*****
I want to forget my existence

I want to lie in bed until I can no longer feel my feet.
The tingly sensation climbing my toes
and making my bones resemble static electricity.

Some days I think it's the only feeling I'm capable of feeling but sometimes it feels more real than
any heartfelt goodbye could.

I'm disintegrating from the inside out
My lungs consumed with shards
as my eyes fill with salty water that stings my cheeks, rolls down my face, and soils  my shirt

He said it's only for now, not long at all.
I count the days until I feel your warmth
But forever with him, feels like a second
While a single goodbye somehow assumes an eternity

I dance barefoot in my driveway,
letting the cold gravel indent into my toes
making me feel like a kid again.

I can still taste the rocket pop syrup on my lips,
and smell the grass stains on my levis
Sitting in my sandbox, staring up at the clouds.

Dreams of being a writer, an explorer.
Someone with intention and aspiration,
who stays glowing with fire.

The childhood within me finally came to age,
and I hope she's as proud of me as I am.

One of the seven hues our eyes perceive on the rainbow spectrum,

I used to lie in bed and wish I could lift the burden of the darkest shade of indigo

Deep denim like the veins in my arms, the ocean at night, and the thoughts swimming deeply in my head

My eyes, a steady tone of cerulean, brighten glassier than the sky on a clear Summer's day

The smell of Spring and new life, tiny robin eggs, and sapphire forget-me-nots

Eating arctic cotton candy with berry jelly beans, my tongue stays an artificial tone of teal

Blue makes me feel human and I'm trying wholeheartedly to live in full color

With every flick of light
I grow dimmer and dimmer.
Memory tarnished with burn holes
of a grown sinner and I’m scared.

Seeing spots of expired clarity,
I’ll keep numbness at my fingertips.
Insomniacs get more sleep,
so I skip every therapy trip.

Cope with no hope of recovery,
but scarf the midnight stabilizers.
Better days will never stay
when you’re a self loathing sympathizer.

My ears are rendered useless as jargon fills every canal
And my legs are numb from answers I long sought after

“You see this here, this is why you can’t see or hear”

I feel the cold examination table turn into my personal chopping block
For any ounce of salvation left

“And this atypical depression explains your major atypical depression”

White and gray matter riddled with scars and defeat
Proof of my demise makes me nauseous even in my nightmares.

“Speaking of which, here’s why you can’t speak and only twitch!”

My sticky insides were doomed from the start
Faulty workings trying to disguise themselves as functioning parts.

Healthy has become only but a word to me with no meaning
But I long for it’s stale taste and I mourn the loss of every stolen morning

You just met your match made in interpersonal paradise
where the clouds seem to dissipate and
the imaginary fields of ten feet tall sunflowers never wither in the sun

Was it in your own personal utopia with clear visions?
The kind like the top of a balcony you go to think at night when your parents are fast asleep
Or maybe your starry-eyed dream,
one of a love story with a never-ending tale

It's just a gray matter lost city begging to be explored
with the idea of never being alone
Like a fantasy, quenching every primitive thirst
more than any other substance is capable of relieving

I'll gladly be your self-control, if you stay my voice of reason.

Waiting rooms with gray walls and spotted brown carpet,
Scattered with crying babies and outdated magazine stands
Tideous clickings of pens on clipboards writing in medical histories

Everyone is waiting on something here
and for the first time, I don't feel sick in the lobby

Smooth words with hungry conversation stay my new elixir
While the impulses in my brain dispell
and the world dwindles into states of impertinence

Who knew good company could soothe the cure for a neuromaniac

They sometimes call me the gray girl.

For most, it's the dye I  pollute my ***** dish water hair with but
for few, it's the cold ice water that's replaced the liquid pumping through me.

Sometimes I wear men's golf sweaters in the summer.

The droplets that slide down my back remind me
that even abominable snowmen melt and while
it's mostly sweat, it's partially my inner workings thawing becoming nothing but a pool beneath my wiggling toes.

Deep puddles, never-ending trenches to trudge through,
Shallow puddles, the same ones I used to play in when I was a kid. Splashing and leaping until my lower limbs stay covered in rain water mud and my bangs smell like the outside air.
I didn't seem to melt as easily then.

They sometimes call me the girl frozen in time

Maybe for the '96 edition baseball keds I wear in the fall, mimicking the past, keeping it's stillness locked away in a time capsule along with the same ice princess costume I wore three Halloweens in a row.

Or maybe for the worn out flannel from Pools that always seems to be the first thing I throw on my shivering body when old man winter blows his first frosty kiss
always finding it's way to my cheek.

They sometimes call me rosie

Not the riveter, but always for the hue of reddish pink that accents my nose when spring showers and April flowers grace my passageways and fill my visuals.

It's more than the allergens, it's the intoxication of new life with fresh beginnings that make everything seem smoother than the honey tea dripping down the corner of my mouth.

They sometimes call me all of these things, but I've always been known as the season of dwindle.

Stay in bed until your body hurts from staying in bed,
Gain 5 pounds,
Go through a nasty breakup,
Distance yourself from every bit of humanity,
Feel bad that you're distancing yourself from every bit of humanity

Get spontaneous bangs,
Think about the universe and human socialization,
Decide maybe it's just not for you.
Decide that's silly.

Get another piercing,
Decide you hate your bangs,
Decide you like your bangs.
Tell people to call you the little drummer boy,
Pa *** pum pum pum.
Remember that people support you regardless of anything previously mentioned.

Decide you're still a good person.
Mostly.

Have an ongoing Harry Potter marathon as a coping mechanism.
Because Harry wouldn't do this to you, okay
Be reminded of your childhood,
Miss being a kid.

Immerse yourself deeper into more cult classics.
Is Donnie Darko god?

Wonder how people describe you to others.
Get really insecure about how people describe you to others.
Realize you're normal,
Realize everyone thinks about this.

Like about existing
And the butterfly effect
And how it's important that you're here.

Realize you're glad you're here too.

His words tangle tightly in my brain
and ring fire in my soul,
just like an old-timey ballad  
spinning in the background, dusty on my stereo

That jet black hair keeps me weak in my knees,
voice as strong as our morning coffee,
Whispering my name
with sweet lines that remind me, I'm here for a reason.

And that reason will always be my home sweet home

You shouldn't trust my thoughts.
They're beautifully arranged,
but their intent is too dismal

You’ll follow them down,
take notes and listen close
only to be pulled in

But don’t worry!

The antidote is numbing
and soothing, like crackling embers
behind freezing hands

Slow time and unwind,
while your brain resembles
the grease stain on your shirt

Your trivial mind, tribulations,
and trials are silenced,
but only for the time being

My somber mind is paused
And I’m afraid for you when it resumes.

Hot pancakes at 11 PM,
dark roast coffee that burns my mouth,
Vanilla wafers and skim milk,
Moby's soft meow when she circles my toes,
the view from my messy desk,
frigid winter days,
frigid winter nights,
showing others my favorite movies,
feeling myself,
hearing loved ones say my name,
the thought of a stable future,
forehead kisses,
bad cult classics,
spontaneous day trips,
the ability to live for new things,
the feeling that I'll make it out just fine,
now knowing I'll make it out just fine

Scratchy secondhand sweaters,
spicy apple cider, rosy noses, and cherry pie cheeks,
crunchy grass, orange sunsets with firey trees,
teddy bear suckers, rootbeer floats,
blood and guts on cobblestone graves,
Carving big pumpkins, cold tile floors,
flannels that smell like bonfires and breeze,
snails at fall fest, tiny pencil skirts,
the warmth of you lying in cold crunchy leaves

Lace on my thighs and fringe around my neck,
more is revealed than the flowing crimson blood.
Bleeding deeper and deeper with every slowed breath.

Deeper than the girls I see with their shoulders against the wall,
the dream girls with their purple hair and tattered tights.
My neck growing saturated with strawberry nightmares,
but at least they like my tattoos.

I feel the black cats circling my ankles,
cries of hunger and any form of normalcy or stability.
It feels familiar, like a hymn from my childhood
throbbing between my ears.

Overlooking other's carnage is easy, until it's your own.

I don't know what this means, but it comforts me.

My mother always told me
I can be who I want to be
When it's time to take my daydreams
and turn them into reality
From the babbling blank drools
that hold my future,
to the passion that burns
just like empty calories.
What kind of life will I lead
Will I lead or will I follow
Who is the face that stares and
glares through the fountain reflection
only waiting to be freed

But sweet darling,
never stop questioning
if your aspirations will leave you
wrong and hollow or even if
you sulk, filled with sorrow.
But please, dear being, remember
I will be who I will be
and I choose to be happy

The mask is greater than the man.

Sitting motionless and colorless, you wouldn't dare guess he's fearless
when hiding behind two holes and a nose
He sits a very scared little man.

An anxious and weak, small man.
A man who can't look his server in the eye,
A man who sits nervously on the subway,
The same man that convinces himself five times that he has in fact locked his front door, regardless of the seven times he's checked before.

He's lonely.
Lonelier than the budding flower with no one to enjoy it's beauty
Lonelier than the naïve, bopping teen that truly thought she was loved deeply.

But the disguise he wears keeps him company in dark times.
It reminds him that victims cannot poke fun when you have already poked the victim.

Warm bloodstreams pour from their wounds, soothing the hidden man's very own wounds.

His mask allows him to be free,
even when it's the very thing that keeps him chained.

They say anyone can put on a façade,
but very few men are greater than the mask.