6pm. Dinner with you has always been the opposite of mundane - we both couldn’t eat without watching a show so we had yours open in the background. A contingency - a safety net incase the awkwardness between us overshadowed the fact that we’re spending time with each other. This was when it dawned on me - the inevitability that I will someday hurt you.

I read somewhere that sometimes, people form trauma bonds. It’s like a sick sense of belonging to a situation that keeps on hurting you and the only reason you stay is because it feels familiar. Stockholm Syndrome should learn a thing or two from me because I have unconsciously mastered the art of making someone stay. I am constantly at a stalemate between wanting to spend the rest of my days with you and wishing that you someday realize what I have been whispering to our pillows every single time you’re asleep - I DO NOT DESERVE LOVE. LEAVING ME IS THE BEST THING YOU COULD DO FOR YOURSELF. SAVE YOURSELF FROM ME. I have grown accustomed to loving you, i admit. Loving you was like my first time riding a harley. Terrifying. No helmet or elbow pads so in the future, my scars can attest to how i fell for you. I love you enough to sometimes want to **** myself to give you a better chance of survival.

6am, You are the first thing on my mind. Like a ****** awoken by a higher power I wake up everyday excited for another chance to love you better - love you the way you were supposed to be loved - love you so much that even cupid would be jealous of the amount of love one person can offer. Instead I hurt you. I’ve heard somewhere that hurt people hurt people, that you can’t love anyone until you learn to love yourself. *******. I love you so much that sometimes i forget to hate myself. Like a singular lamp post in the middle of an obscure road, and I a moth scorching myself every time i try to get close to you - I would burn for you. Nothing else matters as long as i love you but how can a dog born deaf learn how to howl, how am i supposed to love you when love has never been a feeling I enamored until i met you.

Is it kindness or cruelty to make you want to leave? Is it mercy to accept the fact that i am a lost cause and you are much better off loving someone who deserves it. I gave you every piece of me and called it love - created an entire ocean from my broken pieces to offer you love but failing to realize i never taught you how to swim.

I did not pick myself up over and over again from the damage they have caused just for me to inflict the same to you. I did not bruise my hands and dislocate my fingers to break the chains that bound me only to use the same restraints to keep you down. Candles were lit to burn but what do I do when the very fire inside of me no longer gives light but only serves to cast a shadow over every person who ever loved me. My lips are a hollowed out auditorium for every word I chose not to mutter. Wanting you to stay became my greatest fear and it took every ounce of my fiber to teach myself not to yearn for your voice. Love is a beautiful thing but my love feels like an unstable bridge suspended between the shoulders of the past versions of myself I am not sure are alive. When I say I Love You, I mean I will force myself to forget you even if it means saving you from drowning yourself to save me from the vast ocean of hate and resentment I have unwittingly built and called home.

I am falling into an abyss filled with every bit of hate I have for myself and I’ll be ****** if I bring you down with me.

The first time it all made sense to me was the moment I laid my eyes upon you and I prayed to every god in this world to let me keep at least one good thing in this life. I wanted to love you the way I have never been loved before but how does a person born blind attempt to reinvent a color he has only heard about in stories. How did I expect myself to love you when my whole life that ******* word has eluded me, has been the subject of every poem I’ve written every time I put ink to paper - what the **** was I thinking when I regaled myself with empty promises of loving you when I have never felt it. Christ's mass and the nailing of Jesus was not told for people like me to feel loved. Being a ****** person and feeling bad about it afterwards does not make me a better person - it just means I am a pathetically self-aware ******* and the earlier I accept that, the easier it is for me to save you from myself.

I have accepted the fact that I cannot be loved. I am unworthy of love but please tell me I am still capable of loving someone because if not, then I don’t want to consider myself a liar every time I have said, with every fiber of my being, every inch of my skin, every crack on my bones and every breath in my lungs the words “I love you.”

I wished to be born as the moon.
I wanted to control the tides as it comes and goes
Wanted the ocean at my fingertips through the highs and the lows
But instead I was born as a field of grass.
I would look up and gaze at the moon.
Right there out of reach as it came up and bring the tides to the beach

I hated every second until I saw couple.
Both in love as they mutter three words to each other.
I may not command the changing of the months
But I am here to witness why some days are worth remembering
-something the moons is too far away to see.

For my next life I wanted to be a mirror.
To look back on people as they stare at themselves
Pouring out every bit of emotion they hold within.
Instead I was born as the bed.
I couldn’t understand why I was there until one night,
A girl came and rested her head on the pillows, wrapped herself in a blanket
And cried herself to sleep.
I may not have been there to see her watch her reflection and point out flaws
But I am here to keep her safe from it until the morning.
And I felt contented.

Next, I wanted to be a star.
I wanted to burn brighter than every other being,
I wanted to be admired from afar.
When I woke up, I was a lamp post.
I pitied myself until one night, a moth saw my light.
Flew directly onto me and burned itself to give my a kiss
-a luxury even the stars will never live.

I thought I outgrew it.
It was just a phase fueled by teenage angst,
and I just turned 24.

I figured it wasn't gonna last.
The strong emotions were good writing material
but now I don't know what to use these emotions for.

I have a job now.
I have a house to pay for, bills to settle,
I don't have time to feel sad.

Does every person who took their life feel this?
A brief sense of comfort in feeling a familiar thing
tying you back to every thought you once had.

I heard:
One of the houses on my block was broken into.
Glass shards everywhere, broken locks on the floor, the burglars knew what they were doing.
One of my neighbors called out to me when I moved in -
"Keep your doors locked at night, there are thieves in this area"

After I heard that, my mind went straight to the thought of owning a gun.
Needing to own a gun.
My house would feel much safer with the gun in the safe.
I would feel much safer with a gun.

Pointed to my temple.

I've rehearsed it over and over in my head
I have no idea who I'd need to convince but I managed to convince myself.
It's like a silver lining to this entire situation.
I'd keep it hidden in a safe or behind the books on my bookshelf.
Owning a gun would let me fight off intruders in my home.

Or blow the voices out of my head.

6 out 10 homes have a gun.
I would feel much safer with a pistol somewhere in my house.
Just a means to an end.
An equalizer.
Something to grab in case I really need to.

End it all.

I'm a writer but lately everyone's been telling me to write something i can perform.
In front of an audience, in front of a crowd, head held high standing proud, my written verses said out loud cooking up a calm before the storm.
In my best suit on top of a stage performing written word, slurred stanzas revolting in my ribcage painting you a world in black ink.
Listening to the clink of the sea of beverages served for everyone here to listen to me lessen my verbal baggage before it makes me sink.

I'm a writer and I'm writing something I can perform for people to listen to.
For fifteen years I've been writing poetry to be read privately and it's the only thing I have ever known to do.
Spoken word poetry and written poetry are very different things if you start to compare the two.
Written poetry captures the intimacy of reading the three main words for romance while spoken word lets you hear the voice of someone saying I love you.

I have developed a genuine fondness for reading poetry alone to myself in the middle of the night.
But spoken word gives me this new feeling of affection for that one person performing verbal art in front of the spotlight.

Written poetry reminds me of Shakespeare's "parting is such sweet sorrow" read from a letter and knowing things will no longer be the same.
While spoken word poetry is Edgar Allan Poe's raven visiting me at night but instead of saying "nevermore" it croaks your name.

I was an observant child.
I learned a lot of things growing up.
Things kids are not supposed to witness are tattooed on the back of my mind.
I learned the importance of discipline as fear was used to keep me in line.
I learned that lying is only bad if you get caught and the truth can be bent as far as you'd like to make your stories align.

A lot of my parents' lessons made me learn things like love is earned not given. A cruel truth they taught to a kid who was only seven.
I learned that I do not deserve their love or attention unless I do something, unless I accomplish the things to make me worth their affection.
I was a smart child. I was admired when all I wanted was to be loved.

My parents raised me. Growing up all I wanted was to be like my dad but now I'm worried I see him in my rage whenever I get mad. I learned to throw a punch before i learned how to apologize, I learned how to act strong when all along no one told me it was okay to be weak, I learned how to smile before I learned how to be happy and I learned to shout before I learned how to speak.

I am not a child anymore.
People would commend me throw compliments at my way as if not knowing a candle kills itself faster the brighter it burns.
I open up about the things I learned and they tell me it may be wrong but it made me strong. It made me stronger and it helped me become the artist I am today but I was a child. I did not want to be stronger I needed to be safe.


I learned a lot of things growing up. I learned that sadness felt familiar so I'm relieved when tragedy happens. I sometimes purposely set myself up for failure to at least have a reason to be sad. Self sabotage became my language and boy am I good at speaking. I learned I wanted to **** myself but still learning how to make it easier for the people I love when I'm gone so I slowly make them hate me.

I learned that I am not a good person,
I learned that my parents tried to be. They're still trying.
When you are not fed love on a silver spoon you learn to lick it off knives and maybe that's why every poem I write hurts me more than it hurts anyone else.