The false, fraying mask of elation
Falls piece by piece from your face
And underneath the lies are tired eyes,
An exhaustion you quietly hate
Hidden under the plastic joy.
Let me be your toy, and do not throw me out.
Let me exaggerate this smile to a shout.
I have to make sure that you know I really care,
But I've worn myself out again,
Bright eyes die down to cold stare.
And it's not that I don't love you,
And it's not that we're not right-
I just don't know how to show you how I feel without stage lights

One day when we're older
You'll probably be a doctor or a nurse
And I'll still be drawing cartoons
And wishing I could travel the earth
You'll be smarter, you'll be mature
I'll be sitting in my room
I will likely always be this way
We may grow out of tune
I'm not lying when I say I love you
But I'm afraid to promise you forever
I think that in the future
I'll be stagnant, but you'll be better
And we'll look back on today
And we'll wonder what has changed
But the question's not what changed, it's what didn't

got me a little crazy
'cause this is crazy, right?
you make my whole soul light up
i think there's flowers growing in my chest
i'm a little bit scared
you say you won't get sick of me
and i think you mean it but i know i'm overwhelming
but you seem to get me
and i feel this swell in my being
like you can just lift me
i was digging my own grave
now i'm sitting here laughing
and loving you far too soon
and my stomach is turning
i think i'll let this garden grow
if you'll water it with me
but baby forgive the nightmares
i'm just so afraid you'll see
i'm a mess that you can't handle
i'm so afraid you'll leave

Keep busy, keep busy
If you don't run fast enough your thoughts will catch up
So you can never, ever stop moving or you'll drown
Like a shark

I don't often write about good and beautiful things
But this one goes to you
A thank you note for being the color on gray days
The rain in this drought
One word from you is a saving grace from the world I often shut out
And I'm not always great at expressing it, but you're the sun shining through the clouds
Like the feeling of driving music up, windows down at 60 miles an hour
With the added warmth of cocoa on Christmas
And twice as sweet
And this is cliche
But thank you for being the best part of my day.

i feel lost somewhere in existence
unhappy with my state of being
someone hit the pause button on my life but i am still going
no one is speaking to me, no one acknowledges me
i am walking alone in a world that does not care
trudging knee-deep in unwanted apathy
and the levels are rising and i am so afraid
so afraid to get complacent
there is no purpose in life but to live
and i am surviving, just barely, but not alive
pushing blindly with no one beside me
and no end goal in sight

On the days that I don't have to wake up at 3:30
I can be found cross-legged in the low light
I do not want the extra sleep
I do not want to waste another second with my eyes closed
I am not so secretly afraid of wasting my life
I can't stand to work this job I hate,
Throwing away 8 hours every day
To survive is not living
And I want to be alive, not just breathing
I want to stop drowning, start swimming
I want to live my life with my eyes open
If I spent the time that I spend at work with my family maybe they wouldn't feel like strangers
I am so disconnected from the world that my loved ones are foreign to me
It's hard to say hello with the exhaustion crushing me, I can't open my mouth to speak, it takes too much energy
But the days I do have free I hold close to me
And the times when I do see my friends I hold close those memories
Tonight I will feel every unstrained breath that passes through my body
Tonight will trickle effortlessly into tomorrow and I will hold its hand as we cross
Awake to see what the sun will bring