wild dogs run through my head at night
and momma thinks i'm playing games
because she doesn't see it how i do
she doesn't feel it like i do
i can hear their paws tearing up the sod outside my window pane
chasing their tails to the end of the line
the end of their days
and
panting like a bunch of *****'s when they get there
hot breath sending smoke signals to the moon  
as if to apologize to there ancestors in the stars
for leaving so soon
and i see them sitting on the hill
again
hear them outside my window at night
they can see me through these walls i'm held captive in.
they can see me.
they can see through me.
just a wolf in sheeps clothing without them
they can feel the fire in my heart
the craving for something more than all of this
they beg me to return to them for without me they are nothing as well
but i'm told that i need to make a living out of myself.
i'm told to kiss and not tell.
i'm told to cry when no one else is watching.

its all the noise.
too many vibrations in
my eardrums
i need to take myself away
and go
somewhere new
somewhere to lay myself down
flat against this earth so I can breathe
again
just please
don't scream my child
your wasting your oxygen
and your life still
crying over him
So don't shed a tear
little one
not even once
even though their words keep your lungs weighed down  
and
even though he pins you
down on the ground
just
choke on your fingers and cram them past your tongue
and try to breathe with a smile on your face
and a heavy heart in your hands.

so small was i then
didn't hear a sound
even though
us pinecones
fell from the trees
with lots to say
but i was born deaf
could only hear
the pitter patter of your footsteps in the distance
you were always too far away
always too far ahead
and
i had
wet earth eardrums
back in those summer days
kept em
clogged up with your singsong sanctity
and all the suffocating weeds i let grow over my adolescent tailbone
and who woulda thought
i would've ended up
with raven black hair
and who woulda thought
id be kissing this town goodbye
before you said your sorry and meant it
and who woulda thought i'd still be alive today
seventeen and still counting down from a hundred
just another old soul with worn out shoes
i'm 153 in dog years
but im still breathing
so that makes me a tree
a tree with 153 rings
that lived to tell the tale
of the lonely lumberjack
who didnt know how to
love.
i am happy today
though
throughout it all
now that ive unearthed my ears from the years of catacomb kisses
and broken free of pesticide restraints  
my smile and my spine will kiss the sun.
all i ask is
am i taller than you now?

december first is the day where i push everyone else away
and die alone in the downtrodden
snow.

my brain told me not too eat the grain mamas been out picking
it said i should sit inside and watch the telly again
but i did that last week and everyday
in-between
and there's
funny jokes on tv
that aren't really funny at all
but
shhhhh
im not supposed to laugh
mama forbids it
and
her and daddy use to beat me until it was ingrained in my brain
i still won't eat the bread though

hahahahah

sunset hills
is where they lay me to rest
still can't find peace
in the most beautiful places
pack away my bones
on the shelf
i do every now and again
please
tell me to sit still
like the knick knacks
please
tell me to stick my toungue out to catch the dust
and i will listen because that's what mama said
and her voice
that's the farthest i've ever traveled
that's all ive ever known

i run around with the farm boys
at dusk
mama says to be back before the gypsys come out
to take me
my brain listens
my head nods
but my heart tetters on the edge of a cliff
i still continue to chase them around the train tracks
over and over again
an endless cycle of never being able to be happy.

seemed like we were never getting back to this
but look where we are now
and look at what we're doing
still walking backwards to
meet each other's
eyes on the streets.
playing a child's game
with twiddling thumbs
and it's been almost two years
that we've shrugged it off
and
you took me to the snow
and
it was my birthday

(the reunion of the
day
you tried to **** me)

and
ever since
you kissed her concrete slab face
and smacked my pride with it
we haven't been very fond of
speaking.
we just scream with our eyes burning holes in each others
hoodies.

and i may have
deleted the texts
but i still have the broken bones to prove it, babe.
and i haven't ever tried to love since i will admit
because
everyone else's kisses tasted like bittersweet irony
and i ran away from their hands
because they reminded me of the things you left behind
in the back of my closet
and the
little ovals of purple and blue
on my milky thighs
and
forks and knifes  
tracing my skin with goosebumps
from where you took a stab at me all those nights ago
and
i'll have you and the world know matter of factly
that i said no.

and god ******* **** you.
for rotting my brain
and my teeth
with your contagious ugly
and god ******* **** me
for letting you

you will not ruin this love in my heart.
you will not take away my smile of an innocent child.
you will not live in my skin any longer.

and i?
i will not keep
searching for home in some else's eyes
and running away
and depending on other people
to keep my body warm this winter
and here i am making change
and here you are
pretending you never wanted to get to know me
and here we are
pushing against each other full force
and we're both stuck now.
i just have the ***** to admit it.
and here we are
strangers on the street
once so in love
with the thought of love.

i think it's time
i finally let you go.

i could leave.
right now.
go to the
south
change my name
and pack my bags and forget
all of this ever happened
like i want too
so badly.

i
am
ready to go.

whatever it takes.  
    
this isn't the life i want to live
not here. not with you.
i don't want to waste a second longer as i grow a second older.

i'm a tumbleweed by nature
never calling one place
home
too long
i've known this since i was fourteen and felt like the deserts of california understood me
when i told the mountain tops
about the live i've lived and they laughed along with
me.
and my suitcases are packed
and at the door
waiting
for me
patiently.
like a dog on a leash.
but
my heart is a cinder block stuck to the floor of this house
the question is
should i leave without it?