I fell asleep against
the stained glass that painted
the ground with colors that
children only see through
the lenses of kaleidoscopes;
vividness that blind men
only see when holding the
warm hands of their lovers.

I woke up to the bells
singing tunes of the eschaton
and the priest muttering
damnation upon the half-empty
bottle of Jim Beam resting in my lap.

"Want a swig?" I asked with a stagger.
"No," he replied.  "Whiskey is the devil's elixir

and besides,
there are plenty a bottle of Christ's blood behind the altar from which to choose."

You can't fix my body
I am not made of clay
Can't smooth away scars
Can't resculpt curves
Can't carve a smile on my face.

You can't fix my story
I am not a first draft
Can't erase years of abuse
Can't revise bad decisions
Can't add happily ever after.

You can't fix me
I am not a project
My body is marked by flaws
My story is laced with hurt
But *I am not broken.

It's been so long, but I still remember how it feels
To sit in a stuffy classroom, clicking my heels
Because there's no place like home and I want out of my confinement
To sit endlessly and pretend to care about another mind numbing assignment
With the tap of fingernails vigorously typing out a text
Shifty eyed, watching some amateur get caught and secretly hoping you're not next
The murmur of whispered plans for the weekend
And how desperately your body craves to sleep in
Elaborate excuses planned out to explain why you forgot your essay was due
The lies are getting crazier because the teacher has heard everything that's not new
Lunch is served but the food is cold, unidentifiable, and uncooked
There's no way through the sea of gossiping teens around your locker to get your books  
Your next class is the one teacher with a voice that's a little too monotone
And then the next is the one that always thinks she hears a phone
You worth is measured by a letter
And how many times you promise to do better
It's a system that's designed to break you
But you never let anyone see how much it shakes you
And at the end of the day it's gone by hideously slow
And you dread how you have to repeat it all tomorrow.

if someone asked me a month ago, "if you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?"
i would have said somewhere no where close to here
now, if someone were to ask me the same question today
i would say "wherever he is."
if i could, i would go to you right now,
it's so hard
you're  so far away and i have no idea where this is going.
all i know is
i really wish you were here.

I've been writing our initials
on every coin i throw into the wishing well
I've been painting your hazel eyes
on every sheet of gold and linen
I've been driving at 1am
on the same road we first met
I've been tracing the burnt marks
you left on my chest
I've been biting my lips
with the hope of tasting you again


You  are  a  (hard)  bad  habit  to  *break­