Take me back to summer
To when it wasn't dark
at 4:30 pm
And I didn't want to
sleep all day

You’re not worth it
Not any of it
You’re not worth the pain
I feel deep in my chest,
The sick feeling in my stomach,
The tears that want to fall
From my eyes,
You’re not even worth
The ink on my paper
But I write about you anyways

The moment I left your bed
I missed having your fingers
intertwined with mine,
our bodies tangled together,
being lulled to sleep
by the sound of your heartbeat
and steady breathing.
I walked home that morning
with only the scent
of you
locked in my t-shirt
and the longing need
to see you again.

The taste of blood
Swirls in my mouth
As I aggressively
Brush away
A day’s worth of lies
And held back words
Off of my teeth
And gums

The human body
is just a little
soluble
in water
Every time I take a shower
wash my hands
swim in a pool or
lake
a little bit of me
dissolves.
I am slowly dying
slowly vanishing.
One day
I will only be
footprints.

I get my fire-tongue from my mother.
I’m proud of the power I can hold
When I spit out flames in spite.
But sometimes I cannot tame it.
The fire starts to roar
And sparks fly as I try to hold
the flames back in-between my teeth.
I’d sew my lips together with steel thread
But the fire would melt it away carelessly.
I burn my skin and take extinguishers to my tongue
Just to keep the flames back.
I wish this power came with nobs
That could adjust the flames from high to low;
But I’ll have to tame my spit-fire the hard way.

I’m sitting at a table on a balcony
covered with fairy lights,
next to a dark-haired girl
with white teeth framed by red lips.
We’re drinking wine and giggling
as the alcohol numbs us.
We keep asking each other,
which one of us is going to drive?
But we laugh off the issue
and pour ourselves another glass.

Hovering over his desk
Fingers cramping as he jots words
with a shrinking pencil
As time goes by
papers rise into cluttered stacks
Spreading around him
Creating a castle of paper
Eyelids growing heavy
as the light from the lamp
glares down at him
Mumbling motivation towards himself
He keeps writing
He stays awake
Until everything is finished

You’ve got your secrets.
They hide in your eyes
And in the curl of your smile.
A freckle for each secret
Lies on your skin.

You only let them slip
From between your lips
In the faintest whisper;
So only you are able to hear them.

You scribble your secrets
Onto scraps of paper
And throw them into the fire,
Where they’ll remain smoke and ash
Until they’re rewritten on another page.

Tapping my left foot
at a constant beat of
1 million taps per second.
FlickINg my tonGue around
the insIDe of my Mouth.
A thousand SOngs are runNing
through MY mind
and I want to SING THEM ALL at once.
CAN’T STOP moving, CAn’t stop thinking
CAN’T STOP! CAN’T STOP! CANT STOP!
CANT STOP CANTSTOP CANTSTOP
CANTSTOP

I have secrets,
just like everyone else.
I don’t know what they are,
but I know they’re there.
I can feel them in my chest,
weighing down my lungs.
They swell up in my throat,
creating a lump I can’t swallow.
Maybe it’s better off that way;
for them to be so confidential
to the point where even I
don’t know what they are.

My body is a cage
to lock the monster
that is raging within.
But this cage grows weaker
It can only hold on for so long.

Once when I was brave,
I was able to keep the monster
invisible.
I had guts to fight it away.

But now it starts to peak out
in my voice, my fists, and
my menacing eyes.
The monster rocks back and forth
in the cage, making it bend
out of shape.

One day the cage will break
and the monster will come out
and I won’t be brave enough to stop it.

I don’t see myself in the mirror
I don’t see a headstrong,
independent, rebel child
that all my friends see.
I see someone’s who’s afraid;
someone hurt and lost.
A little girl who shuts herself
out from the world;
who hides her feelings and
keeps everything locked up inside her,
because she’s scared.
No, she’s not scared.
She’s too terrified to be scared.

I keep all of my emotions
in one bottle
And I bury it deep in the ground
of my safe zone
The walls of this safe zone
stretch up to where people can’t reach
The gate is locked up tight
with the hardest code to crack
People have tried climbing over
and breaking down the doors,
trying to get me to open up
but I push them back
Back to the other side of the safe zone
where they are far from hurting me
and I am safe and sound.

My scars are hidden
by the dark fabric that clings
to my skin.
They come in many shapes
and different shades of pink and white.
They tell a story of pain and darkness,
anger and sorrow,
but mostly of fear and helplessness.
They hold all my secrets;
the secrets I’ll never tell.
They’ve watched me as I cried.
I cry because of them.
They remind me of the darker days.
When I’m smiling and finally feel happy,
they’re there to remind me that
no matter how hard I try to change,
my life is still ****** up.

I think about us;
what could've happened,
what never did happen,
what I wish happened.
But nothing ever happened.
Sometimes I regret it,
other times I don't.
Everyone would always say
there was something there.
And I would always deny it.
I'd never say what I really meant.
I'd never show what I really felt.
But if you looked really hard,
you'd see those micro-expressions
that said that I was desperately
in love with you;
that seeing you again made me feel...
indescribable.
Seeing you again made me remember
that I miss you.
Even when it looks like I've forgotten,
even when it looks like I don't care,
buried deep down underneath
my fake nonchalant smirk
I'm crying out for you.

I've always pictured Lust as a woman
A seductive and voluptuous goddess
with golden curls and a sensual smirk
Her eyes would be the reflection of diamonds
or stars in an eerie, romantic night sky
A perfection of human kind
An angel fallen from heaven
But oh would she be cruel
She might be beautiful and appear innocent
but she is a trickster, a wily temptress.
A consumer of hearts
A demon in disguise
She'd lure her helpless, naïve victims
with pleading eyes and hypnotizing sways
They'd follow, attracted to illusion of vulnerability
That's when she'd strike,
lunging for the **** in a snap
Another bleeding artless heart...
stolen, stomped on, kicked around,
cut up, spit on, and set on fire.
Another pathetic man blinded by Lust.
Poor *******.

Cold, empty air
Bitter, icy tears
In the sea of black and sorrow
I stand alone
The place where you used to stand
is empty and bare
There is nothing I can do
as I watch you sink into the ground
Buried away with all my broken dreams
of us, and what we would be

Third time tonight
on the bathroom floor.
Shaking in fear and pain.
A burning body.
Sweat pouring out with silent tears.
Temperature rising
higher and higher.
Can't scream, can't cry;
can only breathe shallowly
from dry lips.
Left on cold tiles,
praying for everything to be over.
No one to save me
only left in my despair,
my hatred, my misery.
Too scared to die
too weak to live.
I can't move.
I'm stuck here to suffer.
Alone on the bathroom floor.

She laughs;
Mocking his fear.
Smiling lustfully, she dances around the prey
in a game of cat and mouse.
Hungrily she stalks him.
Lunging now in madness,
she claws at his skin.
She sinks her teeth into raw, cut flesh.
Blood pours from the wounds by the bucket.
She bathes her tongue in the rich, red liquid
like a savage dog.
Agonizing cries echo in the dark abyss of hell.
Then a sigh of satisfaction follows.
She carelessly tosses the fresh corpse aside.
She wipes her dripping chin with her
blood-and-dirt clogged nails.
Her eyes reflect the insanity she holds
and then with blood-stained lips,
she smiles.
A new prey is soon to come.

Leaving everything behind
Pushing away everyone
Not leaving a note
Not calling anyone to say goodbye
Bags are packed and locked in the trunk
Half-past midnight, and I’m ready to go
Driving away on a never-ending joy ride
And never coming back

Fool me once,
Shame on you.
Fool me twice,
You ******* ****.
I won’t shame myself;
I’m too ****** to feel pathetic.
This isn’t baseball.
There won’t be a third strike.
The game’s already over.
It should’ve never started.

I’m lost
in the shadows of you.
With no one to guide me,
I stumble blindly.
There’s no helping hand
to pick me up when I fall.
Down the lonely roads
I carefully step forward,
hands out in front of me
as a source of security.
The darkness stretches further.
I’ll never make it out.

Cold eyes,
glaring down at me,
disgusted and disappointed.
Cold words
that spit out from your
cold lips.
A cold hand
that clashes against my face
in a hot flash.
The barrier of ice
which guards your
cold heart
will never crack.

The door towers above,
looking down at the small girl,
glaring red.
The little girl’s knees shake in fear.
She clutches the small blanket to her chest.
She’s too afraid to take a step forward,
to open the door and see what’s inside,
but her curiosity glues her in place.
She is frozen, conflicted.
Wide, innocent eyes stare up in awe
to the tall red door.

Anger echoes beyond the walls, calling to her
yet scaring her off at the same time.
Her small hands are stiff
with a frightened grip.
Her feet won't move.
They don't run back to the safety of her own room.
They don't step forward in courage.
They just....stay there;
Forcing her to listen to the monstrous,
beckoning roars of what hides behind
the red door.

Our skin tells more about us
Than most people would think.
So many stories to tell,
So many secrets that hide
In our skin.
Only a few layers deep,
Only a few chapters into the book of our lives,
And already one can learn so much about another.
And as we turn the pages, the skin we see becomes stronger.
Every scratch, every bruise, every scar has a purpose;
With these marks we reflect our battles,
Our defeats and our victories.
Every mark of ink holds a memory,
To illustrate the moments we shall never forget.
But our skin only shows us part of the story.
For the rest, we must dig past the layers
Until we reach the core of our bodies,
The soul of our stories.
And we will find the soul one layer at a time.