The color yellow splatters on the white porcelain.
The bristles flatten and slide down his cheeks as yellow lines replace tears that can't fall anymore.
The white walls cry and the yellow paint grows like Daisies.
The pedals fall, the white fades, and the beautiful yellow clumps like sand in water.

"And though I close my eyes I see La Vie En Roses" creeps from the record in the corner of the bathroom.
But he opens his eyes.
Yellow fills the tub and La Vie En Rose can't be true.

His hairs are matted down with yellow paint that grips his skin like concrete.
He dips his hands in the tub and smears the yellow paint into his skin.

The record scratches.

He exhales and paints drips from his nose and mouth.
The sound of paint dripping onto the floor from the tub haunts his heart.
He breathes in deep and sinks below the paint.

And for now everything is okay.

If he can forever remember the color yellow, he'll never cry again.

Her favorite color,

Yellow.

I stand and wait at the corner of holding on
and feeling everything I believe in collapse.

I catch my breath.

I wonder if she can feel
this.

I wonder if she can see me choke on nice words and feelings that consume and clog my pores.

Feelings that force out smiles and thoughts of tomorrow that I just can't have.

Feelings.

Time has plans,
but I have plans too.

I have plans that I think could make her feel joy that she could hold onto forever.

Love that could make God smile.

I look at her and I can't help but think that every mistake in my life has shaped me to hold her hand.

Shaped my back in a way that I could lift every pain from her heart.

....

Please don't hurt her.


I stand and wait at the bus stop.
I'm not packed and I don't know where I'm going but maybe I should leave.

But what if she calls me?

And she says that she needs to talk.

But what if she wants to talk about how time hasn't been long enough and that her seconds are hours.

What if the thought of my baggage is crippling?

I have baggage.
Maybe I'm not ready.

She's not thinking about you.
You aren't.
You aren't.
I'm. Not.

What if every thought I've ever had pulling me to her, is because she's been pushing away.

WHAT IF SHE CAN SEE ME SMILING?

The bus comes to the stop.
With my head in my hands
the bus leaves.
And she is looking out the window.

Maybe I'll be at the bus stop someday and it will be my time to get on.

She could be on that bus.
But she might not.

I've written a poem about this before,
you're singing a song of course I've never heard and the lead singers voice is far better than mine so I don't try to figure out the words and sing along.

It's weird being back here.
With you
with us.

Is it awkward or am I just awkward?
I don't know but I am very aware of my breathing and how loud it is.

I'm sad so let's listen to something sad.
To feel more sad and force tears out that were probably coming anyway but apparently in this world force is the best way to take things, I mean get things.

This is what I'm thinking.
I know you're wondering as I just stare blankly, but of course you didn't ask cuz **** if I'm not the only one that cares about the state
of someone else's heart beside my own.

But I was thinking Its weird that you're known as the crazy one.
I've always thought that people were crazy because they have so many emotions running around in their head and they're fighting for which one will be felt.
But I think that I feel more than you...
I feel like you don't feel anything at all. Not even in the slightest do you feel. I mean ******* A I could hold your hand over a fire like roasting marshmallow and you'd probably be using the other hand to look at his snapchat, trying to see if you can relate to anything and text him about it so that he has to respond because it's something he likes and I'll die before he cares or even at the least knows something that You like. So I hold your hand there and I'm forcing you to feel something but I think that you work too ******* hiding feelings so when you actually feel them it scares the living **** out of you, I can tell you're frightened, you rip your hand from being close to mine. I hadn't even thought about holding your hand yet. And I think your feelings are louder than mine, and they're a jack in a box. And you don't spin the handle but other people do and every once in a while your feelings scream from your mind all the way down at your heart and you freak out, because it's scary when feelings are that loud.

I don't think you know that when I say I feel more I mean more. And the difference is that they're more often and they hurt more and there's more reason to feel this way. But my feelings aren't as loud as I think yours might be. Because they don't scare me like yours scare you. Mine are like a constant tapping on my shoulder. Please get the hell off me I know this is what pain looks like, I don't need your reminder. But for you I think you try to feel nothing because when you choose to feel you're normally offering your heart to a sledgehammer...

BUT at the same time it's like you like to get destroyed, like picking up pieces of you is a game. I hate that game. You always forget pieces, me pieces, the reason all your pieces were together in the first place because everyone else stripped and sold your parts, but I bought them. I bring them to you and they're fixed and they're ready and you love them. I promise you love being whole, I've seen it, I've felt it, but whole isn't normal is it. And you think you're weird enough already so shattered is comfortable and whole and complete and loved and happy is weird so you do whatever it takes to avoid feeling those things...

Sometimes I wish you played songs I know because I like to sing and I want you to hear me singing because you would know that I also know the words to your songs. But it's not like you like the sound of my voice anyway. It's shakey and weak and vulnerable. His is defiant and loud and harsh. But mine is real. My words are true, they're not games, or jokes, or lines for my next poem that I thought I'd try on you first.

You believe actions over words, my words only stem from my actions...
But You're avoiding me, like you know that my actions are what you're waiting for but.
you just wish that weren't my actions...
but that they were his.

It's weird how the world tricks you...
If I ask you to picture your dream person in your head, a list of things come to mind.
So it's weird and honestly *******,
I'm sorry but why am I wired to think that this is what would be perfect for me,
but she's there and I'm there but she's not here.
You understand?
Here's me and there she is.
Yes she's there in the same place the same world and looks at the same clock.
she's there.
But she's not here in this second the same second I'm in.
Not in the same mindset.

She is that girl I always wanted to have at least for a moment.
She's a girl who if I said she was mine people wouldn't believe me because she's a better writer than me and can sing and dance and act and lives in New York.

Here's a dream That I've dreamt, and it's a dream come true but it's coming true for her.
She's really doing things.
I read poetry at coffee shops,
she goes to AMDA.

Here's a scenario:

You have two artists, they were never really close but they grew up together at the same time and in the same places.
And there's this little spark, a flickering of almost.
At least for one of them.
Say he isn't intimidated by how much she does everything he wishes he would be doing and  say he looks at her and says wow she really is pretty and he's surprised, not because he expected her not to be, he's surprised that someone who loves the things he loves is there and always was but he never looked at her and said wow.
So he looks and says "wow" and she hears him and he tries to act like he didn't really just look at her and audibly say so loud the whole state of Ohio could hear. But. She laughs and says thank you.
So next time he sees her he doesn't say wow, but says hi, and next time he asks her what's her favorite smell and
when was the last time she really thought about how the wind blows in a certain direction and that something like the wind that seems random has more direction than we do.
And she loves those questions and asks him some of her own. like
would you rather have true love or be rich
and
do you get olives on your pizza?
And he think it's cute that her nickname is olive and that she used it in a question because she doesn't know you know that's her nickname. And it's like she's asking does he think he'd like her on a pizza. Well he'd like her anywhere.
but long story short they date. And she pushes him to pursue writing as more than a release and a hobby and encourages him to do what he loves even if his parents doubt he can. And so they move to New York together. They have adventures and they take dance class together and they're partners and it's the most fun they've really ever had. And they get to go home together and it's really nice because they're both deep and emotional. and they express how much they love eachother in the most beautiful ways. Like the letter he left by her nightstand that said "if i wake up and you're still here, I still love you same as yesterday and same as tomorrow and if you're still here, here are pancakes :)" ......

It's cute what you can make up in your head to distract from the complete **** that is your dating life.

Here's Reality:
She dates a guy whos better looking than I am so what can I really do anyway? She is a girl that if I was with her I would be infatuated with but would always think that she was settling and I would always be reaching for her to think that I was something special like she was. But those are just wishes and dreams I've had and Ive always got this feeling that this guy was honestly a **** boy. But like who am I? An arrogant ***** to think that I'm perfect for her, she's too big (vast, unfathomable, and unreachable) for me to be perfect and my words are small and quiet and there's not much courage behind them because there's a place that self confidence goes when you really think about your chances with someone who fits the description of a dream perfectly. It's like you think of yourself as a ghost and a figament of your own imagination to sit next to her at ihop. And she reads poetry about this guy that you think is a **** boy and her poems read "he is a **** boy" but I don't think she reads them really. She wrote them but can't read what they're saying. If only ghosts could read and could say hi this is what you wrote lol just saying. And hi my name isn't **** boy I hope that is okay because I know all the ones before me were named **** boy. But I am a ghost and she is infinite.
And she's gone, and at night, lights shine and spread hope and joy into the air and it floats into the window of her room.
But my night floats thoughts through the air and there's not light and there's no hope because she has skyscrapers and busy streets and art in everything she sees.
And I have my bed and my small school and my notes in my phone for art.
She is an olive and I'm not even food.
I'm something like a shoe or something else random.

Face down on the concrete.
I’m here again,
I'm not drunk this time (pats self on the back)
But is this any better?
 
Not drunk but
Numb again.
I'm out here
Lying with the cigarette butts
Useless.
 
You always said you felt useless.
You would talk about how you don't belong here and
All you could feel was my hand in yours. 
But that doesn't make any sense to me.
If I made you feel again, then where are you?
You sure as hell aren't here.
We were helping each other.
I guess you don't need help anymore.
But I do.
 
I am so different from the sky,
It shines purple and orange and
Laughs at me as I lie here.
And the morning air tastes like what joy might taste like to most people.
 
These cars aren’t yours.
I wish they were.
Maybe that would make me smile,
Seeing your car again.
These cars are black and white.
Yours is red and bright and wonderful.
 
You should come,
And park in this garage.
There is grass out there,
It’s green and shiny
Like your birthstone.
 
Will you help me up please?
It is scary not feeling the ground,
I don’t like it here.
I wonder if you worry about me.
 
 
It's not your fault
It's mine.
I think.
At least that's what I keep telling myself.
That way I'm the one hurting me
So you can still be perfect in my eyes.
 
I remember your smile,
And my insides warm, and my heart rises from its hole
Like bread rising in an oven.
 
Your smile reminds me to feel but
The garage floor is still cold and
It creeps onto my skin.
I'm shaking.
 

When will I see your car again?

Shadows attach their chains to my back and my fingers bleed as I drag through the dirt.
I squeeze the rays of light with my teeth and my jaws break and snap and shatter through my skin as I pull the shadows toward the light.

They bite at my ankles and scratch through my skin and pull out my muscles.
They turn and hold onto to the dark.
They squeeze.
Tight.

But I pull.
I squeeze tighter.
And beads of sweat drop into my eyes.

But I can see the light
I've felt the light
it's real.

All I have to do is keep pulling them with me,
I just have to show them...
if they can just feel it...
Maybe they won't be shadows anymore

Have you ever drank gasoline and tried to light yourself on fire?

I may have an anxiety problem.

Hearts aren't knife holders but mine has made a pretty good one.

Tears are breaths in a day and smiles are lucky pennies.

Crying is like a hobby.

I've gotten so good.

I can cry without anyone hearing, or seeing, or caring.


I just get thoughts sometimes that stick in my eyes and my heart and just sit there and if I let them they get

heavier

and

heavier,

your heart can get really heavy.

I don't think I work right...

There is a table of heart shaped clocks in front of me
but they don't tick right.

And if I can just fix them.

If they can tick at the same time maybe mine will too.

But when I start fix one, another breaks and one falls and shatters and...

maybe I'm just not good fixing things.

Even if I tell myself I am.