I had lots and lots of naps. What did you people do?

The venom in your snake bite glare ties my pain in knots, Knots

don’t come undone

Every time you yell I smell smoke

You’re burning us, you know

You’re burning us.

And I’m drowning in the fire.

You’ve got your magnifying glass in hand like a detective,

And I know you’re searching for something better

I know you’re searching for clues that we could make it better,
between us

But you always look in the same place, you always look through these
piles and stacks of Anger that we’ve been collecting and you haven’t
looked anywhere else, you know, no matter how magnified that
Anger is, it won’t change what it is.

You’ve been standing in that same spot searching for too long, and that
magnifying glass is burning us

And it’s not that I don’t still think you’re made of stars, because I do

I still do

I still need you, mom

I need you to breathe,

I do.

You’re my oxygen, you always have been but

This Oxygen is suffocating me.

Do you remember that story I told you so many times? About that day
in kindergarten when the craft table got new materials? When there
was nice

Purple

Shiny heart shaped box and I wanted it

So did everyone else, but I got to it first

So it was mine

I had it in my hands

I had it

But then the other little girl spent all morning talking to me about how
she wanted it

She wanted the pretty, shiny, heart-shaped chocolate box so that she
could make a pretty gift for her mommy and I didn’t want to give it
up, but I finally gave in to the guilt and gave up that box to her

Do you know why?

Because I thought about how I had the best mommy in the whole wide
world and I wanted to give that pretty box to you because I loved you
so much and I thought maybe that little girl loved her mommy the
same way I loved you, and I understood why she would want to give
her mommy a pretty thing and to this day, that time in kindergarten
when I gave up my pretty box that I wanted to give to you is one of my
deepest regrets, because I loved you so much and I wanted to give you
that pretty gift.

I still do, you know

I still see you as the duct tape to fix what I broke and the hands that tie
the back of my dress in a bow for me on Easter Sunday, sure I still see
you as the lullaby I fall asleep to because I used to replay that
recording of your choir solo you downloaded on my very first IPod for
me every night before I went to bed one year when I was in elementary
so that in case I died before I woke up, the last voice I ever heard
would have been yours. Or in case you died at least I heard your voice
last. I always romanticized death back then, but now I can see how icy
the frosty fingers of death really are when the death of our old bond is
staring me right in the face, Mom!

Do you remember that one month I spent making absolute sure the last
thing I said to you before you shut my door and left after saying
goodnight was: I love you so that the last thing I ever said to you
was “I love you”? Same logic, mom. In case you died before the next
time I saw you, at least that was the last thing I ever said to you I never
wanted you to forget, and yes mom, I still see you as the stiches in my
torn up nylons but I don’t see you as my blanket on a cold day,
anymore.

I can trust you to save me, I can trust you to love me overall, in the end

But I can’t trust you to comfort me and you tell me to call you when
I’m sad, but you wouldn’t get it.

I can give you ten reasons why you and I need you to stop chasing me
into pain’s open arms and all ten are on my hands, balled up in fists
that are bruised from fighting, I’m done fighting with you mom, I can’t
anymore.

I’m too tired.

You start every knitting project and never finish it before you start a
new one, and I don’t want to become just another unfinished project of
yours, the daughter who left home and never sent more than 10 emails,
one for each finger after that because it’s not that I don’t love you, it’s
just that we’re growing so distant now that when we fight, the “I love
you” is no longer implied and when you get angry, you’re scary

You call me worthless, you swear at me, you say some awful things
mom, and so do I, I know,

But then you demand in irritation why I consider myself worthless as
if I’m seeking attention or something when I admit to you how
worthless I feel, well if you would quit calling me useless and
worthless and I quote “The stupidest human being alive” maybe I
WOULDN’T FEEL LIKE THAT MOM!

Maybe your mom, who is supposed to be the over-sized, comfy hoodie
you can come home to when life is getting too complicated is
constricting you with her harmful words it’s hard to find any good in
myself anymore maybe I’m just really hurt that you would say that to
me.

My sisters came along and they STOLE you, I’m sorry if that sounds
like a selfish, angry six year old but I need to say it because I don’t care
how unbiased you think you are, you never show me the underlying
kindness you show them because mom, I don’t want money every time
we go to the movies, I don’t want two pairs of Lululemon leggings or
expensive boots I just want the Love I feel like you’ve lost for me when
you didn’t have enough to give to all three of your children I just want
you to Love me, mom. I’m scared that you don’t anymore, and God it
would be so much easier if I could hate you but I can’t bring myself to.
I wish I could say I hate you, but I don’t. Every time I cross the line and
scream something unforgivable at you, when you cry, I can hear every
teardrop that falls from your eyes crash to the floor and shatter, but I
feel like you can’t hear me even when I’m screaming, even when liquid
pain is pouring down my face mom I love you, but you can’t hear my
tears and I feel like you’ve lost the Love you used to have for me.

I wish you would come back to me, I wish you would spend just ONE
night without insulting me, or yelling at me because I’m not
exaggerating when I say you haven’t.

Mom, I’m asking you to help me fix this.

We are not going to find the answer to the Cold between us in this pile
of angry, so please lower your voice and lower your magnifying glass,
just stop burning us and help me rebuild our old bond, okay?

The venom in your snake bite glare ties my pain in knots, but knots

Can come undone

Untie this pain with me?

I’d like to write a love poem.
For tea has ceased to give me joy.
And in the past, one of the only things that has,
Has been feelings for a boy.
I know that sounds pathetic,
Like Disney commercials have seized my mind,
But sometimes focussing on something lovely as opposed to my own self-loathing,
Is the only relief I can find.
I’d like to write a love poem
And yet I know I cannot.
For the boy who sees me as nothing but a game,
Is the only one my heart has got.
I’d like to write a love poem
For someone other than him
Whose head is filled with textured thoughts,
And heart is filled with kindness, to the rim
I’d like to write a love poem
Telling of how I adore
His endless eyes, his glistening soul
But his rough edges even more.
I’d like to write a love poem,
But the more I think it through
I realize that I’ll never have anyone
To address my love poem to

I never really thought I’d see you again, to be honest.

I feel a little underdressed for the occasion.

There you are, wearing the same Hypocrisy you have worn for years and have seriously outgrown, but you wear it still.

Then here I am, in nothing but a worn out grudge, but hey, I tried to dress it up a little with some bitterness.

I think you and I were a little too similar, actually. Maybe that’s why we fell apart, because we were just too alike. That’s one of my scarier thoughts, but definitely not the scariest.

It isn’t an impossible theory, I guess. Though I think maybe it was more like we were two different sides of the same coin, but even if that’s true, we were a coin spinning out of control, cast off, and tossed, but not away, we were tossed into a wishing well, in the hopes that maybe the water could wash away the damage. I look through the waters we wished on every day, wondering if I’ll see you through the distorted, but transparent fluid that runs through our veins like poison because even if the ink of our promises that we wrote out on flesh, as  a binding contract found its way into those dark waters of our wishing well, even it could not be as toxic as that deadly liquid we doused our loyalty in, because it was made out of wishes, and though water shouldn’t be considered equivalent to venom, never underestimate just how lethal it is, because nothing is more poisonous than something that appears pure, but is just the opposite, and truthfully, that is all you proved yourself to be.

I look through those poisoned waters made of liquid wishes and tears, but I never see you there.

Your black eyeliner was quite a change from last time I saw you, because the last year, all you did was line your eyes with Pride and Pettiness, well I’ll watch you fade off into the shadows until you become one because I don’t care anymore.

I’ll raise my hand and spread my fingers to bid you farewell so I don’t need to speak because I can’t, I’m busy choking on fire, and the smoke is leaving its trail so that if you ever want to find me, you will just need to follow the trail of ashes so that I may slam the door in your face, facing up to the fact that sometimes, even if you don’t let it go, you can stop getting involved with the burden of the past, because it’s been passed on far too many generations of different versions of myself each year.

I’m starting a new chapter, and you just don’t deserve a role in it, so when I spread those fingers, maybe the cobwebs I couldn’t bring myself to sweep away will finally blow away in the wind. The wind that is nothing but a draft coming in through the door you left open when you left just to linger in my doorway for months, well I hope I slammed your fingers in the doorframe when I finally shut it on you. You’re still waiting in the window though, naturally.

Well, my Pain and yours are a couple shades off, and I’m sort of sick of matching you anyway, so I’ll draw the curtains too, because that’s the only way to let in natural light, when the artificial lamps are outside and the candles and burning suns are indoors, away from you, after all, how could anything bright exist near someone who exudes so much forced darkness such as you?

Well, I don’t match you anymore, and thank God for that, because I certainly would look even worse than you already do dressed in that color of Hypocrisy, and just keep in mind, even though I’m wearing these grudges trimmed with bitterness, and even though that might be a pretty unflattering look for someone like me, whose very skin is woven out of Broken shards, it’s only an accessory to remind me not to forget. I wear Memories, even though you gave them to me, even though we made the together, I still like them so sure I’ll wear them, but that doesn’t really matter, because with the burdens on my wrist, I can still wear Hope.

And you never, ever will.

So maybe I’m not underdressed for this little occasion, I’m just wearing something a little out of fashion, but Hope is comfy, and I like it so that’s fine by me.

Secrets spoken
Promises broken
Holding your breath
Hoping to forget
About empty frames
And severed chains
And leaving it all behind
Faces gray
That turned away
Paying for a mistake
You didn't mean to make
Drawing the curtain
Hiding your hurting
With the words *"I'm fine"

but I don't BELIEVE in purple bus drivers!!!! :0

Why are those dressed in black always so in pain?
Ever looked at your reflected image in the irises of a dark-eyed person?
You can't see yourself in lightly-colored eyes
You can see your reflection better in black
And those who dress in black
Are surrounded by it
They see their own image everyday
Their own flaws flashing back at them, everywhere they look