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.

I've always thought of it as a dance
As we prance around the sound of our stares against each other.
But what would I do when I knew there was just no music to dance to when we're together.

If love is art
Then let me be your canvas.
Caress me with your brush dipped in lies, mark me with the things you wish to do.
Wound me with the expectations and limitations you envision and I will bleed all the colors for you.
Be my artist and I'll die a martyr to be your masterpiece.
As I cease to be myself, cutting my life piece by piece until you can look at me at ease and find me beautiful enough to please.
Beautiful enough to please you
In your artistic hunger for something stronger, as you ponder upon what to do with me.
Call me your artwork,
Set me aside and let my heart work on the broken pieces of myself I tore away for you to see.
You've left your mark in my skin and your colors in my blood within as I struggle to remember who I was before your artistic touch.
Being myself felt like a sin with you around as you bound my hands to keep me from being such.
Keep me from being me.
Keep me from being such as myself as I shelf away all the pages that you no longer wanna see.

Love is art
And you were an amazing artist.
I just wish I was your favorite masterpiece.

Oh heavenly bodies, what secrets do you keep?
What enchantment do these bright entanglements hold?
Do these stars from afar keep tabs on the rays of the days of faces i meet?
Do they watch over me, rooting for my story waiting for my fate to unfold.?

Oh heavenly bodies, what whispers do you hear?
Of silent prayers, mournful cries, oh shooting stars, tell me what you know.
Of lovers’ lies, of strangers’ love, of unsure promises made clear.
Oh cosmic bodies, hear me now. Tell me where to go.

We were watching a movie.
I was staring at her
while she was dreaming of
You.

I told you its nothing,
I'm fine and there's nothing wrong.
But how I wish I could tell you
I've been lying for so long.

Why can't we be together?
I love you
How can we be together?
You love him.

I lit a cigarette
in hopes of washing the taste
of your lips away.
I exhaled fumes of hate
as I try to hide what
I wanna say.

While the nicotine fill my lungs,
itching and tickling
every inch of my teeth.
Only you make flowers grow
in my rib cage and although they are beautiful,
I can't ******* breathe.

You asked me to throw it away just as i
finished lighting my cigarette.
The tip burning the nicotine as the fumes
turn us to a mere silhouette.
You love me, you said. You only don't want these
**** things take me from you.
I believed you then as much as i want to tonight
but i learned you're something killing me too.

Being happy and having no right to be unhappy are two very different things.

I know your name, and i know a fraction of who you are and what you carry.
Yes i know your name, but not quite aware of the whole story.
A mystery all to familiar, a mystery I've grown quite fond to think,
grown rather fond of not understanding on how my emotions start to sink.

How can you love what you cannot know? Where affection seems to dim down.
Why could my emotions be sinking in the reality I am trying to drown.
Breathing in the fumes of uncertainty, I exhale my last breath.
A mystery between happiness and grief, a life in the brink of death.

What lies behind those enigmatic smile remains a mystery to me,
as I realize the sad truth I only fell in love with the idea of what we can be.
I loved the idea of you, despite the fact you were never who you've been.
I've grown fond of the person I have never even seen.

Now I ponder on the great unknown, a mystery from afar.
Within insanity, but the Enigma seems all too familiar.
A mystery I'd rather not uncover, I'd rather not find on the gems above
since the mere knowledge of not knowing is enough for me to have.

The Enigma too taunting yet too precious to be known.
The mystery keeping me awake at night.
My beautiful enigma, better left unknown.

"We merely coexisted
almost met but always missed it
spinning around like two sides of a coin"

You say you know me yet you’ve only ever seen my smile
And not the letters I’ve been sending my skin for a while.
The hieroglyphs I carved to let out the screams I’ve been hearing
Like fogs clearing out and about to filter the words I’ve been saying.
You’ve heard my laughter going softer as the days turn to an endless night
As I recite these verses repeating curses killing the lights ‘til I’m out of sight.
You don’t know me, you never wanted to.
You had a clue but what could you do? Even I never wanted to know me too.

I’m a kitchen sink clogged and overflowed by my own tears leaking.
Feeling hopeless and dying as I let some more spill out through bleeding.
Overflown with emotions, I motion it with caution slowly across my skin,
Overthrown by this notion, this knife giving life to the Me I’ve held within.
Inside the four corners of my room my locked door seems too out of reach
As I give my wrists red ink on each to write in light what I truly beseech.
You know this, I know you noticed. You just wish you didn’t.
And I wished I hadn’t let you but I wished for what I couldn’t.
I’m alive and I just wish I wasn’t.

You know me better than anyone but you choose to look past through.
Now I’m rebuilding these walls taller and stronger just for you.
My sleeves covering up my screams as it seems to keep them back in their den.
I couldn’t stand knowingly showing you my insanity. I  don’t ever want to hurt you again.

I’m sorry.

Don't tell the others
but it's all getting old
I mean how many more times
must my story be told?

i wanna die

I wondered
what we'd still be
if we didn't

I was never impressed by people
Who enjoyed puffing out smoke.
I hated the smell. It made me choke
And made me cough.
But when I had you
Between my lips I simply
Could not get enough.
I was in awe by your softness
Reminding me of my first kiss.
My teeth biting into the filter
As I pilfer through every wheezing
And every hiss.

I inhaled you in.
Like the phantom you are,
Dancing inside every lung.
I tasted you. Fumes crawling
From my lips to my mouth and
Resting on my tongue.
You made me feel whole.
Like the fog filling up a hole inside
My mind so I can think.
My body taking its toll as my soul
Go into the clouds and sink.

You burnt me.
Your tip red hot with embers
Flying out into the air.
Remembering the heat of my
Frustration and ashes returning my
Deafening glare.
You were no more. All that’s
Left was a red part of you between
My lips and the fire inside me you set.
I snuffed you out. Tossed you to the ground
And stepped on you.
Time to light another cigarette

Anger and rage fueling every word
Escaping my lips as the cage of my bird
Silently and willfully flapping two wings
Taking on two very different things

We played tag and I was it. I was chasing after your whim. I ran and I sprinted behind you tho i knew my chances were slim as you were too busy running after him.

Her canvas was drowning with blood;
As her paintbrush slices open her skin.
Paying the price for showing the world
her beautiful art from within.

She strokes her paintbrush in colours
Reflecting ripples of repetitive repulsion.
Her canvas covered with colours and
Succession of the glitters of her imagination.

She’s trying to escape, don’t you see
the struggle riddling her eyes?
She always hated her life but
you never realized what’s behind her lies.

Her mind was the most beautiful explosion
of vivacities through collision of galaxies.
The colours of her canvas masking her
tears from the ever growing mental atrocities.

This is the price she pays to show the world
The beauty of her mind.
For how can you write your beautiful poetry without the
Dark void of emptiness you feel inside.