Never to dance
Is Never to cry
Yet Never to chance
Is Never to fly

Always to wait
To Always consider
Is Always in limbo
Always a dither

So Open your mind
More open that heart
For when life's fully lived
Regrets will be sparse.

Somewhere on the way
I lost me, you lost you, but
We found each other

Compressed
Over geo-logic time

Until brain
Become mush

Until
Muse drills
Down through
Bone and
Sadness

To release

Gushing

Lathered syllables

Fuel of freedom

Jaded seemed to be your favorite word
I sometimes made myself laugh at the idea
Of keeping a count of how many times I heard the word slip out of your mouth.

I wasn't ready

Sudden change
That's what happens to people who get jaded as easily as you do
I didn't count on a forever, but
I didn't anticipate the sudden stop.

I expected more
Sleepless nights curled up against your back
Running my fingers across your shoulder blades
Tracing your spine as you slept
Kissing the sleep from your lips
Fixing your hair before you go to work
Coffee and Scrabble
Art museums and Monet
Guitar picks scattered across my floor
Countless nights of new movies
Long drives in your broken car
And listening to your favorite songs that I never could remember the words to.. but kept on my playlist anyways

I didn't prepare myself for a final night
Last kiss
See you later hug
Erasing future plans
Letting go of the love I still had left for you
Wondering if there will be another chance.

"What are you thinking?"
"... Now what?"

I think about her fingers gripping your back
I hear nails on a chalkboard
You whispering to her in the dead of the night,
move over, love, you’re hogging the blanket
White noise in my ears
my head hurts, your voice rattles inside and ricochets off the walls of my mind
I stop hearing you after a while
The walls are padded now
You are only in my head these days
I’d rather have you hurt than have you nothing
It was worse than a screaming, breathless argument
When I kissed and kissed and touched
but you did not move
I could not move you, could no longer make you feel
No matter how tightly I closed my eyes
I could still see how little you loved me
No matter how hard I tried not to grip your fingers like I was falling from a cliff
I still felt your hand cramping from the effort to stay in mine
I will never say that you did not try
You used to believe in things like magic and yourself
Yet, here you are saying, ‘love doesn’t really matter at all, does it?’
and I made you this way
My sharp edges cut you
Someone someday standing where I once stood
She’ll smile like it’s second-nature, and have a laugh that isn’t forced
She’ll taste like me but less bitter, with hair far softer, her speech not course

I am a teacher's pet, I'm diligent and well-read,
But nobody knows that all this work wreaks havoc in my head.

I'm always punctual to my classes, moving swiftly across the floors,
But even so, it's a mystery what I do behind closed doors.

I may work hard in every class, and always have good grades,
But those marks can't be achieved without my knives and blades.

I smile sweetly at my peers each and every school day,
But in my head I want to cry, I'm worthless anyway.

I am a teacher's pet, and forever one shall I be,
But only for so long can I hide my scars, in places they can't see.