It is on regretful nights such as these
that not even the moon will show me her face

I feel that with and without love, we tend to go insane
Whether we find that love and lose it, or if we never find it at all
nothing but insanity would describe the feeling

You broke my heart into a thousand pieces,
and all I could think about was how I could make you feel better

At what point does this all become a willful dive to the bottom.
I can’t be blameless forever,
right?
RIGHT?

There is so little of me left,
and yet so many holes to fill.
Will I ever be whole?

At what point in my life did I decide that after being born into pain, it is the life I must choose forever?

My fingers are stiff and my legs ache
I have a hunched spine, molded into a defeatist stance
My legs threaten to buckle beneath me
and my knees crack more than ever
My head is pounding as my brain begs me to waive the white flag to finally be done
No more, they wail. Screaming to be put out of their misery
At the center of it all, the one who has been hurt the most
My heart
How can I give up now when it is still so restless?

I often wonder where and who I would be
if I finally chose to abandon my usual methods of coping
would I be doing better?
would I be here at all?

Isn’t it kind of funny how poetry comes easiest to us the closer we are to death. When everything else is a struggle, the words just seem to flow.

Every time someone asks me, “how is your mother?”
I am paralyzed for just a moment
I hesitate, satiate them with a “she’s just fine”
But the reality is I haven’t got a clue
My mother, my best friend, one of the loves of my life
I guess maybe she doesn’t see me the same way
She doesn’t bat an eye when she’s got methadone,
Hennessy,
watered down beer,
xanax,
a man who she thinks will make her happy.. any impulse
She only bats and eye to release the tears as we beg for a “why?”

How have I managed to lose myself so utterly and completely
One day I stopped, and I just looked
but I was no longer there

Even when the apple does fall far from the tree, that doesn’t mean it isn’t bruised on the way down.

eight o’clock breakfasts,
pad down the hall in padded socks
i hear her weeping again
she’s in 7B because she liked the bed against the wall
good morning, here are your meds
they scan my wristband to charge me later
i eat and spend the day talking with strangers
sometimes lying, sometimes not
i fill my head with words on pages to pass the time, yet it only seemed to move slower
i can’t remember what home feels like because I was never able to find one in myself
so here I will rest for now, until it’s time to move on

And if my last words uttered were going to be lies,
this time I will die in silence

Even during seemingly normal days
days I would deem okay,
I find my mind drifting back
to memories of liquor and pills
oxy and xanax
wax coating on my lips
the kind of numbness that would make any addict jealous
Liquor and pills are my way of making sure I don’t have to rely on days that are just okay
to help curve all of the days that are not
I long to believe things are over again
so i can have every reason to let go again

I am not sure who infected who,
all I know is we are only rotting together

They call you crazy
but I know you’re just lost
Choice
Is the word they use to describe your actions
“Why did she choose to leave her kids”
“Why can’t she choose to put down the bottle”
But I promise mom,
I promise you’re not crazy
because I feel it too
I’m not sure how we got here
or how we will manage to get back
but I promise we will find peace one day
and we will do it together

Good night
To my love and my plague
to the liquid courage that ends - no,
starts my day
I cannot wait to taste you soon

Good morning
To regret and to shame
to asking, what did I do this time
since I cannot remember

Good day
to the longing
to the thoughts of you on my lips again
the shame has already faded by now,
and has opened more room for you to fill my head

Hello and goodnight
To my love
I welcome your sickness once again
and as always,
I am pleased to cease the thoughts
for tonight

Sad, pretty girl
you ****** blew it
probably only one drink too many
and you just couldn’t help but
bare your ill little secrets to the world
You spoke too fast
much too soon
so instead of sleeping in the clouds tonight
you’re on a rubber bed,
covered with rubber sheets
with those ****** socks meant for crazies on your feet

You blamed the drugs
and you blamed the *****
Every time you took a look in the mirror
you chose to reassure yourself
instead of those you left behind
Even now after two months sober
no more drugs
and no more *****
you continue to be able to look at yourself in a mirror
and I have no ******* idea how

And I look out the window
the sun is out for the first time in too long
The cold shies away just the slightest bit
as I allow relief to fill my chest
Relief has always been something
that brings me closest to joy
It allows me to think and to breath
to remember that I deserve some care too
The sunshine melts the snow and washes away some of my worries
Even if only for a short while

reminiscing of screeching tires,
shattering glass,
my head hitting the windshield
..seatbelts do save lives I guess
why am I disappointed?

Since the crash I have found that I really do not care about much of anything at all
It’s all a waste of time
of energy
Why am I here
Who allowed me to survive

We walk and we lie with monsters
they hold our hands
caress our cheeks
plant kisses on our lips
some may even actually care
We become so sure of them
and so unsure of ourselves
that we still hold those hands even after they have bruised us
we still long for their touch
even when we know they don’t know how to caress anymore
we wish for their lips
all while they use them to spout hate in our direction
now that we know what they are capable of
their promise to love us til the end of time
is the scariest truth of all

Sobriety
has brought me a clearer head
for all my thoughts to fill

And that is why I hate it

My music only gets slower
and my lyrics sadder
just as I do

I pour so much hope
and so much longing into you
Into believing that one day you will change your mind about leaving
leaving your family and yourself behind
with a crater too big for any of us to occupy
everyone else has adjusted their lives
to try and move on without you
but mom,
I still house this great big hole in me
that only you can fill,
so all I can do is keep on sparing enough
hope for the both of us

when you hear the initial news
whether you throw your head back and wail to the heavens
or if you choose to mourn in silence
Please forgive me,
each time my thought brings tears
or ruins your mood for the day
Please forgive me,
when you question yourself over and over
wondering if you did enough
Please,
just be glad you got a chance to meet me
and if you cannot forgive me
I can forgive you for that

I think the saddest thing
is when someone stops longing to be understood
When you, a poet, lays down your pen
after too many unheard words
you stop going to therapy
because you have said all you can out loud
You stop faking your smile
and nobody notices,
maybe they knew it was fake all along
nobody reaches out once you stop asking about them first
In the end you’ll fade away just as you wished

I’m sorry if my words
don’t make much sense anymore.

I can’t seem to shake
This bleakness,
the fog that has inhabited my brain.
I like to think that sometimes for days,
even weeks at a time
clouds will cover the sun,
Yet it still shines brighter than anything else
I pray my clouds will part
and allow the sun to kiss my skin once again
I just need to keep in mind that
the sun can hurt people too

How does one learn to love themselves
and the body they live in?
If I had the ability to rip this skin
from my being and throw it all away,
I would
I would take myself apart
piece by piece,
right down to the soul
I would bare it for the world to see
so they can finally understand
it’s not all in my head.
Do you still want me?
Do you finally see me?
Trust me, neither do I.

Have you ever had a coping mechanism
ripped right out from under you?
Your demon who promised to never leave you
is taken without your permission
or just stops working one day?
Do you have any idea what that does to someone?
I have become so rampant
so out of control
all in search of a new one
I don’t think I have ever hated myself
as much as I do today,
or as much as I will tomorrow

Why would I beg for a caring hand
when I can just pay for one?

And I know that
if I begged my mom to talk to me
before I killed myself,
she still wouldn’t pick up

What do you do when the words of the devil
become secondary to the air you breathe
She whispers to you as you sleep
as you eat
and even now as ***** kisses your lips.
Somehow her presence offers peace
and I have begun to only welcome her.
I give myself to her more and more each time,
as I am aware she knows firsthand how to break an angel

I will trust you
and believe I deserve better
when you are willing to be more obliging
than these demons.
I will not beg for a caring hand
when I already have a comfortable darkness
I know will never leave me.

Each sip I take
only brings more shame
for me to gulp down my throat
I sit and wonder
If this is how my dad felt
when he chose liquid gold
over his wife and kids
Is this how my mom felt
when she chose poison in her veins
over making sure her children graduate
I finally understand
As I sit here choosing blurred visions
over every piece of myself
That when you are this numb
the disappointment doesn’t matter anymore

I’ll tell you I have been crying
for the last three hours
and the thing is
I was so strong for so long
that it was just one small incident
which caused me to crack
and now that I’ve cracked,
I can only continue to crumble
until I become the nothing
I’ve always thought i was

If you keep treating me as a poison,
I will only consume myself entirely.

How do you tell the people
who love you the most
that you don’t want to be here anymore
How do you say,
I promise it’s not you or your fault,
there is just so much pain.  
How do you look them in the eyes
and apologize for not being strong enough,
for not being able to make it to
your own wedding or your college graduation.
How do you tell them you never
planned on making it to them
in the first place.
All I can offer them is an
I’m sorry, I love you.
Thank you for loving me more than I could myself

Im sitting here with my heart
right up in my throat
and I swallow,
These last few days have just been so low
and I don’t know if I have the strength
that I need to climb out right now
I keep digging myself deeper
and fill my hole with liquid courage
to make me forget that I have none
This is just another episode to ride out
but man, I’m so f*cking tired of crashing

I am tired
of being sick and tired
but I will accept
one last stretch of being
sick and tired
if it means I finally get to rest

I never thought these words
would ever leave my lips
but I long for the day
when I can finally spill
the entirety of my heart and
my soul onto the floor in front of me
until it soaks through my shoes,
stains the floorboards,
and leaks into the cracks of
someone else’s ceiling
I want these confessions to forever
be engrained in this home and this hell,
and in the people who chose to bleach over my ruins instead of taking care of a mess
they helped create a long time ago

You can either choose to be ashamed of me,
or be glad you at least got the chance to meet me.

You ask me what I dream about at night
and all I say is that I do not remember
Because the things that appear to me
in my sleep
are better left at rest,
even if I will be seeing them again tonight.

Is the sky really the limit
or did I just lose too many feathers
before I could manage to get off the ground?

I’ve left myself with two options,
both offering a way out for me
The only difference being
who I hurt in the process

Believe me when I tell you
that my eyes are full of stars
shining only for you
My lips shoot lightning
wherever you can be found  
I have a heart of rolling thunder
and a soul so big it swallows the moon,
But why is it that when you look at me,
you can only see the storm,
the gloom

There’s an alarm going off in my brain
I stand there and let it fill my head
with its familiar deafening sounds
Everyone watches and waits for me to turn it off, to take care of it on my own
you know, the way I usually do
Except this time I don’t try to turn it off
I don’t try to quiet it down so it won’t disturb those around me
I plug my ears so it only grows louder
And this time I let my insides burn to the ground
Because anything is better than the thought of rebuilding myself over again and again, anything is better than this cold