Past

Imagine a trailer

The smell of **** fills the closed walls

A women most would call mom

Sits in a haze screaming at her reflection

She's here but she isn't

Her body is here

Her head isn’t

Noxious chemical odors

Burn the eyes

A young girl

Two older boys

Sit and watch

Looking at my brother

He looks at me

So young

Our older brother gone

Eyes blood red

Scratches cover his arms

Daddy didn’t like him very much

Daddy didn’t like any of us very much

But that’s okay. He's gone now

Blue lights are American

Blue lights took him

Blue lights are bad

brother whispers in the dark

But they made daddy gone

So they can’t be that bad

Looking at mommy

She’s quiet now

She’s my future

She is American

I look just like her

Can’t talk

So hungry

But shhh don’t whine

Or mommy will wakeup

She’s my future daddy said to me looking at mommy

Daddy didn’t like any of us very much

Were an American family

Mommy screams. Daddy’s mad

I'm mute. Twin brother is sad

Older brother is high

Blue lights are bad

These things I know

Replaying in my head

I am American

This is

My past.

My present.

My future.






Future

Years later I'm in elementary.

Birth mom didn’t want me.

She took my brothers

She left me

But that’s okay now

Because I’m better.

I'm in school

Were American  

All the kids talk

I can only say

The first three letters

In the alphabet

My voice hurts

Everyone is kind

So much different

Than what iv always known

Adults are American

Adults are patient

They aren’t gonna hurt me

Still, I hide when they yell

When a hand raises I flinch

But it's okay now

Because I'm better

I have a family now

We are an American family

Mom doesn’t hate me

Daddy holds my hand

Teachers speak kindly

I don’t know what they say

I don’t understand their words

But it's okay now

Because I'm better

I'm American

Years later and here I am

I'm in high school

I understand the words

Well at least most of them

Friends surround me

I'm happy now

I'm better now

My baby brothers

Are my light

My younger sisters

Are my path

My friends

Make me smile

I look at my mom

Her long blond hair

She’s happy

Daddy loves her

I don’t look like her

Her blood isn’t in my blood

But my future looks like her

With a home and children

Happiness and a partner

I won’t be like my birth mom

I can do better

I can be better

I will have a better future

Birth mom and dad might

Have given me a bad past

But my mom and dad

Have given me what

Most don’t have a

Better future.

My past is bad

My present is better.

My future will be good.

To all the kids with hell inside their head,
This one is for you
I know what you are feeling right now,
The worst place for anxiety is the doctor's office,
Right?
You are scared they will weigh you
They might see the result of the empty
Paranoia tells you they will judge you for your number on the scale
Depression says you won’t have to do it again,
It says you’ll be gone by next year
You know the doctor might look at your wrists
And if they do…
You will get help
You can have someone be paid to care about you
Having hell inside your head hurts
No matter what they say it doesn't shut up
You can yell
But not over the noise
You can fly
But not over the memories
You can die
But then you come back into the real world

When I was 7, I bit my arm.
When I was 11, I pulled my hair and punched myself in the head.
When I was 13, I choked myself and dug my nails into my arms and legs.
When I was 15, I cut myself.
When I was 16, I burnt myself with a cigarette.
When I was 18, I destroyed myself with drugs.
Now I'm 21 trying so **** hard to love myself.
To leave behind the self destructive past.
To let go of all the regret and self loathing.
Its been getting easier, too.
Please don't give up.

I unfold my limbs like
honey
morning drips slowly
saccharine and robin’s egg blue
lazily
I wait for the sun to hit
my eyes
oh I pray
this warmth never leaves
this heat curled up inside
my spine
I pray
this light never leaves
this feeling of
Spring
on the horizon

Hey stranger,
You look sort of weathered
A simple smile can make your world better
But I wait .
I’ll try
I’ve put something together
Crying eyes and no replies will soon seem tethered

And that claddagh means nothing
Trust me I know
I got my own tunes that are running

She cries again
And I lost my head
Can’t wait till you tell me
This has to come to an end.

I’ll pretend it’s all good
And act all together
I’m just alone and I needed a friend
Once a day I can just see you again

Deep inside my heart there sleeps a being that I have come to hate.
Through the back alleys of my mind it creeps; constantly feeding a hunger it cannot sate.
Hopes and dreams, longings and fantasies, these are what it has come to take.
When it has had enough of these, no longer this smile can I fake.
Anger, pain, suffering and strife churning up in the wake of it's passing.
These feelings I've suppressed all my life.
All those disappointments suddenly amassing; but hope springs eternal some would say.
Even though my memories hold more dark that light, making my mind rest on a foundation of clay.
That torturous being I still fight.
Grudgingly do I give ground.
Knowing that though I may lose I cannot back down.
Hoping that what was once lost may yet still be found.
Doubts and fears surging up until I feel I must drown.
Silently do I find myself praying.
Knowing that all my defenses must be lowered.
Though sanity be stretched beyond the point of fraying.
My inner demon's eyes still seem to glower, burning into my heart with unholy intensity.
And through my haze of pain and anger my eyes catch a glimmer of light.
Suddenly the demon loses some of it's ferocious tenacity.
The answer seems clear.
What was once thought lost can only be found through love.

Surrounded by my past I try to see
Visions of deceit overwhelm me
In my mind's eye I search for the truth
Hauntings of beauty seek to fool me
How I long to break free
I try to cling to the truth
Elusive and ethereal though it is
Desperately do I fight to hold on
But the rending of my heart drowns me
Suffocating in hearts blood
Wishing I could take it all back
But I am held by a chain maid of time
Gasping I try to breathe in hope
Even harder to obtain than truth
Still though I struggle to retake my life
My own memories played false
I question the very foundation of my soul
Wondering how I came to this
Clarity comes from a long denied truth
Terror fills me as I come face to face with the eyes of the specter
It gazing back into my horror filled eyes
I see the man I once knew as myself

i know you feel bad
the applause are never loud enough
the smiles just aren't big enough
nothing is ever enough
but it's ok
just keep telling yourself
you did good

I'm trying to shout over the screams.
Trying desperately to be heard over the blaring horns.
I try to see through the fog that strangles me.
I blink, hard, trying to get rid of the tears that swell in my eyes.
They are unwelcome,
like the troubles that caused them.
Grief
and agony
and doubt
encase my mind in impenetrable fog.
When I try to look through it, it only gets denser.
Stumbling and lurching through the mist on unsteady feet.
Screams tearing from my throat,
trying to express the agony that I feel so deeply embedded within me.
But this agony,
this pain,
this torture,
cannot be expressed,
Cannot be summarized.
The tears come in earnest, now.
Their salty taste touches my tongue and I hate that it is such a familiar taste.
Such a present taste.
The screaming won't stop.
My ears overflow with the sound.
The embodiment of my unspoken pain.
The things I have never said all shoved into one noise.
My head pounds,
all of the secrets shoving and tripping over each other,
searching desperately for a way out.
The walls that surround me squeeze.
I push and kick and claw at them,
but they stay firm.
My fists shatter.
My legs fall out from under me, giving up.
My nails are jagged.
And the wall is there,
pressing,
crushing,
trapping me.
Helpless.
Broken.
Trying to put the pieces together, but they no longer match.
Trying to find my smile, but it has fallen into the stormy seas of my anguish.
Trying,
trying,
trying.
My eternal curse.
To try, and to fail.
Trial and err
and err
after err.
A never ending circle of my torment.