You know how Emily said Hope is a thing with wings?

Well mine is nosediving and I can't believe how much it stings.

Despair it grips my soul,
And all I hear is screams.
They always echo on repeat and swallow up my dreams.

I used to love your arms around me.
Now they are suffocating.

I used to believe in one and only-
Now it just feels lonely.

I used to imagine a white wedding,
Now that thinking is steady resetting.

I used to do anything just to see you smile,
Now I know I haven't made you happy in a long while.

I used to believe in magic. Now it's all just noise.
Once the static passes, it's the silence that destroys.

I used to be a hopeless romantic-
Now I am only just hopeless.

I'm just a masochistic optimist.
Simultaneously angry at myself for every chance that I missed.
Holding on to dreams that could never come true.
Holding on to my future, the one I dreamed up with you.

I can't savor any taste,
it's all ashes on my tongue.
Bitter laced.
Where once a melody was sung.

Delusions in my head are spun through tear-stained strings and heart-wrenched knots.
All the what ifs and had nots.
How is love is just drawing lots?

Of all the millions and billions of fish in the sea,
I can't believe you may not be swimming back to me.

You were my everything- my home and heart.
You were what I always believed would be both my end and my start.

I just want to feel some other kind of pain.
Pouring down and visible on my sleeves.
Wading through my daily life, shove it down and abstain.  
Anything but this open heart wound, bleeding as he leaves.

One arm in front of the other, swimming in the deepest end.
My legs feel like weights.
I don't wanna move, I wish I could hit send.
My heart just stops and my lips curse the fates.

I'm a hopeless romantic and I feel so ******* frantic.

Just wanna run to you like they do in the movie scenes.
I see the reels on repeat in my daydreams.
I hold on to you and you kiss me back.
Everything is back on track.

I want to hold you close and tell you it's going to be alright.
Those platitudes not enough to make things right.
Maybe I'm just too broken to be held by another.
My clinging caresses only seem to smother.
All my crumbling little pieces just fall between the cracks of your well intentioned hands.
I always failed to meet our life's demands.

But how do you heal someone when you're the one who slid in the blade?
How do you let go when you fear you'll fade?

I want to hold on to hope that our story isn't over yet.
A fresh chapter, a re-write, a reset.

I was your "delicate" flower you would jest.
Now these petals are falling and I feel laid to rest.

I don't feel strong, I only feel weak.
A stem without water, leaning and bleak.

I've lost all my sunshine and my roots cling tight.
I don't want to give up the fight.

I̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶l̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶.̶
I̶ ̶n̶e̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶l̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶m̶y̶s̶e̶l̶f̶.̶

I̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶.̶
I̶ ̶n̶e̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶m̶y̶s̶e̶l̶f̶.̶

Will we ever-

Within your eyes, I am magnetized.
Green and glimmering, the shaky hand of fate instantly realized.
Draw me in, drown me in the sweetest sin.
Your gentle hands, a wildfire burning through my skin.

Blushing, as you kiss me, I feel fullfilled, waking up, blooming.
Ours is a passion all consuming.

This empty cup, it overflows. Within, a new love slowly grows.
Each of us only silently knows. As I dread the morning when he always goes.

How we fit together, like no other could before.
Every last embrace, always leaving me wanting more.
I considered running away, but oh how it's you I adore.

Your smile it warms me up on the coldest day.
I want to run my fingers through your dark curls and sweetly ask you to stay. Nervously, ask you if you feel the same way?

Am I alone in this aching need?
This silent plead.

There was more to this connection than a fleeting escape from our disparate lives and our broken pasts. I can't help but think this is a love that lasts.

Can we give it a try? Can we give it a go?
You're so far away, but I would be willing to take it slow.
The moment I met you was the moment I would know.
There was nobody else, I didn't want to have to let you go.

I made a wish, spoke it out to the universe, screamed it with my heart. A hope for a new love, a new start.

A home where the passion didn't die.
A love that wouldn't lie-
to escape loneliness or their own despair.
A love who would always dare.

Baby, can we dance in harmony?
Can you help to set me free?
Let's runaway together, you and me.
I promise it'll be an adventure, one that was meant to be.

This is a delicate game.
To wait and see-
if our feelings are the same.

It's all in shades of grey.
Decisions you made you can't wash away.
As you are spiraling down, buried by the words you never meant to say.
Searching, like a fool, to find another way.
Living for tomorrow and never for today.

I guess It's really over, this life we made.
It singed and scoured the clay in our hearts, though it was poorly molded. Still, this is not how I thought we'd fade.
Still our life was wrongly folded.
Foolishly smiling in the midst of all the pain, I guess with me there's nothing to gain.
This life has fallen, shattered on the floor, I just wish I didn't care anymore.
I guess our love was just a pottery class failure from the very start.
The proof is in my now broken heart.

I'm pretty sure I'll black out the sky and redo the stars within a better design.
You'll reminisce for those days when I called you mine.
When you've had enough of being alone, you'll find me again and miss what I've shown.
But will it all have been worth it when you no longer make my stars fall from the sky?
When I've grown cold from a heart left to die.
Love's fire smothered by the ashes of pain.
Please don't let us die in vain.

No flower can be fostered in this darkness, all consuming.
All alone and left to wilt, never blooming.
Each petal swept away, the face of death ever looming.
Crumbling to the earth, slowly the emptiness is so entombing.

You stand today, though you're isolated by fear.
Thinking it's best to stay here and near.
Can't take one more step, you grow paralyzed.
You make all these plans, though they are endlessly revised.
Stepping backwards again to that comfortable lie.
You're so lost in your doubt yet aching to try.
Surrounded by faces but trapped behind glass walls.
Cracking and breaking yet none of them falls.
I pound my fists to the hard brittle truth-can't seem to get through.
I try and I try but never seem able to reach out to you.

Every foot step, every mile, I sit there wanting to linger a while.
Hoping you'll call me home, by your side.
Where my heart likes to hide.
I feel it break a little more, it feels so tender, strained and sore.
Why is this just too hard for me to take?
Hard to ignore this bitter heartache.

I can't stand this.
Every mile I get away from you, makes me sick, feeling lost in nothingness.
I can't seem to hold off the pain, this town makes me go insane.
I hate it, I hate this place.
Here I feel I've got nothing to gain.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
No place to my name.

Sometimes I think the world spreads me thin,
lays my skin across a tapestry.
Searching not far enough within just to try and master me.
They try to twist me to a design that they find satisfactory.
It's getting hard to see, who I am over what other's want of me...
taking what they can and doing so happily.
Leaving me to falsely believe
that they actually like me.

Loss
chip
Violence
nic
Trauma
chip

With each chip I find it harder to feel.
Every nic makes my world feel less real.

Bruises
nic
Scars
chip
Tears
nic

Each more takes a bit of my heart.
Tearing me even further apart.

Betrayal
chip
Abandonment
nic
Loneliness
chip

I am losing myself it seems.
On this path of shattered dreams.

crack

Each one a new crack in my foundation.
Till I come crumbling down.
Just a linear step to stagnation.
Losing my words--they're all I have left.
Now I am stuck praying for damnation.

crack

I am slipping. Further away.
Lost in the memories of yesterday.
I have lost my voice-I don't know what to do. What to say.

shatter

I stomp on my broken pieces just to relive the pain.
I worry that I am too broken and just a touch insane.
'Cause I need a little sunshine to balance out this rain.
They say it just takes a little bleach to take out the bloodstain.

I am slipping through the cracks it seems.
But I want to glue the pieces back together.
I want to to be free and chase my dreams.
But my moods are changing like the weather.

I just wanna be lighter than a feather.

I am tired of carrying the pieces around. Some pieces already lost and won't ever to be found.

Can I just grind them to dust and blow them away? Lessen the weight of what used to be.
Can I craft a new vessel and gain the power to be free?

Free of all the broken bits of me?

Blank canvas, layers, peeling, past pains, loss, just a little paint thinner to wear it all down.
Gonna paint the next layer thin, again and again.
So it doesn't hurt as much when I peel it all off.
Blisters under my nails.
Stinging tears.
I have only one canvas and it's painting all my fears.
Weathered wood and fraying ends.
This is where it all begins.

Words they dance on paper, as my body loses strength.

My mind it races onwards, as my soul feels it may fade.

This pen keeps on writing, as my heart forgets to beat.

Every time I open up, another piece of me is ripped from my story.

My binding is bent and worn, with every page torn.

Once I was a fantasy, a story they could not wait to see.

As they read right through me, skimming every page-
the words for volume two, slowly came to view.

Drafts are left unfinished, the story more diminished.

Lonely ink spots, point out the unraveling plots.

I can write all on my own but I wanted to collaborate,
each new character felt like a twist of fate.

I studied every line, every single quote.
Looking for deeper meaning, but in the end it's all they wrote.

No after word, no biography-
not a single explanation as to why they never chose me.

Here's my dedication, I should always put myself first.
I am the author and the story, never unversed.

As long as my words are still written, this light inside could never be fully hidden.

Bring me home, if you want to write in permanent ink, if you won't leave me to myself.
Those that cannot understand and truly love the novel I am, then please I ask all you borrowers, just leave me on the shelf.