as a collective, we posses fragmented memories
broken memories
memories lost in haze
and memories saturated in red
memories of yesteryear, reminisced after a six pack of beer
dog-eared and torn, degraded and worn
haphazardly recalled to the forefront of our minds
coloring in the forgotten spaces with the most colorful crayon
discarded at the bottom of your childhood closet
warped and yellowed
we are afflicted by the warped and yellowed pages in the back of our heads

and that is how we come to be
the people, the places- your hopes and dreams
everything shaded by a veil of ambiguity
the veil of death
nothing is real, anymore
(if it ever was)
nothing is original
no one will ever live up to the expectations you hold over them
not the girl sitting in the back of your sophomore year bio class
not the boy with a broken past and a broken (and burned) wrist
sitting back to back

nothing is precious
and no one is innocent
original thought is dead
original content is dead
origins are a fallacy
and i am a non-believer
we are, as a collective, one
wearing a mask of a dead girl’s skin
collecting personalities like seashells
grotesque piles of rotting flesh piled high
suffocating me

me?
ripping away at the light
at the others, the half-people
forcing chunks of decaying flesh down my throat
covering my decomposing body; piled high around me
the impending doom of the tidal wave of stolen lives
broken memories, broken truths, broken lives
waiting to crash over me and take back what is theirs
false prophets screaming convoluted cries of conviction
the chaos of knowing that what is me is hollow
and that what is really left of me is dead

(a.m.) 06/29/16

in the beginning
you were my fire

your breath like flames
igniting a spark inside of me
giving me life

but you are no longer fire

all that's left of your fire
are the ashes of my soul that coat my tongue
*whenever i dare speak your name

i saw her when I walked back.
when I couldn't have seen anything past the fog.
she took my hand and asked me to follow.
but i reluctantly took a different path.

not sure i knew where i was headed.
when i turned back she was gone.
her face faded to the back of my head.

I walked till my feet blistered.
till my legs burned and ached.
till they gave out and fell.
but she was there; to take my hand again.
and I recognized her.

she is that girl.
the one who haunts my sleep.
the one who brought me to my knees.
the girl who made me promise.

but it was all just a dream.

lay down to sleep.
drink warm milk & count the sheep.
mind is restless to the dreams that make your heart drop.
take a drink. smoke a blunt and see a shrink.
up all night thinking of ways to make the dreams stop.

sit out the day
got nothing else to say
pockets empty, fingers bleeding for some money
it's a shame
knowing life is not a game
dulled away from things you use to know were funny

cut up your knuckles, broke your
bones.
forget the good times; let her go.
pulse raises. heart beat pounds.
cold sweats and head aches to quiet sounds.

we danced on broken glass
and walked upon the sand.
you'd never let me pass
but I had different plans.

you waited at the light.
I couldn't stand the sight
and so you walked back home.
I didn't really know.

how can I leave?
you never did me wrong.
I bruise and bleed.
I write my silly song.

I take it day by day.
I know it wasn't right.
Just laughed it all away.
but kept me up at night.

I didn't want the truth.
i walked away from you
and left you all alone.
a couple years ago.

how can I leave?
you never did me wrong.
I bruise and bleed.
I've known it all along.
I know; I've seen.
I write my silly song.

you break your neck and waste your breath to prove to them that you can be the best.
you hate yourself and change yourself
just so you could shine from all the rest.
but don't you think it's gone to far?
you act like this is all part of the test.
your not sure who you really are.
the scars they've left imprinted on your chest.
but it's what you wanted the whole time. just to hope they'd change their minds. to the response you wish to find.
'till nothing else seems clear.
suffocated with old fears.
you run away from trouble fast.
you never stay to face up to your flaws.
you never learned from what has passed.
you put your gaurd to keep you from their claws.
you're troubled, weak, and frightened now.
you'll never reach to make very far.
you never stopped to wonder how
you never seen how scared you really are.
but it's what you wanted the whole time. just to hope they'd change their minds. to the response you wish to find.
'till nothing else seems clear.
suffocated with old fears.

you can't say that I was the one who kicked you out of my heart, when I spent months kicking and screaming, begging for you to come back to me. I sat, festering inside myself for days, and did nothing but stare at the walls that had a nasty habit of only showing where your fingers brushed against their sickly white barriers. walls.
I'll never forget the pleasant  cool feeling of the staccato wall of our high school,  pressed up against my back when you first kissed me. I'll never forget the day I wrote your name in the sand. I'll never forget the day that you built a wall so high around your heart, that not even you would dare to reach inside, for fear of falling in, and never finding a way out. I used to pretend that after the years, you'd let down your flowing golden rod hair, and I'd climb my way back into your soul, but I see now why they call happy endings like that fairy-tales. I loved you then, and I love you now, but you are no longer the bearer of my soul. you no longer hold my beating heart in your cold hands. I've spent weeks scaffolding the burnt brick built up about your breast, refusing to look down, refusing to see reason, to look to the crashing sea below me, but the trembles from your wrath shook me off and broke me down, and sent me plunging into the churning sea below. the powerful waves, held me down, stole my breath, broke my strength. It was what bound me. kept me in delusion. yet, it was bliss, and the choking vice around my lungs rid me of the hunger and the pain. I let myself drown in you, and drifted, broken, to the new shore. I allowed you to flood my lungs to keep me afloat. little did I realize, it was your iron grasp on my heart keeping my head above the waves. or was it my hope for you that held me up? was it my optimism of a better place that drifted me? I guess I'll never know.
it is with new legs, and fresh face, that I humbly walk these new shores, that I bear my heart and soul to breathe another lover's name, once again.

(a.m.)(e.a.h.)
08/19/14