It isn’t much longer after we find happiness again that we feel ourselves falling back down to the bottom of it all. The scariest part? We still have our mailbox down there. Our welcome mats. Our doorsteps still have those cracks in them that kinda scare you into thinking there’s something much more scarier than that place and we just haven’t kissed depression hard enough on the mouth yet to get there.

But you know what’s a lie? The lie is that once you fall back into that just-warm-enough bed, you will never ever want to leave. You will never ever escape. You will never ever get a chance to see your problems face to face. The lie that there will never be enough stones from rock bottom to skip across the pond; keep skipping rocks until one of them makes a sound loud enough for search and rescue. There are rocks being thrown from every moonlit sidewalk and coffee shop, enough to make a noise loud enough that the angels tell God to shut us up.

There is no eureka moment in brokenness. There is wanting, there is learning, and there is growing.

We’ll grow up to not want anything anymore. We’ll learn then what we need.

I saw you in my reflection once. You were yellow in the golden hour and you shined like you were baptized in glitter, and I could’ve sworn right then and there that time stood still. Every clock in the house stopped at once, and I knew that meant you were something born out of everything I find perfect in this world. I stuck my hand out and offered to pull you through, but let’s be honest, if something is perfect, we should keep it right where it is. But it never works like that. Someone gets selfish. Someone starts a fire that they can’t put out, lights a match that shouldn’t be lit, dowses every crack in the concrete with alcohol. We didn’t care how dangerous we were, we just wanted to say we felt something. We wanted to dance. So we danced, and danced, and danced until our sweat felt like rain clouds. Like rain clouds. Like rain clouds. Drip drop onto our hands and knees and pray all night like God was listening. Like it meant something. Like we’d both not care in the morning when the war was over, but we had to go and pick sides. We were so young then, when we thought that actions spoke louder than words and we took each other’s hands and looked into the mirror, that morning, and kissed each other on the cheek. How innocent. How sweet and beautiful. And innocent.

In a world far far away from ours, I like to envision the people there. The beings, there. How they feel things, if at all. And how they express themselves. If they feel what’s right and what’s wrong, or if they know what forgiveness is, or if they even have a need for it. And if they do, how is it painted across their faces? Is it ugly? Or is it understood?

If they are able to understand the forgiveness, how do they express it? Through words, actions, being quiet, or taking no action at all? And if so, how stagnant does their love become once the ugliness of their forgiveness becomes quiet as snow?

Or maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe they have no desire for forgiveness because their wrongs don’t amount to rights, or their rights to their wrongs. How beautiful must that feel? What we all would give to feel flawless inside of our morals, never taking for granted the misery we fill ourselves up with just by misunderstanding forgiveness.

In that world so far, far away, how are apologies painted? Or have they all collectively come to the conclusion that they should not need to apologize for the space between our worlds, and we should not need to forgive them for it, simply because it was created that way.

It feels so immeasurably invalidating to confront the fact that we are as simple as children until the day that we die, and every day until then, we dress up in our suits and ties and parade the idea of forgiveness,

just hoping that we can become a martyr for it.

I wish our eyes lit up every time we saw each other again, like those street lamps did so bright into the late 2am in the morning Ohio summer sky, like those headlights onto those Cincinnati exit highway signs, like those I told you sos, like the laughters of those old ghosts in your backyard, I could’ve sworn we were going to break through into forever

Until it all came crashing through the ceiling, until it all came bursting through the floorboards, until we learned how to set fire to our own heads to finally see something go up in smoke, breathe it in, breathe it in, this is where it ends now, the period of every sentence, the exclamation point that paired so well with every I love you finally danced out of our throats and left a space that could not be filled without confrontation

How much longer are we going to pretend every word we ever said to each other was meant to fix whatever was broken

What was broken

Why were we trying to fix it

Why did we make each other god
We both know that eventually we stop believing in whatever doesn’t show us proof

I was like a hummingbird, you were like nectar, I ate you up until there was none of you left, but I kept some of the nectar in my mouth, and fear, and when there was no nectar left in my mouth, it got cold, I flew south for the winter, I was scared

When it warms up out here we might see each other again

How cold will it be, how much of you will be left, how much of us will be left, if any

My wings will be dripping with nectar, I’ll be so ready to make you whole again

I have learned to trust beauty that comes from my body and elsewhere

I have mapped out the rivers that flow through my arms and into my chest,
And I have memorized them and labeled them as “Something So Much Better Now”

I have knitted and patched up the tears and fractures in my bones, placed there by strangers who did not know themselves as well as they pretended to

I am learning to appreciate the rain aside from sleepless nights, besides,
Sometimes even the sky has to cry

Every evening I have taught myself how to tuck myself in again, kiss my own forehead, and chant myself bedtime stories,
And every morning I have taught myself how to appreciate opening the blinds and cracking the windows to smell whatever roses the bees are flocking to at 9am on a warm summer morning

And yet I know that the cold is coming back,
And I know summer is as short as a child’s attention span,
And winter has been harsh before, but that does not mean it cannot learn from its mistakes like I have, and still am

But I am learning, I am relearning

And with that, I will teach myself how to respect the colder weather like a mother or father

With strict discipline, openness, a warm hug, and trust

This script has been written a hundred times over, and much like the rain, it will show itself less before it comes back again,
And sometimes it is heavy, sometimes it is soft,
It will kiss your forehead to sleep and then wake you up in the morning, sometimes like it is begging at your window for some kind of help, other times like it is just sitting on your windowsill, staring at you with bright eyes and a lust for washing away whatever has hurt you

I sit at this desk with flowers and candles and a whole hearse worth of broken words to express over a keyboard,
And the script will be a masterpiece until it isn’t anymore

And I will pick out the actors and actresses using the names of hearts I am not invited into anymore,
And I will play out the script on the stage I call my bedroom floor,
Dance around until the early morning with or without the memories of emotions I do or don’t feel anymore towards these people

And what a curse it is here,
Having writer’s block at this keyboard because I’ve drowned out the words for the script with the rain of someone else’s clouds,
No umbrellas to catch whatever comes falling from the sky,
just drops of rain on my glasses and soaked button ups

And by the time my clothes are dried and my glasses are wiped clean,
When I look back at my keyboard and then the screen,
The script is back to the first sentence I started with, and it has been like this a hundred times over now

When I finally finish this script, what will stop the rain from loving it too much?

Yeah, I can tell you I’ve been finding my intimacy inside of someone else’s skin,
I’ve been avoiding contact with my own garden,
I’m too scared to come back, I don’t know what the flowers will say when they see me, and I’m too afraid that I won’t have enough water for all of them, I don’t want to see them like that,
Dried up and dying, but I guess we all get to that point

My organs have been feeling like empty warehouses with dust and lack of emotional labor,
It’s really ***** around here, and I don’t have enough in me to hire someone to help,
And I don’t have enough in me to fix everything that’s wrong inside of them,
I’ve been hoping that maybe if I leave them empty long enough, I’ll finally get the chance to bulldoze what little is left after it’s all rotted away and grown over with weeds,
And the cracks in my body’s sidewalks will grow thorns too thick to walk through

My angels gave me fertilizer but I’ve been too busy using it on the community gardens,
What I would sacrifice to see everyone else grow

I am living the death of every empty sad warehouse in every town in every city in every country of my body, and I am scared that I won’t know how to rebuild once it all crumbles back into the grounds from which it all came

Instead, I’ll crawl the surface of my body, getting cuts and scrapes from everything that’s become broken, just like that two headed boy back in ‘98,
and I’ll sing my hallelujahs into the open wounds like my magic could possibly heal something that no longer has potential

But it’s all a beautiful kind of war,
Where the guns and anger unlearn dead and relearn life,
Where the bullets are poppyseeds,
And the whole battlefield is lit up with a happy kind of high,
A feel good kind of resolution,
And the blood shed on my body’s soil is like water in the stems of all of the flowers killed by everything that has collapsed and fallen in on them

And when the horses come running, when the bells come ringing, when the soldiers return home,
They will begin anew, and every warehouse in every town in every city in every country in my body will have lights in their windows for the first time in years

We all want to find some kind of purpose to our lives,
So we go on and we stick our tongues back down the throat of Babylon until we find a god to blame all of our problems on,
Some kind of ***** priest’s ears to scream our perverted thoughts into

Each night when we dance with the devil on his doorstep, we see our silhouettes flicker back and forth on his front door, cascaded by hellfire and the sins we seem to have talked ourselves out of

There’s a cool summer coming, I can feel it, the heat being scared away, running for some kind of cover, the same cover we keep praying to, keep singing to, keep wishing for,
And we write our wills to cater to whatever will profit us,
And we write our eulogies in braille because we know by the end of it all of our eyes will be burned down to piles of ash with no spirit left to rise out of,
No pair of glasses that aren’t broken

And we light candles and sprinkle holy water for séances,
I know there’s a way to bring back the dead, I’ve been doing it every single morning for twenty one years now

There’s no better feeling than hellfire, I tell you,
There’s no better feeling than hellfire

The hellfire our grandfathers and great grandfathers fought to step out of,
It’s all still alive and it’s all still breathing, right here in the pit of the void we’ve created over and over for ourselves

What a mess of hatred and bigotry we’ve stitched into our eyelids,
What a mess of brimstone, stacked on top of empty swimming pools and stuck to the feet of everyone in the choir,
Their lips still learning to stop the fire,
Their feet grown into the cracks of the sidewalks in Babylon

I’ve watched everything die without enough time to learn the language of the devil,
And because of this I will never know how to bargain with him,
And because of this there will never be enough soul in me to sell

There’s no better feeling than hellfire

I’ll write until I fall asleep,
Sleepy words under tongue and flicked from the tip, rolled off when needed,
Every car in my neighborhood has its lights on, and every neighbor does this on purpose so they’ll have an excuse to be able to bring something back from the dead every morning

Caffeine lungs, they’re so wired to crave exhaustion yet do not know how to get there,
I do not know how we got here, but I know we are going to fly into the evening sky to write love letters and put them inside of sunsets,
Evening commuters need something to keep their wheels moving on seemingly unmovable concrete

Endless loops of nicotine and Stevie Nicks’s voice could scream lullabies into the open mouths of yawns for hours and still never learn how to grow tired

Kerosene speed, call to the void, what a mess we’ve all made here

Learning to love yourself is like learning to put the fire out but keeping the matches in your pocket for when you need them again

If we were given the option to cut ourselves open and put back all of the guts we’ve spilled out for other people, I wonder how many of us would actually do it

How many of us must be content with waking up inside of someone else’s skin and claiming it to be our own

I never really learned how to sleep easily, for as long as I can remember I’ve been kept awake every night by whatever skeletons show up in my closet,
And that’s why I threw away my night light,
Smashed it

I was seven years old when I first saw the fire

I remember vividly hearing my mother’s preacher tell me that I should keep my heavens tilted towards the ceiling,
I knew then that church was no place for an honest and forgiving man

There will always be something that could fall through the floorboards at any minute

And when it all came crashing down I could feel my hair start to shed itself into shards of glass,
The pieces eclipsing mirrors through the smoke in my basement

The spark was born in flames and there is no doubt in my mind that it will go out the same way

I’ve gotten off to people telling me they’re in love with me and I became so obsessed with the feeling that I would grow my wings out and claim myself to be a guardian angel

And I am realizing now that there is no heaven in the ceiling and my guardian angels are nymphomaniacs only out to devour what little is left of me

I am the hummingbird now

I am the one with wings a million miles an hour and not enough nectar

I am too small to notice but when you do notice me I am the most beautiful thing you could ever see

However it is getting colder now,
Colder than it has ever been,
And my wings have forgotten how to move quicker than lightning,
And I will fall louder than thunder in this neighborhood,
I will die a martyr for your eyes and a sweet tooth for your candy

Salt shaker pepper jack dinner table,
I am a lonely man,
My family has since gone away but this house is still as full as ever,
I set the plates and silverware out with a candle for each

I have become my own apostle, disciple of my memory’s Christ, and when this dinner is over I will have realized that I was the one who betrayed myself

I still talk to the dead about them, and I am not scared of their reactions any longer

And when I ring the dinner bell, I will sit and eat and fellowship with everyone all at once

And we will break bread, like my wings when I am cold

And we will drink wine, red like nectar from the backyard

And when I finally go, there will be thunderstorms in this neighborhood

I will come back to you when I learn how to be alone

I will come back to you when I learn how to stop burying memories of other people inside of you

I will come back with a welcome mat and house warming gifts when I know that I can with confidence call you my home

I still tell my therapist about you every now and then,
Not so much about the trauma anymore,
More so when I’ve cried deep enough to reach the happy thoughts again

When she asks me how I feel about all of it,
I can’t help but think of how many times I kissed you in a row on our first date, or how I fell madly in love with you when you first opened your mouth towards me

I knew trouble was coming, and I knew you were the ticket, but *******, it had been a while since I had used someone as a coffin for my own heartbroken feelings

Your eyes were the perfect kind, the ones such a deep blue that I could feel my phobia of the ocean every time I looked into them

Maybe I was never really looking for a home

Just looking for a place to face my fears

He walks in the front door with a 30 pack of pbr and a whole lotta love,
And when his friends all go to open their first one,
They make a toast and pledge that this’ll be their year

But fall never came here,
It’s been so hot all year,
And the winter came without warning,
Leaving us cold and lonely,
With no room left to feel

My garden is frozen over,
I wish my hair was full of four leaf clovers,
Because I’m scared I’ll never feel lucky enough,
I wanna pull my hair out until until I’m bald and I wanna use my head to grow roses but there will never be enough blood in the soil because I’m too busy reopening the scars,
So the roses will be wilted

Enough is never enough until enough is enough

And

Love only means convenience until love isn’t convenient anymore

And

I wanna **** until I don’t give a **** anymore,
but we’ve all tried that and all that does is leave us alone and in the dark

Wash clean your black eyes

Scrub away everything that makes you hurt

Rub your skin with bars of soap until all you see is bones

Find someone and sit on their bed while they explain how everything in their room became everything that they consider to be home

The hardest part was realizing that we didn’t need others to chase away our loneliness

We just needed to find a way to talk to it

I’ve spent the last 21 years of my life recording my eulogy into blank CDs,
and when my funeral becomes sold out, throw all of the money into my casket so I’ll have bus fare to make it back from hell,
And maybe put the pastors microphone next to my mouth at the viewing, just so I can get the last word in, I’ve always been that way

Project your favorite memories of us onto my body, just so I can feel something before you leave,
It’s a cold and lonely bed tonight, but someone told me to leave the windows cracked,
Someone told me to leave the blinds all drawn, We don’t want to see out and they don’t want to see in,
But that doesn’t make a difference where we’re going

All we have are these words, so let’s make them *****, pretty, broken, beautiful,
All we have is each other, so let’s kiss like we’ve never felt lips on our lips before,
Move your fingers down my neck like you’re playing a guitar and make my mouth sing out the chords you never learned

Yeah, I could say I’m pretty lost right now,
I couldn’t tell you on a map where my heart is anymore, it’s kind of all over the place,
Hopefully most of it is in the Ohio river where I left it, right under the bridge,
Next to hundreds of butts of cigarettes and the tears I cried out at 18, we were all so young once, I’ll never understand what happened

In my dreams, I crash my car every night,
Just to see what it would really feel like to fly out of here,
I’m not quite dead yet, but I swear when I wake up in the mornings, I can feel the wings on my back

And every night when we fall sleep, I become tangled in her hair, and when we perform the death dance, I am like Jesus in a temple, and we are silent as sleep,
I promised her I would kiss her bones until they were no longer broken,
I would teach my brain to move like a puppet, without strings attached

I will continue to hurt until I can no longer mend,
And I will continue to ignore God’s voicemails until my inbox is full,
And I will live like this until I no longer can

We can be as sick as clocks some days,
Our arms and legs ticking, and our frames sweating to break the fever down into something better understandable,
Each eye drifting back and forth,
Our mouths singing out sad songs every hour on the hour,
At what point does it become too much, I wonder

What are we made of? Are we wooden,
crafted out of beautiful trees from somewhere,
Or are we plastic, made in an assembly line,
and if so, who’s sweat was put into us?

Which room of the house are we put into?
In the living room, where everyone spends their time looking at us?
Or in the bathroom, where it’s just one set of eyes watching us at a time?
Or maybe we’re moved around a lot, with a million different eyes on us, never content with our placement

And are our batteries changed? Are we kept up with?
When will we need to depend on others to tell us what time it is?
Or will we all one day become ruined with battery acid?

And when we one day are no longer able to muster up the gears to make ourselves the sons and daughters of the eyes that watch us, where will we go?

It’s 3:30am and I’m finally laying down to sleep,
After tucking in all of the words I’ve been saving up for you,
They’re pretty restless, and I am too,
But don’t worry, I have a night light plugged in for them, they’re scared of the dark just like you were,
It’s a shame that you won’t be here to hear them in the morning,
They’d probably go well with sunlight through the windows and scrambled eggs,
And nothing would beat them rolling out of my mouth through the steam of the coffee I’d brew for you, for us

And don’t you wish we were still as beautiful as we were when we were born wrapped in stars and bathed in sunlight?

Before the smoke got to us and the mirrors became cracked,
Way back before our mothers and fathers were worried about us,
Before we’d spend too much time trying to read between the lines of each other’s books,
Now we hardly have time to read the sparknotes

And don’t you miss it? When we were able to fall asleep every night without pills,
And waking up every morning without missing someone was easy

What kind of monsters we have become to deny ourselves

I know you will never be around again to hear any of this, and

I’ve written this poem a hundred times over but there is still no one around to tell me that it won’t help me, so I’ll keep writing it

I know when you lick your lips you can still ******* sadness

I know this because when I lick mine I can still taste yours

A mixture of honey and heartbreak

Sometimes thick, sometimes runny

But still there nonetheless

And I know it isn’t going anywhere for either of us

But it’s important to enjoy it before it’s gone

Yeah, it hurts, but it’s so sweet

I could kiss your body so hard my nose bleeds

Or we could stay up for weeks and find each other’s tongues on the back of our teeth

Whatever makes us comfortable enough

And we will feel sorry for ourselves because our bodies do not know where to go now,
We are just ghosts without a set of bones to haunt,
And when the sirens sound and everyone is boarding the emergency boats, we will not move,
And we will sink with the ship,
And we will float to the bottom of everything

Weren’t we so beautiful then, when our eyes could burn holes into the sun,
When our tears could grow gardens,
And weren’t we so indifferent to sadness then,
I can still see the look on your father’s face, a decade ago, when he was holding you in that photograph,
Everything around you was like a wildfire,
And I would still welcome the burns with open arms because I know heartbreak gives way to success regardless, I just wish success meant a way to not be forgotten

We are so busy mending our brokenness that we forget to love one another,
And we are guilty by association to the circumstances we create for ourselves,
Strangers,
I never thought I’d feel this much for a stranger,
I never thought that we’d be strangers,
I’m just glad we had plenty of time to eat our hearts out

And I’m sure there are wine bottles in my kitchen for every letter in your name and I am sure that I could drink all of them and still remember your name,
And I will bury your memories inside of someone else and I am sure they will be just like you

We hold onto things even when they’re long gone,
We hold onto the familiarity because we do not want to go through a grieving process,
We do not want to cry, alone,
So we will latch onto every hymn and memory possible just to feel nostalgic and sorry for ourselves, and we will cry, even long after the grieving process has passed

I carry crystals around my neck and in my pockets when I walk because often I talk to myself and often I talk to the dead,
Often I am so confused that I do not know the difference between the two,
But I like that,
It leaves a sense of mystery to everything my mind has already planned out for me

I want to know where we all were when the world ended,
Who were we with, what were we doing, and were our hearts as full as they could be,
I stay up late at night sometimes and I just sing as loud and as long as I can, hoping that maybe possibly whatever creator is awake will hear me and keep me company, and not care who’s side I’m on,
I just want to be able to feel something for free

I do not want to keep sacrificing myself for heartbreak, and I wish I was ignorant to everything, I just want to know what it feels like to not know any better, about anything

I write these because I am hurting and I have yet to find a solution, and I am too broke for therapy, but I promise you I would pay dearly

Stressed mother to overwhelmed son,
“You look really tired today”

Overwhelmed son to stressed mother,
“I just haven’t been able to sleep well lately, but I am okay”

Empty beer bottle to overwhelmed son’s mouth,
You will drink me until you cannot feel anything else,
Cigarette ad to overwhelmed son,
It would be so easy for you to love my smoke again,
Overwhelmed son,
“I will get through this, even if it kills me one day”

Overworked father to overwhelmed son,
“You haven’t left your bed besides work, and even when you come home, the first thing you do is go to bed, and I am worried about you”

Overwhelmed son to overworked father,
“I just haven’t been able to sleep well lately, but I am okay”

I just haven’t been able to sleep well lately,
But I am okay

Education to overwhelmed son,
Your debt is heavier than the world and you will be paying for the things you haven’t learned for the rest of your life,
Overwhelmed son,
Everything is as heavy as the world, and I will break and get crushed until my body is sand on the beaches of the oceans I’ll never get the chance to visit

When I was 5 years old I visited Disney World, and the fireworks there burned brighter than anything I had ever seen before,
When I was 16 years old, I was burning bridges and cigarettes until I could no longer cross relationships and friendships and no amount of nicotine could make my lungs happy enough

But I will slip, and I will still burn, and I will never learn how to swim, and my lungs stopped knowing happiness when I breathed in anxiety and exhaled depression,
When I stopped breathing in oxygen and replaced it with fire, when I stopped exhaling full breaths and started exhaling as little as I could,
I don’t want to pass out, I want to keep as much as I can because I know I will never get it back  

And I will be alone in this because I have forgotten how to trust,
And I will live like this until I can no longer trust myself

Overwhelmed son to worried mother and father,
“I just haven’t been able to sleep well lately, but I am okay”

*I just haven’t been able to sleep well lately, but I am okay

Lately, I’ve been waking up every morning at 8am like clockwork, with tears in my eyes and on my cheeks, clawing their way out of my face like they’re running from something,
And a sense of panic that I can only describe as seeing an animal in your car’s headlights but not being able to slow down quick enough

Do you understand, how ******* disgusting it is to not feel like you’re able to write anything until everything feels like it’s on fire, and your only way of putting it out is to cough up a bunch of metaphors and hope they’re wet enough

Sometimes when I get really anxious I like to take road trips,
And when I’m driving,
I like to close my eyes,
Just so I can remember what it’s like to not possibly have any control of anything

Sometimes when I get really anxious, I try to recite the alphabet backwards,
Just so I can remember what it’s like to be able to forget something

Sometimes, it feels like I’ve been taking the wrong medicine at the wrong times and the right medicine doesn’t have a right time,
Only feel alive in the night time, take deep breaths,
We are alone in this,
You and I are alone in this,
We are in some way,
Together in this

When I think about anxiety, I like to think about it like it’s a bee,
and I wish that it would die after it stung me,
But I know it won’t,
I know it will keep on,
I know that it will drip it’s honey into the eyes of all of my closest friends and family,
And sometimes it will become too thick to see through,
And they will learn to live with it,
And I will learn to live with it

Sometimes, when I get really anxious, I am the sunset,
I envy moon, I would give anything to be able to see the way the trees move at night,
Silent, but fast, I was always told there was some kind of magic to be talked about when it came to the dark

Yes, I’m not lying when I tell you I’m riding high,
I’m feeling it all at once, everything around me, from everyone’s faces, to their footsteps, it is all running a marathon through my veins, the finish line nowhere to be found, I feel them all, all of them, their angry and driven footsteps, using the soil of my blood to plant their gardens inside of me that will one day without fail turn rotten, and die,
and my body will feel the decay of drought when my blood runs dry, when the sunlight is no longer strong enough to break through my thick skin,
I feel like the sunlight

Yes, I’m not lying when I tell you I’m riding high,
Cold, and shaking, itching for the comfort of normality inside of this hellscape, a national landmark of uneasiness and lack of empathy for the fingers on my hands and toes on my feet,
It takes a real kind of high to be able to feel when every single hair on your head moves in the wind and every single hair on the back of your neck raises, as if it’s trying to stand guard against something it knows will **** it

I find myself here, locked and loaded in this hazy battlefield, yet when I fire my guns, the only thing that comes out is dirt, and not enough of it either

I am riding high in the midst of 6 sleepless nights,
firing lucid canons into my bedroom walls in hopes that if nothing else, my delusions will break me a way out of here

That’s what this is all about anyways, right?

It’s 6:47am on a Monday morning on I-71 south towards Cincinnati and I’m driving in the middle lane entirely surrounded by semis and service trucks and out of nowhere, like it was some miracle act of God, it starts pouring down rain so hard that all of the traffic stops in the height of morning rush hour, everyone’s radios playing morning talk shows so loud it vibrates the ground our tires are on and everyone’s coffees move back into their hands from their cup holders, I guess we’re all just trying to wait it out right now

I guess I have no choice but to wait it out right now, he says, hoodie wrinkled, two all nighter’s deep and still no passing grade, standing outside of the campus Starbucks, as it’s pouring down rain

I guess we’ll have to wait it out, says my sister to an 8 year old me, as I wait on the curb of our neighborhood for the ice cream truck, no matter how disfigured the spongebob popsicle’s face looks by the time I get it in my hands, and no matter the fact that I never understood that his eyes were bubblegum

I guess I have to wait it out, my father says, watching my grandmother lying in her hospital bed, getting tests taken for her potentially and what would be proven deadly, lung cancer,
Her eyes glossed over and her lips still yearning for the pull of her usual afternoon pack of cigarettes

You just have to wait it out, says my grandpa, standing next to me in his garden, after having helped me plant my first tomato seeds,
The summer has felt like forever at 10 years old, I wish it stayed that way, and I wish I liked tomatoes

I guess we just have to wait it out now, the head of police says to his crew of swat members, after having everything fail towards coaxing a young high school boy out of his boarded up bedroom, the shotgun he killed his ex girlfriend with, still in his arms

Well, we’re just going to have to wait it out,
I think to myself as I sit in this traffic at what is now exactly 7am on a rainy Monday morning in the middle lane of I-71 south towards Cincinnati, entirely surrounded by semis and service trucks

The rain will stop eventually

Mental illness, put simply, is not knowing how to explain what it feels like, and feeling like it wouldn’t even matter, even if you did know

Mental illness, put simply, is not,
It isn’t simple,
I watched my best friends hurt themselves to feel things because their bodies did magic tricks to make them feel like everything felt like nothing,
Like everything, should feel like nothing,
Like nothing, is what everything feels like

Last week I talked to my mother about her anxiety, and the god she prays to for it hasn’t emailed her back, yet she keeps refreshing her inbox,
I wonder if that’s how you explain it

As a suicidal teenager, I used to sneak out of my bedroom window at night and take walks around my neighborhood, telling myself that maybe if I looked hard enough into the moon, God would meet me halfway,
This isn’t a poem about losing faith, but man, where’s the faith store and who can help me find some? I’m broke, don’t get me wrong, but that’s how faith works, right?

A few weeks ago, a mutual friend of mine dove head first back into drugs, claiming that her goal was to just simply, feel something, after taking such a long time to finally feel nothing

Breathe slow, take it easy, it’s gonna be a long ride,
Crack the window, you’ll be fine,
Set yourself on fire, just so you can say you’ve finally put yourself out,
Strap in if you want to, but only if you want to

A) I’ve met people who take it neck deep, feet first, fast, and relentlessly,
B) I’ve met people who keep the bandages on,
C) I’ve met people who don’t have any bandages, constantly drowning in the mess they think they’ve created,
D) I’ve met people who think that they would rather be dead,
E) I’ve met people who don’t want to think about it anymore

Hello, nice to meet you, I’m F) all of the above,
And I want to talk to you about the months and months I’ve spent in a row, wide awake in pools of sweat, shivering in my blankets, knowing that nothing could possibly be as ugly as this poem, but **** man, nothing is much prettier, everything is ugly, so nothing is pretty

Hello, nice to meet you, I’m nothing, none of us are everything,

We are all nothing,

Aren’t we all so pretty?

Goodnight moonlight,

Sweet dreams, moonlight,

I am away now,

Driving under your blanket, your bright stars lighting everywhere dark,

It is a late hot summer night, however I have turned the heat on, on this long summer road,

It reminds me of you,

Warm, open, and free,

I like it this way,

Windows down, hot air blowing, there is no room for cold here,

I like to play the radio soft,

It reminds me of you,

Stevie, you feel like the 80s,

And your voice reminds me of hers too,

My headlights illuminating the street signs just enough for them to dance, like everything has just a little bit of magic in it,

The first time I met you, you shook my hand, moonlight, and you were embarrassed about it, I thought it was kind of cute,

I might just keep you in my chest pocket on this ride home,

I will see you tomorrow night,

Same time, same place,

Goodnight moonlight

How easy it would be to be able to pick and choose who we suffer for

Draw a bath and tie the hair back, poor a glass of wine, and relax,
Go down a list and write check marks or exes next to the names of our skeletons, the places we hide away into at night,
How easy it would be

I’m not here to say that it isn’t easy, I’m just here to fantasize about not picking the gaps between your teeth until there’s enough space for everyone who’s wronged you to slide into, create a home and live

Sometimes I like to write symphonies using the tones of voicemails I’ve received because I just don’t have the guts to pick up the phone,
To be able to orchestrate absolute feeling on a whim,
How easy it would be

But instead, we’re here, teeter tottering between how many cigarettes we’ll have left by the end of all of this, or how happy we could be, or simply how bad a hangover we’re going to have in the morning,
But we’re soldiers like this

And the rations will last us— just long enough,
To pick the phone up when our friends call,
Tell them we love them, listen to that one paramore album over and over until we become 15 again,
Immerse ourselves into whatever nostalgia we refuse to let go of

How easy it would be,
To be able to pick and choose who we suffer for

We are all in one way or another, bugs on a windshield,
Some of us are the bugs, some of us are the windshield, some of us are the car, some of us are all of these

We tattoo each other’s names in Braille on our chests to see how bumpy the roads are going to look, and how painful it’s actually all going to be,
We keep them there forever, or, long enough for our mothers to see

How much beauty and life comes to an abrupt end when we are flying fast and relentless, hitting a windshield,
I wonder how long the driver of the car will even bother to worry about it,
Just turn on the wipers and get the guts off of the view of the sunrises and sunsets

We are all in one way or another just, bugs on a windshield,
I am the windshield,
When I get ***** from someone else, I like to imagine that I can just turn my wipers on and wipe away everything they carried around with them for all of that time,
On my body, you can find stains left from all of the bugs that have killed themselves on my skin,
Their blood and juices, permanently a home in my creases, I stay awake trying to paint a better picture of the sunrises and sunsets for the people driving me

We are all in one way or another just, bugs on a windshield,
Other times, I am the car,
A soulless machine built to carry luggage from one point to another,
A hard shell built to protect everyone who finds solace in me,
Do not worry,
The bugs mean nothing,
That is what my windshield is for

Just keep listening to the radio,
I can turn my wipers on

There is a full moon out tonight and all of the ghosts inside of us are freeing themselves to fight the battles they weren’t allowed when they were alive,
One time I set my house on fire just to see how long it’d take me to get out,
But I lie awake in bed and refuse escape,
I guess we all have our flaws,
Sometimes they’re better off asleep than awake,
Sometimes it’s better to keep it all inside than say anything at all,
I often wonder why it took me so long

I often wonder how long it’ll take me to bleed,
Will I be the one with the knife or will it be someone else’s blame?
I can’t really say, I can’t really say anything at all

I’ll lay awake in this bed and light the candles to my own funeral,
These thoughts seem to have been dead for centuries,
When it comes to having faults, I’ve been on a roll for days,
It’s safe to say

It’s safe to say, really,
You’re protected here,
You can cry all you want to, no one will ever hear you,
Sink and swim up and down the river,
Head in and under water,
I’ll write these hymns until my lungs are filled with the river

I’ll sing these songs until my breaths are muffled with the fire,
Write these hymns, sing these songs into the fire,
Cut all of the wires,
Slash all of the tires,
We don’t want to go anywhere at all,
We’re going to miss the party

At the bottom of the ocean and in the pit of the fire,
We don’t want to miss the party

Let us never miss a party

I feel like I am living inside of my worst nightmare’s fever dreams,
I’ve been dreaming for better days,
I’ve been hoping the feeling might stay

Or, go away, whatever is better,
I can’t make up my mind on what happiness could and should be,
I’ve been too busy hoping for something,
I’m not sure what, though

When my mother looked at me with tears in her eyes when the latest celebrity killed themselves, and asked me if that’s how I feel sometimes,
I didn’t really know what to say

I remember being 8 years old and telling my mother that I was afraid to go to the swimming pool because I did not know how to swim

I never learned how to swim and I do not know how to tell that to my mother

None of my friends ever learned how to swim either and I guess you could say that we just never learned how to hold our breaths long enough to notice any difference

Around here, where everything is so underwater, where everyone you talk to is so under the weather,
It’s hard to keep any of it under the radar,
We do not know how to swim and we do not know how to tell our mothers

So instead, we crowd into our cars, roll the windows down, crank up the radio, and enjoy the air that we have, hoping that if there is a God, they are enjoying the company with us

We just have to learn how to turn the wasps in our heads into bumblebees,
Pollinate the dead flowers regardless of if they have any life left,
Dance in the rain like everyone is watching,
And not care if our guardian angels get embarrassed for us,
I might be a little crazy, we all might be a little crazy,
I haven’t quite decided yet

None of us are going to make it out alive here, so let’s just drown our brains in antidepressants and good memories, we have to block out the bad ones somehow

When I killed myself to be someone who was wanted by everyone, I never imagined that I would end up right here

Next to you, asleep, at 1 o clock in the morning,
My arm around your back, feeling every crease that your body tries so desperately to hide away from the surface,
You, fast asleep, how beautiful your eyelids look when they’re closing the world off for you while you come to grips with living this way,
And yeah, It’s a beautiful feeling

I never knew I could love like this

Like you, you’re such a beautiful feeling,
Every word that comes out from your lips and your tongue, it all flows so naturally,
I was never convinced that naturally love should feel like this,
I taught myself to love hard and fast and never slow down, like everyone else that came before you,
But don’t get me wrong, your sunlight eyes and flower tipped nose look very nice in my garden, and I think I’ll keep you around for some seasons,
Which is to say, I hope this feeling never dies

When I told you that I wrote poetry, I hesitated to do so because I knew that no poem I could write could possibly do anything about you justice,
I mean just look at you,
Everything about you is a poem written from all of my favorite poets

I never knew I could love like this

My heart, a puzzle, missing all of the pieces,
I’m starting to think that maybe none of them were missing, they just needed someone with patience, someone who wants to look at the bigger picture,
I found you,
Just like a missing puzzle piece,
I’m not saying I need you to fix me,
You’re just doing a really wonderful job at showing me how beautiful my clouds look while they’re next to the blue pieces

Your kisses, small and sweat like Reese’s Pieces, this wouldn’t be a love poem if some of things I said weren’t cheesy,
I guess to top it all off I could say that living and loving with you is easy peazy, your flavor makes my heart clean and washes away the bitter, no lemon squeazy

I never knew I could love like this

Bad puns and “that was a good one”’s aside

We got a good thing going

Let’s keep it that way, dream girl

Before I knew that I could fall in love with another boy,
I had already had those feelings stolen out from underneath my feet

50 years old cold and old with a lust for blood,
and innocence,
At 16 years old there wasn’t even a whole lotta innocence left in him,
But he worked and moved in places that felt like dark alleyways,
and promises that seemed too good to be able to break,
The way his tongue slithered out from underneath the church pews,
looking to lap up whatever he seemed to have missed from his youth

I remember the first time I went to therapy,
the way that my therapist kept asking me if I was confused about my sexuality,
It shouldn’t have started like that

Wrinkly, angry, and full of adrenaline, young in the head and sick in his veins,
He liked to touch them,
He liked to hold them,
His eyes always matching theirs,
he made it perfectly clear that he’s not looking for a fight,
he’s already fighting,
and he knows he’s going to win

I’m not a religious person, but I believe the devil comes to all of us in different ways,
Sometimes beautiful and forgivable,
Other times in a black t shirt and a pair of nikes, disgustingly promising,
a place to make you feel comfortable

We let so many people use our bodies to prove their points, it’s so exhausting,
I can’t tell the difference anymore between wolves and sheep,
But I know that he’s a wolf,
And I know that no one listens to a boy who cries ****,
And the blood is always going to be there,
The alcoholic breaths taken deep into lungs that promise to carry on, are always going to be there,
The hatred and phobia of old men with mustaches and eyes that look just a little too inviting,
is always going to be there

Your Innocence is always going to be there, just don’t let anyone convince you that they can steal it from you

We are more than their torn muscles and “really, I’m a nice guy”s,
More than their “I’ve never done this before”s,
More than their “You don’t have to mention this to anyone”s,
More than what we think we deserve,
More than what love used to mean to us

We don’t have to love like that anymore,
Our bodies are new,
Not used anymore, but brand new,

We just have to teach our bones how to use the beautiful new skin that they’ve worked hard for

So to the man who taught me how to love myself,
You are nothing more than a distant memory I’ll continue to pack into the bag of luggage I carry and unload when I need to remind myself that I am more than whatever you made me think I was

I forgive you, but only because I forgive myself

I no longer watch sunsets through my rear view mirror because I realize that I don’t have anything to run from anymore,
In fact, some nights I work it out in a way to make it seem like I’m driving away into the sunset because everyone deserves their own happy endings

My bones aren’t made of paper anymore so please stop writing on them with your curse words and forced apologies,
My skin doesn’t need to feel bad anymore,
My skin is the new sun, haven’t you heard?
It’s warm and shiny and when it dies it isn’t going to go into a trash can,
it’s going to burst into the biggest fire imaginable,
and it’s going to burn out of here,
it’s all I’ve ever wanted

My blood is sweet tea that you have no business drinking anymore,
My body is a kitchen full of pots and pans that I finally get the chance to cook with,
and they don’t rattle inside of me and keep me up at night anymore,
And I’m full of spices that I’ve been too afraid to try,
until now,
My arms and legs are windows and the clouds and birds love seeing them most days,
they love it too

My words are natural again,
It feels good to let them out, like I actually mean to say the things I say,
I’ve forgotten what that’s like

I still get angry sometimes,
The difference now is that I don’t feel the need to be angry at you anymore

We need to stop making ourselves homes for other people,
We need to tuck ourselves in instead,
We’ll dream much more vividly that way and the first cup of coffee of the next morning will taste so much better

It’s been two decades and I’m still sweating out this fever

My eyes haven’t stopped watering since my family tree fell over,
branch by branch we collapsed into the river,
rushing faster and faster to mutually assured destruction,
no one is getting out alive here

No one is getting out alive here in this world,
so we might as well get it while the going is going because one day the going is going to stop and we’ll be left holding on to as much as we can,
We’ll feel so sorry for ourselves then

I’ve walked with snakes on my shoulders for as long as I can remember,
All my hearing has amounted to hisses,
and all of my bones have broken to bend and expand to hold all of the feelings I’ve eaten

Made love with the ****** and prayed to every angel I’ve seen in my paralysis,
In my dreams I see flowers,
Red like blood,
but clean like a mended heart,
Slowly but surely I’ll likely tear myself apart

But I like it like this,
It gives me a reason to wonder,
and wander,
So I’ll continue to wonder,
and wander

We all just drink to get drunk,
We’re all just ghosts without a house to haunt,
I’ve been feeling this sickness creep up into my throat,
and it’s been drying to get out, and I think I’ll let it

I’m still learning what falling in love feels like,
Still coming to grips with realities that don’t involve bruised eyelids and unforgivable I told you so’s,
Sometimes it feels like I’m coming to the end of my rope but then it frays all over again and I’m stuck trying to wind it back up,
How selfish to think I can fix something that’s too broken

Cut to my grandmother getting dolled up for her closeup because the church taught her how to become her own messiah, now she doesn’t know how to love the right way,
I’m starting to think that none of us do

I’m starting to run with the wolves,
The moon speaks in tongues to me,
I keep asking her to take me back where I belong,
Every painting hanging in my room is blank,
Blank and powerful,
but afraid,
I’m starting to think we all are

I’ve been sweating everything out,
It’s taking longer than I want it to

I just hope that by the time I’m laying on my deathbed,
I’ll be as dry as this all bled me

It feels like I was born in Cassadaga Florida on June 1st 1997,
at 10 o clock at night during a full blood moon,
immediately baptized in fire and forgiveness up to my neck and down to my toes,
see all my life it feels like I’ve been flying,
whether it be in or out, between or through, either way, in some way,
I kinda feel unstoppable, kinda feel immeasurable,

The way the walls look at me inside of every room I walk into,
It makes me feel like I know too much,
like I talk too much,
or maybe I let everyone else talk too much for me,
I can’t tell the difference anymore

My great grandpa used to talk to the dead,
or maybe he was just having dinner with his angels

Every time my best friend takes acid, all he can think about is nuclear war,
maybe it’s some kind of sign for us,
like every time I look at a clock, all I can see is my life flashing back and forth projected onto a screen behind me,
covering my entire body

I take medication now, we all take some kind of medication now,
I call mine “better”,
but only until now have I not realized that it’s possible to overdose on “better”,
so I take “better” and “better” until it feels like if happiness were an ocean and I chained “better” to my ankle like it were an anchor,
and threw myself into happiness without any oxygen tanks

The way the ghosts blow through my bones, like they’re trying to weave miracles in my skin, so that when I talk, I still get a chance to feel like I mean something

I’m not saying that I think I’m made of magic, I’m just saying that I’m trying to be

there’s enough significance in the fire to feel like the burns your skin have suffered will heal into beauty one day, if you try to believe hard enough

the ground doesn’t have room for all of our bodies, so we can’t help but wonder sometimes,

just how far the dead can walk

it’s amazing how far we can take ourselves,
especially when we stop trying to stop ourselves,
especially when we stop trying to apologize to ourselves for everything that we think we need to become, but haven’t yet,
yeah, I know sometimes it hurts to feel alone,
sometimes it hurts to feel alone,
feel alone,
but, hold on a second
please, would you just, hold on a minute,
wait for my cue

at the count of three we are going to convince ourselves that everything around us is on fire, even though it’s not,
pretend that the world revolves around everything besides us, even though it doesn’t,
it revolves around us,
because if it didn’t,
we wouldn’t be here,
everything wouldn’t spin all the time,
we wouldn’t have to have this talk,
everyone would just smile all the time

I just left my family’s Easter dinner without saying goodbye because I couldn’t help but smile the whole time,
even though it felt like my whole body was a bear trying to rip through my bones like they were some kind of bear trap,
didn’t tell my grandma I loved her,
didn’t tell my cousin congratulations,
didn’t tell my uncle I missed him,
didn’t take a breath in my niece’s direction,
didn’t say anything,
just sat there, quiet, waiting for the perfect opportunity to leave

and on the drive back home, I listened to even sadder music, and cried, loudly, I can’t wait for the day that crying goes out of style,
can’t wait for the day that we go back to normal,
whatever that means

but I promise I’m taking the steps accordingly, finally going to therapy, on Thursday

we have so much to talk about,
why do we make ourselves so quiet

I imagine god’s fingertips to be the size of every broken bone I haven’t tried to fix,
When he died he took all of it with him,
and when he came back three days later,
he became heartbreak,
a martyr of sorts, if you will,
And every time I try to talk to him, he is too tired to respond,
but I do not blame him,
he is doing his best

My grandmother’s lungs gave up on her and collapsed into dust like they once were before all of this,
like all of ours will do some day on a hill of a million sunsets,
where every broken bone will no longer need surgery,
and every bursted vein will bleed into a thousand different eternities

I promise myself that one day I will walk this world over and not stop until everything is on fire, and everyone is crying over someone else,
and I will slip into every crack and crease that my toes feel,
and I will love it and I will die for it,
Just  like how I have loved them and I have died for them,
for as far back as I can remember

the sun always reminds me of someone else,
and the problem with it is that I’ve never looked at the sun and thought about myself,
I have been too busy writing my own obituary onto every inch of my body,
so when they find me suffocated under a pile of my own traffic jams,
they will know how I ended up here,
because god knows that I won’t

I have been too busy filling my bones with gasoline,
so that when they break, you will be able to set them on fire,
I don’t want to be cremated, I just wanna burn out of here,
I don’t want to be put into the ground because cemeteries seem like our way of never ever being able to let go of what is able to **** us

We are all made of iron in some way,
I have bad days some days,
On good days I am sleepy in a lustful way,
And on bad days I am tired in a jealous way,
I’m not saying I’m unstoppable,
but if you catch me under the right light,
I might just seem that way

I’m not sure where I came from,
or where I’m going,
but all of us, you, me, everyone here,
we are all going,
and we won’t stop,
never stop, never stop,
We will go on forever and ever,
even after we think we can’t anymore

Until the angels hang us up by our shoulders and personally read us all of the sins we’ve committed over our lifetimes,
And our grandpas tell us the last stories they can remember from the great war,
And our skin shrinks itself until the only thing we have left to feel is absolutely everything,
all at once,
all the time

So while we continue to walk this wide world over,
until we grow so exhausted that every breath we take seems like fire coming out of the mouth of every honest person that has ever told us a lie,
We need to realize that our jobs consist of nothing besides simply breathing,
Simply breathing,
Deep breath in, deep breath out,
Deep breath in, deep breath out

Take it slow,
Become comfortable, whatever comfortable means to you,
Take a warm shower,
Make yourself clean,
Wash away all of the ugly you think you have left in your skin,
Deep breath out,
Deep breath in

Breathe

I searched the surface of your skin looking for the answers to my personal problems

I looked for answers in your scars that I already knew but wanted to pretend I didn’t

I wish our love was easy like listening to old people talk about gas prices down at the local coffee shop over cigars and old shared wisdom

I wish there was a metaphor for all of this, but it isn’t that easy

I knew how dangerous you were and how dangerous you could be but I strapped on my helmet like Evil Knievel because you made me feel like I could walk through fire and come out untouched by the flames

I made myself a certain kind of Houdini, like your heart was some kind of magic trick to be figured out

I dipped my fingers into love and painted your face my favorite shades of forgiveness

I used you

I used you like the 3 month old bar of soap that sits in my shower,
I don’t use it often, but when I do, I hope that there’s still enough left in it to make me feel some kind of clean

I built you up like a sandcastle on the nicest beach imaginable and threw away the tools I used without realizing that there was a hurricane coming and that hurricane was going to rip away all of the progress I thought I had made here

I look for myself in everyone that I meet

I wonder what makes all of them tick,
What kind of gears turn inside of everyone that make them the way that they are, and I try to mimic the gears and use them to make my own heart beat

I used to tell people that I knew how to speak multiple languages because I made myself become fluent in your heart beat

it’s so funny now that I think about it because once we lose touch with something we seem to lose it completely,
I only know one language anymore, sadness,
and it’s the sharpest knife I own,
I wish right now wasn’t the time I chose to become self destructive,
Because by the end of this I just might hurt myself a little too far passed broken

I learned how to love myself the same day I stopped seeing heartbreak as a house that I can build piece by piece

In my dreams I walk on the lines of reciprocated love and happiness and never fall off but as soon as I wake up I find myself lying on the floor of my bedroom and I do not want to remember how I ended up here

Faith has always seemed like something that only people who feel like they’re about to die have,
Maybe that’s why I’ve been trying to talk to God since the first time I set myself on fire

She said she wishes she wasn’t so bad at this,
I tell her sometimes I wish I wasn’t so good,

Self love goes by a different name now

I’m not sure which hurts more, the way you left, or how you did it so easily

I drove to Cincinnati last week to write this at 2am because when I think about you for too long, I get too depressed to fall asleep, and I felt that even though I’d only be an hour closer to you down there, I’d feel better knowing that I was just a little bit closer,
No, I’m not lying when I say that I think about you the same way a semi driver thinks about changing lanes - for a long time, and almost constantly, you’re always in the back of my mind, I’m always wondering what move I should make next, and when I should make it

I fell for you the same way I learned how to ride my first bike, without elbow pads, and recklessly,
And it took me a couple tries, but I never got it, and I still don’t know what I did wrong, but I’m so sorry I could never be enough for you

I wanted to fill up a notebook’s lines with nothing but your name so I could jump into it and live out our best lives, in between the lines, a place where we could have the option to erase whatever we need to, but wouldn’t want to, because everything would already be so perfect

And when you smiled, when you smiled it felt like the sky was so jealous of you,
Like your beauty shined so bright that the sun herself breathed your skin in like oxygen

I wish you would’ve just lied to me, whatever it took to make me feel comfortable

And even beauty has her bad days,
Like roses have thorns,
It kind of just happens, without even being asked,
Kind of the way I fell in love with you, and even your bad,
It just happened, I didn’t even have to ask,
I wonder if I had the chance to, would it have changed anything?
Would you still be here and would I know where I went wrong?

The way you explained at breakfast that if you were an egg, on your bad days, you’d be scrambled,
But on your good days, you told me that you’d be sunny side up,
I always joked about wanting to take all of you and roll you up into an omelette, take the good and the bad, and see how far I could run with it

I thought this love came so easily and naturally, but I was so wrong,
The way I loved you made you feel untouchable and maybe that was part of the problem,
Too much of anything is bad for you, no matter how good you think it is

The way you packed your bags and left, it all felt like it was done so effortlessly, like this is exactly what you were made for, perfectly

I’m not sure which hurts more,
The way you left,
Or how you did it so easily

It’s 4am now in Cincinnati, I’m looking above the skyline, at the moon and the stars, and they aren’t even pretty anymore, they just remind me of your freckles, and I’m telling the river about you, she says she’s jealous,

I think I’m going to drive home now and sleep

I want to be your sentient being,
Wrap me up in cold air,
Breathe a breath and blow out your hot air,
You melodramatic superstar,
Whisper me into song,
There, you lie alone in your gray hair,
Old enough to know better but young enough to not care

Drown me in whatever you call all of that,
It’s hard to see through and it’s warm to the touch,
Bruised up and blue black,
Filthy dripping, tongues wrapped,
I want to suffocate, ******* kisses that make my lungs black,
Cigarettes at the dinner table,
Fork and knife both like cheek bones,
One of us is going to lose here

Tell me those nothings that make me feel better,
Keep me tethered,
Keep me floating around you like a feather,
Slick as leather,
Less is more and more is better

Keep me feeling like a ******* monster,
Let me into your guts and I’ll let you into mine,
I get this strange feeling every night where it feels like nothing’s ever going to get better

I want so badly to be vulnerable,
Untouchable yet envious of touch,
I have learned how badly it hurts to become,
And after I *** I will leave you immediately,
I know so much of everything and I get so sick to beat of the drums,
I want to rip our chests open and use our ribs like xylophones to the tune of rock n roll suicide,
I have become all or nothing,
Do or die

I have learned the Death Dance,
I call it Human,
I have never learned to love,
I’ve never known Cupid,
Yeah, I love the taste of blood,
Especially when it’s humid,
Always beating myself up,
I always ******* do this

Now it’s 1am, I’m drunk again, listening to Andrew Jackson Jihad, blacking out on my floor again, again, again, and again,
There are stars above my head

To the heavens, we are going home,
To the hells, we are burning everything that hurt us and after that we will burn ourselves too

We will grow to become so beautiful

I wake up every morning at 3pm,
Brush my teeth eventually,
Get dressed most days, but mostly it’s only a probably,
Shower myself like a good boy,
Clean boy, wash away the ugly,
Turn my tv onto white noise,
Drink down the sorrow and,
***** the bad thoughts into piles of poetry,
Finally sit down at my dinner table at 5pm for breakfast,
I pour myself a bowl of Rice Krispies, refuse to eat it, I’m starving,
I’m all snap and crackle but no pop,
I’m all talk but no bite,
My head’s been telling me to **** myself a lot lately and y’know what, I just might

Put some pants on, my favorite t shirt,
Black on black, I’m not a priest, it’s only a uniform,
Yet I treat myself like God,
Forgiving everyone and everything until apologizing becomes null and when I don’t have any sympathy left I steal daddy’s cigarettes, aim for the palm and burn holes,
A deadbeat Jesus, happiest at my dirtiest and insufferable at my cleanest

This loneliness will crucify me and I’ll let it,
Let it breathe and become home,
I’m writing this with sweat and blood and when I’m done it’ll hurt so bad, it’ll probably feel like I’ve broken a couple bones

I don’t remember when these words started to feel like guns but if I don’t use this sadness as ammunition then I’m going to die cold and alone

We are born inside of war and don’t question it until we die and when we die we realize if not for sadness, there’d be no point in being alive

Barrel to the sky,
Shoot it until it cries,
And let it bleed until it dries,
And when it dries,

Rip it back open, you’re gonna need it,

It’s gonna be a long night

She said baby I can’t wait to see you coat the back of your throat with those lies,
Kisses sweet like honey,
*** like medicine,
Skin on skin therapy,
I’ll lick your wounds if you like mine,
Tears leave burn scars on the cheeks,
We set the whole world on fire and laid back wine drunk and called ourselves freaks

Our hearts, a thrift store painting, cracked frame, with inanimate intentions, little to no feeling, we just can’t wait to look good in someone else’s home some day,
Worth nothing more than a couple of pennies,
Heartbreak is seemingly dirt cheap now but I can’t wait until the day that we grow so much from it that we see it as priceless

They tell you never to hurt an artist because you’ll live in infamy but I bet that ****’ll be so beautiful once they all leave

I’m not saying I wanna her lonely,
Just happy,
I’m not saying I wanna see her hurting,
Just laughing

They take her, call her theirs, take advantage, to the point where she confuses her breathing with second guessing

I can’t wait until we meet again,
I can’t wait until we grow and I can’t wait until we meet again,
I’m a completely different person, I swear it,
I haven’t taken off your heart from my sleeve, I think at this point I’ll always wear it

Honeybee, you got all of me, and some days that might not seem to be enough, but trust me,
I’m trying

This isn’t a love poem yet, but someday I hope it will be,
Forever yours,
Always

I feel like a homebody,
I feel homesick, and my home is your body,
I can't find my way through your cracks, only feel alive when I feel scratches on my back, stuck in an empty lover's bed sheets, only feel lonely when I'm not laying next to a warm body, mind muddy, cloudy hellish sense of relevance only when I'm being kissed on the neck, now tell me, where can I find any ******* sense

In my head everywhere in every bed I lay in, I'm a misfit, just wanna be missed,
Happiness is fake and love is like the internet

Click, click, error 404, cannot find page, deep breath, refresh, error 404,
4:04pm, alone again, thinking about skipping dinner to think about you again,
4:04am, alone again, thinking about skipping sleep to watch the sunrise because heaven knows it's the only warmth this body still knows how to feel,
4:04 someone, somewhere,
404 empty bottles,
404 long car rides lighting up the highway with either a lighter or headlights,
I gotta ****** go,
I gotta run away as far as possible,
I don't know what I'm running from, but I'm running still

I have grown to actively avoid absolutely everything,
Don't look at me,
Don't talk to me,
The only words I know how to listen to are **** and hate,
I've given away everything, even the smile on my face,
Gifted pieces of my heart with ribbons and flowers and tried to cover the holes with duct tape,
I've tried everything besides personal space because I'm scared of being alone for too long and I don't wanna look at myself in the face

I feel homesick, and my home is your body,
I don't wanna do this anymore, I don't wanna do this anymore,
You're not my home anymore,
But I don't know how to run away from you

Click, click, error 404, cannot find page,
Deep breath, refresh, error, ****-

My homepage is always frozen

My uncle used to tell me that the sky was blue because we lived inside the eye of a giant, the sky would never cloud over, Nothing would ever feel better because it was already the best it could feel,
Nothing was ever going to hurt us and we could live our entire lives safely

When I was 14 years old my uncle took his own life by hanging, but my family always told me he passed away in a car crash,
Now I don't remember the last time I wore a seatbelt because ever since then I've had a really hard time believing in safety

I'm so scared of never being able to not feel like this,
To not feel like I am being taken advantage of,
My mind will forever consider these situations no matter what situation I am in,
I could stay up night after night trying to convince myself otherwise,
not that it would make any kind of difference,
So whenever I find something new and refreshing, all I know how do is sit in silence,
Hope to quiet this strange hurricane happening inside of me,
It kind of feels like one of these days the winds are gonna rip me to shreds, but I won't have the help, because I'll tell myself that I don't need it, anyways

I am terrified of calling myself a writer,
I am terrified of realizing that the only escape I have from this is a pen and a piece of paper,
Anxiety keeps telling me that one day all of the ink is going to spill out and the only option I'll have left is to take myself out,
They'll have to see me laying in a puddle of my own ink, my veins soaking in what once was my emotions and feelings, dripping through the floorboards and into the ground,
After that they'll see my entire body sink,
They'll see every comma and exclamation point flow out of my fingers and feet like it's some kind of tar filled river,
They'll see my lips start to quiver and the only thing left to come out,
The only thing they'll ever hear me say ever again,
Will be a sliver,
"I don't know why I am apologizing, but I'm so sorry that it never got better"

I wake up every morning and I am terrified,
I'm terrified of the nightmares I had the night prior,
When my best friend told me that I'd burn in a lake of fire because of my depression, that I wasn't normal, and that I had a disease,
That I was so sad all of the time because I didn't believe in a God,
That I was so hopeless because I wasn't leaning on some overplayed fake version of reassurance,
That I chose to pray to these demons to set me free,
The same demons that cast these shadows over me,
I remember yelling through tears at him, "I don't need to believe in a God to believe in myself",
I'm trying my best, but at this point, good things always seem so foreign to me,
It just seems so foreign to breathe

So until I reach that breaking point, where the moon and the sun are both only arbiters of light that I can use to guide myself through this darkness, through what feels like never ending night,
I'll be terrified of everyone and everything

I'll either get to happiness, or I'll die trying

Atomic boys and girls play with their atomic toys and curls,
At 18 years old she was atom bombs,
Gloomy and angry, 16 years old, she used to draw mushroom clouds on her bedroom walls

She always thought to herself,
How strange it is to be anything at all,
21 years old, she realized how badly it hurts to become

She was in love with the sadness, and she wore it on her sleeve in place of her heart, already too broken to keep together all in one place,
She was always so afraid of the dark, so it never went well, always causing the power to go out, it would take days, sometimes weeks for the lights to come back on,
But even after, it seemed as if no one wanted to come close in fear of the radiation

We did drugs, we rolled our windows down, we drove too fast, we tuned the radio until we heard God start playing air raid sirens, and we sang until our bodies became bombs

Always until the light came on, he promised her,
Whether it be the sunrise,
The moonlight,
Headlights,
Night lights,
Lamp shades

It didn't matter, he would never leave her alone in the dark,
He would bring an umbrella every night, knowing she would rain on him, it didn't matter, he loved her, enough to wear a raincoat year around, he even built a raft for when it rained hard, when even she thought she would drown, for when things became too much

She loved the the way his mouth seemed like comfort to her,
The way his arms were always around her, and the way his phone calls seemed like get well cards,
She told herself that she wouldn't let it get like this, but she did,
He told her that he wasn't going to leave her, but he did,
I guess everyone's a little bit of a liar in the end, right?

We danced until our bodies spilt our souls and then we fell into the December cold, right into the snow,
Until there was nothing left,
Until everything seemed to be just a bright flash

Let's all go play Nagasaki, we can all get vaporized, hold my hand, let's turn to ash I'll see you on the other side

I swear it's better, over there, where we can finally see the birds flying all around the air, where the heartbreak actually sets you free, where it doesn't hurt to breathe

Let's all go and meet our maker, they won't care who's side you're own,
I was so afraid, I prayed and prayed,
Before I learned to love the bomb

Let's all go play Nagasaki, what a lovely way to die,
I was so afraid, I prayed and prayed

Until I fell in love with the bomb

Dear Family Man,
I used to want to follow in your footsteps until I realized doing so would mean that I'd have to believe that the list of human rights in our country should be as short as the cooker cutter length of the grass on our front lawn

Family Man,
Why are you so scared of diversity

Family Man, why do you believe in religious freedom until any other religion besides Christianity is mentioned

Family Man, why do you believe that Jesus was white and that he preferred guns and judgement instead of love and acceptance

Family Man, why do you not understand the difference

Family Man,
You'd rather see a perfectly polished white picket fence than see the future of this country pickup signs and picket to try and finish the job you never started, create a future for generations, because they realize the **** that's happening doesn't make any sense

Family Man,
**** those illegal immigrants who are hopping our border to work the jobs that YOU'RE too lazy to WORK

Family Man,
**** those refugees that want to run away from the war that WE created, right?

Family Man,
We love equally but above all else we love money, and we'll do anything we can to get it,
We don't give a **** about anyone else,
Your family is needy, but I guess you're just a little too greedy,
You keep feeding them but they're always hungry because the only food you believe is important is oil,
How could your children be hungry for anything else?

Family Man,
Oppression is for people who won't grow up and face the world for themselves, it's their fault,
I don't know why your children even care though, right, just keep on lying, telling them that nothing Donald Trump is doing right now is going to affect their lives personally

Family Man,
Capitalism has you ******* your own ****, but you've grown to love it,
You'll give power to anyone that promises to bring this country back to when it was great, when we had slaves, when we neglected everyone who wasn't like us

Now you've got what you wanted, but there's a hell of a lot more problems, but don't you worry,
Family Man, it's the new normal

It's a great day at the White House

Right now, I feel lifeless,
I feel empty,
I feel beyond,
I feel like everything and nothing are both happening at all times of the day, every day, all the time,
I am just trying my best to keep my head above the water,
"Just go with it", "It's okay", "It's nothing"
I cannot go with it, it is not okay, and you're right,
It's nothing,
I keep telling myself it's nothing until "It's nothing" is the only thought that runs through my head,
I can't leave my bed,
I haven't showered since Mother's Day,
Mother, I'm sorry,
I haven't eaten a full meal in God knows how long,
God, if you're out there, I do not curse you, but what have I done to deserve this,
What have any of us done to deserve this,
The feeling of rather wanting to be dead than alive in and of itself is a tragedy,
I haven't felt human in a long time and tragically, I wouldn't care much if I just stopped breathing

Keep me close, keep me close, keep my head above water,
I need to hear your voice,
I can't do this on my own

Just keep breathing,
Just keep breathing,
Just keep breathing

It's your turn, let me light another cigarette before you give me a third flush, I'll need another shot of whiskey if I'm gonna let you keep cheating me,
He said, "Alright boy, enough is enough. When are you gonna let me take you?" I told him "Soon."

I've done drugs in the past, burn so good, gone too fast,
Happiness never lasts,
Just a splash,
Up and down and up and down I'm getting whiplash,
Dug deep into the ground,
Pulled up flowers with a frown,
Beauty is a disaster, this world is on fire, I'll always let myself down,
Drunken stupor through the city,
Bleeding wreckless, broken teeth, my lungs are brown,
I will let myself drown

I AM CASANOVA TO THESE ANGELS,
I AM WRECKLESS IN MY INTENTIONS,
THE GOOD DIE YOUNG AND THE BAD WILL LIVE FOREVER,
TO THE END OF MY ROPE, I WILL SUFFER

To the ends of the earth, I will take her,
And I will ruin everything good in her, yet I do not want to,
I have not chosen to be like this,
The shadows wreak of liquor and depression,
And they will follow me home every single night,
And they will fall into bed with me,
And they will tell me everything I need to hear

Whisper sweet nothings into my ears,
TELL ME WHAT YOUR WORST FEARS ARE, I BET THEY LOOK A LOT LIKE MINE,
TELL ME WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO NOT BE ABLE TO FALL ASLEEP SOME NIGHTS

I am lucid,
Lasting,
Plastic and carefree,
Nothing but smoke and mirrors to the ones who are after me,
I gave my hand to the him,
He said "Walk with me. I'll show you everything."

I shouldn't, but I love it when bad things happen to me,
I take it all, write some of it down, the rest is poetry,
Emotionally inept kingpin, you can find me laying drunk on some curb on some midnight lit avenue, pale skin, tongue blue, I've had too much fun, I don't remember how to breathe

Come to me for whatever you need, depression, anxiety, heartbreak, whatever the case may be,
I have empty suitcases for your baggage, I even have a couple empty coat hangers in my closet, next to the skeletons,
You could even plant a couple flowers in my garden, if you wanted

I'll set myself on fire just to see your eyes light up,
I wanna be your burden,
You can love me as much as you do on the comedown, on the come up, or not, that's up to you
I'll give you the drugs as long as you give me the love, I never knew our relationship could be so easily summed up

I have what you need and I've been waiting so anxiously for you to come along and ruin me,
Fit to be,
Meant to be,
*******, hanging from my neck like a rope,
Hanging from your necklace, a rose,
Tie it tight, suffocate me, use it like a noose,
At this point, I'm used,
Sadistic, full of it, a mess to be made and cleaned up,
A bone to be broke,
A memory to be forgotten and a grave to be dug up

Lonely lovely, I've been feeling so blue, I just want a taste of you,
I just want a taste of you

I just wanna hold you close, **** you dry, clean your blood, wash your wounds, I'm selfish, I just want too much of you

I want so badly the good but nothing good ever lasts and I want forever, so I'll be fine bad to the bone and lonely,
****** that you want me and me only, Worth a lot, but not worth any money,
I spend it all on flowers that'll die eventually,
Kisses sweet like honey,
A snake bite in snake skin, I'll feel it but only slowly, not enough to stop me

I'm eager but I'm weak,
I wanna smile but I have broken teeth,
I see everything, but only in my dreams,
I feel it all too much, to the point where sometimes it feels like I can hardly even think, like I can hardly even catch my breath, like it hurts to breathe,
Something to bring me to my knees,
I deserve this,
I wanna know what it's like to feel humiliated, to feel vulnerable in front of someone else,
I wanna drink cheap beers in the street and shower in sinks

I keep putting myself into situations I can't handle,
I can't talk to you without hurting you so I don't talk to you at all because hurting you is just something I can't handle

I don't want to be the one to cause damage because I've been damaged enough, I'm so tired, ******* exhausted, of hurting everyone else without even trying

I just want to be good for you and I can't be that right now, and I'm sorry

I remember when you asked me if I had ever wanted to be someone else and all I could think about was wanting to be the person you thought about when you fall asleep,
I'm *****, a greedy, selfish, fool,
To think that I was everything you ever wanted out of anybody, I kissed you softly, and I could tell no one ever treated you, that nicely

You flinched at the sight of my hands and you never finished your dinners,
You're gone now and I'd like to think I'm still bitter, just to prove to everyone around me that you didn't mean a single thing, but honestly, as much as I want to call you a nobody, a nothing, you taught me absolutely everything

You always slept with a night light on because you were afraid of the dark and what it had to offer,
I was never scared of anything, maybe that was my problem,
We never worked things out and I was just angry that when it came to yours, I could never solve them,
I was under the impression that in time it would get easier but all it got was harder

Your father was an honest man, and maybe that's why he left your mother,
Maybe you can't sleep at night because the ones who are after you, just want another, like you do,
I see you're badly broken, me too,
Let me be your caretaker, I can fix you, I've done a lot to the world and I owe everyone in her a favor or two

I guess I'm just over compensating for something you made me feel like I was always missing,
And now it's all in my head,
I can't think of anything else besides you when it's raining,
I remember you grabbed me and pulled me into it, but you made me think we were just playing,
We let it go further than either of us wanted but I guess that's just what we get for thinking it would stop the hurting,
Over everything else I just wish you would've listened to a single word I was saying

We used to load our bodies up like guns and unload our clips into each other, using our bodies for target practice every night, but we never seemed to hit each other's mark,
The sparks fly and the room catches fire, but we stay where we are

I tried to dip the world in gold but it was still so ugly and valueless to me, I should've never let you make me think you were the only thing my eyes could see,
Maybe I should just walk around naked, finally feel vulnerable in front of someone else besides just you and me

I didn't mean to ruin this,
I never really mean to ruin anything,
But I guess everyone has their hobbies

The moon is on fire,
The earth is on fire,
Her hair is on fire,
Her body, is on fire,
I wanna put it all out, but I can't touch her,
I can't kiss her anymore, I can't feel her anymore, I can't look at her anymore, because it hurts,
It all hurts,
We gave and we took and we loved and we broke

A quick bump up the nose, straight to hell and never looking back,
I wonder what it was that made her never look back,
Was it the ring slipped off her finger or was it the abuse that still lingered,
I leaned in quick to kiss her and I swear not a single force on earth could stop the trembling in her fingers

Eyes like a hawk,
Eyes blood shot,
Eyes with tears in the dark,
Eyes with locks,
Eyes that'll tear you apart,
She's seen some ****,
I just wanna know who it was that played the part,
Who shot the arrow, who turned the lights off,
Who didn't give a **** when a single **** was all she could've ever needed,
Who cut the circulation, who choked her enough to never let another breathe near her,
Who stole her

I've lived so uncomfortably, darling comfort me,
Comfort me,
Look at it in its face,
Stare at its eyes,
Smell it,
Taste it,
Love it,
Hate it,
Become everything it's afraid of,
Become everything it loves,
Be weary of it,
Embrace it,
Think about it,
Think less of it,
Trust it,
Never trust it,
Never **** it,
Never,
**** it

I'm exhausted,
My head is cloudier than the thunderstorms you made,
My teeth are yellow from pack after pack of cigarettes,
I'm exhausted,
My liver hates me more than my grandfather hated running out of alcohol,
I can't tell anyone that I love them,
Heaven forbid I trust anyone,
I can't stop apologizing,
I'm exhausted,
I can't keep my bandages on,
I can't clean my blood up,
I'm exhausted,
I'm never satisfied, I don't know how to be, and I so badly want to be tough


Come back to bed, you're thinking too much

If you can't find anything to live for then it's best you find something to die for,
When your best friend dies and your next friend dies and your best friend's friend takes his own life, what the **** do you have left? Who the **** are you supposed to turn to?

I feel alone no matter what all the time and I know I have some of the best friends in the world, but my mind has a certain way of telling me otherwise,
It backs me into a corner and looks me dead in the eyes,
It says I have no one, that I'm a nothing, surrounded by nobodies, ****** ****** Sabbath day, rip my head off and tell me everything will be okay, the blood will clean me, like it cleans everyone,
I am pouring myself out constantly and in return I am getting no one

I am alive because I am alive because I am afraid of it all,
I am not not afraid of dying, I am afraid of what comes after,
I met god and all she wanted to do was **** me to my favorite songs,
A puppet like me has to have strings attached, but I guess even when it comes to god I can't get a call back

5 cigarettes left, 4 bottles of jack, 3 secrets kept,
2 eyes,
1 mouth,
0 hearts,
Not mine, not anyone else's,
No room for myself, no room for anyone else

Bones made out of water wishing for nothing more than to be made of iron,
Daydream dying,
At the drop of a dime,
I feel like killing myself all the time,
I'll never understand or I won't understand until I'm older or somewhere in between

The idea was to drink until the pain had passed over, but all I got in the end was a bad headache and a hangover,
I push everyone away from me, especially the ones who seem to care the most, the ones who don't have a problem letting me breathe, see,
I give myself to the dangerous ones because they put me on the edge and the edge is the only place I'm used to anymore, the only place I feel free, and it's so ****** up,
To think that I'll never allow myself the experience of beauty, I'm too busy, letting the demons have their way me, yet still praying for the angels to save me,
I'm a fine tuned hypocrite,
Don't give a ****,
I'll cry about it even though I know I'm the one who did it

I can't help but run from consistency when it finds a home in me but it doesn't make any sense because change scares the absolutely **** out of me,
When I get this way, everything is so ******* scary,
Even I'm getting sick of saying I'm sorry, trust me

The visions clearer,
Unstoppable with nothing to lose like Julies Caesar,
She has all of her clothes off and all I know how to do is feel her, I've never learned anything else

I'm so ******* sick of writing poems about getting my heart broken,
I'm so ******* sick of writing poems about love at all,
But what the **** am I supposed to write about, if being broken is the only real thing I can feel,
It's such a viscous cycle, I'm such a viscous ******,
I keep dying for everyone but I'm no messiah, I have my own sins and I can't even save myself,
But you could beat me into a ****** pulp and I'd still worship you like the sun

I don't know what to live or die for, I just know that I'm dying

I can't be the only one

I'm still so ******* bitter about it and I can't relax, not even a little,
I wonder if this is what a toy feels like when its batteries run dry,
Getting pushed into fight or flight without any warning, without even having any wings to fly,
So anxious I'm throwing up the flowers you grew from your chest,
I picked every one of them with my mouth but maybe I should've just left them alone because everything will die in the end and now I know who's fault it is

I got hurt and I'm just trying to fix myself, please stay away from me, I'm no good and you're no better, I don't have a single grudge to take,
I'm going ******* manic, I'm setting my body on fire and eating the ashes,
I'm pulling my stomach apart and digging my own grave,
I'm hungry for blood and I'm vicious,
I'm sick and getting worse, even though my friends and family pray for the better, I don't wanna say too much, it's better that way

We have nothing better to do than break our hearts on each other,
We're lonely and hurt and this is all we need,
Mr. Hangman, go get your rope,
Protect your lovers, we are nothing but slippery slopes,
We can hug and lust and kiss and **** but once we love, it's all downhill from there,
I can feel this disease flowing through our hair and it feels like there's something in our mouths, like we're breathing it in through the air,
I can feel myself breathing you in and I'll keep doing it until my lungs collapse, nothing's fair

They say in heaven there's no husbands or wives,
And the day I show up to the gates I wonder how many of them will be surprised,
Just know I won't have a phone to call you but I'll do everything an angel possibly can to stop the hurting in your minds,
None of us deserve to die but then again not all of us really feel alive

So if I die before I wake, I pray my poetry says the things I can no longer say