"Hypothetically,"  hypocrisy has become the new democracy.
Socrates once said "You must break free from society",
Admittedly, that is not a direct quote.

Woe, oh, no I do not believe in aligning my stars
with your sharp minded attitude that controls me from afar.
Hardships ahead suggest that you best let go of your
previously consumed ideals and feelings and repeal from
the concave society that begs us to encourage our propriety.

Sigh, it seems that this community of this city
is stuck in a trance and they do not wish to be disturbed.
Well I'm perturbed by that fact, yet I act like I understand
the zombie-like trance that has taken hold of all that are breathing,
Leaving only a few confounded by the monstrosity of this reaping.

Keep me here, away from the stagnant ailment that has
an arrant grip on the throats of the blokes that were
ignorant enough to believe that indiscretion.

True, it's become my obsession to call out all that is nonsensical.
It's apocalyptical! Their anonymity is frankly mystical.
Their words seem to be lathed with mechanical phrases and verbs,
again I'm perturbed and what's even worse, is I find myself intrigued by their complete lack of identity that I can't make sense of me.

See? It's a seductive prospect to attempt to project yourself into
that cult, but as a result all your visions of freedom will dither
and wither into nothingness.

Although, they're courteous enough to let you keep your vanity,
but the rest of you, all your thoughts of clean and lucid dreams, are
reamed from your mind, wound down to a soft and empty grind.

My, you really should ignite a morsel of self-respect to check out
of this direct fog that is hogging any last bit of intellect.
Dissect one thought from the other and then you'll wonder
how to crawl out of this ignorant hole that has
swallowed you down, consuming your soul.

Pull yourself away from their depreciating ways.
Reintroduce yourself to free will and thoughts
so you can be brought back to life and maybe even have
a deeply un-contrived and well-thought about thought.

Be wise, snap back into reality and let gravity do it's job.
Throb goes your heart.
Did you feel that? That puncture in your chest?
It's doing it's best to let you know that you're alive,
high with breath on your tongue and in your lungs,
Filled to the seams, light beams from your fingers.

Do not linger, here in this moment, rush to the surface
and escape the airless lies that are encrusting your soul.
Pull yourself up to the surface and allow yourself to be woken.

Broken you may be, but you can be renewed if you give yourself
permission to control your own admission.
So permise it and recommit to standing on your own two feet
and weep with joy at your eternal freedom.

This is where I leave you.
Alone with your lonesome self...
Relish in your new-found magnum opus,
let it give you focus to hone in on your blooming
and lucid, conscious brewing.

Keep it stewing.
Stirring to formalize your new ignition,
no longer is this a road to your perdition.
Ridden your thoughts, let your conformity rot
and let that *** stew all of your now, new
delectable thoughts.

My **** is today
I got a low score
My sweet is today
I got to wake up.

I feel like a zombie today
My mind drifting to somewhere else
Yet my body is sitting in class about earthquakes
And a teacher with a face-palming pronunciation and grammar.

"Percent..." I heard her say once.
But it went percient instead.

I feel like sleeping today
Not the usual snoring kind.
That one with a total blackout
where no one can wake me but me.

My sweet is today
I get to write poems again
A slam at most
Now give me the mic (1, 2, 3, 4...)

My **** was yesterday
I was watching a slam with a friend
Not live, though
And someone called me weird.

I feel like an idiot today
Walking these halls
and wasting this ink

But (I hope) Colleen Hoover doesn't mind
I borrowed her version
of **** and sweet

-090915

Dear Estranger,

the only boy who has called you father
is your buried best friends son;
Sorry but Secretly, sir I don’t think I would have wanted
you as my dad.
I was never the athletic athen or the sporty spartan
I was the kid who could create.
Create a world with words and word those worlds
into a willed waistband that held my reality up on the hips
of hypocrisy.
Although, I never could see
what you expected from me
because I tried to wrestle,
wrestle the writhing rapids
of emotion I now choose to hide.

Dear Estranger,

You choose to stay out late
Keeping the company of neatly lined papers
and that was a stab to our hearts, a ****** with a rapier.
I garishly grinned
grabbing at a grasp.
grasping your grip
a grip with a twist
or rather your twisted grip on reality.
I never could see
what you expected from me
because the lawn grew overnight
overtly obfuscating all the golf green
grass grinding I had completed
just to please you.

Dear Estranger

Your television shows are
brimming with bottles
sans ships, but full of ****
just like you I guess.
“We are what we eat”
but
“You are what you See”
and I hope that that mirrored mirage minimizes
revealing the rottenness
wrought on our innocence
I never could see
what you expected from me
because I tried to make a movie
filled full of wounded warriors, you collected my camera
and gave me **** sans soldier.

Dear Estranger,

When I was 7 years old you
chucked a block of cheese at my mother
when we should have been at chucky cheeses
enjoying the recess
of the life afforded to youth.
Where are the kids? 'Who cares” he carelessly
croaks
I never could see
what you expected from me
because i grew grumpy and grim
from despairing disapproval and
maybe just maybe thats why my sisters cite
superficial substantiation
on their lack of physical attraction

Dear Estranger,

the life of a rockstar
is the life of a shiny silver stone
set in a slimming silver ring.
Pretty to look at. Not much else.
Beauty is what you seek
but the shriek of your ugly soul
seeps through into our toxic home
Lullabied loathing lasts longer than you think
and is heard louder than they speak
I never could see
what you expected from me
because I spent time with celebrity
and celebrated there celibacy
of a live lived fully
and quite frankly
that life just doesn’t seem very fulfilling

Dear Estranger,

I can now understand
who’d stick around
when there is people to please
saying pleased to meet you
words filled with friendship
a necessary work trip
well let me tell you our ship has sailed
I am lost at sea and no one is out
looking for me and I wish I could just drown
but I still can’t see
what you expected from me
because the other boys built boats in boy scouts
with their dads,
While I stayed home building lego dreams
stuck in the fad of boys with a too busy dad

Dear Estranger,

Pictures this, framed photos floating
on the sides of white walls.
Full of a fake family that
feared their father
Strangers are dangers
and nothing is stranger
than an estranger
in this the mormon Mecca called mesa.
Yes I called you a danger
so would the slits on your daughters wrists
and the poems pouring out of your poor
sons lips.
I never could see
what you expected from me
because you never told me.
Christmas came and you left
my eyes were left bereft of tears and
my journal was stained red from the dead
I felt when my shoes wore out and your
feet dated dockers new from the box store
Mom sold her ring to a rock store
to pay the studios electric in may
may I suggest you man up
or get the hell out.

Sincerely, a ******* who found his father ******* around

I want to steal your kisses,
And your time,
And your love.
I want to breathe in your air,
And your feelings,
And bits of your soul.
I want to inhale your history,
And your sadness,
And your happy.
I want to wrap my arms around your shoulders,
And your heavy heart,
And your splintered spine.
I want to take your heartbreak,
And your worry,
And your tears.
I want to wipe away your jutted lip,
And furrowed brow,
And damp cheeks.

I want to steal every single part of you,
And only give back,
The good stuff.

My mother looked for God at the bottom of a wine glass as empty as her heart,
she shrunk herself down to curl up in the bottom of it
and I haven’t heard her pray since.

My father looked for God at a grave marked for a man that introduced them.
But saw only grass growing over dirt,
saw only unanswered pleas
and he has been six feet further away from being saved since.

My brother looked for God in the highest place he could reach.
He was met with only a long way to fall,
the ground beneath him wasn’t as soft as it had been when he was a child,
and he hasn’t looked up since.

I looked for God in unheard answers and nights of loneliness.
All that I got back were prayers soiled with tears.
I caved in on myself.
And i have learned something since.

The dark cavern between my ribs holds promises
The possibilities of a glass that is empty
is as much as an empty heart has;
to be filled.
The certainty that six feet under isn't where our loved ones lie
The blanket of a God that loves us enough to let us hate Him
The highest place we can reach on earth,
is kneeling before a God that is not hard to find, but is hard to see.
All I had to do, was look inside of myself.

When I was eight years old, I always wanted to grow up just so I could order the cool toys they were selling on T.V. I never wanted my parents permission to be able to play a game because I felt like a big boy.

When I was first titled “Big Boy” I thought that meant I could make my own mistakes and learn from them, not have my own kite string of restrictions on what I could and couldn’t do that was only being unraveled as time flashed by.

Now that I’m seventeen, I don’t want my own responsibilities, I still want to have the kite string attached to me because at least then I know somebody still cares about me.

I don’t want to worry about how much money I have to eat, or where I’m going to sleep at night because this Kite only feels safe under the roof I live in now. The time my father passes away who am I supposed to look for when I want real advice. Better still why would people come to me for advice?

I want to know that no matter what mistakes in life I make, that my family right now will be there for me in years beyond then

I want a never ending kite string attached to me because the real world is nothing I ever dreamed about. Knowing I have to work hard every single day and only be told I’m appreciated temporarily by people who are considered family.

I don’t want to be the one asked to buy some crazy pillow that glows in the dark and is super cool, by my kids, while I’m sitting in the kitchen worrying about how much money i have for food week after week.

I want to be the one sitting in front of the T.V. again…..

Having my teal colored gameboy waiting for lunch.

But now it’s just that stage, where the string attached to me is about to be clipped, for nightmares of responsibilities, to become reality.

People always ask me about my anxiety and trust issues;
Why I was perfectly fine and then one day I wasn’t.
But I don’t exactly know much,
Except that it’s made of moments like this.
Mostly it’s annoying or upsetting but finally I see what they do.
That combined with not being able to do anything about it,
It’s driving me mad.
Maybe I should have given up after I’d been hurt the first time;
But you were so persistent in being sweet to me.
So when you told me that you liked me I decided to just let it happen.

What could go wrong?
That only lasted about two months,
Before you met someone else and I wasn’t good enough.
With that affection you had given me you also took the bandages.
My heart began to unravel.
Just when I got used to the idea that it didn’t matter,
That I couldn’t expect the things that held importance at night to bleed over into the day;
Right when I’d moved past it,
You’d become the remedy to the pain you had caused.
What could go wrong?

That’s what I said the first time.
And the second.
When other people decided to make my personal life their priority.
Remember that?
You ran scared like you could turn the feelings off;
And two weeks later we fell back into our usual pace
With absolutely no trouble or second thoughts
That is, until a face-to-face moment.
No more sweet, on-the-cheek kisses or affection.
You stayed distant until we were 100% alone;
Zero chance of anyone at all observing any slight romance between us.
As soon as we were alone you had your lips on mine,
Melting me, melting into me.
Just like that it felt like you were gone.

“But what could go wrong?” I said.
More like screamed, as over and over I somehow felt my world crashing down,
And memories bringing me back.

It was 8 January 2012 when you first told me you liked me;
Spoke of the butterflies I gave you.
Scared that I wouldn’t be adequate or that you’d meet someone else,
Shyness leaked its way into special moments.
When you assured me that you liked me,
Liked me way too much to go anywhere anytime soon,
I believed you and those words.
What could go wrong?

Early March, the 3rd I believe, when you met that other girl,
And started what would be a constant fear-fueled jealousy,
But it was such a blur that I can’t quite remember.

12 July we had our first “official date”
The 23? Our first kiss.
The 27 and 29 we went out again,
And 9 August you broke my heart.
I guess you didn’t mean to, didn’t have a choice.
But you did.
And on 1 September when you waltzed in and out, I let you.
Like some kind of yoyo, things continued.
You stayed the one to make me happiest,
But maybe I shouldn’t have put that responsibility on you;
Made you the only person I could trust with absolutely everything.
But I did, and you were.

Until 28th January 2013.
When you said you didn’t like me and hadn’t for a while.
Still through the following months your actions contradicted your words.
Much like the psychology I had learned.
You probably don’t remember much but I’d explained your behaviour to you.
About how there must be some conflict,
Between what you want and what others define as acceptable.

Now it’s crossed my mind that perhaps I was just making excuses.
Because I don’t want to see you as anything other than the prince I have been seeing you as.
Even now I’m making excuses for you.
Saying that maybe you had a viable reason for all of this.
Deep down, I sense that you don’t.
Probably never did.
This is because you were never willing to be serious with me.
Not serious enough to get into a relationship.
Not serious enough to so much as mention me to your best friend.

So yeah I guess it seems like I’m bitter,
When really that’s not it at all.
It’s called pain, heart-break, whatever.
It’s the feeling of uncertainty.
And all the questions about nearly every moment we’ve ever shared.
Wondering if it’s because I wasn’t pretty enough,
Or if I didn’t give enough;
Why somehow I just wasn’t enough for you or anybody else.
Or maybe I was; maybe I was too much.
Or loved you too much, or whatever.
Somehow it could be a billion things or none at all.
Somehow none of that matters.

Just not knowing and never getting an explanation,
While you leave wordlessly to happiness,
And I sit in silence overcome by thoughts,
Crying in the shower for hours…
That is the cause of this passive-aggressive bit.
About how you’ve broken a part of my trust in you.
Just like many others.
Surely not the first and certainly not the last.

Tonight,
like every night,
is the night I will lay
awake in bed till 7 am
while my brain makes
conclusions and draws
assumptions out of every
little thing I've ever done in my life.
Then the fears creep in.
The ones about whether I will
ever be a successful member
of the human race or if I'll just crash and burn
like my sister before me.
whether I will look at myself
the same way she did
when she thought of her two
beautiful children as she stuck
that last needle into her veins.
and I fear that love isn't real.
I fear its not real for me.
The last person who told me they
loved me probably meant it
but i didn't say it back.
I didn't say it back.
He looked at me as though
he understood but
I held his soul in my fingertips.
He looks at me now and I wonder
if he feels empty just as
empty as I do now.
I fear if I say those words things will
fall apart. I fear I will not feel
love enough to follow
in my sisters footsteps.
I fear I will be close enough
to him that our souls will cross
I fear we could be happy and I fear
once it happens it'll all fall apart
like all the others before him.
I fear the universe crashing and
burning around me
as my thoughts run around like
rabid dogs
biting every inch of
my insides that they can.
I breathe in the smoke
of sad tobacco and
feel nothing.
I light another and feel nothing
I feel nothing so often
Maybe I can't recognize when
I actually feel something.
I've felt like nothing for so
long how can I
love like before.
Sometimes.
I wish my sister and I
were closer.
not just half.
being related and being
family have no correlation
yet why do I worry
I will be influenced by her.
Tonight.
This morning.
I start my day.
I continue
as though the ghosts watching
me tear through my skin
leaving gaping sores
and cuts that I can feel
but my face stays calm.
I keep walking.
If he says he loves me tomorrow.
like I think he will
I won't say it back.
but I'll feel something.
so maybe it’s worth it.
Maybe I'll recognize how to feel
something again.

"Nina, why do you always date *****?" questions my best friend in the way that implies an answer is not needed nor wanted in the warm light of his front porch in the car that belongs to me but he offers to drive when my stomach is sick and a new ****-up is laid like fresh paint on my mind.
The question itself spins like a coin in my head that will never lay flat, like a bad autotune job, like a Rube Goldberg that will never halt, like it has too much truth to it.
"Why do you always date *****?"
Because they don't seem like ***** when our eyes meet and the ***** of their smile makes my nose crinkle with an incessant desire to smell the warm scent of their chest as my head lays pillowed on it in the early morning calm before the loud realization of what events transpired the night before, before flashbacks of mixed bodies and sweaty whispers, before he decides he's seen enough of me, devoured his piece of meat, he's not hungry anymore.
When will I be his favorite food? The one he can have for breakfast lunch and dinner and still crave, the one he will always ask for seconds of, the one who is home to him. Every time I meet someone I call all of my friends and swear he's the ever so infamous "one," and every time I fall for the ******* lie that he "will not break me," YOU WILL NOT BREAK ME?! Then why am I shattered, laying in pieces on the cold tile floor, my mind a messy oozing disaster? But maybe my heart has always been just a taped up broken mess since Paula left, maybe when Aaron and Spain and Mitchell came along it was all too easy for them to pull at the poorly tied knotted strings I had sewn into my heart, maybe my soul was just a little too welcoming, maybe my mouth was a little too eager to feel theirs against it. But I can swear that when you "made love to me" it was really just *******, or else why would you take the one piece of me left only to complain after that I hadn't shaved. Well I've shaved every day since, cut bleeding patterns into my mortified anxiety, ripped tears from my eyes before I dare let them fall, and watched you kiss her over and over again. But if you asked me back I'd still say yes, rip the shredded heart from the box I've tended to keep it in and place it back in your hands to wear like a new notch in your belt, a new trophy for your collection.
"Why do you always date *****?"
Because some wretched inner part of my being believes I deserve it.