You could have numbed the pain
but instead I turn to whiskey.

I drink away the sins and pain
I wonder if you miss me.

You left but it's unclear why
there is nobody here to get me through it all.

So I drink myself unholy
and pour my heart out onto the table.

Love a life
        when you have your father,
        protecting you,
        spoiling you.

Love a life
        when you have your mother,
        caring for you,
        smiling at you.

Love a life
        when you have your siblings,
        laughing with you,
        joking with you.

Love a life
        when you have your family
        as the warmth of their love
        surrounds you.

I walked this morning to the gallows
My father there awaited me
He told me, son, that graves are shallow
The moon is gone, though still she calls my name

So tread ye' not in darkest hollows
For she is there and knows your pain
Beware the day, beware what follows
Obscuring fog and shrouding rain

The sun is hanging ever higher
The shadows grow as daylight wanes
The hangman's noose has stole my father
And gilded green with shades of gray

Now day is gone, and spring is over
A silent world where memory fades
Sleep ye' well as the snow falls
Slumber deep, and sing my name

I walked this morning to the gallows
Where long ago my father hung
In bare earth, his body swallowed
To sing my song once more to his grave

I used to view my life like a bird in a cage
That you had the key, so I'd fly in a rage
Scream at you when things got rough
Bite when I never thought you did enough
When the bars broke and I was finally free
Distance and time gave me the chance to see
The vivid silks that served as your bonds
So pretty you missed the chains beyond
Mother and I used to discuss the fabric and style
Father and I would talk about patterns for a while
All you had was this and you gave it all to me
I wish you'd realize this wasn't who I wanted to be
A year underwater and I've been torn clear
Now an invisible wall lies between us, I fear
So I light a candle for the two of you instead
Hold the thought of you close when I go to bed
Press a hand to the window and feel the cold
Remember warmer days and then feel old
Before I go home, there are a few things I have to do
Like run a waterfall to a page instead of to you
Polish the mask I must wear without shame
Else without it, you'd never know my name

i’ve been folding train tickets into paper planes and casting them like butterfly wings into the night sky, hoping they’ll bring me back to some form of normality like their incessant beating could inject some form of life back into bones that are aching, bones that are breaking, under mountains of nothingness and i watch them snap like wishbones, praying that their marrow
bleeds golden enough that you can look at me and say ‘well done’
i’ve been stripping bark off magnolia trees and i’ve been gifting it to myself in the form of late nights with eyes closed and a heart that won’t still, you have a carousel for a heart, it’s a kaleidoscope of just black, it’s all spin and go and you tell people when to get off and you have jaws in your stomach, you speak with teeth bared and violent, you scream from your gut and it’s a sound i feel in my broken bones.
you never wanted me and i’ve been trying to build myself back up out of clay, form myself into something beautiful enough that you’ll sit it on your mantle piece. something you can be proud of.
if lives are built from bricks of experiences, moments played live like movie scenes, then my life is built from those times you ran away, and if women are looking glasses then my life is simply a reflection of you running and my footsteps mirror yours, i am the product of a suitcase by the door, of vile words spat like venom.
i’ve been folding train tickets into paper planes, in short desperate attempts to get away, to get away from you. i’ve sat through enough anti drug assemblies in school to know the dangers of narcotics sold on street corners, but none of them warned of poison that already lay dormant in blood you were born with.

You broke my heart before any boy ever could.
You broke my heart with empty promises
and empty bottles.

You broke the bathroom mirror.
You put a fist through the the glass
and left me to pick up the jagged pieces
while you danced around the edges.

My heart never snapped.
It was a sprain
then a fracture
then piece by piece,
is began to crumble.

And all you did
was watch.