With my pen I try to slay the demons
I am determined to chase them from my eden
With the inky darkness I will paint my picture
I will paint them with such stricture
My words will flow
And everyone I'll show
They will no longer be allowed to reside
Hidden deep inside
With the darkness of my ink
I will bring them to the brink
With the black flow, I'll shine the light
On their hideous form, no longer hiding in the night

I stare at a picture.
We look at each other.
Our eyes do not lie.
Some feelings you
can not hide.
Only a picture of
you and me.
Can bring so many
memories.
Feelings that we
can not express.
My pulse racing
through my chest.
I miss us.
My river is flowing.
Feels like my heart
is exploding.
Love drowning
in the ocean.
My words in silence.
My thoughts full
of emotions.

So potent was the resemblance,
so rich the imitation,
of meadows of wandering green,
with some red (tulips)
breaking through.

But careful not to chip the paint.
You drunkenly mistook the vivid
for the real. It was not real.
Here is the origin
of your sadness.

What's the                                   point of
             running forward                         these days if I'm
         only going to run back               wards the next days
       Away from him. He was     a  tantalizing mystery. Now
       I just see his violence.           How very unlike we are. I
          just want to withdraw      myself  from  him for fear
              his ways will seep in      to mine. But I already
                 know what's happen     ing. They already
                     are. Rest in peace,   pieces of me. I'm
                        already losing    myself. Piece by
                            piece the beautiful original m
                               e disappears with no **
                                       pe of returning.
                                           Ever again.
                                                Love,
    ­                                              -S

I swear this is the last thing I'll write to you:
You were my first love, the best "first love"
I could have ever been given. For that, I thank you.
I swear this is the last time I'll write your name;
but I've actually never written your name, not in poetry anyways,
so instead,
I will never speak your name again.
I say this every morning
and every night I count the times I messed up.
This is getting long, but I swear I will never check my snapchat to see if you've seen my siblings on my story.
Or my instagram, to see if you saw that pretty dress I wore one day.
Okay, one last thing - I swear I don't really
care but please don't throw away that picture of me. Keep it around.  And that letter I gave you on your birthday -
Keep it. Put it away.
Don't throw away that picture of me; it's my favorite.

She was not a good photographer

Somehow she found a way to make the entire world around her ugly

My eyes hurt after I cry. Every time. Did you know that?

Its like my head is telling me to close them, and maybe I won't see the blood strewn across my childhood walls, my childhood hands, anymore. Their assailants were little secret cuts made each day, desperate to ask for help.

Years after they stopped, my eyes can still see them. My walls talk to my head and remind me how many times I wished I were dead. And I don't feel them, I can't fathom them, but they eat at the frays of my sanity, the few weak threads, and start tearing the life I've put together for myself apart. Who am I? I can't tell if I'm a death-lusting 15 year old or a stable and happy 20 year old woman. My eyes get so blurry here.

Its so hard with this picturing mind, to not remember how picture perfect we could be sometimes. I forget the calling and crying and cutting for those little snapshots that make me think I ruined all of it. That its my fault we're not picturesque enough to send perfect post cards for Christmas anymore. Its hard to convince myself it was never that way in the first place.

I mean, cmon, Grace, open those burning eyes of yours. You've felt like an outsider since you were young. Your father joked that with your starlight hair and sky eyes you were an alien that they adopted one day, but the odd part is you kind of understood why it could be true. Not just because of the celestial features, but you never belonged. The daughter they wanted and made you to believe you needed to be was never you. You walked on glass shards of your own shattered heart to try to reach the strange plain where your parents resided, but the more you bled the further you felt.

But they lied, you're their flesh and blood, that part can't be undone. They gave you special recessive genes to a T and made you suffer as a child for having them. To top it all off they gave you this ****** photographic memory that traumatizes you too well. Its like you can never leave the blood behind.

Yet tonight your eyes hurt, even too much to picture the blood, so maybe its time for some rest. The memories, the blood, even they can wait. For now what you need, god forbid you admit this, is some silence and rest. There has been enough clatter between your ears for one night. Who knows, some people might not even be able to withstand such clatter and chatter for a lifetime.

Guess your just a special recessive alien like that.