I grind my teeth and clench my fists
and it's not ******* poetic
it's something I do because I can't
believe I'm alone
I'm always alone
and you can take your depression
and your desperation
and make words flow like wine
but I can't put me
doing 80 in a 30
screaming at nothing
my stomach shooting
bullets through my brain
in a book I bound myself
and call that
******* poetry
this isn't poetry
and it's not pretty
because I'm not pretty
I'm putting myself on the line
at 12 and then hanging up
because I lost my voice
doing 80 in a 30
2 hours before I shot myself
for thinking
it could all be different

"a miracle baby"
my mother must have said
when I arrived in her arms
and I was happy
"a miracle, baby"
is what I said
when he asked how
I didn't die from all the pills
and I was so unhappy

Saturday night I told you I was yours
Monday you said everything was fine
Wednesday morning I blamed myself
for the love I couldn't forget
Thursday night I drove to your house
but I didn't go in
because Friday I remembered how
you broke me in 5 pieces
and expected me to reassemble
just to wake back up
Saturday morning and tell you
it was okay that we didn't have another
Saturday night

the hardest part
about trying to grow up
is that my mom
she never leaves
the garage door open
anymore
and doesn't call me
if she wants to know
when I'll be home
I guess maybe
she may not want to know
if I'm coming home
anymore

your poems aren't art
God may as well be dead
your words don't fill me
and flowers have never sprung
from my mouth or yours
it's a ******* joke
and a sick lie
a poem never saved a life
because God laughed
and didn't make pain helpful
he made me sit down at the counter
at 2 am
to hit my fist again
and again
over a **** page
and even he knows
this poem isn't art

she told me to be myself
but myself is screaming in my car
at the top of my lungs
going 80 on dirt roads
in the dark
where I think I've lost it all
but I can't stop running through
because it reminds me of you
and how we used to talk
how it was easy to be happy
and easy to forget
all the things you said
were wrong
and I'm crying out in pain
nostalgia's chokehold
she told me to be myself
I think I'm going to be myself
for a very long time

I didn't want to be your phase
I wanted to make you laugh
but you didn't want the world
you wanted comfort
and I get that
I see that now
it was my mistake to believe
you needed more than this
at a party
with someone else
laughing
I just can't believe I had to realize
next to all my friends
laughing

you say I like change
But insomnia leads to insistency
And all I've spent time doing is retracing my steps, questioning my own lucidity
Drove down the avenues I used to think we're cool
hung around my old friends who used to think it was cool
to pop the advils I kept on windowsills
in case I needed a reminder of
why I don't like pills
and I still don't like pills
Because they burn throats and make me forget the anecdotes I said in doubt
But visions of the future make me forget, regret instead leave these hazed clouds
And this monster clawing at my door,
Praying of an unholy meeting between us
now I can say that I'm sure
That the change is the enemy
But it doesn't want me,
I watch everyone around me go nameless, faceless, bleed
Disjointed, contorted see this reality fade black
All I've ever known changes, but I'll try
and I'll try
to keep a faith intact

no matter how much sugar
or honey you pour
poison is poison
what's dead is gone
and cannot be revived
the boy with a bite
will always leave a nasty mark
on the hands you gift him
and no one will sweeten
the way your corpse rots
it's unfortunate to think so
but whatever you've mixed
at the end of the day
is what trails down your throat
foolish to believe
what's killing you
isn't the poison
but the sweetness you once poured
over and over again
into a glass always half full
optimism filled prison cell
you are blind to think
your poison may not be the reason
you are coughing up your dignity
and dying of his laughter

Fridays nights always start the same
and they go like this:
I've got a hopeless wonder
you've all got bad intentions
hit me once, I can't hit back
it's a ragged jumbled way
to start a weekend
start anything really
and I'm more of a loser now than I've ever been
sitting in the blackout
maybe starved, maybe just tired
knowing someone
it can't cure Friday nights
because I never really knew anyone
seemingly
had the world at my feet
and no one by my side
but you who sits there
you need to listen
because one day I'll be gone
I will have the world on fire
and the nights I needed
and maybe then you'll understand why
I spent so many Friday nights
at the top of that hill
crying

I envy your poise
your solidarity
an untampered grace
of which I could not know
I imagine one day
I too
can keep the words from spilling
trickling from my throat
down the corners of an upturned mouth
I dream that I may keep focus
a clear and narrow vision
until then
I muddle through a landfill
of memory I keep
for old time sake, for god knows why
I tend to make sharp breaks
in word and action
for no apparent reason
except that logic is not my forte
I've given in
to irrational
insanity gave me a voice
and I will not soon
make myself a mute
all for a chance
at normalcy

maybe you are my new nervous tick, because let's be honest, I'm a little obsessive. and if it's not you, it's the person after you. the person I can't recognize because I am so blind to everything but what we had. it's my involuntary physical and mental attraction to you that makes me tic, makes a tic, that is my tic. it's repetitive; calling you Friday night after Friday night, believing it may fill me up without drowning me out. but I'm empty, I'm always empty. I don't mean to involve you, and I know you think I do this because you're still my everything, but you're just a something. a physical preoccupation I've yet to overcome, as you're always in reach. cover up the void you've left behind, never fill it - that isn't your place; tics are not mutually beneficial. we in no way help each other. do not know a way to help each other. you aren't my saving grace; you're the bad habit. the phantom limb I need to forget. the tic to fit my criteria: close, but never here. available to hold me, but in holding me you're making my tears. could you ever fathom such a senseless incongruity? and just where are you now? you're holding me in the darkness but I know you don't feel what I feel, won't ever feel a thing. me ignoring the truth of your coldness, the brevity of your affection - tics like your timepiece. maybe next Friday night, it'll be different. maybe next Friday night, I won't need a tic like a crutch, won't be crushed. until then.

an unrelenting headache
only saying words to get girls
to sink into bed with you
as you're too insecure
to ever really
sleep alone
and I know, oh I know
a face pristine
for many reasons
God gave you a look
in lieu of conscience
set fire to your heart,
tongue beating out words,
too many words
I longed to hear
words that made me touch you
you begged for me to touch you
I'm numb since I touched you
pit me against the last
that's all you ever did
but I know, I've known
you keep a tidy home
but there are doors, you say,
leading to nowhere
but I know where
and your closets lock girls inside
trapped in figment
objectified or dignified?
should they be honored
that after you touched their body
and fed them lies
you chose to keep their skeletons
in faroff doorways of the mind?
which only open on occasion
as you reminisce and remember
you never got over her laugh
and her scent never really did leave
and now, here you lay
trapped in bed with another one
but here she lingers
and here she stays
as the new her drops kisses
down your neck; you sweat
and tell her she cannot linger
she cannot stay
her hour glass body run out
sunrise hair faded midday
she's given, given, given
for your take, her mistake
goodnight to your girl
and pray God has mercy
for cruel little heart attacks
like you

I am writing angry poetry to a boy who doesn't read
I am praying no good prayers to
a God who doesn't listen
And I am making a peace
with the chaos that lives inside me

you've told me you are uncomfortable
my words about you are cruel
that poems should not be
dipped in gasoline and tar
left to burn poison flames
but these words are beauty
they are what you've done to me
I cannot find error in a truth
you chose to create
yet you still defend your ******
that I am overthinking
but I am just writing
I am writing pain and aches
and the tightening in my chest
do you feel it? can you feel it?
I write in good spirits
that someone else may read
the writing on these walls
realize that your love is not worth this
the suffocation
I cannot breathe on my own
and you choose
to critique my life support
do not trample a flower you refused
to water
because I am finding a light
your darkness never knew
I'm sorry
but I am not sorry
that you have to be my muse