Here I am baring my scars and there are people calling me brave and this is never what I wanted. I wanted to show you my scars because I feel like a fraud and I wanted to show you my scars so you would know how pathetic I really am but you don't understand, my scars are not battle wounds, they are not badges I've earned, I do not wear them proudly, my scars are representative of all the times I was too weak to fight those battles, my scars are surrenders and do not call me brave if I didn't even bother fighting. I wanted to show you my scars so you would stop telling me how strong I am because I am not strong, I am weak and I am still hiding from you because you think these scars are things I have overcome but these scars are the very things that haunt me and who are you to know what I am going through simply because I have told you? I am falling apart and these scars are reopening, I am falling apart at the seams and you are calling me a hero but heroes do not hate themselves like this. Here I am baring my scars and there are people calling me brave and this is never what I wanted.

i just took a lot of cold medicine (a lot of cold medicine) and i think i love (love) you and i know you do not want to hear that now and i am sorry (i am sorry (i am sorry)) but i do not know what to do, i am losing faith in everything (everything) and now you are losing faith in me, too (you are losing faith in me, too)

You were in my dream last night and I think we were in love and my head didn't hurt anymore and suddenly I remembered how it felt for my chest cavity to be full of something other than steam and I swear to God it was real, I could feel your heartbeat while you slept but still I woke into a dark room and let the world slowly come back to me and I don't know how but that illusion felt more real than my life has for a while now and I started grasping for someone on the couch next to me only to find I was alone, and I keep waiting for someone to tell me to calm down, that this is all a bad dream, I keep hoping I'll wake up and this will all seem foggy and distant because last night couldn't have been in my head, I could feel your heartbeat while you slept.

This is for the girls that have ****** you. This is for the pale girls with short hair, the "she could be a lesbian but I'm not sure" type, the beanie wearing bad ******* with heavy baggage and a surplus of bandages. This is for the sad girls, the shipwrecked sailors searching for a beacon, the bruised rib cages and ****** knuckles. This is for the condoms, the purple box you keep in the drawer in your bedside table that we have all seen, the repeated observation that you have no ******* clue how to put on a ****** without looking like a child trying to stuff a water ****** into a sock. This is for the silence, the overwhelming quiet made quieter by skin hitting skin, the active avoidance of eye contact. This is for the fact that you consider foreplay "stalling," the speed with which you can please yourself via another person's body, the ******* that we have all faked at least twice. This is for the general consensus that your performance in bed can be summed up in three words: insecure, selfish, and pretentious. You are the Kanye West of ***; I'm not sure if you are going to let me finish. This is for the sore muscled sweethearts that saved your self-esteem and reassured you of your ****** orientation, for the courteous cuties who carried on until you came, this is for the girls that have ****** you. Godspeed.

In speech class they taught us that people speak only to entertain, to inform, or to persuade so when I texted you at 4:31am after swallowing the liquor cabinet and talked about three years ago in Michigan when we watched that movie after everybody else had fallen asleep, I was trying to entertain you, trying to remind you of all the fun we used to have together before you changed and when I told you I missed you I was trying to inform you of the pit in my stomach that you left when you removed yourself from me, of the way I feel when you say my name and of the fact that yes, I did notice that you stopped saying my name and when I told you I was dying I was trying to persuade you to come save me, made it life or death so you only had two options and if you made the wrong choice at least I wouldn't be around to see it, I was trying to convince you that you needed me by showing you how much you would miss me and when you showed up at my bedside, I know you were trying to tell me you loved me.

the way i want you
so ethereal
i feel lighted as
we speak
my throat catches hard
my skin crawls; is gone
snare drum noses
in a cavity populated
with sugarbugs and
lightning rods
narcoleptic lips trace
arias of sand against
collarbones
my imagistic descent
into coral lined papers
inner tongue colors the
edges of our orchestra
our ballad of temperament
our skewed talents invoked
candelabra memoirs
a love of no soul in particular

I've got scars on my wrist
I've got scars on my wrist from the time I got too drunk
I got too drunk because I wanted to be brave enough
To be brave enough to tell him I loved him
I told him I loved him in the same breath as I told him I was dying
I was dying because my eyes wouldn't stay open
Eyes wouldn't stay open because I kept closing them
Kept closing them because I didn't want to see the blood all over one of the good white towels
All over one of the good white towels because I tried to wash it off in the shower but it kept bleeding
Kept bleeding because I cut deeper than I thought I had
Cut deeper than I thought I had because I couldn't feel it
Couldn't feel it because I was too drunk
I was too drunk because I drank all the beers left in the fridge and the ***** in the freezer
The ***** in the freezer because the beer wasn't strong enough
Wasn't strong enough
Wasn't strong enough