oh, love
I'll keep my doors closed
but never locked.

my frame sways in the wind
the breeze lifts the shingles on my roof
years of precipitation slowly wear away at the brick
I'm tired of the plywood covering my windows
sick of the empty chairs
I can't breathe under the 6-inch layer
of dust and neglect
these patchwork remains of home
don't satisfy me any longer
they say you can't help others
if don't help yourself
but these four walls mean nothing to me
so let me do what I can, while I can
and when my foundation finally crumbles
I'll let go of what I have
sell my sewing machines
give you my collection of glue guns
so maybe you can hold your own when I'm gone
peel away the duct tape
that's kept me in one piece for so long
and throw it to the wind
I'm falling apart at what's left of my seams
and I'm gonna let it happen.

you are a fetal pig
dissected
cut open
for science
displayed before me
on a shiny slab of steel
dripping with chemicals
meant to keep you clean
for the next person
to pick you apart
and take notes on what they see
dress me up in a white jacket
scrub my skin
make me sterile
give me your protective glasses
don't forget to distort the lenses
I couldn't see straight, anyway
but don't hand me that knife
'cause the blood I see on my hands
won't be yours
I promise

I could tell you why
you can never get the mailbox to close
but it would be a waste of breath
because you never listen to me anyway

the process of finding a lifelong love
is pointless
human psyche is still guided
by primitive instinct
to find a lover
to procreate
and when the individual
finds something better
she leaves

the gold reflected in your hair
from the sun dancing off the ocean
will never amount to all he's searching for
when you wake up alone in the morning

you grew up on hip hop
and he was sort of punk rock
and I bet that's what he told you
when he walked out the door

let him go, love
know he'll never come back
I believe you'll love him a million years
just don't expect the same

so put on your heels
and play your games
and find yourself a heaven
somewhere new

mis demonios parecen cicatrices
y el sabor como el suicidio

painted faces
scarred skin
weary arms and quivering legs
you asked for an army
and this is what you got
walking corpses with empty eyes
that you'll scoop out with plastic spoons
singing the songs of our breathren
in abused voices and sore throats
selling our bodies for boys in other countries
doing it all in the name of love
congratulations
you created us
now let us welcome you
to our black parade

these words
make me sick

I've found that the saddest people are the most eloquent poets
so it's okay that your phrases don't flow quite right
and that you use words that don't really fit
because the day your childish scrawl matures
will be the day I know you're gone

hold the silver over a flame
turn it, twist it
let the metal soften
mold it, bend it
dull the sharp prongs
blend away the etching
and the nicks and scratches
from years of abuse
with your rough fingers
press it's extremities together
to fill in the gaps
between it's teeth
make it slick
make it shine
replace it's maker's signature
with yours

now, stand back
look at what you've done
forks are just spoons
without the holes
but when you went to fill them in
you forgot that
there wasn't enough material
for them to patch over smoothly
so in your hands
you hold the mangled remains
of a broken masterpiece
that you thought you could fix
but forgot
you didn't know how

you said you were the man
who fell in love with a star
and you couldn't understand how
a mere mortal
could fall in love with something so far away

maybe I am a star
but stars have no substance
I am nothing but chemicals
so big, so bright
so distant, so empty

here I am, adrift in orbit
of a black hole
of illness and self destruction
dark, haunting
waiting to **** me in

you wonder how insignificant you must be
to all of us above
but I think you look quite
enormous
and it makes me feel small

don't come closer, dear
or you'll burn
and if you wait long enough
maybe it'll be time for me
to burn up, too

my eyes are shut tight
tears locked inside by a little green pill
meant to suppress the "bad thoughts"
I haven't thrown up in ten years
the contents of my stomach churn, unable to be free
nausea, induced by your secrets

I want to let them out
my contraband emotions
but I cannot
they'll ravage my insides
growing, a cancer
until they steal the last breath
from my chapped lips

for now I'll escape to the shower
with water burning the skin off my back
clean my body with broken nails
scrub myself raw
reopen old wounds
with a fluffy pink loofah

and when the water runs cold
I'll turn it off
lie on the floor of the tub
let the cold tile rattle my teeth
and I'll stay there in silence
until the faucet stops dripping

if I weren't on these meds
I might've cried
felt every time I said the wrong thing
or didn't say anything at all
roll off my face
and stain my laptop
with a tinge of mascara

if my esophagus weren't opposed to vomiting
I probably would've met my lunch again
would've been left heaving
gasping over a blue ceramic bowl
mourning my plethora
of mistakes

if I'd been home alone
I might even have screamed
howled
cursed your name
cursed my name
anything to get it out
of my clogged-up system

but I am on these meds
I haven't thrown up in ten years
and my mother sits on the couch across from me
so, instead, I'll escape to the shower
clean my body with broken nails
scrub my skin raw
reopen old wounds with a fluffy pink loofah

and when the water runs cold
I'll turn it off
lie on the floor of the tub
let the cold tile rattle my teeth
and I'll stay there in silence
until the faucet stops dripping

I was thinking about us
about our twisted mess
of love and lust

of ****** unfinished poetry
about stars and misery
and damsels in need of a
knight in shining armor

of how you're so gentle
when I crave the opposite
all I ask for is aggression
and you can't even give me that?

I sat down today, meaning to combine
the words "love" and "lust"
(because, dear,
that's all we are)
and all I could come up with
was "lost".

lost musician
failure of a poet
and lover of things I cannot afford

it's amazing how much we talk
how many times a day
we let words and sounds escape
through our heavily filtered lips.

different people talk
in different ways, different voices
and with different meanings
some, meaning nothing at all.

it's amazing how much we talk
but I still find myself in awe
of just how little
we actually say.

music is many things
it is invisible
untangible
nonexistent
but so powerful
coursing through your veins with every
beat
with every
measure
emotions, spilling through the air
butterflies, soaring through your soul
it's aggressive and loving
it's violent and gentle
it's painful and soothing
it's hideous and beautiful
it's me
it's you
it's all of us
music is
we are
seperate
unique
alone
but one.

When we talked the other day at lunch
we were standing in the hallway
you holding my hands tightly
between yours
and a piece of paper crumpled in the
sweaty palms of mine
told me that your identity was
hope.

And I've been thinking about identity a lot lately.
How, for so long, I've felt like I had none.
I was a piece of college-ruled paper
ripped, torn, taped to a back alley wall
with names and dates and places
all written in a rainbow of Sharpies
from people who's faces will never escape my memory
my handwriting with the cursive "f"s
nowhere to be seen
words I'd written so long ago
buried beneath the influence of everyone else.

I believed that, if I had a word at all
my word would be something like
smothered, suffocated
lost, broken.
And, in a way, I guess it is.
But I think it's more than that, too.

I think that my word isn't just
right here,
right now.
It's the past, it's the future
it's what I have, and what I'll never possess
it's what I need, and what I crave
it's what makes me feel so much, yet feel nothing at all
it's what I'd do anything for, yet what I fear the most
it's safe, and it's dangerous
it's beautiful, and it's ugly
it's small, but so magnificent.

It's how I feel when my daddy holds me tight after a long day.
It's when my mom says she doesn't want to see me hurt.
It's why I always hold on a little too long when you wrap your arms around me.
It's an excuse for hurting myself in an effort to protect those around me.
It's what I say when there are no other words.

It's why I push people away
but long for them to come closer.
It's why I run away, keep my distance
but, when you're not looking, lean in a little further.
It's why I text girls 300 miles away
but feel like she's right there beside me.
It's why I kiss boys in the rain at their parent's house
but, somehow, still doubt myself.
It's why I make promises I can't keep
but wish you wouldn't do the same.

It's why I laugh with you and cry without
It's why I hold your hand with my left and take pills with my right
It's why I read stupid books and write ****** poetry
It's why I believe in nothing but wish for something.

It's me, telling myself that if Mom really loved me
she'd put me before the glass of wine.
And it's me, convincing myself that it's my fault
and that I'm not that important, anyway.

It's me, telling myself that if I had friends
they wouldn't leave me alone on a Friday night.
And it's me, telling myself that no one
would want to hang out with me, anyway.

It's stupid things
it's serious things.
It's stupid things taken too seriously
and serious things mistaken for stupidity.

It's the past
it's the present
it's the future.

It's what I want
what I need
what you give me.

It is lost
it is suffocating
it's shattered into a million pieces.
But it's also found
it's alive
it's messily put back together with a 6'3'' hot glue gun.

My word is perpetual
eternal
infinite
but so fleeting.

It's me
because I am
forgettable, only wishing to be remembered by someone, someday
sad, looking for joy in things big and small
a hypocrite, begging for proximity then crawling far, far away.
I am miserable, but so happy
I am identical, but somehow completely different
I am what-ifs, maybes, and might-have-beens.
I am quoting Jethro Tull songs in my confessions.
I am words in my head that will never escape my lips
I am words on my lips that should never have escaped my head
I am things I'll never say and stories I'll never write
I am singing in the shower, dancing in the halls
I am running across busy streets and standing on freshly painted front porches.

And so is my word.

It's me
but it's not
but it is.

I was convinced
that the English language
was too small
lacking
missing something.
But then I realized
it wasn't.

You told me who you were
and one day, it'll be my turn.
I am
love.

it's 11:45 pm
and you're sitting on your bed
your newly cut hair pulled back
and your first experience with fringe
occasionally dancing over your eyelids
the sounds of a tv and your mother teaching herself the clarinet
make it hard to concentrate
on the thoughts in your head
but your inner organs tell you all you need to know
your stomach flutters with a thousand monarchs
your heart soars
and your knees are weak
and you're not sure how you're going to recover
but that's okay
because maybe you don't want to

any hope I ever had left long ago
lost in the wind
a kite with a broken string
the scissors held in the trembling hands
of my mother
and now she wonders
where the child she once loved
has gone
and I don't have the heart
to tell her
that she burned the kite with a
gas station zippo lighter
and the ashes were poured
into a glass
of merlot.

I went to therapy
to feel human again
but now I find myself feeling
less alive
than before.

you told me that this
is who you are
hope
you chose the word to define you
for now and eternity
and to be honest
I think it's fitting.

you told me that,
by telling me your word
you were showing me your
trust
in me, and that it would be a secret safe
between us.

what I didn't tell you, though, was that
all hope comes with a certain degree of
naivety
and I'm just sorry
you gave your hope away
to me.

relax.
be calm.
you're safe.
in through the nose, out through the mouth
50 times
and, into thin air
anxiety disppears.
*safe

my greastest fear
is forgetting

if you talk a little louder
and hold on a little tighter
and focus on the smell
of the ****** soap from the
girls' bathroom at school
that lingers on my hands
even after showers
maybe you won't notice
that the girl in your hands
has been a corpse
for quite some time.

they've got an edge going down
and at first it feel good
it feels right
but then the edge becomes a burn
a slow burn, dragging your coeherency down with it
they catch in your throat, choke you
you can't breathe
you feel like you're drowning
but you don't stop
can't stop
and suddenly
it becomes an addiction
it's wrong
it hurts
you feel like it'll never end
but eventually you've thought yourself to sleep
and you wake up the next morning with a headache
and a bad taste in your mouth
that tastes a bit like forgetting

the smooth brush of fingers against my face
morphs into steel against my hips
pulling, dragging
the remnants of your words
spoken so harshly, as if a command
leave red stripes on my body
tracing every imperfection with the violent caress
only found in a blade
carving you into me
over and over again

shh, please be quiet
don't tell me I'm beautiful
because the place where I keep
my collection of lies
is running out of
skin.

we tie ourselves into knots
around each other
begging, pleading
curling tighter
suffocating one another
until there is nothing left
but dry skin and bone
a corpse that smells
of desperation and decay
our names forever seared onto the remains
and we decide to call this act
of brutal destruction
love.

dragging
heaving
crawling
finally i learn to walk
and then
i fall
again.

I find it so interesting
to think about hands.

to think that the same hands that guide, nurture
a loved one
could be used to beat, break,
abuse
another weak, fragile
human.

to think that the same hands that cooked pancakes
for his mother on her birthday
could be used to build a bomb to
******
the recipient of someone else's
breakfast.

to think that the same hands the hold yours so tight,
a lifeline to this drowning me
are used just hours later to tear, cut, burn,
destroy
the skin and bones you say you
adore.

to think that the same hands we use
for love and compassion
are so easily misused for
evil
and that no matter what our hands have touched, they will always look the
same.

i should make a tally of every time i've lied today
oh wait
i already did
with a steel pen and red ink
on my hips.

there's a girl who sleeps in my bed
I don't mind her too much
though I wish her nightmares
didn't make such a mess
of the sheets.

she uses my shampoo
I'm okay with sharing
I just wish she would
save me a little
conditioner.

most of the makeup in my room is hers
some of it's mine though
I prefer blushes, eyeshadows
while she collects
concealors.

and sometimes, on the right day
I see her when I look in the mirror
not very often though
I don’t really look a lot
like her.

when I look in the mirror
I see flushed cheeks, wet hair
nails need a trim
hips, a little excess
but okay.

I don’t always see cuts
bruises, starvation, memories
of self-induced punishment
three failed attempts at
"making it stop".

I don’t always see
the ghost of years ago
when I look in the mirror
but sometimes
I do.

the love of a best friend
is one that cannot be
smothered
but when i watch you and her
i don't see best friends
i see one girl desperate to escape
a sick, twisted, dying relationship
and i see you
starving, crying out in the darkness
wanting to be the girl she longs for
while she's too busy chasing boys
to notice your sacrifices
you look in the mirror and you see wrong
you see lost
you see empty
where she sees nothing
when she asks why there's no one
to hold her close in the night
you look at me and i can see it in your eyes
i'm here, love. i'm here.
but just because i see it
and just because she sees it
doesn't mean she wants it
doesn't mean she needs it
so please, for me, for her, for them
wake up in the morning
eat the food in front of you
smile at your reflection
just because she doesn't appreciate you
doesn't mean no one else does

when i look at you and her
i don't see best friends
i see a love that's been
smothered
by codependence and
a lack of oxygen

i see loved
and i see
lost.

i was told once that
playing with fire was
dangerous
because someone always got
burned.

all i know is my body
is charred beyond
recognition
which begs the question - who lit the
flames?

people like to talk
about ways they
want to meet their
demise.

there's this recurring theme
of herocism, bravery
dying in battle, sacrifice for one
another.

some even joke about it
make it sound like something
comical, funny, like some kind of
movie.

the media plays up death
to be something to be cherished,
something to give your life a final
meaning.

dying for love, for loss,
for country, for state,
for freedom, for slavery, for
glory.

they romanticize the word
until it begins to sound like
some sick kind of gift instead of a
curse.

still, they all recognize
that they would rather breathe
than find themselves 6 feet
under.

but what happens when
you realize that, maybe,
death isn't so
beautiful?

does death lose all its honor,
its glory, its divine salvation
when it's delivered by your own
hand?

have you ever thought about
the similarities between
united
and
untied?

read one and
mistaken it for
the other?

felt like one
but found out
you were
the other?

your father died a long time ago
before your mother married him
before you were born
and i watched when your mother
pried his cold, dead hands
off of her arm
hoping it would let you and her be
free.

the stench of alcohol still clings to your clothes
and you scrub it out of your sheets
with tide and clorox
with soaps and dryers
and the love of your mother
as you struggle once again
to let you and her be
free.

you do what you can to protect your mother
from the dangers of our world
because she's been through enough
but sometimes you forget
that you need protection, too
and you find yourself scared, trapped
wishing you and her could be
free.

but people aren't just born broken
it's what people do, what people think
what people drink
that breaks the person, who breaks you
and sometimes it's so easy to hate the man
broken by the desire for his brand of whiskey
when it's been years since you've tasted your own brand of
freedom.

the sermon today was
                                                  a story.
you've probably heard it.
a preacher and a butcher.
the preacher mistook the
                                                  butcher
for a poor excuse for a
                                                  shepard.
but the story's
                                                  irrelevant.
what's relevant is what
a woman told me
after --
that it is so easy for
christians to be led
                                                  astray.
from shepard to
butcher
and not even know the
                                                  difference.

and
i thought
this happens to everyday people
too.
how long until your
                                                  loving guidance,
                                                  gentle prodding
                    turns into
                                                  angry demanding,
                                                  violent shoving?

how long until your
                                                  love
                              becomes
                                                  forced?

how long until you
                              become
                                             a
                                                  butcher?

i played my recital piece
for a man and his daughter
and the man told me
"there's hope in that piece"
and it got me thinking
that maybe
just maybe
if i can find the hope in my music
i can find
hope
         in
             me

your body was painted in
     red
     white
     blue
bracelets and longsleeves to cover
     stars
     scars
     stripes
like an american flag

because while some wave their flags
     proud
     strong
     brave
you found yourself fluttering
     torn
     half
     mast
except no one important has died

     just
          you

because when you said
you felt like you hadn't
     seen me
          in forty-eight
               hours

all i could think was that
i felt like i hadn't
     seen you
          in over
               a year

and as far as my eyes can see
i still can't
     see you
          at
               all

how much longer until my
corpse
is too broken
for all the kings' horses and
all the kings' men
to put my body
back together
again?

Words are toys
except more dangerous
Only fun when used
for the sole purpose of
destruction.

***** filled to their
brims with C4
Dolls with fantasies
to make your mother squirm
Trains driving fast,
out of control, off the rails
Games with just one winner
and a graveyard of
loss.

When you grow up
you expect the fun to
fade
But instead of fading
the game simply
changes
Your face becomes a year older
and your toys become a year more
deadly.

when i was little i
wrote poetry about
                                                  bugs.
i watched them
dance through the evening
                                                  sky
and­ at the time i
thought that they were
                                                  free.
free­, like i would grow up to be.

but i grew up and they
looked different to me
                                                  then.
the fireflies no longer would
dance for me, it was more
                                                  frantic.
l­ike they were trapped,
schitzophrenic, in cages of their own
                                                  making.
and­ i felt pity for them.

but now i see
that we all have
                                                  cages
and while everyone
around me is finding their
                                                  escape
i feel lost
between these narrow
                                                  bars.
i'­ve been here a long time

and i think i've
lost my
                                                  key.