The early morning after the holiday, after the fireworks fissle out, after the ***** dies down, I pick up the bag I keep in the back of my closet, packed with what little I own, evidence that I do not know the meaning of the word 'stay'. The fact that I never seem to need to unpack it only solidifies to me that I am not somebody who will ever know a true sense of home.

I am riding to a place I used to think I could consider a second home, with a sweet boy laying against my arm and I know that I should love this, two years ago I would have loved this. But everything just feels like a shadow of what once was, what I once was. I can't shake this sense that I may be missing something. That maybe I had a purpose but it was exploded into the night sky the minute that last firework sang its praises.

Holidays should not feel like funeral rites, they should not feel like sad goodbyes but I do not know how to be happy with the fact that another year has gone by and I am still here, still at the same crossroads between death and the rest of my life like some kind of suicidal vagabond.

All I want is to go home and not feel empty inside.

The last year of my life has been one massive panic attack,
some kind of nightmare without need for the night.
But in some things we find restitution,
the soul is returned to the vessel and the body begins a small sort of healing.

On the worst days,
when the noose winds its way around my neck,
when the 10 story fall doesn't seem so far anymore,
the little things keep my feet in the dirt,
keep my blood from leaving these tired veins.
When death opens its arms to welcome me,
to pull apart my wrists just to see how i bleed,  I seek solace in knowing that out there exists arms that feel like home,
that a heart beats that my anxious mind does not hesitate to trust,
that there is a body who is the safest place I know.
I have never known a purer human love  because it comes without want,
without need to be reciprocated,
But it is: it always is.

These past few weeks I have been making new friends,
People who already know more about me than the walls I grew up with,
more than the hands that kept me alive all these years.
And its because they understand what its like, to hold instruments close to find peace,
to use them to cry the tears your body cannot release,  
to scribble your feelings into a notepad hoping that in someway it could dull the ache in your soul.
These people have only touched my life for barely two day's length,
yet I know that I would do anything and everything to keep them safe.

I am slowly learning how to feel again, how to give love without ripping myself apart, without bloodying the knuckles of my heart.
And i know, I know; I Know
One day I won't wake with this blood under my nails from crawling out of my nightmares.
And i know, I know; I Know
That day I will wake and know somebody loves me
The secret I'll learn is that they always did and I was just too stubborn to see.

Am I going crazy?

Perhaps one should define the term crazy,
maybe it is these moods swings: always violent but never long.
Or my hysterical crying in the early morning though I never remember what for.

On the days it rains hardest in the black of midnight,
I rise from slumber like the undead to stare blankly at the water-streaked pane and wonder
"Why me?!
Why was I blessed to hold a mind this heavy?."
In the spirit of my family name I never talk about it,
about the insane thoughts that run like school children in summer between my ears.

My father once told me he would love to see a psychiatrist just to sort some things out but I have to wonder how much a man with a family history of hiding yourself behind intellect and avoidance tactics could mean it.
My grandmother still doesn't call to tell us she's sick,
just mentions it as an afterthought,
a hey-I-forgot-to even as her husband slowly forgets everything he thought he knew.
Maybe I was born with this shame in my blood,
or maybe that is where this sickness came from,
My ever present thoughts and their not so secret toll on my wellbeing.
But since we don't talk about it I have to wonder:

is this just me?
Am I going crazy?
Is this why all good poets write?
Is this why they all **** themselves?

The beds of my nails are slowly turning lavender, 

cyanotic they call it. 

I want to whisper to them, 

promise that we will learn to breathe again.
But my lungs are uncertain of that truth,
and the blood does not tell where it hides precious oxygen from me.

I spend my nights laying on the floor. Feeling my heart beat,

the flood of blood through my body.
No one can explain why it races, 

why it thunders like derby horses from head to toes and back again. 

Insomnia sounds like an engine trying too hard to keep us alive, 

like heavy rain beating against capillary walls.

I’m purging liquid poison into the toilet, 

whispering your name like holy, 
like gospel, 

between gasps of breath even though you are far from me, 

And I know that you’ve long since forsaken me. 

Thats why I drink,
to swallow down the pain of missing you,

to slow burn deep in my stomach, 

to turn poison to blood, 

to turn myself numb. 

I wish this didn’t hurt,

even when I know I deserve this. 

The only good thing in my life has been reduced to memories, my tears, I tear into my flesh.
Maybe if I spill my poison blood I could create cure, 

or in the very least drain myself of this vicious viscous fluid and make amends.
I want to be the best I could for you
but I couldn’t even handle being myself.

I wonder if she knows she's losing me,
My best friend reads my messages and forgets to reply,
Just as I scream out 'I want to die'
And I wonder if she knows how close she is to losing me.

I swallowed a box full of pills,
Swished a glass of whiskey in my mouth.
Still I haven't been allowed my easy out.
Every message I send feels like rocks in the pockets of the drowning,
I only sink ever deeper into this dark.
If I felt joy maybe I could smile at her jokes, her attempts at distraction,
But all I feel is this weight in my chest,
The weight of a heart that can never rest.

She tries to remind me of God,
of the love I should let surround me,
But I am incapable of comprehending an ethereal kind if love when even human affection remains a mystery to me.
How can I feel His love when I don't even feel worthy of human love,
When I reject the love of creatures that are here and palpable to me?

I wonder if she knows she's losing me.  
Can she see how hard I'm trying to let go of the dark parts?
Can I still have a best friend if I have no soul or heart?
And I wonder if she can tell that she has already lost me.

I'm choking on my words and they swallow like bile,
like acid burns all the way down into my abdomen.
I have to say goodbye,
push you away because I am no good, I am broken and bruised,
an over ripe fruit who is only worth the compost she can become.
I don't want to, the words haven't left my throat and I already miss what we had,
I feel the gap in my chest like open wound,
like empty airless space has entered the void of me.
Not even its stars can warm what is left of me.

I am sorry.
I don't know how else to say this.
I am so sorry that you ever felt the burden of loving a wreck like me.
For a time I believed I could have been more than this,
that maybe I had phenix bones and I could make worth in the ashes of this. All I got was burning.
In the hardest way I learned that I am human and nothing more can come from this.
In part I blame you.
You made me - make me - feel as though there is more to this than the story I am reading.
The problem here is that I have always been bad at context clues and the words are beginning to fade wth age anyway.
Its immoral to blame you for my humanity but it hurts more if I acknowledge that you are better than anything I will ever deserve.


If it hurts less I want you to hate me. Hate everything I allow myself to become when I take on the monster in my mind.
Know that none of that means I will learn to not love you.
I just can't be strong enough in that love to be present when it all falls apart around me.
You should keep the happy memories, never learn the skeletons that haunt the empty walls of this closet heart.

In the early morning hours I count the number of times you have saved my life.
Even in your collapsing frame you attempt to strong arm my demons,
Try to hold up the crumbling roof of my strife.
I do not deserve your love.

In the coming days(is it really so soon?)
You will move away.
Find a new life in quiet town.
If I am lucky you will forget.
Memories only last as long as you visit them.
And I will cherish all of my own.
Despite your wishes to just disappear, i cannot forget someone so close to me.
Family is forever, and though we are not blood what we have is definitely thicker than water.

Even on the days that God and I forget to speak,
I always ask for your protection.
If I cannot protect myself I will spill empty breaths to ask that you remain safe.
You are too great a soul to lose.

I am so blessed to hear your laughter,
Even if it is stifled by the tears you spill.
It is still angel's bells in the wind of a storm.
Such sweet music distracts from the incoming disaster.
I know your storm is more hurricane than rain shower,
And I swear that despite the wreckage, you will be safe, you will still be strong.

There will come a day that we will be permanently separated,
When that day comes know that you will always have my love.
It is not much,
But it is all I have to give.

And if you ever need a friend,
Someone to remind you that everything will work out in the end,
Look for my name in your contacts list.