the first step to recovery
is not admitting you have a problem
**it's admitting you need help

Have you ever
Brushed a feather
Against someone so wrong
That they were absolutely perfect
And you could watch them,
As easy as forever
Dancing in a torrent of rain
Because they were enough
And you were enough
Even though they never said it
You felt it,
You felt it much too well

Yeah, neither have I
Perhaps that's why I don't cry

© 2014 Peach

I wanted to write a poem about flowers, so that's what I did.
It was short, expressed how I feel, and cut like glass.
I showed my father "Flowers" and he thought it was mediocre.
And I said, "No, "Mediocre" is the poem where I talk about dying,
and I'm trying to stay alive, so I wrote about flowers."

Flowers strangling soil plots with their roots, with their existence.
And to hurt something you love with your existence is a terrible feeling.

College is a cancer clinic.
At this university, you either live long enough to die,
or die until you want to live.
Kids drag backpacks like bags of morphine,
and are attached to their planners like they are their heart monitors.
You do your own chemotherapy,
as you poison yourself with debt,
and Friday night nickel shots.

She said people were seasons,
and when I first met her, I couldn't agree more.  
After getting to know her, I wished that I didn't.
Her ex-lovers were Winter, and her eyes were a shade of Spring.
I could see the vulnerability of a car crash
swimming in each fountain trapped behind her emeralds.
She was beautiful in the way that could cause suicides,
and fix spider-webbed windshields after each collision of,
“Are you okay,” and, “I’m fine; I promise.”

Every story was Winter, and she was always left alone in the snow.
Mauve lips mouthed words that silently whispered,
"When is this too much? When are you going to leave?"

People are patterns,
and all she knew was the tessellation of temporary love and permanent loss.
Her hands trembled as she looked down.
She was in transit; moving after each hope of home fell apart.
And I wanted to kiss her like the world was falling apart.

My dad dug his foot into my back like a shovel breaking soil.
If I do enough push ups, can I put a smile on your face.
If I move the earth for you, will meteors stop me.

I carried sparklers in my hands while cannon-kisses erupted in the sky,
and my cousin swore that I'd hurt myself.
But I explained to him that history repeats itself,
and that my hurt is unavoidable.

Like the hug of a grieving grandmother,
and the staring off into space,
as her tears stain my white oxford lie.
There's no way to get out of this place.
Finding new ways to live in death.

I don't want to be cool. I don't want to be cool.

And her fingers left a ******* on my back.
And my mouth melted onto hers.
I love her until my eyes **** in sleep.
And it's deep. And it's deep.

The swirl of the ceiling sank down
like a child being drowned by his mother.
And I missed my brother, and I missed it all.

I don't want to be cool. I don't want to be cool.
No, not anymore.

I wrote a paper in school
  about ancient myths
using an old typewriter
  and by candle-light,
wrapped up in a comforter
  that cold winter night,
despite the propane heater
  in the dining room.
All of our utilities
  were shut off for months,
electric, gas, and water;
  we had no money.
We were getting food-bank meals,
  and making our own
candles out of reused wax.
  It felt pitiful,
and in the days leading to
  my paper due date
I was told repeatedly
  that it must be typed.
The school library was closed
  before my last class
ended, and we had some fines
  at the public one.
Here's a myth I often hear,
  though not learned in school,
party politics will say,
"They wanted handouts."