The mirror stained with our memories, pictures
I am not in many of them
I count;
four pictures, we look happy
The bleeding sky was the only thing that gave  us release
Like the winter would fill our bones
and cigarette smoke would ignite the fire in our eyes
that had long since burned out
we lay on that floor on the balcony till dawn
talking about how
we will never be good enough and
life is pointless
I show her my scars apathetically
nothing effects
me anymore
My bubble cant be burst
surrounded by static
scream
want to scream

We learned about a boy in class
In 1st grade, some god granted him wings
But he flew too close to the sun
and died and drowned a terrible death

I meet this boy a few years later
I tell him about my death-wish
Thats at the bottom of my bucket list
And he tosses them all away

He says his wings have been clipped
and that he still thinks hes drowning
in a sea of vast emptiness
And the only burn signs on him
are his eyes
like dying embers that I cant save


he kissed me with abandon
threw water into my heart
it was dried out and torn
you see
his eyes they burned their way down my throat
igniting a light
as he leaves

And I think about that boy
Icarus I believe his name
He flew too close to the burning flame
Like a moth to a light
and singed his broken wings

but they forgot out the part
where the sun melts his wax heart
and he drowns in the deep dark
blue

And I forgot to tell you about the ending
about the salt water in my lungs
that I lurch back profusely
I realize its just the second skin of a little lost zombie boy
This isn't CPR
this is choking on his dead weight passion
drowning on his blue eyed sorrow

Like he choked on the sea.

"The problem is..."
he drawls
"that it is'nt us who see people differently from you,
but you see things different from us. We are not the problem you are.
You see the basest humans when we paint majestic creatures,
we tell stories of superheroes with no faults,
we expect our boyfriends to mirror night skies in their comfort,
and speak like Kerouac. Kiss our scars like white girl tumblr pictures."
"People like you," he says;
"...Dont ever **** yourselves. You're used to the disappointment. Your used to kissing your boyfriends sweaty upper lips and smelling...just that. You clean up the puke on bathroom floors without complaining because you know what people look like from the inside. That's why your art will never be good. Thats why today in class when I asked you to paint a human body cut open, you drew a colorless man with his organs splaying out of him, and *******" he laughs..
"I have to fold petals into my boyfriends armpits just to stand the sight of him
our ******* is'nt *******,
its *******. Supposedly.
When I tell this story later,
I'll leave out the spit and saliva and how the human body
aint that pretty, especially *******. Even 6 ft 3 chiseled muscle of it, ill write metaphors about his eyes and similes to his fists,
you will tell us about the humaness of his breath and how
it annoyingly kept you up at night,
you will speak of storms but not of the ones in his eyes.
The ones in your belly
when he farts during *** and you will
describe every putrid detail, like the fact that waking up in the morning aint so pretty,
morning breath is something we dreamers leave out in movies. And, it must be exhausting
living here seeing things how they really are, but atleast when you expect disappointment, theres room for surprise.
People like me expect the good and are disappointed when its ****** on."

Your fingertips danced to the echo of your own brokenness
Your pain so pure in the form of shivers
    too heavy
           Intense for a mere tear
and what words I could hear from your mumbled mess
    and skipping heartbeat
   As you looked off into that deep dark sea
    that was just scary and I thought
You had every right to be afraid of just about
everything
because there is so much to be scared of in this horrible
awful
messy
place
children go missing
and molested
and little girls like you
get *****
and all they remember is the strange hum of police sirens and an officer that was
a little too friendly
and now they look at people with empty frozen eyes
that I cant look past or through
Like insects trapped in nets
Or **** stars turnin' tricks
I feel awful to think that paedophiles
and molested children
have the same kind of hands
if you look somewhere in the past
its hard to think they were children too
who maybe liked chocolate milk
and hated the way a neighbour made them feel

You told me these theories with a steady voice
Resembling your own destruction
somehow detached from your own ****
what
was
taken
from
you

Sam told me about how you came home bruised
broken
and he took a wash cloth to your cuts
and that filth that monster left in you
      you told me how Sam cried as you tried
hard not to make a sound
(you ended up comforting him)
you ask questions to an un-answering god
about how this could of happened to you
too many times..

I watched your beautiful mouth tell me
awful
awful
things

March comes like a punching bag

March will bring her smiles like plastic bags
Some tear some don’t
You never know when she will glare her teeth like razorblades and bleed the snow
from underneath these fingertips.
Leave my insulation soaked, me; feverish.
And the joke is, I saw this coming
shivering the melted ice out of me she
bares her grin like a warning sign,
and I was either too brave or dumb enough to step inside
like a welcome mat made out of ice
and a cartoon dog
A scared pitbull, and a woman in charge.
The joke is that haha
There is no joke, you walked in.,
and made one out of yourself.
Out of the frost on your eyelashes and grief on your fingernails.
haha get it,
sweat her out like the coldest fever, without dying of shock.
Get it now?
She brings back the taste of firewood and comfort of flames when you needed it the most
Punches like the best punchline
hard enough to make it hurt
not hard enough to make you forget
hahaha
Knocks the wind out of you.

Men who look like ferris wheels
every color representing different aspects of their personality

The first three words don't have to be beautiful
they just have to make sense
like connecting dots on paper

men who love with their fists
and hate with their mouths
who once were boys taking things apart
like remote controls their own fathers used to beat     Obedience into their small bodies.  Left them with a fury tattooed across their hearts
Just to give them the challenge of putting themselves back together

They buy their wive's flowers after
a four day bruise isn't so glaringly purple anymore
not so accusing-
kiss her broken ribs
and tell their children midnight stories

children trained as mood detectors
human robots
know when to shutup
speak when you are spoken to*

Men who speak like cutting boards
Every slice of the knives in their toungues leave
hollow aching missing parts
just to teach their children that not all
things can be put together once taken apart

whose daughter glues together the parts of old telephones
to spite the missing pieces
so every welt he beats into her bones
she sings herself unbroken
until she stands robust and imperfect
there are holes in her armour
but she holds it together

with her fathers fists.

I sketched a faceless man today
I put more details in his hands than I ever could in his eyes

I drew a faceless woman today
forward facing
I put more details on the muscles of her back
than I ever could her nose

I painted a faceless child today
I put more details on his body
than I ever could his lips

I painted faceless beings today
all hollowed out alone
my art teacher looked at me like i was a little disturbed
I could not explain to him that the hollow of her cheekbone
will have more meaning
than the color of her eyes
or the voluptuousness of her lips
and that the strain in her shoulders
will show
and that man will have more meaning in the creases
of his palms
than I could ever put on the lines of his face
And all I could think of was
How that faceless woman had a **** good
***

I am making a desicion
to clean my body of
your hollow whispered bruises
cracks in my diaphragm
your words left sizzling there
like acid that dripped from your lips
I forgot the deception that swam from your eyes
I have never been stupid
enough to believe
that you were only one
when there were three.
But we stood and watched that house burn
never feeling colder,
than we did that night.
Im sorry your brother died and took
your parents with you.
So you are an orphan that
demonstrated car crashes
in the mere rhythm of your hands
or melody of your speech.
But I find myself drawn to angry cobalt blue eyes
too often enough to know that
I cannot grapple out of your choke-hold
and frozen fingers will bruise me every shade of your
roaring ocean-like blue.
I can only admire the sapphire in your soul from a distance
and hope the red ruby rage turns to wine and not blood.
I have left my marks on too many wooden floorboards, pleaded with too many icy aquamarine eyes;
from boys with steel in their voices but a fury in their hearts.
Too many fingernails stuck between infinite spaces somewhere in houses
where the silence reminded me of the stillness of a teal lake in spring
your eyes are reminiscent of a grey morning I do not wish to remember
I will leave a mark here.

I know it's heavy, the burden you carry,
But it's yours, and yours alone,
I know you’re tired, eyes weary,
But carry on, carry on.

So rest your heavy head,
On my comforting sleeve,
And as for that meddling heart,
Let it bleed, Let it bleed.

I'm amazed at how,
Your fragile bones don’t break,
Under that crippling weight,
That you have to carry alone,
But you must, so carry on,
Carry on.

They pretended not to notice how much you had changed
But they did comment on your thinning face
And how much healthier you looked
How much better
They pulled you to the side "Oh my gosh, how did you do it?"
Quizzical looks
They didn't know that the weight you lost
Was unintentional
A compensation for the heavy load inside
You tried to somehow shake off
You hated your jutting rib bones,
Losing your sanity along with your "baby" fat
You lost what made you a woman

No no one noticed your gaunt eyes
and the sharp angle of your cheekbone
Like pain
and the way you started drinking
(Although you never stopped)

They didn't notice the new scars you kept hidden with makeup
Meticulous
careful
calculating
So unlike you
No no one noticed how your eyes shone a little less brighter
Especially when you smiled

Apart from that ex-boyfriend you left a winter ago
Standing in the cold
Because he was an *******
But ******* can be right
And you saw the way he looked at you like-
the way you used to look at a broken mirror
Wondering which piece to pick up first
And start gluing back together
The way you looked at your own blood flow from your wrist's
A little scared, amazed, numb..
Like "Where do we start first?"
And "What happened here?"
Thats how he looked at you
*Atleast someone noticed

Take your medication darling you are no better
than the lies you tell
and theres a light inside us all
that only dogs can smell
-- even they get their skulls smashed in
In a house of glass of rubies and jewles
in a world where the sun doesn't set
I am blinded by the harshness
of it
too much of a good thing
is never a good thing
haha
smell me now
smell me now
feel your
pulsating
-something else that taste like the memory of you
because once someone is gone
they've never existed
not even your corpse
looked like you
now you sway from clouds
from that same noose you built of maple wood
and Tony's scars--- honey
baby please
but sweetheart
you know I hate those names
sweet pea
Put a gun to my head and tell me im beautiful
I can breathe like you
I poked my finger into your unflinching eye
not a yelp in surprise, darling
people are lemon tainted goldfish
bitter and boring
(I should really try not to use the word and so much but sometimes things don't make sense- and we need connectives to explain them)
explain this.
But cat's know this of humans
they are born with the innate knowledge that
people are **** they will never love you for long
that human loyalty is fickle
impermanent
so they daze off indifferent
independent
while dogs will chase you around, crying
when you are gone
I am a dog
woof woof
bark for me baby
you little *****
on the floor
I am still trying to make your feet reach the floor
But the noose was wound too tightly around that lamp
you had pretty feet
I always looked at hands

If I could lay under you and catch your death as it fell
I would swallow it and leave it there to rot
where all the dead things are
I looked for a heartbeat but there was none
crystal windows reflected blue skin we were swimming under water
this aint no fairytale

I know someone who finds solace in ballet shoes
                A boy who strums his secrets to guitar strings
Someone that spends his waking moments with glazed red eyes
             As if facing this world cold turkey
                       Isn’t even an option.

For boys whose fingertips shake
                Like the burning end of a cigarette
And girls whose smiles resemble
Car crashes waiting to happen
A cacophony of shattered noises
             And those of us who feel guilty for the
                     mere act
                           Inhaling air
                        And exhaling poison
So we spend lifetimes holding our breaths

   Until we burn our lungs out trying
            To warm our hearts
            With something other than the fire
           That burns out in a smoky haze

Until our eyes become rivers,
flowing oceans
That cry out a thousand melted glaciers

Our tongues speak ruined languages
We read everything backwards
Curse in Latin
Make oaths in Russian
So whatever we say sounds beautiful.

So that our hands wont have to learn permanence,
affection
consolation.

Next time you tell me to go away
I'll show you just how good I am at disappearing
You just haven't stuck around long enough for the
vanishing act
You have the audacity to
say my name tastes like filth
But have you ever thought
that the source of your uncleanliness
was born somewhere in your lung's
and made its way up your throat
I can taste that
when I kiss you
No wonder everything turn's to grit
in your mouth
You have the stones
to say
you're an insomniac
But there's a difference between
not wanting to sleep
and not being able to
And your hands wouldn't shake so much
if you didn't drink so much coffee
and you wouldn't look so tired
If you smiled once in a while
and your breath wouldn't taste
or smell
or look
like ****
if you didn't smoke
100 packets a day.
So you have the audacity to tell me
"Well, baby the truth hurts."
In that southern drawl
With eyes so animated
I wonder which movie star you're impersonating now
After four months of Kurt Cobain
I've had enough of your angst and love letters
And I'd love to lay
my hands against your throat
and let you feel the threat
of life
draining away
But I know you would just smile
and rack your brain
for a quote from a movie you have stored somewhere
away

They stuff cotton down your mouth
Because it’s the only thing that doesn't choke you
When they try to muffle your sounds out
But you scream with your eyes better than you
Ever did with words

It’s a sharp sound that hurts to look at
And you knew that contradictions were the best arguments
you said  “Arguments are the best way to show someone
How much you love them because
you are giving them your words
And that is the best thing to give.”  disagreement said “Or you could give em’
Some of your M&M;’s.”

They hung mosaics of your destruction on the walls and called it “Art”
So you punched a hole through your bathroom mirror and called it “Creation”
Spent the fourth day naming your shards “Zues” “Cordelia”. Saved the sharpest one
And called it “Helen”, said “Pain only ever hurts when its beautiful.” Disagreement said
“You’re a ****** up sadomasochistic *****”

On the fifth day you dreamt your father held you
Except it wasn't your father it was a ******* who found you
frozen to a street light
On the sixth day you called me and said: “I have a name for creation;
It’s destruction.”
On the seventh day they found you praying to the  images on a TV screen
Holding onto a mathematical calculation in your hand
Calling it the formula to happiness
The numbers spelled out




D   R  U  G  S

The law said her body was made for love
The kind of love that wants to show you
just how much it loves you
by sticking things inside of you

hard
fast

Then slower

The kind of love that wanted to make the bible blush
make you quiver; the
kind of love when you put a female and male hamster together.
The kind of love that wanted to make music out of your ******

Love said "This is what happens
when you use
Needles to ingrain the words love
on peoples skin"

It feels a lot like pain did

Like when the first boy you ever loved
said I love you back
And proved it because he held you after
sticking sticky things inside of you
Like how he said hed wait untill you were ready
then said "You're gonna make me wait forever.."

How that guy on the third date said
"Come back to my apartament
So I can put what I want into you
Until you are empty
Because we might call it love"

Until you met a boy
who untaught what the word love meant
never asked you when you wanted to have ***
whose hands never roamed as greedily
searching for places to settle on your body
who didnt wish to make a home out of you by filling you senseless
and calling it his furniture
art
who traced outlines of constellations on the palms of your hands
and played
"Guess the Nebula"

Whose hardness never prodded you in the back
like a protest
in the early morning
whose breath always came easy
never hard
or fast

It was just holding you with no intention to
*******

He said
"Love isnt what you put inside a person
In hopes of making it stick;and naming it after something beautiful
I can pin my thoughts on you but
you are not my canvas. That wouldnt be fair.
I respect your property."

There was nothing broken when he left.

I don't think anything
I don't speak or write
Never mention the silence
that this void leaves behind
and no one sees that
behind my eyes
because deception is brutal
though some people aren't killed
never even fooled
(such a pity)
**** them all
I stare at you all my circle of friends that I-
(or **** yourself)
and feel nothing for these blurs of people
They look familiar.
Thank god for the idiots that-
no hand prints by passing strangers
the Russian palm on the back of my neck
Eugine, Nikita,
big boys, big big big big big big
with big ***** and strong hands and broad shoulders
(look away)
god bless the ******* that buy you  gin and there's this miracle
in the form of something lyrical
runs like water tastes like liquor I
love
the lyrical melody of being so ******
off your ****
face, *** whatever you wanna call it-
drunk.
I'm soberly contemplating switching the feelings off
Oh how it works
nothing but irises and going back home and kittens you don't bother to save-from
the streets
they all die anyway.
its a grown up kind of feeling
(silly)
Laughter doesn't ring the same way
you bash skulls against the wall
On Leo's drum kit and you swear his eyes are a deeper purple than the shade
of your hurt
you don't care
cant find it in you to care
we are the same you see we dispose of those we need nothing of
so its okay I guess

I can judge you anyway though
nothing nothing nothing
no feeling
"the contours of your face as mysterious as the scars that lined your hands"
left a place back there as cold as daddy's coffin
they don't tell you that sometimes
you hold onto a little bit of childhood, like laughing at
people falling on their *****
now protect us against that kind of crass humour
Ill pretend to care
-but you'll see that I really don't
the restless way my knee jumps like
your heartbeat and eyes that swim over walls and
faces
like a ski *****
left too many bruises
were all going down
and I just don't care any-more.

I wrote you a poem
Titled it gravity
For your lack of it
And how that made me want you more
Called the scars in your eyes stability
Those were the only things that remained
I am looking for sand to set my anchor on
This is how i just keep sinking
But you
You were fluidity in motion you were the
Once a week reminder that
Typhoons hit and people change
When my moods were changing tides
On the days my speech was so rapid and my eyes so clear it made everyone want me
Atleast thats how it appeared to me
But for the days when my arms drag me out to sea and you have a hand over these fists begging me to let go of these ******* bricks as you kick
Afraid ill drown us both
And i would
If it werent for the flight in your smle keeping us up
Afloat
I pray you dont drop me for the wight of us both can be too much for you to carry

My boot prints leave train tracks in the snow
Because I walk with a shuffle
My parts are incomplete; I find

walking uncomfortable

No one step feels the same
But right now it’s okay
Because between three feet of snow
A moon so perfectly halved
Under a sky naked of its stars
I feel
As if my shuffle
Is graceful
As if my walk;
Permanent
As if my steps
Are purposeful
Even if a little

Awkward

I am standing under a street light in three feet of snow
Not feeling cold
Or alone
Even though its cold
And I’m alone
My mind
It does not mumble
My speech
It does not stutter
My hands they do not shake here
I
Am permanent
I am whole here
My veins
They do not show here
They are not vulnerable in their color
Here
My heart
Doesn't skip a beat
My breath doesn't waver
here I do not hear
Ticking clocks in my head
I do not say clicking tots in my head
My speech is free of stutter
My mind as certain as these disappearing footprints
My walk, well
I still shuffle

You look for meaning where there is none
in the crook of my collarbone or curve of my spine
or ribs you love to trace with your fingers
as if you could tuck your delicacy between the spaces intertwined by
nerve and muscle
As I breathe
you think your touch is all powerful
a healer
You look for beauty where there is none
in the curve of a smile
that rarely dances across my lips
as  if you could catch a fleeting glance and frame it somewhere behind your eyes
all you see is gold
fool's gold
brutally unaware that every-time you kiss the place below my neck
its as though you cut my throat open listening for the sound of a song I wouldn't sing
looking for words I wouldn't say
and they pour out of me
like the sweat from your pores,
in your need
You forget to be disappointed, when all you hear
is the sound of my gurgling
choking
on all the things that threaten to rush back to the surface
Now your eyes have a tint of orange coloured bitterness to them
The promise of something sweet
that only sounds sour
Your voice holds a note of deception
your touch doesn't dance as delicately across my skin
I no longer make my tongue move to the rhythm of your lies
As if I could taste the words at the back of your throat
Worst of all
I think I like you better this way.

Because we both know the sound of gunfire
Except I, didn’t grow up in a war zone
It was a different kind from yours
Our bullets were words
Sounds of breaking glass
And the shards of which made it into my cheerios the next day
Chewed them anyway to spite
The sound that
Breaking makes

You,
you know the sound of falling bodies too readily
  you can mimic them in your footsteps
The smell of rotting corpses
What kind of scars shrapnel really leaves

What the color of blood really looks like
I see that shade of red every time you speak
  The way you keep it hidden in those paintings
In the drawer that I sneak into when you sleep
Know too well what evil looks like

I can find a place for all the words buried in my chest
inside your bullet wounds easily

If I were not a coward

Staring into the dark irises of men in uniforms dirtier than their conscience,
Find it easier to look into a barrel of a gun
Only one of them holds salvation
  
No, you are not afraid of guns
Nor the sound that breaking makes


But I still remove the safety pin
Just in case

They kissed you with that mouth
Wrote books about you
Took pictures and hung them up for beer ads
For humans with high testosterone to ogle
While they ******* the top of a beer bottle
Like it will bring their fathers acceptance
Back into their eyes.
Your nine inched heels gave me whip lash
Your ½ inch eyelashes gave me heartburn
Your spit
Indigestion
Because they kissed you with that mouth.
And you still believe,

You asked for it

You still believed you were not worth getting out of the hood for
The hood
what good is the hood and the hood-rats

You ******* ***** in alleyways

All 10 of them lined up
said I might as well have the money upfront
If I'm gonna **** **** I'm getting paid for it

They bashed your head into concrete so hard.
You forgot how your mothers voice sounded like
Almost forgot how your uncles knuckles tasted like,
I don’t know your story
I don’t know your name
I don’t know you
I just know that your friend
And my friends
Last night
Came to the conclusion
That you were a ****
And you were asking for it
You asked for your head to be bashed into concrete
And hey maybe you did
Maybe you wanted something to hit you hard enough to make you forget
The hate inside
The misogyny you swallow
and wash down the drain
maybe you were there in front of 10 guys because you wanted to know what power felt like
what being wanted felt like
because you thought you were worth the money
but they didn't
because maybe that's what you asked for
because maybe your mother taught you to get high and surrender with glazed eyes
rather then take your higheels off and fight

because your laughter sounds more broken than you do
because your eyes hold remnants of your skull
because you remember the taste of your blood too keenly
because my friends, my female friends who are not evil or sexist

my male friends the protector of women
came to an agreement
you asked for it
put yourself in the position to
smell the inside of your brain
because your blood meant power
because finishing them off
meant swallowing or bleeding
and you did some of both because
maybe you chose survival
because maybe you came in kicking naked and maybe thats how you wanna go out with
another mans hands down your throat
some to aid air some
to constrict

weather you bleed or swallow you are only
emptying out

and I tried to explain that to your friend and my friends but
there is so much anger about what happend to you
and none of it is directed at the ten faceless penises.

Because you were once a chandelier of candles
And now you are a faceless light bulb hung on the moldy hotel building
Because your **** gives you free crack and
My friends have disgust on their faces
And I feel
Pity

I remember that summer by the lake
How you were surprisingly quiet that day
and nice to everyone which was weird
no sarcastic remarks
or swearing

so unlike you

your wit had died down
if we hadn't known better
we would of said you were distracted
But grateful for the change in your
demeanour
and teaching me to skip stones
If only you had taught me how to place my heart in my palm
and throw that away
instead

You weren't one for smiles
but you didn't like dramatic send offs either
that's why I was surprised when we found your cold body on the floor
bathed in the afternoon sun
In your fathers cabin
by that god forsaken lake
Under that red sky that turned everything the shade of your blood

Cassie slipped and fell and screamed
But I didn't hear her I was too busy focusing on you
willing myself to see a chest rising and falling
but all there was, was static
somewhere beyond Cassies screams

And Luke rushed to somehow clasp your wounds shut
The reflexes of a Doctor's child
But he didn't see that there was no more blood left to flow
and you were blue and cold
but you seemed unburdened of whatever
was eating
you

I remember feeling relief
I stood there
numb

We laughed at your funeral
At the irony of it all
and when your aunt got up and said you were the most
kind, generous young man
we almost died of laughter then

you were the most cold sarcastic ******we ever met

but still loved you

Jake elbowed me and said "What would he do if he was here right now?"
I smiled  "He'd jump out that ******* coffin and give his mother a heart attack"
Because it was you after all
You did love dramatic endings

Fall into her hollow cheeks
what is left of her helpless hands
bleed her until there is nothing left to bleed
climb upon her neck until she cannot stand

Roll your tongue in and out of her mouth
Plant your lies securely in her mind
leave her without a doubt
until herself she cannot find

So you move away and tread on water
cannot mistake the ripples
like cracked egg shells you break them
so loudly they echo in your mind
these friends once dogs
scatter off to a better find
no more loyalty in the face of fresh meat
I don't blame the hounds the smell is too strong
and the ***** too good
My fault for trying to find solace with
guitar boys in bands
I will always be a once lost sister
they speak of nostalgically when they meet another sister
someone they used to know
I havent changed; they have this place has, it is no longer home.
It just smells like it.
find bullet wounds in my guts
I am spineless
I ride myself on cowardice and pride
I have blood alcohol of 0.5
Theres nothing left but
pride pride pride
Oh Theresa you carry your bible so well
your hands haven't aged in this golden state
the orpahn by your side could use a meal though
the smell of dead animals and garbage trucks and burning
nothing like smoke that has lodged its way into your throat
you cannot un-lodge the dark black sticky stuff
its poison
gun blasts
I thought I could face it
I am a child  of nowhere

I watch a sunrise behind an old abandoned church in my home-town
I haven't slept for two nights
the crystal clear beauty of the sleep-deprived
the jaw aching beauty of the pink sky
almost hurts my eyes
the irony I see reflected back at me
how such a daring light could hide behind
a cowardly institution
My thoughts are crisp and clear
after two nights of no sleep
and I cant describe
I cannot describe what I see
But its there behind my eyelids
when I close them shut
I am dreaming of tomorrow
But tomorrow never comes.
I am closer to god when I am sleepless
Though I'm not sure I believe in god when I am awake
like all things are during suffering
and the sky is just a canvas
for me to whisper my thoughts to
I paint his hands in the shape of clouds
under this red sky at morning
They hold nothing
and nothing holds them
heavy hands and my heavy eyelids
both closed
open
wide
shut
he holds me in his hands
he holds the promise of tomorrow
I tell him tomorrow is a lie.

Did you get those scars on your knees from praying?
Or ******* your fathers **** inside the barn?
or did you pray while doing it
that he would choke on his own satisfied face?
did you sit inside his church listening to him preach
hypocrisy to family and friends
while you swallowed back that bitter taste he left in your mouth
the one that tasted like an anger so pure it made your eyes water?
did you wait patiently for him to finish his speeches about
salvation, jesus, god and being sinless
whilst you prayed in that godless church, he would miss a step
fall and break his neck?
Was that thought the only thing that gave light to your eyes?
did you think these things while you brushed the dirt and gravel off your knees
wash the blood in the toilet
Put on your Sunday dress and look at yourself in the mirror
with empty eyes
that knew nothing but hate
and a shame so heavy it made you hate the act of breathing?
because every time you did it reminded you of the weight on your chest that no amount
of air
could
get
rid
of
(like the time he sat on you when you were sleeping)

Do you think that gods disciples and prostitutes have the same knees?
Do you think anyone can tell the difference?

Does the cross around your neck ever threaten
to get so tight it chokes you?
so hot, it burns your skin?

Too much praying gets you to the same place
when you're left with nowhere to dish out your pain
and too many unanswered questions, on your knees
on your ******* knees
about fathers and gravel, dirt **** and spit
*We all get ****** in the end

Your heaven has failed me
On the days when I felt loading up the dish washer was a
Personal assault on my psyche
Your god has-
Run me over with his fists too many times
And made me believe it was paternal pat’s on the back
All the-
Pain I was feeling,
You carry the gravel in your teeth
To make sure its full of grit,
When you speak,
I say;
“you’re full of ****”

You say im just weak for the things
That have made me unholy.
I am weak for the things that have unbroken me.
These words are shrapnel
You let them sink into our skin there is no more dirt to chew
I will spend my last moments
Holding onto the ******* noose
I’m going down swinging
And if that means I’ll hang
So be it
There are worst ways to die

I know
Because I’ve died before

Nothing special happens. Ya’ll can stop dreaming.

Kindness isn’t supposed to taste so bitter
Being saved
Isn’t supposed to hurt so much
You-
Never knew how much the night sky despised the daylight
Until you moved to a country where it gets longer every year
You never knew how kind
The sun was to your skin-
Ive got tan lines where my noose used to swing
It took me three years to untie myself
And I still have scars

Whether they will be there or not in a few more years
I guess ill stick around and see just
How much ive
lost

There is a never ending breed of bracteria livig in my bones
It
almost chews with the full intent of biting off but not quite, holds back just enough to leave me hanging
my joints, nooses of collateral damage,
they
almost wiggle like worms but burn with less intensity than pain.

There is a never ending wall of inter knotted muscle within my back

I call these things frustration
although alot of the time they feel like fury
make my neck ache like guilts burden.

I have ground my teeth to tiny sizable pellets and
picked at my charred white skin,
until there is no more youth in this body
all you will see is five foot seven of sallow eyes
pale faced
bloated frustration
corpse-like
if corpses smiled.

Untill my teeth are yellowed from coffee and cigarettes and the laugh lines around my mouth taunt me like the scars on my upper arm (if you are scarred just as painfully by laughter as a knife what is the point of it all)
12 inches of stitched back frustration that reads:

you cannot undo
what was done


   stitches I want i want to rip out in the company of polite
normal people and
smile at their disgusted faces

have you ever as a child
been so unhappy by what you put down on paper
you would scrunch the whole thing up after crossing it out in the thickest black marker
throw it in the bin and start over?

This is what living feels like
I am just a  canvas

I can almost remember what it was like to laugh

If* only you were a little less bent
Fixable
Like, a little less hollow
Gullible

"If only you would just! stop! thinking!
For once
You must be tired
I mean OH MY GAWD
Its like you're wired!

And like, your're way too cynical
Sarcastic, witty sure, but that's just
typical!
Arrogance, you think your're better-
than- Oh wait look at that hot guy,
his name is Brent-
Wait, wait

Now, what was it I was saying-
Yeah your'e like way too
cold, puts people off
Your're disarming...
No wait-I meant alarming
haha!


I mean smile, for once
Laugh at a joke!
Talk to the guys,
Gosh, you don't even ****!
-All you do is mope,
I mean seriously c'mon
I'm trying to be nice
You have such potential!-"

-"shutup you dumb *****."

Your voice is ragged from all the singing
Screaming empty prayers at the ceiling
Its a raspy thing thats course and thick
But flows like water over me
Like your hands
Who have done too much hitting
Too much running
Too much bouncing off walls
To ever be innocent

Your voice holds a note of constant misery in it
Like the eyes of bereaved parents
Or the voice of people suffering from chronic back pain
Neck pain
Leg pain

Its the sound of a thousand setting suns
All at once
Different colors
You’ve done too much singing boy
Too much running, partying, working playing
Too much living boy
Too much livin’

Your voice has a hint of irritability in it
Something dark in colour
thick like syrup
sour like lemons
Your voice has a taste of bitterness in it
Man-child boy, farmer kid
A sense of stability
Certainty about it
Its a statement to all of the things you have lost

And hey you're still livin'

On the day you finally broke
you let every bit of the control you valued so much, slip
slip
away
And I loved it.

On the day you broke I pushed a button I knew I shouldnt have
pushed
and between your anger
I named your fear
"You're sccared." I said
Between your anger and your fear there was no more room left for
control
so you broke and broke down.
As broken down a control freak gets
Shaking, you spat out the saddest sentence I have ever heard
come out of your beautiful mouth
Hair crackled with the ferocity of your hatred you said
"IF. I could change everything about. MYSELF,  I would. My ****** zip code, my zodiac sign, every. *******. thing. The good, the bad, the ******* joyous and the ******* ugly."
You whispered the word "everything" as if I did not yet understand.

My father only taught me how to be a man but my mother taught me how to be a human being
And I too know how heavy armour wears on your skin
Even soldiers sleep
Even vikings take their armour off at some point
Even a captain removes his ******* hat
You
you sleep with clenched fists and gritted teeth
I havent heard you
yawn
burp
****
****
***
or snore
you are
the one eye open on the door and I'm
the kitchen floor cleaner going back for more
ill unload your baggage
just  tell me where you left the ******* keys to the trunk

I am awoken by a nagging in my head
its in my mothers voice
the urgency,
I don't know what for, its 5 am.
my submission doesn't speak.
I fill the air with the sound
of my nonsense, a rambling of dreams,
"dont burst the bubble, burst the bubble, burst the-"
a never ending melody.
Because there is nothing louder than this, I have wanted to crawl out of my skin long before I knew it was mine.
And theirs, not mine entirely, composed of DNA so imperfect
even the gods would've laughed.
If you ever want to **** something up to the point its unrecognizable,
give it to me, look what I did to my own potential.
Squander doesn't begin to cover it, almost out of spite.
and i must stop it before it reaches my eyes
it has a certain way of clouding them over
and I just dont want people to realize
that I am swallowing a lump
at the back of my throat
what seems like forever
trying not to get my eyes to burn or
dig my nails deep into someones throat
just to feel their artery and scream
"YOU ******* FEEL IT DONT YOU?
ARE YOU ALIVE? ARE YOU REALLY HERE?
YOU ARE ALIVE, ALIVE ALIVE!."
Then place the sharp bits of my nails
against my skin, hard
and not feel
anything
I struggle with self control
especially with ***
and drugs
and alcohol.

I yell too often, never loud enough to make them hear me.
I am afraid of my own voice
telling people to shut up
Jack knows its not a good thing if I whisper
last time I did I said
"I don't have a pulse, I cant find my pulse."
Before I freaked out and smashed that vase against the wall
and laughed at what a sad broken cliche I have become.
My anger came out in sputtering sobs

And he tried to hold me
because that's what people do in movies
cue the background music
but I didn't let him because I was never any good at acting,

and he never got mad when I hit him
I can hear that "Sshhhh" at the back of
my ear
Forever.
and I could wince at my own humiliation if I gave a ****.
I wont lie it was awkward he sounded scared
"aww dont c-c-ry"
thought I saw a tear there too

eyes flicker in and out of conciousness
I stare daggers into walls
dance around chanting some heroic theme song
insert ****** babble
for those of us
who feel too heavy
like invisible chains drag across our ankles
and we hold boulders on our shoulders
that no one else can see
a curse taken from the japanese
or chinese
memory isnt one of our strong points
With razor sharp tongues we see people
sliced up
infront of us
shattering every pathetic little meaning of their existence
no remorse
turn away when there is blood
slice it up, we all have cuts
and bruises and certain scars
Ill paint my filth across these halls
and tell you about what a ***** little ***** I've been
Ill get real messy
and laugh when you call me a *****
for those of us who forget to eat
or want to forget to eat
know that , that weight will never go away
it stays at the pit of your stomach
you will never implode
always be at the peak of something like
a ****** that never happens
For those of us who drink too much
and laugh at how that sounds
because it really  never is enough
we have a certain kind of grit
that never leaves our colon
stays stuck in our intestines
we have a certain kind of fire that burns
its way up our throats and into our eyes
we speak like broken glass

I clawed my demons in the face
gauged out their eyes with my bare hands
I painted victory blood on that ivory staircase
Did my little dance
And then we tasted the laughter of children
knowing we will never again know how that feels
but spend the rest of our lives wanting to
get that feeling back
stare at the helplessness
in your empty hands
these hands could hold
and hit
and cut and stab and mash and grab
they  can caress, though
we break
so
easily

I saw you sitting on our front porch
It was a dull, silent day
The kind you find in Colorado
at spring time, early may
And the kids are at school
And the housewives are too busy cleaning the house
cooking their meals
Washing the lipstick stains off their husbands shirts

And you looked cute like little kids do
with a chubby face and baby hands
I sat next to you
and asked you what you were doing
You said "I'm waiting for the rain."
why?
"Because I like the smell of it."

You reaffirmed my sense in humanity then.
Someone who was only 5 years old
You made me want to go home and destroy every razor I had stashed away
Rip out every sad sob story of a poem I had written
Open up every curtain in that death stained house
That smelled like body odor
and human warmth
But it lacked
life

You made me want to scream and cry
and say "yes yes yes you're smart little guy!"

But I stared in amazement as thunder was heard
And now when I hear it, im reminded of your words
As I held your little hands in mine, the neighbour boy
and we danced in the rain as you squealed with delight
five years old with beautiful brown eyes
I could only hope one day Id have a brother like you
That was before my mom had the baby

And you were just a little boy
so every time it rains
I think of that dance
and how it smelled
and how it tasted when I found out that your stepfather had beaten your brains out

     3 years later
        after we'd moved.
That sweet-bitter taste.

of life laughing in your face

Many think of anger, as hot
fiery
volcanoes erupting
The ground shaking
Thunder
In my fathers voice

When I think of being angry
I think of silence
Of turning the ocean to ice
I think of glass
And reflections
I think of lava
because I think true rage
is kept hidden

It isn't the smoke that escapes nature's destruction
Or the roaring flames that engulf it
It isn't a thousand shattering windows
Or a deafening wind

Its the silent, burning lava
Rage is eternal
Destroying all in its path
Without so much as a
*Whisper

I've seen boys turn into men
   hands full of grenades
made of anger, of hurt of
cold
hard
beer
and smiles that could light-
no ignite
This cold heart of mine

I've known boys so steady
so calm
so sure
But they ended up dragging me-
along the cold hard pavement floor
Until I was nothing but a tattered corpse

They let me go
Like children do balloons
When my burdens grew too heavy
For the both of us to bare

I've seen boy's
-no men
With eyes so bright
so happy
so full of
life
I've known kids
so
so hollow
so empty

That even a rhyme couldn't describe
And I tell them to sit
sit down
and write it all out
But the paper grows damp
From the tears of their pens
And their poems unstructured
Their names but a blur

So now I know
I know
You can't tame all wild things
You cannot confine
Pain
To paper
As Pen to paper

My mother said I had my fathers eyes
I always thought I kinda looked like a bug
But not in that
Strange-insecure way
Just in the way we stare at lady bugs when were kids
And we don't judge them,because they just are
Before we learn to be afraid
And start calling them "insects"

My mom also said, drugs were the best thing that ever happened to her
to the world
to society
A teenage girl in a woman's body
Forever sifting through history
The never ageing blue eye'd hippie;

So I set out on a journey
to somehow find what she said was so great
I swore to myself that I would be the next drug
And do what it takes
To change the world
   To change society
     To be the best thing that ever happened to my mother
        The eternal hippie

I also think the women in my family
Have this uncanny knack
At finding these beautiful
wrecks of men

Her last boyfriend blew his brains out
  I was three and thought we painted the walls

Steven was her boy toy, with an artist's deep dark eyes
  I used to watch him paint
   He'd drink a little too much
   watch a little too much ****

She found him in his car
And then Brett
Who was the whitest thing we saw
Blonde hair and white eyes
  Well by the time we got there
He was already gone

So she says to me "Honey, don't make the mistakes I made, these weak men,
    well they aren't tortured artists, tortured souls, just misguided little boys."

     I haven't been able to quite shake that curse off
  I guess its something in the nature
  In the way that we walk
    The words that we say
      The way that we talk

But I'm sick of being the unpaid therapist
And staying up all night thinking about
   Problems that aren't even mine

  Dangling the live's of people with this terminal illness
    This disease no one talks about
      Because its so ******* "Taboo"
         Hoping they will survive the night
             Leaving my phone on just instead

Being thankful when they call me
Drunk and sobbing
About this dark abyss of water
The chains around their ankles
In the light dawn of day
The clock says, 4 AM, the bed says come
Their cries say "stay"

Holding their mother's hands
At funerals
Thinking of something beautiful to say
When really, I think I just need to start hanging around with a new bunch of people

But I find everyone else quite boring, quite stupid, quite dumb
You know, the kind, go out get drunk
For the sake of a friday
Study for a test you'll take on monday

Its like they never feel
out
   of
      place
And like they will always be
quite
    okay

  I hope they will make it through the weekends
    Make it clear they are not alone
      But ive always been icky with emotion
         Talking about these "heavy" things
I
   just
      want to
quit

He plays the the sound of a rainfall in Manhattan.
As he chases paper thin skin out of this sorry sob story
another fairy tale in his head.
I think you've had enough for today Alex
why don't you sing of pretty things?
Eyes like coals too dark to see,
do they stop your hands from strumming that guitar?
the tunes you play
the melodies
echo in the absence of your voice
and alex you taste so sweet
sweeter than the alcohol you use to get to sleep
I tell you one day the past will catch up with you;
but your smile looks like a well adjusted childhood.
Something were all surprised to see.
And yeah your fingers pour over the strings,
because
the only time they dont shake is when you play
so play for me
play play play
sing sing sing
dont stop
dont breathe
just play

I gave your voice to the sun
I tried to catch the stars in my hands
But they fell through and cut me
Sliced my fingers into two

There is nothing in the sky but your silence
Looks like the sun burned the sound of music away
And the stars sparkle on the floor from when they landed here
As for me I am nowhere
Nowhere

I tried to give your voice to the sun
But the sound of music burned away
And the stars, they fell one by one
Cut my hands away
Tried to give you to the sun

Our moon is incompatible
November's cold and grey
You have ***** fingernails
Whereas I try to wash the dirt away

And what I once thought was music
Was just the sound of a thousand shattering stars
And what I once thought was beautiful
Was merely a thousand glittering scar's

You are a silly little man-child
And I am just a little girl
But as for me, I am tired
Of the blunt beauty of this world

I am on Pluto dear
You are on Mars
We sold each other out honey
We destroyed the stars

A marinate was played
Full of granite and fine rings
A bathtub of nosebleeds Danny and a bathtub of kings
All the cards that were dealt all the hands that we played pulled the curtain bell
Of my sleeve up to delay what I'd say and
All the cards we swept under the rug Danny all the music we screamed
From my sore throat and broken hands came the sound of suffering on a silent note in an empty room a bell jar and a piano and a single key being pressed in time to the sound of my weeping Danny
My friends ignored my cries
But here we are now with a new drum set and two sets of sticks for hands and we break everything we try to touch Danny thinking it can be played like the single key in that lonely room
Listen there are vultures in my throat in all my baby teeth and landlocked blues
I know that's the name of the song but I wanted to play it for you
Just in case you forgot I could sing out my suffering
And it doesn't sound so horrible now does it Danny
Because you don't know the story it tells
The blood diamond behind the curtain
Well it glimmers just as well
And I'm sure we can find a way to forgive ourselves for everything that was done
But I'm in a two step programme
Where everything gets reversed
And no I haven't slept in weeks Danny you're right I know I look like ****
I just haven't had time to think about what I'm putting in me
When I try to scream and I come up on a single static piano key
Listen there are ways we broke each-other and I'm sorry I tried
But the sound of my suffering
Doesn't mean waving goodbye

Here it is
the poem on survival, the one you've all been waiting for
where I learned to untie the noose from my smile,
my smile from the trigger warning.
Here's your trigger warning:

I shivered when you kissed me.
I had a hard time believing my heartbeat was a good thing; had a hard time
believing the front door was still an option.
I wake up some days and remember when I used to sing bruises onto my skin,
fill up large towels with my blood,
watch it go black,
watch everything go black.
Still remained smiling;
still stood with the scars; with the ink between my teeth baring
a warning sign for whoever comes next,
for whoever wants my body without wanting my mind.
here it is
here is how i survived:

I hurt myself

I still do it just doesn't show
the scarring.
here it is baby boy come inside its about to get ugly,
you're about to see me cry,
you're about to see me shake,
you're about to find out what im really made of,
I'm about to find out if you break.

are you scared yet
this is a challenge you never step down from,
you brave boy!
you with your sword and white horse;
shining at the darkness inside of me; shining at the stench inside me ; come here,
make me feel whole.

I realise why I'm drawn to alcoholics
after you, because you taste like one;
heat-filled,numbing passion.
Because you are certain of your drug
of choice
and can hold your liquor
So that means you can hold me
our hands only shake when we're sober
so lets stay drunk all the ******* tIme
and fight off these ghosts in beer bottles
ode to Jack Daniels for leading us to
true love
because there really must be a god
if something as sweet as this
could exist

Until the morning when we wake up
still slightly
drunk
staggering, stuttering
dark eyes and muttering
apologies for what happened
"last night"
but were not sorry because well do it again
just bring the whiskey
Ill bring a pen

So I realize you're as smooth as the poison you drink
and as sharp as the blade
i use to inflict
these toxins of waste in my breath
on my skin
but we'll do it again
yeah we'll do it again

You had perfectly plastic skin
              So so clear and shiny and pretty


                     And red ruby lips
                      That you painted
           Just like those pictures on your wall
                            Made of sharp crystal pieces

 That shone and caught the light when you spoke

                                                           And your words flowed from that beautiful mouth like waterfalls

                                Like the tears that fell from your eyes
                                Except, they would cut themselves on your ruby painted lips
                                                            ­
  And a thousand jagged pieces
                                        
                                              would land
                                                        stra­ight into my
                                                              ­                     heart

I tell him about the 90 year old that made a home in my body.
Say "I feel more than the nineteen years, I feel more than your nineteen years."
He takes it as evidence towards what he calls my "superiority complex"
makes a joke about thinking I'm so much wiser than everybody else as I stammer with arms crossed trying to find the words my nineteen year old vocabulary does not know.

This has nothing to do with being wise you sonofabitch, its about an exhaustion that paints the dark color around my eyes and the sigh that lives in my belly you ******.

He interrupts, laughing "What do you mean? Your bones ache or something? haha hahaha." Loud, obnoxious, not the first time,
not the last. I want to say yes

yes
yes they ache ad they creak
and they burn and so do my eyes and so do my insides and so do the words I say and the way I say them and the way it scares others when I say some profound ****, I almost sound like Gandhi, like Bukowski, I just never learnt of a beautiful way to disguise my pain. Not enough so It could sell.


I was better off alone when the ice made a security blanket around my heart-better off with no pain.
He shines a mirror on all my missing parts, calls me ****** up.
Stand next to me just to lean over in his height, superiority complex runs high among privileged nineteen year old straight males.

The ice thawed but he came with no gloves
I found the bruising less tolerable than the cold this time around
Less bearable than the lonely beat my heart learned to sing.
Its the same story he just repeats himself as another boy who says the wrong things and makes me feel
exhausted for every having opened up my icebox full of secrets.
Every conversation is an emptying out and not the cathartic kind.
The kind that leaves the ninety year old in me shaking with nothing left inside her but rotting gums and eyes that have seen too much ****. Nobody is supposed to make you this unhappy. This is not what I asked when I asked for you to make me feel something.
Every time I say your name Matthew, it almost comes out Nathan, in my head. Nathan with his accent, and the same humor, same jokes. Nathan the boy I emptied myself out to just so he could leave bruises on the uncovered parts. It was so easy to to leave somebody I never gave a **** about.

Matthew, I only say your name so often so I remember it, so I say it right, so I remind myself you are not the same person. Matthew sounds allot like Nathan when your drunk or sad which I am most of the time these days, you sound allot like him with your laugh, sound like your gonna leave bruises on all the parts I lift up to show you. I know this.

This is a fact. Like I know I wont ever cry for you until I'm all thawed out.
Matthew, for  your painstaking insensitivity, for your lack of understanding
Matthew for you not understanding all the creaking in my bones is just screaming

Save me
Fix me

Give me one reason why you're good for me because I cannot think of any and
*I so desperately want to

I watched my father from a distance
Being mauled by a bear
And even from this far away
In his eyes i could see fear
Pure ******* fear

I listened to lucy tell me
The worst thing Ive ever heard
About how 2 men grabbed and  ***** her
Is that worse than being mauled?

I do not know
But i guess they mustve screamed
So loudly into the distance
She was only thirteen

Only thirteen
And I was twelve at the time
I asked her if it hurt
I should’ve known better
Instead I made it worse

I met Daniel at a party
He showed me his scars
He said his father shot himself
So he decorates his arms

And monica paints pictures
Of skies so beautifully blue
Though she herself is dying
Just skin and bones and truth

I asked her if she found it
In all the painting’s she created
Did you find Daniels father?
Was he cremated?
Did you find Lucy’s innocence?
Unburdened her of her shame?
Can your paintbrush do that?
Can it make you sane?

What about my mother
Does she have a say
Can she ever get back
What was lost that day?

Can you paint my eyes
So they un-see what was seen
Can you paint the sounds
Of Lucy's silent screams
Can you paint Daniels arms
Make the scar's disappear?
Can a ******* painting
Ever make things all clear?

You spoke addiction
like a language
like an art form
marks on your arms
on your thighs
A Mosaic of patterns
You said they looked prettier than the
ligature marks around your neck
the invisible noose
you constantly swayed from
Like addiction was a guy
you couldn't make your mind up
about
at-least they had more meaning
You said I never understood the purpose of tiles
and how beautiful they looked close up
and how you never got bored of counting them
There was more life in your bruises
than in your eyes
like each little hole
****** out a little more of you
said I could never understand the
beauty in
feeling
really
feeling
lukewarm bath water
turn cold
In a womb of your own destruction
in a needle
in a rope
in a razor
a false sense of life
of *life

They tell me I'm great
And that I''ll go far
Because I posses such "intelligence"
For someone so young
I say Ive known greater
Ive known smarter
And the acid eating away at my insides
Is a direct result of all
your expectations
That I wont meet
And that test I'll fail on Friday
And all the teachers I'll let down
A doctor's daughter
The family of academics
That somehow bred a writers soul
A so called "artist"
However intellectual
I cannot do this
I cannot