I see you
standing on the left side of the fence
I see you
crying deep inside your defense
I see you
tighten your jaw when emotion hits your heart
I see you
acting stupid to hide your smarts
I see you
making decisions that will impact you forever
I see you
believing forever couldn't actually exist.
I see you
pain crippling down to your bones
a weakness you wont ever show
I see you
but you wont look me in the eyes
you wont tell me whats wrong
but i can see you
I can see you
I can see your love trying to shine
I can see the torture that's held it down
I can see the sorrow through the smiles
I can see the heartache beneath the front
I can see the bruises making scars
I can see each cut getting deeper than the last
I can see the oncoming regrets and the ones that have passed
I can see the guilt hiding behind the light in your eyes
Don't try to fool me
I've seen you since the first time i saw you
looking scared as **** but trying to front
When will you be ready
When will you see
You've been lost since you could think
and pushed past your brink
Slow it down and take a look inside
before its too late to take a step back
Don't let that pain keep you classified
We all need to be identified
Its going to hurt
It has to be hard
but how is that different from where you are
take my hand
follow me to a better space
Where its hard at first
but you finally find your place.

Have you ever met Immy?
She's a beautiful kid
Blonde hair
Big blues
Stare up saying 'you'll love me'
Trust in her eyes, love in her heart
She needs protection, devotion, unconditional love
Immy sits and waits, she wonders what she's done wrong
Mummy doesn't  get up when she's hungry, when her ear hurts and she can't sleep
When she needs a cuddle because she's cold and sad
Mummy doesn't brush her hair and do it up pretty
Mummy doesn't put her in pink shirts and frilly skirts
Mummy doesn't shield her when he hurts her every night.
Mummy had no sign of love in her eyes when she yells ugly words
Mummy has no love in her eyes when she's throwing things around the yard telling Immy to get the **** out and don't come back kid
Mummy isn't a mummy
So who will be?

Have you met Immy?
She just graduated high school
She worked harder than any kid her age would
Fought, kicked, escaped
She lived round those places til she got on her feet, dinner on the table, school everyday, vacuum your room
Responsible for herself she made it
She's a miracle
She's strength, courage
She made it out of the cycle
She overcame the inevitable, expected
Escaped the void
The hopelessness
She made it

I screamed at my mother
until my voice hurt 
I knew I was crazy
but I was so scared
she looked at me 
like I was
her cup of coffee 
that had spilled
I’m afraid
I can get in trouble 
for being afraid
following the dog days 
when you dogged me 
in all ways 
nothing kept me grounded
I forgot about the earth
heart was electrified
need for sleep unrecognized
I walked towards 
who I left for you 
hoping that if 
I slept with him 
you'd hear about it 
you’d be jealous
when you called me
button 
you were really saying 
you couldn’t join two parts 
without my help
now you can only
text me when 
you’re alone 
unlike when
you needed me 
to keep your hole 
from tearing
apart

There's such a delicacy about all of it.
What to say. How to feel.
How do you feel?
As if the price of honesty was well worth the reward.

The weight of it all
will almost always pause us,
and freeze us in picture frames.
It will capture the shattering fragments of glass
before you have the slightest chance to react.

And how do we reflect on the past,
or predict the future,
when it just seems so out of our control?
It's as if we've been thrown into a violent gust
without any wings,
or at least ones we can trust.

But you are to my left,
and you are to my right.
And we are all around you.
So no matter how futile our attempts
to blow each other in the right direction are,
The love behind the action
will never steer you too far.

I have a hard time grasping the idea that
I'm not the only one you'll ever love

My heart seems to always ache
Whether it's for a friend
a family member
or a significant other
My heart seems to always ache

I've learned to stop asking when
the aching will cease
because I've realized
It won't.

The grave of my teenage daughter
is a restaurant she was born at 16.
I was told she began smoking long reds for long breaks – they lasted 15 minutes at most – and she had her first sip of alcohol there. Coffee liqueur from a straw in booth 14 from a customer who later became her lover.

The next lover was the second to slap her, and following that was the first kiss she ever received from someone she admired – even though he didn’t admire her back.
It was near the gumball machine, right between the hanging claw and the golfing game. Neither had worked in years. But the lights still flickered, and she always used to talk about how the neon chants radiated across his grimace when he asked her for a kiss.

Even he knew it was only for her.
Even she knew it was never for him.
But she agreed anyway.

The waiter told me that she smoked an entire pack of Menthols after, as if to brush her teeth, but it didn’t cleanse a mint memory. It only burned it away, etched it into the cement curb where we last saw her – drinking one last time as the yellowing sky stretched over the horizon and left her smoke as ash against the morning mist.