Am I cold like the winter because I've never known summer?
Never felt the blistering heat boil my skin
Feel the surge of sunlight illuminate my every thought
Or am I cold because I have
I've known the temptation of warmth
Imprinted it against my heart like a sunburn
Each icicle melting away with your touch
I felt it all
And now I'm left to clutch at your shadow
Watch as the sun hides itself from me as if it's ashamed of my face
I'm cold because you were my warmth and now all I have is snow

We’re painting the roses red
Because the white isn’t good enough
It’s too innocent, too pure
It’s petals not yet touched by the crimson dripping from our hearts
What hearts?
Hearts we build out of plastic
So that bullets shot at us leave no drastic wounds
Only indents
Nobody says anything
We wrap lace around our rotten cores
Hopeful that beautiful will one day mean forgotten
And our mistakes won’t haunt us like stairwell ghosts
They’re band aids we place on each lesion
Doing whatever it takes to create shield of armour for our castle
Can’t you see you’re a castle?
A castle built on top of the ground you were pushed down upon
Where the white roses grow
Words are like arrows aimed at your throat
And you can’t breathe so you close your eyes
Covering your ears like a worried toddler
You hide and inside you build treehouses
With signs that read “No Trespassing”
Throwing stones at a fleeting reality that begs to be let in
But you’re terrified of what you’ll find waiting
Because you’re still just a child
Aren’t we all children?
Children left timid and quivering
Who pity themselves as lesser beings
Two halves in two worlds
Built only on broken roads that wish to bring harm
And their arms feel weak from reaching both distances
Somewhere along the way their compass was smashed
One hand pointing north, the other south
So they call themselves worthless and keep their mouth shut
But why does that make them the lamb and you the lion?
A lamb that counts their scars as they grow
And notice they all look like people
Snakes in mankind’s clothing
Who asked you to love them but their fangs sank too deep
They couldn’t see your innocence bloom in each petal
They assume that your heart is as damaged as them
Admiring the view of rose covered gardens all painted red
Where everyone wants to be different or dead

Loving me is like a cold front. I am scared of fire I can not control and you burn too hot for me. I can not see through your smoke and I am choking on your promises but it is my own fault because I let you think I was a volcano when I am an alp. Still, I grip your embers hoping if I burn off my finger prints I can be somebody new, somebody who is not killing themselves trying to love you. I want to be strong because weak hurts, and I want to kiss you and feel fireworks but all we get is steam. You are not my element and we are not star-crossed just incompatible. I am addicted to the burns you have inflicted on me: I feel them fade in your absence and I miss their sting. I like being reminded that you hurt me, I like being reminded that you touched me once. That you looked at my jagged edges and dared to grab on knowing like glass I could shatter but trusting that I wouldn't: you liked me to believe I was strong. I thought we were perfect for each other and I get stuck in our memories. I can only remember your perfections, and the little things about you until I can only smile because nobody knows fire like I do. I let you take everything I had but I can not control you. You rage through everything; brashly burning paths that aren't familiar to me and you don't want me anymore, you make me wonder if you ever did because you seem to like having me watch. Watch you love other people properly. Watch you finally blaze in the life you've always wanted. I am only trying to rebuild my snowy disposition but you keep lighting me on fire. I don't like fire I can not control.

when i write i feel in control
maybe that's why ink is sprawled around my life
on shopping lists and schedules
on my walls and doors
false words printed on screen that make no sense
I write from the edges of my lips, my tongue, my fingers
I'm not sure who I'm trying to inspire
myself perhaps
my teachers
my friends
when i write i feel in control
i can say anything that i want
without a violent awakening to follow
but if my words only reach the corners of my own mind
what good do they do
they don't tell my mom i love her
they don't tell my father i miss him
they don't tell my friends that i wish i could hug them
they don't tell my teachers I was missing because i was too sad to wake up
all they do it spit my own thoughts back at me as if i hadn't already had them
when I write i feel in control
because cages do not hold people
words do
and Im too claustrophobic to survive in a mind filled with pointless babble

When I first met you it was dark
underneath the society in which you favored yourself the plague
I shook your hand and smiled
but you already saw through my mask
I was never good at lying
and I would never be close to lying to you

I watched you from the passenger seat
the rain pelted my windshield but all I could hear was you
You spoke in big ideas, like stars and planets
you wanted me to picture myself among them
but I was rooted into the ground like the old oak in my backyard
turn left, then right
the pavement dancing past so thoughtlessly
it had no idea of the brilliance that drove upon it

I loved you when you weren't listening
when you were laughing to yourself about your own joke
and I joined you
hoping you would understand
but you never did
I bought you coffee and knew your order
Hours with you felt like minutes
and when you left the hollow in my chest grew
I loved you so heavily with every hug and hand hold
every minute of every day
but nothing seemed to show you how I was feeling

I lost you too many times to count
Sometimes it was on my terms
other times it was on yours
but bullet wounds hurt no matter which way you shoot
When I lay in bed and watch the ceiling
I think back to when I first met you
I wonder what I could have done to convince you to join the real world
but my world had become you
and yours me
and in that light, I didn't want to go back