12:42 am and I lay awake-
My anxiety keeps me up
From time to time.
It used to wake me every night;
Rob me of my sleep
And steal my dreams away.
So I don't much mind now
From time to time
Being kept up at night.

My heart feels strange
Though it works just fine,
But I feel a dull sensation
As if it were in my lungs.
My breathing is hollow,
My chest tight,
And my mind awake.
I wish I knew the purpose
To these restless nights.

It's 12:49 now,
I dozed for a moment
Now tired I close my eyes,
But my heart craving
To be heard
Keeps me awake.
I don't know what it wants,
I feel it thumping in my chest-
Demanding to be heard.

Memories and other things
Bombard my mind,
Swishing around my skull.
I'm trying to listen
But the beat has dulled
Though my thoughts race.
And now I'm writing
In twisted circles.
I hate when this happens.

Now it is 12:57 am
I am tired and awake,
Feeling empty and alone
Yet full at the same time.
Have I felt this all along,
Just now noticing?
This isn't a new sensation,
Just the first time I've listened.

My heart isn't trying
To tell me anything, no.
It's simply crying out
From a lack of nourishment,
I almost think I miss you-
But it's simply everything else I miss.
Since misery loves company
And I lay here alone,
My heart woke herself
For company at 1:08am

I sat in the Sun today.
The Light warmed my face
And the Wind brushed my cheek.

The Air was clean
And as children laughed,
I thought: This is what the healthy do.

I drank my tea,
Watched the ducks swim by;
I even tried to breathe deep.

But my chest was tight
And a knot sat in my throat.
In this beautiful painting, I sat
And thought: How lovely it’d be to die.

It's bright and pounding
My heart is heavy and fast.
I don't know whats happening,
Why does no one else feel this too?
It's three o' clock,
Right on the dot.
Everyday, the wave comes and goes.
Like clock work I can't control it,
I don't know what to call it.
I can barely breathe,
Like I'm drowning.
My head is above water,
But my body is frozen.
I am eight.

My eyes, they're wide
And my breathing shallow.
This happened before,
Everyday since I remember.
I'm sitting in the car
I'm sitting in class
I'm walking with friends.
Either way it doesn't matter
It finds me still.
Inside I am in panic,
Every hair on my body
Stands tall and prickly.
My insides are quaking
Yet outside I'm fine.
My head is screaming,
My mouth a straight line.
I am twelve.

The feeling it comes still,
But now I am stronger.
I am smarter and bigger
And I know how to fight back.
You don't have a name,
But now I have a tactic.
A defense my body built.
Soon enough I forgot
The little girl, sitting panicked
In the backseat of her daddy's car.
My brain was smarter
and kept you at bay.
Yet, a worthy adversary you persist.
I am fifteen.

You come with a new bitterness.
You race all the time,
I boast I am immune.
I didn't defeat you,
I merely learned to cope.
You're still there,
But I forgot.
You're greatest victory to this day,
Making me believe I won.
I am eighteen.

And now I feel you,
Press hard and slow
On my breathless chest.
Where did you come from,
Old friend?
With no one around
You took camp inside.
I no longer had control,
Because you changed the game.
Suddenly you were there,
But new and darker.
A new facet to our evolving relationship.
It wasn't just an idea,
But people that scared me now.
It wasn't just clockwork,
But constant, pounding thoughts.
Thoughts that bombarded my peace
And attacked my every move.
I was immobile,
Isolated from the world.
You had finally won,
Taken me captive.
Congratulations!
I am nineteen.

I had forgotten how you once tormented me.
Isn't it funny the pain we unknowingly carry?
While I was weak,
You grew strong.
While I denied,
You persisted.
And so there we were,
Reunited old friends.
You come unexpectedly now,
I can no longer anticipate your attack.
I am learning your name.
I am twenty.

A girl comes up to me.
She says she feels strange,
Like she doesn't belong.
I ask her what's wrong
Why she feels not the same.
She says she feels left out,
That she isn't having fun.
She feels strange around the other girls,
And gets nervous and scared.
Her eyes wide and her voice timid,
Like she's never thought these words.
Her mind it goes off,
And she thinks others thoughts.
Inside she's a kaleidoscope,
Nuanced and colored.
But outside it is monotone,
And for the first time it makes sense.
She is eight.

She had the same panicked eyes
That I once had alone
in a crowded, full room.
It all made sense
I finally understood.
This is why, she was why
I once felt so panicked and strange.
She was why I never gave it a name,
How I innately knew what to do.
Because I knew how to beat it,
And I could help her defeat it.
He gave me this pain in my chest
Not for me, but for her.
It wasn't for my own gain,
But for her strength.
And finally I knew
why He made me so different.
I saw why my brain
Was wired so tight.
Her brain was like mine
And her thoughts ran with mine.
I am eight.

I am sitting in the backseat of my fathers car.
The sun is shining,
But the light is sharp and cuts my eyes.
It's three o' clock, I know.
My heart is pounding
My mind is racing.
And for the first time it has a name.
I know what you are.
And suddenly, I am not afraid.

I used to love to laugh-

          And hear the birds sing in the wind.

     I used to love a lot of things,

Before you came around.

Myself being one,
I soon began to crack at the surface
And couldn't stop chipping away at every thought.
You didn't know me at all,
Yet I let you think you did and blindly loved on
Until I forgot what that meant.
---
You stopped coming around,
But I kept loving on.
Trying to understand every turn I made
Deciphering hidden messages,
I kept on loving.
And soon that love dried away,
Leaving me sleepless questions
Seemingly unanswerable in my insomnia.

               I let you take all my color-

          Vibrancy to me was grey painted dark.

     I used to feel music thump in my gut,

Till soon it was only beating hollow in my chest.

I could hardly breathe
When I realized what you took from me.
I felt gutted and discarded
Because you did it with no thought;
No remorse or even intention.
It was simply your being and you ****** mine right out,
Like a parasite.
---
Manually I put back the contents I had no business returning;
Things that should have never left
I searched for in emptiness.
Finding it was like being treated for a deadly disease
You mysteriously pick-up in a foreign country.

               Only it was your venom-

          Slowly draining from my body.

     My chest cracked as if it were embalmed,

And I found my painful cure.
---
You don't come around any more,
And I'm glad.
Because I can keep on loving
Without peering over my shoulder in fear.
I kept on loving
And the colors came back in faces you only wish would glance your way.
I loved again
So your darting stare could never again pierce me the way it did,
Leaving only slight, discolored wounds
That don't even sting anymore.

               I used to love to feel-

          The way my fingertips tingled from joy.

     So I learned to love you, just to prove

I still felt all the way down to my fingertips.

i want to peel off
all my skin
out of punishment
for knowing it was once
touched by you.

tear away
bit by bit its memories
out of jealousy
that you’re gone
and it remains.

i will then
hastily tape it back
piece by piece
the only remaining artifice
of your earthly exploration.

it will be ugly-
it is ugly.
without your touch-
it is useless.

When I picture your face,
I see dancing clouds
And ringlets of light.
Your hair is edible,
Your eyes are swimming pools,
Your lips are ruby ring pops with
Skin like cotton candy.

And I can't seem to shake the image.
Or the heart-stuttering effect,
It leaves me.

I built you up so much in my mind
That when I fall asleep,
I imagine your skin on mine.
The soft, cool,
Goose bump inducing touch;
The sinful, chocolate cake kind of touch.

I wake up in a cold sweat
Invigorated by the thought of you,
Intoxicated by your breath;
It's a cigarette while I wake,
Still in a fog filled land
Believing my dreams are memories.

The faces I see and bodies I meet
Are merely shadows of your face,
Reflections of a reflected memory.
Their lips are curdled milk;
I miss the sharp, hard, strawberry taste
You used to leave,
Lingering,
On my lips.

Their skin no longer melts
From my kiss,
It is hard plastic
disguised as a sugary cloud;
It is marble and you are clay.
Every touch is a salted paper cut,
Every fingertip pin-*****
Is a jilted memory.

I cannot fall into their eyes,
They are not wading pools
Filled with champagne;
They are shallow and *****.
I don't get lost for days,
And weeks,
And months,
And years in them,
Just my balance is gone
From jumping too fast.

So fast,
My knees go through the ground
And up through my chin
Simultaneously.
Or worse I get caught
In a quicksand sludge
I thought was a path leading home
No branch long enough can pull me out.

I am stuck with this version of you,
The one where you walk
With a glowing outline--
Like you're a renaissance painting or something.
Where every song I hear,
Somehow,
Has your name in it
And sounds just how your laugh used to.

This image of you,
Where I see into the future
And I’m still there.
As if I’m not going mad,
But that’s the only explanation
To why I feel like a ghost
In purgatory
Reliving every kiss
And moment that never was.

I feel strange,
Like I'm empty.
Like I'm grieving,
But you have to have
before you can grieve.

I feel empty.
It's strange,
Irrational really.
I'm grieving what never was;
What never will.

Where did you go?
One moment you were here,
The next, I don't know.
You'd have to be around
for me to know.

Where'd you go?
You don't speak anymore
And I haven't seen you.
Not even in passing;
Not even in my dreams.

Why'd you leave?
I'm sorry if I'm hard to read,
But I don't understand
Why you were here;
Then not.

Like a gust of wind you left.
I've never had much luck
With the burden of Love.
So I thought, maybe this time: yes!
Maybe this time: really.

To confess:
Love makes me sick,
Butterflies are replaced by nausea
And it was hard to let you in.
Did you know that about me?

If you did would you have tried?
Maybe you would have seen
How much I really gave you.
By this time I'm usually gone,
My heart a vagabond on the run.  

I realize how built up I am,
I know I'm hard to love.  
But I built a space for you-
The best I could so soon.
Instead, you left it alone; shut.

There's only so much I could give.
It may not have been much,
But this time I didn't run.
That was a first for me,
And you didn't seem to care.

And so I tried to let it be.
To let you come to me.
It took you ten days
To realize I was missing.
Ten days for you to even speak.

And I know things were short
And I know it was quick,
But really, where did you go?
Because I swore I'd see.
I swore to myself
I'd see if you really wanted me.

So I didn't press.
And as hard as it was,
I didn't instigate.
And do you want to know what you did?
Nothing.

You didn't even try.
And I'm confused,
Because I'm worth trying for.
Sometimes it's hard to believe,
But I know that I am.

So why did you leave?
Because you just disappeared.
I feel so strange, but
Deep inside I knew;
I knew what this would be.

Maybe that's what I get,
For picking the safe choice.
Clearly I was mistaken though,
Because you seemed to ignore me
like the most practiced ******* of all.

But still I hoped that maybe you'd try.
And so here I am,
Sitting in your silence
And your lack of action paralyzes me.
It's shocking, really.

Surprising; How much I can hurt,
Without so much as a single, spoken word-
All the while not really feeling.
I don't know whether to grieve or sigh,
But maybe it's best you didn't try.

Now I know, to you,
I wasn't worth your time.
Ironically, I want to blame myself-
But this time I know,
It's not me; it was you.

Yes, I was scared.
And yes, my stomach turned
At the thought of more- still I tried,
And the fear seemed to subside.
But my heartache did persist.

And now It's back
To tell me how foolish I was,
To mock how alone I am,
And to whisper lies in my ear at night-
Since you left, it's the only closure I get.

I'm not some mistake
That needs brushing under the rug,
I'm not the secret you keep,
And I'm not the back up plan.
Those things I am not.

You sunk my heart
And it now fills with frustration.
Because if you want to leave
Then, ******, say so!
Don't just slip away in the night.

But you did, you just left.
Let yourself get swept
away in the blowing wind and
Now all I see is your ghost.
All I hear is your silence.

Now its all there is between us.  
Maybe you'd be better off
Making love to the wind,
Because it surely wasn't me.