
to me
but my god
it's tantalizing
to be sacrificed
intead of sacrificing

what is the implosion of hope of living a good life
when the expectation was that i'd be rotted by now
in an ideal world, next to my brother
under a nice patch of grass and deep in the ground
but he sits in a box on a very high shelf
and my oldest brother takes him down once a year
weeping countrywide like the drunks we are
tears spilling and he finishes his beer

what's left of our brother returned to his birds eye view
August is coming so fast i don't know what to do
but revert to pretending youre still out there somewhere we cannot find
because that's easier to swallow than saying goodbye
for the thousandth time

i'm so alone

if you lost it all tomorrow
i'd have given my comfort to restore the peace that i could
but you've followed another bird
and i wouldn't be suprised if he takes off when you're no good

i cared more than just carnally
and you can run but you'll never be far from me
i seeped into the cracks of your life
with every act of kindness and attempt to do right
my generosity haunts you like blaspheme and regret
and i ought to be owed respect
but you'll never cover that debt
and i hope before you lose you wits
he's willing to match your every chip
or you blew it all for interchangeable feelings
i guess i'll go back to staring at the ceiling

i know you don't like me
and that you think that you're better
and above my existence
and wanna forget we were together
and you think cause i smoke and drink
i'm a *** and a waste
but for all that it is
i ignore all your hate
because i know that you hate me
because of stuff that you did
you miss me don't you
and it makes you wanna *****
i can't absorb all the responsibility
for the issues we have
between us two
i have to have my own back
for once at least
and not let you just trample
over all of my feelings
or make an example
out of me and my willingness to die for you
love twisted and mistaken
i would have taken most anything
to prevent this devastation
but it would have never mattered what i did
or didn't do
i can do my part
but can't rely on you
to do yours
or treat me like a human
i'm **** now
and awful and stupid
at least in your eyes
that's what i've become
i'm flawed but i'm kind
and you're blind and young
just as i had to be to let you in
and how i have to be to let you go
you broke my ******* heart
but i won't let you have my soul

i did it before you
i'll do it without you
you meant something
but now you have to be nothing
i hate it
but its how it has to be
if i ever want to be happy
i know this isn't real
and i'm talking to myself
but now that you're gone
this is what i have to do
to feel just a little okay
and move on little by little each day
one day you will truly
truly be nothing
would you like that?
are you ready for that?

i hope not
(and i hope it stings
is that wrong of me?)

ain't no suprise
if i'm being forced to wait
i'll take my time
i'd rather end up alone than bitter

i took it with my chest
i said what i meant
i put it all out on the table
i'm trying not to regret it
or the times we spent together

  i'm gonna fake it
  till i believe
  keep forgiving until
  i'm finally free
  from the bindings of my mind

   when the chains loosen
   and fall from my hands
   when i can feel better
   even though i don't understand
   to finally appreciate this life

i'm not quite there
and you can say what you want
but you can never say i'm not trying