Be careful with the breads you send out, make sure they're soft and sweet.
For you'll never know which ones you'll have to eat.
Lay out the beams cautiously, make sure they're straight and rigid.
For you'll never know which ones will bend under your weight.
Be conscientious in placing your torches, make sure they're calm and still.
Lest the wind blows the wrong way and the fires consume you.

you were the stars in my eyes,

the blue to my skies,

the truth in my lies,

the art i couldn't keep inside,

[ b o o m]

then you became the evil in my eyes,

the thunder in my skies,

the secrets in my lies,

and the cold heart i kept inside,

[ b r e a t h e ]

why?

_____________________

­when I was a kid,
I used to color,

I used to color the whole page,
inside,
and outside of the lines,
like how out of the box I was,
you couldn't contain all of me in a box,
even if you had boxes,
I'd escape,
and break free,

When I was a kid,
I colored inside,
and outside of the lines,

while in school they told me how I was out of line,
I was far from out of line,
I always made sure I was inside the lines,
but sometimes,
sometimes its as if my imagination got the best of me,
and I got to escape there conforment,
even if it was for a second it felt so great,
as if I was in prison and I got to go outside for the first time in years,
my adventures in my head couldn't break through to the real world,
like reality came in and arrested my imagination,

when I was a kid,
I stopped coloring outside of the lines,
and only colored inside,

To feel like a square peg going into a round hole,
as they tried to shaped me into what the saw to be as standard,
shaving down my unique edges,
like it was a crime to be so different,
as if I saw them try to expand to fit my square ways of thinking,
not once had they thought it could work out better,
then lining the squares and triangles and hexagons and countless others up,
to get sanded down to be as close as they could make them to be to a circle,

I'm not a kid anymore,
I'm much older now,

I still color inside the lines,
to make my beautiful pictures,
and sometimes,
like when I was a child,
I color outside the lines,

*because sometimes no one has to know,
when you've made a masterpiece,

he is not heaven. he is not a deep breath of fresh air after being
trapped inside for so long he is suffocation. when his saturated fingers
touch me I am filled with a never ending fire that keeps me
awake until two a.m. and makes me question everything I've
ever believed. he likes to swear up and down on the metal cross
around his neck and pretend he is God when he looks at me.
his kisses are never filled with love they are filled with narcotics
and taste like a bittersweet kind of hatred. he smokes quietly and
slowly inhaling every toxic fume and making clouds
big enough to convince you that they are skies. everything about him
screams shades of cool he is blue he is black his smile is gold
his eyes are grey and he is the color spectrum at its darkest.
he speaks quietly and laughs loudly and cries silently when
he thinks nobody can hear him. I wake up every morning to the
sound of tiny bullets of water scorching his back but he
likes the burn so I do not say a thing. he loves the way I sing
and teases me endlessly and whispers ****** things when
our friends are around because he is an exhibitionist.
I do not know what this is. I do not know who he is.
but at the same time I do not know who I am either,
we are cataclysmic together and wreak havoc wherever we go
but there is something so beautiful about what a disaster
we are together that i do not want to say goodbye.
he is the lover I never have to worry about loving back
and that if nothing else matters

(h.l.)

11.25.15