#apx
because i believed you
because i never realized how brown your eyes really were until i had the courage to stare
because you told me you were happier this way
because i don't feel suicidal when i'm with you
because you wanted me to meet your mother
because you never ask me what's wrong
because you don't care about anything
because i wanted to know what would happen
because i was too scared to ask
because **** you for leaving the first time
because i love you for coming back
because you only ever touch me when you're drunk
because his lips didn't feel like yours
because he made me laugh but not the way you could
because of 3 am nights with you are all i want to remember
because 3 am nights without you sit in the middle of my chest like a boulder
because my father warned me
because i can't do it anymore
because i can't do it anymore
Jul 9, 2015
Jul 9, 2015 at 12:46 PM UTC
try to remember how you felt before you met him.
Jun 14, 2015
Jun 14, 2015 at 2:12 PM UTC
If you give a girl a with a big heart your broken pieces,
she will gently pick them up and carry them in her soft hands,
and pay no mind to your sharp edges.
She will try to glue you back together
and she’ll do it in a way that made you forget you were ever broken.
With scratched finger tips and ****** palms,
she’ll lift you up to the sun,
letting it's blinding rays shine through you
to show you that even the worst things have things to love in them
and that even the shattered can again be whole.
If you give a girl with a big heart your body,
she will study you like an archaic God.
She will learn your curves and surfaces like braille,
she will adjust her hearing to the pitch of your laughter
so that no matter how far apart you become,
her ears will perk up like a dog's when you giggle,
and she will smile, knowing that you smile.
If you give a girl with a big heart your time,
she will make each second feel like infinity,
and each sunset like the end of the world.
You'll forget that the universe is as vast and wondrous as it is,
because you will be so captivated by the light that she emits
right where she sits,
by your side.
And if you take from a girl with a big heart,
please,
for the love of God,
do not take it all.
If you take from a girl with a big heart,
please remember that her love is not a renewable resource.
The wind and the sun and the water will forever be there to serve you but
she will run dry, and become another fact of history that will one day be forgotten.
If you take from a girl with a big heart,
please remember how sharp your edges were before her,
how lifeless your body was before she touched it,
and how meaningless time was before she made it into something magical.
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015 at 4:20 PM UTC
last Easter I wrote a poem for you
with rhyming words and beautifully constructed stanzas
about the way your hair looks and the way I wanted you and the way things were changing but -
April came back around all too fast this year and I don't write poems like I used to.
this isn't poetry.
this is October nights with glazed eyes, burning throats and so much trauma, so much trauma, so much ******* trau-
this is November afternoons smoking my lungs black and tears that i drowned in for every day of that month.
this is December mornings when I spent all my money on Christmas decorations because I thought it would be my last.
this is New Years Eve, clutching her back and sobbing into her shoulders because I couldn't believe I made it - how the hell did I make it? this is me thanking her, and her, and her too for stitching me back together. this is champagne and the grace of God.
this is February when you came back to me and as much as i wanted to throw dirt back in your face, I held onto it in hopes of planting something new.
this is March when it wouldn't stop snowing.
this isn't poetry.
this is April,
this is me taking the dirt and burying the idea of us six feet under.
this isn't poetry,
this is Spring and this is the last time you will be mentioned with it.
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 2:26 PM UTC
it only took one week for you to re-light the candle,
and it only took me six words to set afire
(i'm so sorry i ****** up)
you were reckless with heat and i was so easily flammable and **** you for coming back when you did
there's always been a whole lot of grey between us
it wasn't black and white from the start
i was always making exceptions and you were always doing the wrong thing,
but making it seem so right
it feels like the butterflies in my stomach have turned into bees
stinging and buzzing whenever we talk and
im far past the school-girl crush, with sweaty palms and shy giggles
my hands are shaky and there's a lump in my throat because this isn't romance anymore,
this is red eyes and fractured ribs.
you keep referring to her as "a mistake"
but i keep hearing you say "i want her back"
and i wish you knew that the more you try to disguise your anger as indifference,
the more apparent it is that you wish things were different.
i will always be the altarboy,
i will always wait for you on hands and feet.
i will never be enough for you.
i will never be enough for you
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 8:39 PM UTC
Kissing him sounded like wailing sirens,
a traumatic experience already in motion
Your Dad was never around to teach you things
like riding a bike, or how to ask for the things you want
so you own a dirt bike now and steal for the thrill of it.
I still think you turned out just fine.
I want to romanticize the way it felt to feel your presence but always being at such a distance from you,
but its hard to make something so painful sound poetic.
Still, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it all, just a little bit.
You'll call some other girl "babe"
and I'll change my mind
the same way the leaves go from green to red and
one day I won't think of trauma when I hear your name,
I won't be calm when I sense danger,
and I won't be at peace when I hear sirens wail.
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 5:08 PM UTC
A cell is not a home,
those bars keep you too far away.
We all try not to think about it too much,
and like this we keep ourselves sane.
We dance around the topic and I pretend not to hear Mom howling at night because if I don't acknowledge it, then it doesn't exist.
Has your vision faded to black and white?
Do you pretend that if you don't see the colour orange hanging from your body,
that you're just in another place?
Another empty room?
Another lonely night spent with strangers at a location you're trying to make home?
You've always liked the way your hair looked long,
do you still like it now?
Have you began to hate the things you once loved yet?
Like cartoons, or colouring books, or the drugs that twisted and knotted your brain cells?
The drugs that sent you there?
The drugs that keep you there?
Have you began to resent every memory you have of us growing up?
Who do you see when you have nightmares?
Whose name do you curse when you awake in a cold sweat?
A cell is not a home
and those bars are going to ruin you.
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 3:54 PM UTC
I liked you so much better when you weren't mine
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 2:01 PM UTC
"If I could paint a picture of how we used to be,
it would be a landscape of a field
with sunflowers that all look the exact same.
The exact same.
Over and over and over again."
Jan 7, 2015
Jan 7, 2015 at 7:13 PM UTC
it comes in flashes
bright, red-hot
you feel it take over and if you feel it fast enough,
you can destroy everything in your path within moments
you spew words like venom and leave scars without thinking twice
and when it's over and done with,
you hate yourself for it.
this is what anger is,
this is how you have made cynics out of every person that's ever loved you.
Jan 2, 2015
Jan 2, 2015 at 8:46 PM UTC
i still hold my breath when i hear you late at night
you're locked behind closed doors and you think no one can hear you, but i hear you
howling like a wolf in search for something in the night,
roaring with anger like a lion
i'd like to say that I'm not afraid of you anymore but I can't help but feel like a small child in the dark when you curse
maybe this is why I try so hard to please people like you
I'll swing a right hook at a woman before I'll do so much as raise my voice at a man and *what the **** does that say about me?*
take a shot if you were conditioned to keep men tame
pop a pill if you were raised to stay silent when your daddy yells
light one up if the lines have blurred between love and fear
i haven't been sober in years
Dec 29, 2014
Dec 29, 2014 at 9:11 PM UTC
i used to think there would never be enough people like you and I,
we were singing together when i told you that you were the only friend i needed.
but now i only think of you in past tense.
what a shame,
what a misadventure it was to know you.
I've never seen a light more blinding than the one that was forced into my vision when i heard about you,
even in all those years that we spent in the sun.
i like to think that you're not as terrible as you've proved yourself to be,
but i don't know how not to confuse compassion with weakness,
or the distinction between forgiveness and forgetting.
so many of our secrets will forever remain in this small town,
memories of us live on every part of your street.
Christmas came back around all too fast this year and
i keep finding the pieces of myself that i gave away buried in the ornaments we hung together.
i don't have enough time to pretend i'm not hurting,
and i don't have enough heart to feel sorry for you.
more than the clouds want the dying grass to know that they will pour all they have to bring them life,
more than the moon wants to bring full light to our darkest nights,
i want you to know
that i am not sorry.
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 5:58 PM UTC
we are sometimes lucky enough to know people who illuminate our skies like the northern lights
we appreciate them even when we don't show it
and love them even with our fists slammed into the wall.
we do not have to be broken hearted.
we are so conditioned to believe that it is the people who love us that will hurt us most,
which in turn,
distorts our meaning of love into pain.
they say the only way to reverse this idea is to forgive, but
forgiveness is a tricky thing
and if we don't learn when to use it for others and when to use it for ourselves,
we will end up alone.
but people like me aren't afraid of being alone.
and you should know,
that i don't spare the lives of those who hurt me.
and even if you lay breathing tonight,
by morning,
you'll wish you were dead.
Dec 18, 2014
Dec 18, 2014 at 11:50 PM UTC
You forget that you're good.
You forget that you're kind, and gentle and caring.
People have been so callous with you that you forget that you are not the sum of their mistakes,
and you are not to blame for the damage that was done to you.
You forget.
You forget that you are full of good intent, that you're thoughtful and creative.
You're so used to being made to feel stupid and selfish that when someone brings out the beauty in you,
all you feel is guilt.
You have a heart of gold.
You would never do to people what they have done to you.
There is a light in you that remains bright even with the layers of charcoal that surround it.
Don't forget.
Don't forget that you're good.
Dec 17, 2014
Dec 17, 2014 at 11:45 PM UTC
Love is not the way your father slams doors,
or the way your mother stays locked behind them at night.
Love is not the way your brother loses his temper,
or the alcohol disintegrating your grandfather's brain.
Despite what you have been raised to believe,
love is not waking up alone on Christmas morning,
or the hand that hit you wiping away your tears.
Love is not the screams of rage on Saturday night
and the singing of hymns on Sunday morning.
Love is not leaving a light on for someone who’s never coming home,
and love is not the empty trust fund with your name written on it.
Love is not the pain you grew up in.
Love is not the pain you grew up in.
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 9:03 PM UTC
You wonder when you will stop bleeding.
On the night of the accident, there was so much blood loss that they didn't think you'd make it.
You still wonder how you made it.
You haven't bled like that since and the wounds have scarred over but
whenever you drive past where it happened,
whenever you see an icy patch, or a blue Honda,
the scar tears a bit.
You've tried to avoid those things, but you can't forever.
And so you wonder when the scar will fully heal.
You wonder when you will stop bleeding.
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 11:46 PM UTC
I see you in the chair on my front porch when I'm alone and it's dark.
It all goes quiet after a while.
It's easy to lose count of how much you've smoked when the air is cold.
Whether it's puffs of cold air or puffs of cigarette smoke,
I can't tell
It doesn't matter anyway.
I'm still thinking of you.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 12:05 PM UTC
i loved you like a hot air balloon that was never coming down
but all things run out of fuel eventually
and the higher you get,
the harder the fall.
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 7:33 PM UTC
I know that I am truly happy when I stop in the midst of it all and think:
"It's going to hurt like hell when this is over."
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 11:08 PM UTC
Fall is less beautiful at night
When the wind is blowing and you've forgotten your jacket and there isn't enough sunlight to illuminate the colour of the leaves and finally you see the season for what it really is
A season of death.
But we try not to think about it too much.
**We are the crack pipe babies,
the suburban rats that lay in fields at 2 am.**
We are the children of the night,
We smoke till we can't feel the chill of October anymore.
(we smoke till we can't feel the chill of anything anymore)
We are the boys and girls with holes in our gloves and rips in our boots and parents that swear to love us for the beautiful colours we have grown into to.
But they are colours of dried blood, and rust on metal and stained teeth.
They are the red and brown and yellow of autumn leaves.
We are the Fall.
But Fall is so much less beautiful at night.
Oct 25, 2014
Oct 25, 2014 at 3:38 PM UTC
Something about literature universally connecting people
something about verses that we can identify with
something about using words in the a way that makes people feel less alone
I see people using poems as band-aids
and poets writing poetry like their last saving grace
I don't know.
Some things hurt.
Some things burn
and bruise
and fester inside of you and run in circles around your mind
until it hurts to think about it any more
it hurts to read about it any more
it hurts to write abou-
my head hurts.
It hurts to write about this any more.
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 2:42 PM UTC
I think I lost my ability to write sober and it scares me shitless
Everything I've ever wrote that's worth something has been a product of drugs
Everything that has ever rhymed
and flowed
and ebbed like the sea has been a result of alcohol
I am a cliché
All of my thoughts are the same recycled ones of the media and social influence that are only brought to surface with chemicals in my bloodstream
All of my romanticism and pain and obsessive verses are mediocre when I am not high
I am not as creative as I claim
I am a fraud
I am a fraud.
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 10:52 PM UTC