I am walking on a trail I am uncertain of
Reaching for the stars while hopelessly grasping for the ground underneath my broken feet
I am touching your tears afraid that if I do not wipe them away you’ll wipe me away
The thought of you in pain always makes me feel like throwing up
Someone as precious as you should never understand what it means to be hopelessly alone while surrounded by people who love you
I am afraid to understand the misery that lies beneath your more than somber smiles
I’m following a journey written out to me by the government
Spending money I don’t have
Hopelessly aiming for a future where I can provide for you and help everyone who’s ever helped me
This accumulative debt is a spark in my check book
Ruining my finances but helping me achieve something greater than myself
I could never write poems the way you write music
And every time I look in the mirror I see a missing piece of me and I cannot find it no matter where I look
I’m trying to find myself alongside you
Afraid that you’ll be another to leave me behind and achieve grand things without me
Even if I am a lowly writer
Even if I am a hopeful poet
Even if I am a hopeless person
I need a sense of fulfillment to keep me alive
I am a train and no one is filling my coal
I have stopped on the tracks of life and I do not know which way to go
There are storms rolling in and the thunder is so loud that I cannot hear myself scream
My heart beats at an exponential rate and I no longer know if I want it to finally explode
Or for it to just stop
The clickity clacking of my fingers typing away on my keyboard is music
So I am a musician just like you
Only my instrument of choice is my growing vocabulary and my lyrics don’t always make sense
But I am still walking
Sometimes I run to a destination I’m certain doesn’t exist

Autumn hit us like a truck
Our 90 degree race was promptly followed by days of 40 degree practice
Our elbows chaffing against our shirts, nevertheless grateful for the rest,
The shelter from the humidity
I don't think I was actually breathing as I crossed the threshold of the second lap of our three mile loop
In some odd twist of fate, I'll be running in the varsity semifinals next week
As my lungs tried to tear themselves from my chest, I tried to remind myself that this wasn't my first run
I've had six months of slamming my heels into the ground, just like every other ******* this trail
I heave every time someone passes me
I think, "Just one more deep breath and I will cross that line,"
I think that my height is betraying me and my joints are grinding to a painful halt
I think that I am still moving.

I wash my hands constantly, as the smell of anything unnatural makes me uneasy. I smell the tips of my fingers and the palms of my hands nervously; the smell of metal, carpet, and reluctance all trapped between my fingers nauseate me. I run to the sink and pump soap into my hands before frantically rubbing them together, forming as many bubbles as possible.

I only like my hands when they smell like soap or oranges or lavender.

I have nightmares about you during the day. I sit awake and wonder how much of you was real and how much is just sound that I created in a desperate leap for love. The leap I swore I would take over and over again.

There is paint on my arms and my hands right now and all I can think about is how i wish I were an artist
I wish i could draw myself into things the way I can push myself into things that hurt

My mom told me I am brave that I am fearless that I just do things
but I think I am reckless with myself
the way I run into pain face first and tear into it with my fists over
and over again
I have never been afraid of change
The way pain rolls over you and makes your stomach convulse
your whole body week and your sobs so huge that they don’t make sound beyond the frantic gasp for air at the end

I have always been to proud of being human
for some reason I think that the way I feel the way I live is somehow monumental
running into things over and over again

You are the wolf,
wild, reckless, free
Howling up at the moon,
Breath seen in the cold night,
running,
               running,
                              running,
From or to - unknown.
Instinctive, predatory, beautiful
You are the wolf.