I say,
this is insanity
as I rake hot coals
onto a page
and forget the pain they caused me.
This is a mess,
broken bones and crumbling homes
too many losses to count
on each failing hand
and we have no say
in how this ends.
This is a tragedy,
people falling like half crimson leaves
to the sound of shattered dreams,
glass screaming to the ground
like death itself.
This is life,
I did not ask for this,
but words find solace
when they are shared
and we are in need
of something other than
pain and destruction.

I’m sorry to all the people
I hurt while I was hurting.
I know my skin
felt like shards of glass,
and no one could get close
enough to touch me.
My fingernails were caked with blood,
and I am so sorry
that I don’t know whose it was.
I am sorry to those I broke
with my razor words,
they were my own regrets.
They were used to cut open
my own insecurities
when I thought I had run out.
I was lost
in a forest of my own doubt,
the trees were too dense
to believe
in myself.
The only way to find my place
was with a paper cut trail
leading to my home of denial.
My brain was shreds of late reports
and missed deadlines,
and I was just an inkblot of a person,
all I could see was my own skeleton in the pages.
I do not know how to send this apology
without it soaked in my tears,
but I am sorry,
I
am
so
s o r r y

There are nights you feel as if
no one will ever love you,
your bones are too fragile
to be kissed to sleep
and you only find tears
in the bed next to you.
These nights find words written
across your eyelids in pen,
prose of self loathing
breaking up into radio silence
cracking numbness
and misunderstanding of breath.
You look to the stars
but they have been dead
for longer than you have lived,
unloved and straining under weight
you never asked to carry,
broken with scars
too permanent to bury
behind car wrecks in your mind
and feverish dreams.
You feel hopeless in yourself,
because no one will ever
want to be around when you are broken
and crying yourself to sleep
on nights like this

A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't