i am
afraid.



other people with their loves
               losses
              and lives
                                            and i sit here,
                                      filled and falling in fear
                                      grasping strips of veins
                     and drinking from rain
                                                            ­            pretending i
                                                                ­    don't
                                                                ­care.

i have found a hole of hurting
but my heart is whole besides
it seems the rivers still keep turning
and no love controls the tides

i have seen a little moonlight
i have loved a little less
i have watched my sisters fistfight
i have seen my mother kiss

i have held a hand in mourning
i have seen a girl in love
the differences aren't striking
when you're looking from above

i have told the truth at some times
and at others told a lie
i have felt a beam of sunshine
i have seen my father cry

i have found my hollow heaven
and it isn't far from home
i have lived a life of living
i will die at last alone

i have seen a thousand endings
i have felt a life begin
i have far preferred beginnings
but this is at an end.

i feel too angular for the round world we live in. i still can't figure out the difference between an inferiority and superiority complex, to me they look the same, and every step i take in my broken shoes feels like misspelling my own name. my fingers feel the wrong size but they're purple now so i guess that makes them better. i'm not better but i'm better at being worse. the words i write have lost their mystery. fitting myself between the lines on a page means paper-thin has become my identity. is this happiness? am i at ease, lying flat beneath a sheet of emptiness with pencil pressing into me?

do you drink the blood like i do? do you feel the venom the veins
do you feel demonic birthing pains
is there madness to her? is she the motive? the moral?
insanity in the mind, (the mind) not oral because
morals aren't found in red lakes, only found where girlish girls and cheesy cheese are called fake
only found where love rides the sheep costume for hate
searching for shepherds and morals, but of late
the motive ran away when you looked in its face
asking why the boy drank madness on trains
asking why people let venom run through their veins.

love,
except what i see
in you.

sometimes i talk too much about wanting to die
i don't really and thats why it's too much really
but running out of the doctors office crying
was a lot for someone who talks a lot about dying

and talking gets stale like crackers do and
people don't like stale food or stale words
but i haven't been out in a while
and these words are pretty much
all that i've got. i'm sorry.

this ,,hurricane in my chest cavity, it is TOO LARGE for me, i cannot cry this one away, i cannot choke down this cataclysm i was not built for devastation
     i only bruise my knuckles 'cause i cant contuse my mind,

                                                  lover mine.

carve yourself a niche, a vegetable garden of new
beginnings and secret
spearmints. celebrate your choices, your regrets. your
teary-eyed nostalgias


                                              lost pets

poem
i speak in butterflies
a chrysalis wrapped around my tongue
caterpillars make their homes in
the caverns of my lungs.

poem
two snakes intertwined in my intestines
the hiss of hunger curls out of my ears
yellow eyes behind a yellow smile
i sleep beside the fire for the year.

poem
my blood runs thin through
burrowed veins, the ants crawl slowly,
my arteries cave, the ants crawl slowly,
i know their names.

he said i make people feel special.
i said i'd heard that before.

it's that time of the year
again
full of dry skin and
dryer eyes
emotions feeling like
woollen sweaters
in the sunlight
feeling like regret, feeling
like very not right
feeling like the whole season
makes you sleepy, makes it night
darker mornings, darker times
and it's well known
we all feel a little more alone
at night.

come back to me when you finally realize
you can't find peace within yourself

i'd love to talk.

sugar
here, there
addiction is rare and
everywhere
holding your hand is
as much a need
as desire,
caffeine stings my
veins like
fire

cliche. here,
take two sips of
chamomile and be
at ease, sense the wariness
and illusion of pleasure
you force yourself to drink.
an un-addiction. is this
conviction?
someone told me beliefs are
things you hold and
convictions hold you. is
that true?

my anxiety holds me.
am i a convict
behind the bars
in my mind? i talk so
frequently
of the sentence i'm serving
i forgot jail was a place
inside me.
my reflection is my only visitor.
will you be visiting?

i feel TERRIFIED all the time i want to beat my head against my bedpost will i die will i will you cry? will the bedpost feel like he did when he used to try?
will the flowers bring me back or will i die?
SCARED SCARED SCARED
everyone sees me running out of air they see me breaking nails and pulling at my hair
nobody CARES
care care care

apology... accepted.
how is it i am meant to return fire with
a smile
i take every blow with the grace
i could never find in you.
do you rip kindness out of me
for the hell of it
or because you can't find
your own?

your voice sinks into my skin
you touch my hand in passing
your name steadies my fingers
but you leave me shaking inside
please never look at my eyes
(kiss me)  .
                    .
                       .  (look me in the eye) .

are you ever scared of the people you won't become

two statues in red as the bird growls. the small chatter of a bear in flight, chattering and the clouds fall into it. fairy light toads pop into the windows of her sweater. she is alone! and the popcorn sizzles. cooking another tea bottle, another burning cup! she eats it and her fingernails grow. contentment in the soul comes with leaves. soup them together! grow his hair! wrap yourself in shower water and breathe outward. the inward air grows stale and forgets its leaves. remember.

two deer walk together in the Deep Sea. neither better or alone. she holds them until her fingers bleed. red dowries.

i stopped thinking about big things a long time ago. i can't tell if i'm any healthier or cooler or if the apathy has improved my complexion. i feel lost, though. lost like a minnow in the wrong body of water, lost like i should be asking "why" instead of "where," like maybe the world is spinning like a top and i'm the fleck of dust it's spinning on. i feel like maybe the security is getting to me, like it's a trap, like maybe everything they told me i was looking for was a lie, a gold-painted idol placed in my hands when i reached for the sky. the sky doesn't show itself to me anymore and i can't figure out why, can't decipher the patches in my ceiling---why are there patches? if this was supposed to be picturesque where are the cameras?

why do i feel just as incomplete as i did before?

i think our souls will wrap around each other forever.
every moment we spend together feels like
dangling on a precipice and
coming home.
i think our souls will wrap around each other forever.

time has melted into molasses and i
am lost in the meaninglessness
of artificial
pleasure.
every truth scrapes
my stomach like shards
of glass
in the mirror i broke
denying myself.
identity is what you
call it, what you see,
what you allow
yourself
to be.
someone told me if you
drink too much honey all
at once
you die, it clogs your throat
and you choke because air
can't get through
all the honey.
i wonder if the same is true
for molasses.
time has melted and i
hold the flame, this spoonful
of molasses
sits on my tongue
until
i forget
my name.

grief is fingernails in your palm
when you're standing in a public restroom
wondering why everything feels wrong.

grief is not having worn mascara for four months
because streaked ink-black cheeks isn't a look
you want to be known for.

grief is dancing on the verge of tears
in a math class, because your mind wanders
too often and death looms too large to avoid.

loving burns,
but we can't get off it
lighting cigarettes and hearts
with the same matches
kissing, gasping
between the flames,
choking on smoke, ash
and asking each other's names
pretending they're not the next
candle, saying they're not the same;
everybody wants to feel loved,
everyone wants to feel sane
so between the kissing, the asking, and
lighting the same dead flames
we paint wildfires and suns
and pretend we're not mortal
we're not insane.

looking at the ocean,
                the stars,
     feeling the vastness and
futility
         of all the universe--
         do you feel the
         rumbling of the sea
         like a heartbeat?
         can you taste the
         stars?

your lover,
does he lie? does he
tell you that you're fine,
that you're wrong, that
you're losing your mind
does it all feel
like a sickly sweet song
written by someone
who doesn't know at all
what it is
to not want to go on?

your lover,
is he fine?
is he losing his mind
between your calls
and your wrongs
does he feel like a sickly sweet
song when you cry
and he dies
a little more inside
when he doesn't have anything more to do but lie.

is
      speaking in french, wrapping our tongues around foreign
                                                         ­                                flavors and vowels,
          intertwining with each other,
                                                                ­ whispering
                                                      ­                                  mon amour,
                                                                ­                                my
        love love love love love love
    
what  
                           her hair and his eyes, gold liquidated, pooling
              in glass orbs and strings,

      shards and pools colliding and cascading

love
                          is this truth?
                she takes his hand and mind
       all at the same time and they both cry



what
is
love?

i fell in love with the version of me you created.
when you left it was two heartbreaks in one.

hello love, hello
itchy feeling
i miss the way i feel
when i know
what i'm feeling
i get drunk on you
and don't know why
anyone needs a drink
to lose their inhibitions.
freedom is a thread away
and this needle shakes,
the person i enter when
i'm like this
feels like someone who
can't break

we're all scared of something. heights, caves, clowns, darkness, flight
the way your heart beats mid-fight
the light
in your eyes
fading

degrading,
becoming the person you once hated,

i have those fears,
i do
but i also know that these
material things don't last, don't
affect us as much
as the things
we touch
with our minds,
our forgotten
and rotten
desires

snakeskin folded in our arteries
everyone i don't ,wanna please
and between it all
death

in a thousand
tiny
flicks
of your wrist

                                      is this
                               my disease?
.

can you feel yourself dying?  
do you feel the earth as it burns
as it's turning, twisting
and spiraling so violently
the friction sends sparks
into galaxies? can you taste
the life as it's leaving you?
as it's rippling out of your
fingers and snatching the breath
that's knocked out of you?
do you cringe as your edges
are singed by the fire
surrounding you? as the oceans
subside and the planet decides
that erosion's
just your
point of view.

im stupid and he is too!
we scale these banisters together.
together, we demoralize the
security guards
and convince them
they're cool. we are cool
like nonsensical rebellion
fueled
by curiosity.
the forbidden hallways
we make our own
beckon to
us. calling,
"we have waited years for you.
we have called,
and curiosity
has answered."

i am so sorry for the next time i lose myself

my perpetual discontent has eaten me alive for the last time. the hours i spend alone and wondering leave a burning sensation in my eyes and my throat and i wish there was another way to feel desirable and stop feeling the need to compete.  i wish i felt complete.

it is one thing to be seen and wanted and entirely another to be known and loved.

these days feel like the crumbs you get at the bottom of the cereal box. not half as good but i’m still reaching my hand in and scraping them from the folds at the bottom of the bag. dust in my fingernails and the gross feeling that comes with too much sugar and wishing i had another day, another bowl of cereal to end on, wishing i hadn’t taken so much already. i’m going to have to buy another box soon. too soon.

i like the old days.

curse like a ******* sailor,
wear a bikini,
move to Europe,
get at least 2 tattoos,
pierce myself a few more times,
learn three new languages (just so i can curse three more ways)
buy a bird,
live in NYC,
kiss someone i don't love,
kiss someone who doesn't love me,
love myself & my mistakes,
have empathy for my past self,
and hope for the future
(where i hopefully own a snake)

i churn my stomach to bile again and watch *****-up teens choke on each other's leftovers. why do flare up tragedies taste like strawberries?

why do we still go berry-picking?

do not romanticize the weapons with which
this world has mauled you.

when i am angry
                     there is no fire,
         no directed flame,
         my anger is acidic, carving its way
     from my fingertips and lips,
                                                        burning everything it touches.



                                           a pool of acid means whatever was there went out screaming .

shallow breaths feel like punches
who is in this room
who is here who is
am i about to die?

blinking like the stars blink
frozen, burning,
here, lost between
the dark and what's sane

croaking, a deathbed whisper
whispers slip into the sheets
whispers feel like raindrops
in desert heat

the government shoots half of us with poison darts
and the other half with vaccines
and as the venom slides through our veins
the vaccinated half screams
why are you crying? we felt the same pain! .

there is something
cowardly
and lonely
about becoming
brand new.

this sort of rattling,
battling
in my chest
i did not ask for it,
they did not say
the trembling would start
in my veins, would start
driving me insane, would leave me
begging for pain, begging
for any feeling that made
me feel the same,

the way i did
last year.

drink up, kid--you've got a while to run,
there's pervert politics and the summer sun
and take the *****, kid--you'll need it for sure
don't follow roads, don't tell them where you were
got any news, kid? we've been hiding out
stayin' outta this town, away from the crowd
buy me new shoes, kid, i know you got cash
you been talkin' to the papers, gettin' kinda rash
what'd they promise you, kid? safety? fame?
lies. you know they're just saving face
and i hope you got a plan B or C, kid
reporters are trash but they messin' with big ****
change your name, kid. (fly to Spain--quick!)
you messin' with snakes, and you're about to get bit, kid!
here's your lesson now, listen real good
gonna tell you once, then i'm gone for good:
better keep your tongue in your head next time
or your body gone be ****** and the fault not mine.

tip tip tip toe
down the way to hell hole
stepping in the prints
left behind by the bell boy
waiting for a hint
that- ****
guess we all go
down.

i am going to student counseling and so far it is a dream! by that i mean i haven't signed up yet.

yeah man, anxiety's not real i mean,
it's O.K. to be shy and all, but let's not be DRAMATIC,
your lungs look perfectly fine from here, why r u gasping? lol
for god's sake, get out of bed and take an aspirin
what's that? your hands shake? you must be cold (on a summer day?)
hey, why's your sleep schedule so ******?
if you ask me, that's why you have anxiety
if bad thoughts keep you up at night, just don't think!
problem solved. ;)
i think i have a career as a SHRINK