I can only say
I love you
So much
Until I realize
The reason
You don't hear
Is because I am
Saying it
*In my head

My heart must be fooling me

l am the familiar unfamiliar.
I am a house of bones working as your cage of sorrow.
I am the three o’clock suicide hotline call your mom doesn’t know about.
I am your shallow breathing.
On a clear, cold night I am the emerald flash
Of the dying sun on the ocean.
Blink, and I’ll be gone.
I am the lukewarm coffee you force yourself to finish at the cafe.
Bitter, cold, and disappointing,
But you can’t stop drinking.
You once told me that coffee was the only thing keeping you alive,
So I pulled the plug on the machine.
I am the regret you throw up from your weekend binging routines,
Spilling from your mouth and falling off your lips like lava.
You could never keep me down.
I am Van Gogh, cutting my own ear off
In attempts to get your love.
I didn’t realize that giving it to you meant throwing a piece of myself away.
I am the earthquake that shattered the foundation of Los Angeles
just because I could.
After all, you always said you liked disaster.
On the nights that you actually manage to sleep, I am the spider
That crawls into your mouth.
It’s always been my favorite place to go.
I will love you like a mother loves her unborn child,
Cherishing the sight of blood just because it reminds me of you.
I am the two things you hate the most,
Paper cuts and taxes.
I am the two things you love the most,
Smoking and forgetting.
When you go to light your lucky, I am the kiss
Between the flame and the paper:
Something you only want to do once.
But you don’t have a smokers cough for no reason.
I am the desire in a baby’s grip to hold his mothers hand.
But, I am the mother who never cared.
I am not the tropical showers everyone wishes for,
But the devastating monsoons.
I am the reason storms are named after people.
When the winds are howling and your fingers are blistered with frostbite,
You can count on me to not be there.
Your mother always warned you to wear a seatbelt,
For fear of a collision.
I am the windshield your head crashes through when you don’t listen,
Carving the word
“Guilt”
Into your scalp.
I only wanted to see how your brain worked
When you weren’t thinking of me.
I am the look on your best friends face when he catches you
Sleeping with his girlfriend.
I am the teeth you lose from the punch;
Hide me under a pillow and I’ll disappear.
I am your ravenous drug habit,
Breathe me in enough and I’ll give you a high
You could have never imagined.
I am addiction.
I am withdrawal.
I am the lies of God and the hope for redemption
At your AA meetings.
Talk me up enough and I’ll be truer than your fathers gambling habit.
I am the tears that fall from your grandfathers eyes
When you tell him about the last time you tried to **** yourself.
After all, it was just yesterday.
I am the stones you placed in your pockets
And the icy river you plunged yourself into.

I am not the stranger who saved you.


I will never be the one to save you.

In speech class they taught us that people speak only to entertain, to inform, or to persuade so when I texted you at 4:31am after swallowing the liquor cabinet and talked about three years ago in Michigan when we watched that movie after everybody else had fallen asleep, I was trying to entertain you, trying to remind you of all the fun we used to have together before you changed and when I told you I missed you I was trying to inform you of the pit in my stomach that you left when you removed yourself from me, of the way I feel when you say my name and of the fact that yes, I did notice that you stopped saying my name and when I told you I was dying I was trying to persuade you to come save me, made it life or death so you only had two options and if you made the wrong choice at least I wouldn't be around to see it, I was trying to convince you that you needed me by showing you how much you would miss me and when you showed up at my bedside, I know you were trying to tell me you loved me.

Anastasia was my friend
her face was always pale
she always wore a ribbon
& her daddy went to yale

she was the talk of all the playground
the new girl always is
excited, unready to settle
like her coke-a-cola's fizz

until she sat beside me
& tapped me very slow
"i want to run away," she said
"but i don't know where to go"

i too was quite unpleased
"come and follow me"
so there we packed our knapsacks
and took off for Belize

With shaken hands,
she reaches up with a wand in defeat.
Performing magic on herself,
Artifically covering what she wants to hide.

The blemishes, the mistakes
The hurt, she has felt.
The tear stains, quite possibly.
The facade does not mirror the interior.

The mascaras flakes off her lashes,
When she places more than she should.
But her hands shake too much, to stop.
All of it, she wanted to cover.

She hears the voices,
Telling her to stop, telling her to go on.
She does not hear them,
The pounding pain in her heart silences them all.

She continues, then it gets quiet.
But she still carries on.
Shattered breath, love that had left.
The tears drag the culprit down her cheeks.

She drops the wand,
All is gone.
But pain shall always prosper,
It shall always live on.

Through the quiet, yet labored breaths
A voice has returned,
The same voice has returned.
Asking her why she hides what she is.

She says,
You are the reason to start.
And you are the reason to stop.
What shall I do then?

You tell me yes,
then it changes to no.
Acceptance, than denial.
Back and forth again,
Swaying like a swing.

Whether up or down,
I am always left.
With this pain,
So how must I cope?

Split response ring through her ears,
Telling what to do.
Telling her things she does not want to hear.
So she hides, with hatred pouring down her face.

I live in a world,
That hates me. But loves me.
I am who I am by this world.
You are my world.

Now you know that I’m just a borderline
I’ll kick you out when my bloodstreams flow
Even if a firm hand on mine could stem it,
I let you in only to tickle the sinew and marrow
But I love you, true, you’re my only glass case
Needing you to borrow all my pain,
I pinned your wings and made you taste
The bile of my noncommittal pendulum again, again.
Between the tumult of self hatred and desire’s embrace
That dark dysphoria you found in seeing me
Enflamed loss when I left the mire of us
Without a battle calm instilled at the seams
Allowing our hearts in the rolls of our sleeves
We are dangerous.

I can create your world
I can even destroy it all
I’m not a reckless man
Nor someone wants to fall

I just want to live a life
Where your light is the call
Where happiness is the pillar
And your love is the whole

Abdullah Ayyash
April 08th, 2014