I scream for it to stop.
Everything. Anything.
Can't it all just stop?
The madness, the confusion,
the pursing of my already declining mental state,
which only makes me more irate.
I need the noise, the pain, the way the thought of you used to burn happily in my chest--
I need it to rest.
I'd rather be drowning in the feeling of emotionless internal bleeding than burning from the inside out on your account.
You hurt me once before, and it kills me to let you do it anymore.
Save me or slay me,
but don't just sit, savoring the torture I'm in currently.

If want was water,
I would be drowning, my head under completely
and my oxygen quickly depleting.
If confusion was cold,
My fingers would be numb and I wouldn't even
have a coat to ward off the freezing.
If youth was you,
It would be slipping away by the second,
And I can't get a hold to stop it.
Now,
my air is gone,
I'm shivering to the bone,
and can't keep a hold on.
But, this is only a poem:
I know I'm not suffocating, subzero, or slipping.
But I can't help but feel like the more I write,
the farther I get from reality
and the closer I get to metaphor mortality.

You shake your head
as if the truth will fall right out of your ears the same way it entered
because you don't want to believe it.
You're so caught up in your own 'opinion' that you can't even open your mind up to the possibility you might be wrong.
You are given facts, statistics, news stories, yet you are unable to listen to reason.

While the straight white male ahead of me shakes his head at the possibility of being privileged,
A mother mourns over the loss of her son, a black man shot by a cop for no reason other than fear of his skin color,
another woman is silenced by her ****** through sharp threats in a dark closet,
my own mind flips back to when my aunt was disowned by most of her family for loving a woman.

Yet you, who can drive past a cop on the highway without breaking  a sweat,
can walk down the street at night alone without breaking a sweat,
can show your parents your lover without breaking a sweat,
think that you aren't any more lucky than the other people I listed prior.
Oh, if you only knew how to open your mind, just slightly, instead of shake the truth out.
Lying to yourself only makes it worse when you realize the truth.

You know you’re life is bad when you win the competition.
“Sorry, I was just busy because I had the flu last week. Ugh, my luck has just been so bad lately!”
“Yeah, I’ve been busy too. My dad died in January, my mom totaled her car in April, we got our emails hacked in May, and I actually had the flu over spring break too.”
And in the silence, there is pity.

maybe if I'm distracted by loving someone else
I won't have to learn how to love myself

"It's harmless water vapor"; sure.
"It won't happen to me"; you know that's a ******* lie.
"I don't do it often"; we'll see how long that lasts.
I can't wait until the feeling of clouds of water vapor pouring over your lips makes you happier than I can.

Hey dad.
I love you 3000.
But you’ll never get the reference.

It comes in waves, but waves no one else feels; not water waves.
I am hearing frequencies no one else can hear, and they are so powerful that they knock me down, face flat on the ground.
When I try to explain,
They all claim they understand but then how are they still standing?
The particles compressing and stretching are stressing my mind, yet my body cannot muster to fight.
I have almost given up flight.
The air isn’t clear enough,
not quiet enough,
I lost hope and I can find it
It’s been rough but no ones buying it
And that’s when I find myself drowning in the sound no one else can hear.

When that specific person calls your name
and you hope it’s not actually you
That’s what wanting to forget feels like.

When they hand you pictures
taken in a different dimension
That’s what wanting to forget feels like.

When they randomly message you
over some stupid **** you said
That’s what wanting to forget feels like.

When you burn every note
that they ever wrote you
That’s what wanting to forget feels like.

When you tear down every picture
you two ever took together
That’s what wanting to forget feels like.

When you delete all of the posts
on snapchat, instagram, facebook
That’s what wanting to forget feels like.

When you unfollow them
on snapchat, instagram, facebook
That’s what wanting to forget feels like.

When you hate yourself
for still drinking and eating their favorite things
That’s what wanting to forget feels like.

When even though you’ve gone through all this trouble
they still somehow find themselves into your head,
then your conversations,
then your poetry,
That’s what wanting to
(but not being able to)
forget feels like.

Holes in my ears? 8.
But including the ones in my heart?
Or my soul?
Or my head?
Too many to count.

I punch holes in my ears
To mask the pain of the holes in my heart
That she created when she left.

When I was 13, I learned what manipulation felt like.
I may not have noticed it,
because I was in too much middle-school-love to see that he loved seeing my jealousy,
loved to trick me,
loved to trip me down the rabbit hole over and over again,
with no end within my scope.
I didn’t even know how to cope,
because it didn’t seem like I was supposed to.
Taking a step back and analyzing is the first step of taking your life back.

When I was 15, I learned promises can be empty.
They’ll open the door,
Lead you inside.
Look you right in the eyes and lie.
They’ll promise you, “I’ll be back.”
Then they slam the door and all will go black,
Leaving you waiting, yearning for their light.
After a while you’ll learn that they’ve left you for good, and wonder:
“who gave you the right?”
Then whisper:
“who gave you the right?”
Then cry:
“Who gave you the right?”
Then scream:
“WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT?”
While your voice and heart crack,
But the simple fact is,
It doesn’t matter now.
Now, it’s not about them. It’s about you.
They left. They’re through.
Pick yourself up, put yourself back together.
Forget about them, throw away the control they had over you before, find the key, twist off the padlock and step through that **** door,
And promise yourself not to go back there anymore.

When I was fourteen, I learned “no” doesn’t mean anything to certain people.
They take that word and twist it, carve it, shape it and play with it until it mushes into “yes”. They do the same with
“Not today.”
“I want to wait.”
“We’re too young.”
“This isn’t fun.”
All they need to do is drag you to a point along the road that you give up, and then “I guess” is what they run with.
“No” is just a sign to try harder, right?
If you can’t get them to “I guess” or “yes”, you haven’t tried hard enough.
And once you’ve done it, you think it’s okay to do it again and again,
On multiple occasions,
Without so much as even asking.
It only takes 1 “I guess”,
Then all the hear is “yes”.

what’s the ******* point
one day you could be perfectly content
the next everything could be ripped away
if everything is going to go to **** anyway
if you know your happiness won’t last
why does it even matter.

It’ll get worse before
It gets worse
Once more

Writers block is just a giant wall
blocking an even rockier path than the one you're on
Once you find a topic,
you can't find the first word,
the first rhyme,
the first line,
the first stanza,
and I throw my hands up in anger
because I end up writing words in order random
or words to make the lines rhyme sandal

My search history is 99%
"words that rhyme with this or that"
Search results: sat, flat, cat
well that doesn't make sense within the context
but ***** making sense or metaphors or deep lore that you have to analyze,
why can't I just write out my feelings without the right rhymes?
I thought poetry was my remedy,
but it's also my demise.

Your yellow post-its used to sprinkle my possessions with good messages,
assurances,
support.
They brought a smile to my face and a skip to my heartbeat.
But now,
Your handwriting haunts my head and I can’t escape.
Everywhere I look, all I see is your cursive letters and your initial at the bottom of the message.
I crumpled them up after I’ve ripped them off of their page,
I burn them,
I tear them,
I try to forget them.
And the more I try to forget them the more I remember how much it hurt when I destroyed them in the first place.

I miss not missing you
I miss not thinking of you
Go back where you belong,
Anywhere but my thoughts

Your brain buzzes around sunflowers and in West Virginian clouds,
Around strings of old guitars and strings of shrimp flavored ramen,
Around calling me pretty and asking me to dance when we’ve just met,
Around your dog and your home and your friends that you love oh so much,
And it mesmerizes me because
I’ve never loved the way someone talks about themselves as much as when you do.

You say you’re over me
But the number of times you check my Instagram say otherwise

You say you don’t think of me
But all you’ve written has us forever memorized

You say you don’t care anymore
But your mind still wonders if I’m doing better without you

You say you don’t want me back
But to get me back, you’ve planned what you could do.

You took my soul with you when you left
You had lost yours so you borrowed mine
apparently.
Now I’m just an empty shell
The sweet nut taken out and treasured
And the crackled shell left to disintegrate.
My body decomposing,
I walk around becoming a zombie,
filled to the brim with anxieties and lost hope
lost hope for a future with you
because there was so much more we were supposed to do
but of course you took your heart and soul with you when you left this earth,
and decided to take mine too.