I stare at the swirling well of my fingerprint and spiral down inside of it until I'm as black as night and engulfed in the silence of space and ink where I can scream and sob and sing and ignore the tumult of ignorance and fear and bitterness that surrounds me otherwise; thick and viscous, pouring down my throat and choking me.

Dawn on your face like a new sun.
Water me softly inside.
Spice up my eyes with the moonlight.
Flavor my voice with the tide.

Hypnotized
Silver coins of pools of water
Strung in jewels
Pointing, edged
Round and swallowing
Glittering and dancing as they close in on me

Soft
Long and swirling
Flaring like a prized horse
Rushing into my neck
To inhale me once more

Delicious
A million lines
A million times
Roses and bath water and lemonade
Sugar and cake and pink, so pink
Linked between by lips like puzzle pieces
I beg you to kiss me again

Strong
Intoxicating strength and golden shimmering
Long tongues of flame, never around me enough
Bending, holding
Callused laughing

Perfect
Tall and broad
Dark and magnetic as night
Oh magnetic
Draw me in
Warmth to strength to
Fingers tracing down you like waterfalls
Body that will one day be mine
Perfect

We've been talking in circles
Now there's circles in my head
I miss the circles in your eyes
My deepest brown has drowned to red

Our little battles worse than screaming
We want to fight but keep retreating
Can't seem to say what we are meaning
My deepest brown has drowned to red

I need you so badly now.
I'm curled up in bed, my feet tangled in blankets and I'm pulling my hair out.
My body is being rocked with sobs.
I want to scream.
I scream into my pillow, handfuls of fabric in my fingers, teeth in the foamy meat of the mattress.
This is what I am.
I am drinking in technology like liquor, to numb this immense emptiness.
I have never felt so lonely.
I need you so badly now.
But you're asleep.
And you have school tomorrow, so I can't wake you up.
But my fingers will dig deeper into my pillow until they bleed and I will sob until my vocal chords fray like rope.
I need you, but I can't bother you.

Just knowing
The stars are glowing
And you're out there in the glare
That you're thinking
And I'm shrinking
Cause you're not thinking about me

These are the After Years
Where Everyone is now Someone Else
Because of Pain that we've all Found and Felt
A million Days without you here
A thousand Ways you still draw near
The Lies I speak
And Tears I weep
Don't matter anymore
If you can't Run, we'll Soar
I'm always wanting More
Of you
Than I would've ever wanted Before
And my fingers Tremble when you speak
My heart, an Earthquake when you sneak to me
An Ocean of Wonder alight in your eyes
Finally looking at me
Finally Mine

I hate saying goodbye to you every night.
It reminds me too much of the goodbye you should've gotten the first time.

Anxiety is - a searing pain in your left thigh that only appears when you're at work.

I can't wait to hear her cry Daddy Daddy -
Come and play with me!
I can't wait to shout back Honey Honey -
He's on his way, he's on his way!

It's the feeling of knowing and refusing
The feeling of winning while I'm losing
The feeling of hellos' masked by pride
The feeling of desperately trying to hide
It's the feeling of hearing and not seeing
The feeling of seeing and not believing
The feeling of crying myself to sleep
The feeling of secrets I cannot keep
It's the feeling of a future I had imagined
The feeling of a future I had been handed
The feeling of refusing to let yourself cry
It's the feeling of saying goodbye

It's the way he keeps talking even when I close my eyes
The way he'll invite himself over, how he tries, how he tries
They way he'll change his mind on a whim
It's why, despite logic, I seem to love him

In the winter
You'll hold my hand
And I'll hold her life
In mine

So small
So fragile
So shiny
Ours

Raining on the black parade, golden kingdom gone. Necklaces hang like corpses at her throat, your corpse a ring on her finger. Too many words. Joy, yet suffering. Tears. So many tears.  Salt and pepper father worries about her, alone in her room. She's crying, he guesses. I'm not crying, she sobs. Someone else is. They're just using my eyes. Please only be sleep he needs, please only be sleep he needs. Exhaustion, sickness, sick of being exhausted of the pain. A happy house across town with lights and crying. Two years, four years, ten years. She can't wait any longer. A lifetime beginning, while she sits like the statue she used to be, face a fountain, pondering the lifetime he has left. Love sweet love, why do you have to be so bitter. She begs him stay . . . stay . . . stay.

If you're wondering what you can do to fix this -
Come find me.
Kiss me.
And ask me what's wrong.
Because that's I need.
And that's what is gone.

I write my secrets in Sharpie on the soles of my shoes
So where ever I tread, I'll see pictures of you

In my footprints are poems I always keep with me
So where ever I walk, I'll have pieces of history

Its too late for me and I want you to know
That I think of you always, where ever I go

"It's dark in here." it said.
"Yes, quite." I replied.
"Tell me, do you like it that way?" it asked.
"Yes, quite." I answered.

After a 3 hour long conversation that was constantly on the tipping point of disastrous and some hurt feelings and a patched up goodbye, I retreated to my room wondering if we could really make this realationship work if we're both going to act as young as we are. But when I logged into Facebook past my curfew, like I've done too many times, I found the recording of the song in my inbox. You said you just recorded it to make up for . . .  Yourself. I listened to it, and I'm not going to lie, I cried a little, because I've missed your voice so badly and I was so violently reminded of that fact that we will make it. We will make it and I need to stop worrying. But don't worry, I was smiling so hard through my tears that my cheeks ached and now I'm still laughing out of happiness.

LOVE DOES NOT BREAK YOU
IT IS NOT CRUEL
YET YOU STILL LOVE HIM
YOU CALL THIS LOVE
AND REFUSE TO TRUST THIS RULE

I can feel the warmth of your arm
Your leg
Your side
Do I dare to inch closer?
Do I dare,
Shall I hide?
You've never been so close
Yet so far
Now you're gone
And I'm staring up at the stars
Flaming hot ***** of gas that would burn me up in an instant
Why do I feel so cold?
Without the warmth of your arm
Your leg
Your side
Do I dare to tell him?
No I don't
So I hide

A man in love is never lazy
A man is never right
Men not in love; attentive, hazy
You're not, so I will sleep tonight

Kiss me one last time as if you need me to breathe

I smile, because I've thought the same thing a million times before

Hold me ever closer, I need you to succeed

I smile, because I've known the same a million days before

Laugh as if you won't again, because you'll never know the truth

I smile, because I know I will, a million times again

I know I'll spend my life in joy, spending it with you

I smile because I know it's true, God speaks to me again

This is a heart that cannot be contained
But it's gone out of control and she's going insane
When they met she thought that nothing would change
But they've grown up and now nothing can be the same

I hope that you will hold my fingers to your lips every single time there is a scary part in a movie.
I hope that I'll be able to feel your hot breath on my hand.
I hope that I can look over and see your blue eyes widened to dinner plates that you can't tear away from the screen.
I hope that I'll always be able to look at you and write a poem in my head - because you are the best poetry I've ever written.

If my heart is my hat, a Jester I shall be.

My sky is all encompassing
Warm hands ever stroking
Dripping in blue and silver fluids -
Chemistry of a car crash -
Feeling your face so close to mine
Your voice speaking your mind
Nevermind me -
My darling, ever ever patient
Loving -
Sweet -
A sky for all that paint it

For all the years I lay upon Her
I never knew Her name
But to Her its all the same
For all the years my tears have soaked Her
I hope to never cry again
But to Her it feels like rain
For all the years my lies befell Her
I never felt Her pain
But to me its all the same
For all the years I've kissed Her surface
I never heard Her sing
But I think She'll give me wings

When you found me
I was lopsided
Uneven, unloved
Over touched
You picked me up
And evened me out
When you found me
Crawling in the dirt
I finally found what I was looking for

Anxiety is - picturing gore.

Dear God -
Please let me be strong.
I don't know what he needs God - please tell me. Please help me. If he needs space, give me the strength to be alone for a while. If he needs me to be honest - give me the strength to be honest. If he needs me to be happy - God, please give me the insurmountable strength to be happy.
Show me how to love him. You know I've never done that right. Help me love him God.
Please tell him he doesn't need to feel guilty anymore. Tell him that he's okay and he has nothing to be ashamed of. Tell him how loved he is and how greatly he has improved me. Tell him how well he's doing and how proud and grateful I am. Tell me, please God, that he doesn't need to feel guilty.
God - remove all this selfishness and jealousy from my brain. The little part of me that wants to be jealous of the girl in the hospital because he seems to care more about her than me. Remove those lies from my head. I know they aren't true but Satan wants to convince me that I'm not good enough. I don't have anything to be jealous of. So I pray that she makes a speedy recovery and that she turns to you for relief and not to a bottle of pills.
God - give me the strength to tell Ryan all this in person so he doesn't have to keep guessing.

Amen

Anxiety is - feeling like you're forgetting something . . . constantly. And feeling like you're behind on everything, even when all of your work is done.

Funny little picture
Staring blankly at the wall
Too afraid to soar away
Too afraid to fall

A thousand days
A thousand lies
To keep you parting
From my eyes
Tonight when we
Were in the car
You made sure to park real far
Away, so we could have more time
So you could walk and kiss my cheek
Won't see you for another week
You said you'd kiss me
Wouldn't quit
So we climbed in to kiss and sit
But when we got in
Cold as the dead
All the I love yous you've ever said
Came pouring out your mouth instead

Tonight is the night
I expect you to kiss me
But you're not here
I still expect you to miss me

It's late, I'm wearing your hoodie, our song just started playing and I can't sleep

I feel a burning
I feel a shaking of the earth
I feel a yearning
I feel it growing as we turn
I turn away
From any pain I've ever felt
Turn towards your place
Turn towards the total of my wealth
Turn towards your face
And I never turn away
From where you stand
Two perfect years ago you asked me if we can
Two years from now you plan to ask me for my hand
And I'll agree to everything you ask of me
I'll never agree to anything more happily
You are my turning of the earth
You are my light
You are the thing I fight for
Even when we fight

Who left the door open?
Who made it snow?
Who told me off?
Who let me go?
******* it, who cares?
Just shut it.
Just go.

I'm a poet but you make me feel mute
All I can do is kiss you and call you cute
I write pathetic lines of prose
Exhausted metaphors, the sun, a rose
But all you have to do is drive
Take me home, you took me home last night
And started talking as if you had rehearsed
A speech unlike any I had heard
You smiled and laughed and hardly looked at me
Sitting there appalled in the passenger seat

You said you were in love so intimately - so out there, but in there - how beautiful it is to love me the way you do, to know me so well, so deeply, everything about me -
without even having to touch me. And that is so out there, but in there

You must've felt silly
But the tears in my eyes
Replaced any words in my mouth
And you knew -
I feel the same

I'm trying to write music
And I'm scared you won't like it
I'm scared I won't like it
Or that no one will like it at all
I've never been good at this
It hurts that my sister is
That my parents are - my friends are too
This isn't what I'm used to
But I'm still trying to write music
I'll write it for me
And play it for you

I feel sick to my stomach
And I'm heartbroken
That it isn't because of you
Sweet daughter

My prayer - sitting in the car before work

God,
Please make today better.
It sounds selfish but
I kinda want something amazing to happen today.
Something that makes it impossible for me to be miserable.
Like Ryan.
I want a miracle God.
Like Ryan.
Something to make the day less heavy.
Something to make the time less slow.
Anything to cheer me up right now God.
A miracle.

When you rest your guitar on my knee and make up songs about my beauty

When you tell our friends all about how we fell in love

When you grab ahold of me on the doorstep and kiss me hard

When you cradle me in your arms in you parked car - in my driveway

When you tangle your fingers in the fibers of my hair - kissing me like I'm your oxygen tank

Of course it hurts to know you're with her
It hurts to almost hear it when you say
Though you won't admit this to anyone
"She did the right thing, and I pushed her away."

I've never seen so many people.
So many people to let down, so many people to make proud.

I can feel your kisses
Like an antidote
Fill my blood
And the oxygen in my lungs

Pushing the toxins out
Along with the pain
And poison
Your perfect balm
Your healing hand

I know I'm going to marry you

Forgiven
Forgotten
At least, I'm trying to forget
Forcing myself to stay awake
Because this repulsive creature doesn't deserve sleep
Not tonight
There's a blackhole inside of me
Disgusting disintegration of everything human in my heart
Black sin
I give myself black bruises
So everyone can see what kind of person I am
The kind that hurts the one she loves
Again
Again
Again
Oh God, please forgive me
I don't know what I've done
I opened up my mouth Lord
To swallow him into the sun

Anxiety is - constant throbbing disdain for everyone around you, and the inability to explain what's wrong.

Um I wasn't done writing that.
said the girl with the eyes somewhere above her chest and the hair as black as *****.