you birthed this friendship,
and this is our inevitable destruction.

- kra

1.  you are not shrapnel from a car crash. you are not
   your own destruction. you will be born again.
   2. this is an endless labyrinth of running into walls
    and thinking i know the way, when i have no clue
    what i'm getting into and where i am going.
    3. don't compare me to a meteor - slowly drifting
    away from everything you have ever known about
   me - because i am the same person. you changed.
   4. if your mirror is showing you a monster, you
   need to find any way to break that mirror.
   5. i never understood nirvana until you came into my life,
    yet i've never understood hell's scorch until you
    blatantly left without a proper goodbye.
    6. i will unleash the worst types of hell onto you.
    7. the only difference between fractals and the way
    you treat people is that you are no snowflake.
    8. if you were a mailbox, i would take out all of the
    flowers and constant reminders that i love you.
    9. i'm having problems eating. it's a constant reminder
    of how you told me about your favorite cereal is now a
    cereal i don't have the stomach to bring to my mouth.
   10. don't get yourself tangled in knots you cannot undo
    because you will be stuck trying to untie the knots by
    yourself.

    - kra

these endless string of days where i feel the bee hive
inside my head tremble and break open are like torture
but there was recently the bees let me see how clear it
is without the constant buzzing sounds and swarming
around my head like a severe migraine. that one day was
the calm before the storm; it was solace i needed but didn't
receive in full. it's true, maybe i didn't deserve that solace,
but i haven't experienced hangovers until the aftermath threw
me out of the road and into the thorny bushels which are
now what i sleep in each night. i've learned to focus on
my steady breathing patterns and counting all the way
up to one thousand and all the way back to zero.  it helps
distract myself when the weights on my chest gets heavy.

- kra

nobody warned me that people came without seatbelts.
nobody warned me about the aftermath, where a sharp
turn can land you straight on your back, and i've been
on my back too many times to count on two hands.
2. create an escape to a world where you are the conductor
of the train, you hold the reins to the horse, you have the
controls to the carousels so you control your heart.
3. everyday is holding a bouquet of roses and jumping
out in front of traffic going seventy because i killed myself
alive. who knew that one person can make you pick apart
yourself until you really don't know who you are anymore?
4. the way you shifted from heartfelt promises to throwing
every single obscenity at me reminds me of how i shifted
from lukewarm coffee to burn my throat hot coffee.
5. you're thick on the air and i can hardly breathe.
6. i claw at my skin, insecure about how i've become,
knowing i've changed because of the anxiety you give me.
7. cows are branded to show ownership, and i feel like
you poked me with a white-hot branding iron without
remorse. i manage to push through each day.
8. the confidence i used to have in myself deteriorated over
the years. it feels like i'm standing in a choir singing the loudest
and my voice is slowly fading into all the other voices and losing
harmony until even i cannot understand what i'm singing.
9. i'm still so embarrassed that i held on to something that
has no intentions of staying for so long. i'm sorry i held on
so tightly where i was constricting you, you needed air.
10. i cannot go another day without you, yet i want to go
every day without hearing your name or seeing your face.

- kra

i watched you eradicate the ruby roses from your
skin with razors, you told me they just needed to be set
free, they were just doves in a cage needing freedom.
2. i heard that hibernation lasts only during winter
but it's spring, doesn't the flowers learn to pick up
their spines to the sun and reach for the skies?
3. i'm not sure which part of my heart is revealed to
you, but it must be a revolting sight. my apologies.
4. my heart is 50% happy/ 50% sad like living at the
bottom of the world, where i get night time six months
a year and day time six months a year.
5. this web you've strung me in has me tangled in semi-
impossible knots but i would take all the time in the world
to detangle the vines from you and let you continue growing.
6. the weight of my heavy armory prevented me from swimming
in the sickening waters, so i screamed "forget me not" at you. i'm
not so sure you heard me or if you just ignored my screams.
7. your pianists fingers let me slip through your fingers slowly
like motor oil or pancake syrup, but i'm sure you washed off
the parts of me that stuck onto your fingers.
8. HERE IS YOUR ULTIMATUM: LEAVE OR STAY.
9. survival relies on the fittest, but i'm anything but fit
for helping you survive. let me bandage every scar, even
though you're not going to be the same person afterwards.
10. forever is an overused term, but i will never forget the
side of you that shined the brightest and made the sun jealous.

- kra

i am seeing beyond your parallels, the routine you
are living in discontent with the way you are strictly
forbidden to be unbridled, so i blinded you to my
antics, because revenge is either clean or messy, but
i like to leave traces of myself in everything i touch
this is my revenge, watching you from my hindsight
as similar as a dog, and remembering what it was like
to be denied my robust but brass voice, and as the alcohol
drips off your tongue, i remember you aren't a drinker
you only drink during contemplating angry thinking,
the alcohol washed over the bridges that led to my heart
and i lit them on fire with a snap of my fingers, and
i watched you fall out of yourself, like a spirit that was
released as soon as i denied you entrance to my soul
you ruined the very best parts of me. i used to be normal.
i know there isn't such a thing as normal, but i wasn't
waking up from dreams thrashing and screaming how
you are a vulture, picking at my skin and destroying me
and all i ever wanted was to find my happy place, but this
is not happy and i struggle day by day crying for solace

- met

“The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else,
but keep heart, it will turn out all right.” ― Vincent van Gogh*

the grand canyon knows nothing of being hallow like the
depth of the space between my ladder ribcage, climbing
out of this rut would be like rock climbing mount everest
without the correct equipment, but beginnings aren't
supposed to be endless paragraphs of traps you made
me so oblivious to. my hands have touched hell's scorch
and have brushed your heart strings, but nothing compares
to the way you make everything seem like a dream, like
an acid trip that took you into outer space and made you
float, but i'm tired of gravity pushing me down and this
is just pointless suffering, i'm not healing anytime soon
and my wishes are for the closure i haven't received yet
i have reached my breaking point.
               it is a decaying cage designed for me.
                              i cannot see anything but good memories.
         h  e  l  p     m  e                                 i am going blind, i am terrified.
                           these monsters don't want to wish me adieu.
                bottlenecked like condensed traffic,
and stuck inside my head.
this isn't a place for you to call home, i am a prison.
you couldn't thrive inside of my heart, it would be
asphyxiating for you because my heart is like a snake
squeezing tighter and tighter, i am not a home for you.
leave before i take every good part of you and destroy it.

- kra