You know I didn't get away,                                                            ­                  
                                                                ­                                            
   unscarred, unscathed,                                                       ­                                       
                                                                ­                                                    
  you don't think that I've paid,                                                            ­                            
                                    ­                                                                 ­                 
for the way that you behave                                                           ­                 
                                                                ­                                                  
  Must I have physical proof,                                                           ­                             
                                   ­                                                                 ­              
  scratches & black eye bruised,                                                         ­         
                                                                ­                                                      
  to show the harm that you can do,                                                
                                                                ­                                              
  when you get to run
loose                                                            ­                            
                                                                ­                                                  
You think you're so
innocent,                                                        ­                    
                                            ­                                                                 ­   
  God blessed, heaven sent                                                             ­       
                                                                ­                                                  
  but the truth is you are hell
bent                                                             ­                                             
                                                                ­                                                      
  to encase my heart in cement

Why do you cry?
Because I’m so sick of not being okay.

So sick of my loss of appetite.
My constant need for pain.
Why can’t I be happy?
Wholly and unconditionally. Must there always be a load, weighing me down?
Where’s the balloon?
That I can tie to my wrist and let pull me away?
Why must life be so full of death?
So many questions.
So many answers that continue to allude me.
So I look to the sky.
To the stars.
And….
Dream.
Of a day when someone will ask me.

Why do you cry?
And I can answer,
Because I’m finally okay.

My fingers unfold the truth
on a late night poem
in a different country
than my own–
between two black cars
a street light,
wine,
beer,
and
hard drugs

untold white lies
        
        Do you know what's really hard?

         Trying to make something beautiful or ugly
          out of a lie.
      
            This is me now
talking to the reader
or probably talking just to myself:
                   There's a hole in the Earth of me
                   my tooth has a cavity
                   I have a man
                   who can't keep
                   the truth in his pants
his mouth
gets real happiness
when he can bend
what's real and what
he wants me to know
which takes away any real
chance at happiness
                                             the only real
                                             way I can
                                             find out the lies
                                             is by picking
                                             up pennies
                                             that lead down
                                            a trail
                                             to girls,
                                                     coke,
                                                        hash, and
                                                         attention
                                                           seeking,
                                                     rocks
                                                 and a hard
                                              place.

There I go again
trying to make
poetry
out of tears,
and an untrusting heart.

                                   He makes
                                 amazing poetry.
                               about nights he's lied
                             keeping it hidden
                         in metaphors
                      and grandiose statements
while I applaud and like each write.
                
                          I'm ******* stupid
                         that's probably why
                         he says he likes
                         me as much as he does

You think about
the times
when your gut told you so
or the other times
when you ate it up
like drinks and fine dining

                              Now you forget to smile
                             and things you wouldn't
                             think would connect dots,
                             begin to.

My breast hurt
and I feel a panic attack
is at the bottom of this bottle of beer

Now I can say
I didn't make a poem
cause these are just words
on a page

Do you hear each unspoken cry for help
Between my mundane repetitions? The scream,
Hoarse and tired, a frequency that nobody but me
Can hear, trapped between each normal word
And laugh that scrapes my lungs raw

Do you hear the pain that’s trapped under
Every slam of plates or creak of doors? Do you feel
The trembling of my fingers as I reach out to you
And the coldness of my body as you hug me tight -
Not even there, a hollow thing

A ghost wanders beneath my skin, searching for solace
Or maybe vengeance, or an explanation why -
She doesn’t understand that this world
Holds no such thing as justice
Nothing as divine walks this Earth, nothing like hope
Except the memory of you

And every word unspoken hangs hazy beneath my skin,
A poison slowly seeping in my heart, turning it to
Something sluggish, barely beating

Oh, how I wish you’d make me feel alive again.

I asked for petals. They gave me thorns.
I didn’t complain. Didn’t protest.
Just pressed them into my palms
and let the pain sit there
because what else can I do but accept

I asked for a home. And got walls that didn’t care if I stayed.
Rooms that swallowed my voice whole.
A mother whose hands used to tuck me in
now they just tremble, now they just throw things,
now they just forgot how to hold me.

I asked for a father.
He left his shadow behind, but not himself.
I still set the table for him.
Still listen for the sound of his footsteps.
Still wonder if he knows I am disappearing
into the spaces he abandoned.

I asked for love, but no one looked at me long enough
to see the cracks forming beneath my skin.
No one noticed when I stopped crying,
when I stopped asking for anything at all.

I asked for petals.
They gave me thorns.
And when they saw me wearing them like a crown,
they finally realized
I had stopped feeling the pain a long time ago. (Not that they cared at all)

Sharp pain is my life
It spirals and turns
Twisting into knots so complex that only the darkness can be held.
We learn and we love and we live
In a broken world where sorry doesn’t mean I care, and I love you doesn’t mean I’ll stay.
We’re sitting ducks,
Bound to fall from the sky in a shower of faith
And drop faster than air
And smaller than life.
The pain is a full throb,
An ache from a far away life
Past the barriers I’ve built around my stone raging heart.
These walls seem to live and to flow and to breathe.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.

Let your mind and soul collide in a moment of silence where only the crickets will chirp.

For why would you sing in a long broken world.
Why would you swim in a soft little desert?
Why would you fly in a cage made of concrete.

How can we soar without any wings
How can we dream without any snores

What has this world come to, to feel so alone, in a world overpacked, with rooms overfilling.
Yet each one has a heart with a cage made from steel, and the barriers too high to ever break free from.

Farewell me to a place where dreams die, and lay me down, and forever I’ll cry.

But why would you cry in a heaven made perfect?

So brittle
That a single word (or seven)
Could pour salt on my opened palms
And break
My short sense of happiness