You introduced me to a concept
I had no past in fighting
Now scars and blood spice my skin
Now our fights have passed, many more to come
Sneaking over the horizon
Riding the sunlight as a steed
Unrequited love is coming for me
It is here
It is here
And is slips its cold arm round me
Until the tears course
And it accompanies me to sleep

If I seemed quiet this morning
It's because every time you looked at me
I thought I might explode -
Overwhelmed with every inch of skin and skin and skin . . .
That curve of your forearm
And the smooth expanse of your collarbone
Your rough fingertips and your
Ankles as you rolled your wet jeans
I kept my mouth shut
So none of this **** slipped out my mouth
In the middle of school

Underneath the waning moon, a knight in shining satin strides, wandering through the waist deep tide, fish between his knocking knees, stroked behind his ears she sings, in ear canals and mountain steeps, he sighed in misty harshness, the shadows tied across his face. The sweetened sodden hair she stroked, miles away, he feels her raging though distance ever had a win, stroking his freshly shavened chin, he sighed like winding windy rustles, her hands hidden beneath the bustles, her dress so draped across her frame, he whispered all alone her name.

Mnyamata
I miss you so much.
3 more sleeps and I'll be home.

You know I'm so afraid of sleeping in this room - I've built a nest of blankets around me. I've locked the windows and closed the  door, I've moved things to block the closet doors, I have music and a fan for white noise and I'm still sleeping with a lamp on.
I don't know what's wrong with me.
How am I supposed to be an adult when can barely sleep with the lights off in my OWN room?

If you were here, I could sleep.
Every door and window open, no blankets or pillows and I'd sleep better than I ever have. I'd just hold on to you and dream. I don't why I'm so terrified to sleep alone.

I need you too, you know. I don't say that enough. You say beautiful things like that all the time, and I don't. I want to, I feel the same way, I just don't say then as often as I feel them.
I'm feeling it now.
I need you.
Pray for me.

Ndimakukonda

Mnyamata

I pretended you were laying next to me, stroking my hair back to kiss my face. I smiled contentedly, and on my exhale, remembered you were not here. A physical ache pains my chest. As if heartbreak was literal.
I feel like I'm losing you. You're slipping through my fingers like sand, and I'm trying to catch you with a colander. Soon enough you'll be smoke that I'm trying to catch with my bare hands.
This is the most alone I've felt in a long time. I pray but God is silent.
Tonight will be a long night. If you wake up and read this, know that it's not your fault I'm crying. I'm not sure why I'm crying. I have to many reasons to choose from.
I hope you sleep better than I will.

Ndimakukonda

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

Buried in sand
Inhaling, shaking
Tense embrace lulls me
You hold me
And forever
I feel Held.

Depression is - hopelessness. Sickening, dry, fat hopelessness that bores into you.

Anxiety is - being frozen to your chair, physically unable to stand, even if you wanted to.

Depression tells you to stop taking your pills, to stop eating healthy, to stop going to therapy, because none of it matters anyway and you should just quietly curl up into a ball and let yourself fall asleep forever.

Anxiety tells you to stop taking your pills, or maybe take all of them at once. To eat heathy, but eventually to stop eating altogether. To go to therapy and admit that you're just a lying **** - you're not sick, you just want attention. It tells you that you have no control and that it knows your heart better than you do.

Those holy lily petals
Drenched in dew
Open their pale mouths
To the blood
Dripping from steel pipes
Faithful bleeding
The lilies whirl
In a divine breeze

I have a lot of monsters
Some are here and some are there
They hide inside my closet doors
Or whisper in my hair
They were made to **** me
And one day
One of them will win
But when I feel your arms around me
I don't let those monsters in

This is how you're used
When I'm self afflicted
Self degrading
Self abused
He speaks through you
So I can breathe
This is what you mean to me
When I'm sick
And beat
And bruised
This is how God uses you
When you could choose
When you could lose
You love me and that's how He uses
YOU

Evil has left it's seed
I beat myself until I bleed
You still let me cry on your shoulder
Something inside you still tells you to
Hold her
Standing out in the cold
Feeling a thousand years old
Still feeling a lot like a child
I'm out of control -
I'm feeling wild
Evil has left it's seed
I beat myself until I bleed

Skeletal cinnamon trees
Frosted with the breaking grey sky
Know more love than you
And they know more life than I

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.

Orbs of softly glowing light.
Falling to the sky.
Ecstasy in heaps is
sounding, bounding
from my eyes.

**** among the grain
Let it grow
Let it go

I know you love me
And I was silly
To ever think
You never could

Our little road trip
Don't know the destination
Whispering lip to lip
No amount of hesitation
You bring the snacks
While I give directions
Our little road trip
Don't know the destination

City WITHOUT houses
Cars WITHOUT complaint
People WITHOUT patience
Buildings WITHOUT paint
Portland ISN'T pretty
NO ONE likes it here
LOST its charm already
That's why they all DRINK beer

The second before your taillights disappeared around the bend of my road -
My voice escaped in the smallest sob of
"No."
Because it never hurt me more to watch you go

Every word you say is perfect
I feel like I cannot deserve it
You kiss me gently, never fearing
That it isn't true what I am hearing
Your breathless laughing
Your heavy breathing
Your promise to keep me happy
Always keeping
Me by your side
And never further
You are the proof
That words
Can be perfect

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

The perfect kiss
Lasts four bars in 3/4 time
This piece of music is my life's work -
Two years of composition -
As my tongue blurs the notes on the page
When this piece is finished -
So will my waiting be

Hating myself
Hoping that loving him can redeem me
Hoping that loving him can save me
But I really do it for him

I just want him to be happy
I'd give up everything to make him happy
I've made deals with God and I've paid
He'll never know what I'd give up for him

I'll give up time
I'll give up money
Every smile I've ever had
I'll give up space
I'll give up silence
I'll give up noise
I'll give up everything
And anything
To redeem myself
To make up for everything I've taken
To force the goodness in me to reawaken
I do it all for you
I hope you know

If I had more to give
I'd give it all

This is a soul wrecking
Flesh eating
Gut wrenching pain
Never to see you
Or touch you
Or hear you say my name
This is a heart breaking
Unending
Soul ******* pain

You built me a fire
And told me that Venus was in the sky
Wrapped me in a blanket -
Rough hands turn soft against my face
Promising to find me a pretty new dress
Then you kissed me -
And still question why I believe I don't deserve you

I will look left
And I will look right
I will look at yesterday
And I will look at tomorrow
Today is just for you and I
Because we are so in love

Perfect wind
The perfect sin is nothing like the perfect crime
The perfect time
Is when I get to be with you - alone

skeletal cinnamon trees
frosted with the breaking grey sky
know more love than you
and they know more life than I

The more I make you hate me
The more I hate myself

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

I love people that are far away
I don't see them but love them anyway

I love people that don't exist
My want for her will not desist

I love people that I didn't know I would
I love him in ways I didn't know I could

About a thousand days from now
You and I can plan our vows
And until then I can wait
For my wanting to abate

Sparks like jewels spinning towards the sky
With each kiss I felt myself saying goodbye
To sanity, to misery, to everything, to you
Not knowing if anything I'd ever said was true

I felt it when you slipped your hand into mine
You never wear rings
So I was off put by the silver chill on your fourth finger
I looked down
And cradled your hand in my lap
It was not yours, you were simply playing with it
But I lost all ability of thought or feeling as I stared
And saw the brown eyes of a little face peering back at me
She smiled and giggled wetly
Then turned and ran from me
Her curls bounced with each step

" what is it?" You asked
I stared at you
And saw your eyes and your curly hair
And saw my lottery, my gift, my prize
And I said "nothing" but no sound came from my lips

I placed my lips on the silver ring and inhaled the warmth of your hand

I am so in love with you that I'm drowning in it. It's filling my lungs and mouth and I can't say anything but I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.

Plucking flower petals
Never pleased me
They never loved me
They never do

If every flower petal
I've ever plucked
Could make a person
It might make you

Anxiety is - being afraid of the stranger in your therapist's waiting room, for no other reason than that he's a man.

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.

I am never rid of you and I never wish to be.

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

It doesn't snow anymore
Everything loses its sparkle
Under a sun that stings your eyes
And blinds you
But refuses to keep you warm
The frost retreats to the shadows
Like a convict on the run
And we'd join it
But we're chilled to the bone
And the cold sun sits
Upon its throne
We're trapped in an urban ice age
And we groan
And we moan

Depression isn't what you think.
It's not slicing wrists and crying.
Not for everyone.
Sometimes it's just a heavy blanket.
You get your work done.
Mostly, anyway.
But you don't leave your room.
You don't leave your bed.
You tell your boyfriend you're going to bed early, but you sit awake for hours.
You get a watermelon from the kitchen and eat it in bed with a spoon.
Lights off, juice dripping down your face.
Watermelon used to taste good.
Sleep used to be easy.

My love for others is formed in desperation
I lose myself in the broken valleys of their eyes
Because I've lost you across a pit as wide as beauty
And as deep as jealousy
I fight to keep my independence
By depending on the abandoned and lonely
I'm so tired of you
But I've got no one else
Gloved hands stroke my hair
Yet they are mine
I've created a hand to hold in the winter of my desperation
And it's as cold as everything
I succumb to shameful acts of self fufillment
To protect my heart from the the anguish that awaits me in your arms
But do I know?
Can I know what truly waits in the shadow you cast?
In my desolation, not only did I lose hope
But hope lost me
In a dark world of unfulfilled expecations, their hues biting at me heels
I am lost in the invisible tragedy of the fall
I have succumbed to the despondency
And expect it to suffice
Replace what I refuse and fear to ask you for

Voiceless, I am begging you

My love for others is formed in desperation
I lose myself in the broken valleys of their eyes
Because I've lost you across a pit as wide as beauty
And as deep as jealousy
I fight to keep my independence
By depending on the abandoned and lonely
I'm so tired of you
But I've got no one else
Gloved hands stroke my hair
Yet they are mine
I've created a hand to hold in the winter of my desperation
And it's as cold as everything
I succumb to shameful acts of self fufillment
To protect my heart from the the anguish that awaits me in your arms
But do I know?
Can I know what truly waits in the shadow you cast?
In my desolation, not only did I lose hope
But hope lost me
In a dark world of unfulfilled expecations, their hues biting at me heels
I am lost in the invisible tragedy of the fall
I have succumbed to the despondency
And expect it to suffice
Replace what I refuse and fear to ask you for

Voiceless, I am begging you

ring . . . ring . . . ring
Please leave a message . . . Beeeeep*
Uh hey, it's me.
So, I just got out of the shower and well . . .
While I was in there, I'd put my Zune on shuffle, ya know, on the dock and that acoustic version of Such Great Heights started playing and I froze - like, just in the middle of washing my hair and started singing along. And then I started dancing, like a slow, spinning in a circle dance, like they do at weddings cause I was pretending it was our wedding. So I was just in the shower, soap still in my freaking hair, dancing by myself like *******, thinking about our wedding.
I don't know, I just thought you'd want to know that. I think that should be our first dance song.

*click

Any minute now
Something will happen
My feet are stuck to the ground
But soon, I'll be free
Soon I don't have to be me anymore
Any minute now
Something will change
A new job
A new life
A new name

A new name
A new job
A new life
Soon, I'll be someone's mother
Someone's wife
Don't know when
Don't know how
I just know it's not now
But I'll wait
I have nothing else to do
Something will happen to me
I just hope it's you

God I'm stuck
I wish I could sit down
I wish I could run
But I'm stuck
**** it all
I can't move
I can't fall
Any minute now
Maybe I'll get a call
Life is stalling me
And I'm done with it all
Any minute now
Any minute now
Any minute now
Any minute now

Something will happen

Happiness in waterfalls measured
Strangers reunited at last
Time with you is laughing and pleasure
Time with you, it passes too fast
My love is another year older, and loves me
And I love him so that all may hear
Happy Birthday my darling, my only
Until I'm there to sing it in your ear
As you fall asleep right beside me
Never sleeping alone while I'm there
I'll sing Happy Birthday, so lovely
On my finger, your ring will I wear

is this the only way to make you better?
to build this wall of medication between us
frustrating you, infuriating you
you say you want to scream at everything
that includes me i suppose
i'd prefer screaming
it'd be better than this wall of silence
you can't talk to me
you can't be happy around me
you say it's the meds but i worry it's me
no matter what
i'd prefer screaming
at least you'd be saying something