i want to be seen
i want someone to tell me i am beautiful
i want them to mean it
i don't want them to feel obligated to tell me
i want someone to love me too
i want it to be pure love
i don't want it to be an impure *** based love
but most of all i want a friend
i want a friend who will pick up the phone at 2 in the morning
i dont want a friend who turns around and leaves me in my darkest hours alone to cry by myself.

Black glass
Hugged by plastic.
A rigid, shiny stone,
Holy and smooth as silk.

It calls upon you.
Its dark face glowing with glee,
its still form
trembling in tantrum.

Eyes gawk eagerly while
dexterously trained fingers
Slide their grease-stained trail
across its blossoming surface,
trapped in vanity.
A technological marvel,
one might say,
it’s glistening roads worshipped and
Truly wondrous.

All the images: moving, smiling, addicting.
The knowledge of the universe, packed into
a tiny, plastic cocoon,
festering, growing, evolving,
eager to be eaten.

Endorsing gluttonous laze, and
Unmasking humanity’s
unseemly colors;
it lulls you in with its
digital spindle embrace, the
sharp strings of data
reaching in through the eyes and
touching the optic nerve.
Neurons swell in ecstasy, pupils dilate, the heart screams;
matter of the brain catches fire in
its electrical storm, and
cascades into chemical ******.

Satiating a toxic lust.
Brilliant glass
turns to black,
stuck to your hand like glue.

Ode to my depression.
Applause to you, my friend.
Lightning strike,
Grey plaid,
Everything oh so bad,
To you,
Depression.
Sharp knife,
Locked door,
No, mom,
I'm not taking nudes.
There was a time when I was 15 and my younger sister joked I was going to become an addict of some sorts,
And I joked back with,
"As an alcoholic."
The look of appeasement trying to joke with me wiped off her face,
Whether I could tell I was joking or not made me question my entire existence.
An avid life of a drinker was not full of red solo cups and parties,
It was full of lonely nights clutching a bottle closely to my chest,
Afraid that it will grow legs and leave me,
Tired of the way my lips caressed the opening to drink the poison that I hoped would succumb me into nothingness.
Much like you,
My darling,
Growing tired and ever weary of the way my grey plaid shirt resembled so much like your heart,
The way lightning struck the ground like your eyes struck me in awe.
I spend my days binge watching shows with endings I have already seen a thousand times,
But what do I do when checking my phone every two minutes becomes routine,
When refreshing my messages becomes apart of my subconsciousness,
When I've drank black coffee so strong that I no longer feel the rush of alertness.
Subway trains echo with the tired grumbles of those stuck in one-frame lives,
Too tired to move forward,
Too stuck to look away from the past.
I know I mean nothing to you just like the dirt beneath the shoes I bought you,
The phone I changed my wallpaper on because it never felt right,
The google browsers cluttered with things like,
"******* yourself without actually dying."
I've become so easily submerged in mundane society,
Routine,
Routine,
Routine.
Wake up,
Drink coffee,
Forget to shower,
Walk out the door,
Hoping my world ends.
Taking that locked door to my bathroom at two in the morning,
Holding a knife with a not-so-ever gentle hand,
My mother knocking on the door I have collapsed upon.
Mother,
I am tired,
But you do not get when I say I am tired.
You do not notice my window covered,
My lights turned off,
My settings on the lowest possible in hopes that heartbreak will never find me,
But the bright light from my phone screen is still too bright and the picture of you while I'm scrolling though my feed on Instagram stops my heart.
My lungs no longer work,
My body goes numb,
Tears that I thought I had run out of the night before have returned.
All I feel is the chest splitting pain that seems to resonate through my body,
Trailing down into my fingertips,
Hands tingling from the absence of your hand in mine.
So I roll over,
Turn off my phone,
I whisper a goodnight.

"I just want you to be happy." I type, my breath uneven, tears threatening to spill. I knew it was going to be her. It was always going to be her. I never even stood a chance. "So and so is typing..."

Sitting in traditional wooden pews
back in the mid-2000s,
a guest priest from the heart of the Congo
delivered a homily in broken English
about how his country had been torn to shreds
by warlords who control that region's
vast and valuable mineral deposits.

As the priest spoke in gentle passion,
a sea of sympathetic white faces listened
to him describe the rapes and murders,
the poverty and oppression.
One middle-aged woman in a yellow dress near the front
quietly sobbed at the reminder of true suffering,
a torture greater than mere death.

Out of a sense of courtesy
or possible humble generosity,
the priest did not disclose the minerals
that had brought on such gluttonous violence
were the very elements that make our electronics
flash and glow as perpetual escapes.

Instead, the priest requested
we pray with him
for future mystical solutions
to immediate physical problems.

As we filed out of the church
the older woman who'd wept
discussed driving to the local mall.
Apparently, there'd been a sale on mobile phones.
The crisp spring breeze had dried our tears,
and the power of the almighty dollar
wiped away our curiosity
and our short-term memories.