The first thing that I noticed when I walked into the psychiatric hospital was how cold the floor tiles were.
You See, they took my shoes off because I was a thirteen year old, five and one half foot, one hundred and ten pound threat.
I made grown men think I was off my edge...and looking back on me, I was.


I mean, killing myself? That’s the ultimate game show bet.
“WHAT’S BEHIND CURTAIN NUMBER DEATH” I seemed to ask myself.
And also, what games would I have to play to get there.
How long do you have to hang to die?
How much blood would it take to bleed to death?
How fast does my mother have to be going on the freeway to make my jumping death quick?
HOW MUCH OXYCODONE DO I HAVE TO STEAL FROM MY ABUSIVE STEP FATHERS DRAWER?
Someone would have to be mad to even bother looking behind that curtain.


But like I said, the first thing i noticed was the floor tiles.

i'll paint stars on your ceiling
to keep you close to heaven
even heaven wasn't enough
to make you want to stay
if you want hell's fire
i swear i'll burn hotter
i'll give you so much love
it'll wash your sin away

Your poems read as staggered prose;
the rhythm of the words escapes you.
One assumes, un-mused, you chose
a free-verse prison to run into.
You are modern. And it shows
in lack of structure, meter, beat.
Your emperor, set free of clothes
meanders on unsteady feet
exposed as naked, fending blows
from anarch subjects bored to tears
by cryptic, existential woes
and dreary imagery. One hears
within the verbiage you compose
a load of godless free-form tripe.
The lyrical ebb achieves new lows;
the scent is somewhat over-ripe…

I was fifteen when you were sixteen, I knew you were trouble and that's what I liked about you.
My mother would hate it.. but we always got away with doing bad things.
Sneaking alcohol and stumbling down traintracks.
Tell me why I couldn't know you now? You don't exist in my world anymore.. your cashmere skin and eyes the color of some burnt thing. But yet so alive.
We would ride around in your mother's car, smoking *** like we shouldn't be..
Out after midnight like we shouldn't be...
having ***.. like we shouldn't be.
But we didn't care because as long as it feels right, do it, eh?
And oh did it feel right. I think you'll always be a memory to me.
One of the best memories.
The only memory I need, the only memory I have of you is warm summer thunderstorms and mischief. What did we know?
We were only in tenth grade... but like my mother says,
"you think you have it all figured out".


Maybe we did.

Theres power in pain,
Great power in a pen,
And greater power when the pen is used to pen pain.

I remember you in the worst ways
in flesh flayed from my bones
and exposed nerves in my brain
that hang my words.
and stiffen my spine.
and the catch in my throat,
when he asks to hear my music
or to hear me sing
I freeze
and grow quiet because now I'm afraid
though he has kind eyes
one day his words will come harsh like yours
This is your legacy
fear written in my skin
and an inability to let someone care for me.
I'm stuck in this
and I'm so tired of you
being in my head,
that every negative thought comes branded
In your voice.