In deep raincloud days and the nights we can’t sleep,
I remember the night of July 15th.
In worlds we didn’t drift like sailboats at sea,
Under blankets it’s your arms that cradle me.
Maybe someday you’ll look into my eyes with love,
Like you used to, giving kisses instead of a shove.
Or maybe these chords will mean nothing someday,
As you go with the wind into a distant bay.
Sweet harbor, sweet harbor, fading with time.
I was lashed to your deck, and you tied to mine.
The sunshine was fleeting, the gray had been sent,
But it all changed so quickly, maybe it will again

I’m glowing and I’m growing and I’m stumbling but I’m walking
You’re watching me, talking to me, you’re subtle, but you’re talking
And soon enough you’ll stare at me and then you’ll be gawking
Because you’ll remember why you fell in love because I’ll be me again.

From my ceiling I hear thumping
Of your bed crashing down on your floor
As she moans in my nightmares,
And in reality’s moonlight you tell me,
Amidst twirling smoke, that you don’t even like her.
And although my role upon our stage
Is not to be an unbiased mother,
I can’t help but cry that you are
Mindlessly ******* with a steel-coated heart.
I am happy for what has changed and that
You no longer are in a haze of drugs each and every day
But it isn’t because you’ve gotten better
It’s just that you’ve switched drugs.
And, Jesus Christ, I don't love you anymore
But somehow I still wish I could be your drug.

I was born again when I fell in love
And remade into a monster I cannot fight
Now I know the spectrum of human light
I must be punished for seeing the face of God
So I see your face in every person I meet
Know I lost the game because you won with a cheat
Fallen from grace, I’ve fallen into the ocean
Because you were carved of angels wings
And the devil cries because he cannot sing
Look into the mirror and find something to like
Everything I have grown to love is you
And now I see you in myself too
That is where my greatest anguish lies
In my own soul and my own spirit, in my own heart
Because in my essence we are together, but we truly are apart

We’re rumbling like thunder, sky’s shot with purple blood,
I sing to you with roses and you ****** me with guns.
I cradle smoke inside my hands, you run away with drugs,
And when lights go down and we go high, all we have is love.
Watch the time with caution, for someday this will end,
And the past is round like the clock, mistakes come back again.
Drunken bruises, holding hands, what are the words to that song?
Me and my moonstruck valentine, so numb that we belong.
We can cry in the afternoon, but when midnight comes we’ll smile,
Just pretend we don’t remember and hangout for a while.
We’ll bicycle with monsters, the ones inside our heads,
And play these games until we’re too old, or gray, buried, and dead.

I have thoughts that capture me, enrapture me,
That scare me so shitless I just close my eyes,
Hiding from them like they are a buzzing squad of bees.
They buzz in my ears and in my brain,
Up my nose and in my veins.
Thoughtless karma, quick and cool,
Teach me to act with such self-assured judgment.
Burn my bone marrow, burn my brain,
These memories of you drive me insane.
These whirling twirling thoughts of you are inane,
For the you I miss is no longer alive.
I’ll smoke and create my own brain hive,
Hiding from all these bees.

You better ******* sprint your *** towards that exit sign,
And grab your god by the hair,
Because after a while everybody just nods and doesn't really listen,
And everybody's sorry but doesn't really care.
I'm so sad but I can't even care enough to cry,
For myself or for all my **** on my shoulders.
I may not carry the weight of the world but I carry the weight of mine,
And that's enough to bury me six feet under in emotions,
So that should tell you a little bit about me.
People stand around muttering about kids these days,
When we actually try really hard to be good people,
But they set up a world for us that never lets us win; or lets everybody win.
And that's why we smoke **** and get drunk so we can just be happy for a little while.
And that's why we cut ourselves; for trying our hardest but not succeeding.
We never feel like we are enough for anyone, not even ourselves.
Mom and Dad are slamming the back door screaming about grades,
And our friends pretend they give a **** when they don't.
People in black stand around crying about all the young people dying,
Because when your body's in a coffin, suddenly everybody is nodding and really listening,
And everybody is saying how sorry they are and actually meaning it.
Mom and Dad and all our friends can't stop sobbing how much they loved us.
I tried ******* sprinting for the exit sign so I could live a good life but there was too much in the way.
So I'll be in the bathtub carving my own exit sign, out of my wrists and razors.
I'll grab my god by the hair and scream in his face because I only got one chance at this,
And I didn't even get to live.

You're just a fever with a dragon's head, and you broke my heart like in a bad movie. You swore you'd take a bullet for me when you're the one who always held the gun. I'm afraid he will promise everything you did, and give me deja vu. Deja Entendu. One song we sang when we were in love and another became my favorite heartbreak lullaby; say goodbye. I hate you. If my memory came walking through the front door with flowers in his hands, I would crawl right back. Let you bruise my soul until it rang out blue and black. Kiss me on the sidewalk and give me a heart attack. Valentine lover has his hands on my face. My fingers are made of mornings and my heart is made of lace. Transparent, heart on sleeve, please just give me what I need, I'm vulnerable and I'm fluttering.

It is hard to focus
when you ask me why
I love you
because there is so much
that has been touched
by God's golden fingers
and there is so much
that makes my ears ring
and there is so much
to look at it
and to hold inside
and to taste (that makes me cry)
that it all goes hazy
and all I know
when you ask why
I love you
is that
I do.

Red blood painted on my hands, I kiss my father on the cheek. I mosey out the old front door, I’m eighteen and invincible. I rub the water on my face and on my eyes and on my soul, it’s all thawing but still ice cold beneath this makeup mask. I pretend to love, when really I don’t care. It’s just responsibility to treat these ******* with respect. The ice and snow of the world’s heart spread frostbite to my own. I’m guilty of not giving a ****, and I don’t even give a ****. Nothing is a shade of gray; it’s all purple to me. And I sink my teeth into the earth, biting down in crimson blue.
Smiles are for sinners and being ****** over is for saints. How do you think they all ended up martyrs? I’ve been bruised blue by this world, but it all secrets with this sapphire suit. I have no choice but to stay frozen, fearful to admit my wounds. I’m hurt, I’ve been hurt, I’ve been hurting for a while, but I’m scared to say it all and have to say that I need help. Writing makes it real and it ravages my mind. All I wish for is a fire to warm me up from inside out and reignite this empty furnace, strangled until it turns blue. Maybe the world doesn’t have to be rose or indigo or purple at all, at all. Someday I’ll smile with every color, the hottest flames inside my soul burning bright and blue.

Her name burns like dry ice.
It scalds my heart and makes my whole body freeze up.
It makes me want to run away and never stop.
It makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs.
It makes me want to never talk to you again.
It makes my eyes well up and my fists clench.
It digs into my skin like fingernails,
Just knowing about the scratches she leaves on your back.
I stare at the ceiling and try not to wonder, trying not to care,
All the while wondering if you ever think of me
While she is in your bed.

Every time I see you, my heart bursts open,
And all the blood rushes to my face,
Turning me crimson pink.
And your smile, God that smile,
It fills me up with beautiful.
I didn’t mean to fall, but ****,
I’m a clumsy girl I guess.
The way your lips so easily grasped mine,
In the crowd of the ***** basement,
428 Monroe Street, I couldn’t stop smiling.
And we were surrounded by rainbow lights,
And in the morning you texted me because you couldn’t sleep.
And you thought of me.
12:01AM, 11/11, one week later,
How things had changed.
And suddenly, few days pass,
And sadly, sadly,
How things have changed.
I want to understand sunlight with you,
Contemplate pillows and blankets and alcohol.
Dreaming and wishing and the way you made me laugh,
Oh, how I wish things had worked out.
And I have no idea where it all went cloudy,
Or why you just stopped caring so much.
But it’s done.
And you’re gone.
And it hurts.

I know how hard it is to feel without being felt;
what it's like to look out a window and not see the beautiful view;
to only see yourself jumping.
I know what it is like to be the broken chair in disguise
that everyone thinks is just fine to sit on;
to be the broken egg fallen from the tree while all the sparrows fly.
I am the dandelion in the middle of the field of grass, yet I am the only **** picked.
The world is parachuting through clouds while I sky-dive, free-falling,
into the dirt.
Free, free, free to change anything...
But unable to cope with a thing out of place;
able to dream and do whatever you wish...
but unable to do anything.
I love you so much because you are my mirror;
I love you so much to help.
If you stare long enough at your own brilliance,
it will scar like the sun on your eyes,
and you will see its technicolor splotching
everywhere you look.
Know it is okay to cry but know when it is time to get up;
know it is okay to be sad but know when it has been enough.
You think you can't do it, but you do not know,
and I promise I know that you can.
You just need a hand to help you stand up.
And I hope that this poem can be that hand for you.
Or maybe it won't mean ****; I don't know.
But I know you're reading this and you're thinking,
what the hell does she know?
Look forward, not down, and be who you are
and do not give a ****.
The right people will love you because you will love yourself.
Develop your wingspan and refuse to flee;
fly and be free.
And you will soar into the sky and be as beautiful as you always wished.
Just remember to always come back down and give a hand to those on the ground.
And maybe write a poem.

Pride is a devil but your wings say otherwise.
I have been black and have been golden.
It’s hard to judge which is which.
But now I’m neither good nor bad.
Windows into people’s souls are never clear glass.
The only thing transparent about you is your promises.
I’ve got your letters all in boxes, handwriting of a beautiful life.
Who am I to judge when my memories of you are in a grave?
Your actions sliced me up inside but your hands feel so nice.
I’m scared to be your friend again but I’ve grown a mountain’s spine.
Kissing turns to coughing, hopeful turns to helpless.
I was once a good girl. You were once a good boy.
Nobody ever remembers how the roses looked dying;
They remember them brilliant in a clear perfect vase.
For the past year, all I’ve had is those roses on my mind.
I’m right to be afraid, but instead I just feel freed.
Let this day ring inside my mind, I’m happy alone.

Daisies in hair, freckles in laugh,
Summer camp dandelions,
Bubbles in the air.
Cling like a koala to your back
So I can fight off the pirates
And the dinosaurs
And the giant squid
And my mother's meatloaf.
Where do teachers go at night?
Do they sleep in their classrooms?
This caterpillar is my new best friend.
But so is this firefly. But not that moth.
Roll down hill into mud puddles of chocolate goo.
Sing songs and jump on clouds like trampolines.
Mouth like an innocent firecracker; 3-2-1 blast off.
Kissed and tucked and loved into bed.
Dreaming of how good we're going to have it,
Not knowing that we already did.

I’m a rosebud, I’m a rosebud
I just want to be beautiful
Twelve months have changed my life
I’m scarred and scared and scornful
I’m a bitter pill, I’m a bitter pill.

I’ve learned my bones can melt
When they feel your eyes
I’ve learned my heart can sing
When it feels your lips on mine
I’ve learned a basement can be heaven,
And that sometimes it takes seven,
To find the seventh’s the one to keep.
I’ve learned your voice makes me stutter
And your soul makes me mutter
Your name in my sleep.

singer singer
wedding ringer
kissing ducks and sitting ducks
waiting for the tires to screech
watching for the eggs to hatch
waiting for the gun to blow up
back in our faces
and the singe of powder will burn us up
and we'll die in fiery anguish
or maybe we'll be fine
the pond glimmers in the starlight
nature's nestle sings at night
and her heart beats out of her chest
into mine
and i sit and think to myself
of all planets i was born on
in all my lives i've lived
*******, how wonderful
is this

In my toes and eyes and fingers and mouth
and bones and nose and organs and blood
I feel you, feel you, feel you always,
Pray I, too, am in your every cell
Because that has to mean something
I have done it all and I have loved again
But you stick to me like you're in my ******* DNA
And that has to mean something, it has to, it has to,
Because if it does not I am your prisoner of passion
For the rest of my life while some other girl wears your ring
And even if I love again I know that will change nothing
Because here I ******* am as always
Here (I) (you) ******* (am) (are).

You’re just like cigarette smoke
I hate to see you go
But I love to take you in
And I can’t even hold you
I can’t even touch you
I just keep you in my chest
For as long as I can hold
And then I have to let you go
And you fade into the night
Disappear without a trace
It’s like you were never even there
And I’m stuck crying
With lungs full of carcinogens
I’ll never let you in again
Well, maybe just another drag
If only you were so easy to buy
At a gas station at two in the morning
When all I can think of
Is nicotine and you

Dog-ear the pages of my soul
Highlight your favorite parts
I want to be your favorite book
Memorize my lines by heart
Stain my words with tears
Use a flashlight after dark
Don’t leave me in crisp condition
Love me until I tear apart
In this library of soulmates
You’re the only book I want to read
We’ll kiss until our words fall out
Until our covers start to bleed
Your lips taste like poetry
Your mind is a fantasy dream
I’ll read you straight through the whole night
Until I fall asleep

I was buried ten thousand leagues under your sea,
Hide tide and low tide eroded me away.
From a great big rock to a land of sand,
I couldn’t get a grip without your hand.
But it’s been nearly a year; I’m growing like a tree.
After long surfing your wavelength, I am finally free.

In a way, I am glad my heart can be broken
Just like I am glad in a way to throw up at 7 A.M.
Because it means I was drunk last night
It ***** but you got to hold something
Not just something but something good
A heart doesn't break from hatred but an absence of love
So we should not cry into our hands
But kiss our fingers

Invincibility seen in transparent angel wings
That I only saw through green smoke Friday night.
We're going on nineteen and we aren't scared of anything;
Because we think everything is just to "scare" us.
Just a red light screaming through a golden window,
Just a ghost behind a closet, a man dressed in a sheet.
When will we finally be afraid?
What do we consider real failure, real fear?
We are invincible with angel wings we don't even see.
Maybe we can't see them because they aren't real.

Underneath the lime tree
In hearts of sparkly sixteen
Two loverbirds exploded
Into cosmic effervescence
And there were no surprises
All they could see were sparks
Nobody cared at all
They were special, lucky
Forever dazzled by first love
Sometimes I wish I had more than ashes
Memorial urn with dead roots
But we belong elsewhere each
And my words belong to someone who cares
Goodbye, boy
I will always miss that you

I am beautiful
and nobody
can take that
away from me
except for
myself.

Everything looks beautiful far away
And the heat distorts the street
So it looks like water on the horizon
In the summertime
And people go mad with desire
For matter that doesn't exist
You loved this idea of a person
And you never even held them up close
Cry all you want but the love of your mind
Will never be alive
People are human and humans are flawed
Dream of the perfect mirage
Go insane with absolute want
Just keep running to the horizon to have it
You will run forever

An orange glow and bright red teeth,
Oh, darling, won’t you sing me to sleep?
She drank her morning breakfast, Percocet and tea.
She played piano with bitten fingers, feet shaking underneath.
Her daddy taught her years ago, his bitten fingers touched those keys.
I should have beat him at his game, should’ve made them know this name.
She twinkled like a little star, lonely diamond in the sky,
Beautiful and woozy, not perfect like that Lucy.
She’s nothing special, **** sure not pure,
Thought she’d finally found her cure.
She wears those star-shaped sunglasses, knows she’s nothing good,
Smokes cigarettes and Mary-Jane, what are your demons, baby?
I’ll be your demon, baby.
Roof over her head is burning, eyes inside are ice,
She’s glacial and she’s tree bark, she’s a set of loaded dice.
I’ll finally beat him at his game; make that ****** know my name.
He’s gambling with danger, daddy dearest why’d you go?
Hung flowers across her bedroom walls, wilting brown and old.
She likes the smell of rotting, the sly slickness of mold.
Before she was glowing amber, now she’s those fading flowers.
Her lips are blue like the empty bottle on the table.
The TV’s on but only for static, she doesn’t believe in cable.
She didn’t believe in cable.
Just play the piano and please don’t call my mother,
The only friend I ever had besides you was my brother.
He ended up in prison, Father left years ago.
I should have beat him years go.
I should have done this years ago.
I loved you.

Sweetheart silent killer manifests all inside my mind,
The moon’s a magnifying glass as it rises in the sky.
At 2 a.m. it giggles, a thick knife in its teeth,
And drops it down into my head as I lie underneath.
The glass I keep so carefully to remain ***** in the day,
Shatters and releases a burning, breathing self-assay.
A kaleidoscope catoptric, all frets out in the free,
A band of thought-filled thieves invade to steal my sleep from me.
Tossing and turning beneath the stars, I’ll wait til I burn out,
At night my brain is flooding and in daylight there’s a drought.
Lullaby myself with tears, wake up way too late,
Stuck as an insomniac, suicide’s sweet bait.
I wish I was an autumn leaf, I’d float into the sky,
And every fall I’d have the opportunity to die.
I don’t want to die, I just want to dream,
Instead of replaying my sick realities that make me want to scream.
But this will still all stay the same as my brain and blood run white,
I’ll feed myself with Satan’s sugar, the depressed primrose of the night.

It's getting easier, words I never thought to write.
But people are looking at me and listening
To all the words I have to say.
And they're giving a ****, they're really giving a ****,
And they aren't looking at me like I'm crazy
Or like I just need excuses to **** around.
They are looking at me like they know me the way they know themselves.
They aren't telling me what I'm doing wrong.
They aren't telling me what I should be.
They're showing me all the people who made it out the other side,
And showing me I can be there, too,
And that it's beautiful.
And that's beautiful.
I can't stop crying but no longer because I am so sad,
Because I'm so happy to be reminded that I can really be happy;
Not again, but better.
I can't stop crying because of all the people who didn't believe me,
And who made me not believe myself.
He just looked at me and said
"How could anyone go through just a part of what you have and not feel this way?
You're so strong and we're going to help you, and you will be okay."
And for the first time in a year, someone told me that I will be okay,
And I actually believed them.
And that's why I can't stop crying.
Because I'm going to actually be okay.

Your muddy shoeprints are engraved into the carpets. And at night when I stare at the cracks in my ceiling, your soul is all I feel. All the watermarks on the coffee table remind me of your brown irises. The sky is gray, the ground is cold. In the living room, flowers are sprouting in pots, and his smile flips my frown. He’s growing, taking up space, a mere fraction of the space you hold. I miss your rumbly, sleepy groans, your thighs intertwined with mine. I hope the sun comes out soon, because it’s growing darker in here each day I live without love. I know she makes you happy, and it both makes me laugh and cry to know that. I hope you’ll understand someday just how much I loved you, when it all has faded like smoke into the summer air, and I walk in a white dress to a man who didn’t just rent my house, but bought it. But for now at night I lay with lonely legs and one heartbeat and tears in my eyes as salty and bitter as our handful of goodbyes. I wish you were here, and I wish you’d never come in the first place. Every day I check the weather, and I feed the boiler, and I do my best to stay warm without your body, but it never works. Teeth chatter while I count sheep, and I lie awake wondering why the sparks ever faded and why you can barely say my name anymore. Blood nourishes the ***** but not its treasures. Dogs bark and sleep folded in half, inside their little cottages. Where is mine, where is mine? I cover the roof and walls, with their creaks and faults, with convenient and daily tape; it’s holding it all together but isn’t healing it. The sheets are forming ice, and my head is forming thunder and snow. Darling, oh darling, why did you go? I swallow the medicine, I shovel the walkway, but I’m stuck in eternal January, with the front and back doors padlocked. This might just be a dead end street. Nobody wants the house with ***** rugs and splintered ceilings and ruined furniture; house for rent, house for sale. Somebody please just knock on my door. I want to float into the clouds like an angel, rising above it all not like a snow-capped mountain, but a green and grassy hill, rolling and free.

The way you dance is like the way you laugh:
Out of control and all at once.
Your lips look a lot like the world of dreams,
A land I’d like to never leave.
So let’s slow-dance and fall asleep,
And leave reality for romance reverie.
When we wake up and rub our eyes,
It won’t feel like we’ve woken up at all.

I wish love was like looking in a mirror,
Like seeing what you already know staring back at you.
I looked into your river, expecting to reflect.
Instead I saw a dried up bed.
And now I can’t get out of mine.

****** in its love-making, heartbreak is a stoner.
Clouds and pillars, all of smoke, are cradled in my hands.
And dreams blur with reality, and what-ifs with what’s happening.
These wheels turn like poison bicycles, gears shifting in my mind.
“Baby” being whispered in the past and in my chest,
The tides are never ending, and drowning is the game.
Be careful on the sidewalk, don’t step on a crack;
Luck is to being in love as superstition is to the aftermath.
Shine my shoes and comb my hair, am I getting anywhere?
It’s hard to love yourself after that was someone else’s job.
Your silhouette is down the path and I’m still here and staring.
The clouds are green and I’m alone, rose-less with remembering thorns.

Twenty pairs of lips will never be kissed,
Twenty pairs of angel wings kissed them instead.
Twenty little giggles will ring in mothers’ dreams,
Twenty little handprints will stain fathers’ hearts.
Forty lungs breathed their last breaths,
Forty eyes shut for the last time.
Sixty seconds changed it all,
One man ruined twenty little worlds.
And the school doors shut solemnly,
And the bedrooms became shrines,
And the training wheels will never come off,
Because of a trainwreck of a day.

You make me remember
why all of them
didn't work out before,
And I hope you don't become
one of;
Just let me soak in
your serenade
and revel in this reverie.
The brightest name in my dreams
is yours now and I hope
it will become the last name on my lips
each night.

Please.

I need to remember that I can be loved
and I will remember by loving you.

You’ve got the grin of a liar, and the frown of being caught.
I don’t trust you for a minute, you’re not the person I once loved.
And you’ve been ****** with all your damning, at least inside my mind.
But inside my chest, a grave is being dug.
Rest in peace the girl who loved with open arms, scarless and white;
eager to please, without walls and without weeping.
I don’t know if you’re playing dead, or the coffin’s sealed and shut.
And if you’re being buried, I, too, will have a tomb; RIP the girl you once knew.
Were you always such a sinner, selfish and insatiable and scarring?
I believed you every second, every whisper in my ear.
Take a bow and pack your things, or somehow prove me wrong.
I used to think the world of you, and how beautiful a place was this world with you in it.
I’m running out of reasons and you’re running out of time.
If patience is a virtue, call me a sinner, too.
But now we’re both nearly six feet under and the stars are dimming.
The box of your beloved words to me is burning in my stomach and ringing in my ears;
you don’t care anymore, if you ever did.
On my heart you’ve left nothing but tea rings and bullet holes and burns and cracks.
But what hurts the most is not any of this, but that I still can’t regret a thing.