the mornings are dark and you get into your car asleep. mist on the windshield and mist in your eyes. the night is not over and you are not yet grown. the grass is frozen in your headlights and you park your car asleep.

- clocks bigger than your face loom on the walls. they are all two minutes fast and they are faces too, somehow. (except the one down in the back gym. he is an eye and he strikes six every hour.)

- the thunder of footsteps. the thunder of bodies and voices and wind through open doors. you can feel them in your bones but when you open your eyes you are alone and the halls are dark. water rushes from the classrooms and you swim.

- your teacher says that god has brown eyes. when the lecture ends she bares her teeth. (you could swear they're pointed but you've never seen her up close.) her eyes are grey, like yours, she says. so you don't worry.

- in the art room your teacher draws circles on the whiteboard. one inside the other - ringlets, a bullseye. a girl in the back of the class has wild eyes and green hair. she smiles like she knows something and you drop your gaze.

- pencils break in your fists. the halls are a river and you don't know where it's going. your body is a raft so you close your eyes and you don't know where you are.

- you touch hands with the girl from art class. she smiles like she knows something and you shudder. she feels warm inside, like a song, like a comet. you take her hand and hope.

- you sit in the back of the class and the windows shudder but they hold. your teacher says that god walks on all fours and you grimace. books close around you as she lowers herself to the ground.

- your car is asleep and you are dead on your feet. your teacher is gone the next day and the substitute tells you beauty is in the eye of the beholder. you nod your head and you don't know where you are.

She doesn't know what to do anymore.
Her heart pounds around her until it feels like a stampede -
About to be trampled.
Help her. Help her.
She falls asleep every night after her anxiety fights its way through her medication -
And beats her until she bleeds.
But sleep is no rescue -
Because the devils in her dreams.
Demons, dying, monsters, heartbreak, torture, humiliation -
She can't escape the hell that invades sleep - and is still waiting for her when she wakes up.
An animal - poised to rip out her throat.
She wakes up already in the middle of a panic attack - praying only drowns her thoughts in thinking.
And every second of every moment of every day that she's stuck in her various prisons -
Drags on and digs into her like nails until she wishes she could just find the blood, find the wound -
So she could mend it.
No one else seems to be bothered like she is - no one else understands what it's like to live in panic.
Almost done with her 11th year but there's still always another. Another. Another.
Doesn't want to let her meds take over - because the second she falls asleep -
She'll have to wake up.
And waking up is the worst part.

With sight, became the most intense touch
By my vision, my emotions crash

Will your picture in my brain always be colored
Prolly by this ambition and surreal thoughts

Closer and closer, It felt warmer
Your cool air was only yours, Mine was different

Time went by, oh how you've noticed
Finally, we touched and not stuck by vision

I whispered,
"May our names replace romeo and juliet's
Faithfuly here and Truly deep"

We cross paths and I want to scream
At the thought of not saying hello
It isn't just a simple kind of romance
When society has their opinions equipped
Why does wanting you feel so wrong,
But loving you feel so right?

I can see us together in my dreams,
With my arm around you as we sleep
And we embrace our warmth beneath the sheets
That will be when I know that
I've felt your warm beating heart.

Maybe one day I can call you mine
Or say that you got away
But I know better than anyone
That you either stay forever
Or break off, only to wonder,
*Were they truly the one?

Prom:* the fabled dance that
every student looks forward to
at the end of their senior year
and looks back to every year.
I remember my prom,
the one I didn’t go to*
instead, I went out with
the girl that I fell for
and her younger brother
to the silver screen.
It wasn’t magical
but it was something
that I’ve remembered to this day.

© Matthew Harlovic

You're like a window
Light shines through
But it's dark inside

Cardigans for Curtains
All those lovely shapes, beside
Depending on the weather
Sometimes you're blue (Don't forget I can see through)
Sometimes you're black
Sometimes stars get stuck
           Fixation, Oxygen deprivation
Where would we be without you...?
                    dot, dot, dot, Question

The stars get stuck in the cracks
Obviously a metaphor for your flaws
And these lines/curves/obscurities
                  of my vision
Help me see you

Prism, dancing, and trying to age like wine
Getting, getting better all the time

Reflect it back
   Childhood
Magnolia leaves
Currently being abandoned
             Streets
Real Estate
   And different Paint

Then College
NOT taking you're money
"Too bad, see you next time honey"

Lanterns and Moths like houseguests
   Here to assess the property damage
You are not Real Estate

You are a Window
Light shines through

Ivy like a crown
Curtains like a blanket
You're looking from the corner
Feeling like the abandoned streets
Ex boyfriend like kids throwing stones
                      their blind, so they usually miss...you're beauty

You may crack, fracture, fractal
But you are Urban
                   There will be renewal

Here comes the repairman (Not that you need a man)
            Band-aids & stickers
Heartache like a stomachache
And he's looking in

There's the Windowsill
Light Shines through

You are more than a Window
But it's dark inside

teenagers are constantly breaking
underneath the strain of potato chips
and fake ***;

plastic johns lining the house party outside.
All there is to do is drink
sparkling grape juice and wake up
sticky-eyed from nightmare tears.

Ah, another day
trapped like bears in a little zoo
and fighting with sharpened fingernails;
with animal growls.
Another one bites a strawberry
to make their mouth drip blood red.

It’s paradise in our happy school
And there’s nobody here.
I got up to sharpen my pencil and saw
the silent desks,
empty toilet stalls.

There’s no one to talk to
in this lonesome hell.

Pretty girls tell petty lies
just to keep others on the outside.

They don't know who's listening,
they're too cool to care.
No one would confront them,
no one would dare.