You were mine.
I watched our show again today
It reminds me of that one day.
At the time,
I needed your touch just to belong
The TV never remained on for long.
We combined,
Like seawater mixes with the sand
I only wish I knew beforehand...
I was blind.

"And what then?" I asked,
With the fire roaring by,
And the ashes in the sky,
"And what then," I asked,
With a smile oh so sweet,
"What then when the world we know
Burns down to our feet?"

"And what then?" I asked,
With the waves smashing down,
And the wind whistling 'round,
"And what then," I asked,
With my shaky, trembling hands,
"What then will happen
To our once beloved lands?"

"And what then?" I asked,
Your tears mixed with my own,
And 911 calls on the phone,
"And what then," I asked,
With helpless cries like a dove,
"What then will become of
The dear ones that we love?"

Distilled sunlight and a steel breeze
Emphasizes the anxiety steadily
Burning, broiling, bubbling within me
The events of a tumultuous life takes my mind for a tumble.
Clench and release, ready to unleash--
The pains of day to day.
Even my ******* heart won't stop beating long enough for the sun to extinguish it's blazing hard stare.
All that's left is numbing gums.

My routine:
Sit on the fourth step from the bottom
Stare right
through the window speckled front door
Out and beyond
gazing at culdesac concrete
Waiting for the color of the street to transform lighter and lighter until brightness
If the color made from
someone's headlights
was a Crayon color, I would name it
"take-me-away-yellow"
I wait for the color
I wait for the signal
For someone
Anyone
To save me

I practice careful observance,
Which involves taking time out of my day
To sit on a park bench;
Feeling and embracing brown colors, Brown confidence.

I peeled open the **** of an Extinguished cigarette
And examined its contents,
Assessed the components
Of what makes up happiness,
And its characteristic unattainability,
And wonder why there should exist a word that's impossible to perform.
And flicked away a bug complacently.

When contentless is so often reached,
What's the difference between passion And stability?

Forever existing as the bags under my eyes,
Keep flicking until it burns out,
Or so I tell myself.

I cannot fathom
why that pretty song lasted so much longer
when I was so exhausted
I could hear my bones groan.
Yet that sad poem ended so much quicker
when it was about you.
One sang me to sleep.
One lead me to nightmares.

He kissed my neck
Nibbled softly at its skin
And when he kissed my lips
I tasted my own perfume
My own poison
In my own mouth.
I lived, but he died.
You are immune to your own poison.

I guess this happens every time;
I never say goodbye to those who leave.
So once again here's everything I never told you, but it's all you this time.
Remember when we would throw rocks at the stagnant pond like pounding them against a monumental moment on a timeline strung from our soliloquies sounding out against the blockade air, and now just silence.
Well here's to another rant,
Except now you'll have to settle for a bitter poem just like you'll settle with your relationships.
So here's to all the wasted pursuit of a companion.
When the tide finally came in with the message in a bottle holding our fate,
I saw you'd rather immerse yourself in comfort than face the rough knowledge you always conveyed to me so adamantly.
And in that moment I realized you were the loveliest hypocrite I ever befriended, but now you're just a lost soul, with no eyes and ears to watch or listen.
And it's a wonder I don't lose myself all over again when your sturdy rock crumbles and dissipates away.

Yearning for my youth,
I put on my fairy wings
and began to dance.

Once I would've filled my shoebox with tangible memories
Materialistic items
But movie tickets, receipts, newspaper clippings, they all have something in common
They all fade
Cease to be anything but scraps of recycled material
I have long since moved on from
Temporary importance
I fill my shoeboxes with abstract now.
What's in your box?

So what does it mean
when I cannot find
anyone who thinks
like me?

I have been trained so well
that my blank stare is near perfection.
Practice makes perfect.
Sense the enemy and avoid direct eye contact.
Locate your chosen line of sight;
a poster on a wall, your own shoelaces.
Follow through.
I see with my eyes that we are both skilled
at not seeing the other.
It has been drilled into my bones.
Look away. There is nothing to see here.
Not anymore.

This time of year
I can never differentiate
between cold puffs of air
and smoke-filled exhales.

Then again, why does it matter.
Either way, my lungs are still
expanding and collapsing.
At least I am still breathing.

The year of cigarettes.
This year as a ghost.
The year of chauffeurs.
This year of sweater mornings.
The year of not being __ enough.
This year of risks.

I'm not sure where home is anymore.

I watched my friends, dear and deserving,
live the best days of their youthful lives
not as expected exactly, but
still glorious and grand.
and
From the sidelines,
I watched my friends live
wondering all the while
why the ****
do I not deserve
to do the same.
*It's just such a shame.

The grip I had on the ground was unsure and unsteady, due to the textured rocks encompassing the area, as well as the predictable plank of wood every foot or so. My body was sideways, but directly parallel to the galloping pair of thick metal bars that never intersected, and appeared to go on forever. Forever. My view of this place was eternal.
On either side of me, I could only see a few miles out before the thick fog kidnapped my beloved pathway, my beloved railroad. So I guess my view really was not eternal, but when your standard sightseeing radius is only as big as your cul-de-sac, a few miles in each direction sounds pretty appetizing.
Something about train tracks, they just soothe me. Perhaps it’s because I look for symbols in everything, like the way characters in a good novel do. What can I say, the potential for adventure is too **** high for me not to live my life always searching, and always following an invisible path of inner meaning. That’s the only reason I can come up with as to why I like trains. Maybe they symbolize a journey; an adventure to embark on. Maybe the different pathways one can take in life. Options are always good. Maybe it’s a sense of always moving forward, because trains hardly ever chug backwards. They just trudge along, ever so steady. I just find that so **** pretty.
It probably doesn’t even matter that I like trains and railroads, or why I think I like them. What’s important here is the small and simple fact that I was standing on a great set of tracks that day with two very special people that I knew at the time. It wasn’t planned, this encounter. Things like this are never planned. In fact, I couldn’t quite believe we were there. I had just needed some Chick Fila or something. Comfort food is always nice. But that’s the thing about good friends. They know things about you, like how you have this weird thing for railroads. And they try to make you feel better on days such as when you found out your dad disappeared.
So they pick you up and ignore the clean streaks left on your face when your tears plunged through the makeup on your cheeks, because you wouldn’t want to talk about that. She takes you to her boyfriend’s house, who inadvertently happens to be with the ex love of your life. And as it turns out, what you need isn’t at her boyfriend’s house, but the ex love of your life offers to get it from his house, which is how the ex love of your life came to be sitting in the backseat of your best friend’s Volvo on the worst day of your life, en route to the neighborhood where the ex love of your life lives, which happens to be located near the railroad tracks oh sweet lord. And when the stuff needed was recovered at the ex love of your life’s house- well we’re already here, so why not go under the railroad bridge and put that stuff to good use. Good friends do exactly that.
In the distance, I hear what sounds like my sanity whistling a high, single-note tune. It was coming, but maybe in about twenty minutes. And we had to leave in ten, because with me, there is always a time limit. I am always running from, away, and out of, time. But I try to enjoy the fleeting, split-second moments I am lucky to receive every now and then. Like right now. Because who would’ve thought I would be straddling the train tracks, ******, at one of my favorite locations ever, with my best friend and the ex love of my life that, side note, I haven’t spoken to in an awfully long time and who, by the way, keeps gazing intensely in this direction. Definitely not me.
I would’ve been fine with a Chick Fila run, but as I said before, best friends know when you need a nice adventure before you even have to attempt to subtly hint at it and hope for the best.

There is a dark aesthetic
In the horror-house of a horror story
Where emotion is merely blue ambiance
Treated constantly like mental patients

Every day I face
multiple cages and tanks,
Doors with locks, doors with bars,
Sealed blinds shut tight
and tight schedules sealed shut,
Leashes and collars,
Choke chains and smoke chains-
From the fire that engulfed the flame.

I can tell you all their names;
The birds, the fish, the dogs, the cats,
The animals that were tame.
Those that were as helpless as I.
I can tell you where I am from.
And I am the one who is ablaze.

How can I already sit and ponder,
"I wish I knew then what I knew now?"
How can I already have arthritis of the soul,
How can I already be too tired to fight anymore?

Arguably a tad too young for depressing, nostalgic introspection-
But I can tell you why. I can tell you how much my small frame
doesn't quite fit the brooding thoughts that seep through
my heavy head holding hostage my body
My body is not to blame for this haunting,
lingering past in the shape of a house
It was the limbs performing the directions,
carried out and controlled by the mission control center
to this messed up operation existing within
the confines of my cage
No time to tell my story before the fire engulfs the flame.

But I can tell you all their names;
The abusers, the users, the accusers, the persecutors
Those who broke me to make me tame.
I can tell you where I am from.
And I am the one who is ablaze.

I cannot remember
I cannot tell you my name.

When tracing stars
In the palm of my hands
I wondered about the galaxies
That envelop us so serenely
And thought about the revolving planets
That are always in the right place
I wonder where me and my stellar palms
Fit in between all of these universes.

I saw my shadow laid out before me on the wall, and it was bigger than me, and frightened of itself. When it began to run, I dragged it back and sewed it back on in a ****** mess. Sometimes you pin to yourself the things that scare you the most, because at least fear is a black-or-white emotion. Sometimes I walk through the darkness inside my own home, and sometimes I trip and stumble on furniture edges and shoes near the doorway that were forgotten. I walk around and around, my eyes never fully adjusting to the darkness, but around and around I go. Because it is the only time in my fleeting existence where I don’t think about who I am, for I am too preoccupied with the paranoia in my head that there might be demons forever watching me. Occasionally, they chase me up my stairs on their hands and feet, growling and snarling obscenities unimaginable to anyone else except for inside my own head. I wonder what would happen if one day I made it to my room too late and they caught me. I wonder what the insides of other people’s heads look like.

My devotions
are the hours in the nights
where I scribble in my notebook.
My prayers
are my journal entries
where I plead for sanity in my life.
My worship
is spending hours in an old bookstore
where I wish to leave with every book I come across.
My redemption
is when I compose a few poems
where all of my peers are left appalled and pleased.

Writing
is the only form of religion I know.

For the first time that night, I felt like I should never have climbed out of my laundry room window, creeped into a foreign car, and ended up inside a mystery house. How could I have been so oblivious and naïve? His name was Cody, the possessive and powerful varsity football player who chose to act upon his compulsion. Why did I have to come here?
I continued to search my way out of that labyrinth of a house, stumbling stumbling further and further from the back room, from which I could hear Cody calling my name. Twenty more steps. If I was going to escape this predicament, now was the time to do so. There were only fifteen steps separating the front door and me. I attempted to stifle any audible sound emitted from my feet so that the football player wouldn’t be able to hear me if he listened. Ten more steps. Eight. Seven. His beckoning grew closer and louder, as if he were right behind me, reaching for me just to drag me back into submission and compliance. Only four more steps. Three. The door was in focus for me now, so close I could touch it, my freedom and its release. I forced whatever mental and physical strength I had left into my hands to push open the door and step out into the humid summer night. Behind me, I heard Cody attempting to reason with me, which almost made me turn around, but, with my resistance, I found myself spitting the words: “How dare you, don’t you touch me... I have to leave now...” I was about to lose it. My heart was racing. My lungs were desperate for something more than short, panicky breaths. My body was close to giving up, giving in, surrendering...
No. Out into the night, I slammed the house door behind me and walked determinedly to the car.
My fingers dialed the number to my sister on my phone. My sister, who was supposed to protect me, and didn't. I said:
“Take me home, now.”
Never shall I forget that room, the room where it happened, when I was kissed and touched for the first time against my will.
Never shall I forget being pinned down on a smelly bed.
Never shall I forget that boy’s contorted face whose hands wandered over me with such desperate need in a silent place.
Never shall I forget that night which consumed my faith in love for many years.
Never shall I forget the mouth that deprived me of oxygen and mashed our tongues together.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my youth and my innocence and turned my hope to narcissism.
Never shall I forget those things, no matter how many times a boy tells me it’s all right now.
Never.

I was "asleep"
and the only thing that connected us
was the ****** phone connection.
I was "sleeping"
and we were both comforted by the fact
that we could almost hear the other breathing
at the other end.
I was "asleep"
and you didn't realize that I heard every word
when you lowered your voice and said into the static
*"I don't think I've ever loved anything as much as I love you."

stirring, swirling, whirling
porcelain and metal
clattering, clinging, singing
the bittersweet taste of Awakening

It was never the best of times, and it was never the worst of times.
It was - is - simply, the times.
Certainly not the most memorable at any rate.

But oh, the wet quicksand mud beneath our feet
steals our shoes from us
if we are in too deep,
as we always are.
Many times I have to dust off
my fish netted spaghetti legs.

And still, we dance like hooligans
in the middle of the soggy road.
And we beg for the rain
to keep pounding on.
And we will never stop.

Red signs and white lines.
My favorite pastimes
include turning it up
watching it go
thinking it out
and soaking it in.
Blue skies and blue eyes.

Just because I don't believe
Doesn't mean I don't understand
Why some people do
We don't agree on some things
But it's okay
Humans were made for community
We can still be friends
I still want to be friends
Sometimes I think about
What the world would be like
If everyone based their lives
And their morals
On just one word
Not "God"
But "Love."

Two cups of coffee at midnight was a bad idea.
At least I am not alone in this room,
I have my lonely feelings to keep me company.
I could reach out to you
except you are probably at some radical party
(because you go to those now)
making out with some girl I used to be friends with back in the day
when things went okay for me
and all I have
is this stupid website where I can
post mediocre and sub-par scribbles
at a half-*** attempt to feel important.

So I won't disturb you
or you or you or you
and anyone else who is off enjoying their lives
free from restrictions
while I am stuck in a box,
shapeless and undefined and constricted
and all kinds of filthy words
because it is 2 a.m.
and I really should not have had
those two cups of coffee
because all I can think of are filthy words.

Love aches
Like an eight hour shift with jelly legs
Love expects
Like when it's nice to have texts from you after work
Or when I play out a scenario of you waiting up for me with candy
Love lonelies
Like when I have no reason to be but I am
Maybe because separation anxiety isn't just for dogs
Love uses
Like when I finally learn you have to be selfish with *** sometimes
Love cross fades
Like when I'm drunk on your taste with smell mingling
And high on your presence
Love grows up
Like I am beginning to

I wonder if people notice things like,
"That girl's nail polish is dark"-
Dark having many different connotations-
Because I sure do notice.

I wonder if people notice things like:
-The way somebody walks
-How they hold a pen to a piece of paper
-The way their hair curls around their ears
-How they move their lips to speak
-What they wear and why they wear it
Because there has to be a reason
There has to be a reason for everything

I wonder if people study me the way I study them.

I can assure you,
Everything I do
Say
Think
Feel
Wear
Represent
I do it for a reason
I do it for a statement
Even though I'm not sure what kind of statement it is just yet.

Keep watching to find out.
Stay tuned.

You don't get it
You're never going to get it
Oh yeah of course not
You don't get what it's like to have a relationship with a dad
I had a relationship with a dad
Yeah, had
I appreciate you but you aren't my dad
Shut it, stop talking
It's okay I have other daughters
So go and live your separate life
Sounds good to me
Sounds good to me too
You need to learn
You'll never learn
I'm sure she really appreciates that
Maybe the other dad can give her money
I'm not intoxicated yet
What a great mindset
Keep ****** analyzing everything Jessie
Come over here and we can continue our conversation
I'm going to go wait outside
Yeah that's right, go

Oh bulletin board,
you are an ever-growing hoard
of memories no one else will remember.
Positioned so carefully in December
so the moon can illuminate you
through my sorry window in blue
on nights when I require tormenting.
You love to evoke my lamenting
about how I seemed to overlook
an important aspect that shook,
about how those on my wall
would never be able to recall
any thoughts of me at all
thumbtacked on their wall.

I feel like if I write in here about everything that's happened,
I'm just going to break my heart all over again,
and I just don't think I'm ready for that.

Hopefully, it will be okay.
He'll write songs about me and perhaps I'll write a book about him,
among other things.
And in time, we'll see which one makes a bigger dent in the world.
Which one becomes the new John Lennon or Jane Austen because of their work.
And maybe then,
we'll see which one loved each other the most.

But I already know who loved who more.
He's no Lennon.

My back was always as straight as a needle.
And I was just as pointy.
Line of sight was always parallel to the ground.
I never looked down for anything, always forward.
My positive light infected everything I touched; a disease of the best kind.
Oh, and when I walked - no - I drifted
Like on clouds, from place to place
With an air of confidence all around me.
I was graceful,
I was determined,
I was inspired,
I was...
Not always like this.
Not always like this.

In times of need,
When I would moan
"I want you" into the phone
I would forget my age.

Or when I stay strong
And restrain my tears
Like a mother at her
Son's funeral does
I forget my age.

In fact,
In times of need,
I am capable of forgetting
Just about everything.

How old am I again?

With a face like that, oh so set in stone,
it is no wonder that he is alone.
He is a tunnel filled with secrets
and I just yearn to explore.

If he wants me so, he ought to know to
chip off the stone until his real face shows through.
He is a Mona Lisa painting
and I'm begging for a smile.

What I request is really not that much
just reveal to me your dreams and such.
He is a scared bird, trusting no one
and I want to make him fly.

I kept replaying this over and over,
Like a memory soundtrack.
Click, Repeat, Click, Repeat.
But I only liked it the first time.

We refused to sit
until they brought us our own table.
I ended up sitting next to you
something I hadn't done in a while.
But we both gave a smile,
with a friendly-stranger hello.

There's a picture of all of us.
I am tilted face down, but
not from sadness this time.
We all had on different faces
I hope that photo never erases.

Because we took the world and made sure to stand
until they brought us our own table.

seat me next to your garbage and pickings
in the backseat of your car

you go back and forth
circling around
for the carcass to consume
preparing for the surprise attack
but you won't touch m--

My dog thinks there is a scary monster
living in the closet
but really it is just our vacuum
I wonder what kind of things
that live inside the closets of our minds
are really not that scary after all
maybe they aren't even monsters

Somebody to fill the spaces between your fingers.
Somebody who adores all your quirks and fetishes.
Somebody that loves hearing you tell those stories as much as you love telling them.
Somebody always ready to embark on an adventure with you.
Somebody with the capability of hitting all your tickle spots accurately every time.
Somebody who knows all your favorite parts to all your favorite songs from all your favorite bands.
Somebody who shares the same kissing language as you.
This is what you need:
Me.

My home is my car
even though home was always
where my little girl is

Society exiled me
or did I exile me

My days are limited
but my thoughts are infinite

The stars are my only companions
I wish I could join them
if only I could be a part of
the little dipper that hovers
right above her house
a perfect view

If I can't forgive myself for leaving
maybe she can

The weeks without food consume me
until I forget my name and my past

If I can't come back as a twinkle in the night sky
let me come back as the wind
that she inhales into her body and
exhales out with a sigh
that ripples through her hair and
cools her neck on unbearable days

I hope to God she knows
and I hope to God there is a God

I'll pretend that it is just a phase
When I walk by you, I avert my gaze
That part of my life is a blurry haze.

You aren't my home anymore
I found a new body to explore
And I keep my thoughts of you at the door.

Hazy cigarettes
smoking is quite bad for you
light me up up up

When I attempted to tell you
That I hate you
I slipped,
Tripped,
Broke.
Accidentally told you
I love you.

Today I just about sat and smoked myself to cancer.

I put myself in the sun because I want to get burned
I put a blade to the skin because I want to hurt
Put your hands on me because I want you to know
I put my hand down there so that you'll never let go

If I was there for a moment, what would you do?
Set me on a cracked surface, let me fall through?
Could you let yourself be with me, are you still through?

Take all the blame from our mistakes
Erase the shame, however long that takes
I will wait forever (cliche)
And we'll be together (cliche)
Say "It's time to go get her"
And I will always be right here

I could write about you in depth
but what good is putting something
as infinitely gray as you into
constricting black and white letters.

If I could select the way I die
Any torturous death would do
I have felt pain in a big supply
And it is all thanks to you

When it comes to agony, I am prepared
I shall not wince or cry
Because of you I won't be scared
If misery is how I die

Because I know it all too well
I barely consider it complication
It's how I feel when under your spell
When you sentence me to separation

In loving you I've come to accept
That dying won't be so bad
By leaving me
pain is all that is left
I will welcome death
I will be glad

That feeling of too many thoughts in my head
That sound of too many things that were said
That boy with too many feelings on a thread
That moment of too many loves in a bed

This feeling of too little thoughts shared
This sound of too little people who cared
This boy with too little that made him scared
This moment of too little plans unprepared

I've made it worse for everyone,
but mostly just myself.
The un-needed stress that I have done
it isn't good for my health.

I grasp for some certainty
growing more desperate by the minute
I wonder why, for the life of me,
it ever felt like I wasn't in it.

I am here now, love
I am ready to prove
my love for you is enough
I know it's the right move

I never meant to make you unsure
maybe timing just isn't my thing.
Promise to always forgive me, lover,
whenever I test your dear being.

If you were here beside me now
you would see how much I tremble
to know I ******* things up somehow,
worried sick that things could crumble.

Blame it on my sick need
to hear your voice all the time
I know I'm a mess indeed
but no matter what, you're mine.