He plays the the sound of a rainfall in Manhattan.
As he chases paper thin skin out of this sorry sob story
another fairy tale in his head.
I think you've had enough for today Alex
why don't you sing of pretty things?
Eyes like coals too dark to see,
do they stop your hands from strumming that guitar?
the tunes you play
the melodies
echo in the absence of your voice
and alex you taste so sweet
sweeter than the alcohol you use to get to sleep
I tell you one day the past will catch up with you;
but your smile looks like a well adjusted childhood.
Something were all surprised to see.
And yeah your fingers pour over the strings,
because
the only time they dont shake is when you play
so play for me
play play play
sing sing sing
dont stop
dont breathe
just play

I fell in love with a dancer
all angled jawline and pure ***
He took my body and turned it into
a puppet for his dance in the spotlight

I fell in love with a musician
all slender fingers and carefree spirit
He took my heart and plucked at my
heartstrings so intense they twanged and snapped

I fell in love with an artist
all paint smears and wild imagination
He took my soul and painted pretty pictures
that stayed black and white because he forgot my colours

I fell in love with you
(you were all of those things
yet you were none of those)
and I had nothing left to give
but maybe that's how you like me
broken, scribbled-on, empty shell of me

My parents ask me                                               whenever I am in my room
                                                                   For several hours at a time
"What do you do all day?"
I sit in my room writing poems
                                   for boys who will never write back
Writing letters                                           to people who have abused me
Writing letters                                     to my eating disorder
"Hi, how are you?"
                                                                 "Haven't seen you in a while."
((And I'm ever so ******* thankful for that))
However, this time she responded
                                                  "It's almost Thanksgiving,"
"We should talk"
It's like she's carving her name into my bones                      one more time
It's like she finds purpose in ******* the life from my heart            with a straw
She is a cut that just won't heal
A stalker you can't get rid of
And yet,                                                                           you continue to want her
She is a paradox
Because you feed her           open mouth with the         grapes fit for                  a      queen
But she is the evil                                               witch.
She reminds me that               I need her
Traveling through the canals in my                             bones
Shooting up my                                         spine
Making my                                                             blood flow in waves
I           cannot            control             her
She tells me again,                        as if I hadn't                           considered it
That these holidays are going to be                           hard
They are going to try to                rip the skin            off of me
Pluck each individual                                                                   eyelash from me
Seeing how much I can take                                                                                                                      
before I lose it.
After all, my      grandfather          is              gone
And the last time he saw me
She was still                              my partner
Attached               at the hip
Last Thanksgiving, she not only              sat        with      me at the table
But held      my        hair         back                  as I vomited my dinner into the toilet
It's so            sad          and               sick that sometimes                I miss her
Like an old friend,                                              an old pair of shoes
So worn and broken
But still somehow             a part of me.
Still, I                            refuse to                                          sink
I am a ball of fire                                ready to explode
But I will contain
the                                                     urge
                                     to
               relapse
Until my
                         very
last
                  breath.
She will not be the thing     that                          kills me
I will                            die                                                               fighting her off
Escaping her talons
Recognizing she plants                                                                 bombs in me
Not roses.
So, when                       my parents ask me                                           what I do all                                            day now
I can                say
                                                      "Live."

PTSD is not something you get over.
It is when soldiers get tired of hearing their own shots fire
Into a purple horizon of nothingness.
It is when assault victims are scared of becoming a statistic
And their brokenness is suffocating
It is when fear compels the mind to change
And it willingly obliges.
PTSD is when the darkness of human nature becomes evident
It is when it's stronghold is suddenly
More prominent than the beauty in the world
It's brash fingers create a vacuum
That ***** the sanity from your mind
Until you wake up in the middle of the night screaming
"Don't shoot me!"
"Don't **** her!"
You see him and now he is with your little sister
Taking her into his Jeep
While you stand there, watching
******* because you can do nothing about it.
This has not happened
And probably never will
But you are crippled by paralyzing bouts of anxiety and guilt and fear
From which your mind cannot console you
You can no longer hide the loss
That this event, this person, this illness
Has placed strategically within you.
It is when you will do anything to get these memories to stop playing on repeat
An endless loop maybe ended by alcohol
Check
Cutting
Check.
Promiscuity
Check
Anything that will eliminate cycle of not knowing
Of reliving
If only for a short time
Even pretending you believe in God
Because it makes it seem like there is a reason for this confusion
But then you begin to question why God would do this to his child
So you digress into darkness once again
Left feeling unsure.
PTSD is when you stop repressing memories
And they come back so forcefully that they knock you to the ground
Leaving you bruised and ******
Leaving you lost.
PTSD is different from other sicknesses
Because you do not feel sick
You feel there
Like you are in his bed again
And his room smells like mushrooms
That is actually a field of grenades
Waiting to explode throughout your small body
You remember the tone of his words
Slipping from his lips as though they are snakes
Strangling me, leaving breath unable to escape
This is not sick
As you feel no symptoms
But an altered state of consciousness
You do not even realize you are disconnecting as it happens
But this is Hell
This is war
You are broken
And the worst part about it
Is that you must understand your triggers
Your dissociations
Before you can get better.

Sometimes you can do everything right
when it comes to being patient, listening and playing
with a woman and after so many years
that feel like a blissful eternity
she can still leave one 3am night out the fire escape and on a train
to look for something better.

Sometimes you can do everything right
when it comes to helping the homeless;
giving them good and listening to their stories
and maybe even helping them find a job
and still get hit by a bus
soon as both feet jump off the curb.

Sometimes you can do everything right
with a story, and it's a gorgeous masterpiece
of years of editing and chiseling each word
to paint a picture that would make Rimbaud and Van Gogh weep
with ******* exuberance
and still find yourself dying slowly,  broke, in a homeless shelter
listening to a guy who will be hit by a bus
soon as he walked out the shelter
whose girlfriend left him at 3am.

Dear Rosemarie,
I really miss you.
Please tell me you haven't forgotten
The times we went to baseball games
Or when we went to my favorite restaurant
We both ate the same thing every time.

Dear Rosemarie,
I hope you don't blame me
Just as I don't blame you.
What he did was not your fault
I still love you with every ounce of emotion my heart can build up
Our memories are like butterflies, beautiful but fleeting
And all I want is to run after them
Catch them in the palm of my small hands
Please, Auntie
Can't we run and catch them together?

Dear Rosemarie,
I've never been able to tell you how strong you are
Daddy told you what your son did to me
Over coffee at a diner in Pennsylvania
I would think that would be as bad as
A text message with contention-soaked letters
An email with despair marked in the spaces
A phone call with unrest woven into the wires
Public displays of tragedy are the worst
And seemingly impersonal.

Dear Rosemarie,
He said you were never mad
In fact,
He said you never even questioned my trembling words
That were vibrating even from miles away
My initial fear in telling was that you would be hurt
Or even angry
Although that is not in your nature
But you believed me
And for that, I will be forever thankful.

Dear Rosemarie,
Remember how Uncle Joe used to smoke
And you'd make him go outside around us kids?
I didn't even know about his habit until I was close to nine.
Well now, cancer sticks are my vice
And I don't hide it quite as well.

Dear Rosemarie,
You were the only person I accepted sympathy from
Even though I heard it through my father
Because we both lost something sacred that day.
You may be the only person as destroyed by this as I was
So here is my chance to tell you that I am sorry
Not for coming forward
Not for tearing a family apart
But for what he did to me
And how it hurt you.

Dear Rosemarie,
The pores in my bones still remind me
I am hollow
I am human
Just as he is.
I do not hate him
Try to be soft with him
After all, he was only a teenager as well.

Dear Rosemarie,
I really miss you.
Please tell me you haven't forgotten
Me
Because I will never forget you.

Sojourn at the hinterlands of a fog casket
awoken to be suffocated
put to sleep        to dream
within a dream                         the nightmare of a mother's fear

depression is so easy to slink in
so wary of all those palpable sins
like being yourself -

awoken to be suffocated
put to sleep      to dream
with a dream                           the nightmare of a mother's fear
where pink haired ladies
talk about my dissonance

within a dream about the nightmare of my mothers
self punishment -

for birthing me
questioning                if it was the right decision

if I          was born to suffer
this fate

so i wake                  in the land of dead people
who's limbs fall apart
as they're names are called out by the concierge

to my voice as whisper
to my courage bubbling underneath
a mother fearful of coming close
forgiveness is a blessing
and the tears flow

                       out of the eyes of a child onto the cheeks of a woman
who's life was molested by other peoples sanctions
a woman who stood tall for the voice of others    children and elders
who encouraged chance meetings to be themselves via magazine clippings
and a mother afraid to come close
and a child still living the actions of a ghost                 looming at her with wide eyed slanders of " you ****** up , you *******
you **** up at everything"

it's difficult to look               it's like watching someone be strung up
naked
tied to posts
and the spaces between their fingers sliced
their yoni sliced
their ******* sliced
their heart beating wide eyed screaming
silenced.

My mother
who birthed me
whom i respect
for all of her showings
no matter how ****** up

strung up
and the vision is blinding.
and we're both crying
but i don't tell her
because it's lunch time
and she's ****** up again.