Now I lay me down to sleep
I want for nothing more than to bury thoughts deep
Escape the wretches the day has brought
The wars, the sadness, the world has wrought
If I pass away in peaceful sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake
No more days should I have to ache
For this world has kept me far too long
It is time to hear my mellow swan song
If my soul is pure enough before morning wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
The four corners to my bed,
Surround me with the utmost dread
I know there is nothing left for me
My soul is nothing more than a sad story
I'm sorry for whatever path my carriers must tread, to the
Four angels round my head;
Who should know that, in life, from my troubles I fled
A noble life is not one that I chose
But I'm ready for an ending, for angels, I suppose
One to watch and one to pray
So they will carry out my day
I will never see the morning light
I planned for dying on this night,
These angels will keep my suffering at bay, thankfully, there is
Two to bear my heavy soul away.

There is no worse feeling
Than nothing at all.
It's scary,
It's dark,
and it's lonely.

And it's kind of like the night.

Kind of like I am the moon.
And I am suspended above everyone else,
Flying high above in the risers, looking down at the actors on the stage,
On the people in the town
Conversing, falling in love, having fun, simply being
And I am up here
And I am alone.
I am the light to guide everyone's night
But they still don't see me.
I am at least one of two constants in their lives
And they still forget that I am here.
I will fall, I will rise again, and I will continue this cycle
I will swallow my feelings because
I have to
Because the town will turn to shambles if I don't.
I am not sure if I am comfortable with being this constant for everyone
I do not know if this something I should be okay with
If I should be okay with being absolutely nothing but
Something that is there.
I have nobody, but I am still there.
I am still here, don't you remember me?

Why won't you remember me?

Do you ever want to die
Not only because sometimes
It just seems like where you need to go,
But to see how the world would change?
Who grieves, who adjusts, who comes forward,
What would be formed, what would cease to exist?
However, there's the reason to skirt around-
This minuscule grey area, that is,
At best, continuously evolving in certain situations-
And right there, as if waiting- the want to die
Simply because that's just what seems to be left
That would make me different,
I would have something to myself
I don't have to see if things get better before they get worse.
Well, speaking of my first list-
Out of the two reasons, the latter of which
I am forever curious about,
I am most scared of wanting the former.

you have a match doused in gasoline
held to the flames
destructive, powerful, filled with potential

but you can't let go
what if it explodes?
who will get hurt?

listen- find this person,
and for the love of god,
hold onto them

find someone who is not afraid to throw your match into the fire
to ignite the burn in your soul
who wants you to let go of it all,

to let go of the destructive match holding you back
find someone who is not afraid to soak your troubles
and toss them into the flames

find someone who loves you so much
that they will sacrifice their burns
so that they can help heal yours

find this person,
and for the love of god,
hold onto them

Your generation is defined by definitions.
'This generation', this new-fangled bunch of hooligans
Cut out and put in the oven,
Lives pre-formed, based on premonitions,
Put into the system and cranked out
Made up of numbers and tests that really define who you are.
'This generation' that you have given a set of rules
A set of molds to fit into
To pour their lives out and 'better the world'
Shaped with your all-knowing tools
Scissors that cut funding to the parts that maybe,
Perhaps, might make them an individual.
Because here, no, here we don't have room for individuality
But we sure have room for this assembly
Your freedom of religion, speech, and freedom to assemble
No room for that, for fear of immorality
We don't have time for originals, we don't have time for strays
I'm sorry that you've got ideas, Generation Y
But this is the generation of time constraints.
We've got technology to innovate, an ozone to fit
Communities to build and lives put at risk
But that's not as important as what's in the now
No, not as important as these tucks and nips
We've got to put you under the needle
Even after we swore, 'first do no harm',
But this isn't going to hurt, I swear
Well, maybe not on the outside.
Look here, Y, you'd be better off compliant
To fix our computers and drive our trucks
To turn off your TVs and just trust us
To read the chapter and finish the assignment
Because to us, you all learn the same,
To us you are still just a number
Even if you think you're out when you graduate.
So what, you graduated the system,
And it's done it's work on you
Have your daddy pick the college and your mama pick the sheets
Pack your bags, you're ready for the big world
And that's exactly what we made you think.
Generation Y, you are fitting into the molds we gave you
We tried to crank you out in groups of 300
And we did
You were never allowed to be original
And you weren't.
Generation Y, this cookie-cutter, uniform
'Glued to technology', uninterested
Group of 'stupid' teenagers
You were forced to unify
And forced into corrals, thereby,
Forced into lives we've blessed you with.
I swear, by my very intelligence
That we're good by you, good by the world
In evaluating what we need
Where we need people
Hopefully creating a society less-gnarled
Generation Y, you may hate the population
But you are the population
And you are what we told you to be.
Your lives were pre-formed from day one,
So, please,
Sit down, shut up, finish your definitions,
And stop asking why.

Empty hands and love wasted
Wasted, the state of being wasted
Drunk on love
Or high on life
Perhaps intoxicated with the idea
Breathing in the fumes of both
Hookah and happiness
Crushed up pills meant to calm anxiety
Only calm their mind
Not the body, not the syncopated motions
Not the actions in which they're partaking
Crushed up pills, crushed up souls,
Uppers and downers so that maybe
While their mind is numb,
Their body sure isn't,
Maybe for a moment they don't have to think
About what love actually is.

Flames will fade too,
Burn bright and hot until a smolder
Until fleeting breaths of wind or water
Put out it's last embers.
And I, I am this fire
Ceaselessly burning,
Incandescence,
Flames twirling,
Dancing as if nobody had extinguished me yet
Until someone does.
Until the water is splashed
And my fire dies.
But as oxygen is to flame,
Willpower is to determination
And my embers will not be put out
I will burn what has given to me until incineration.
I ingest this wood, these obstacles,
As a hungry child
I engulf forests for breakfast
Because fire is natural
And you cannot tame what is wild.
You can douse the coals after my destruction
But I can rip through your town
I will sear your very existence
To the ground.
I can be put out, as if I was never there
But the grass around me
And what I have left in my path
Is not the same, nor will it ever be.
Oh yes, embers die, too, you know-
But keep in mind that while you may strike the box,
I'm sure that you never lit the match
With the intent to start a fire.

She'd started watching 1950's informational videos.
You were accepted for being outside the box
And she was everything except in it.
Class president kids used to be reviled
Elections were exciting, polls came in,
And now... now what was it?
Something she should be ashamed of.
Because she cannot dance in a short skirt in front of a crowd
But instead because she plays the music
For the girls in the short skirts
Band uniforms like shells she can hide inside
Because while it's not something the other kids love,
It's what she loves.
Tennis dresses like skin without makeup
Student council shirts that finally fit,
That she feels like she can finally fill out
Unlike the jeans that she can't.
Golf jersey tossed aside, brushes and pencils picked up
Volunteer work piled in
Piling into the plays and new experiences
And acceleration, constant growing,
Growing out of shells that she used to love
And gaining skins that she loves even more
Looking back and seeing that the girls in short skirts
On the sidelines, on the gym floors,
Had not shed anything yet
Had not grown.
They were walking, she was running
Toward the end of high school, toward a goal,
To see how high in the sky they could get,
To see how high in confidence and compassion she could reach
They shed clothes, she shed skin and shells
They were permanent, fearing change
She was evolving, embracing it.

To love as freely as a child again.
Like a child, afraid of going to school
Afraid to leave their mother and father
For fear that they won't be here when she comes home
Fear of cooties from the boys
Boys that eventually become an elementary crush
A crush that blossoms into middle school feelings
Feelings that will be brushed off by friends
Friends who leave her unattended at the most vulnerable times
Where vulnerability renders her temporarily blind
Temporarily stuck in a hopeless place she can't escape
A place so desperate she can't imagine life without it-
And to imagine- she isn't even done with freshman year.
To hope that the years will roll by fast enough
So fast she can't acknowledge that they go by
Can't acknowledge the feelings she's putting herself through
She's killing herself, and nobody seems to realize yet.
To feel as if whatever-God-is-out-there must,
To listen as if prayers were flooding in minute by minute
Prayers to end the pain,
Pain that she shares,
But cannot share because nobody will hear her
Her prayers drift by silent ears and go unnoticed
And when turned-off ears fail to hear her,
Her anger doesn't fail to boil up, to create something horrible,
Something horrible that has never really been her
Something she never realized she had
Until she realized something else.
To let anger and sadness take control in such a strong way,
Something else had to stop being in control-
To love as freely as a child again.
Not only to love others,
But herself.

I handed you the knife that hurts me to this day.
Every piercing word, you twist it deeper
Until it flirts with the part of me that is lit on fire with a certain lust
That, while infuriating, is hot enough to make me want more
To this day I continue to hate every utterance containing your name
That name belongs to me, it is supposed to be mine,
As you led me to believe,
As you shove a sword deeper into my gut
Farther, until the fire and coals that were lust and love
Are poked out with the dagger I gave you.
And to this day I walk with wounds
I sit with scars and burns,
Engraved with your name, every time,
Every time I heard your name- scalded
Every time you said the words- knives twisted
And even when these coals were at their hottest,
With no qualms about fading out,
They were managed to be calmed, to be soothed,
Into what I have become today.
To this day I am scarred, burned, and with sword in stomach
But I am here, with new knife in hand,
And you cannot burn me again.

I am the person your mother warned you about.
I am the person you are not supposed to get on the motorcycle with
Because I cannot drive,
I do not have a motorcycle
And I am rebellious enough to have no helmet on my unkempt hair.
I will take you places late at night
And sneak into abandon buildings
To show you the abandoned pieces of my heart
And the parts of me that don't belong to anything
I will show you where to put them and desperately hope
That you can put them back for me.
I am the kind of person that came to sweep you off you feet
In whimsical dreams even Dorothy would love to have
And I will take you to beautiful places over the rainbow
You will feel things over the moon.
But I possess this unnatural power to break beautiful things
And even though it seems we are happy,
My brokenness cannot be mended by someone so special
So I continue to break another perfect thing.
I will break you and the beautiful places so unintentionally-
it's almost graceful
I will hurt you in ways so you cannot return to these places
Not with me, not with another girl or anyone
Because I tried to be mended and rebellious
To keep our wrists and hearts intact
But I am another broken person who is afraid to drag you down with me
I fear of breaking your heart so hard that you cannot be mended either
I am afraid to hurt you on the motorcycle that I wish I could ride
I do not want you to fall in love with the person I want to be
I want to be spontaneous enough to take you to beautiful places
To kiss you in them and to open my heart
I want to be these things because you need wonderful things
The same way I need to understand you want to help me
I want to be these beautiful things for you
But I am not the person your mother warned you about.

I long for the autumn that defines my year
Where I can finally measure up
I can finally become the person that the people I surround myself with
Already are
For colder weather that indicates seasons for sports that I play
Simply to say that I've done something
To say that I have seen a glimmer of what it's like
To do something that people will love.
For fall to arrive and to immerse myself in stress
So I can stop thinking about my future
About my obligations
And focus on being something that people will love
Transform myself into something they think is better than who I am
And perhaps stop asking myself,
Perhaps I will stop repeating the mantra, the age-old question-
Why do I surround myself with people that are better than me?
As if it is a contest and I am the only competitor
Racing, racing to the top
Hoping to see what exactly is over this wall that my friends have seen
To measure up in age, in accomplishments, concerts, grades
Why am I the jack of all trades and the master of none?
I can do so much, I meet requirements
How is this town okay with simply meeting requirements?
...And then I realized something.
I long for autumn, for the seasons that represent change
Not because I am in dire need of new things to do
To possibly prove myself worthy
But because it means I am one season closer to leaving a town and people
Who are okay with meeting requirements
And I am one step closer, one step higher,
To reaching things that supersede any requirement given to me.

What in whoever-the-hell's-up-there name am I doing?
Who am I to question history?
Follow the lines of this directed system,
Make yourself appear kind and gentle enough
To be accepted into afterlives put forth by humans
Who waste their here-lives mauling over what if's-
What if they're right?
But whoever the hell I have to **** up to, God, what if they're wrong?
Do I risk my spot among the great
In order to live the life I want to while I still know it's real?
I cannot question the tangibility of this world because the key word here-
Tangible- tangible, I can feel you, I can feel the grass
And I can feel these people and because you are real
I am not alone.
I cannot depend on something that isn't tactile, that isn't tangible
Because I cannot touch what I don't know
I cannot touch what can be speculated as unreal.
But who am I to judge what is real and unreal?
If there is nothing unreal to depend on, no god or supreme beings,
No something that is controlling my very being,
Then why do I chew on the idea that it could be real?
Tell me, what constitutes something real?

When I travel, I find home.
Home is so strictly defined and constricted
****** in, forced to **** in,
Constrictions put forth by suffocating friends
Where small towns tighten the rope
It has placed around my neck.
I am the dog on the leash that is surrounded
By every tree and every ball in the biggest park
Who is tied to the tree and forgotten
Beaten and told to stay.
We grow up being force fed the idea of thinking small,
Staying small, working small, living small
But this world is too big to live small!
I travel and find the people that I call home
I find the shacks and shanties and weathered souls
And every single person you and I will meet,
Mutual or not,
Knows something that you and I don't know
And if that doesn't spark enough curiosity,
Get out of the house.
There is so much to learn and so much to absorb
And maybe your house is your home
Everyone, at some point, has a home,
Some just travel with you,
Others you have to find.

How tragic it is to be a thinker.
To have such a remarkable ability
To possess something that creates
While, in that process, destroys.
I associate with a group of thinkers
With no clear place to direct our ideas
So they bounce around in our heads
Gaining force and speed
Becoming more and more painful
Until you can label our brains
As a weapon of self-destruction.
I associate with a group of thinkers
Who have thought themselves
Into pits of depression
Because numbers and endless possibilities
Never stop filtering through their head.
How sad it is that I associate with people that I can't help
I am friends with people
Who have driven themselves into introversion
People that have too many thoughts to collaborate on
But have catapulted themselves into the depths of their own mind
An entirely too frightening place to be
On your own.
How tragic it is to be listening to your friends
Evaluating his state of mind
While you sit in the back of the car
And stare at the analog clock on the dashboard
Thinking about different number combinations for 12:36
That 1x2x3=6 and 1+2+3=6 and 6-3=2+1 and 6/3=2+1
How tragic it is to associate with a group of thinkers
With no clear place to direct their thoughts
And to be a person who cannot pull their friends out
From the murky waters of their own mind
Let alone herself.

Every time
A car saunters by
In the blistering heat
Breaking up the visible waves
And making my heart skip a beat
I think of how unholy I must seem now
Only because you simply
Cannot, will not
Just leave me alone.
I'm shutting myself in
In my house, in my mind
Because I am so afraid
Of confrontation with you
Of interrogation
Of your judging looks and incriminating comments
That make me feel even worse
I'm scared to go back
You have scared me out of religion
Out of believing
You have shut me in
Like you tried to shove me into the doors of your church.
Every time a white truck
Pulls into the driveway across the street
Of just how everyone is a sinner
How you have tied me down there forever
How lost I am, when I know right where to go
How you shut me in and secured the doors
Removed my comfort and injected paranoia
Just leave me alone
In my shut-in mind
Because I do not want to go back to your church.
*******.

He slams the door
To walk outside and continue to grill
And I remember that it's 5 o'clock on Sunday
Prime time for him to be sleeping
I remember all the Sundays when I was little
How I would cry my eyes out
I dreaded the thought of going to school the next day
Because I would have to leave my parents
Particularly, my father
How I would beg for him to come to school with me
Begging because I missed him so much.
I remember the Sunday when I came in carrying a box
When he was slamming the door, when he broke a mug
How I heard him yell and I threw down the box
How I ran into the garage to cry
When he came out and hugged me
And I cried and bawled and hugged him harder than ever before
How these Sundays have changed to doors slamming
To headphones and the grill going
To falling asleep shortly after 5,
How they have not changed in the fact
That I still sometimes cry on Sundays,
Shortly after 5 o'clock.

The news that I'm not getting better
I would say is entirely true
If better is not crying at every last thought
And news means it hasn't got to you.
It travels too fast for me to catch up
Which I say like I wanted it to
But I never thought I'd decline like this
That I'd push away my one of the few.
Tonight I'll have dreams of my laughter
And wander around houses of glass
Resist all impulses to break down the walls
With the sticks and the stones of my past.
I'll regret all the choices that I ever have made
Apologize for what I have done
Shove feel-better statements down my plugged-up throat
And accept that I might as well be shunned.
I'll lock myself up in this mountain of glass
Look through glass that I'll wish you won't see
My appearance is enough to explain to you
I'm too broken to convey any feelings.

He noticed the little things
Like how she would cry and grip the steering wheel
Pull over,
And pinch the inside of her palm
As if trying to reignite the fire that her tears put out
How she held on to her skin so tight
That the tips of her fingernails changed from rosy pink
To a suffocating and painful ivory
How she would cry and cry
And how she would wait until her palms bled
And how she sniffled one last time,
Wiped her palms on her pants
How every time she did this, she drove home silently
She noticed how he could not say a word
How he must be utterly repulsed by her
By how turned around she gets
He must not be able to react to her abnormal ways
Of dealing with copious amount of stress and anxiety
She noticed the little things
Like how he wouldn't know how to take care of her
How she was trapped
How she couldn't pinch herself out of this world
How she didn't want to die,
But simply cease to exist
How she knew she couldn't ask him to help her
"Can you pinch me out of this world?"
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"You're the only person I have that brings me back
When I sometimes pinch myself too hard."
They also failed to notice the larger things
Like how he held her in his lap
And let her pinch to make her stop crying
How she brushed his hair back when he couldn't stop
How they kept a box of tissues in the car for moments like this
When the other would need to pinch for a while
To make the crying stop
To deal with this abnormal way of coping with things
To make the other remember
That it might not be so bad to have someone to help you
Get out of a pinch, after all.

If friends and courage were a game,
I'd be losing.
If ******* up was the tryouts,
I'd have a guaranteed spot.
If the lonely kids were a team,
I'd be on varsity.
High school
And the sports in it
Is such
a
drag.

If a losing varsity team would allow it,
I'd rather take one instead.

Can't sleep
But I wake up
In a dim lit room
From lamps on the street
Can't move
But my arms will sink
Into the covers
Where I don't have to think
Can't yell
'Cause quicksand is thick
Down my throat
I'd rather give in
Enveloped by blankets
Swallowing tears
Dying like this
I'm facing my fears
Of death and the darkness
I'm deaf and I'm blind
Get me out of this hell
And more importantly,
My mind.

Amid the feelings in this ocean of utter confusion
More commonly known as the world
Feeling nothing
And sinking, sinking, sinking
With an anchor around my neck and bricks in my heart
Has got to be the worst of all.

These subcategories of articles
That separate theory from fact
Are lines that, really,
Are quite unclearly drawn.
Categories for theory and qualia
That put me under the impression
That everything is based on a conjecture
And it's all in my head.
Qualia is defined as being subject
To your sense perceptions
Brought on by stimulation of phenomena.
Theory is a system of ideas used
To explain something.
But don't we theorize everything,
Based on our qualia?
If we perceive that a rose is red,
And we theorize that this type of rose
Will always be red because we will always see it red,
Does that really make it red?
Is my red your green,
And you only call it red because to you need to call it something?
Or is that just our theory that to be comfortable
Is to fit in and be accepted by everyone?
And that to challenge what is called fact
Is to be rejected?
Where do we draw the line
In these thickly worded and sinking articles?
Is it where we can finally say that
Everything is based on theory that our qualia subjects us to?
If so, am I under the correct theory that
I really am alone?
That my sense perceptions just play tricks on me
So I don't think to hard, or go insane?
Is insanity just theory based on qualia?
Or maybe I should be under the theory
That being a thinker like this
Subjects me to the unpleasant qualia of a perceived headache.

In the tendons and the ridges
In the knuckles under your skin
I find it perfectly treacherous
When it makes me take everything into consideration.
As if simply holding hands is to be raw
That this human impulse is more than just that
And to be intertwined with a person
Is to be connected with their world!
I am reminded of how treacherous it is
To think them,
To think anyone,
Is more than a person.
In the knuckles at the base of every finger
Is where I will find a lack of uniformity
And be reminded that imperfections
Will keep us human.
We are allowed to connect with others
We are allowed to enjoy non-uniformity!
But, if by chance, I get caught up
In the thought of being with someone
Who is anything more than human,
Committing the most treacherous and humanly crime possible
Will bring me right back down to being simply human again.

What do you do?
When you feel stuck,
When you can't go anywhere?
When you're fortunate enough
To be unfortunate enough to have
One of the best opportunities you've had
Come to an end?
Don't all good things come to an end?
Do great things start again?
What happens when I am stationary?
When my friends advance past,
And I return to dust?
When I am left to my thoughts
That have already abandoned my opportunities?
What happens if Studio 7 was my only chance?
What happens when what I decided I want to do
Doesn't work out?
When my reliability becomes my worst enemy?
Most importantly,
Why am I so afraid of the future?

The wind nips at my cheeks
Making them pinker
Than I had intended
Making me look more alive
Than I had hoped
Making me wish I was in the ground
Fake pink lips, fake pink blouse,
Real pale skin
Where everyone, for so long,
Has said I should be.

To live extraordinarily
To let die simply
To live and die on a day
Where you took the simple
And thought it extraordinary
Is one of the most appreciated talents
A person can possess
To live without boundaries
Without fear and hesitance
And to live without regrets
About what you did do
Instead of wishing you did
What you didn't do
Perhaps to live simply
Is to live extraordinary
To die having done what you love
Having loved who you want
Is to have taken the extraordinary
From the simple
And to have lived and died on a day
When you and the people around you
Noticed how many extraordinary things
Could come from something as simple
As life and love.

There are positions I can take
That can please him
Tease him
Or the other way around
But no role is harder
Than playing doctor
And trying to fix your own
Shaken up, stirred ground.
I can be the lustrous one
If thats how he wants me
I only want to mend beauty
From trash
From a mistress into me.
He built bridges with his arms
I will tear down his fortress
This king may have it all
And I'm just afraid to lose it.
I fear I don't know how
To use the sewing machine
That stitches up my fate
My feelings
The trash he made me feel like
Into kingdoms of gold
And ground thats safe to walk on.
I can try to mend myself
Put together broken ends
But I can't claim this battle
When it seems that
He doesn't want me to win.

You are not condemned
To the confines of life
Nor the sounds of being locked in
And hit by dirt
You do not belong
To the flowers they send
The wishes they write
Or the tree they plant in your name
You are not prisoner
To a shallow grave
And a shallower gravestone
Not even to the duties you left behind
You have not been claimed
By the years you will not see
The tears you cannot dry
Or the hugs you cannot return
You are not captive
To the sounds and words
That defined you
Or the way people shaped you
Because you are free from condemnation
From the clutch of sickness
Free to leave and wipe the tears
And hug the ones that hesitate
To throw the dirt over the years
You are free from prison,
From proclamation,
From captivity and condemnation
To help and to inspire
And to free others from a prison
Of grief.

Maybe I should wake the neighbors up
Play my favorite song
And wait for them to interrupt
Maybe I should throw plates off the Grand Canyon
Scream to no one
Just because nobody told me I can't
Maybe I will appreciate someone for the fact
That they'll be the neighbor
That runs to sing to with me
Turns it up louder
Throws plates at walls
Screams just to hear their voice
And does things because nobody said
They can't.

Stick your arm through your chest
And pull out your heart
I guess forgetting all love
Is a good place to start.
Keep your hands ******
Leave your chest bare
And if somebody shut it
I guess they might care.
But until they can prove it
Keep shining your sheath
Apply some dark eyeliner
And sharpen your teeth.
Keep your friends close
And nobody closer
Lonely sounds better
Than whiny push over.
Preach what you practice
Take your advice
Bad pastor, good cop
Either way, don't play nice.
Because look where that got you
All this anger and hate
I guess if they loved you
You wouldn't be in this place.
So be ruthless and heartless
All the 'less-es' out there
Keep the blood on your hands
If that makes them care.
Throw your heart on the floor
And love with it, too
They wouldn't have laughed
If they truly loved you.

Things come from all things
Matter cannot be created
It can't be destroyed
But like all things,
Everything comes from something
Like thoughts from brains
Brains from bodies
Bodies from a woman
Put in that state from ***
*** from love (hopefully)
Love from interaction
Interaction from thought.
So the physicists and scientists
Might be right
But it's not true that all matter
Cannot be destroyed
Someone created a body
But that, I have too often seen,
Is destroyed
Because of thoughts
Or maybe love
Could be interaction or brains
But at least some matter
Can be
Has been
Destroyed.

She knew better than that
Should've known not to fall for boys
Not to fall for him especially
To fall so deep into something
Deep into a pit he created
The pit he dug deep with words
That made her so tiny she couldn't escape
Made her even smaller than she already was
Small enough to see her bones
To see everything she had exposed
Everything except her heart
The heart that ignored her brain when it told her
She knew better than to fall for boys like that.

I'm a liar
And a sinner
Some are gamblers
Others winners
There are riders
Live-to-die-ers
And ones unlike you
She's a cheater
He's a keeper
Many blind to see
There are hiders
Some are whiners
They sound the same to me
Wish we may
They wish they might
That maybe they can change tonight
From sinners, lovers
And ****** to mothers
God, I'd promise if you'd help me tonight
Let it last
Just one last time
Then take these labels out of sight.

I would like to say that I am unlike the rest
But in saying that
I embody the rest
I would also like to say that I'm truthful
But in also saying that
I make myself good at lying
Dangerously good, in fact,
That I can make myself believe
I'm a good liar
And I think it would be nice to say
That I am bigger than what I think I am
That my ideas are more than ideas
But in saying that
I am both a liar
And honest
I am being both unlike the rest
And exactly like everyone else
Because we all believe we are bigger
But we can only believe that
For as long as we are honest with ourselves
Honest and lying,
Because thats what we are
I will be honest about this lie
About how we will wake up with these ideas
That are so much bigger than us
That are bigger than everyone else's ideas
So we can put them off
Until we better ourselves
Until we become richer others
Until we land the job
Until we quit the job
Until we meet our soul mate
Or until we are divorced
Whether we are waiting for a career
Or until tomorrow, when it's better than today
Or until we stop lying
Maybe when our dreams get smaller
So we think we can tackle them
Or maybe we're waiting for nothing
And maybe we're wasting time waiting
I'm going to stop honestly lying
About my dreams and ideas
That are bigger than myself
And adopt the motto,
"If not now, when?"

Streets as hot as metal
Where bodies turn to ice
Bullets litter cracked sidewalks
That broke the sad stoplights.
Laughs flood through the fences
With shattered slides and dreams
The man passed by this every day
With feelings that tested seams.
Every day, the same old thing
Drugs erupting from the bricks
Graffiti covering an old cafe
Crime makes this city tick.
Another young kid crying
For he hasn't got a home
Another car's been totaled
The wrath road rage has shown.
Another playground built again
Trying to make the town look clean
He can't ignore the orange jumpsuits
That stick around to plant some trees.
Blood stains here and flowers there
Take a stroll down Contrast Street
Ignoring grimy street vendors
Cause he's heard they've got the creeps.
Another gun shot in the air
Another cry for help
Another pretty restaurant
And people trying to convince themselves.
That maybe it's not happening
Someone will come along who cares
Someone else, take care of that!
Me? No, don't you even dare.
So I guess this can just keep happening
These walking contradictories
You're defeating your own purpose
We're losing, don't you see?

There's this special seed inside of us
That glitters, shines, and grows
Planted by an equally special person
One that everybody knows.
The one that woke up early this morning
And downed their coffee for the day
While you dig out your favorite shirt
And they keep their nerves at bay.
The person that decorates for new children
Hangs up posters and note cards
Tacks up the yearly alphabet trim
And clears the weeds from the school yard.
Stands and greets equally nervous kids
Hands them name tags and a book
And hopes that their anxiety melts away
To be excited like they should.
The history and math books open
Pages are assigned
They're there to help you through it
To make problems easier to find.
To journey across another dimension
Of equations and butterflies alike
That prepares you for ACTs ahead
And tests that you'll probably dislike.
Well, that's all fine and dandy
All these books and passing grades
But what's more important is the seed inside
That's planted in your brain.
The seed that fuels your drive to learn
Creates a light to help you grow
Makes you crave another book
Acquire everything there is to know.
And I know a certain farmer
That specializes in these seeds
Who wants to make you reach the top
So you'll realize everything you can be.
These farmers go by 'teachers'
The most amazing you can find
Because of them, I try to be my best
So I thank my teachers for their time.

My only shining armor
Is wearing no brands across my chest
My battle calls are telling them
That I don't go to rest.
My metal shaped from experience
Swords fashioned in the fire
Drums fitted, screaming the harshest words
To **** your hateful admirers.
Uniforms made of the sharpest silver
Chains clinking, dragging along
Galloping horses through the fields
As we screech the freedom song.
"Break my heart, you will no more!
My deepest enemies and fiends-
You brought out the darkest monster
When you took out other queens!"
Bayonets line up to shoot
And all our eyes look deadly
You're lucky I banded everyone up
Or you'd be dead already.
Instead I built you my army
We wear mascara instead of masks
The same mascara we reapplied
Before we took up arms and axes.
I fix my piercings up my ears
Make sure my shirt's in place
Before I call my girls to start
They make sure you know our grace.
"How dare you take another out!
That queen has slept with many!
I bet you couldn't pay her enough!
Bet she only asked a penny!"
"Called me names, guess what, my dear?
You cannot speak anymore!
For when I am all finished with you,
You won't be able to utter '*****'!"
Standing afar, my troops take back
All feeling they have lost
So next time you try to hurt one of us,
Remember just who's boss.

How beautiful I felt
When my dress was as dark as the night sky
And when sequins sparkle like stars
Like when we ran up the hill and forgot for a moment
About how our lives flash by
How the stars I love are dead
And how the spitting rain was ruining my dress
The dress that I pulled from the sky
And when my hair was falling out
And I held my shoes by the heels
And life by the hands
And when, in that moment, I was dressed like the night
How the statues came to life
And the empty parking lots stayed empty
And the cars on the highway were my spotlights
How beautiful I felt
When, for a moment, I was dressed in night
On the top of a hill
Getting wetter by the minute
And forgetting that, in the long run,
I should be caring about this
About how the stars were dead
And life is short
And my dress is getting wet
And my hair is falling out
But I wasn't.

I haven't decided if he's bearded and white
If he's Asian
Or maybe African American
Or we could be praying to a one-eyed,
One-horned,
Flying, purple, people-eater
And we wouldn't know
Because what if that happens after we die?
Unless you're like the miracles from the books
Where you die and talk to God and come back
Or if He talks to you on a regular basis
Or maybe we have it wrong and He prefers to be a She
And we wouldn't know
It's out of our realm
We don't know
And you can't tell me what I need to believe
Because we're both still trying to figure it out
Because we are people
And most of the time
Questioning exactly what I'm being told not to question
Seems like exactly what I want to do.

You know something happened
When every teacher walks into the hall
And a shared, scared glance sweeps across everyone
When your friend walks into the room and tells you
And the teacher brings you into a class of strangers
To tell you how much you mean to her.
You know something happened
When she starts crying and telling you
That she can't sugarcoat it even if she wanted to
And when you walk into your next class
And the room is silent
But the teacher didn't tell them to be.
And when there is a staff member at every corner
And when there is silence in the halls
And how you didn't even know him
But it makes you sad as well.
And how every stranger to walk in the building
Could feel the tension in the air
And how you turn the corner and see your youth pastor
And how you can't even tell your best friend how you feel
And how the silence shows you that through tragedy,
We are one.
And how the silence told me that we unite through feeling,
An unspoken feeling,
A silent tribute throughout the halls
Throughout the day.
And how you see the sadness, the tissues and hugs,
And how you wonder if that's how he felt
Before it happened
Before any of us felt this way
And you wonder if he felt this feeling
The beautiful high school quarterback
With everything seemingly perfect
And you wonder if he felt this way-
numb.

The only thing worse than being bored
Is why
Because there's a world of things I can do
There is a backyard for me
And a field behind it
And a perfectly good road to walk down.
I have a dog
And a pen and paper
And papers that someone scrawled on
So I can immerse myself in fictitious problems
And imagine mine don't exist
But I have the audacity to say I have some.
There is a universe to study
Languages to learn
Math to ignore (because I hate it)
Religions to think about
And a ceiling that is in desperate need of staring at
Because it's been a few days since I've done that
But somehow
I'm being compelled to tap little squares
On a fancy opening book
With signals being sent and people waiting to read it.
And somehow
Even though there's all these amazing things happening
People meeting people
Crying, laughing, hugging
Exploring, calculating, and doing what they love
I am sitting here
And I am typing
And that's just what I want to be doing.

A million words cannot describe
The way I looked at her
A thousand times I've tried to say
The kinds of feelings that occur.
And a hundred wishes I have said
Wishing I just said no
But other things she wished to chase,
"If you love her, let her go."
Walking lands I wish I knew
Seeing people may have changed
Was I really gone for that long?
She's made me feel estranged!
Learn to walk and live again
Like a toddler in the snow
Finding new and wondrous things
"If you love her, let her go."
I loved her, lost her
Found her again
She asked to leave, I should've said no
I'm thinking about it too much now
I loved her, but I let her go.