Sometimes I remember the scorn of my family,
Effigies of bloodlines crossed into a tired face.
I remember my mother,
Her vice was appearance-
Not her own but that of others.
Every day was judgment
She’d pick us before we bloomed and left wilted children
Questioned the lack of fruit
Not with self-deprecation but with scorn
How dare we cross the farmer who sowed the seeds and watered the crops?
How dare we look towards the sky for comfort?
When that cold trowel could dig in our necks.

I remember one time my mother asked me if she was the problem
A lie, I’ve heard that question many times
How can you curse a broken human more than she does herself
And somewhere in my head, I justify it
Consider the kindness built on vanity to be kindness nonetheless
Flowers do not need to be alive to be beautiful
They can be so frailed and dried up they become immortal
A crumbling tombstone of decay
And we marvel at them
And I remember that I am a product of my mother

Follow me
in the dark
down the rabbit hole
where we can both be mad

Follow me
to a land of light
down the yellow brick road
where us wicked rule

Follow me
down the stream
and on an island filled with riches
where we can both be free

This thought is just another tree in a forest of problems
So I'll cut it all down, I'll burn this forest to the ground
Make it so I no longer have to think
So my brain can finally melt away
We can start anew
With all this extra lumber
Build a whole new town
One with a little less corruption
With a little less thought
More conformity
Because what broke me was not acting the part

We are a selfish species
Global warming, nuclear warfare, ******
We created out own fears, they all centralize around us
You don't see a mouse setting its own trap
But we polluted out environment beyond recognition
No longer worrying about survival
We go through each and everyday no longer looking up
We spend so much time thinking about people we'll never meet
Because we're all dying
Slowly
And we've accepted it

Your breath is shallow
It has gotten smaller each day
You no longer respond when I greet you
And your eyes only open rarely and are unresponsive
Alzheimer's has taken away your thoughts
And the morphine can only help for so long
When I saw you today I knew the truth
That you were fading
Goodbye Grandma, tell Grandpa hello
For you will meet him again soon

Perhaps I am the result of greed
I was already told by my mother that I wasn't needed
So maybe that is why I only care about myself
Because I'm the only one that wants to need me

No
No that isn't right

Someone that want to be needed wouldn't pick and choose the people they talk to

They wouldn't say no to someone because they knew that it would leave a bad impression on their employer or lover

I loath myself more then anyone else, I know I'm not needed so that's why I'm taking others down with me.

I miss the shallow tides of life
Those childish whispers we had of careers
I swear we all wanted to be doctors at least once
Now it's just student loans and unemployment rates
Bitterness towards aspirations that were once so mystical
They leave a sour taste in my mouth

The cracking pain of a bone
A body far too young rises
It aims to the sky as skin tears
It's time to grow up
See beyond the present
Even if you bones shatter
Rise.
Growing pains.

Another 'never again' stems from your lips
As I drip
Drip
Drop
****** nose and feet bound by tired eyes I can't escape
They bind me with a poor mans history
As my body changes its hues
Foundation, layered on so thick
If they ask I'll say it was a love bite-
They'll either get it or they won't
I am just a piece of meat being slowly torn
Please just break the remainder of my flesh

If to live is to be awake and to die is to sleep then how can one dream?
For no matter how hard I scorn my blood, my faith still stands and to die would be sin upon my name; I am but a human, but to take the morning away is a gods power for which I do not wish to have. A modern day Hamlet is nothing new, we see corruption everyday yet we stand still.

How can I trust myself with such vengeance if my choices lead to the end? To the land of no return? I pity such who would dare to venture, but that is only to help heal the grief of not being able to go myself. A lost man in a small and desperate body attempting to live a final dream.

I’m scared, something happened and my world went blank
I brawl at the bar resulting in a mad man fighting me
After that the only vision that remained was white
When I woke up I could clearly see my wife, sobbing before me
I needed to help her
I was just gonna tell her I’m okay
She started screaming and muttered the words ‘honey’ in a lost voice
It all went white again, everything… I’m so scared
There is blood coming from my mouth
It hurts
I’m so hungry
I hope my wife is okay but ever since I woke up her memory is fading
I didn’t think that such a small injury would cause so much pain
Was it infected or maybe it hit a nerve… I don’t know anymore
I don’t know much of anything anymore
It’s like the disease had turned my stomach into thorns only soothed through food
It can’t be that bad right? It was only a bite

I want to leave this place
I fear if I stay too long my roots will stick to the ground
I'll be dependent on this soil to survive
This concept is not abstract
It is a normality among the young
We haven't been exposed to the bird that never leaves the nest
So us soaring far off seems possible
So possible
But we only dream in impossibilities

Please come back I miss you

I didn't give them blood because it was all I had left to give
It was only that I valued my own time so much more
Wallowing in a trench was more important then talent
So I lied and said I did all I could
That I did so much and tried to get so far
But blood has only ever fed the heart not the mind
So what I gave was all forgotten
All I had left was this ******* time
Half wasted out of hope, half still slinking down;
A rabbit whole filled with aspirations of all I've ever wanted to be
Childhood dreams all scribbled out in desperation
I should've taken the easy way out when I had the chance
But a void made with blood can not be ended with slaughter
I'll just add to this red sea, hoping to fill my sight in a solid tone
So I can't see any of my past

I knew a kid in highschool
Rather to say I knew him would be an overstatement,
He was a friend of a friend at most,
The boy that sat directly in front of me in my economics class
Second seat from the right, second to last from the back
The corner of the classroom between the whiteboard wall and the windows
I remember that scene like a diagram,
I couldn’t tell you anything I learned from the class but,

I knew a kid in highschool
He was best friends with my childhood best friend
He wasn’t quiet, wasn’t loud- he was a normal highschool boy
I remember the last words I said to him
Well not quite, I remember the vague idea
Something along the lines of it only gets worse
He was talking about the theoretic project where we role played
Each kid acting out as if they were in the real world
He said he was overwhelmed by the amount of work
I told him it only gets worse

I knew a kid in highschool
He killed himself during the weekend
The Monday they announced in I was sick
I was sick
His obituary isn’t up on the internet anymore
Neither is his facebook, he is nothing but a yearbook page
The page to a book I couldn’t afford
He is a memory on bookshelves filled with dust

I knew a kid in highschool but I had to ask a friend to confirm his existence
That I didn’t just make up a daydreamed suicide
I’m so tired of wondering what’s left of us when we die
I spend most of my life running from evidence of my existence
No photos, no yearbooks, nothing with me or my name
I knew a kid in highschool

We stopped talking
I can remember the last text you sent me
The five word text took you too long to write
I don't know when the war had started, peace quickly drained
I swore, you yelled, neither of us really understood what we were saying
At least I hope, my brain is still mixed with fear and grief
I said some really stupid ****
We were just so similar I saw the parts I hated about me in you
I collected dust in my mind, it coated the casket like a sheet
That was our difference, the main thing that set us apart
I hid my insecurities behind lies, burying them until I could forget
You fed them whatever happiness you had left
You were afraid if they left you wouldn't be you anymore
You tried so hard to fight them without killing them
but
They killed you in the end
A tightly wound rope could do what you never could
The thoughts were gone but so were you
I still have that text
Those same words that we told each other time and time again
After every argument
"I'm sorry, I love you"

This industrial silence fills the room
It came from the gears in my throat
The press that carved my serial number into the back of my neck
It tasted like metal
From the iron gated assembly line that we all hold standards to
Of living and dying and repeating
Again and again
Assembled with little care, defects thrown away
Silent voices
We did not make them ourselves
They were made to be shoved down our throats
Until we die from lead poisoning

You ask me why I don't want to go to college, to have kids
Like I haven't thought of the possibilities
Of having years of experience combined and passed on
But you locked the door and swallowed the key
I could buy a house for a doctorate
Feed my family for a masters
Pay for my medical fees with a bachelors
Drive to work for an associates
All just numbers, no rhyme or reason
Jokes about jumping in front of a train to avoid student loans
The thought is a holy grail idea to some
I won't throw my kid or any other human into this world by will
Where the police that guide the free make us afraid to move
I will not have kids, I will not go to college
Because if I do I'll lose more of myself
I have so little left
And I'm still selling any dreams I have left for pennies

Say no more words, just softly fall asleep
Rain will wash the blood away, you'll finally be porcelain
You'll finally be what you were born to be
Statues always live on in history, these blood stained dolls lost memories
Never to be named, a stone with no dog tags

I lie to myself
More then I lie to you
Because I fear that if I realize how horrible I am
You will leave me
And I can't bare to be alone again

I still don't understand how these rotted pieces of flesh form words
The scratched diary of an insane man in the walls
Bleeding with every word that escapes
Like a cell, it only holds criminals
No keys and only one way out
Thoughts escape all the time
Repeat offenders, stuttered sounds
Silence is justice on a street of fatal shootings
How can peeled skin show love when it can spew so much hate
I say good bye as I assault another man with my words
Beat him until he knows the words I'm sorry
I'm sorry

I feel the daisies sprouting in the cracks of my skin when I see them
Blooming with all their might, screaming
They go towards the light, he is all the sun I need
Burning, they blister out like tumors, pain that echos in my body
It doesn't really hurt however, the good times out weigh the bad
They attract butterflies that well in and out of my stomach
The roots choke the words I wish I would have said
When I explain this to him, he sounds sad, sorry
I try to tell him how it really feels, all the gory details
And the small but beautiful ones, like how these flowers let you forget the world
They let me float with him, weightless and light
I understand that this is more then a flower, it is love
And it is something I will never be able to describe clearly

Oh sweet little Rose, you act as if I hadn't known
For days, for weeks, of your betrayal

The side words of a horror story- he wanted to die
He said the same words to remove layers of clothes
Said those same words to get a track record of assault

That manipulation would finally see justice
Children would be free of adult hands
But you, little Rose, have killed a damning testimony

Returning to a monster, a ******
I knew it would happen- you return to what gives you attention

I want to know when the lies started
You treated him like a bad guy for so long
Were those all words to assure my comfort

Words to make me think it was fine, that my family could sleep
Yet it appears a court order wasn't even enough to do that
The man that haunted my family was 10 feet from my home

And even then I knew
So enjoy the facade of tonight, it will be the last

Take a sip
You only need a little more to seep over the edge
A fermented drink, bubbles and fruit
Let a restless sleep take over you

Black out.

Take another glass, take another drink
A little powdered drink made of matter
Dark matter, emptiness just a high purity
Let the alcohol content drive your inability

Inhibited. Like a salted glass.
Your distasteful without a bit of liquor inside you
Breathe too much, too little
The world is never ending

Drink.

Let the caution of a free drink fade
It's just little powder now
A quicker way to embrace a quick slumber
Sacrifice your body for another sip

Lock your door
You fear the world
Lock your mouth
You fear the echo
Lock your heart
You fear the break
Lock your mind
You want to escape

Everything that lied between us was fiction;
To me I saw Romeo, begged you saw Juliet somewhere in me
Wrong time, wrong tragedy.
Reliable narration has never been a fact of love
I would give myself up to anyone who could find me
Anyone who would notice, listen, care
I couldn't see, so blind
Romeo died long before our tale
I became your nymphet, a toy of a girl
****** was so pitiful, she's the shadow of my soul
And as we uncoil unknown scars awake
I miss your light, I miss your pain
I miss the things you took away

My long hair is a symbol of maturity
It frames my face, making a perfect picture
The brush strokes are my imperfect skin
Beautifully perfect mistakes
All apart of me
And all things I hate