Hiding under that mattress
isn't getting you anywhere.
You can dream of foreign countries
but your family won't be rushing to see you
to tell you they love you
and miss you.
Somewhere pressed between **** and
humidity,
your lungs transparent grow moss
and your throat hurts from not screaming.
Soon it's two below
(as it is surely supposed to be)
and your young mind hates it.
Your esophagus has become
entirely a forest
abandoned
for the winter.
The scariest thing is not knowing
if your population will retain
its original numbers.
The trees around you can't hold you
and the cliff you're on
is not going to carry you home.
"You have your own inside you, be it for yourself,"
but that doesn't help.
It was something you loved but the stilts
of support splintered.
Your mattress reeks of ****.
Your lungs of cushion collapse.
Your cliff has crumbled
and your ashes are held in the
eyes of your old pals,
but they become the coastal sand.

I stand tall, waiting.
My hands rolled into fist.
Head cocked back.
Ready to fight.
My feet are planted strong.

but  before i can take my last breathe, it's stolen away.

I'm thrown into the wave every which way.
my limbs flail uncontrollably and the water fills every crevice of my being and replaces the air in my lungs.

The fight is purposeless and I quickly give in. At the very moment I stop, so does it.

I am gently washed to shore.

A familiar place that i knew id never see again,
but how much more beautiful was it?
Who was I kidding?
I'd only hope to not return the next time?

It got quiet real fast last night.
Not like usual where the people outside the walls screech until 2am when they finally stumble back to their respective beds.
It must've been too cold for screeching and wandering last night.
Because it got real quiet. Right around 12.

And it was the kind of quiet that makes you both tense and relaxed.
Afraid to move or you'll disturb it, but calm in the middle of it all because silence is rare.
In fact there's no such thing.
Everything makes noise,
When you roll over, the wind, the lone car that drove past, and your breathing.
Especially the breathing.
It's noisy in it's own quiet way just a vital in and out that keeps you alive.

Lungs like attention, they like to be heard.
Even when they're not shouting angry profanities, or cheers, or whispering I love yous...they make their gentle in-out whoosh. Reminding you that you're alive and that's
a splendid and spectacular notion

Close your eyes
Erase whoever is tattooed on the inside of your eyelids and find comfort in the darkness
It is yours
Inhale, exhale
Repeat this for the rest of your life

When the starry nights turn cold
Wrap your sheets around your feet
And curl into the comforter, finding solace in your solitude
It is okay if you cannot lift your listless body off of the bed
This also means you can not hurt yourself
Take a shower, wash the day off of your skin
Send your sorrows down the drain
Do not worry if you still feel unclean when you step out of the bathtub
This just means you need to scrub deeper

Inhale
Exhale
Pass the air through your lungs, let this be the part of you that never tears
Find beauty In your breath, sending little sailboats floating off into the night (clouds?)
Compress your chest if you must
Reach inside your ribs and take the balloons into your hands,
Be gentle
Remember that you were a child once,
That they still live inside of you

Inhale
Exhale
Repeat, repeat, repeat this like your favorite song
The one that you keep in your pocket like a lucky penny
Keep the music close to you, voices of strangers soothing you from your self- estrangement
Pianos will always hold your hands
Guitar strings will kiss your fingertips
Breathe, and exhale song

When it is dangerous to be alone
Surround yourself with the hum of other people's souls
Let them take care of you when you cannot take care of yourself
That is what they are here for
You would do the same

There will be some nights
When the pain in your chest makes you bend in half
Open a window
Soothe your lungs with the winter air
Dehumidify your eyes with the dryness of December
Dim the lights
Inhale, exhale
Repeat this for the rest of your life

I'll show you what it's like to touch.
Finger tips
and
your blood,
boiling from temptation;
you'll feel me in your heart.

I'll race through your veins
and occupy your lungs.
I'll show you what it's like to chase,
wasted nights
spent on
pointless thoughts;
you'll never know when to give up.

And I'll peel back your mind,
where it's me that you'll find.
I'll show you what it's like to fall in love.
A restlessness
and
an empty spot;
you'll be begging me to fill it up.

Nothing broke my heart quite like that time I read what you wrote to her.

It was from two years ago, but it still managed to strike quick like a bullet, even though the barrel was dusty.

If history repeats itself, then I'm the same lips you craved on different person.
You said so yourself. You can't breath new life into old love. Your lungs will collapse before hers start.

You've never been good with words, but I didn't know you weren't good with laundry.

Your words were still wet with her tears before you gave them to me.

You should have left them on the line a bit longer. Maybe the lye of their syllables wouldn't burn my face when I try to bury it in your shirt.

Do you realize what you say when you scream I ******* love you from your rooftop?

Who's ears will they reach first, hers or mine? Because where I hear a promise, she hears and echo as bitter as the wind on that rooftop.

That's why my hips curve in all the question marks I could never ask you.

In two years, will you mail someone else the screams from your piece of sky?
Will your heart still beat in time to that ******* song that you always play when we're in your car?

I'm tired of seeing blood under my fingernails because metaphors and ethers and ink marks can't stitch you up fast enough.

You need patience, but all I can give you are poems about winter, and the spring grasses that follow, no matter what.

You need guidance, but I give you comparisons of how the moon moves the sea, but gets jealous when she kisses the shore.

You need love, but I offer you poems that flow like water and taste like someone else's mouth.

My river songs can't fill the canyons she's left in you.

tremors from the albuterol
two puffs was enough
to loosen my chest
after my fourth maverick
cheap smokes
but not cheap enough
to fill you full of fiber glass
and cat **** chemicals
my lungs call me a hypocrite
can't help but agree
i'll get one of those digital cigs
to avoid the nightmare patch