"Attention Red Bank Regional, excuse the interruption,"
We held our breaths and waited for what we knew was coming
"I am saddened to announce the passing of one of our students, Riyahdna Farrow."
We all looked up at each other and time seemed to stand still
We knew it'd happened, we were the first to know
But that announcement made it all so real
Senior year and she was gone
We left that little room that reeked of our tears and memories shared
We were greeted with hugs and condolences
But none of that mattered
She was gone
No amount of hugs or "are you okays" was going to bring her back
Time went on and the condolences stopped coming, teachers asked for work to be handed in and we were expected to **** it up and move on but i didn't I couldn't
******* it I wanted her to come back
I wanted to wake up and her walk in and shout "APRIL FOOLS"
But it was September and I was still hurting
But that doesn't really seem to matter

-To acknowledge the different between being religious and being spiritual
-To let myself be happy
-To try to keep in contact with people who are worth it
-To ignore those who aren't
-To learn to love life
-To attempt to, if nothing else, appreciate the Florida weather as much as I love my garden state weather
-To make it to London
-To start doing things for myself
-To not forget others
-To respect myself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves me, grows me, or makes me happy

They tell me that what I do is stupid
They say it's dangerous
I tell them I'm an artist just like any other
I scout for the perfect spot just like the photographer
I make my lines very intentionally and precise like the painter
Or when I feel wild they're whimsical
Like any sketch
My medium is just unique
I may use medal
I may use blood
But I'm inspired by emotions evoked in my life
Just like the rest
So why is my form frowned upon
Good sir, destruction is just another form of creation

I vow to let you help me
Even when I don't think I need it
And I vow to ask for help
When I know I need it
I vow to always participate in your random dance parties
I vow to be your motivation
When everything is telling you to give up
I vow to give you all I have
And to compensate for all I lack
Most importantly I vow to always love you
For all that you are and all that you have yet to become

We smile we laugh
We giggle we spend hours upon hours
Recklessly living and then
We fall
Harder and faster and deeper
And
Then
We hit the bottom
The snake pit of betrayal
Engulfs us
And all we though we knew
All we thought we felt
No longer exists
The sound of your laugh doesn't echo
In my mind anymore
The thought of your touch doesn't
Make my skin jump
When my phone rings I pray you aren't on the other end
The other end of this hatred
I've pumped
And this resentment I've ingested

I don't think you understand what it's like to see her when she 's passionate about something.
The way she sits up and immediately focuses on one thing.
The way her eyes light up, and her words come out too quick, and the way she uses her hands to talk.
The way she forgets about everything else, anyone, anything.
The way she looks me right in the eye
The way she tells me off
The way her lips quirks as she tries to keep a straight face
I don't think you understand what it's like to see her in her true beauty.

I've only gone mad
A few times in my life
But each time,
I caught myself having
Too much time to think
And not nearly enough to
Think about

I am locked and loaded
I wonder whats next
I hear change on the horizon
I see my future
I want it now
I am locked and loaded

I pretend to be patient
I feel it coming
I touch the difference
I worry its not enough
I cry in anxiousness
I am locked and loaded

I understand everything in due time
I say i can wait
I dream that im there
I try to see it through the haze
I hope for an arrival
I am locked and loaded

I can never not love
you. I can try as hard

as I want and forever,
but I will never not love

you. You have seared
yourself on to my soul

in permanent marker,
drawn an infinite tattoo

there, harbored like a
stowaway. You're draining

my vital organs, my survival,
the ships about to crash, full

of water, drowning, and still
I can never not love you.

I am the human condition

I have no self confidence,
Yet i have a massive ego.

I want to turn my life around,
Yet i want to die.

I want people to think that i have no weakness,
Yet all I want to do is cry.

I want to be the best at everything,
But i don't want to try.

I want to stop hurting myself,
But that's all I seem to do.

I don't want people seeing my scars,
Yet I want them to know I'm scarred.

When I wake up I want to be happy,
But I don't want to wake up anymore.

We build
Walls around
Our heart
And Lock
All Our
Doors and
Wonder why
Noone ever
Saves us

**** normality
**** society
And **** 'Merica
When did it become unexceptable to be different?
Oh… yeah
If your skins too dark
Or you're too short
Or too fat
You don't belong
If you don't fit the cookie cutter
Then you can sit with us

Six years old and I fell from a tree
My scrapes kness were proof
As I told the story to the kids at school
My mother bandaged them up
And kissed me on the cheek
And told me I'd feel better in the morning

Nine years old and my father hit me
My mothers tears were proof
As she screamed at him at 2am
I hid in my room that night
As the doors slammed loudly
And my mother wasn't home in the morning

Twelve years old and I hated school
And my failed report card was proof
As I changed my "Ds" to "As" with pen
My mother never noticed
And I stayed up late every night
And I could barley get up in the morning

Fourteen years old and a boy broke my heart
And my crippled self worth was proof
As I poured my thoughts into a journal
That my mother never found
And my best friend patted my shivering spine
And told me I'd forget him in the morning

Sixteen years old and I'd given up
And the slits on my wrists were proof
As the blood trickeld on the floor
My mother followed the drops on the carpet
And she screamed when she found me
And this time there was no morning

These hands hold up nothing but scars underneath
From swimming these oceans and learning to breathe*
I don't need you as much as you think you need me
I'm not the knight you want
I have no shining armor. You see,
When the best part of you was always me
What will you expect from this life when I pick up and leave?

So here's a piece of advice
Let go when you're hurting too much
Give up when love isn't enough
And move on when things are t like before
And it's certain there's someone out there who will love you even more*
Don't consider the years wasted
Or the time lost
All those people,
They're residual
You wouldnt be you
If they weren't them
And right now
You're youer than you've ever been

Jesus Christ, that's a pretty face*
To indite such a sight is border line sin

Things change and friends leave
And life doesn't stop for anybody*
It's a fast paced world
If you can't keep up they'll knock you down
The land lord doesn't care that jimmy got sick and you had to use the rentoney for antibiotics
*******. Pay me.
Car broke down?
*****
*******. Pay me.
Grandma died?
I don't care
Pay me.
That's the kind of world we live in *****
So *******
And pay me

Don't tell me your idea of what I want to hear
Tell me what I need to hear
The truth
Hurt my feeling
Make me cry
I promise you it's all worth while
Slap me with your words
Maim me with your thoughts
The outcome might be way different than you originally thought

**** everything. I'm going to sleep.*
I don't need this
I don't need you
You and your pernicious words
You send them my way like bullets
Piercing with each period
Cutting with each comma
Turning semicolons into semiautomatics

To my life of my relationship that didn't work
To the map of the human heart
Sought at the age of 15
When I lost my virginity to a lady slightly older
Like most younger boys, it was based on the many lies i told her
Just to hold her and to show her
I had so much to prove
Like i had more experience than she thought i knew
And even though it wasn't true, It was amazing
But it ended because I did what most boys do
Listen to the lies and the rumors of a fool
Which ultimately led to this poor girl getting socked in the jaw in the middle of school
And even though I didn't do it,
I felt like i was the one to blame
Because the girl that hit her was the cousin of the man that insulted my game
Now a days it just doesn't seem cool
Now tell me what the hell am I supposed to do
Then a wise man told me "The only way out, is the way through"

I want to wake
Each morning
In your arms

Comforted by your oddness

Seduced by your knowledge of my ways

Have you ever felt like you're drowning but you can see everyone around you breathing?
I just don't know what to do anymore.
I've had to deal with far too much to just be okay anymore.
I don't know
I just don't want to have to wake up and have to worry weather or not something else is going to happen.
I just feel like the day to day is a struggle for me and everyone else is just fine
I just feel like everyone wants something from me.
Everyone expects something for me and I can't deliver
Or wants me to be someone I'm not. And I don't even know how to be normal
I've never been normal
I can't even remember the last time I was truly okay

You're gone,
Just as fast as you came.
With my love

The day to do day isn't fun anymore
This mundane isn't what I want
I need more
What happened to the love
What happened to the hate
Where's the passion that flowed through this place
Throw a chair
Break a plate
Show me that there's more than this
Feed me poison
Or your kiss
I keep telling you what I need isn't a white picket fence
Or 1.2 children running here, Hence
My anger
My rage
Challenge me with a new day

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Well I say sir, the beauty is here as I hold her
Her hair streaks of sunshine
Her smile a work of art
They say nothing good can stay
Well sir I say, she's mine
I know her biblically and fully
I need her to get me through
But still they tell me you don't know what you have until its gone
She's here to stay
This woman with the beauty in her eye
Her and her timelessness
And to me she's priceless

All I ask is just one
Just one more touch
One more kiss
Your lips on mine and I know
All I need in my pathetic excuse for an existence
Is just one
Just one more minute
One more lifetime with you
Just give me
Just one more hug
One more night
One more of your looks
The ones that pierce through to my soul
Because, my love, with you
Just one will never suffice

When I think about her sleeping with other girls
It doesn’t phase me
I don’t mind
I really don’t care
But when I think about her holding other girls
Or cuddling with other girls
Or laughing at their jokes
I just
I get so mad
And I’ve never been the jealous type
But there’s just something about this girl

Want is real
Unique
We are different
Think uniforms
Always being simple
Together, neat
My best should only pleasure full beauty
So people like we would erupt enough to melt
Just work through the fire
Take some sun
Or cry again but
Joke right through the crazy day

No gorgeous face can see out
give
make
want
think
smash and forget

Your grin
My smile
When it never could be right
If I let you in
it will go wrong
We wish this hurt was quality
Never happy inside
Always perfect
Imagine that girl in everything
Feel like she did
Inspire me
And save that woman

Here I find myself.
Again.
Doing things without you.
Again.

We wrote promises to each other
on the backs of our hands,
wrote them with sticks in the sand
of Lake Burton’s shoreline,
wrote them and spoke them
and broke them
effortlessly.

We wore ourselves thin with them,
snapping promises like cables
until they could no longer
hold up our weight
and the suspension bridge
bridging us
came crashing down

and even then
across the chasm and the gulf
we cupped our hands
around our mouths
and shouted promises at each other
until we were too hoarse
to say anything at all.

When the sun sets
When the moon arises,
from its habitual sleep
And when the waves come crashing in
Then, and only then
Will you and I coexist
With out the worries
Well there's a hell of a universe next door

You break into my psyche uninvited
and don't give me a choice but to see what you see
and feel what you feel.
And you make sure i know
That you live for the feeling my lips bring
You smile at my Freudian slips
And as long as your arms contain all of me,
You're sure you can go on

I love you too
I'm fine I'm just tired
My cat scratched me
Lie lie liar. Liar, you'll pay for your sins.

I don't know why I thought I mattered
I don't know why I thought you cared
Excuse me

Shh dont speak
Just lie here with me and forget the world
Because there's a hell of an universe next door
And with your skin on mine
Goosebump to goose bump
None of this matters
Thoes eyes that have looked into my soul
3 inches away from mine
Who too have ventured into the whirlwind of your true self
And you, in your purest form, are beautiful
A beauty that I am reluctant to share with the world
You are mine and in the same way i am yours
We belong not together but as one

When you left, you left
Like a majestic bird
Gracefully and peacefully you soared away until you were but a mark on the horizon
Do you remember?
I'd wake up screaming
But your departure was much more than a simple night terror
It was the worst dream come true
Do you remember?
Nothing and no one could comfort me
The only thing I wanted was the only I couldn't have
I'd cry and hope for that bird to swoop back around and take perch on my shoulder
But I knew my phoenix wouldn't take shape again
Do you remember?

I've spent hours contemplating
the words to say to you
but no combination
of twenty six letters
could ever capture
even a sliver of what this feeling is

Go to sleep crying
Wake up
Crying
Because I woke up
They walk in and I smile
I talk
I laugh at their jokes
Crack a few of my own
But then they leave
And I cry
Because I'm so good
I'm so ******* good at looking okay,
I can't be helped
Seemingly perfect on the outside but
If you roll up my sleeves
If you looked at the scars
You'd realize
People in life are more ****** up than they appear

Our eyes were puffy while were still smiling
We walked around dazed
But we watched
We watched them live and breathe in peace
As nothing had happened
Little do they know our world had just come crashing down

"Attention Red Bank Regional, excuse the interruption,"
We held our breaths and waited for what we knew was coming
"I am saddened to announce the passing of one of our students, Riyahdna Farrow."
We all looked up at each other and time seemed to stand still
We knew it'd happened, we were the first to know
But that announcement made it all so real
Senior year and she was gone
We left that little room that reeked of our tears and memories shared
We were greeted with hugs and condolences
But none of that mattered
She was gone
No amount of hugs or "are you okays" was going to bring her back
Time went on and the condolences stopped coming, teachers asked for work to be handed in and we were expected to **** it up and move on but i didn't I couldn't
******* it I wanted her to come back
I wanted to wake up and her walk in and shout "APRIL FOOLS"
But it was September and I was still hurting
But that doesn't really seem to matter

Come to me my love
Find your way back to me my sweet
I used to fight you off
Now you've stopped coming
I want you here
I need you here
I'm not the same with out you
I'm delirious in your absence
My night-time companion
Just visit one last time
Give me a chance at peace just once more

I don't remember his face
I tried my hardest to block it out
In the black in the back of that delivery truck
I fought and I fought but I was but a mere girl
I was 12 years old
See No Child Left Behind Had come along
And everyone thought it was the best thing ever
But they didn't teach a course on how not to get *****
I didn't know
So I didn't share
I held it in and i coped the only way i knew how
Every single night I slid that blade across my skin
And the red would come
Unfailing
I couldn't count on my savior in the back of that truck
But the red
The red was unwavering
My poor poor Innocence
Lost and alone
I had no choice but to replace you with Pain
The pain that clouded my mind
And prevented me from reliving that moment when
My dear dear Innocence
Lost and afraid
I had no choice but to replace you with Liquid Courage
Nothing mattered when he was around
My sweet sweet Innocence
Gone eternally
I had no choice but to replace you with the same amount of destruction that made me loose you

Its been two years
I haven't seen your smile
But I haven't seen your tears
Two long hard years

Because of you I'm
              F
                                        A
                            L
                  ­                                     L
                                                    I
                                                N
                         G
Effortlessly and Endlessly
And when I'm through
Because of you
All that will be left is the splattered remainders of me

I've said all I had to say
But you don't seem amused
If I only knew this road had no street lights, maybe my wrong turns would lead to life
Maybe some day I'll learn
These bank pages I've burned will never ever return
But I have no regrets

I've said all I have to say
But you still seem confused
I choose this life over you
Remember?
Now all my wrong turns lead to lies
It's just to much to learn
I guess I'll die here singing my blues

Smiles turn into frowns
Bracelets turn into blades
Soda turns into *****
Love turns into hate
Laughter becomes tear drops
Boys become toys

Baseball is then all about the bases
Running past numerous faces

Friends become enemies
What was once a rose, now nothing but thorns
From energetic to tired and worn
Sponge Bob to *** tapes and ****
I love you
I want you gone
We go from 12 to 20
Now he's far more than a buddie
Hmmm, smells like teen spirit