It is 1am
And I am a combination
Of alcohol and thoughts
Too many words and heavy eyelids
I stand at bar
With drink in loose hands
As some attempt conversation
And I
Smile quietly
With vacant eyes
Because there are plenty of people
In this room
That could fill this empty capacity
Put end
To this gap of desolation expanding inside of me
There are plenty
Who I could find momentary comfort in
Possibly even more
But I
Am too blocked off
To call myself open
Too shut down
To even listen to small talk
Or friendly dialogue
The truth is
I am too hung up
On distance
And romance that is more than likely
To never work out
To be able to make the effort
To love someone other than taken
I am so good
At setting my heart on situations
That have been set long before my prescence
I am skilled
At attempting to love person already satisfied
I will never be neccesity
Only drunken shell of girl
Searching through a sea of bodies
For someone who is not there
For someone who will probably never be there
This routine
Of bourbon and late nights
Of strangers and recurrent introductions
Will continue with frequency
But I
Will remain
Unfulfilled
It is 1am
And I am
Still hoping for something
That is perpetually
Unattainable.

I guess I was a walking tally chart of the amount of times I hated myself and even God couldn't kiss that better.

Dear Talia,

I don't want to be a tortured artist.
I don't want to be depressed and I don't want to be anxious.
Competitive sadness and disorders treated like accessories disgust me.

The world glamorizes mental illness, and I don't understand why. There is nothing romantic about being mentally ill just like how there's nothing glamorous about a broken wrist or a torn medial collateral ligament. There's nothing romantic about constantly being afraid that the world will fold in itself and **** you with it. There's nothing romantic about feeling like you could break down and cry at any moment.

This is the first piece I've written while being medicated.

I want it to be Christmas already.

The world dreams itself a halo, but can only attain horns. The halo is an illusion and the horns are an idea.

I'm due to take another Lorazepam. Would I look cool to the kids who idolize dysfunction and misinterpret pain as style, if I were to take one of these, with water and a distant glance, in front of them? Geez, to have their approval would to have everything and nothing at all.

I'm not sure why I've written as much about this as I have.

You.

It is 2:48 am and all I can think about, in this moment, is you.

I can't wait to spend Christmas with you. I can't wait to wear bad Christmas sweaters, and be the couple everyone hates, as we sing Christmas carols and spread holiday cheer.

I wrote this poem a few minutes ago. Sometime around 2:30 am. I'm not sure. I'm exhausted:

I sat on the edge of my bed, and on the edge of my life,
medicated to the point of pointlessness. Soft.
It was the nineteenth, not the twentieth,
and I wished I saw the fireworks with her fifteen days earlier.

My gasps tore the shingles off of the house.
And they hung suspended above the hole in the roof.
And God stared down into my room, as the shingles swirled skyward.
"I see you," I said, "but I don't believe in you."

I left home and ran until I was a dream that had passed itself.


I hope that was okay.

I love you.


Yours,

Joshua Haines

i always thought
you were thru traffic
that you were just jet lag
background noise
the kiss in the rain
i've never had
but what if you aren't?
what if this
was the thousandth time
i have loved you?
what if this is just a fresh coat of paint?
what if god
keeps a handkerchief
soaked in the day we met
next to his bed?
maybe theres a reason
i reach for no one in bed
the way i would
if someone used to be there
you know, they say
the road behind us
is littered with things
we couldn't hold onto
i wonder how many times
you've slipped through my hands
like hour glass sand
do you know
how much erosion you've caused?
i heard cupid
stopped keeping count
of how many times
we came together
just to come apart again
maybe it was just a rumor
it makes me think
about how many times
i've almost had you
like if all this talk
about history repeating itself
endlessly replaying is true
i wonder how many times
things have happened already
like the time
i tried talking you
into loving me back
back fired
or the time i could have sworn
jesus & lazarus were playing chess
with my heartbeat
but it was only you smiling
how many times
have i tried to tell you
how many times
have you read this poem
how many times
have i tried not to meet you
in my dreams anymore
it's like sleep tries to warn
me of what's happening
before it does but
i keep having this dream
where i tell you bedtime stories
and each one
is a different way you die
and in every one
i can never save you
it's like you're this song
i have on repeat
and every time it starts over
i forget the words
it's like you picked up the book entitled "us"
and the back cover
said you'd leave
so you never bothered reading it
tell me you aren't
going back in that bookstore
just to do it again
or will you tell me tomorrow?
or is this the time
you don't say anything at all?
if this has all happened before
if we call it quits
before we begin
again
from the beginning
i just want to ask you
to be my fire
because i am tired
of these old lives
and i'd like to see them
burn

When they finally cut you open they found butterflies crawling on your ribcage and flowers where your lungs were supposed to be
An eternal spring in your chest that everyone could feel when you drew near, the kind of green that people craved and needed to breathe
Where your heart was charted lay the biggest, most beautiful gemstone that anyone had ever seen.
They found everything that you tore yourself to pieces looking for, all of the splendor and beauty and precious things that somehow eluded you no matter how hard you searched or how many times you cut yourself open to find. It was all right there, right before their eyes, as dazzling as a thousand suns and majestic as the stars
When they closed your eyes, the starlight had already left them. Galaxies ripped from existence because you would never laugh again, never think of one you loved, never see the first bloom or hear the first bird of spring.
I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if anything really happened. there is still a hole in my chest the size of you that no fresh spring day or starry night can fill up there is no earthly thing that can replace you because you cannot be replaced, you were part of the leaves on the trees and the air that I long for and now you are gone

You started on a conquest for your soul and it led you to a dark forest of branches that twisted to hurt you and wind that whispered lies just loud enough for you to hear that poisoned your spring and closed your eyes forever to the beauty that was inside of you that bloomed out of your wrists when their whispers came back to haunt you crouching, dark, pulsing with your blood not good enough not good enough not good enough
But they were wrong. You were enough. You were more than enough; you were everything that springtime should be.
You walked in as a lioness and out as a lamb
Now it’s winter and I can’t see you in the trees or the sky because everything is silent and cold and dying and the spring inside you is fading because
When they finally cut you open they released your beauty into the world
and it will be a brighter place because of you.

I promise you I don't want to **** myself
This isn't a letter saying goodbye
Not a poem blaming you for not seeing this coming
But sometimes
When I'm all alone
I sit in the bath just a little bit longer,
hoping and hoping I drift off to sleep
Or smoke three cigarettes
one after the other after the other
and hope my lungs get so filled with tar that I
stop breathing
Or stand dangerously close to the edge of a building
and close my eyes hoping the wind might *******
just hard enough to fall

It's easy to imagine
I know what everyone would say
How some people would cry
And some would secretly be glad
Some would feel guilt
Others sorrow
And in about a week it wouldn't matter

But I want to matter
Whether it be to just my mom
Or the man I helped cross the street
I want to matter

And so I tuck those thoughts deeper in the closet
And I step away from sharp objects and steep edges
And I sit and write poetry
Poetry will be the death of us all
Anyway