Over 18,100 words
Have not been enough to teach me
That you cannot force unwilling feeling into words
Lightning can't always become poetry
I am angry
And it lives inside me
Refusing to leave
My tired bones alone

I miss you
Your warm existence
The way I could read you
Know your genuine smiles
I miss you
But I don't miss the anger
I don't miss you screaming at me
For not letting you die
I don't miss the blame
I don't miss the fear
But I hope you're okay
Still wish you were here
I will be here if you need me
Though I know this will just hurt me

I read your name and it makes me a moment to register the word
Those letters in that string
Still tied, tightening, around my heart

hard of hearing
bleeding out
taking pills
in excess
hearing voices
seeing things
unreal sounds
playing games
different face,
different name,
different hair,
never the same
afraid of stale water
afraid of change
keeping distance
finding blame
i'm sure some of it is true
i'm not a good storyteller after all
just a chameleon
self defense mechanism
stumbling through all the fog
when i was little i changed myself every time we moved away
i had determined that life was a game and i just had a bad hand to play
i learned how from a very young age to start bluffing and counting cards
when your identity is molded from ways to avoid pain you start to forget who are
don't raise your voice here
2 parts delusions 3 parts fear
please believe me, i love you
please believe me i do
please believe me i'm drowning
you don't believe me, do you?

don't have a second to waste,
projects piling up around me.
it's that time of the year I guess –
busy busy busy –
but it's good,
less time to think,
less time to dwell,
and I'm determined to stop dwelling,
start living,
taking in the air around me, fresh or not,
breathing it like I'm addicted.
start smiling,
because I've got my headphones and my sketchbook and that's all i need.
all i have to do is stop waiting for more,
stop waiting for the world to catch up with my thoughts and give me something new.
im so in love with adventure that i waste my time pining over it
instead of going out and finding it.
i wanna make every day an adventure.
learn a new word, listen to a new song, find a new fleck of color in your eyes.
i wanna laugh without feeling ashamed and love my friends like they deserve.
ive got projects piling up around me
and i think
this could be a new day,
so im pressing start.
let's go.

I will spend all day reading poetry books
Like somehow the words will snake into my skin
Like this will speed up the process of learning to articulate my racing thoughts
I will read and read and read
Pretending that I can absorb art
Just as quickly and restlessly
As I put it out into the world

I am the wrong kind of "sad"
Or, rather, I am NOT sad
I don't think I've ever BEEN sad, the word "SAD" is hardly in my vocabulary at all
It's not loud enough
My words are made up of screams, but my voice is not commanding
I have far too much to say but I can't phrase it in a way that makes you want to listen
I can talk all I want about car crashes and crescendos but it will go in one ear like a tantrum and go out the other like a suicide note I've rewritten twenty times to not sound like too much of a burden
I have the kind of voice that makes everyone else in the room stop talking
Not because they are interested in what I have to say but because "*******, does this kid ever shut up?"
I have the kind of voice that confuses you
Telling you how venom burns in my veins and I can't stop looking over my shoulder like I'm telling you about my favorite movie
No matter how hard I try I've never gotten the hang of expression
I'm the wrong kind of "sad"
I have to get the words out of me, bleed myself dry before I can sleep and all you will receive are stains that I will cry when you can't read
Creating more stains
I don't know how to organize my thoughts
It's so loud in here I can't think, except for when it's silent
And then I can't think anyway

All I want is to be able to tell a story
But every time I try I cry at the happy parts and grin through the tragedies and the meaning gets lost
I constantly try to tell you what I am and how this feels but the English language is so full of ******* words like SAD
I am not SAD
Some days the weight in my chest develops its own force of gravity and everything around me is ****** in and my chest feels like it's about to burst
Sometimes you say the wrong thing or nothing and I have to hold my breath and think about anything other than the sickness that settles into my stomach
My sadness doesn't translate well for an audience
I don't have any good stories
I've never been arrested or gone streaking or done much of anything that involves leaving my bedroom
I tell myself that I am a creative but I'm just making this up as I go along hoping to stumble across a point because I feel worthless again
I must be alive, I guess
Pain does not make someone an artist
Pain makes you crumble and sometimes some people are just really good sculptors but I have a tremor and I think I'd probably just cut myself open on the tools
Again I tell myself I'll write something worth reading
Again I lose the point and get dizzy from bleeding