I can not feel a thing
I can feel everything
Everything is pretty
Everything looks ******
Everything is connected
Everything is random and directed

Paint dried a guilty tattoo on his skin
Your gallery he stood in
Worthless, in every sense
You stayed strong benind a glass fence
He took you up to hang on the wall
But every breathtaking picture has a flaw
But even when he poured your ripped canvas soul into a trash can
A piece of art's beauty is not determined by the nonunderstanding of a man

Once there was a man
His heart was three sizes too small
He tried to do anything he can
To succeed and not fall
His home was big
It smelled like rotten food
It was littered with cigs
And a melancholy mood
When he slept on his mattress his back was in pain
He was always rushing, yet somehow always late
The conversations between his friends were more like a game
He always said he'd have a big house, more degrees and a family, that was his fate
One morning, he watched the news without thought
When he got to work him and half of his friends were let go
He had a life planned out, and this was not in the plot
He lost his house, his phone, no one stopped him from being caught out in the snow
Now he was by himself for the first time in forever
No t.v., no facebook, no office sounds
Buy in this silence found his city looked better
He never noticed the birds in the trees, the men and women on the train or how life abounds
One day, a man asked him to take his sweater
He said no one should be left cold
He said I'll take you home but you've seen better
The bank took my house and now it's sold
So he spent the night at the shelter, no one looked at their phones
And it didn't matter because the air was filled with laughter, songs and love
He had never had less, he had never felt less alone
And from this wholesomeness he rised above
With the help of strangers he stopped having to beg
But he never stopped giving, not for a day
He knew so much, he could keep all his little earnings for himself instead
He said I can't keep what I have without giving it away

Dust particles danced in the gold crusted sunlight
Sleepy somber southern draws painted the air
Like bare footprints on wooden porches embraced by firefly lit twilgiht skys and warmed by summer time
Childhood sweet tea and the bitter taste of jack stained oil painted lips which froze and scorned my own
Under a sea of feather filled warm comforters, silky and snug spider webs
Cigarette smoke designed lines mid air, disinergrating, drifting like dreams
Around hands, rivers of axiety ridden blood, water, and glitter rush beneth snowy skin
Chemicals react blooming flowers all around me

A walk down the street
A system at my feet
Crooked and steep
A place I'd rather sleep
I don't want a gun
I want to run
A jail every few blocks
A community it mocks
Fast food on the table
With no money to make a meal stable
Working three jobs at minimum wage
You're just a name on a page
When your employer owns the law
The things you need won't be saw
You must finish school
If you can't pay you're a fool
When they say there is no caste system
They must walk with their eyes closed to miss them
With a bible in every library
Impacts on education be scary
We can't marry the ones we love
You can't slaughter a dove
Our bodies are not our own
The blood and flesh is not home
You said life is sacred
Then why do your tanks paint children red
Planes couldn't bring a tower down
We wanted enough oil to drown
I thought we had banned slavery
So why are clothes made in China covering me
In sweatshops children work to they're dead
But we can't buy American made clothes over being fed

I tore apart your skin
I ate your cells and broke you in
I grinded your bones
And in the marrow I find your home
I squeezed out your eyes
I found your lies

All that was there was an inky black landscape, accompanied by ice which stung my hallowed face
It was hours I spent walking through dangerous streets and cars threatening to slide enough to carry my wretched soul with them
Every bridge I passed my body aching to join the liquid icy hell below me
Because I'd been taught for too long how to be lonely
They told me you were just as cold and menacing as snow
Lying down with perfect white skin
And I wonder who exactly it was who taught you to shut down cities without considering who might be left outside
Sometimes I wonder if anything you say is true, if I'm not another poor soul with drugs for you to go through
You could rip through walls with your lies and mountains and me
Here I am staring at a numb screen wondering if I should try to fight to save you
Or if I should leave while I can still trudge through the damage you string me through
Because I can't watch a girl so young and poor be bruised and abandoned and treated like meat by boys who only provide her with bottles and drugs to heal the exit wounds
You say that you don't need me or anyone else until it's late at night and you realize someone's actually hurt you
Maybe that's when you take it upon yourself to complete a trend, to harshly slice my stomach open with your dull blade, reach through my organs until your find my heart beating lively in it's cage
You pin it to a canvas, in line with your own, beating with others you turned into stone

Sent away from the creature whom I lended all my affections
The world embraced a dreary monochrome
Shaking on substances I tried to forget
On a stage clothed in black and red
Soul running out my nostril, now it can never speak
Education is terrifying throughout timelines in which we feel tormented through hollow images of souls veiwed in hallways
And the ruby back of me, when remarks you can both discover and see
Smelling isolation with apathy

Our minds bend
Pulled too hard they might break
Soaked by the rain coming from our shower heads
When we are forced to walk without bearing a word to a friend at our sides
We create intricate world's
In the moonlight, we prefer to ignore the pillow under our sleepy heads  
Pretend like it falls on a long lost lover instead
In spaceships we float along a sea with vibrent colors, intimacy and warmth
We gaze at the beautiful stars in our own galaxies
We paint the faces of those we know all too well with oil paint and sunlight
But when called back to dingy apartments and crowded classes rooms
We forget the place we traveled to in our alone time
It fades like smoke from a birthday candle
Like dreams we forget
The situations we wrap ourselves in never turn out
And our little daily perfect universes
They never were

Everything and nothing
Existed in the moment I'm in
Nothing hurt and I felt pain
It was crazy to be so sane

There was a flower red and blue
There was a flower I didn't grow for you
I planted the seeds and watched it grow
I made something beautiful, I'll reap what I sow
Everyday I gave it water and light
Everyday it never left my sight
Then you said pick the flower, put it in a vase to see
You cared for the flower, like you must care for me
I worked hard to create it
And in your house it would fit
You left and my flower died
I cried
I asked myself why give up something on me relied
Why give up something when you could lie

Old teacher spoke to me
Said god is an outdated conscept of which you need to be freed
Don't speak, only listen
Work or be missing
Don't get caught up in love
**** every dove
Don't do any drugs
Don't give stangers hugs
Everyone needs to go to school
I said if you knew I was dying would you feel like a fool
We're all ghosts
Our bodies are just the host

Breaking a desktop monitor it oozed like red strings out of scraped knees; I love you
It became a river that ran red and covered the earth
But I stayed on another planet
Why not sail the cosmos for another drippy affection sea
For a life source that can find me
Soaked to the bone in an icy liquid
That had not spilled from your knee
A haunting ghost memory
Now my ships ashore
Because all seas are graveyards to me

Inside my glass house
Under the flesh
There is black tarred rooms
Where every bit of dust sticks
I tried to clean them
Now I cannot escape
Where they keep throwing stones

There's a hole in you
There's a hole I can see right through
There's a hole in everyone else too
They fill it with drugs
They fill it with pugs
They fill it with mugs
But nothing fits
They fall out every time you try to sit
Not even the hole filling kits
But if you run
If you turn right towards the sun
The hole makes a noise that's fun
So won't you run with me
You'll see
You can have holes and still be free

Like stained glass in a chruch window
The people slashed my face
Red ignorance formed tiny droplets of isolation on my grimace
Dug deep into every inch of nail bed and hair folicale of my was the horrifying visions of authorities and friends continually brutalizing themselves in a twisted insanity
Ants oblivious to the impending massacres above them
To scratch out ones eyes and ears we must depersonalize
Drifting in the wind behind my body
Hazily hovering between battle feilds of disturbing emotional connectivity  
Playing the lottery with my own neurological chemistry
I obtained several steps away

There once was a day
I went to my boys house to stay
We slept under the covers nice and warm
But suddenly his face was forelorn
Out of the bed he raced
To a secrete door under a rug he paced
And left me behind
I couldn't read these signs
So there I went too
And suddenly knew
What his life had been
It was covered in sin
Under the door and down the stair
Were bodies skinned and hung with care
I'd scream and cry
Then he sighed
And I felt sad
And I wasn't mad
He asked why I hadn't run
I said you're face is my only sun
He told me that when folks left him it was most of the fun
Back on the shelf he put his gun

All my leaves are gray
On my branch they told me they'd stay
You told me where to look
And now I see their green faces in a hook
So I cut paper seeds
And from them grew my paper leaves
With a light behind them I'd soon weave
Now I have shadows, but never trees

Two whole years since I've had sleep
For you I keep
Say it's been forever
Never
Do you feel me
You can heal me
I could die and never know
Another love glow
Years crawl and years pass
Too slow yet so fast
Scars fade and scars cast
Faces masked
Five years since I did rest
I can still breathe in your chest
What have I missed and where did I go
The days stopped and still flow
I told her I loved her and I lie
First love would never die
Stranger now to me
You're the only one I see
Twenty years down the line
I'll still be waiting for a sign
The pictures are all broken
Older still are our words spoken
Until we turn sixty
My memories are misty
Married but still alone
Imagining you coming home
The kids are grown
All my seeds sowen
First love still swollen
I kept on until I didn't
Wanting another finish
We were buried states away
And if asked who I was you couldn't say
Maybe a girl coworker or from school
But me, I had always loved you

When I was a baby I was given a doll
It was pretty though it was small
I thought I wanted to look like her when I was tall
In kindergarten I took dance
I had to learn to wear lipstick as well as my stance
I had to look good to be given a chance
In sixth grade I had a flaw
Acne began and others saw
Kids in my class began to haw
I went home and told my maw
She gave me concealer and a bra
In highschool makeup took half the day
Just to hear nice things people would say
When asked I'd say it's just for play
I didn't have time, it was late
I had to be out the door by eight
No one called me pretty, I would never find a mate
Something better happened, I had time to create

Sound art is gone he said
Modern music makes me feel dead
On the radio I what I hear
Gives the future fear
There is no talent no and no one cares
I told to him the industry is not fair
The time is now, the technology is here
You have a planet full of songs so near
Why complain about what your friends are listening to
Why don't you go out on your own and find something new
It doesn't matter what the radio or television plays
In the popular music you are not required to stay
Or better yet, why don't you play a tune
Sound you enjoy would come soon
And sing it for the world to hear
Make it loud and clear
Then tell me where the pretty songs were sent
You only see who was in front of you, along with them you went

Sometimes instead of pale faces all I can see are ghosts
Hunched over asking not to feed them
Crawling steadily toward oblivion
Someone asked me if I wanted to die
I said If that means living without having to lie, if it means laying with my brother and sister in the dirt
Because I feel as though I'd be better suited as a tree, or something that won't get hurt
Something that can't hear the pain in a voice that screams, something that's more sturdy, that seems to always know what it means
When my mom left me I didn't do anything but look out a window expecting her to return
I guess I do the same thing for you now, like waiting for a mailman or a storm you'd seen predicted on your television set
That terrible feeling a child gets waiting for his mac and cheese to boil, chomping at the bit
You can't really define a feeling like so, you can only capture for yourself and hope to god he'll let it go
Release you like the sins you've committed, if they're ever released
As if there's anything more than cells in a delicate system that nature spun out
Who could listen to all the voices in pain before they go to bed and eat, asking to be granted with health or to feel less hunger underneath
All your thoughts are actually ghosts, like you dissolving at they run their course, not touching anything thats real, anything with substance that you can feel
And in that blankness don't ask to be heard, don't waste a word

I'm sorry, the number you're trying to reach isn't available, please hang up and try again or leave a message after the beep.

Beep.

Hi. It's me again. I know you probably don't want to hear from me, because that's what you keep telling everyone and you won't pick up the ******* phone. I just need someone to talk to, you know. I never realized how I didn't have anyone to talk to until you left. I've been crying for three hours straight and god I can't breath. I still love you. I wish that I could lay my head on your chest and you could rub my back and tell me everything's gonna be okay. I wish I was still your baby girl. I can't explain how much this hurts, how much living hurts everyday when I don't hear your voice, and I just wanna tell you that...

Are you still there? If you are satisfied with your message press one now, if you would like to replay your message press two, if you would like to re-cord your message press three, if you would like to add to your message press four.

Beep

Hey it's me, just call me when you get the chance.

There once was a girl who's body was strawberry red
On the television children had seen the colors other humans bled
And when someone else dies or is hurt, that is the color they shed
When the girl tried to speak, the others had fled
She lived out many years in dread
Until a doctor came to her, provided her some anti-rouge information, and she read
Then, for the procedure she plead
When she woke in the hospital bed
"It worked! This new miracle med!"
But when she left, folks on the street still stopped dead
She spoke to the doctor, to which he said
Silly girl, you'll only ever be normal in your own head

Say something, your too shy
Say something, its the only way to get by
Just talk and nothing bad will come
I'll talk to them when I see the next sun
You wont have friends and no one will know you
You won't be noticed or important, too
Just make coversation like everyone else
You can't keep to yourself
Why can't you just be normal
Why does everything seem so formal
So just say hello
Or you they'll never know
They may think you strange if you don't speak
You'll be a freak
But I can't do it and I can't try
I can't do it, my, oh my

They taught in school the most powerful one was the speaker
When I got older I realized that the loudness actually makes one weaker
I learned how to show and not tell
I saw that words were the cheapest thought you could sell
My artwork was stonger
And it would last much longer
Marching in protest
The words printed on the signs and faces were better than the rest
And when somebody made me angry or cry
I didn't say anything, I wouldn't even sigh
The understanding of discontent was more loud and clear
Than any ear could ever hear

Sometimes when I wake up in the morning I like to take a walk by the river
I let the snowflakes fall on my eyelashes and drip down my face
I like to warm my hands with coffee mugs and pretend like they're being held in a lovers
Sometimes I like to sit on benches and watch the people walk bye
I like to listen in on their lives and sometimes it makes me feel less lonely
Sometimes I bring the last of a loaf of bread and let the birds eat from my hands and it makes me happy because I know I've made another being happy
Sometimes I talk to the strangers I meet on the streets, I hear their stories and I learn something new, sometimes they make me very sad
Sometimes I don't speak, but instead listen to what the world's trying to say
Sometimes I walk in the woods during the summer,  I leave my shoes off and climb the trees
Sometimes I'm overwhelmed at the way the light filters through the leaves and the sparkle of running water
Sometimes I think it's so beautiful I would love to cry
Sometimes I don't paint my face or fix my hair and somehow it makes me feel whole again
Sometimes I decide to bake cakes or cook dinners and I'm content just eating them alone
Sometimes when I'm with my baby I tell myself to record us in my mind
Sometimes years later when I get lonely I go through them and think
Sometimes after I read books everything seems like a story and magical in a way, then somehow it fades
Sometimes I make my bed just so I can feel perfect laying in clean sheets after a shower
Sometimes I like carrying around my backpack just to find thongs to carry in it
Sometimes I shop for records in the bookstore downtown, and there isn't a book nor movie nor music I've heard of
Sometimes it scares me how little of thsee things I know and how tiny I am
Sometimes I look up at the stars and wish I could read them, the ancient stories they told
Sometimes I feel like I'm outside of my body and I wonder if that's what it's likeep to die

There is no hope
There is a scratch on my throat
There is a home in my prison
There is a blur in my vision
There is a boy in the bars
There is a there is a life in afar
There is a lonely sea
There is a night when it's waves are tall enough to drown me
There is a paper bag on my head
There is a hat made with lead
There is a rope
There is no hope
There is a pain in my stomach
There is a wingless butterfly taking it's plummet
There is a lock with no key
There is a mystery
There is a note missing
There is a sorrow hissing
It's something never wrote
There is no hope

I breath in and exhale
I'm trapped in the belly of a whale
Graffiti blanketed ribs, spotted with meloncholy *****
Pacing around a hot tar pit
Burning off a different face
For every human hidden in every place
But my friends didn't follow after me
The trail unto the fish in a glittering sea
My body will scream
But my mouth has seams

Three days absent
I was adrift
The fog blanket wrapped me warmly
Miles from the surface
At the end of the weekend I was missing
Notice had not been offered to a searching soul

Once upon a time
There was one mean boy and one kind
They were born on the same day at the same time
They were born with almost identical minds
Their parents were perfect and life was great
But they suffered a very different fate
When one boy painted an angel wing
The other one gave his mom a swing
When one boy would smile
The other ran away from home a mile
When one boy gave flowers
The other only wanted power
In a few years time mean boy made a mistake
He sold something that was fake
He went to jail
And he wailed
In life he failed
We end the poem here
But was there more to hear?
How could two people be exactly the same
With only one destined for fame
It's up to you to decide
Why to certain people empathy and success hide

Tattered wooden beams seemed likely to break underneath my footsteps
Tobacco burned a hole in my cheek I soothed with the diet pepsi we'd stolen as well
Nice views look prettier from where you love
Soft ridged lips along the horizon
The air stood frozen along his shaking chest where I lay my head now
Waterfalls lulling me to half sleep, warm with the touch of another being
As you whisper your lips tickle my hair
"I don't have friends. I have drugs. And I have you."
Keeping to your word was the sketchbook that seemed tormented with schizophrenia, melted wax outlining the broken words
"I hate drugs, actually, but you should let me hit that"
I never thought I could breath out of a light bulb
The concept was much too ironic for me
It wasn't even concern until I heard a little voice telling me to stop smelling like her daddy
And the water I used to wash down my medicine poured down my face
The faded recorded seeming to keep time with it "I want to live where soul meets body"
Then it all gets too bright and I can't walk to your car
I didn't think I could speak but my thoughts were out loud
And I asked myself if this is what drugs feel like
Is this what love feels like

Where the hell have I been
Gone or hiding
I wont feel bad
But i wont shine through
I wont do much for you
When im in the hallway im gone
Im invisible, a bad painting, wrong song
I havent loved myself ever before
I wouldnt buy self love if it was sold in a store
I wont message you twice, but three or four times
I wont feel a satisfying flower in my void
You wont bloom or save my world
Even if you couldnt id say no
Im happy here in misery, the same as before
So shut me down cause its all my fault
Stop it before i spell it out
Nothings held together, itll slip out like a card
On the top of the kings, on the top of my scars
If the world was ending id find a hope, light a joint and cut the rope
Would i feel happy like a mocah on a winters day
Like a fireplace in a study space
Like leaving here without a trace

I still think back to the loneliest day of my life
A few weeks after we broke up when you screamed at me on the phone and I said I missed your voice so ******* much
And when I called back you said you'd never wanna talk to me
I was sitting in the shut down resturaunt by the lake, the one we tried to break into and smoked joints wrapped with gum paper
And I said I can't do this anymore, but please stay on the phone
Because no one needs to die alone
And I figured if I downed two bottles right there that I'd make it home in time to lay in bed
I made it home but instead of falling asleep I threw up blood and vile for fourty eight hours
And you never picked up the ******* phone
When I finally went back to school I purposefully failed my science final and the teacher called me into the office
He said I know you're not stupid but are you okay?
And on the way out I heard the girl you spent valentine's day instead talk about how beautiful you looked that night
When I was convulsing in my own *****
I ran to the bathroom with tears falling three days late on my shallow face
I crawled up in a ball until someone knocked and said are you okay
There's no use in lying, I responded I was feeling quite well
And you never ******* said you were sorry for doing this to me
You said it was a lot of ******* and you couldn't understand what I said when you hung up on me
But I know, I know, oh god I know you could

Can I exsist in the void
From outside myself can I feel joy
Where do the walls of my dream end and where do they meet
Does it happen from head to feet
For all the things I've touched but cannot feel
For all the fruit I've eaten, yet had not peeled
Could I waste a life missing you
Years empty and years I go through
I wished I could be made of dusty photos and light
Then my aching body would never give a fight
Asked for forgiveness you said nevermind
There stood I, back of a line
Back in spaces in between walls
Back in all the spaces I could crawl
Hazy and screaming
Young and gleaming

It began in a hospital room
They screamed at me through the darkness
Do you want to live or die?
I said I wanted to live but the light I saw ahead seemed to beacon me with it's peacefulness
And I can hear my mother crying on the phone "is she going to make it? do they know?"
But I went home that morning
The deafening silence in the car
The thoughts in my head screaming "*******, *******, *******"
They'll really hate me now
And in my school I felt the stares that whispered softly
Don't come here, not again
But baby we both got blood on our sleeves
The only difference is what we believe
Because I've been reduced to a cage
Pulling and pushing my emotions to other corners of my mind
Way too far for me to find them
And we both know that's why I died, and we both know that's how you lived
If I cry will they think I'm weird?
If I scream will they think I'm crazy?
But god, But god can you hear me now?
I'm screaming to you now
Show me a sign or let me go
Because I didn't see you when I was flat lining on a pillow
And I don't understand why you let him leave
God, God. God, I couldn't ******* breathe!
And it seems as though you decided to leave!
Or did you forget you left me here?
Like my mom when I was thirteen
And I begged you both not to go
Because I need guidance, and I need someone to talk to at night
I need someone to pat my back and say I've done alright
I need someone to put the meaning in my life!
Or am I just here to fill a space, to reproduce and then be replaced?
When I really think back, back to when I died
It wouldn't have made much difference
Because everyone drive away from a funeral
Oh my god, oh my god, just make someone stay!

When I was a kid
I wanted to do what my father did
I followed him around to see what he saw
And man, I'd seen it all
He took me to where the fights were fought
Over who had shade and who did not
"Those filthy tree sitters!" He'd say
"One day they will pay!"
So my dad and his men went on a scary parade
And the tree people were very afraid
And were told "in case we fight you, we'll give you grenades!"
Back to town my people went
And to the citizens stories of grenade tree people were sent
In the streets they screamed "War! We must be protected!"
For now the tree people were rejected
Back we were to the place where the fights were fought
Guess who has shade, and who does not?

I wish I were a bird
I could make a beautiful song and be heard
I wish I were a flower
I would only smell sweet, and never sour
I wish I were a train
I could have the path already laid out in my brain
I wish I were an adding machine
Only as a genius I would be seen
Once I was a bird
I could sing but no one understood a word
Once I was a flower
I only lived an hour
Once I was a train
I had to work all day, even in rain
Once I was an adding machine
I had no feeling