i saw my pride in the alley way,
coughing up blood and crying.
i looked at it and it looked at me,
but we never really saw each other.
i'm sorry, i said.
no you're not, it replied.

hey, god,
can you explain this artificial, chemically grown form of love?
if  this love thing's so wonderful,
why is it assigned like some ******* chore?
some combination of cells grosses from your genitalia
and now you have some new tax deductions and soccer games to see.

is love an emotion?
you endure it and feel it like it's turned your bones into wind chimes?
is love an adjective?
does that soup taste of love? does her hair reek of love?
is love a noun?
can you hold it and touch it? can you sew it to your t-shirt?

is love made in a factory?
a touch of obligation, a handful of selflessness?
is love a seed that's planted?
does it break through the earth and climb towards the sun?
is love a song you write?
do a few measly chords grow into music after time spent strumming your heart strings?

the earth is coated in conditions,
so how does this conditionless concept thrive
in an atmosphere that condemns it?

and why, god, why,
do i appear to be the only one who questions it?
why can't i feel it, understand it, grasp it,
when the rest of the world breathes it like oxygen?

the faithless can mold it,
the faithful live for it.
so what catastrophic flaw is lodged into my brain that disables me to feel it?
to comprehend it?
to accept it?

how can it exist in so many dimensions?
is it like the flu, do you catch it?
is like a piece of art, do you create it?
is it like your mother's crooked nose, do you inherit it?

and how
can a mother look at  her newborn
not knowing its intentions, its personality, its thoughts
and feel sunshine that
is rooted in the bottom of
her soul?

i feel like i'm floating away and the metaphors and lies are the only things that stay grounded
and all the empty promises are not getting counted
but how can i be honest when the words feel like puzzles where the pieces never fit?
i'm so tired of feeling like i'm drowning in my *******.

i've written a bucket full of poems about me and you,
but not of them feel real, feel true.
the true metaphors and phrases that i need to sew together are sailing on a pirate ship
in terrifying weather
and they're lost at sea
but please
if you could just forget all the thoughts that bloom because of me then maybe
you'll be happy.

i'd anchor myself to the creaveses of your brain if i had the courage
and didn't pretend to love pain
but you're a story i'm too scared to finish
but i'll let you be my shooting star
when the day is at last diminished.

if you asked me to define love, i would run so far that not even the moon could hear the whispering in my bones

and i know it's not a wordless song but i don't know what to feel.
i know there is a needle in your heart,
and a letter that's forever sealed,
but i like you.
you can play my thoughts like a violin on fire,
and you know the path that never ends unless you were to conspire
a way to die without making a mess.

and maybe i never make sense with the flower stem questions and my map of comparisons
but i won't go claim innocence to thoughts that seem to linger
until your heart says, "hey,
slow down."

but a feather's still a feather,
whether it stays on a bird or falls free.

and maybe i'm a dysfunctional robot and you can't fix me
but god i want to wear your smile
and save you from the journeyless destinations
but it's not like that.

my mind has a rusty lock
but i wear a metal hat
and to get through the glass you need to love yourself
and i can't do that
i can't be that.

and some days i fight with voiceless ghosts for a chair that hurts my back
and maybe nothing i say will ever be fact
and maybe it's not about if you understand,
and maybe on those 'not even tea can warm my frost bitten soul' nights,
i want to hold your hand
and feel your heart beat like an electric shock right across my scratchy throat
but my loneliness is louder than the echo in my empty gut
and i scream at the thoughts bursting through my stomach like a gunshot to the soul
and the wound is a deeper cut
than the scars that are painted across my skin because of the 4:05am guilt that says "you'd rest easier in a coffin."

these words will be the wrinkles buried in my face
and maybe if you were a strawberry banana smoothie, i'd like to have a taste
but thoughts are hiding in the caves of shame and disbelief
and it's better to read STOP signs than forget to breathe.

but a feather's still a feather,
whether it stays on a bird or falls free.

(it's not good to jump the fence,
if you already have the key.)

my mouth tastes like overdoses and stale diet coke
lingering on my taste buds with the jet-dry
and cigarette smoke.

my lips feel like sweaty kisses and chocolate cheese cake
brushing my fingers against the cracks
and the tiny 'i bit my lip' cuts.

my hands smell like rust and blood
dirt wasting away under my fingernails with the
tobacco stains and yellow paint.

(imperfections don't make me lovely,
they make me revolting)

say that little thing that sets my veins on fire,
make my fingers tremble when our eyes meet,
wrap your hands around my darkness and set it free
don't chain yourself to my insecurities.

let my breathing be your favorite song
but don't let it be our song.
rip the air from my lungs,
but don't take my breath away.
(starts with an L, but we're no Celine Dion song)

we'll **** these butterflies and turn them into ice-cubes,
play my spine like a harp and watch me sing.
mold me like play-dough but don't make me something you like.
(i'll let you have a taste but i'm not your favorite flavor)

let's put our emotions on the shelf,
they only get in the way.

you can want me,
but you can't need me.

i wish you loved me
like i loved you
and i wished on all those ******* shooting stars
that you'd find something in the sewage that's my heart.

but you can't
and you don't
and i don't, so i get it
and you wouldn't
and you couldn't
and neither could i

and i hope and i prayed
but i'm a ******* atheist
so a lot of good that did me

they say that Dminor is the saddest chord
and maybe that's the chord that my heart's tuned to
when i think of her holding you
and yeah these rhymes are ****
so i started to freestyle it
'cause writing it down's on more reminder that i lost you
that i lost you

no i'm not the protagonist
that's the part i always missed
my blender can't fit all this self pity
so i put it in a song to try and cope
'cause it's 1am and i'm all out of coping methods
'cause it's 1am and i'm all out of 'congratulations'
and i'm tired of pretending that i don't want you

'i thought you were okay with just being friends', you said, isn't that what you said?
when did i ever ******* say that
when did i really ******* mean that
i just didn't want to lose you
didn't want you to run like you always do

and maybe it hurt less when you weren't with someone else
and maybe the illusion kept me away from hollow
that maybe you'd want me someday too
maybe it'd be just me and you

it's really ******* hard to sound sad with a ukulele
but it's really ******* hard to feel this way
to feel this way

so i hope that's she great
'cause you're great
and i'm sorry

i lost my courage
and you lost your memory
both can be symptoms of drugs or alcohol.

alcohol stole your memory after a night full of open doors
drugs gave me courage then stole it and replaced it with a heart wrenching feeling of distress.

we're victums of the want to feel better,
the desperate longing to escape our troubled minds.

you forgot
and i still have the memory.

yet i'm afraid you'll remember everything
and decide that
i'm not what you need or want
i'm not enough,
i'm too much
i'm too this, too that.

to stay in this in between of emotions
or to reveal the idea of a different outcome

you know i'm indecisive.

your voice!
it's nothing, i just missed a few bars.
your neck!
it's nothing, just a few measley scars.
your heart!
it's nothing, just bad luck with wishing wells.
your brain!
it's nothing, i just lost a few too many cells.
your thoughts!
it's nothing, they're just a bit out of sight.
your life!
it's nothing, just  done with this fight.

her skin tastes like sour patched kids
and she was a
sour,
patched
kid,
with more stories about rusty space ships
than about boys who say no.

my brain feels like a galaxy that eats itself slowly,
one star at a time.

his face sounds like a cresent moon
without the soft hum of adventure.
slowly dripping from his eyes was the fluid from his lungs
and he cried his death away.

my lips smell like anxiety
it's a familiar smell
but lingering faintly is the loss of sugar plum fairies and candy cane wishes.

i don't like pictures of me
but i like pictures of us
and i love pictures of you.

i feel like i'm near the end of this game
and you had to restart.
so i'm stuck here waiting for you
so you'll be beside me once again.

you're glued to my thought process,
stapled to my dreams.
every song is about you
or about how we lost us.

we had it, i had it
the perfect moment
the precise time
but i swallowed my words
and you misplaced the moment.

words i never said,
words i wanted to say
are sewed to my tongue
with dark green thread.

a locked beginning
with transparent pedestals
that question the praise

remember, remember,
foreheads leaning, touching with meaning.
remember, remember,
feelings were mingling, stomachs were tingling.
remember, remember,
words unspoken, composures broken.
remember, remember,
it's okay, i want you, it's okay.

i wanted to tell you that i love you,
but my voice ran away
and my thoughts were too loud.

i wanted to tell you i miss you,
but the dryness in my throat clamped my mouth shut
and my eyes burned with memories of tattered promises.

i wanted to tell you nothing at all,
so i screamed at my fears
and wept forgotten pop songs.

if my scars could speak,
they'd reject your pity.

i'm not afraid
to get on
the roller coaster,
i'm afraid
to get off.

there was a knight that said he’d save me
but i found his sword in my mind
it festered and bled
and killed me with time

there was an artist who tried to draw me
but the image turned out black
i cannot count the ways
i wanted her back

there was a voice that said hello
and then quickly said goodbye
gone
before the tear could even fall from my eye