So...I asked this girl out on a date
No money had I made of late
With no job prospects for quite a while

Had her drop me off at the grocery
Proceeded to stuff sardines down my jeans
We were going to picnic it up in style

The whole time I had security
Keeping a watchful eye on me
Nabbed me as I stepped out of the door

Even grabbed the girl who was my date
She might have made a grave mistake
They say she was driving the get away car

We went before the hanging judge
Who wasn't much into showing love
Gave us each thirty days in county

I convinced them she was the master mind
I was a fool in love, didn't deserve the time
So they locked her up and set me free

Though it was our first date
And didn't seem to go the way
That it was I had it planed

I think that when she gets out of jail
And if she doesn't look like hell
I just might ask her out again...

He laced her morning coffee with Ecstasy and prayed for the worst.
Trudging footsteps down the stairs as she slips on his shirt,
buttons done up halfheartedly as the soft blue denim hung delicately
about her.
her hair kissed at her shoulders and her breath lay in her mouth
tainted with whiskey and malt liquor, as she yawned and stretched;
bare feet padding against the cold floorboards, as they creaked beneath her.
She walks to greet her lover, grins painted on faces as the coffee cup
simmers and the drugs dissolve; as the love she had for him, dissolves alongside it.

Doors slam like Satan himself is
in a fit of rage below us, even if he is
in the deepest level of Hell, I feel the floor
shaking like a 6.0 has just swept us but it
is only a consequence of wood slamming
against wood and fists fighting doorknobs.

Voices rise like the temperature in Arizona
in the summer, abruptly, hot and heavy, so
quickly stifling any chance of relief—
anger is an emotion I am far too familiar with.

Some people live quiet family lives, are never
interrupted in their sleep by screams from a
father who dreams of death and a mother who
carries a scythe of shame as if she is the Reaper,
some people wake up in the morning knowing
there is breakfast waiting on the table, fresh eggs
hot off the stove and orange juice with pulp, but
others wake up and make coffee for themselves,
knowing parents sleep past noon and
we are the ones who are doomed to repeat the
history of abuse and psychological suffering but:
we are the ones who will help to stifle the shouts,
to put a stop to slamming doors and shrill screams,
dysfunctional daily routines and waiting for hope
that never arrives, we have had lives consisting
of always having to act stronger than we feel
when the floorboards seem to be breaking just
beneath the force of our feet, because our
bodies are not just our bodies, we are carrying
burdens that weigh more than our bones and
blood cells combined, so when we step on the
scale the number we're reading is really how
much hurt we have been holding, not how
much food we've been hoarding inside of us.

We are the children of complex family situations,
we are spend-more-time-in-psychologist-offices-than
we-do-in-our-own-roo­ms, we are no-parent-to-tuck
us-in-at-night-read-yourself-a-story-it-builds-­ability.
We are daydreams of escaping like Rapunzel,
we are how do I save myself from a nightmare when
I am already awake? We are years of reading self-help
books in Barnes and Noble until we finally understood
that the only thing to do is to help the world help us:
we are strong. And we understand that family exists,
but for us it is different. We are the children who find
comfort in books and coffee and anything outside
of a house so filled with tension and hatred, and we
have been waiting to fix ourselves for too long.