My insides are made
Of shattered glass
Held together by pink bubble gum
An irreparable scene
Masked by leather jackets, red lips,
And pastel hair dye.
I wear fake battle scars on the outside
So people don't dare look in.

Sometimes victory is the first step. The turn of a doorknob. The cry for help. Victory is finally getting up to eat dinner after crying silently on your bedroom floor when the weight of the world collects like dictionaries upon your shoulders. It is eating that bowl of ice cream anyway, even when the same voices that have haunted you for years keep attempting to shrink you into a skeleton shadow. It is dressing up in the morning when all you want to do is let scorching hot water carve paths down your spine, forgetting the sound of all the voices you have ever heard because it causes you to wonder just when yours disappeared. It is reading a poem in front of your class, hands and voice shaking like palm trees in hurricane wind. It is realizing that some people will pretend to understand the fire of your soul yet cower in your presence due to the terror of getting burned. It is realizing that you are not immune to this, susceptible to creating madness in the nights you keep searching for, but cannot find, any air left to breathe.
It is admitting you are weak. It is choosing to believe the I-love-yous even when they hang above your head like chandelier glass. It is falling asleep shattered yet committed to wake up anyway. Victory is hidden in the idea that tomorrow, as lonely as today has painted it,


exists.

There are two roads astray
Both leading the same way
One is right, one is wrong
One is filled with light but the other doesn't belong
I assume I know which is right
It's obviously the one with light
But it leads me to the labyrinth that is my mind
I'm scared to death by what I find;
I see the battle going on within
Both sides fighting but neither will win
A few small words are all it takes
To save the lives and lower the stakes
To stop the battle before its begun
To prevent deaths caused by a sword or gun
To the outside world I show a neutral face
All sorrow vanishing without a trace
But inside my head lies a scattered mess
And no one to save the damsel in distress
Prince Charming is fighting in the war
Not knowing who he's fighting for
Until it finally comes to one a side
Both charging forward prepared to collide
The battlefield is no place for anyone...
So why do I stay still instead of run?

I want to know about
all your battles and wars
And I'll show you my scars
If you show me yours.

Pacify my war-torn soul
With your white-flag lips
And breath of sun.
My body needs peace
And it wants to surrender
To a gentler place
Where touches are tender.

Pacify my warring spirit
With your knock-out fists
And soldier's gun.
My body aches to ache
And pain in my sender
To a beautiful place
Where malice is mender.

Somedays we are all the same: silent spectators of our own lost states.
Missing the exact pieces we were supposed to let go off, long ago!
Trying again, and then not trying, and trying again to reach at least somewhere.

Trying again and then not trying.
Somewhere, perhaps someday.

I've lost.
In the dilemma of thy love, my lover,
I've lost myself.
To those endless confusions, I swear,
I lost my mind somewhere.
In the way those lips curl up to another lie,
I've lost my sense of realizations.
I've lost my sight to those hazy illusions
You put up to fake another try
And when they laugh at me
Shun me, with the truth
As I look at you
As if you're a painting
I sigh.
I've lost to your voice
Speaking to me
Whispering of thy love
My lover, I've lost this battle
With myself.
With this world.
And for one last time, as I look at you
As a puzzled mess of imperfect flaws,
With a sigh,
I feel.
I win back my senses.
I realize.
You're actually a painting.
Not to be weaved into poetry by me.
You're someone else's
You're beauty.
To someone else.
Because, i, with nothing more left to lose,
Have lost myself and everything else
In the dilemma of thy love, my lover.
And now I don't know
If I love you more, or my love for you.

loneliness is disquieting
it is an isolated battle
between you and the world
yet all you see
is a crowd
full of uninterested people
unaware of your war

Light shines against my closed eyelids
So I'm seeing red.
The darkness pretends it can't touch me here
In the light of day
While I lie awake
But there are places to hide
When the sun comes out
Down, down, down it goes
Burrows into my heart and runs through my veins
While I breathe in, out
In, out
Willing the daylight to take over once again
But all my angels have fallen out of the sky
And the music I once heard has gone silent.
Even the sun doesn't shine as often anymore
And the thunderstorms of my mind have spread to the rest of the world
Allowing the darkness more time to work
More time to brainwash me into thinking that its normal
That everything is absolutely fine
But there's one small bit of my mind the darkness hasn't figured out about yet,
Or maybe it has but it couldn't win the battle,
That has a light brighter than even the sun
And maybe that's my starting and ending point
Or perhaps its some divine spirit seeking refuge in my ravaged mind
But its the only thing keeping me from succumbing to the darkness
Its the only part that stays conscious while the rest is violated and mislead.
But lately that light has been dimming
And the ink stains blotching my fingers
Feel less like the blood I know they are.

I know you, you know me
We are one and the same
So how do you fight yourself
When it's a never-ending game?

Everything I do,
He counteracts as I expect
And every dark, insidious move he makes
Is a struggle to reject

When I was always told
That I'm not good enough
As a young kid I handled it well
I just shrugged it off

So when did opinions start mattering?
When did I become so influenced?
Was it opportunity, coincidence
Or some other, unknown incident?

How I've battled for so long
I guess remains an enigma
Even to the one in concern
Raises a puzzling air, a stigma

Myself, my misery, a mystery
Decipher it if you can
For the nine years I've tried so hard
Yet I still don't *understand