The glasses you peer over have lenses thick but entice the people you want to discover and do not change the fact you can stare into their souls.

Retrieve their hardships and feel them as your own.

Your words flow with truth even when truth is something you haven't been given opportunity to ever know.

There is beauty in a tortured soul and from that thrives like vines with tangled mind and suddenly you have managed to gain some mental control.

Auras of green yellow and pink like changing leaves that fall only when your internal seasons have to release the memories burst like a gust of wind craving to be exposed.

But this, my giving tree, is the beauty I need you so see and not dispose.
That when you write it's like planting an impact in someone's mind and allowing it to grow.

Smoke of cowboys killers and vices of late night talks and wonderful company. Have honestly helped me create the person I can allow myself to be.

The saddest thing I have seen was when you sealed that envelope. Put it in that mailbox and we drove down the road. Leaving behind your past pain from years of hindered hope.

As your story on your shoulder says you are always a free soul. And helped me discover the meaning of hope. And I want you to know how much you mean to me. That together we bind through our ideas of humanity.

You thought me to tap into my darkest through rhythmic repetitive jabs at my temples. And revived the only person I didn't know I could resemble.

So this family tree your now apart of can only be determined improved. And my sister is how now I'll always think of you.


Emily A. Grande

Where would I not follow you, friend?
Show me a depth of Hell to which your soul hasn't plunged,
the bottom of the ocean has known your touch,
the sky waiting for you to emerge
once again like a little mermaid

The Fall seems to follow each Summer,
skin marred with freckles like the lips
of the sun were planting fiery kisses on your shoulder blades

You who know triumph like Ali in a ten round match that lasted 45,
fists bloodied and raised over head, teeth knocked in,
still standing

You who can bring a grown man to his knees, but choose instead to lift him up, like you lift me up
You who know the theory that connects all our atoms to those inside a clock, one whose hand somehow pointed you to me,
like the needle in a compass redirects us

An imprint, resembling something like a fossil, left on the heart of those you have loved
People cling to you like they already know how good you are before you're gone

Surely I would follow you, whose steps sound like a melody, your voice like a song that rings in my ears,
a siren call to end a lifelong reverie,
and which sounds, unmistakably, like home

I've heard perception is everything
Though depth was never really mine
Surface life of a girl dragged under
Seeped in irony, fall in line

Maybe my reality is a compromise
(Though I **** sure never will)
A necessary concession to get through this moment
Every new second brings new things to feel

Appearances are the most convincing
Which emotions do you fake?
Waking life can't really be so nightmarish
**** this give and take

His spit tastes like salvation
I finally discovered the power one finds in a **** good kiss
Body hanging above mine, suspended on arms into which I collapse
Skin cells meet in a chemical reaction that explodes,
Leaving me breathless and gasping
Chest heaving, rising
Christ rose three days later, but the sweat that fell from his brow as he hung on the cross never stung my eyes like His does

I swear He speaks in parables like you, Lord
He even baptized me in His holy water.
I lace my fingers between His and whisper prayers every night,
But He never hears them.
His love pours out on me as if the Great Flood were upon us once more,
And we sneak behind the confession booth to ****.

I say ten Hail Marys as I'm down on my knees.
The Bible tells us love is the greatest of all.
I offer Him my body, like Christ did.
He knocks and my door flies open.
He seeks me out and I am found.
He asks me to give him my all and he receives me.
And in this joining heaven is found.

The steps you took to my heart sadly resemble the tracks on your arms you tried to hide from sight,
and I told myself with patience I could surround you with light and we'd live in darkness no more

I've learned circumstances won't change just because love means they should,
and you won't stop killing yourself though you swore to yourself you could.
Please know I can't be there to see the end of it

So convince me once more to call you mine
I've never belonged to anyone, yet when I hear you cry "I need you," I begin to cross that line.
Let's see how far I get this time.

Stop living like you're already dead;
I promise nothing's as bad as gone.
Love yourself and then me, I'll be there as long as I can.
You're in and out and always in my head

I lost my mind two days after you left
And I just now got it back
But you'll never hear a word of this
We're a runaway train jumping the track

The truth is I may have what you need
And I wanted to carry your past
But my heart has never been wired that way
Marked from the start, we weren't meant to last

Callused hands always left me raw
Your parts rubbing mine to the bone
An exposure too real to handle
I'm just better when I'm alone