there will be another tattoo shop
with artists that have no bank account
who ask me to cash their checks for them and another downtown with a whiskey donut bar
or one that was once a mortuary
that I’ll get too drunk at and puke outside of
maybe I'll have *** in the pews at this one, too
there will be another set of grid like streets
that go one way or the other way, east to west
and I still look at the signs even after 24 years
and there will be another historic avenue
that will knock down the local watering holes
in order to create high rise buildings
for ******* boys and girls that
already have credit cards and BMW’s
and other guys in folded beanies
that sell my friends *******
but this time it'll be cold out and ketamine
there will be another set of people that are ugly
but i hope this time they are ******* honest

there’s nothing else to say
I don’t trust you
I want to be a little higher
a little taller
a little stronger
I want to love you
less
I’ll still try and have ***
with you tonight.
I know myself more today
than I did yesterday

you’re the only one who has ever made it seem less daunting

I stopped writing. Maybe that's how I know.

Sometimes I hate everything about you.

i'll never be good enough
i'll never be good enough
i'll never be good enough
i'll never be good enough
i'll never be good enough
i'll never be good enough
i'll never be good enough
i'll never be good enough  
i'll never be good enough
...
never be (good) enough
never be (good) enough
never be (good) enough
never be (good) enough
never be (good) enough
never be GOOD enough
never be GOOD enough
never be GOOD enough
never be GOOD enough

i'm embarrassed that i still love you
i'm embarrassed that i still love you
i'm embarrassed that i still love you
i'm embarrassed that i still love you
i'm embarrassed that i still love you

i'm embarrassed that i still love you


i'm embarrassed that i still love you



i'm embarrassed that i still love you

im not sure if I can do this

I'm polluted with thoughts I don't feel comfortable thinking. I'm searching for an on and off switch, constantly, but I still haven't figured out why the world looks so different when I don't take my medicine so it's hard to imagine cutting my own circulation.
I am a figure of irrationality.
I counteract myself more times than I can count on a daily basis yet math has always been my strong suit. I like right or wrong answers, it's easier when there is no room to debate, but I like to argue more than I like to talk, ask any of my ex-girlfriends.
A guy I knew from high school shot himself in the head on top of a hill behind his parents house on my 20th birthday, for days I only thought about the look on his brothers face when he found the body. everybody described him in different ways, but my only real memory of him was the time I got drunk with him for the first time and I ended up running off a 6 foot wall, I don't have feeling in part of my leg because but for some reason I still wish I could hear his final thoughts plugged into my aux chord in my car so I could listen to them on my way to work and attempt to decipher,
I only want to understand.
Understanding always makes it hurt less but I think that's just because I make excuses for people in order to make myself feel okay.
I learned really early to play dead. It quickly progressed to avoiding mostly everything and using my newfound skill to become invisible. It's all just so morbid now. I talk a lot and smile a lot and enjoy life way too much for somebody who has these thoughts but one of them is surface level; I'm not sure which, I'm sure one day I will though. It's not my place to think or feel any of this, I have no right to reach out to people, but I still firmly believe that I am the owner of all my experiences. I miss feeling nostalgic. I don't care about the past anymore and it's only making me homesick for the times I spent swallowing the noise. It's just so ******* quiet now.

Why did he do that? How did it get so bad?

MAYBE I AM AFRAID TO WRITE BECAUSE IT
MEANS I HAVE TO PICK A DIAGNOSES TO TREAT
MY SYMPTOMS PLAY TRICKS ON ME SO I MIX UP LIES
BUT I PROMISE YOU I WILL ALWAYS COME CLEAN
I BRAG ABOUT MY IMMUNE SYSTEM LIKE IM NOT
THE DIRTIEST ******* YOU’VE EVER MET
BUT NOW I CARRY HAND SANITIZER EVERYWHERE
I GO THROUGH THE DAY CONCEALED BUT CONTAGIOUS
LIKE MY SISTER GETTING MONO AGAIN SIX YEARS LATER
WHY DO I CARRY A GUN? FOR DISEASES LIKE THIS
MY MOM ALWAYS SAID GOING FROM HOT TO COLD SO
QUICK WOULD GIVE ME A SEIZURE SO NOW THAT I CAN’T
FEEL TWO CONFLICTING FEELINGS AT ONCE ILL BLAME HER
I’D SIT IN A HOT BATH AND LET ICE COLD WATER RAIN
I’D LAY UNDERNEATH MY BED IN THE DARK TO *******
I’D HAVE DONE ANYTHING TO JUST OCCUPY MY OWN SKIN

that weather changes. I know, I know that's common sense or it should be, but when you're under a roof that you've always felt safe in things like that don't just click, so now it's getting cold outside and I have shorts that cover my belly button and shorts that, well, don't. that you can sit in coffee shops 3 times a week and feel FINE! she's right, you don't love her anymore, but it's FINE! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

that there's an 100% chance you'll get sick of writing about your own experiences and it'll take everything inside you to convince yourself that there will be someone who doesn't get sick of reading about them. like okay another poem about the time I ran away and got on a plane and broke up with her and realized **** I can do just FINE! all by myself, awesome good job my hands are typing the same stuff over and over and it ***** cause now they're bored? they don't care that this is a different city and you probably don't either. I'm finally leaving him! no one cares. except me, really, but I don't. I'm over it.

that decisions don't get any easier as time goes on because one second I'm like oh yeah let's turn left and then I read robert frost and think of the road less traveled and I'm like wait? which ones less traveled? what am I actually supposed to do with any of this?

that getting a medium instead of a large $5 coffee doesn't stop you from being ******* STUPID for wasting money when you're TECHNICALLY HOMELESS.
that you're toing to be TECHNICALLY HOMELESS.
but what the **** is a home? 'cause I remember one time I wrote that your smell and smile was more of a home than any house I ever lived in blah blah disgusting but last week when you looked at me and said some dumb ******* that I don't even care enough anymore to write about, I just wanted to go back and lie in bed until I get all these months back. because they were a WASTE.
that it's going to be different. you'll settle and then something will change and you'll miss it and you're a really very nostalgic person in general so you tend to look back on things but
that looking back on things is NOT a good idea. you're just going to get sad and want to lie in bed, but you're technically homeless so that ******* *****, sit your *** on that couch and shut up.
that one day, you're going to have to man up. and you think you've man-ed up and you're flexing and **** and you're ready to rip it to shreds, but nah. you're giving yourself too much credit. I'll see it when I believe it, just like everyone else.
that getting drunk off shots that your brothers girlfriend, who happens to be a bartender at that new-ish bar downtown, keeps handing you won't make ANY of it easier, you'll just laugh and drink the pineapple upside down cake shot and like really like how it tastes? so you'll drink three more and go to walk home and she'll hug you goodbye and make sure you're staying in this city for longer than you did last time (aka 16 years) and then you'll laugh and say bye and thank her for not ID'ing you because you've still got 4 years til that's legal and GUESS WHAT. NONE OF IT WILL BE EASIER. you'll just go home and lie on your god forsaken couch and worry about what the **** is next? and what do you do now? and then you'll try really hard not to make the same mistakes again and to stop your dumb lonely brain from going off on itself again and you'll listen to music until you fall asleep at 4 in the morning and you'll be like, ah..... the **** that they don't tell you but probably should before you get on a plane at 5 in the morning and run away from the people you've spent 16 years imagining running away from, but the city is cold now and they're angry at me and won't ship me any warm clothes..........ahhhhh.....serious **** man

I've had three, four, five first loves because each time it's a little different. I'll never know what it's supposed to feel like and it stops me from continuing. This song was playing during a *** scene, the red lights reflecting off of her face while she leaned in, showing the emotion that had been stuck between her gritted teeth.

I want to wake up, I want my body to grow old and I want to stop being so tired. I feel the most at home when I am alone so it's okay that I haven't seen you in days. I'm worried about myself. I'm worried about myself.

Standing up is boring. I write about this feeling every time but yet I've yet to find a word to describe it. There is something about the placidity at 4 am that has me drinking orange juice on my porch watching the sun come up each one of these nights, in a row, like a pattern. My body needs to stretch, needs to grow, I can't be restricted to locking my knees and standing in place. I can't be restricted.

We will dance on our way to heaven, and I will never be afraid again.

I was supposed to be a writer who wrote about the things she experienced, the things that happened to me, but I never wrote about how we only ever kissed goodbye if we ******, a reward for passing it back and forth, otherwise it was only a side hug and a wink and maybe you only gave me the honor of a goodbye kiss because you thought it’d make you a ***** to not, and it would have, although you were still a ***** either way because you told me, an inch and a half taller than you and at this time at least a few lbs heavier (not anymore, I got a gym membership) that when dating girls you only liked ones you could pick up. look how light I am now! you winked from the side and I walked out to my car that decided not to start again (she hated you) and I didn’t believe I could ask you to jump it even though I had just been inside you, so I called an Uber and tried again the next day and she started just fine, because you weren’t home. the first time we ever hung out she got her windows smashed outside the bar, nothing taken, $1066.39 later my ‘91 Volvo had four replacement windows, third time we hung out she didn’t start, new battery and alternator $1856.10, fifth or sixth or seventh time I was one of 4 drooling ******* at one of your ******* shows, I believed I was different though because I wasn’t just one of your *******, I was your friend too. or first. *******. this night I was only your friend because you went home with the number 1 ***** instead of me, the number 4, so I drove myself to the next spot that I attended as well because again, I was also your friend, but more so I was your friends friend and they told me to go, but I popped my tire on the way. $88.96 the next hungover morning at pepboys, thank god. I ditched my car and called a car there because I could not miss any opportunity. you made a comment about how loud I was in bed this night, in front of everyone, not even true but I loved it nonetheless because now I was real! it was real! I was so naive. *** is just ***, anyone can have it, you never took me seriously. the bar closed and you left with a girl, 5’3” and 110 lbs soaking wet, I watched as you opened your truck door for her, picked her up and put her inside.

this is all a diary—-

I don’t know if I’ll ever stop writing to you.

each time I can’t get you off my mind
I remember you can’t get me off at all
sometimes I want you to know that I
intentionally drove to your house that day
I wanted you to hate me as much as I hate you
and you still take depression naps
and I still take all of the side streets
now I have a new sense of purpose
and you have a car payment

I feel so alone but so held at the same time
as if it’s the moon that’s trying to talk to me
why have I always had pivotal moments
while staring directly at telephone wires?
to this day I’ve lived six different lives
and I have no plans to stop evolving
coins still fall from parts of me wherever I go
it never had anything to do with you at all

if you go at someone else’s pace it shows you care
which is ******* insightful and I learned it from ***
I remember the smell of your mother’s house anytime
I’m clean so I stopped showering and doing dishes
my roommate rolls her eyes each time but I’m
just as ***** as I’ve always wanted to be
I rarely ever miss you and when I do it’s fleeting
I keep having dreams where my hair is to my knees
I know how to stand up straight and
you’re still just as small as I left you

mine tastes sour and sweet, probably because I’ve been sweating nonstop and yours smells like burnt afternoons when we were just friends or I guess you can barely even say that
I pick at mine and you pick at yours and
I like it most when mines against another
I felt it once, before I knew anything at all
and it’s never been quite so soft
now you’re like a statue, but not in a **** way
more meaning you’re made of stone
and I’ve been staring at you for weeks waiting for you to blink or budge but you’ve always been so **** good at standing in one place
if I ever get to feel yours on mine
it’ll feel so good
and if I don’t then I guess
thank god everyone has skin
I’ll do anything to avoid the sound it makes when it starts to break —
even get rid of this layer entirely,
like I’m peeling it all clean off