Imagine this with your eyes closed.
These are the labored seconds before you open your eyes to the day.
A subtle ache hums in your bones and it takes an amount of effort to pull your eyelids apart.
And the light rushes into your eyes.

Being in an abusive relationship is like waking up in a plain white room that used to be full of color, and you look around wondering when it got to be this way. How could you not have noticed the color seeping from the drywall?
Did it happen while you were asleep?
No, you think, this must be how the room has always been. You must have imagined the color, colors are silly anyway.
No one else lives in rooms that are full of color, this must be normal.

There is an emptiness in your back that will not fill itself with your skin no matter which way you twist or turn and you vaguely remember taking a part of yourself and giving it to another.
Hushed whispers curl around your ears and for a second you can feel someones breath close to your neck.
The voices are familiar, loving, they caress the skin and if you listen close enough you can almost make out what they're saying.
"you're worthless lovely" they say
wait
no
that can't be right

See, what they don't tell you is that abusers are wonderful, you don't fall in love with monsters, they can be your best friend, your neighbor, the person who sits next to you in class.
The whole point of being with someone is not to make you feel terrible but to make you feel wonderful and that is almost always how it starts out.
After that it just depends on which side of the door you're on.

The wall is as cold and smooth as marble.
And you lay with your cheek pressed against it, as if listening for a heartbeat. Spreading across your skin is a numbness that can only be compared to sleeping with your eyes open,
Don't pinch yourself, you will wake whoever is dreaming.

In health class they aim to teach us about ourselves and others and how to interact and how to make good choices and outcomes of our problems but what happens when your health class illustrates your past?
I have yet to count the amount of people who have came out of that room with tears in their eyes, because they finally understand.

I UNDERSTOOD WHEN THE FIRST COLOR I SAW AGAIN WAS RED AND IT WAS AT THE CENTER OF HIS EYES,
I SWEAR THEY LOOKED SOMETHING LIKE FIRE,
WHEN HE ROSE HIS HAND TO HIT ME AND EVEN THOUGH HE DIDN'T TOUCH MY SKIN HE LEFT SCARS DEEP BENETH IT THAT STILL HAVEN'T HEALED AND WITH HIS HAND IN THE AIR AND HIS WORDS LIKE THUNDER I PUT MY HANDS TO MY FACE AND CLOSED MY EYES WHEN I OPENED THEM HE WAS GONE AND I'D LIKE TO SAY THAT I NEVER LET HIM COME BACK BUT I WOULD BE LYING TO YOU

imagine this,
but open your eyes because in this room 1 out of every 3 people will be subject to abuse and I am not just a statistic but a reason to never shut them again,
I had too many people say that when I was sick every time before I saw him it was butterflies,
and I've had one too many girls come to me crying because they finally have a word to call their boyfriends,
and I have been to too many doctors to call my physical condition a random happening of events,
and I have too many reasons not to be silent anymore
it takes an amount of effort to pull your eyelids apart,
but let the light rush into your eyes

The thing about growing up is
you never asked to be a grown up
in fact
you never asked to be anything
not even to be born
and yeah yeah yeah
I know
your parents gave you a life with potential
a roof
and three square meals maybe
but they also gave you
expectations to avoid resentment
to burn brighter
and maybe you prefer the dark
or to spark up whatever drug you can get your hands on
they would really like it if you were responsible
but it is that possible when the thought of letting people down
has you not getting out of bed until 1pm
I'd rather see you smile than frown
but this clown is running out of jokes about how patience kind of sounds like patients
and this bottle isn't doing the trick
and the tricks I work to make this all come together
now seems a whole lot less important
the apathy can sneak up on you
guerrilla commando trekking through the jungle of your doubts
it was one hundred degrees when I went to work
and storming when I left
****, did I forget to close the windows on my car?
are my phone, cigs, and lighter still breathing?
am I?

poetry started out as venting
became something more
something fingers can never quite grasp
the word always on the tip of my tongue
so I always lose the plot halfway through
and end up rambling like the drunk closing down the corner stool
do my words fall on deaf ears
or do they spark the ignition of emotional explosions
so big they measure on the Richter scale?
Time will tell
I only hope that by the time
time catches up with me to tell me
I will be gone
far away
off on my next big thing

I
love
y o u
m o s t
because
you  look
at me like I
am  someone
worth knowing.

Medication is our only Sedation
Exchanging sadness for nothing
I'm sorry Therapist, but little Johnny isn't insane
Its a societal disease spreading like a plague
Look into those deep blue eyes
question the emptiness he holds behind the eyelids
was there ever a light for him to see
Or has the light been smothered by
Greed, savagery and propaganda.
Medicate the young
They will see the world as molded for them.
Teach them to step in histories tracks
And I promise you, The world will Rotate.

I'm sitting at the edge of every minute you thought should've been your last, thinking.
Thinking about how different things should be verses what they currently are.
What if my fingertips weren't built like the tips of matches?
My hands would be more skin than third degree burns or the look of a kitchen ceiling after a mother's cry for help after burning down the whole kitchen trying to put a meal in front of her children,
with an empty bottle of whiskey in her left hand.
If this is how it needs to be so that you can cope,
you can burn my insides like you're trying to get the attention of a rescue helicopter,
but don't think for a second you can use me to warm up your hands while we wait, don't you dare.
You can treat me like a war zone but you will not shed a single tear over any bloodshed pouring through my territory.
None of this should've happened.
The only tone you'd ever taught your voice was to let your tongue hit the back of your teeth
the same way rain hits the inner workings of a chestnut piano,
you set it in a storm and 'rhythm' loses its meaning.
You've been taking piano lessons since you were six,
your voice shouldn't sound this way.
Maybe if I had learned to let go the correct way,
If I knew there was a correct way.
Either you let go of something and watch it hit the pavement and try to keep the feeling away from your heart,
or you let it slip right from your fingers which doesn't work out well when your fingertips are made of matches and your veins are storing gasoline.

With a single breath,
I set you free one thousand times—
dancing in every direction.
An untouched fate,
with nothing to call you back home.