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

Muster up the words, "I beg you."
Form some kind of apology, please
This isn't you and you know it
Your heart is too warm to treat someone so cold

The breezy winds flow through your hair just as well as they do your emotions and you're making her feel like a helpless feather with no other choice but to get blown away
Even a simple goodbye would be better than this
Trust me, I know closure isn't really your thing, but she deserves at least something
Anything would do this situation justice, just please talk to her

This isn't you, please snap out of it

I know you've been hurt too many times to count and you're looking everywhere for something or someone to fill your voids but do not use innocent hearts as vices, they don't work like that
Don't rob someone of their feelings just because you have a hard time coping with yours

I know sometimes certain situations and feelings can be interpreted differently, but don't kid yourself, you know exactly what you're doing and quite frankly it's making me sick

You aren't perfect and neither is she, but the least you could do is offer her a bandaid when she needs one instead of drinking her blood and leaving a mess for her to cleanup afterwards without even calling her back

All of this is running like a train through my head when I look into my mirror and see myself start to tear up
The bags under my eyes hold all of the emotions that I try my best not to let out

It should be easier than this
Maybe it really is easy, and I'm just not used to change
I'm not sure about a lot of the things that are happening in my life
However, I am sure that I need to stop becoming a bad memory to others

It keeps me awake at night to think about all of the wrong I've done
That there are people whose only memory of me is how I was the worst for them and I don't want that

To my past friends and lovers, I can't say sorry enough
To my present friends and lovers, please don't give up on me; you are the reason I'm still trying
To my future friends and lovers, I hope by the time we meet, I am nothing less than perfect to you

I'm not used to change, but I could get used to being a good memory

I am the sounding of your alarm
and the ringing of your bells

I am worth it, I am divine

I am the current that sweeps you away and the breeze that fills your mind

The sunlight casts a shadow on all of your wrongdoing; you are the most beautiful black sin

Forgive me not for my slumber, wake me not when you find me

Fill me with your benevolence, nurture me on your Earth
The surface is slick and clean, and I am the dirtiest of the sea

Forgive me not for my sins, I will be washed away in the end

I see you while you eat
I see you while you sleep
I will see you in every single one of your dreams

This life is a labyrinth for those of you who wish to be
What a shame it is to believe
I am every little thing you live, I am every little thing you breathe

I will be there when your curtain drops
I will be the only one you see

I didn't have breakfast that morning,
I was going to be late for class and I ran out of gas, so I figured I'd take the bus instead, I've never been a rich man, and what money I do get, I spend it on cigarettes and flowers for a love that doesn't even exist

Sweaty and tired, just like I spend every morning, I finally get to class only to find out it's been cancelled, typical,
I scrounge around my pockets and book bag to find some change to get a snack, I didn't eat last night either,
A woman next to me saw me staring and she offered to give me some change, but she walked away before I could get a name,
Hearing my stomach growl I quickly stick the money in the machine and wait for the energy bar to fall down, but it doesn't, it gets stuck, and I'm left there just staring at it, and thinking about it for a while, how upsetting it is to realize that this is what happens every time

See, it's funny because this **** happens all the time,
They always come along to save me and offer me some kind of change, and foolish, I fall for it, hoping maybe this time it'll be different, but it never is,
They always leave before I seem to even get their name, and they leave me with something that I just end up getting stuck on in the end, and it drives me crazy until I can't stand it anymore,
It's so fake, everything is so fake,
The glass is so transparent and it really makes me think that I won't fall for any of it anymore, but it never fails,
Like, this time will be different,
I know exactly who you are, and I know exactly what I'm getting myself into, but I'm always proven wrong,
Or you always stop halfway through it all and just seem to leave me hanging, literally, like a snack stuck in a vending machine

So I walk back to the bus stop that morning, tired, and hungry, and just wanting to be back home,
I know it's just an energy bar, and I know what happened isn't really that big of a deal, but like every other morning, I could've really used the energy

I mean maybe it's good I didn't get the energy, I'm too tired now of this happening over and over to give any of it any of my energy anymore, so I digress

Love will keep offering me change to get some energy out of a vending machine, and maybe one morning I'll finally get it

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

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

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

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

Cold sweats and shower heads leak into the seams of our worst fears and dreads,
Momma didn't raise no fool,
I'll be good as dead when they finally show

Relapse,
Relapse,
Relapse

I can feel it again,
The existential dread,
Crawling through my bones, out of my skin and into my head

My best friend is my wall,
I drink to numb the feeling,
She don't love me, but she loves my mom

Tonight we are leaving and we are never coming back the same way

Relapse,
Relapse,
Relapse

I've got a feeling,
A feeling of the cold and hazy blue,
I can feel you, I can feel you,
I've been thinking too much of you

Relax,
Relax,
Relax

I'll keep hitting it, I'll keep taking it in, willingly,
Because you asked me to

Your love of the yellow rose,
My cuts and the yellow thorns,
I'm torn and you don't feel it,
It's okay, I would never ask you to

If I could go back, if I could change anything,
I'd change the way you looked at me,
Only heaven knows the way I look at you

I've been dragging the lake for my friends,
I'll never find any because they're all dead

Relapse,
Relax,
Recompose,
Rot,
Decompose

I've been thinking too much of you

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

As you're walking, take time to stop and smell the flowers
I was a flower that kept growing every time you picked me
The unfortunate part is that you kept coming back to me knowing that I would always grow back for you
And I couldn't run away from you because I was stuck in the same soil I'm sitting in right now
I just hope for the day when the sun is able to shine on me and let me grow without me having to worry about you coming back to take me away again

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 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

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

I am the most comfortable when I am surrounded by flowers,
They are beautiful and I am not, so they are doing me a favor,

One day I will be laid to rest with an entire meadow watching over me,
and I will be the most content I could ever be,

I want to be surrounded by a crown of thorns, roses in every joint of my body,
I used to be so beautiful, I used to be so careless,

I am crucified without consent,
I am a twisted messiah stumbling over broken poetry and broken women,
Broken hearts and broken feelings,
I am living it up, do not try to ever convince me otherwise, it is **** near impossible,

I try so hard to convince myself that this is okay, and that everything is okay; that I am beautiful and that this is all happening for reasons I have yet to understand,
But it is ***** near impossible

Think hard, think often
Don't make me sad, just make me try
Don't make me cry, just make me catch my breath
A sorry sinner is nothing but a disappointment to a praying priest, regardless of how hard you try to convince yourself otherwise

The dog days of summer draw heat from the burning sunflowers putting forth freakishly light fragments of a long gone but not forgotten dark alley way in the back of a decomposing poet's mind
Thought of a thousand times, but not remembered nearly as often as it should be
From whiskey saturated journal pages in the back of a city bus to a bouquet of roses delivered from lovers to their others, heartbreak is a beautifully tragic masterpiece that deserves the utmost respect even when being respectful is the last thing you want to be

Trust me, living is truly not believing until you've lived to tell about your beliefs without a crack in your voice
If I put this pen down, I will never get the strength to pick it back up again
If there is beauty in floating up, there is beauty in crashing back down
I just hope my forgetfulness never reminds me of the time I felt whole, I may never get the chance to write again
But my god, what I would give to not feel everything crumbling down all at once

I would die a thousand times if I were promised that emotions and feelings were never ending, I wish to feel everything all at once all the time; it gives me reassurance that I am alive
I wish to live forever
I wish to suffer
I do not love it, however I do need it
I want to feel until I no longer can feel at all
Let it be known that I will live forever in these writings
I have said all that I need to say
And when I am laying in my death bed, I will shout, "Last words are for fools who haven't said enough"

Lackluster serenade
Pick me up and lay me into your abundance

I wish I may, I wish I might
For the moon to collapse and the stars to collide
Your hair is soft and silky
Like fresh cut grass in the summer of '97

11pm, sing me to sleep with your soft, sweet melodies

I am caught between a rock and a hard place
Yet I wish to be caught between your lips
Oh my, your soft, sweet lips

Do not mind me, I must have slipped
Do not remind me, give me no tips
This is a struggle, I do not fit

I am wrong and you are right
I wish I may, I wish I might

Cherries and wine, you are mine
Intoxicate me, you are so fine

Destroy me with your every grasp, take every one of my last breaths

"I never mattered, we never mattered
It all ends in death"

Said the wolf to the lamb
*"We all are next"

June 1st, 1997
You come out in what feels like a blaze of glory,
There is what seems to be the sun above you,
There is what feels to be the ground beneath you,
Everything is loud and bright, and you're screaming as loud as you possibly can, because there is nothing that will stop you

October 20th, 2001
Your big sister asks you what you want to be for Halloween this year,
You exclaim loud and boldly, "Daddy!"
You see him as a hero,
A man that can do literally anything and everything,
You put your blanket on your back and run around, pretending that you are daddy and not even superman can stop you
You scream as loud as you can because there is nothing that will stop you

November 15th, 2003
You're used to mommy and daddy clapping at each other, but this time is different,
You hear mommy yelling at daddy,
You distinctly hear her scream, "Your children need you more than I do, please do this for them, at the very least!"
You see daddy walk out of the front door with a few bags in his hands,
She kept screaming it as loud as she could, but nothing could stop him

June 1st, 2010
Your father has been vacant from your life for years, and you've gotten passed the idea by now,
Your mother still cries herself to sleep,
The amount of times she told you that she'd never be able to find a man like your father almost outweighs the amount of times you wish you had the chance to see him again,
Maybe to say hello, or maybe to scream at him
No amount of screaming will stop someone, but it especially won't stop your father,
You know this,
He at least could come to see her when she's back in there,
When she's hooked up to all of those machines that are pumping her full of the life she didn't even want at that point because all of the life she once had was taken away when your father left,
I hope he's happy with her

May 22nd, 2012
Your mother is getting bad again and your father is too busy away on a honeymoon with the woman he left your mother for,
The doctors don't really have anything great to say, other than, "We're doing the best we can, we know she'll beat it, we just know it."

January 18th, 2014
Your father hasn't talked to your mother since her first hospital visit,
Your mother is in stage 4 of cancer, and no amount of screaming will make your father come back, and no amount of screaming will stop the cancer from taking what little is left of your mother

June 1st, 2016
This is your first birthday without your mother,
You're hanging pictures of her in your new apartment,
Your father calls you, but no amount of screaming at him will make you feel justified,
This is not his fault, but the least he could've done was be there for his children, you never needed him as much as your mother did, but he still could've at least been there

September 30th, 2016
You wake up in what feels like a blaze of glory,
The sun is above you,
The ground is beneath you,
Your father calls,
He asks if you want to get breakfast,

He spends the next hour and a half screaming to you about how sorry he is, about how it was his fault, that he should've been there when you all needed him,
But no amount of screaming will change this

No amount of screaming has ever stopped anything

I am awake at midnight every night picking feathers from the wings of all the angels I have stolen,
I am being unhinged by the minute,
I am let loose, I am livid,
I am the Christ conscious abandoned,
I am losing time and I am losing friends

The ends of the earth are making a home in my garden and the molten flowers are seeping into my veins and will soon make me combust so I need to say what I need to say and make it quick before I run out of time

"We can no longer go on like this"
She is screaming at him and he is hearing nothing besides the rustling of the wind at his window

I am speeding down the highway with three cigarettes smoked one after the other and turning up my radio so loud that God is speaking to me through heaven's  radio waves

WE WILL GET THERE AND WE WILL SUFFER,
WE WILL GET THERE AND WE WILL SUFFER

Sulfur and cyanide and angel dust and complexes,
I am a ******* lunatic and I am being strung out over coffee tables and bathroom stalls,
I am a thread being pulled into hell,
I am unraveling before the ones who came before me and I am giving them hell,
I am finally understanding the difference between letting go and holding too close,
My bones yearn for something stronger than themselves,
I am absolutely destroying myself but I would not want this any other way, I can promise you that

A poet writes about wanting to escape to a world that's less crowded than his head,
A painter paints visions of a world he wishes he could own but will never get the chance to

Bukowski wrote about people finally looking like flowers at last but never was able to see the beauty in himself,
Van Gogh painted flowers that are now in museums but he used that same paint to try to poison himself

I am staying up until the sun comes out because I am no longer comfortable in the daylight

I am not killing myself, but I am suffering

This is a way of coping

This is a way of coping

It is like a ****** of crows flying to a corpse to eat their dinner,
They feast on sadness and heartbreak and they need to get their money's worth while they still can, I get that,
What hurts the most is that it is inevitable that they will come,
Regardless of anything, the crows will come and they will pick apart the bones as if the bones never belonged to anyone or anything before they arrived,
It's a cruel world and I guess things just have to be this way

"You just don't have to be so ******* soft about everything!"
He's screaming at her for the fifth time this week because she's decided that being alone is a hell of a lot scarier than being with someone who hurts you, even if they hurt you a lot

It is not my fault that I am like this,
It is not my fault that I am not hefty enough to hold this weight,
It is not my fault that fires start in my bones and heat my mind up so much that it starts to overheat and stop working,
It is not my fault that I stopped working,
It is not my fault that I cannot forgive myself for the things I did not do

A ****** of crows fly together and create a black cloud of desperation,
It's been a few weeks since I haven't seen any clouds and I've gotten drunk more times than I can count and I've smoked more cigarettes than there are trees,
I'm so sorry but they are gutting me from head to toe, the crows, the crows are eating everything I've made for myself up to this point like it's some kind of ******* waste,
Like everything I've made of myself from then until now, wiped out like it never happened,
Progress completely lost,
All sense of accomplishment gone,
This always happens

I'm sick and tired of telling myself that it isn't okay to tell myself that I love myself,
I'm hanging on here by the skin of my teeth and the tar in my lungs and it's lonely here, it's really, really lonely here

I say sorry a lot, but I'm not sorry about this, this, I'm so ******* sick of this,
I want this to go away,
I want them to go away,
The crows,
I want them to go away

I'm getting through this whether I want to or not, with or without anyone's help, I just have to keep reminding myself that these crows will never pick all of the meat away but they sure as hell will get as much as they can while they still have the chance

I should do the same

19.
You cut it open and let it fill the gaps with your blood,
You're exhausted,
The clouds in your head do everything they can to stick around, you wish people would do the same,
You are not surprised anymore,
You destroy yourself to get a taste of the bad because you've had the good and it just doesn't give you the high you crave anymore and you hate it but you can't stop,
You can't stop,
You're lighting fires, starting riots, you even take as many pills as you possibly can but none of this will make you feel anything and you're left feeling as empty as you did when you came into this,
Have you ever looked at yourself? I suggest you don't

18.
There are cigarettes on your breath,
Your eyes have bags under them that could hold the world and then some,
People come and go now, and you care a little bit, but not enough to do anything about it,
You got your license over the summer, the highways around here know you better than your family does at this point and you think you like that,
You think if you run away far enough from all of this that it'll go away,
You make yourself as busy as you possibly can in hopes that it will take your mind off of all of this,
You still think about her every day, but she doesn't think about you anymore, you don't do anything about this,
It's getting cloudy again,
You don't sleep as much anymore

17.
You get upset because you care more than they do, but you don't say anything,
You start to wear colors again because black just doesn't make you feel as pretty,
You want to feel pretty because they're  pretty and they deserve someone just as pretty,
Your demons aren't as ugly as hers, and you fight hers off to make it look like yours are as weak as your grandfather's spine, she doesn't buy it

16.
You lose your virginity,
You feel powerful,
You feel broken, but you feel powerful,
Everything hurts all of the time but you don't want to realize it because you're in love and being in love is powerful,
You watch her smoke cigarettes,
You smoke her cigarettes,
You break yourself on her because it is the first and last time you will ever feel like you're able to pick yourself back up when heartbreak pushes you down,
Your parents don't believe you're depressed,
You don't eat as much,
You can't sleep like you used to be able to, it hurts you,
Your best friend tells you that the only reason you're so sad all of the time is because you don't believe in God

16.
You start to believe in a god and you start to believe in yourself but you forget the difference

16.
You get high for the first time and you realize why addicts choose to live in their worlds instead of ours

16.
You wake up and you feel nothing

16.
You wake up and you feel nothing

15.
You try homeschool this year because your private Christian elementary school never prepared you for public high school and they force you so far into the ground that being a corpse sounds better than being a flower in the soil, you believe every word they tell you,
You isolate yourself,
You listen to extremely depressing music and you like it,
You start to wear all black,
You feel alone no matter how many people are around you,
You throw yourself into the snow on a cold December morning because at this point you just want to feel something, anything,
Your parents don't agree with you,
Your mother tells you to pray and your father doesn't even listen to you,
Your mother gets breast cancer this year,
You ask yourself how the anxiety is still letting you think for yourself since you realize something so deadly can spread so rapidly

14.
Your uncle takes his own life,
This is the first time you really think about death,
You wonder what it would be like to be like them,
To wake up and never feel anything ever again, and you kind of like it,
That cute girl you really like smiles at you in the hallway now, you've been at her for months,
It's funny how young love starts to take roots,
Everything is fine now

13.
Moving schools is hard, this is the first experience you have with losing friendships,
It's crazy how often they come and go now

12.
You can't even remember the last time you didn't get more than 8 hours of sleep,
Your dog is your best friend,
You don't even think about the color black, your favorite color is red like fire

11.
Your best friend's father kills her mother and then himself,
You wonder what it's like,
How wonderful it would be to make someone stay forever and never be able to leave  

10.
Your grandmother is alive,
She has a funny smell around her whenever you visit her,
There's this weird stick in her mouth that looks like it's on fire,
You don't like it

9.

8.

7.

6.
You can name every single kind of dinosaur that ever existed and you love hot wheels,
Your favorite food is peanut butter and jelly, but you only eat it if your mother makes it

5.

4.
Your grandmother loves to buy you toys,
She tells you that the memories are worth more than the money,
You remember this specifically

3.

2.
Your second birthday party includes a ball pit, hundreds of balloons, and all of your family members,
I wonder if this is what my funeral will be like

1.


0.
Your mother and father meet with the doctor again,
You're on your way and they've never felt more excited in their lives


I wonder if they ever wondered about how their little boy would grow up,
I wonder if they ever thought about how I would turn out,
I wonder if they ever wondered about everything that would happen to me

It's funny how everything someone experiences in their lives molds them into what they become,
Out of everything, I wonder what it was that made me so numb

Sometimes life feels slow,
Other times it feels like it's going a million miles an hour

Sometimes it feels like I'm living in dog years because I've seen too much to be this young

They lick their lips to the sight of my downfall,
The sinner, the saint,
The meaning's the same,
We can't get away from meaningless things and we spend our days just wasting away

Make love,
******* take drugs,
******* hate love,
For all we know we're gonna die young, so let's get ****** up until we're all numb

The venom is watching your every move and it is licking its lips just waiting to get a taste of your bloodstream,
Headstrong paradox,
Chatterbox chatterbox,
You love to talk **** yet you hate to live it,
I'd hate to see the way your neck pivots when those vulture eyes give your weary veins a place to rest,
Lie with them and die like the rest, get a glimpse of what ever after looks like,
We're all sick here, get used to it

If the devil's in the details then consider me satanic, I make my way into every crack and crease and turn your nights into days,
Angels weep for us,
The demons sweep us up and dump us out into the cold and empty roads and tell us to fend for ourselves,
So we spend more time driving aimlessly with the radio waves set on heaven than we do with our friends and family

When she died she took bits and pieces of us,
They're stuck on spiderwebs and bad intentions and they're not ever coming back,
We're not ever coming back,
But we love this,
We live for this,
We would be nothing without this,
I'd sell my soul if it were worth anything, trust me,
I kept myself away but I'm starting to like the pain

I met God and He shook his head at me,
I met the Devil and He handed me a bouquet of flowers,
Maybe I can grow my own garden of Eden using them and maybe this time we'll keep the apples out of it

Until the day comes when I feel I belong,
I'll keep singing the serpent's song,
I'll keep singing along,
I'll keep the covenant ****** and I'll set my pages on fire,
I'll keep pretending this matters and that I'm not just wasting away,
It's hard not to feel any other way

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.

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

Round and round on a mary go round
This is just simple child's play
There's only a slight chance that the grass is greener on the other side

When you come around
You are smiling so hard
And joy is manifesting the air around you

Growing up will never seem real
Just like when we were walking through the park the other day and you looked up at me
I saw you ten years ago on that swing set
I remember asking if you wanted to get ice cream with me because it was such a hot day
I was young and didn't know better

Our bills are late and we are scrounging
Living check to check was something you thought you would stop doing after moving out of your mother's house

I remember the first time I took you out to dinner
You refused to let me pay for you
and then when I went to hold your hand you flenched
because the last man that grabbed your hand was your stepfather
and he wasn't doing it to comfort you like I was

Days turned to nights and your tears never seemed to go away
I couldn't stop apologizing and telling you that it was all my fault

I am so sorry that I could not give you more

I remember seeing your face as it went through the window
My knees were stuck under the steering wheel and I couldn't move my neck, but I still saw that iconic glimmer in your eye
Tragedy is beautifully terrifying
Only good will come from this

We seemed to fight through it all, why give it all up now?
We were just starting to find our way out of the labyrinth, and I hadn't smoked one single cigarette in three months

Five months after that I see you and your new lover at the same park we used to take walks in
I am writing this in shambles at 3am in my apartment
I am on my fifth cigarette

We were like peas and carrots, but I was not sweet enough
I was always pushing for us
You never stopped giving up

There is beauty in pessimism just like there is beauty in the sun
The moon is as optimistic as the stars; maybe, just maybe we will see the sun rise

"Good morning sun, you are shining awfully bright today
Hello sunflower, you are looking breathtaking this morning
How are you, bonsai? You are looking so strong and sturdy!"

The sun sweeps over the hills and I sit for a moment and realize I have forgotten something

"Oh heavens, I have forgotten you"

"My dear rose, my sweet stone.
My muse and my flame.
I am so sorry I have forgotten you.
You are looking beautiful as ever this morning."

My eyes start to wash over with emotions I thought I had long forgotten

"My rose, my lovely blossom, you are shining like sequence on this lovely day."

I pace three or four times, I don't remember, maybe five

Hello sunset, you are so bright
Hello future, you are so light
Goodbye past, you are so hazy
Hello self, you are long gone

It has been three months, maybe four, I don't remember

"Father, happy birthday, we love you!
Mother is looking down on you and she is smiling so bright!"

"Hello, thank you.. Who are you?"

"Rose, there is someone here for us."

"Father, it's me, your son. I'm your son. I'm here to celebrate your birthday! D.. Don't you remember?"

"Rose, hurry, you don't want this young man to drink cold tea now, do you?"

With tears in my eyes I am viewing all of this through a kaleidoscope of forgetfulness I thought I would never have to remember

I remember hospital beds and sleepy eyelids just wishing to rest for a few minutes

A daughter lights a candle for her father and he immediately remembers the fire he saw

He screams and shouts as she is crying

"Father, father, please stop!
Everything is okay!
Everything will be okay!
We are okay!"*

If memory serves right, the sun is only as bright as I want it to be
I don't remember the last time I remembered
I am merely a helpless seed lost in the wind of this storm
and I cannot find my way back home

Now that I think about it, I don't even remember what home is

To the children who only find solace in ****** knuckles and broken toes
The pill is a hard one to swallow, especially if you're swallowing an entire bottle of them
It takes the earth 365 days to orbit the sun but it only takes you one second to love yourself if you try hard enough

Your friends and your family love you more than this, trust me
Your problems are insignificant above everything else and I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm preaching as I'm saying all of this
Just take it from another who had the same mindset
You will find peace in suffering just like you have found peace in past happiness
Be grateful that you have a heart to feel everything that happens to you, just please don't convince yourself that you would take being dead over trying to make something of your ruins
With disaster comes beauty and we are all disasters doing our best to become beautiful once more, we will get there one day if we work hard enough

To the ashes of half smoked cigarettes and to the ashes of broken relationships
Fire will burn down anything if you let it consume you enough
I am so sorry you are suffering
I am so sorry you are feeling this way
But the end of the rope or the tip of a bullet has not a ******* thing on what your life will give you
It may seem like hell now but heaven is just over the hill and if the view of rainbows and the sound of chirping birds won't convince you that there is a calm after the storm, you will never experience the calm before it

No, it isn't easy
But it isn't hard
Give yourself to your angels and let go of your demons, this is not their battle to fight

DO NOT LET YOURSELF SLIP
YOU ARE RESISTANT AND YOU ARE EVERLASTING
YOU HAVE NOT BEEN STOPPED YET, THEREFORE YOU WILL NOT BE STOPPED AT ALL

Therapy isn't pretty and neither is sadness, but the dirt must be dug up before the flowers can be planted
You aren't crazy for thinking about what you think about, please never forget that
It isn't about maintaining normal thoughts, it's about letting it all out
If we never let anything out, we'd explode, and it's better to bleed than to ignore being hurt
It's best to let your wounds bleed and heal than to let your bandaids become ***** and infected

I'd rather send a get well card than a funeral invitation
I'd rather see you in a hospital bed than a casket
I'd rather say, "We will get through this together. I love you so much. This fight isn't over." than say, "He was such a strong person. I'll never forget him."

What I'm trying to make you understand is that life will throw you into vines and thorns and leave you out of breath and cut to shreds, but the sunlight isn't just a dream and happiness isn't just a figment of your imagination
Things will become problematic and ugly, but muscles must be torn apart and bruised to grow back stronger

Build a bridge between your sadness and your happiness, and as you cross it, admire it all
It's all here for a reason, just like you are

Do whatever it takes, but whatever you do, just do not give up

I find myself going 95 on the interstate,
I find myself weaving in and out and in and out of traffic,
I find myself feeling almost as untouchable as I felt when I was with you -- almost

Untouchable,
I always loved the way you made me feel untouchable,
You always loved the way he made you feel touchable,
For the first time in a long time there was a man in your life who wouldn't hesitate to be everything you needed,
The sad part is that you thought you needed him,
The man, the one three times your age, who made you feel worth something, the man who gave you feeling,
The one who abused you for years, making you feel touchable all over the place,
Is not a man at all, I promise,
We don't call animals like that men

You were a beautifully broken masterpiece and all I did when trying to pick up your pieces was cut myself,
The taste of my blood was never as bitter as the cheap wine you snuck from your father's fridge,
Thinking maybe if you got drunk enough, you wouldn't hear the voices or feel them coming for your neck,
Thinking maybe, just maybe, the alcohol would fill your bloodstream so full that you would fall asleep and never wake up again, because every morning when you woke up, you saw him,
You woke up with his arms and hands all over you, and he wouldn't let go

For months you crawled over and under my skin, picking at each scrape and scar, trying to find a reason why everything was the way that it was, but you never found it

Much like our love, you never found it,
Like your head, you never found it,
Like them, you never found them,
Like me, you never found me, even though I was looking right at you the entire time

Like them, they'll find me in an explosion of fire, flipping my car down the interstate, weaving in and out and in and out of traffic, taking everyone and everything down with me

The feeling of a rush I used to get just by waiting to pick you up from your house, to the crash I feel when I'm coming down in my room,
The difference between **** and you is that when I breathe the smoke in, it hurts a hell of a lot less than your carbon dioxide ever did

You took everyone and everything down with you,
You taught me to do the same, I learned this all from you

For the first time in a long time, I do not miss you

You called, I answered
You said it's too late, that you're already too far gone and that the doctors have nothing left
Four months tops, five if we're lucky
You started to cry and I could still hear the fire in your voice spark up
You said "the reaper has his grip on me and it seems like he isn't going to let go this time. Please don't forget about me and what you promised me."
I responded with a deep breath and a muffled cry
"I'll never forget. I'll never forget."

Every time I walk by the picture of us on my shelf, I can still feel your fire burn on inside of me
It's been four whole years, and I still haven't broken that promise
I still make your favorite dinner on Tuesday nights
Spaghetti with just a little too much parmesan
You used to say that the noodles looked funny and that they needed to be extra cheesy because I was a noodle and I was always so cheesy to you, I loved that
I still go to your favorite book store on the corner, hoping to find you living on in a book somewhere
You used to love books and it seemed like they loved you just as much
Whenever you were in a bad mood you'd crawl into our bed and get lost in your own little fantasy
You used to buy a fresh bouquet of flowers every Monday afternoon
You said that flowers were beautiful and Monday's weren't, so you were doing us a favor
You used to love watching shows about aliens and UFOs, you always told me that you knew there was life outside of our own, and that they were lucky they weren't living on Earth
"We know hell as if it is our heaven" you told me
Nothing ever stuck out to me like that did

I still remember holding your broken eyes on my shoulders
I remember hearing you scream and cry at me as you clawed at your neck, trying to make me realize that you felt like someone or something was choking you
You used to tell me that they were after you
You used to grow silent and just cry and cry
I remember the night you told me you loved me
You were scared because your life was weighed down by all of your problems and you didn't want me to get discouraged; that your problems were nothing compared to me and that I seemed to be your best medicine
I didn't care
You were beautiful to me and I still loved you in that moment, just as I do right now

I hope wherever you are has spaghetti with parmesan on Tuesday nights
I hope wherever you are has so many books that it would take you the rest of eternity to read them all
I hope wherever you are has flowers on Monday afternoons
I hope wherever you are has aliens, you deserve to be with the ones you seemed to fit in the best with
I hope wherever you are seems like heaven
I hope wherever you are is safe
I hope wherever you are is away from the ones who were after you
I hope wherever you are loves you as much as I do

I hope wherever you are, you're able to look down on me and smile
I hope wherever you are, you're able to see that I still haven't broken that promise

I promised that I wouldn't let the reaper get me, and if I did, I'd fight him off
I lost you to him but he will never get me

I miss you and I can't wait to meet you again

Forever onward,
I love you

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

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?

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

People change,
Feelings fade,
Lovers drift,
Friends leave,
Friends become enemies,
Lovers become strangers

It is up to you if you want to buy a ticket and take the ride or watch from the sidelines,
I haven't been home in a week,
My best friend snorts lines even though his pulse is already weak,
Brothers will look at their older sisters for a peak,
Mothers will leave fathers because they tweak

I do not blink

It is midnight now and I will get kicked out of this bar at half passed three because some ******* will try to spike some innocent girl's drink and I do not choose to stand for it

Yes, I bought this ticket,
Yes, I chose to ride with this,
Will you ride with me or will you take nothing seriously,
Seriously, this is getting old and I need a break,
The Earth is ******* and we will leave as soon as this is over,
He is ******* and he will leave as soon as it is over,
The second she looks over her shoulder she will become broken,
The second he looks down on her, he will forget her name

Yes, it is midnight now and the world will cease,
Yes, it is midnight now and I cannot breathe

Too little torment for those who deserve it,
Too much torment for those who never asked for it

You, never asked for it,
He, never asked for it,
She, never asked for it,
We, we never asked for it

However we bought the ticket and we are taking the ride,
None of this will stop for as long as we can handle it,
And when the time comes when none of us can handle this,
We will end it

Here, drink this,
Here, smoke this,
Here is my heart, I want you to break it until I can no longer feel it

This is all a warzone and we will bleed this until we can no longer feel it

In conclusion,
Will you wait,
Or will you buy the ticket

Invest,
Reinvent,
Pull back,
Pull back,
Pull back,

Unzip the baggy of needles and inject yourself with sunshine,
Steal the knives out of the backs of your enemies and put them in your collection of memories you aren't too fond of but need to have so you stay grounded,
Stay grounded,
Laying on the floor dripping in blood, fighting your own head to understand why you feel like this

I love you so much that it hurts my head,
I let the bad parts in, I forget the good parts exist,
It's hard to exist when you're in a fistfight with your bedroom walls, like you're fighting something that will never fight back,
I'm fighting for you and you will never fight back, but I cannot stop,
I must fight and fight and fight until my knuckles are numb, I will drown for you,
I will climb every tree to reach for you,
I will dig deep into the graves of your worst fears to fight off the demons that haunt you,
I just wish you did the same for me

All of this is a grieving process,
In the sense that I am dying for everything and everything is looking at me and never talking to me,
Never giving me the attention,
Never giving me the satisfaction I so desperately need,
I cannot function,

I AM LIVING, I AM LOVING
I AM LIVING, I AM LOVING
I AM LIVING, I AM LOVING

I am INSEPARABLE
WHY AM I LIKE THIS
Why do I worry,
Why do I care,
WHAT IS HOLDING ME BACK

It hurts to have to be honest with the ones that you love,
It hurts to give and not receive,
It hurts to look at you,
It hurts to feel like this,

Everything is hurting all of the time and everything is looking at me and everything is laughing and everything is spitting at my face

I just want to believe
I just want to see you fight
I just want you to want me, *******, is that so hard to ask

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

I love you so much
Do me a favor, baby, don't reply
I can dish it out, but I can't take it
I've been trained to love and love and love, but never allow myself to take love back in return
I've been so used to loving and hating at the same time that I can't imagine a world where loving someone else and myself at the same time is possible
I'm so used to carrying everything and everyone on my shoulders, even if I'm not trying to and they don't want me to
It's all I'm used to, what else could you expect me to do
Hot or cold, rain or snow, I am not a seasonal soul
I love you so much, I can dish it out, but I can't take it
Slow, fast, all at once, I find myself on the edge of your seat, and without a second thought, I am dying for you so you won't have to
I give myself the power to carry you, so much that I don't even want to plug myself in
My batteries could run out and I would still run to the ends of the earth for you
This is dangerous and I am reckless, you don't need to tell me twice, I'm an absolute lunatic
However when it comes to you, everything makes sense
I want to change and I want to be different for you
I'll do anything, just give me the go ahead
I can dish it out, but I want to take it

Live freely
Love wildly
Be lawless
Spit in the face of your enemies
Light a match and swallow the flame
Believe in yourself
Believe in a god
Forget the difference
Relive the war
Ride with all of the windows down
Embrace your identity
Become one with sincerity
Befriend strangers
Party until you drop
Wake up in the morning and regret nothing
Live fast
Die young
Die fast
Live forever
This is real
It always has been
Inevitable
Inexcusable
Unbearable
Free
Clap your hands
Applaud those around you for making it this far
You are beautiful
You are worth it
You are living
You are perfect
Stay awake to see the sunrise
Smoke a cigarette for the moon
Take a shot to see the stars
Forgive
Do not forget
You have made it this far
This is not the end
But a wonderful beginning
Watch as the lights go out
Watch as the crowd all shouts

*If we live forever, we will suffer
If we live forever, we will suffer

Dripping in adolescence,
Breaking ourselves to get a gist of what putting ourselves back together has the power to feel like,
Late nights spent making horrible decisions to wake up in the morning and recover what little energy we have left,

It is not me, it is you
It is not we, it is us

Surrounded by hot sweaty bodies collecting cold sweat in jars so we have something to hydrate our obsession with confidence with,
Feeding off positive energy to form some sort of understanding of what pessimism takes to the battlefield every day,
In every way, this is everything we tell ourselves not to get into, yet do anyway,

Giving ourselves to the wrongdoers to see how much of a tolerance we have built up,
Searching the cracks of innocent bodies trying to find the answer to all of the promises broken on us,
Coming up with excuses so we don't have to apologize for being the lesser man,
Ruining our shoes by walking on the mud of teenage heartbreak,
Driving as far away as possible and hoping that our problems won't catch up to us,

We are dangerous, but we wouldn't change a ******* thing
We are always late, but we wouldn't miss any of this for the world
Broken, but not recovering because we love the feeling of knowing we still have the strength to help ourselves if we have to,

We are finding space where there is none,
We are loud when it is all silent,
We are never ending where the ends meet,
Lost in the static of this electrifying atmosphere we call our youth,

Look how high we're jumping from

Not dying, but getting there,
We wouldn't change a thing,
We are loving every minute of it

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

You only tell me you love me when your words are slurred and your breath smells like liquor
I could really use it though, I haven't been loved in forever
I need one more taste and one more flame to spark the iron in my bones

Even with my eyes open, fever dreams will find their way
I can feel you with my eyes closed, laying in your tangles
This isn't what I meant when I told you I wanted more
I was asking for novocaine; something to numb everything around me
What I got were feelings that tore me apart, those feelings never even laid a finger on you
I wish I never laid a finger on you

You're never around unless it's convenient
I'm never around because I can't seem to find my confidence
I just want some kind of closure, some kind of answer
You come and go and I can't tell if I want to tie a rope around you and go into the storm with you or if I'm better off cutting the strings

I know you're everything that's bad for me but
I've been so good recently, maybe I need to decay a little
A little sip or a small puff, all in the name of love
Because love is disgusting and twisted and drunk and misleading and--
No, this isn't love

This is a broken person trying to mend by finding comfort in discomfort
A broken person hoping to find somewhere else that's more uncomfortable than their skin, somewhere that they feel they would fit in well enough to convince themselves that their soul isn't too ***** to be cleansed

I sold myself to you and now there's no going back
You destroyed the receipt with good intentions but bad situations
I know we both want this but I really don't think we're doing this right, or at least I'm not
Maybe you don't really want this, I mean, you say you do, but I always had a bad feeling about honesty this deep
I laid it all out for you with a heart you could keep
But you're hiding it away from everyone else and not letting anyone see
I just don't know about you
No, I know everything about you, my mind just has a way of putting things that makes everything seem ugly

I'm sorry about this
I'm sorry about me
I don't want you to feel this feeling
You need what's best for you and I can't help but tell myself I'm not what you're looking for
I can't help but tell myself I don't need help

Please help me
I want you but not myself
I'll try my best I swear, as long as you let me kiss your neck and play with your hair

*TO THE ONE I ADORE, FOREVER AND EVERMORE

I'm always talking in circles,
I always think until I can't sleep,
I'm always breaking myself on other people just to feel something,
This hurts more than everything but I'm starting to like the pain

I love to hate love and I'm destroying myself in these pages now,
Maybe if I tear myself apart no one else will get the chance to,
I love to feel full,
I think I'm making myself empty just so I have the chance to feel full,
Maybe I'm sick and this is all just a sorry excuse

Either way I'm a ****** up head in a sea of debt swimming to a shore that will never exist and I'm slowly realizing this,
I understand that I someday will die by this and afterwards they will cry for me,
Show no pity, I never wanted it,
Just light a cigarette and lay it on my grave,
Even the dead need their vices

I make myself decide over a bullet and a jacket,
If I take the jacket I'll get shot but I'll die warm,
If I take the bullet I'll be safe but I'll die freezing,
I'd rather be the sun than the moon,
I'd rather be bright and loved than cold and alone,
I'm dependent on the thought of dependency,
My body aches because it will never be independent,
Really I smoke cigarettes because it's nice to feel wanted,
Smoke in my lungs feels better than smoke in my heart,
Tar in my chest feels better than tar in my head,
I'm sorry

Rigor mortis,
This is predestined combustion,
This is feeling lustful,
This is feeling reckless when the Devil's at your doorstep,
This is getting eight hours of sleep seven days a week and still feeling restless,
This is the train that's gonna lead you out of this but this is the train ticket you wish you had,
This is forever,
This is the dead dandelion in the summer,
This is the wisp you blow into the ears of gods to make a wish,
This is feeling hopeful among the hopeless and forgetting what hope is,
Rigor mortis

This is forever, whether or not the sun shines

This is forever, whether or not the bandages are ripped off

This is forever, regardless

Spiraling drastically in a kamikaze daydream,
Beatles crawling up my neck,
The needle crawling across a Beatles record,
They were your favorite,
For the record, I've never felt so hollow

I just need to let it go,
I just need to let it snow,
******* white, ghostly shadow,
Trust me, you'd never want to know,

Nothing without a struggle,
Everything with a broken backbone,
Hearing your voice for the first time in months was more comforting than anything,
You were so powerful, you could do anything

Good evening,
Miss Misery,
I've come knocking on your door again,
You were and always will be the only thing most comforting,

Like a broken record,
I miss you,
I miss you,
I miss you,

Cracks and creases hold no scars,
Foggy windows on cold winter nights hold no bars,
But what do I know?
All I am is chasing cars

You never ran me over,
You went right through me

You can't **** what's already dead,
In other words,
We didn't lasted long

When your momma tells you she loves you, say it back

Stay distanced from your family as much as you feel you need to, but don't cut yourself out completely

Your grades are not as important as they're all making them out to be, don't be afraid to care for yourself as much as you need to

Listen to your music loud and be forgiving, but not forgetful

Believe in yourself even though you can't believe in a god

Stop forcing yourself to go to your parent's church just to make your parents happy, being around a group of people so toxic is a lot to handle and you deserve better

When you start going to parties,
Don't let go of them so easily,  no matter how many drugs they are on, they will be some of the best people you will ever meet, do not take them for granted

When you walk by flowers, smell them, you have no idea how much they will mean to you one day

Eat your favorite meal as often as you want to,
Eat chocolate at any time of the day,
Just ******* eat something, anything

When she tells you she loves you, do not listen to her,
Do not listen to her friends,
Do not listen to a word she says,
Listen to yourself, you will be stronger than this one day

And

When this new girl talks about Brand New for the first time, just start crying, you'll need a good head start,
And when she takes you to see them live, hold her tight, even though you don't know this will be one of the last times you'll be able to look her in the eyes,
And when she chooses to go, don't run after her, as much as you want to, it's better this way, for the both of you

Recognize when you're getting bad again, it's dangerous when you don't, and you'll find that out soon

You will find people to kiss the scars, I promise you,
In the mean time just don't stop loving,
I know it's hard to love anything and I know it's hard to not hate it all and I know it's hard to stop your fast heart beat and I know anxiety is becoming a storm but listen to me carefully

Romanticize yourself,
You haven't felt loved in a long time and I can tell,
That there's more to this than those sleepless nights,
That there's more to this than the look of fear in your family's eyes

And when the time comes,
Do not try to **** yourself, even though I know at this point you've thought about it so many times

You are perfect,
There is more to this,
You are perfect,
There is more to this

And you are the strongest person I've ever met in my entire life, and you've seen a lot, but don't let any of that **** you

You're more than that,
And when you read this, take it to heart,
It'll help you out a lot

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

Everything that made sense to me ended up hurting me
Maybe it's time I stopped making sense
A fourth, a fifth, a sixth
Whatever it takes to make me feel worth it

Yellow love, eat me up inside
Grow your vines and wrap around my heart and squeeze it until it pops like a balloon
I want to feel alive and full of air
I want confetti to explode out of my mouth when you kiss it because you a party and you deserve to be celebrated

Hold my hand and squeeze it so I know you'll never let go on accident
That way when I feel your hand unwrap around mine, I'll know you did it on purpose
It'll be a lot less hurtful, trust me

I will no longer be a lighthouse for your rough waters and I have grown to accept it
I will still see your ships and sails
And they will always be in the back of my mind
You will always be in the back of my mind

It's about time I say goodbye to what I thought would be forever
Blowing kisses and hugging the skeletons in your closet has never sounded so comfortable
But here I am, suitcase in hand
I just wish this goodbye could last forever

I can't complain
My coffee is getting cold and my flight is booked for an hour from now
Take a look at what's beneath your feet
Flowers that once bloomed at your every step are now wilting and crying onto your dress
Just wait for the clarity, this will all make sense
Where we're going, we are no longer safe
The stone walls you've built will crush us from the inside out

I have no choice but to burn what's left and start all over
Maybe then everything will finally feel fresh again
It's been so long since I've woken from a dream and felt confident
I never meant for any this to happen, believe me
I have wanted everything for us but I have spent all of my money buying you rings
and every one of them end up tossed into the creek

I always end up lost in the street
Begging and pleading
This is no place for a man that cares this much
I guess there is no place for a man that cares this much
Not on these streets and most definitely not in your arms

I want your head to shake and shatter like an earthquake when you read this
I want your gut to fill with panic and your sense of all understanding completely wiped out

Maybe I should stop wishing the worst for my enemies
But then again, maybe I should stop making sense

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 remember the first time I saw the glare of a sunrise on your eyes,
Everything was beautiful, even the cracks of the sidewalk

We stayed up all night digging to lay cement, everything was so perfect,
Little did either of us know that we left space in the cracks for weeds to grow

You shined into me and out from my joints sprouted flowers,
They were lavender and lilac; it was always hard to tell the difference between them because of their color

As time went on, not everything stayed as beautiful as it once was,
My flowers wilted and frowned, and so did I,
Weeds took over and wrapped my body in vines, suffocating me with my own breath,
Not being able to catch a glimpse of what's eating you up inside is like watching a flower get trampled on without being able to do anything about it

A year and a day later and I am lying on the sidewalk by my house with lilacs in my hands, finally realizing the difference between lavender and lilac

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

Reassembling the pieces shattered on inconvenience,
Smoking my lucky,
Trying to imagine what the taste of your lips would be like against a shattered nose,
Blacking out and bleeding profusely for my beliefs and opinions,

What a time to thrive,
What a time to thrive,
WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE, MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS,

Waking up on the floor with a black eye, holding on to the floor; the only solid thing left in my world,
To the progress made and to the progress I have left to make,
Sipping fine wine and then chugging what's left of the pack of PBR,
Getting wasted on my youth and everything involving it,

A drunken recipient of happiness and sadness all at the same time,
What a ******* mess we have made,
I just hope the cleanup doesn't take as long as the mess did to make,

Even if you don't look back, be sure to know who was there and where they've gone now,
******* white and pitch black,
My worst fears, my worst fears,

I am just learning,
I have given so much hell,
Don't stop talking to me, I haven't been listening