I scrub this paper
with all of my might
Pink eraser clenched in my hand
I wear it down
Until my fist starts scrubbing
Then I realize
That what I wrote
I wrote with a permanent marker
It will never go away
The memory will always stay
shown dark and thick
I might as well have etched it in stone
Because what I wrote
is forever shown.

Don't need some professional at a rehab center,
because these strains of infatuation go on and on.
No one can be paid to change the fact that
I wish I didn't miss you.
What'd I say?
I meant, I wish I didn't keep missing things.
Otis keeps telling me that a change is going to come.
But you can't be my lover and that won't change at all.
If you really want me... never mind.
I didn't write a song for you, but I listened to one.
And the entire time I pictured non-existent home videos from the past.
You wanted me ten minutes ago, but will you still want me tomorrow?
Probably not, because desires will be something different tomorrow.
And my body and my soul will be something different tomorrow.
You can't make me feel a desire that I can't see,
because I can't go for that.
Is this all desire really is?
Something I have to take happy pills to get through.
Well you lost me last night,
and all I was thinking was that soon we'll be found together in a different place.
I was 93 million miles away from you when you were just outside smoking a cigarette.
We're hanging from the Edge of Glory, trying to hoist ourselves up with string bean arms.

I've never been a surgeon
So I didn't fix what was broken
So now the corpse of what I killed is in front of me,
and I guess it's time for me to begin
my first love autopsy

There's something in the corner coming to life.
There's something in the corner making
less fluid shapes than I am.
I knew the people in the corner were watching
the complication with melancholy carelessness.
I wanted to be seen.
They were meaningful, elegant, and classic.
They don't really care if I care,
but they know that I care.
This bunch of people in the corner carried it well.
Facing back there, I gaze into their post-modern land,
performing and knowing specifically that this is for you.
I pose seductively, a classic cover model.
I'm so ****** that there's no acknowledgement of my gaze.
Stop making me nauseous.
This is manipulation;
not relationship manipulation,
but it's purposely manipulative.
I just didn't do anything.

The rainbow is the same as the unicorn
and all the other invisible feelings
in a fairy tale

These smitten mittens
will forever web
my phalanges

Shove my hands
into an icebox
and I'll need
that temperature
forever

I am a firm believer that love potions would make the world go round

Nobody would be broken by love
and all spoken love would be words forced down someone's throat
and everyone would be allowed a token of love
and once the token was spent it wouldn't be refunded
and when one would like to make an exchange,
        rather than being forced into solitude, they would just drink more of that forbidden poison
and forced words would be acceptable
and no one would have more tokens of love than others
and no one would be broken
and every word that be spoken
        would be product of a token
and everyone would have a flask of love
and everybody would be drunk and happy

I wrote you something
Well, maybe I wrote it for myself
but it's about you and me on the best day of my life
and about you and me on the worst day of my life
It's far too personal to show anybody but you,
so for now I'll just keep it to myself
because you don't want to see it
but I'll hope that you'll see this
and let me know if you want to read it
because I'm sorry
and I miss you
despite everything

because I'm a *****.

I guess I wish you the best,
I just hope you have to suffer a little to find it,
and I hope the best reminds you of me a little.

Deep in the swamp, stuck in the muck
with weeds growing beyond where I reach
My knees are glued to mud, cemented
and water is creeping up to my chest
Anxiety rising with each creeping inch
as bugs swarm around, I feel their pinch
This lake rids of them, but what is underneath
is grimy and flesh-eating and searching for me
I look up but the sky is covered in thistle
so I submerge my head as sea monsters look at me
I go up for air but vines start choking me
as eels and mermaids snap at my ankles
Everywhere I breathe I am trapped in shackles.

I had a dream last night. It was one of those dreams where you can't tell if you're awake, or even alive. But actually, I had a nightmare last night. It was one of those nightmares where you can't tell if the darkness lives inside of you, eating away at your organs, or if the darkness is surrounding you and eating away at you. But if I'm being honest with you, last night was a tragedy. It was one of those tragedies where you can't tell if everyone actually dies in the end or if we've all just been dead the whole time.

In my dream I was sleeping with the stars, high up in a nest that I made from all of the sticks from eyes and the branches from my brain and the leaves filling up my heart like taxidermy; making it look like it was never stomped on and kicked to the curb like road ****. Making it look like it wasn't shot at for sport because it would look nice hung up above the mantle.

And suddenly my leaves were running away from me into the current of the wind, and the wind was running too, as if the wind came and swept them away from me, but I knew better. My leaves weren't taken from me. They were leaving me. And the wind was leaving too and I could see the wind holding my stuffed up heart above me, taunting me, "na-na-nanana, I'm not touching you!" until I could feel that there was no more wind left in my heart. I always knew my heart was only felt with dead leaves and sticks but I didn't feel it until that moment.

Suddenly, the wind threw my heart to the ground with a malice that I never knew it had. How could my wind, once a gentle breeze caressing my skin, treat me so harshly? The wind threw my heart to the ground which such a speed that I thought for sure it would make a ****** mess all over the cobblestone pavement. And then, I realized I had fallen too, without even noticing because I was so focused on the potential pain of my heart that I never noticed my own body sprawled upon the ground. And I lay there I watched my heart beating outside of my chest, knocking on the ground. I saw it leaking, as if somebody had poked tiny little holes in it; blood was oozing out of it but not in the gory Tarantino kind of way. My heart was crying crimson tears that flowed through the cobblestone like veins dying to be seen by everybody. And then I watched it stop beating as if it simply ran out batteries and I had to go to the store to buy more but I knew better. Even batteries couldn't revive it this time.

And I was terrified, so I turned away from it because I couldn't look at it anymore. But what I saw behind me, staring me in the face, was far more terrifying.

It was you. And you were watching me like you had been there the whole time and I never noticed because I was so **** distracted by my beating heart like a bird buzzing in my ear, my heart was making intricate rhythms with my eardrums creating a song that I couldn't get out of my head anymore my heart was needing needing needing needing needing needing needing needing needing needing needing needing needing needing needing needing my attention. Pathetic. And as I observed you I noticed... you weren't breathing either. So I started pushing you, shoving you, hitting you, shaking you, trying to wake you up, demanding your unanimated attention... but you were stuck like me. Just dreaming.

It was like the old days, you were alive but not awake. There were no more golden stars in your eyes, they were empty. And your eyes didn't look at me anymore because they were empty. No, there were no more golden stars in your empty eyes when you looked at the golden birds buzzing around my head like a heavy halo crown straining my neck, they were just annoying to you. No, you had some ****** up agenda in a foreign language from a ****** up foreign planet that I couldn't understand. And you knew I couldn't speak like you but you still taunted me with the curl of your tongue and the intonation of your voice. And I saw you slowly drifting away from me... back to that foreign planet of yours; my little ******* prince. And as I watched you leave me I saw delusions leaking from your brain as your eyes rolled back. But all they did was rain down on me.

I feel safer with that new car smell
but i am intrigued by rusty parts

Although railroad tracks won't break me apart
I'm missing the adventure of crashing down

Of leaking onto the pavement
and exploding.

I don't know anything at all
Sometimes it's hard to learn
to the point where there is no point
Give me a sharpener of sorts
So I can carve one

I stumble when I walk
Give me a map with a location to trip towards
Give me a beat to march to
So I can walk upright

My vision is blurred
I can only see in black and white
Give me some lenses so I can see what you mean
I need hearing eggs to listen correctly
I need a dictionary to understand definitions

If all of this is too hard to find
Then hide my face in your chest
and cover my ears
whisper in my ear what everything means
Tell me the right words and use them correctly
and I'll trust you blindly, without a sound.

What is dark and depressing is bittersweet

as what I write is wrong

and what is wrong is right

As what is thrifty is hip

and what is popular is expensive

As the caffeine in my bloodstream helps me sleep

and what keeps me awake are my screaming dreams

As my clean face is a mask

and this foundation is natural

As dollar bills can be torn

and so can this paper waste

As ants are strong creatures

but I exterminate them with my smallest finger

As your words are so soft

but are breaking me to pieces.

I died in your arms.
Let me live an afterlife
in your arms.

The only thing you liked about me was my face

You make me remember why I hate being called beautiful

Icicle mornings
under kitchen tables

At least I'm not alone.

I can gather up all of the first place ribbons I have
and knit a pair of socks to keep my feet warm
and although that pair would be scratchy
I would wear holes in them anyway
and my toes would peek out and say hello to winter

But who am I kidding?
I would probably end up cutting one of the ribbons as I knit
and the whole thing would unravel anyway.

So what's the point of winning first place at all?

I write metaphors
and speak in analogies
because I like them more
than my realities
Because metaphors don't tell the truth
they just sum it up in a way that makes sense
sometimes they make more sense
than anything I could write in past or present tense

Metaphors aren't as personal
I don't have to give names or dates
I don't have to tell any anecdotes
or write down any footnotes
with definitions of what I mean
I just give symbols and motifs
and hope you understand the motives
I have for doing what I do
and writing what I write
and not letting you into
my personal life

I like metaphors
because they give me an excuse
to lie and get away with it.

Torn scraps of paper in a torn scrap of time

Both equally insignificant

yet have unseen potential

to create a masterpiece



Eyes glazing over both microscopic elements,

forgotten and unrecognized



Torn scraps of money

weigh down the pockets of peacoats,

feather light



We are blinded by bills and coins

not seeing the scraps that surround them

not seeing the materials they are made of

not building on those elements



A mountain of scraps builds,

having more benefits

than coins and bills.

cracks in the pavement

shallow

insignificant

don't step on them

break your back

shallow

but if split apart

create a crevace

step on a particular

crack in the pavement

fall forever

hit the ground

look up

at the crack of white sky

visible from your place in the earth

realize that there is no latter to assist you

there you stay

there you live

creating a new lifestyle

careful

not to step

on any more cracks.

My fickle dreams
are constantly interrupted
by bothersome hyenas

Things are much simpler now
and simplicity is bliss
I can shout to the world now
because I know you're not listening
and your ears were the only one's that mattered
they were the only one's I censored
I can even scream your name
so loud
that my larynx catches fire
and I start choking and hacking
but you would hear neither
your name
nor the choking and hacking
or the hoping and sapping
or the slapping of my heart on the pavement

That slap was so simple
and simplicity is bliss
but it's the confusion
and complexity that I miss
I wish my heart wouldn't just slap on the pavement
lifeless
I wish it would put up a fight
and die with some pride
but it just got smacked out of my chest
by your hand
for cars to run over
like road ****.

I want to be
where time
only exists
in the sky

You walk on tears
like they're made of kitchen floor tiles

You're not Jesus
You can't pull that **** off

You're the protagonist
of a story that makes you out to be hero
by filling the bed in my heart with onyx secondhand exhaust
(it still smells like you)
for my own good
Hoping my life is meaningless
forcing me to hate you and hate myself
for my own good

You're not Edward Cullen
You can't pull that **** off

I hope you still feel almighty and hot
when you realize how honest I was.

In the end all I see is hate
and self-loathing
and kitchen tiles stained with tear streaks

Everyone is against lying
     but they whisper faded fibs to
          everyone they know, about
          everyone they know, and
          everyone they they used to know, and
          everyone they wish they didn't know
which is why lying is a cooperative act

I'm a liar,
but you should believe me when I promise
that I still won't tell the secrets that you told me in the dark
when you flaunted your character
You were stunning when
you licked my envelope lips and sealed them tight
     but I'll still chatter with my fingertips.
          (You know their babble better than anyone else)
And although you fastened my voice behind the doorway of my mouth
I still lie with my face
     because a smile is in the eyes
and you're lying when you look at my stagnant eyes
     and pepper your story with details
It makes me sick when I look at your words and see
     the duping delight of a monster that kidnapped my razzledazzle dreams
And with the growl of a monster
     you nod your head up and down while
     you repeat the word "no" with an O of the same mouth
          that with the curl and pull of an Elvis lip
               and the scrunch of a nose in disgust
turns your kindling anger to contempt as you go around flailing deception

This puts me in an uncomfortable mode
     of knowing that I was so full of hope that I threw it all up
          onto the trembling ground beneath my feet
Motion sickness brings me to my knees
     and unsettles the emotion sickness inside of me

***** LIES

And I watch these nauseating emotions in the puddle at my feet.

Truth be told,
I lied to you all along

Truth be told,
I'm crossing my fingers behind my back

I feel the warmth of the pool between the underbelly
of my eyeball and the lashes long enough to
graze my cheekbones
It takes all the strength I have left not to force their
sisters to greet them
For if this meeting takes place, my weakness will
be broadcasted
A live performance by the liquid Cirque Du Soleil
As the freaks tumble down my cheeks
So to avoid this showcase
my freaks contort themselves to stay in their
warm bed
And I try my hardest not to blink.

I'm pretty sure there's a ghost in my house
I hear weird noises
of things that shouldn't happen
when I'm the only one home
And I know that these noises
could be house maintenance malfunctioning
But sometimes it's nice
to believe there's a ghost in my house
Even if it haunts me
because I'd rather be haunted than lonely.

Leeching to a dependent,
I've never been cured by the cold.

I hear the planes flap their wings
and long for them to let me fly
away with them.

"I don't actually own him,
but we're together all the time
so I guess we're friends."

And I'm taking a bath while
I'm still clean,
to burn the follicles off my
creasing forehead.

Come on light
Dance for me
to the sounds of Clair de Lune
I like the flicker of the ice
But you only stay lit;
Stay still;
Don't go;
Stay dancing
But don't tango
and I'm panicky because
it's as if the world would end
if you turned off
and Debussy closed.

My mind is a filter
draining away the venom
that's hidden in your mailbox
buried in history
and the holocene stones that I took
from the pit of my stomach

I bought a blushing dress
and some blossoming shorts
that I'll do a salsa solo in
exposing my skin
and getting freckles
that trail across my face
getting freckles
that you'll never know I get in the summertime.

Scurry up the trees
and watch from above.

Hibernate through
frigid and somber months.

Live and die Young.

then how do you interpret me?
I am only a pedestrian on the street
there is no beauty in me
I wasn't painted on a canvas
or carved from stone
but if I'm photographed here
I am a work of art

If I stand in this picture
I'm appreciated by modern spectators
but if I stand on this street
I'm not appreciated at all.

It's not to get medicinalized,
It's not about analyzing or string theory or computer programming,
When they're not trying to be funny but you're laughing,
I'm facing you because you're talking and I don't want you to be alone in your head
but I don't want to be in your head with you.
So I'm quiet.
And I'm analyzing in my head something way complicated
when the atmosphere is simple.
I don't dare to speak.
Because I don't know what will come out of my mouth
or if it's true.
I quietly ride the waves
of knowledge and complication and the complex simplicity of the song that's playing.
I blindly ride the waves
and I don't hold my breath when they're over my head.
I quietly sink,
but only in an armchair.
I'm still facing you because you're talking,
but I don't know the topic of the conversation
because I was surfing and
someone is waiting for you to answer their question
and I'm nowhere near the front of the line.

All the aces that hold me up
don't mean ****.

I can't fall back on a card
with no royal family.

I have no royal family
and A is the loneliest letter.

In the end of it all I never try to search for answers to the riddle anymore,
and the same songs will always find a way to play,
unlike me.
How do they manage it?

I'm weak and already sleeping in the ground.

A.D.H.T isn't special anymore and neither is Vitiligo,
just like diabetes isn't anymore and neither is cancer or tumors
or depression or anxiety
anymore.

We're just here not appreciating each other like everybody else.

Every thought is a chemical imbalance in the brain
and everybody's insane.

Your vision
determines the placement of your skull

So turn your head
and look the other way

I'll look that way too.
I've never seen anything as beautiful
as the back of your head
as you focus on walking forward
far away

Wear sunglasses; covers your eyes.
Take a shower; gives you an excuse to have wet eyes.
Smoke a lot of ****; gives you an excuse to have red eyes.
Tell people you're sick; gives you an excuse to have the sniffles.
Tell people a loved one died; gives you an excuse that's accepted by society.
Don't come out of your room; covers your eyes.
Watch a sad movie; gives you another excuse to cry

Be lonely; won't need an excuse to cry.

My skull is a compact living space
There isn't much room to house this jungle of jumble
It's too full of empty places
Spaces sheltered in glass spheres
These marbles of lonliness roll around the floor
and around the corners of this maze
never stopping for the silence
Because peace is impossible to achieve
when stillness is constantly attemped
The marbles quiver in themselves
creating a twister that trembles
my temples
They toss information into the different basins of facts
Mixing the senses until a new liquid is created
and poured into a coffee mug
and waits for a slide to throw itself down
So it sits in my head
Until I'm ready to drink in down.

There's something about
the light and how you need it
to be a spotlight around yourself,
or there will be no edges to run
towards
but I suppose there is more space
for things to stand
ready for you to run into.

I don't understand
the mechanics behind your forehead
Often I believe
that if I squint and crinkle the corners of my eyes
I can send beams through the wrinkles of your demise
that engraves itself above your confused brow.

Sometimes I think
that our creases look alike
But then I squint again
and notice the depth of mine
They fold over one another
and cover the other waves
keeping them hidden under
permanently engraved

Yours are shallow with age
and develop backwards
the Ben Button of faces
that with a whisper is always heard

So as my cracks get deeper
and my hair gets grayer
You will get younger with maturity
So as I squint and look for your machinary
I realize it is covered and protected
by your wise youth.

Forever
hitting my head
on a mental ceiling and
forgetting the feeling of gentle healing;
Kneeling like a child feeling guilty of stealing.

There are always those corners
You know?
Where things get stuck.
They stop circling around
infinitely.
Things get stuck in the corners
And they will be trapped there forever.

Memories get stuck in the corners of my mind
and no matter how many experiences circle around
infinitely,
Those memories will always stay trapped.

They say that practice makes perfect

Well I'm almost perfect at being alone



I do my daily exercises


Walk down the city streets

Have lunch

Sit in corners

Ride the bus

My technique is improving every minute



I take pride in my natural talent

I am a prodigy

I don't need you.

All this time I've thought
that I miss my old friends.

Now I realize,
I just miss the feeling
of having friends.

Feeling the nostalgia
within the dry crusty streaks
on my cheeks the morning after;

Reminds me of the stalking depression
that is determined to ****** me.

The pulsing of a tired brain
     and the sleepiness
          of a foreign language
          from a green and red city.

Passing the time to forget
     that time passes.

I am my own nemesis---
     the enemy, the villain, the darkness.

I need to conquer my evils
     and put to rest my poisonous lips.

Don't swallow my forbidden saliva.
     It's deadly, though it doesn't want to be.

Forgive me and then ****** me.

Outlive me and shine bright black.

If my foot has the power
and strength
to destroy an entire kingdom
beneath an ant hill,
then how come
it's not brave enough
or strong enough
to run away?

I wish I could leave footsteps behind me as I walk away,
but my feet are not powerful enough
to stop moving forward.

This is the first breath that I've ever cared about.
Please abandon your everlasting doubt.
We've opened up a magic portal through an alien route,
exposing you to my internally dying dehydrating drought.

I'm like a waning foreign phoenix finding fairness in its contaminated ashes.
I still get flashes of post-traumatic emotional rashes,
from an abstract haunting nightmare  that I don't care to wear
on my not-so-bare chest anymore.
Be aware that I don't always do my share,
and that I am made of skin that has been known to ware and tear.
If this is just Truth or Dare, I don't want to play anymore.
Please be fair.
Please beware.

The snow has suddenly stopped straining my spiraling somber sorrows into silent sirens sounding seasonal surreal suicidal scenes of secret sappy solitude tomorrows.

And though the weakening leaves outside are withering,
and my feeble frozen bones are quietly quivering;
my shivering insides are shyly shifting
into brand new hues of brighter blues
that are constantly turning into a lighter and mightier muse,
like the autumn leaves that heroically live beneath my yearning Red Wing shoes.

I'm on a blissful beach of elated snow,
burying my feet in what we both know;
that our doubt has been put to rest below.

I can feel the balloon inside of me deflating deliberately
     as if there is a minuscule puncture in its underbelly that no one can regard.
I feel like I am the growing void
     and also that the void is growing within me.

Your silent delusion lurks in the corners of my brain and I am so ashamed.
You abide in the underbelly of my eyelids
     that are leaking deliberately as if there's a minuscule puncture where no             one can regard it.

I'm that speck of ******* that gets left behind on a dollar bill
     and spent on a pack of gum.

Thanks for the game.