Something about the moon's phases terrifies me
Maybe it's the movement within me
Maybe it's my manifestations
The cruel end to all of my hesitations
We don't talk anymore but you're always welcome in my head
My head and heart are fighting over the same place
I hardly listen to what they've said
Go ahead and pick your choice, you can have either
I've already ascertained that you'll choose neither
But you are a constant reminder
I ruin everything that could change me for the better
You moved on and said "forget her"
But you can't forget me now, can you?
I've manifested you under the full moon
And you will always be a memory that keeps me full, too
Confused and hardly fulfilled
You were a change that thrilled
I wasn't ready for you and what you brought
And I swing like a pendulum-- more so than I ought
Regardless, I write poetry about you
My subconscious craves you
We have conversations in my head
Where could it have led?
We will live with never knowing,
Those brief moments are dead

Your name bleeds from my mouth
Your image is a nagging blur in every corner, every hall
The taste, the sight so bittersweet
Why do I lie to myself why do I keep
Believing that you'd stay
My mind gets in my mind's way
Thoughts astray
Waiting for you to stop by say hey
For a temporary, almost normal day
What am I in the meanwhile
A closed curtain with a fake laugh, a fake smile?
If this is worrying you just add it to the pile
I tend to make the world worry, people scurry
Don't leave in a hurry
It leaves you blurry
Your name is bleeding from my mouth again
An open wound, is it fresh?
I've lost track of time
Your image is a blur in every corner, every hall
Are you real, are you mine?
This is the way I tend to fall
Am I ill, do you exist at all?
Holding onto a blur of the past
How long can I make it last

Worship dies on Sundays
Companionship claims no more days
Hardship wins over all the days
And on these days everyone prays
Prays for less tomorrows and more todays
For less Decembers and more Mays
For less to burn and more to graze
They pray in greed
And not in grace

"7 to 9 hours of sleep"
You got me thinking in dreams
I'm still working on my mental health journey
I don't know where I'm going but there's a mountain range or an ocean in view
My life is vertical with vertigo and
I need a horizon
It makes me feel small
I like to make myself small and my problems smaller with me
But truth is my problems are too big for my body
They come bursting out in the form of suicidal ramblings or makeshift insomnia
To match my makeshift happiness
Fake it till you make it
I tell my brain to make and bake more dopamine or serotonin
Help me out
I'll take it artificially manufactured
It's the fentanyl of happiness
But there's something about the artificial flavors that is raw and real to myself
The fundip powder stuck to my fingers
I crave childhood and I don't know if it was taken from me
My sweet tooth remains
And I continue to crave

I don't need a single reason to love you
I just do
I'm a slave to your existence
I took advantage of your persistence
I kept running further and further away
And now I want to be closer and stay
You stopped chasing me anyway
I want to be closer than close, I want our bodies and souls to be confused for each other
I want no boundary, no limits to our love
I want to ascend to the sky and touch Lucy's diamonds up above
I feel so sober and lost
Like time has stopped
So that I can suffer and feel the cost
It wasn't really a love story
But it was a story about love
And now there's nothing to show for it
But a couple of scars
And duller stars

Today was a dark day
I am hollow as always
(Except when I'm bursting at the seams)
It seems...
That we always come back to this space
This empty mindspace
Sorrow and numbness
Fueling my dumbness
What if brain cells died every time I cried
I would be doomed
So we enter the gloom
Today was a dark day
And tomorrow will burn my eyes
Light and love will be found all around me
Fueling the fire
I already have everything I desire
So today was a dark day
But tomorrow will be sunshine and daisies
I always hated daises
But I soak up the sunshine like a cat curling up in its warmth
You bring on the cold
But I'm here to weather the storm
I will always return to the sun
I will always come back to the moon
I'm a sword sheathed in darkness
But I'm getting ready to glint and shine
Happiness will be yours and mine

It's the way your name slips further and further down in my phone
The way my heart still craves giving until there's nothing left
I miss giving you my love and watching you grow into it
But I don't miss how I never received what I wanted in return
The food is going cold and
I just can't eat when I'm so full of unexpressed love
I want you to take it all and run off with it
I want to see you happy and loved
But I also want to look in the mirror and feel fulfilled
I want to see a woman worthy of the world
And all I see are the other girls that make your eyes sparkle
I see their faces and their bodies so clearly that I can barely make out mine
Soon my reflection will come back to me
And one day I'll meet someone who won't even blink because they won't want to miss a second of me
I'll be the only beauty they want to see in the world
I'll make gardens and oceans jealous
The wind will blow through my hair and steal your touch
And I won't even recognize the girl I see now
A blurry figure through the tears in my eyes, mutilated by the self-hate you bred into me
My dysmorphia tells me I'm not enough and that's why I could never have a happy story with you
I was the Cinderella who was never invited to the Ball
I watched through tinted glass how everyone would embrace and dance and fall in love with life
While I played housekeeper and tried to mop up the pieces that made me
I put on a brave face and called myself a princess but you wouldn't even let me have my imaginary world, my feigned confidence
It was just deemed selfish of me to try shut the negativity out and pretend the world revolved around me
I just wanted to prove that I was worthy of love
And I never got love that was untainted
Because I screamed my pleas into the wrong phone
I wrote my story in the wrong book
You were never ready for me because you never took ownership of what I deserved
I wanted you to be my home
But I was always left knocking for so long
I still have your grocery list on my fridge
And my desperate heart wants to rearrange those letters into sweet, loving words
Words that could stain my mind and be stamped over the images of other girls
But I can't hear them in your voice
And I can't even pluck them from your thoughts
Because your mind is always elsewhere and it's hiding so much
We played a lonely game of hide and seek
I searched for your soul and never found you
And so we both welcomed darkness
I have to find a new source of light
Because your fire kept me warm until it burned me
The sparks were always there so I got burned again and again
I will never again let blisters and ******* belittle my beauty

Love hurts and burns and scrapes
Love brings the wildest escapes
But love should be gently beckoned for
Not ripped out of me
It comes naturally
And it comes before anything
Changed attitudes don't change the past
And conversations won't make it last
Every time our bridge falls apart
You put it back together with duct tape
A valiant effort
But I need a whole new bridge
I want a bridge built in stone
Every pebble comes from the soul
You hold my hand and guide me away from the puddles
But there should be no puddles in the first place
There has been so much rain and heartache and pain
I want sunny days again
Whether I have a hand to hold or not
There will be no puddles to muddy my shoes
My feet will then guide me to every dream I left to drift in the sky
I kept looking down at my feet to make sure I didn't trip and fall again and again
But I deserve to stare at the sun and dance and twirl and be safe and steady on my feet
The end of this love is not a defeat
We will seek what is ours
And grow into our individual powers
We will step into prosperity
Without having to hold onto each other
We will walk to the end of the bridge
And find our destinations

It's easier to listen to sad music when you're not sad
It's calming and nurturing
Now I'm powerfully sad and I can't help but feel my heartstrings be plucked along with the resonance of a sad song
I wonder what I do to deserve such morose moments
Everything I have done has put me here, and I am responsible for my own fear
I fear for my wellness, for my wellness is based on love
I want to love and be loved, and without this I am an empty vessel,
Ready for the next person to take advantage of my convenience
I'll never hear a sad song the same way
I'll always remember this sadness and how I allowed it to stay
Sadness is just a pit stop but I'm all out of gas
I put my thumb up and face the highway, hoping for someone to hurt me less than the last
I could find happiness over time or I could become the victim of a crime
I could become the criminal myself and hurt people more and more
Innocent lovers strangled by heartbreak just because I bore
I'm a dangerous thing to behold and yet I just want to be held
And so I become a sad song, lyrics not sung but yelled

You should crumble completely when I cry
But it seems to fuel your fire
How many tears will it take to dampen your mood
How many times will you call me a liar
Before my honesty becomes hurtful, even vengeful
How will you fix what's been broken then shattered then brought to naught
How will you do it this time

Wisdom always bleeds
Like the ink set sail to my skin
I wanna let you in
I still think of you
And I don't know what to do
I still think of us
And I know I messed up
I still dream of you
And I want to touch, but I can only view
My brain teases me every day
How long will you stay?
Do you also lie awake at 4am?
Contemplating love again?
Or do you sleep soundly
My heart keeps pounding
My heart has an empty cavity
It waits for you
While I marinate in depravity
"No regrets"
Is for people who have never lost an opportunity to love
I keep wishing on every star above
That one day things will fall into place
And I hope it involves kissing your face
I remember how right everything felt
For a weekend, no more
There was so much left unexplored
I hope I make the right decision when it all comes back around
Until then, to my dreams we'll be bound
For you I would erase all the poetry of the past
And create something that will last

Fireworks break up the sky
like shattered mirrors

I'm always chasing mirrors
deep into the sea floor and far above,
they evade me

You would, too

But suddenly I'm the most approachable person in the world

a cigarette parts my lips
but doesn't part me from this cruelly inescapable world

foiled again, I give a bystander bumming a cigarette this token of acquaintance

I hope he manages to escape


Fireworks break up the sky
but they're supposed to unify
They deepen my loneliness always

enjoyed in groups,
people multiply

And I drown into the sea,
in the sand,
in the reflections of my mirrors

A glow bracelet shackles me to reality
My plan to escape shatters again
I have mirrors
But bystanders have mallets


Fireworks don't break up the sky
they fly
in puffs

and in the puff of a cigarette
I am gone again

voices of glee
remind me I am lonely

I'm crying but not for loneliness
for I am never truly lonely

I am surrounded by mirrors always

I cry because I cry,
I don't always know why

I chase these mirrors
but I never see reflections
or answers

Is it glory?
beauty?
appreciation?

I cry because it's momentous
a girl loves a moment in time,
anytime

Mirrors trail down my face

Fireworks break up time and space

I cease to exist
but I feel whole

as if my existence is exactly this
reflections, fireworks, and a wish

Will the tears I've cried take years off my life?
How many times have you killed me, once or twice?
How many more hours, days, years will I waste
With a cake in my face I'm refusing to taste
Like a moth to my porch light
I am beckoned by thee
With false hopes of ever being alive, let alone free
Your life is the white noise I fall asleep to
Nothing I could sing to

Inner peace amongst utter chaos
I don't have tears to cry tonight
Tonight I am myself
Finally
It's nice to meet her again
I am stronger, more evolved
With you no longer involved
I can protect myself, correct myself
I will be ever better and effervescent
And thrive off my own essence

I'm paralyzed by pettiness
I wonder why karma doesn't get you sooner
You were a crutch for my happiness
Now I wallow in emptiness
You never made it out of the maze of my mind
Are you lost or are you just comfortable?
Do you enjoy setting fire to the hedges?
They used to be lush and green,
Now all I see is red
I'm paralyzed in my bed, drowning in dread
And I can't say the same for you

A month of pure chaos
A month quite the whirlwind
A time to have saved and sinned
A heart set free within a world at war
We end and we begin

Where off to now?
I embrace it all
Spring, summer, and fall
We've been drenched in the rains
We've been imprisoned and tamed
And we've even been pictured and framed

And now the leaves crumble
As my bambi legs stumble
And I wander into something new
New feels familiar but not quite like something I'll regret to do

And so I've whirled and I've sinned
And I've danced with the wind
And here I am, still afloat
I told you I would learn to love again
And I'll do so with all kinds of hope

I'm not empty inside
I'm full of gumballs or some sh it
What? You think you know everything about my anatomy huh
Dissect me then if it pleases you
You'll see I'm full of too many muchness
There's no space between my brain and my heart
I'm bursting at the seams
What matters is what's on the inside, they say
Well I'm full of dreams
There's no room for anything else
Not even reality
Why would I make room for that
I'd have to replace my heart
And we've grown quite fond of each other
Everything I do is rooted in love
Some love for you, and I'm saving some for me
Just like the Halloween candy that lasted till February
I'm full of gumballs and dreams I said
You chew me up and spit me out
I'm full to the brim so I have no doubt
That I'll once again be devoured without a swallow
I'm still full but something feels hollow
I'm perfect for a sweet tooth
But I'm no satisfying meal
That's what I tell myself as I fail to heal
But I'm not empty inside
I'm full of something that's for sure
And I might just have to make room for more

We hid this love like an abandoned scene
But you always come back for more,
You always come back for me
Am I something to be ashamed of?
I wonder why we hide
I wonder why our love comes and goes like the tide
Abandonment issues, tear-soaked tissues,
Soft kisses on the cheek, making my legs weak
I pray this isn't our peak

I can't feel anything
I can hardly speak
And there you are, so different from when we met
Is this transformation or is this a trick?
I'll take my chances
And you've used up all of yours

What's next?
You always come back for me
And I'll come back for you, too
With wild abandon
This is what I choose

the clouds hide low in the sky
looking like a mountainside
I don't know if I'm going the right way
But I'm going my way
If love is a lie, let's be liars
Let us lie down side by side
Until time takes us like the ocean tide

That was written for you
It will always be written for you
As you type away and count your words
I will be always be the part of your novel you glanced over
And I will write my story around you
Everything surrounds you
And yet you are nothing to me
And you are gone from my world
But after all
The world revolves around the sun
And seldom do we acknowledge that
Through the window pane, the sun barely touches my skin
And you will never touch me again

I hold a heavy heart and absolutely no grudges
I maintain a wicked brain and I water my flowers
I keep poetry in my pockets, bright eyes in their sockets
I own and I am many things
I'm hunched over from the weight of it all
They say I'm too complicated and I say *******
I never asked for this orchestration of organs
We all ask to be unburdened
But I hold absolutely no grudges
I thank all the stars for my scars
I thank the moon for making me a loon
And my arms are empty of grudges so they can embrace you
Even when they say I should erase you
I never listened to them; why would I start now?
My heart gets heavier but I hold absolutely no grudges
That's why my arms are weak but my body so strained
I cannot count the times they've called me strange
From head to toe I'm me, I know
I've never been anyone else
It makes my brain and heart melt
Into one wicked, beating, bulging *****
I've never been able to separate them
But maybe it's a perfect conundrum
The way I'm complete but undone

I open my phone to noise
I find peace in the silence between us
I open my heart to dream
My brain tears it up with nightmares
My throat aches for an ongoing scream
Music doesn't reach me
Everything is touching me at once and yet I am so alone
Floating in space, a forever changing soul
New to the world and hurt by it all
Invited by some yet welcomed to none
I am just another plank in this series of planes
The dimensions are parallel and nothing touches me
I'm untouchable and strong
Independent but altogether wrong
I dream and I wish and I manifest
And I will bring myself all the best
I love my body, its heart and its art
The flesh, the ink
I start to sink
I am more earth and bone
I am not nothing I am not mere
I am here
Not so far gone after all, but rather near
I'm grounded and sinking deeper
I'm buried and swaddled
I am my own keeper
I am here for a reason
But I will indulge myself in change, evolve with each season
I am that new soul that can be molded into anything
I melt between fingers and I use my own hands
I am my own creator
My wishes are demands

You continue to haunt my dreams and criticize me there
You clipped my wings to keep me close
Now I fly in circles
You were my drug, and I miss every toxic dose
Now I need miracles
It's obvious you weren't the right choice
But I'd still make it every time
Being loved, even the wrong way, is somehow sublime
But you took away the love and left me with despair
I'm still grasping for any hint of it in the air
I disguise my heavy breathing by running faster
No destination, only desperation
But I shall be my own master
One day I'll be free of your clutch and I won't be so little, I'll be much.
Much stronger, much smarter, much more beautiful and worth every admirer
And I won't need your approval,
I'll relish in your removal.

My body is just a vessel so don't bother falling for it
I find myself falling out of it every day
The way I keep falling out of love
I didn't know souls could be so clumsy
But I'm sliding on the black ice in my brain
If I'm still there, the ice is melting and I'm filling my pockets with the puddles
The weight of the world is incredible but I float like a balloon
No one's holding on to me and I wish I could see the ground and know what gravity feels like
I hear gravity has a pull
But I've never been pulled toward something before
I just float on
I wish someone could give me a gentle tug instead of just making me their amusement
I'm not all that pretty to look at and I'm better to hold
Tie me to your wrist and I'll show you what we've missed

Love will always bring us back
You can take your foot off the gas, you can burn the candle
But love will show us how much more we can handle
You can cut the rope, you can avoid the addiction
But we will always be tethered, there will forever be friction

I'm cutting the rope
I'm burning the candle
I'm watching the fire go out
How could I once think
That my heart would just sink
As long as you were my shipwreck
How could I believe this
And Why would I grieve this
The love that left us tattered and tortured
I will not be a bystander to my own heart
And I will not turn cold
I refuse to be forced to change or even grow old
I have an open heart for a reason
I will always welcome love
But I have shut this particular door
And I won't look back, I won't lose track, not even once more

How many breakups does it take to ***** in a lightbulb?
You light me up like the humming glow of a microwave oven
How many makeups does it take to finally make up?
I've lost count but I love abundance
How many chances does it take for a man to act right?
I've lost count again but I've never been good at math
I've never been good at many things but I've always been good at love
Or so I think and hope and wish upon the stars above
I wanna be good to you
First we had to be bad
It's the kind of love that drives you mad
The kind of love that is awfully sad
Until you barely feel anything at all
Until you sleep and dream about that slow-motion fall
Until you feel everything at once
Until you realize you're both ******* s
How much more?
What's the cost?
I'm poor in judgement
But rich in emotion
Still searching for that treasure in the ocean
Is it hopeless? Is it worth it?
Will it make me sea sick?
I've always been a hopeless romantic
Will I get what I want like I always do?
No, no, never
Not when it comes to you
It's the endless chase that makes my heart race
And might put me into cardiac arrest
Up until now I've been quizzed
But you're the real test

A heart is a heavy burden
But I find comfort in oblivion
I won't let my mind bully my body
I just want to call myself home
There are strangers yet I'm alone
Shadows will keep me company
A brain is a heavy burden
But I find comfort in the void
In my solitude, there's a voice
I came into this world without a choice
But now I'll abuse my existence
And you will remember I was here
Facing the world without a care, without a fear
I was here
I was here

If the timing doesn't fit like your favorite flannel, will you blame me or time?
Will you shout at me or will you shout at the world? Will you shout at me because I am your world?
Am I the world that brings you chaos and disorder?
Or am I the piece of peace that makes you want to grow older?
Love is the problem, not us.
We are poisoned by its ferocity, we are victims to its wrath.
We are angry and tired but it's love talking, not us
Love has grabbed us by the jaws and unhinged our destructive thoughts
It has left us together but separate, it has left us craving more than we ought

I'm always the one that got away,
Never the one that stayed
My dad says I go through men like T shirts
So I'm keeping this one on
I'm going to tell it I love it and sing it a song
I'm going to laugh at its jokes and wash it with care
People will see us and say love is in the air
My t shirt feels all my flaws with the softest touch
My t shirt tells me I'm never too little, never too much
I beam with brilliancy, I ooze admiration
My aura is blaring red like a carnation
I have so much to give it simply rips me to shreds
But somehow I still find myself in other strange beds
I want to scream and bite and kick
I put the hopeless in hopeless romantic
In a world of fast fashion,
How am I to have a favorite T shirt?
I live in a world of options and decisions feel too permanent
If I still continue to love you, is it still considered abandonment?

I sail in the dark abyss of yesterday
With only a pool float and the power of thought
Or lack thereof
There is no control
As the clock tolls
Round and round and round
The riptide takes me
Deep inside the yesterdays
And I wake up as a broken record
I am the same second verse played over and over again
You're too catchy, my yester dayman
I am the gardener who only waters dead flowers
I hope the sun will shine on me
But it's always gleaming on you
Full speed ahead
I read the same page over and over
Sometimes I'll read the whole chapter
But why carry on further
This part is so good
Remember?

Love is a triumph
It is war disguised as peace
Love is violent and volatile
And it eventually conquers all
destroying and reforming everything in its path
Before it we fall
On our knees
Like before a god
It humbles us,
makes us weak
It takes sacrifices
And our offerings are never enough

H,

We can be two halves of one idiot,

You take Jupiter, and I'll take Mercury

Together powerful though laughable,

We are asked for mercy.

We are messengers and we mean you no harm

Earthlings. We may look fierce, but we are

Even fiercer so. We may have soft skin,

But our hidden edges

Don't hide

We were created from destruction

And we destroy our path

No, we won't destroy what's in our path

But rather

We will destroy our preemptive destinies

And create new ones for ourselves

You can call us revolutionaries,

Or hopeless romantics

Inlove with life and its soil

And sand and toils and

Hands held and

Beverages boiled

Beauty is skin deep,

But diamonds cut farther.

You are a deep cut

That bleeds and bleeds

That wants to be freed

You are burnt skin that peels

A medication that heals

You are the essence of life

And strife

And a beloved wife

You are swamps and rivers

You are the campfires

That cure the midnight pool shivers

You are the spark behind the lighter

A lover, a fighter

The smoke that drifts off the match

The wake and bake (the best batch)

I love you deeply, steeply,

And I love you to bits

Cheers that tea exists

With HAD on your cup

And my lipstick prints

With a pop of 2018 champagne,

I wish you a life free of pain,

A lack of fuckery,

And beauty to have the world slain

May your flesh be tattooed

And your toes sandy

Signed, Andie Pandie

Give me my name back
get it out of your false mouth and keep it out of your head
I'll take my naked body back from your dreams and my laughter from your unevolved heart
Before you put my name in your mouth to swallow it whole
Before you could bite off more than you could chew
Your name fell out of my mouth like old bubblegum, glue
And out of my head like something I never knew
I can feel my name on your teeth
The film on your smile
As if I'm every sip you take
Alcohol, poison, mistake
When you tell everyone about me, tell them how I was never yours to claim and give me back my name

If I am smudged eyes and soft lies
I hope you are clear sight and honest plight
We bite off more than we can chew
So we succumb to the ache of broken jaws
We question the universe and its laws
You are abundant and I am barely there
I am holding onto your image through stares
You are too little and I am too much
Because I can never get enough
But I have my hopes up
We keep trying as if pleading to a god
But there is no god, only love and too much of it
Only pain and a whole future to entertain
I play with the future in my brain
It looks nothing like yours but I keep molding it like clay until that day

I'm going to miss the way the light comes through these windows
I already miss how it hits your skin in the morning
Dogs at my feet, whining without warning
Humble breakfasts, feelings outpouring-
We were laying right here when you first said I love you
It felt too soon but now I wish I could count and swallow each one
I'm hungry for what we had once
We were drunken nights, fires, and an occasional good song
It wasn't healthy but it wasn't wrong
Each argument felt like a battle won
But we've been warriors for too long
It's time to come home
I'm walking away but I keep looking back
I forgot what home looks like without you
And I never wanted to find out
Love is a river and today is a drought
If your home is on fire, do you save something special or do you put it out?
The flames have dampened but the smoke still chokes me to tears
It burns with memories and fears
I wish I could wake up next to you one more time
I'd trace your tattoos with my eyes and try to memorize
I'd feel the warmth of your skin and never ask for fire again
But I am a hearth and I can't tame my own flame
You made me crazy but you kept me sane
And now I must confront forever and wait for my feelings to wane

Painfully wait for when 'I love you no matter what'
Becomes I love you- no.
don't matter.
what?

Today is upstream and I shiver in your wake
We're something groundbreaking, another earthquake
But what about groundfixing
Be the cement to my loose soil
I'll fall on bloodied knees to your concrete smiles

Yesterday was downstream
The taste of summer beguiles
We shimmer in the reflection of flames
We dance around what we need to say
But my heart remains contained
Run your hands through my roots
And plant me somewhere soon

My life feels like it was built on broken promises
Old stones stacked precariously as they were put
Ready to crumble for the next person to bring me to, ruin
Scattered stones turn to gravel and sand
And I become something people can reach, touch
I'm not a mountain, I'm a landscape
I spread my branches
And I'd rather grow outwards than upwards

I swear you make thunderstorms run up and down my spine
electricity,
tornadoes twist around my mind
I'm soft aggression like the wind
and I can't abide
But you like the way the wind runs its hands through your hair
You like my breath of fresh air
We mold into each other
Yet we pretend not to care
You close the door when it's raining
But you look out the window and stare
You long for adrenaline and dewy kisses
You keep the door closed and miss this.

I would have taken you in pieces if you'd have me whole
I would have taken your shatters and put them on a pedestal

Your presence is ever existent like the aloof sliver of a moon-
perseverating, too
I don't know why you affect me so much but you make me crazy and cold, full and warm
You are everything I didn't ask for.

And by the time you realize I'm exactly what you've wanted, I've begun to realize you're exactly what I don't.
Pity how time and harsh storms will weather a headstone.

If landscapes could make me love you more,
Then I must have seen what the sky has to offer
We must be panoramic
All-encompassing, omniscient
Love is a hard swallow
And you are the pill I take every day
I'm often reduced to tears, a dry throat
You never sugarcoat
But the view looks better without rose-tinted glasses
I wear them on the bridge of my nose but I peek over the rims
You accept me, my whims
And what's a storm without thunder
The rain subsides and
The sky is a deep blue that reminds me of my mother's eyes
This hue
Reminds me of infinite landscapes
And how much I love you

What do you mean? Shedding your skin and consuming it for nutrients is essential! The essentials, love breath and fire. I breathe fire when I speak and sometimes even when I mean to speak water. It bubbles up boiled. I like my shoes soiled. Don't un-scuff my scuffs. I put funhouse mirrors in the parlor. At least this time I can laugh at dysmorphia. I wonder what it's like to be morphia. I've tamed by brain since Tuesday. It's a no- shoes day. Scuffs all around. Scuffy, scuffy feet. Blisters like the wind. I'm hands and feet. Everything in between, obsolete. I'm brain sometimes too. But mostly feet. I need to ground myself. I've never been grounded, but I live in time-out. How do I flip time from outside, in? I fold each minute with the rest of the laundry. Bleach only. It's 10:55 somewhere. Some of somewhere is here. Some of it is elsewhere. Congratulations, it's brain o' clock! My psychiatrist rewarded me with a handshake. I'm finally touchable, within reach. I still shake in my sleep. I can put my thoughts in my pockets and save them for later. My pockets still have holes but there's a second layer. Antipsychotic or timeslayer?

There aren't many things that don't remind me of my mom,
She's the soft smell in my laundry,
The binding of my books
I miss her black eyed susans,
her blue eyed smiles
There's not a better blue than the one she & my brother bring to the world
She is patterned like tartan, counted stripes, and ducks in a row
She's sketched in sunlight and colored with rainbow
She's the first to rise and the first thing I want to see in the morning
Her laughter lies in my treasure box,
Her humming sends the heart home
When I'm the autumn coffee, bitter and complex,
She's the milky foam,
She's the caffeine without the side effects,
She's the calcium in my bones, the substance to my smile
She's the red in my blood, the blush in my cheeks
The flush in my ears, and the sundays of all my weeks
She's the comics in the newspaper,
She's the endless love behind every labor
Tea wouldn't taste the same without her
And she's a perfectionist,
So I can't help but think I'm perfectly made
Because of her

I think I like my life as a worn out Wes Anderson movie
Instead of pristine snow caps, I'm grey sludge, musky tastes of salt and gravel on the tip of the tongue, creeping up the cavities of my lungs
That coast reminded me of a muddy movie scene
Where's the version where the stones hurt your feet and the bank keeps the stench of carcass and earth?
The train tracks are my spine
And this café car is my chest, pulsating fast but even
Bridges make me uneasy, they are a little dance with death
I think approaching the afterlife is just as serene and seductively beckoning as the overlook
A couple blinks later, I'm somewhere else
But there's a haunting continuity, a sense of wholeness that tosses me with the ubiquitous leaves that reign after the rain
Some leaves still hang on, stubborn like yours truly
I hug my branches to myself
I hang on, too
The train rumbles past rusty soil
I like to relate to things and I like to think these fleeting sights like me almost as much as I like them
This filth has beauty so I'll allow myself be a disappointing form of being with potential for a subtle magnificence, too

Tones of grey
Spread like butter
On the canvas of my headspace
You bring the quiet and calm
To my rainbow palette of qualms
Holding me, molding me
You take me from vapor to solid
I'm the chaos of a turnstile but you're callused palms
I'm anywhere and everywhere but you bring me close
The night goes missing without you
I'm in purgatory
But looking into your eyes I see the map of where I'm supposed to be
Without a question,
My heart will always answer Anthony

I wish I was prettier than lies
I wish I had a grounding body
I want to be flightless
I'm stuck with air and bone
A head in the clouds
I wish you looked up more
I wish you'd bake in the burning rays that make me
What if you didn't avoid the sun
What if our bodies rested at the same time
And eloped together in the sunlight
What if there were trees and falling petals
But no shade to be found
What if you knocked me to the ground
I want to make your jaw drop
Your blood boil, your skin crawl
I want to make you feel alert and alive
I want to take it by stride
But I tip toe before I dive
The pads of my feet are wet with wonder
I leave footprints of jealousy
I reek of chlorine tears
The mop never dries
It just sits and waits in the closet
It's dark in here and I'm craving my sunshine
But you'd rather stay cool

I'm from Pennsylvania and its broken landscapes
Trees scale the sky with branches that don't end
Eggs crackle on the stove of your favorite diner, sunny side up
It's always sunny in Philadelphia
It's always rainy in the suburbs because the grass needs it
Or so dad says

I come from a place of constant decay
Historical avenues, local produce that actually goes 'vrot'
The leaves litter the earth but we litter it more
Old books decompose in desolate buildings and old art hears less footsteps as each season violently meets its end

It's cold now and the landscape is stiff
Imagine being so cold you just drop everything
Our trees do that
Like magic, or like troubled vagabonds
But imagine being so cold it brings happiness to your bones
Because home is ears flushed red and fingertips blue
Home is sweet strawberries in the summer and sweet suffering in the winter

Pennsylvania is a polarized wreck just like the rest of us
It's chipped right at the lip but it's still the mug that fits best in a calloused hand
It's clay and mud and d irty water and rud
Fields of corn and grain, apple orchards and more rain
But its the filth we dance in, the mud for our pies and the apples for our eyes

Memories stay behind as the shapes of clouds in those boundless skies
Berry stained fingertips graze their outlines
Haystacks beckon you to stay because
Pennsylvania provokes the hardest goodbyes

Once you have a heart raw in your hands,
it's easy to draw blood
it's heavy, gory,
content to be cradled
But tell me, how do you put a heart down without hurting it?
Do you store it in a drawer? Will it keep fresh for later?
Do you lay it on the grass to decompose on its own?
Or do you pass it onto the next pair of unsure hands?
Blood leaks through my digits with every tremor
I take the heart in my hands and put it back into his
It's the ghostly familiarity that hurts
The blood stains my hands and the weight tires his
I love and hate the emptiness, my arms become light and turn into wings
But I didn't ask for them and I don't know how to be grateful
On to the next blood