I’m sorry to all the people
I hurt while I was hurting.
I know my skin
felt like shards of glass,
and no one could get close
enough to touch me.
My fingernails were caked with blood,
and I am so sorry
that I don’t know whose it was.
I am sorry to those I broke
with my razor words,
they were my own regrets.
They were used to cut open
my own insecurities
when I thought I had run out.
I was lost
in a forest of my own doubt,
the trees were too dense
to believe
in myself.
The only way to find my place
was with a paper cut trail
leading to my home of denial.
My brain was shreds of late reports
and missed deadlines,
and I was just an inkblot of a person,
all I could see was my own skeleton in the pages.
I do not know how to send this apology
without it soaked in my tears,
but I am sorry,
I
am
so
s o r r y

I used to write
My secrets in the sand,
Knowing they would never stay
Long enough to be told.

I used to just swim,
pulled my hair up and never
Really tasted the salt that foamed
After the crash.

I've ran in the sand,
Sure, but never have I
Ever let it smooth my
Skin into what it could be.

Before today, I've never
Let the current take me
Under and feel what it's like
To always come back to something.

The poet lives two lives.
One on the outside,
And one in their mind.

When you look in their eyes
You could see an abyss.

If you looked long enough
You could sink into it.

But most people don’t see it.

Take the time to read the words, though,
And you would know for sure.

The poet lives in two different worlds.

A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't