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They’ll check your wrists,
But not your thighs,
They’ll check your smile,
But not your eyes
They’ll avoid the truth,
Believe the lies,
Nothing to sooth,
No reason to cry,
Our smiles are bright,
Eyes are a bit dull,
Wrists are clean despite,
The blade with an emotional pull,
And we’re emotionally unstable,
But they say that’s okay,
We are all a bit of a riddle,
But that’s the only thing we can convey,
And the world will open to swallow us up,
But that’s okay, at least our habits remain,
And when their arms finally open up,
We will show them the reflection they taught us to shame,
So we paint a smile with the color of red,
From the thighs they didn’t check,
And from our eyes we bled.
And they'll only understand,
When the noose hold us by our necks,
And if they had thought twice,

Maybe our eyes they would have checked.
hidden in the well
of every human mind
there is a monster
we are drawn unto its image
as to any other mirror
hypnotize
draw my eyes and dull my mind
I am full of knives
Let the blood trickle down my arm, the damage has already been done, so I guess there’s little harm and everyone’s already won.
I’ve been dragging what’s left of me down this winding and dreary path.
I wanted to make the most out of life, I wanted it to last.
But all I see are enemies and I have nowhere left to run.
So I guess I’ll crash and burn until death I will succumb.
There is an ocean deep and dark and vast
Upon our sunny island grows one tree
As each new branch emerges from the last
The song of life becomes a symphony

We gaze out longingly across the deep
But there is only so far we can go
What secrets might that dark horizon keep
Our island is the only home we know

We look out on the waves along the shore
Our messengers sail out into the sea
And although we have found islands galore
We still have yet to find another tree

We wonder as we sing into the dark
If we will find an answering chorus
And if beyond the sea when we embark
We will find not one tree but a forest
If there was one word
One word, isolated by itself
That I cannot stand above all others
It would have to be "Okay"
I despise "Okay"
"Okay"
Is how your millionth day at work went
"Okay"
Is off-brand raisin bran
"Okay"
Is how you say life is going
When you don't want to admit you spend
Every second of it
Wanting to die

"Okay"
Is packed to the brim with
Hidden implications
Like a treasure chest
Filled with bottles
With little subliminal hatreds
Written on tiny slips of paper
Passively aggressively pushed inside
To discover later
As I pull out a treasure map
And try to decipher
Where I went wrong

"Okay"
Is a one word dismissal
That feels like an essay a thousand pages long
"Okay"
Is a poison dripping with disinterest
When I dared to share with you
Something I thought might make you smile
"Okay"
Is like trying to talk to a wall
While watching the paint on it dry
"Okay"
Takes two seconds to write
Yet I waited days
For that dreaded word
To grace my notifications
"Okay"
Should be used sparingly
As if each time you send it
You **** the receiver just a little bit
"Okay"
Should not be said so often that
I know what you're about to say
Like I saw it in a crystal ball
"Okay"
Is not looking up from your phone
When I tell you about my day
"Okay"
Is not the proper response
To "I love you"

They say that the opposite of love isn't hatred
It's indifference
And I can't think of a response
More indifferent to pouring out
My heart into your hands
Than "Okay"
At least the last thing you said to me
Before we parted ways
Showed that you cared
At least a little bit
"I hate you"
Stung less
Than the thousands of times
Over our countless conversations
You responded
"Okay"
Okay?
I am walking down a road full of crunchy shards of glass. My feet bleed, but I cannot feel. I long to feel. I long to sleep. I long to feel the relief of sleep. I walk. I will find a destination. I will be nearly dead when I get there. The destination. Bleeding is so soft. Bleeding is a cushion. Cushions do not relieve the pain. Pain is my God, the one True God, the God that knows we are there. The one God we know.

I long to swim in cold water. Water is me, I am water. The water is made of my tears, and my tears regenerate the water. I wish I could swim right now, but the world won't let me. I have the fins, the mask, and snorkel, but I'm not allowed to swim. Swimming is life, but I am not allowed. I long to swim in cold water. I long for cold. I long for life.

The bleeding insists that I continue. The swimming insists that I try. The noise of the splash insists that I cannot deny that I'm trying..... to live. The vacation of the air I crave. The culmination of the road I pave, it's warm. It's all the way it 'sposed to be ya know. And in the end it's all a lie. Why even try? So much ******* work, just to get by.

Living.
Written on March 16, 2017
I am two:thirty heat lightning.
Inconquerable flashes of my elemental fury
leap from grumbling cloud to dewy earth,
dancing naked under a smoky moon. I am a burning
offering to the sodium lamp sentinels looming golden
over black tar; there is tobacco sown
into my every pore.  I am the underestimated
weight of fog rolling off the meadow's swollen calf
river, the heavy lowing of labor pains, the thick
croak of the year's last bullfrog. I am the first
crunch of dying light, the gray tinge of wood smoke
on chlorophyll burned red. The sting of my icy breath
creeps into sleeping eyelids, through every crack
in waterlogged armor.  My frosty four o'clock
is no place for strangers.  The frozen silence
does not know my strength.  I will bend the world
with feet of glass.  In time, the weight will break
my own limbs, expose their green, soft meat.

I am the green shoots of daffodils sharp,
triumphantly cleaving the rested dirt.  There is yellow
warpaint across my forehead, a crown of blistering elegance
glazed by wings of stubborn three:thirty ice. I am resilient
and eternal—perennial—blooming to a cold, white moon.
you will never break my spirit, world.
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