i spent my life trying to please
someone with a twisted disease
i broke myself down
and tucked my feelings away
to become the person
they wanted me to be
i let myself be watched
through the glass of a two sided mirror
of a sociopath
i wallowed my spirit away
and begged for acceptance
but there’s nothing in the world
that i could do
to let the narcissist know
that i am human too

You took pills
To take your thoughts away
Red, violet, and blue
Were your favorite colors
You say
Red, violet, and blue
Are what took
Your life away

I tried to
pull all of

the sunshine

out of the sky
and all of

the water

out of the ocean
to pour into your veins

so that it may
get the blood

of our memories
flowing back into
the roots

of your heart
in hopes
that it could

bring the dead parts
of our petals

back to life

my beloved
you don’t seem to see
how you’ve taken everything from me
leaving my secrets
spilled out in blue ink
like orchid oil tears
the sweet aroma of fears
extracted by you
fills my world
and i can no longer think

my mother always warned me
about what to do
if a stranger ever tries
to come up
and talk to you

but she never warned me of how

the body you lay with
the second soul
you choose to bear
can become a stranger
at the drop of a star
as well

I’m writing to you from the heart of L.A.
Because my healing process
Just isn’t going the way
I imagined.
I’m having trouble, you see,
With shedding this body, of me,
Because I can still see the imprints of your kisses
And feel the soft dance of your fingertips
Across my skin.
I try to do anything random
To make me happy;
Driving through neighborhoods in Rosemead,
Having my chakras aligned at a random sound bath therapy,
Driving to Long Beach just to write by the sea,
Picking lemons and oranges from the citrus trees
Within my favorite park,
Because when I pour their juices over my broken heart,
The sting brings a feeling, or a memory,
That only you could ignite in me after dark.
Everything I do, I do with the thought of you
And that’s strange for me to admit because
Even after all the California earthquakes you shifted
My grounds to,
And all the pink noise I try to drown thoughts of you out to;
Like driving late at night down Sunset and Vine
While my brother talks to me
About his favorite rapper’s documentary
But I’m only half listening
Because I’m too distracted
About what I’ve just learned about Van Gogh,
He only ever sold one painting in his lifetime
So you can imagine how emotional I get each time
I question why, why I do this
Why I try,
When nobody reads these melancholic thoughts of mine.
However throughout all of this,
There’s one thought that won’t run away from me;
It only talks about how much
I love you

M.H. John

if the walls of my bedroom could talk
they’d say how i cry
to the moon
holding my breath
giving myself chest pain
convincing my brain
that it’s from the novacane
i force myself to take
because now & days
i numb myself
to be washed in your acid rain
because it still lives inside me
storming away
anytime i choose
to speak your name

it’s hard these days,
even after all these years
it’s hard
for me to sit directly
in front of a mirror
when all i see
in the reflection
of the glass’ tears
is the image
of you
replacing the body
of me

You’ve sailed the deepest seas,
And have seen
the most exotic islands,
However,
The most violent waves
Have left you a shipwreck

i can feel myself
being swallowed
by the red sea
the salt water
fills my eyes
and i can no longer see

this happens every time

i am stuck
in the whirlpool
of my own anxiety

i try to kick my feet
but i only tangle them more
in the sea ****
that lies beneath

Can you see me
From your bird eye view?
I stay up past three in the morning
Counting the rings of Saturn
While crying to the moon

I try to pray to you

But I get lost searching
In the veins of the sky
Where the colors fade from
Orange to gold to purple to blue
For the perfect star

That could possibly hold you

a father is suppose to be a child’s first
hero
protector
guider
and mentor
however for me my father was my first
tormentor
narcissist
and the monster that hid under my bed
with a bottle to keep him company

i stood over the sink
waiting for it to fill up
so i could wash
yesterday’s tears
out of my face
when suddenly
i felt your words
grab behind my neck
and submerge me underwater
i could hear every
hateful word you said
muffled beneath the water
when I pulled my head up
the sink was filled with bubbles
and that was your way
of apologizing today
until you do it again tomorrow

i’m sorry this world
did not welcome you
with open arms

send me a letter
when you get back home

so i know that
you’re safe

last night while sleeping
beneath the cosmic’s silver rays
a moon flower began blooming
slowly unfurling
the daze my mind is in these days
As fragrant whispers fill the air
I wander through a world of dreams
Where time stands still and all worries cease

I ask myself
“Why can’t life always be this pretty?”

Walking through my moonlit garden
of the rage that waters my inner peace
I am quickly reminded

Of how someone like me
Can only enjoy the beauty of life
And acceptance of reality
In my sleep



-M.H. John

I walked through
The garden yesterday
And be-headed
The tops of daisy’s
After they repeatedly
called out your name.
I passed by the tulips
And cried with them
Understanding their pain,
I sat by the lilacs
And watched them stare
As they said
Their finally goodbyes.
However,
I passed by the roses
and watched them bloom
And I remembered the time
When the thorns told me
That only roses
Bloom for you

denial:
you tell yourself
they just needed a break
a vacation for the day
until a vacation turns into a week
and a week to a month
then you realize all the questions you have
are left wrapped in cellophane

anger:
your presence to me
was as calm as the sea
until i remembered every promise
you ever made
and then suddenly i become the sea
and these waters are no longer
soothing to me
but are now a violent whirlpool
where all my emotions
end up in the middle of

bargaining:
this is where my “what ifs” come into play
and how my “what ifs”
create a fake imagination
to where it is now a fake escape
from any kind of pain
until i can adjust to what my reality
is now set up to be

depression:
these black out curtains
still aren’t dark enough for me
i can still see your face
sitting in every picture frame
on my walls
with your smile
hanging there picture perfectly

acceptance:
this is the final stage
now i finally feel alive and free
the sun is no longer my enemy
but is now a friend to me
to remind me everyday
that i am alive and okay
i am now content with this
being my reality

i use
all of the pain
i know
each time
the season changes

to repaint my soul

because i know
how much you hate
the same color
in various
shades of tone

the light in people’s eyes
who have dealt with loneliness
glows brighter than others
because they have had to find
conversations within looking
up at the moon

i sent a postcard today
it must’ve not made it
past the clouds
and to the golden gate
where you await

I got home tonight
Walked in front of the mirror
And undressed

Out of my skin

Leaving my corpse
Lying on the floor
I sit next to it

Opening my eyes

To release the water
That have short-circuit
The wires of my mind

I take a deep breathe
And count to three
As I gaze into the mirrors depths

Reflections of my soul emerge
Skinless and vulnerable
I confront myself
Causing my memory to surge

I don’t recognize this person anymore
Dropping the hard drives into the degausser
Old files displaying
An error occurs
“Are you sure you want to erase memory?”

CTRL+ALT+DELETE

I have finally set myself free
Of the AI who controls my mind

Named:
Victim mentality

you salt my gardens green
reviving the trees
in which eden
used to swing

calling out to me
to bring my own tears
from the emerald sea
i give them to you

to control

for my gardens may know
how i have
lost my soul
far too long ago

if i could visit my younger self
i would go back to the day
when the laugh of lions
didn’t scare me away
into a world

i was trying to leave astray

a world that once;

smoked me up whole
making swimming pools
out of my tears
that’d be dusted
off of my cheek
into ashtrays

just for the narcissist’s
around me
to feel at peace
drinking from the sea
of pain they ripped me apart in
because they only knew
what they had bled into me

Love is like a flower
We pick the most exquisite ones
The ones that look most delicate,
And blow the lightest in the wind.
Once picked,
we take care of it
We feed it
and place it in light
Trying our best to make it last.
Until the pedals start to fall
We try reattaching them,
Shaking the flower
More fell off
And we are left
With nothing but roots

we wrote our songs
in the stars
for the gods to sing
but we wrote it
out of tune
and maybe that’s why
the universe
couldn’t save us

i force myself to sleep
because i know she’ll be coming soon
i feel her arms around me
and her fingertips across my veins
before i’m able
to pull her close
i awake
and realize that my sleep
was only a vacation for her
to come and visit me

dear universe,
please let her
be grounded and see
how her energy
radiates through this world
and into the roots of me
that have longed
to be brought back to life

maybe we loved each other
most in the fall
because much like us
the flowers were dying

California
Is where I long to be
The golden state
In which awaits
Dysfunctional dreams
And
Died out fantasies

we were promised flying cars
and big jet dreams
filled with smiles for miles
on white yachts
under tangerine skies
but all we got was
a dull pocket watch
with a timeless end
and that was enough
for the both of us

hearing your voice
and hearing your name
brings back the pain
of what was yesterday

i found your coffee stained shirt
hidden deep in my drawers
and it brought back all those memories
of us at the corner cafe

and days where we’d sit along the bay
and count the stars
as we’d name them after our dreams

these days i find myself
trying to let the time heal eventually
all our memories
all our history
and all you meant to me

i stayed until midnight
standing at the bus stop
waiting to go to the airport
to the board the plane
to the moon

because i heard
it doesn’t shine as bright

now that it has you

the moon pulled the tide
to new highs of extreme
scared to come down
the ocean forgot
all he used to be
until the sun came around
and the waves could now hear
the significance of its own sound
he thanked the sun
for bringing him
back to the ground,
“don’t worry”
said the moon
“i’ll be back for another round”

i attempted to cry for you
because i was always taught
that if you add water
to a dead flower
it could come back to life

i cried this morning
while washing my fruits
my tears mingling with water
fixated on conversating
about my emotions
simply due to the fact
that everything in my garden
was grown by

the love of me

only to be harvest
on a regular tuesday sunny afternoon
by none other

than the hands of you

i have become angry
angry at how
the colors in the sky
are painted of you

and all the colors
you said
i reminded you of

have washed away from me
and into the earths skin
so that they may
form sheets of flowers

to remind the earth
of how your beauty
still lives within a world

that is no longer beautiful
to people
such as me

if a painting
had your voice
i’d sit and
watch it dry
for millions of years

i think you and i
would grow much better together
on mars

we have already taken up
too much of each other’s
oxygen anyways

after climbing onto the rocks
and to the top of the cliff
he feared now not
feeling the comfort
of the whirlpool
because while standing
above the sea
he found new meaning in life
now that he realized
he is free

maybe you couldn’t sleep
because the moons
were trying to talk
to you

we sat in empty parking lots
and watched the ferris wheel
talking about how
we were once
on top of the world

and now at the bottom

exiting the ride
but still syncing
our heartbeats
to the neon lights

what would the moon say to the earth
if she knew that your beauty
stayed flying high
while hers fell to the ground?
would she hide
in the suns shadows
for the rest of her life?
or would she distance herself
so far that
she turns into one of the stars
she used to wish upon

i used to envision myself
gracing scenes of
your spotless minds
movie screens
in films wrapped in gold cellophane
directed in flickers of light
electrified by pain
enhanced by the vision of what
our love could be
switching to black & white projections
anytime i feel happy
to play onto the theme of
my own personal deflections
because even the actors know
i’m the happiest
when you’re without me

i step in
the hot shower
for about an hour
giving myself
10 seconds to cry
before falling to the floor
pulling the curtain liner
praying to the faith
of my surrender

i hope it happens soon
i hope the water
can be the one to love me
enough to pull me under

the tornado inside
let’s the whirlwind of highs
project violet skies
that now only live
within the white noise
of heavens sunrise

i wanted to go out
the way you did

but sometimes
god laughs at the plans
you make out to die