I’ve been exhausted for what feels like months
and I can never close my eyes without my mind screaming a million thoughts that take over my consciousness.
and it’s during these moments where I wish I could escape myself,
where I wish I could be someone else and discover the thoughts that lie underneath the rocks of their mind.
but if I were to be someone else I think I’d have the same problem.
I wouldn’t be able to get away from their mind.
I wouldn’t be able to run away from the dark thoughts that peer into their soul.
so I guess I’ll be forever trapped in a place I can’t escape.

"I don't give a ****!" He screamed. His eyes closed and arms raised in the air. He felt free. His eyes fluttered open searching for mine.  "Are you serious?" A belligerent voice met my ears. Laughter escaped our lips as a lady grabbed her son and ambled towards the other side of the park. The two of us were now alone with the city lights glowing upon our skin. "Do you?" He rose his eyebrows waiting for my reply. "Do I what?" "Do you give a ****?" He asked the broad question. A simple "no" slipped from my mouth before I could process the question and think of a valid answer. "What?" he asked, a smile appearing on his face. "I don't give a ****." My voice increased in volume. "A little louder now." He cupped his pale hands over his ear. "I don't give a ****!" I screamed, my eyes closed and chin up towards the clouds. But I did. I did give a ****. As much as I tried to convince myself that I didn't, I gave every single **** in this world. I wish the truth had left my lips that night in the park. I wish I could've spilled every single **** I gave to you. If I did, maybe now would've been different.

They believe I am the girl whose lips stay sealed but thoughts stay absurd
The girl whose eyes sway across the thin pages of a novel and consume the words that fill it
The girl whose imagination runs wild.
And I am that. But no one has uncovered my true self.
No one has uncovered the girl who is concealed behind this.
They don't know I run through the subway tunnels when the sun dies and the darkness takes over
They don't know how the infrastructure of the tunnel shudders as the train travels by in one swift motion
They don't know I sneak onto the rooftops of the city to get million dollar views only the wealthy ones can see.
They don't know how fast my blood flows when the wind blows and my dark hair takes over my vision as I stand towering over my death
They don't know I'm searching for a sense of freedom and thrill that will take me away from my own reality.
They don't know me, yet they move their tongues and slither words like snakes pretending they do.
This is my youth, this is my sanity. This is what makes me feel alive.

I was petrified of heights, but for some reason, my body moved faster than my mind. My hands grasped onto the warm metal bar of the spire ladder. A spire that was placed one thousand feet above lower Manhattan. The sun shined a golden tint on my face, making my body heat up. But a light breeze whistled through the air refreshing me from the warmth. I gaze upwards to the pinnacle of the metal structure. Audrey was standing at the top of it, her black camera pointing downward towards me. My chapped lips twitched upwards creating a smile. Before I could realize, I was up there with her. Strands of my dark hair took over my vision as the wind tasted it. My adrenaline rushed as I stood on the narrow piece of metal, centimeters away from death. But after seconds it was gone. The feeling that I chased every day had vanished and my mind became blank. Watching over the city with no one below knowing became peaceful to me. I drifted out of conscious and into my own world. I felt as if the city was mine. The light breeze pressed against my face softly, bracing me from the warm sun that hit my body. Curtis's voice drifted into my ears, taking me back to reality."Helis!!" he called from the platform of the spire. The sound of my heart beating blared through my ears like music through a speaker. The feeling I yearned for was back. I slowly found my way down the ladder and onto the platform. The three of us stayed concealing ourselves on the opposite side of the structure, away from the helicopters. We played hide and seek for what felt like hours.

To us, the city is our playground,
the city is what makes us feel alive.
We are the city kids that no one talks about.

I want you to put me on your tongue and let me dissolve into you like the tiny white squares that turn those glossy hazel marbles into black holes and intense stares. I want you to kiss me and see negative colored rulers in the corner of your vision and I want you to have trouble making a decision between kissing me and observing me while I'm sitting on your chest and I want you to laugh like you did with your cherry colored lip curled over your childish grin over and over and over again and I want you to forget the conversation topic every time you close your eyes because the world inside of your mind is filled with blinking images that you can't quite explain aloud so you settle for little talks about Rosa Parks and Indian style kisses and how the ocean is the Earth's thing or the complexity of butterfly brains and whether or not they remember their caterpillar memories (they do). Describe to me the first time you saw your favorite color and what developed the affinity for it: yours, a glacier blue toy that resembled the ocean and mine, a lavender Easter dress that twirled when I spun. Tell me about your school crushes when you were four and what you got your clothespin moved to the sad face for and I'll write it all in ink on my knee caps because "God, we're such writers" and you'll check the clock in the gaps and search for tunes or lighters and I'll want time to slow down because the nights spent with you usually seem as though minutes are just a few seconds shy of sixty, which turns the little hand pretty quickly.
I want hours, weeks, decades, to analyze the freckles on your face or the pace at which you move your tongue and precisely how it tastes.
I want you to tell me that your brother would like me and about the mountains in Tennessee and maybe next time I'll try to stay awake, unless you want to listen to the way I breathe so fully when I dream.

When I close my eyes, I want to be able to see what you see.
I want you to keep burying the numb parts of you into the warm parts of me.

Cold rain slithered down my skin
The clouds above sighed upon the foolish kids of the city with a look so somber and dull,
But the city lights illuminated the night and the foolish kids continued to be foolish.
When we met our minds intertwined,
I never met someone who viewed the world we lived in like I did
But then I met you and everything started to make sense.
You understood me
You understood how exploring was my sanity
You understood how I saw this destructive world with beauty.
You understood my mind
You saw me as something different.
But I saw you as just a boy who figured me out.  
Why is it you believe we were something greater?
Is it because our photos captured the similarity between the two of us?
Or is it because our minds are like music notes;
but yet you're on a different bar than me.
And this is the truth that you couldn’t discern.
You weren’t truly acknowledging my words, but rather you let them travel through you.
Your words of admiration grazed my soul, but never made me feel the way you felt for me
You couldn’t fathom the words “Just friends”.
“Just. Friends.”
A phrase that stabbed your heart and filled your eyes with the violence and the melancholy of the clouds.
Your mind ran for answers that it couldn't find, lost between the knowing of what we truly were
My heart burned of pity for you
But I distanced us with my apathy.
To the Brooklyn boy who fell in love with my mind,
We’re Just friends.

The buzzing sound of silence screamed in my ears,
Reminding me that I had no one.
I was drowning in my own thoughts,
believing and knowing that no one understood my mind.
It's disheveled and cluttered with debris
Tangled and knotted with thoughts that no one could fathom.  
I yell to the heavens, yet i’m still left with the piercing buzz of stillness playing vehemently in my ears.
The silence is a routine.
It comes everyday at the same time,
When I need someone one to listen.
When I’m drowning and my lungs are filling with water
When my thoughts become a twisted structure
When my mind becomes deranged
With my last breath I yell to the heavens, only to hear the painful hum of nothing