I thought we would be the friends
That managed to survive our youth
Without the dependence on drugs, and alcohol
So often found in our peers
A tool in their desperate pursuit of happiness

I thought you would be there with me
To talk, and joke
About being the only two not at the party
Getting slammed out of our minds
Stumbling away towards nowhere

I thought you were genuine
You promised me things wouldn't change
Saying wouldn't let the temptation get to you
Staring the demon in the face and whispering "no"
Because you'd seen the evil of its ways


We both come from families
With a background in addiction
We both have seen the damage it can do
Murdering a future
Shattering a family

I believed you when you told me
You understood what it was like
Watching her become someone vicious and nasty
And you swore that never, ever
Would you be the same

But I know better now, you're a fraud
A weak willed person
Afraid to stand up for yourself
When the people come knocking
Offering you a trip

These days I sit alone when there is a party
Because nobody is left on my side
This car so lonely when its only me
The empty seat next to me serving only as a bitter reminder
That nobody is with you, on your life's ride

Alcohol is a poison
You will fade away
We have all seen good men and woman
Wasting day after day

Addiction is a curse
One you can't escape
Every night I contemplate
Rolling the dice of fate

The bottle in my left hand
The trigger in my right
Throw away my future
Or choose to die tonight

I'm reading a book about
Eating disorders, and all I can think about
Is the hospital with the light blue walls
And the tiredness you feel after
Hours of crying and sobbing, followed by
More crying
I think about the young nurse grabbing my arm
And pulling me out of the bathroom to weigh me
And before I step up, she gives me an option
To stand looking towards her, making it so
I can't see the scale,
An option I gladly take
But when I get off the scale,
She mutters my number anyways
As she scribbles down notes on the yellow paper
That has my name written at the top, sending me
Running back to the light blue bathroom
Crying

I don't think
That feeling of tiredness caused by
Crying in front of the mirror
Has ever left, I think that feeling is here
To stay

Sitting on the dock smoking those stupid cigarettes
A half smile on your lips I fell in love
As the wind blows and howls
The lighter refuses to spark
So we huddled together
Hoping to nurse it to a blaze
Physically closer than we ever had been before

And as the lighter catches and you inhale deeply
I shrug and reach for one myself
Because in that moment you had stepped away
And i wanted you back in close
So I lit it, we sat together
Any doubts in my mind about my health
Erased by the rapid beating my heart felt

Arm in arm we talked the night away
Waiting for the sunrise
Two lonely souls now together
Bonded over a ritual as old as time itself
Yet still as magic as the day it was discovered
And when I looked over and asked you for another light
Our mouths were kissing; the world was right

As I walked
I focused on the pain
exploding through out my body
my legs begging to cave
but there was no stopping my pace

I thought of everything
the decisions I've made
and how I couldn't stop the motion
The events now unfolding before me

It's like watching a tidal wave
knowing you can't stop the destruction
nor save the ones about to be hit
all you can do is brace

Waiting for the power of fate
to unleash the course that nature
will now inevitably take
flooding the streets you've paved

I know that I just got out of the shower
But my eyes aren't wet from the water
And I would just like to tell you the difference between
"Bye!" and saying goodbye
The former would be used at the end of a long day
When the sight of you at another point in my life
Is not just a possibility, but something that is assured
I know when I go to sleep that I don't have to worry about
Telling you everything that I needed you to hear
Because I know there will be more time
But saying goodbye are the words I use
When I am unsure of the next time I will see you
And goodbye are the words I will use when
I want you to know that even though our time is up
I will never forget you, and every day I will wake
With your image in my brain and my memories of you
Still fresh from dreaming
Goodbye means that in the moments that you are gone
I will ache and cry for you
I will remember you
I will be thinking of you when I am lying in bed
And wishing that I could remember the last words
That I spoke to you
And when I say goodbye I know you won't hear me
Even though my only wish would be
The chance
To say goodbye

Dreams are so fickle a thing
Vivid, intense in the moment
You can feel her hand in yours
Taste her kiss lingering upon your lips
Hear the beautiful sounds of her laughter
But in a moment, all gone
The shrill screams of an alarm
Shattering the tranquility of a moment
Found only in your dreams

New born babies don't have fully developed lungs

When I was thirteen my mother told me
The story of my birth,
December 29th 1995

She brought me home, but something wasn't
Right, because I was blue and didn't
Move
She took me to the children's hospital
Where I stayed for two weeks, but
This poem isn't about me,

Because there was a lot of other blue babies too
All with the same underdeveloped lungs
And still bodies,
There was one baby
Who was in the room next to mine,
Just beyond the thin hospital curtain

Every night her mother would sit next to
Her, her with tubes up and down her veins
Laying in that little plastic box
Meant to keep the blue babies alive

This women would sing Amazing Grace
To her newborn, and according to my mother
She had a beautiful voice

She was praying nothing would happen
To her blue baby, and so was
My mother, but for me

One night the women's voice wasn't singing
Anymore, the lullaby was over and she
Was screaming
Because I'm the one writing this poem
And her singing couldn't make her baby
Any less blue

That baby's little plastic box couldn't do its job,
So now the mother is feeling the same way

And the screaming was
Heart wrenching, something I never want to
Feel,
A scream my mother never wanted
To hear

Today I went into the ocean
And my lips turned blue, along with my hands and legs
I couldn't help myself from thinking
Of that blue baby and Amazing Grace

Sometimes I wish I was the
Blue baby, and that the Amazing-Grace-Mother's
Words could have meant something
More
Than the stillness of a baby with
Underdeveloped lungs