you are the first person I've ever wanted to share sunsets with
my loneliness stings like a salt bath after a night of wine and fresh Elvis wounds,
you are anything but desolate
the summer of two thousand nine I opened my veins to try and see God
the doctor who stitched me up asked what a 13 year old would know about faith
and all I said was that God takes his turn on the swingset by pushing other children out of the way,
but you are an angel
and even still I'd boil your halo and inject it in my veins
I want to be close to your holiness
like warmth, like winter; we go together like relief
with you, i'm never even here but I never want to leave
because I need you like my childhood that haunts the walls,
like sunday morning acoustics and coffee that's too sweet,
but not sweet enough for you to say anything
say nothing,
I miss you because you're not here and I'm not there
and still we are anything but lonely
the day I met you, I started missing you.

when we were young,
everything was bathed in sunlight;
we loved and we fought,
we thought we would live, strong,
forever.

summers spent on the shoreline,
waves lapping at our feet--
we'd walk the pier in the evenings,
jumping from rock to rock,
spiders being the tenants between the spaces.

and then we grew,
wild and reckless--
nights spent on drugs and ***,
nights spent on choices made and regretted,
nights spent on violence and self-destruction.

our town darkened like the bags beneath our eyes.
the water doesn't shimmer in the light like it used to,
the stars don't shine like they used to.
the lights in the buildings flickered out,
windows boarded.
we don't go out at night like we used to.

we're all waiting to escape before we become
the next teenage suicide,
the next dearly-departed and gone-too-young.

we were all beaten and battered,
breaking each other's hearts,
begging for an out,
only to end up homesick
for a place we always hated.

the lakeshore was all we knew.

My parents grew up in a town
that everyone drove through
but no one could remember the name of
and the trees grew in perfect rows
like city buildings.
It was a  place that had one school with every grade,
one diner that everyone drank coffee at,
and one church that everyone went to
no matter their beliefs.
My parents grew up in a town
where the tombstones outnumbered the people
that hid behind wavy seas of green
where no one can see them
unless you need to place flowers on the mounds
for your own sake.
My parents grew up in a town
where the number one place
for a crime scene
wasn't a dark alley
or ****** bar
but in your own **** living room.
My parents grew up in a town
where tragedy arose like clockwork
yet was always treated as a surprise
solved with
light, feathery words that held
no weight
like a band aid that always
seemed to get ripped off.
And the best way to talk about solutions
was to keep your mouth shut.
Ignorance is the speediest way
to keep your town perfect.
You had to hold on to your own ideas
and choke the others out.
My parents grew up in town
where you could only see the surface
decorated with smiling faces
worn like masks.
and what lies beneath
was only shown to the human eye
when it was too late.

I wasn't born here
I refuse to die here
But Frederick
You are my home
From the allIes of downtown,
The winding roads of the mountains,
The constant buzz of route 40.
I hate this town
Where I finished high school
Where I learned what love is
Where I learned to drive
Learned to skate
Learned to forgive
From smoking **** till I couldn't stand
Or
Drinking until I was giddy
I've learned
I've grown
And in this town
I've found my home.

Lines of red lights stretch back to my life
How I wish  could make the lights yellow
A U-turn is easy
But impossible when there's no one to turn to

A gathering of familiar faces,
better left forgotten.
We're all still in the same places,
drinking ourselves rotten.

My life has shrunk
to fit the skin
of this small town

to live inside
the microcosm
of it's streets

to tell it's sad tales
of love & loss
& bygone travels

to walk the ways
I've known
since childhood

even the guest
that came last night
is from the street

I lived on
when I went
to college

& who was
also labelled 'mad'
here by the docs

this is a town
like any town
that locks it's dreamers up

& spits them out
to live branded
& afraid of their own shadows

a town
I want to leave
a town that once I loved

in the summer before
everything ended,
we went to an art museum
that had entire rooms showcasing death
and you pulled me away before I could admire the human composition
stains, melted into bronze silhouettes, because
what if I thought it looked ugly

what if I figured out
I didn’t actually want to **** myself
and instead just wanted to escape you –

stains of strawberry juice around my mouth I thought of
as blood and you thought of
as lipstick

I prettied myself for
suicide , I scratched maps into my thighs – little guides of where a
knife would go
little hopes that if I saw the death display
maybe I would have known.

for years
it was all experimental. I watched pieces of us
come and go like art exhibits, you watched me as if I was nothing but
a work in progress
that soaked up so much paint I could
not help but look like you when it was through. I was
a child,  was
impressionist (impressionable –

now your thoughts persist
as human composition stains – happily, I am alive
and you will never be dead enough.