You're mysterious.
You're mysterious in the way that makes me want to open you up like a book and read your pages from start to finish but I can't because you are so high up on the shelf that I cannot reach you.
You sit up on the shelf collecting dust trying to protect yourself from the people who will rip out your pages or bend your cover.
Oh, how I wish I could climb up the shelf and take you down and have you tell me your story.
Maybe one day I'll finally be able to climb and reach out to you, but for now, you're just the book I have yet to read and you're on my list.

I'll swim after writing half an essay about my favorite philosopher.
I'll swim again and think of her.

I'll drown after agreeing to go out tomorrow night.
I'm not looking forward to being brought back to life.
I'll drown again and think of her.

I'll burn after I turn out the lights.
I can't sleep when my head isn't right.
I toss and turn and again, I burn.
All the while I think of her.

I'll melt as the dreams come on too fast
with desires of the one I cannot have.
Into a boiling ***,
I am thrown and stirred.
I'll melt again while I dream of her.

Don't tell me
That the words you speak
Are not sharp
And jagged
When
Your lips brush against my skin
And your whispers sink into flesh
Whispers that draw blood
I can't say no
Clenching words
Won't let me go

Mommys a glorified ******
With her 50 some year old married boyfriend
Favorite aunt is a stripper
Used to walk in on her shows
Daddy's a drug pusher
Gave me my fist high at 12
Granny's a kleptomaniac
Must be where I get it from
And it don't stop there
The show goes on
Drug addicts galore
To add plenty of drama
Then there's the snitch branch
Well to do Christians
My biological grandfather
Who says 14 is too old for his tastes
Plenty of violence
To keep things perked up
And everyone on their toes
Welcome, my friends, to the freak show.

Drinking summer skin,
I hear the voices in the night sky
I'm a slave to the darkness around the stars,
and I can't remember why

One, two, twenty-three percocet in my soul.
Ambulance lights breathing throughout the mist.
Pump my stomach like the sawed-off shotgun
that I was too afraid to use,
because what if I 'miss'?
What spectrum of desolation to be traced with lips;
to kiss away the desire to exist.

Mirrored reflection injection causes the resurrection of my imperfection.
I see me for who I am, who I was, and who I won't be.
It's the collection of
my eyes dilating and my knees speculating their arrival
to the blue and white tiling disguised as neo-survival.
My mind is evaporating. My body begins to convulse.
I am a ghost in a machine. I am without a pulse

I know that you look up to me;
For one, because I'm six feet tall,
But I think that I have done my best,
To keep you safe -- away from all,
The little things that ****** me up.

For you are young: with scathing tongue,
Opinions you cannot express,
A lack of words,
And fear of hurt,
And are yet to fully comprehend
The singing of your encaged thoughts.

But listen to me little sister,
I cannot be your wall forever,
For, one day, you will draw your sword
And embark upon your own endeavour,
To quell the beasts that hide within.

You will only ever need these words,
And the gumption to unleash their rage,
To part the seas of social norms,
To dispute the words on any page,
But I warn you; they bring trouble.

For one day, little sister, I
Will lie a living corpse in bed,
Encroached upon by inner beasts,
Of longing, love and loneliness,
But I assure you, you are safe.

For I was one who did not speak --
Until the world was tucked in bed;
So when the world lends you its ear,
Discard the lines that they want read --
And tell them what your brother said:

*******.