There are days when I wouldn't say  I'm haunted. There are other days when I am held down completely by the ghosts in my head.
One memory stands alone, like a video game boss. It's the big one in the shape of an idiot with two roaming eyes and there is nothing worse than a villain who thinks he's done no wrong.
I made my intentions so clear. It was one of my rare moments of pure elation. I wanted to dance forever and see paradise.
Paradise is, evidently, a ***** basement. It is getting drunk at 17 and forgetting that no one actually cares. It is being touched by a pair of scary eyes and then even worse hands. It is saying "no" and being ignored. It is wishing you had listened to your mother.
And on the other side of Paradise is a shame that keeps you silent. It's a bed you can no longer sleep in. It's a handful of pills and bottomless *****. It's your own fist punching your legs. It's a lie you tell yourself.
Today I'm selling tickets to my haunted house. The catch is, if you happen to find an exit, you have to tell me.

I swore I'd never grocery shop with you again because I hate the way you make decisions. You made me feel like the "frivolous" items you always ended up putting back. I should have been firmer than the other fruits, but soft enough for you to give it a try.

You love me, but she's pretty.
And it makes my ears all red and my head feel so heavy, like it's been forced into a 45 degree angle.
I walk wobbly. I remember I haven't eaten, but don't tell you about it. I don't say anything.
I try harder to be prettier.

You wake up on someone's front lawn, covered in dew. You brush off and drive to school. The teachers can't pin you down because you're always picking leaves out of your hair, but you're crying when they read Pinter. You're not good at explaining yourself, so you stop trying altogether.

It's like having phantom limbs,
All protruding from random points on your body.
Sometimes it's like having limbs where there should be nothing,
And your brain is telling you that your hand must've taken a wrong turn.
I want to touch parts of me that don't exist
Outside of the empty vacuum of dreams.
I want to drag the scalpel across my own skin
And rip out the heavy weight of the tissue that drags me down.
Most of the time it's something I fixate on multiple times throughout the day.
Sometimes the worst-case scenario takes hold,
And on those days I've got a serrated knife in my hand,
I'm trying to find a reason to put it down.
I almost always put it down, if only out of vanity.
If only for the return of sanity.
So I breathe, I try to gain more air than is possible
Because the heaviest weight tends to be lying on my chest.
I breathe enough to return to passive fixation,
Where it's like an obsession and I'm stalking my own downfall.
I just want to touch the parts of me that don't exist.
I want to feel that they exist.
I need to know that I exist.

K.p’s dad was a Science Fiction author,
While his son and I learned at school.
The teacher talked about planes, bombs, and towers-
Explosions, debris, and jet fuel.

We were poised like guppies, fidgeting with our lips,
Our bodies seemed made of lewd rubber.
Not one of us understood the weight or gravity-
Of one person killing another.

K.p’s dad wrote about a fair United States,
Called: “The Defined Territories,” rather tenacious.
A satire exploring justice with exaggerated sameness-
That most readers found to be tasteless.

His main character was a ‘rookie cop,’
And every skin color was uniform and equal.
Homosexuals gladly aided population control (by not making babies)-
And bullets were designed to be non-lethal.

In the story: a group of smugglers find a stockpile of real guns,
Automatics, ammunition and bombs.
The valiant cop pursues them through page turns and plot-
With sweat budding on his palms.

K.p and I fought over a girl at school,
I broke his nose and we each served detention.
At the end of his dad’s story the smugglers are caught-
Fined $1,000 and given lethal injection.

Sometimes I see the world as if I were a tower.
Not looking down on things, for I have no chin,
and not seeing the things below at all.
My eyes are the tallest story windows
and no people can upset me
all I see are the clouds and the birds and
the other tower people gazing mindlessly.

I wake to push the sunrise back,
peeling my face from dreams
reality beams as my passage.
light storms through the peace,
questions arise, flooding in.
mourning commences routinely
as we find ourselves in the rapids.

white rocks, rocks that look as if they might explode.
rocks of your eyes, as they change color.
trees as your arms, with mountains for scars.

raw skies that break
and bellow
as they laugh with us.

leaving minds, we sift with fevered hesitation.
gently crippling for a quick ****, the catch
was almost effortless as my mouth became
a staircase. as I watched everything I wanted
ascend with my assistance, I realized no more
of it was for me and there was no more I could take.
No more that I could want.

desires chants no longer engulfing this fragile figure,
transparency threaded through the thick and soon
this figure became no longer lace, no longer tender.
this figure molds, meshes with the recess atmosphere
and dissipates into structures too bold for distinction.