i am frustrated out of my skin
there's an itch in my arms, near the joint of my elbows, an energy says to tear, to break, to destroy anything solid and present, burn anything in this moment because where i am in space and time is stagnant, unending with no beginning, a constant state of stillness that has existed as long as i
my hands and thoughts are at riot, i am screaming and clutching to keep occupied, i am living in this nowhere, where i have always been
so unstable yet so still at the same time
the ground has been shaking under my feet for so long that i no longer feel it, there is no thrill and no danger, only the thought of jumping off the edge of this land to feel the fall, the fall, something, to feel anything, the wind in my hair, the pit in my stomach, the ringing in my feet at the fear of heights
all i feel
the tension in my neck, the emptiness in my chest, the static that floods my body in moments like these, like this one right now, unremarkable as every other, as everything in my life has always been
not to say it has been normal, rather a constant chaos,
if you spend your whole life with screaming in your ears you, too, will eventually go deaf
staring wide-eyed into the sun to blind yourself
nothing ever matters and nothing ever works
i will continue to tear at my skin every spring, every time that static fizzles back up, every time my feet itch to run somewhere
the whole way is uphill and the only thing chasing me is time,
which i always turn and stare in the face,
say i dare you, i dare you
catch right up to me and swallow me whole, end it, i dare you

It's you and me in a future
With that apartment all our own
Too many blankets and fairy lights
Your makeup and my sketchbooks
Everything we could ever want
You and me in a future
Where we managed to figure it out
You by my side in a future where I'm enough, I'm enough, I'm enough
It's all peaches and cream
No struggle that we can't beat
It won't be perfect, but it's perfect to me
A future with you is all that I need

you, my love, a universe all your own, stars and impossibilities
you, my sun, with a smile like no other, genuine and glowing
the way your eyes can be a gentle gray, a midday sky, a dark ocean in the low light
from the lightest of freckles that dust your face, star, you are beautiful
it's the way your soul shines right through you
light pouring out your very being like sunday morning blinds
this is the way i see you
in those little idle moments

it strikes me in these lonely hours of night
everything you are
and the burning fear
of how little i am to compare

It's always so good until it isn't
And you make me so warm til you freeze over
I am left to traverse this paper sheet of ice to the other side of this lake
I remind myself that even if the ice breaks I can swim
But the cold makes my body heavy and unstable
I am uneasy on my feet trying to navigate you
To get to the spring of tomorrow
When the nightmares are less frequent and the silence less deafening
I am calling out to you but afraid to cause an avalanche
We said we'd do better this time
So why am I left barefoot on thin ice?

there are nights when you feel more trainwreck than person and far too many reasons why to count
and your brain is an old house held together by spiderwebs
they cling to the corners with the dust that spurs your allergies
but you can just take medicine for that
this, this is different,
you can feel the collision,
you know you're headed straight for it top speed because you're running from a past you didn't choose, from a past that haunts you, from the fact that you never had the chance
and it's chasing, grabbing for your ankles while you pray you don't trip
praying you don't slow down
but this house in your head is heavy
and the voice rings out what now? but it's not that easy, see, because when you're not good enough for your mother it's because your just like your father like you swore you'd never be, and the anger that follow says you could be worse, you could be your brother, you could be the monster under your bed and in your closet dripping poison and ***** hands, you could be the anger that swells in your chest, electric, chaotic, burning, building, suffocating,
you could be so much worse, you could be everything they see you to be, you could be the thunder and the lightning and the gun that goes off, you could be darkness that festers in the corner, but then again, aren't you?
you could be the dead body she fears to find, the 911 call, the nightmare, the inevitability,
but then again, aren't you?
accelerating to the point of contact, hit the wall, hit the wall, we're all waiting for the fire
one swipe catches your heel from You Never Had A Chance,
and you're stumbling
and it overtakes you, all at once
the web always links one thing to another and you're overtaken,
and all this
from a raised voice

if i am a tornado in your shelter
a storm behind these walls it is
the corner you have backed me in
the pain of wings you've clipped it is
the voice that you have silenced
as it rises into screams it is
this earthquake of a person
from fault lines you made deep

you cannot back the cat into the corner
and cry out when it shows claws
you cannot raise a child by simply pointing out their flaws
and you cannot box a natural disaster
and expect it to stay
you name me rolling thunder yet condemn the role i play
you've backed me in this corner
see static on my spine
you keep calling out for order
yet continue to cross the line

how do i cool a burning love
not to say, fall out, but temper,
step back
you know i throw myself in every time
and i'm always so surprised when i hit the bottom
what goes up must come down and i'm higher than hell on you right now
and i've been here before, and it came down crashing
and the ceiling fell on my already broken body
but here we are and i've jumped once more into you
free falling, hoping you'll catch me