Cry baby bleeding heart
Ruin everything you touch
Wet with tears, wet with blood
Hold too tight, **** it up
Deep red handprints on white sheets
Killing what you try to keep

There’s a hole where you were
And I still remember
There’s this violent, persistent gnaw in my chest
There’s this hole in the center where I grew around you
With part of me missing, how could I forget?
So I will always wake up frantic, searching for the ghost of you
Following breadcrumbs long gone stale
Sometimes I find some old lost piece of you
But it’s always a dead end, never a trail
And I wonder where you are now, I wonder how you’ve been?
Did I leave a hole in you? Could you ever fill it in?

Have you stopped writing?

The streets we used to walk are forgetting the sound of our footsteps
The soles of our feet forget the heat of the pavement
Barefoot Arizona summer

Our hearts forget the sugar high pace,
The remaining memories lose their clarity
All childhood games end eventually

I think magic only exists when you’re young
I think we lost it somewhere along the way

I wish I could remember
I’d give anything to relive those days

I am heavy with the sopping weight of dead dreams
I am wet with the blood of my childhood
I am on a warpath through this emptiness
I swear to god I’ll feel alive again

I am 22 years old with 23 snatching at my ankles
And I have fought for every scrap of independence I can get my hands on
I retire to my bed at night, in a new home but still not my own
Sweating out the heat and trying to be grateful for where I am
But the screaming piece of starlight that still lives in my chest always weeps
Where is my kingdom?
Where is my castle?

I grew up so much on your bedroom floor
With our backs to the carpet, we’d lay there and listen to Muse and talk about *******.
Nothing matters when you’re 11 years old, it’s just cartoons and sugar and whatever darkness grows behind closed doors, but those doors are closed
And I thought I kept my shadows out in the hallway where they couldn’t catch us playing make believe in your pool.
I thought it’s too bright outside for dark things
And we were far too fast on our bikes,
And it was far too high when we’d hike
And the Arizona summers would protect us.
I guess the dark things got in when we’d sleep,
Maybe you could smell the cold on me,
Something slipped in through the cracks and ****** things over.
I miss sleeping in your basement, I miss living in your back pocket, and I miss thinking of your name without trying not to cry.
You are so ingrained in me, but you want nothing to do with me, and that place can never exist for us again.
It’s a terrible thing to wrap my head around.
We could be laughing in your kitchen with some horrible concoction that’ll keep us up to watch the sunrise again,
But I’m just left to wonder where you’ve been.
I know you’re smart, I hope you’re happy, I hope you have a new best friend,
I hope they grow with you and learn from you, and I hope you do with them.
I hope you think of me, but not too much, I think dwelling would be sad.
I hope you forgive whatever I did wrong and look back fondly on what we had.

When I was a kid, I used to pick myself to pieces trying to find the part that was wrong.
I guess I thought it’d stop at some point, but I find myself reflecting on every little thing I’ve ever done,
tracing back the footsteps to where I lost you.
I guess it has to be me, but it’s the same elementary game,
Molding myself to meet your needs until I don’t know where you end and I begin,
So when you leave you take a part of me.
I will try to fill the space with whatever I was missing and I will play this game again with some new player who won’t tell me the rules.

I exist
With you and for you and beside you
Call and response, comfort and performance
I exist as your lover, I exist on your arm, I hide behind you
I am in your messages and behind your screen, in your passenger’s seat, on your mom’s couch, in your bedroom
“I exist, I am.”
I try to end it there, say it like a full sentence.
I exist, I am,
In my art, in my thoughts, in my wholeness.
I am not an accessory, a conversation, for entertainment value,
I can and do and am allowed to exist outside of you.
I exist, I am, and I may be.
There is no guilt in this.

Garden gate yawning open, you step out into a world that hasn't quite awoken
The sleepy light of dawn to warm you, the morning dew cool on bare feet
I dream of walking in the Earth's gentle arms
Before she stretches off her sleep
In this quiet sort of patience, the world seems so at peace

a vicious desire
i want to be so fragile you could knock me over with a touch
isn't that what beauty is?
maybe if you peeled my tired, withering body off the floor
i could be worthy of your love
half rotting and collapsed in your arms
i could finally be beautiful when my ******* and thumb touch
wrap my arms around my stomach and beg the sky to fall so i don't have to do this anymore
and something laughs in my head, says i can't even get this right
if you can't even see i'm sick it doesn't count, right?
so this doesn't count

pale and shuddering hands
that trace over you like a whisper
bluebird veins in paper skin
a beauty so delicate you could crumble it in your hands
how people love what they can break

i am no flower, i apologize
the materials of my making are thicker but i promise you they are still so soft
surrounding
i envelope you in a warmth that means love
and could you love me
if i don't fall apart beneath you?
could you love me
if i do not dissolve?
can i still be beautiful?
can i be beautiful? can i be beautiful?

i came into this world kicking and screaming,
but ever since then i've been dreaming.
i think i'd rather keep my eyes closed.
i think i'd rather sink right down into the earth.
it's actually rather comfortable in the dirt.
i feel at home laying in a field,
somewhere where the world feels real
and things make sense
and things are quiet.
i can listen to the birds and rest a while.
it's so hard to get any rest out here,
the lights are too bright and my blood roars in my ears.
i want to go back home where we all came from,
find an open field somewhere
and maybe i'll rot and maybe i'll starve but by god i'll be happy,
i'll be free,
and maybe somewhere out there i'll find me.
i think i'm lost in all the sound, i think i get lost in translation
i think the world is just too loud and we're so caught up in ourselves we forget to breathe
i feel like i've forgotten how to breathe
i want to find a place where i can breathe

men in my family age into monsters
with calloused hands, callous words, and cold shoulders
sometimes i can feel my lungs cloud with the smoke i've been fed from birth
and i just want to let it fill me
i've been keeping carefully in a cage for so long
but sometimes i wish the scream would tear me up
roughen up my polished parts and spit my senses
let me be angry without tears, without guilt
my teeth are too sharp in my mouth, my head is too heavy
let me tear it all to pieces and ruin me
i have tried so hard not to be another monster but god sometimes i want to be
stupid, sick, and angry
if i am made of thorns and silver then let me be sharp and deadly
i am a fire by nature and warm by choice
but hell, do i want to devour
and hell do i want to become

there's something bitterly comedic about seeing you talk about trauma
like you're the victim of something great,
like you're holding all these secrets in those big, wretched, calloused hands i feel in my darkest nightmares.
poor baby, poor teddy,
oh brother,
do you feel small?
and did i feel small, hiding in closets, or under that loft bed?
under that same loft bed. hand made, white painted wood,
heart-shaped pillow, lavender dollhouse,
quiet games,
dead childhood,
stolen innocence.
come to me, cry to me,
you just lost your girlfriend,
you just lost your job,
your life all fell apart
and i am soothing you through gritted teeth
remembering how you ruined mine before it even had the chance to start.
they say
i know you don't like him but you must love him.
i wonder if blood is still blood once you've drawn it?
and i still feel like i owe it to you.
it was us against this whole dark world that left us
but you were supposed to protect me.
i should have been playing with toys,
but i was the toy.
when we went hungry i was the raw meat in your mouth.
you starved for anything you could tear into, cut up, make a mess of.
we had that holes in our couch, holes in my childhood,
"you're not on my hit list yet,"
"i'm just checking up on you" kinda brotherly love that is swept so neatly under the rug until it eats right through the floorboards.
i try to will those gaps back in my memory.
it would be so much easier if i just swallowed it right up dry, choked it down, let it digest, let it melt away to a stomach ache so i don't have to think about you.
i will scrub my skin raw at the end of this scream,
try to wash you off of me,
but this has been embedded deep in my skin for so long,
too long-
can you tell me when it started?
honest to god i don't remember.
what was it about me, soft face, soft limbs, empty mouth that made you want to hurt me?
my earliest memories exist in haunting.
my formative years are a poltergeist, you are the evil thing inside of me.
and so you come to me with stories and expect sympathy,
And i will hold my tongue in my mouth lest i feel enough like a wounded animal to try eating you alive,
pretending the iron taste of blood that floods my mouth is yours,
that i am as strong and metallic.

and unknowingly you've opened a ****** wound
now i'm tripping over old words, old feelings
god i've been looking the other way for so long
and with a simple suggestion, you've turned my gaze
and so the the image is burned into my eyes, the thought will never leave my mind
could we? could we? would it be okay? would it work this time?
is this what life has planned for us? is this the reason my heart still sings?
i want to put a cap on that bottle, set it on the shelf
but now i know the pressure will just keep building

some days i just bury myself so deep underground
it seems the dark is all that's there for me
you know how hard i try to be strong
but there are days where i just can't be
forgive me if i don't dig you out
but i am six feet underground
i will keep digging, say
i am not allowed to feel this way
but i cannot force that smile today
say,
it's best i go away, say
i deserve this for my lack of strength
i so often forgot that i am a tool to be used
i am just the shovel underground
i am meant to lift the dirt, not get buried

How do I turn it off? How much of me is fake?
How do I know when the light is artificial,
When the energy I exude is the last?
I am always going until I stop full-force.
I am a chaotic ambivert.
I need you and need you and need you and need space,
I need time, I need room to breathe,
But smother me.
I need to be out, I need to be living, I need to experience,
But please don't get angry when I shut up in my room.
I will certainly be silent for some time.
It's all apart of my confused cycle.
I want to be here for you, I want to be with you, I want to talk to you all the time, but please, let me be alone for a while.
I need to be surrounded, I need to isolate, I need you to sit quietly next to me.
I don't know what I need.
I don't know which part of me is the front.
I don't know how much of me is a defense mechanism.
Every time I think I'm past these walls, I run into another.
I want to love you with all my honest being, but I don't really know who I am.
It's hard to strip down to your bare skin when you've spent your whole life in costume.
Is this me or the mask I wear?
Is any of me real?

we exist together in this time and space
we laugh, we cry, we love, we fight,
we do all of it holding hands
and we never let go

i just want to experience it all with you
i want to kiss your cheek in the morning and hold you close at night
dance in the kitchen, sit in the quiet, clean up the messes we've made
all of it, i want you,
good and bad, highs and lows
every moment spent in your presence is precious
every time i get to breathe the same air as you i rejoice
you make me happier than i could have ever imagined
i'm so proud and honored to be your boy

let's just do it all together
cute dates and mundane
i'll kiss you at the top of the ferris wheel
at the foot of the stairs
i'll kiss you any time i see you and remember how wonderful you are
and how thankful i am for your warmth
i love you, in grassy parks and empty parking lots, in fairgrounds and grocery stores, in candlelight and the early light of morning and in every silent hour of the night
to the moon and back and beyond, through every plane of existence, in this life and the next

y'know i really do try my best
and the crashes are a shock to my system
suddenly we're back here again, try to fight the wires in my skin, try to feel alive and real and human
i need you to be with me though this
please
when i am with you through everything
can't you stand by me this once

It's one of those days where I am itching,
Desperate to feel like I exist
I need a little high, a shot of sunlight
Wind in my hair and friends at my side
I search for pictures in the brightest colors I can find
I look for hours for something to make me feel alive
I send a hundred messages but received no reply
So I sit here in my bedroom and tell myself it's no use to cry

Like a hopeful child to a wishing star
Dreaming of some far off fantasy
I speak these words into the world
When I grow up, let me be happy

I didn't just fall in love, I fell home
Which isn't a phrase, but is certainly a feeling
I fell for you and into the comfort of your arms
You caught me just like you'd been waiting all this time
We slip easily into our empty spaces
I melt into you like the shared bath water
I said I didn't know I needed until now
When I found you, I didn't even know I was searching
But there you were
And so we sit, caressing our skin, and I am daydreaming of staying here with you forever
In the warmth, the quiet of the night
In the softness, the gift of your touch

i hope that one day i stop stuttering, that i become good enough with words to do justice to your love,
to the way you wrap me in your arms on a daily basis, even so far away
i hope that one day i can tell you that you are an oasis in the desert, a warm blanket in the winter in a way that is less cliche
you are so much more than "roses are red", than all my tired metaphors
i am stupid in awe of you, it's like the english language leaves my head,
or maybe it was never really equipped in the first place
to describe
the exhilarating, calming, comfortable riot of your love
so i just stumble over simple phrases,
i just say over and over again, you are the sun, you are the sun, you are the sun,
i cannot quite describe how caught up i am in your gravity
i just ramble on, i say
you are my person, you are my safe place, you are my favorite song
flipping through dictionaries and thesauruses
i don't think i will ever have the words to describe you, to verbalize what you mean to me
but i'll happily spend my life by your side trying

i know that i am enough but
enough just isn't enough
in a world full of wonderful people
i want to be extraordinary
i want to live up to the way you love me
because most days, i just don't understand

forget fairytales, magic and love are real life
i don't need a story
you're my happily ever after
every little moment is a song
and i find, somehow, i know the words
i know just how to harmonize with your voice

tell me you love me, don't ever stop
hold me close and don't ever let go, don't
please don't leave me alone, i
can't be alone, i've
been in such a hole
but everything is okay when we're okay
but we haven't been okay
just tell me we're okay
you say we can talk more tomorrow
but i need you today

you and i've been through a lot in such a little time
but if there's one thing you and i know, that's how it goes in life
we've seen things no one should see, been places no one should go
that's how i know we're strong enough to crawl out of this hole
we've been put through wood chippers, we can handle busted knees
i'll hold onto you if you'll hold onto me

the course of my river runs your direction
i am always changing state with your temperature
i freeze when your go cold, and i am ice, and i am heavy
and when we heat up, i feel like floating
we are always fighting floods and heavy downpours
when i can't do it, when you can't stop it
when we run circles around each other's feelings,
my exhaustion, your ever-changing
our little personal storm
sometimes you stay cold for so long and i am so tired of being frozen
waiting for your spring, waiting for your summer
god, right now, i am frigid
and i know i can't speed this up, i can't thaw this out,
some things must die to make room for more life,
but i am so tired
of being so cold

i fold my troubles into little envelopes
like fifth grade notes, like childhood secrets
i slip them safe into my back pocket

on wednesday you sit in the bathtub for two and a half hours
not washing, not even your hair, just kinda sitting
you know it's gross, you see the state of the water, you watch your toes prune
but nothing exists here, except maybe the internet, and time, and that's not a peace you're granted often,
so you sit.

when you get to your room
your ***** clothes will smell, and your clean clothes will be downstairs
from saturday, when you had the energy to wash them but not to put them away,
so you sit and stare at the tile,
try not to focus too ******* the pain in your back, between your shoulder blades and up your neck

you feel the time pass
it is noon,
which is 4 hours until 1 hour until you have to go to work,
not nearly enough time,
4 hours until 1 hour, 3 hours until 1 hour until 1 hour, 2 hours until 1 hour until 2 hours,
your brain creating these strange, non-existent deadlines
so you never really relax,
just dissolve into ***** bathwater,
counting down to nothing

you put the bird in the cage and set it on the windowsill
you put the bird in a cage so small he cannot spread his wings
you put the bird in the cage and the cage by the window
still you question why the bird never sings

my heart is trying to escape again
clawing at the cage it's in
a burning coal that seers my chest

i am sitting still but my soul is restless
my youth at war with my state of being
the midwest is no place for dreamers
and if i am not living i might as well be dead

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

oh i adore you
and so again i gush
i am never more comfortable
than when im
wrapped around your finger
but i have this habit of loving
ten thousand percent and giving
everything i have and i just
love and love and love my heart out
it's so easy to make you
the center of my world but baby
sometimes this is a solar system where
you're the sun and i am out here,
revolving around you, but cold,
so far away

A certain kinda sadness that you slip right into
Like an old sweater, worn soft, once perfect for you
But now it just clings to your body
Too close
Suffocating
But it's your favorite sweater
Such a pretty shade of blue

it makes me sad to think
we'll never be that way again
and we'll never be how we could be
even though we could be

don't mistake my longing for a lack of appreciation
i am so blessed to have you here with me
friends, close as ever, despite everything
but i can just see it
singing with you in the kitchen
random hours of the night
early 2000s hits
dancing like the goofballs we are

i want that with you
but you don't want it with me

and that's okay
but **** if it doesn't hurt

i used to be so sure of what i wanted
and you know i'd still jump at adventure
but **** ******* i just want love
i'd go against my nature, settle down
to have a familiar pair of arms to come home to
even if that home is rooted in stone
and i never get my chance to roam
**** ******* i'd give it up
to be with you for good in love

god it hurts like poison
i'm swimming in the ache of my chest
in the empty space beside me
drowning in the night
please don't let me wake up alone again
some nights i feel like you stole my soul away when you left
and i won't ever get it back
give me the nights in cars in walmart parking lots
talk for three hours, drink mocktail and feel eternal
fill me up with stars to burn out the void
i'm feeling so lost in empty moments
like my life is a cardboard box
i'm low on oxygen
breathe exhilaration back into my body
find the fuse to light my veins
i'm leaking, slipping out of life into sidewalk cracks
i'm here but i feel like i'm gone, i don't want to be gone
i don't think i can exist alone

I can't help it sometimes
I just want to love you
Slip right back into it like it's easy
Like we're still perfect together

Forgive me if I miss you
I just wanna go home

an odd age
i'm caught in this inbetween
looking back at things that seem to be an eternity ago
staring into the future, where i've yet to go
and i've come so far, and i've got miles ahead of me
and i'm one step forward, two steps back, dancing on the path
uncertain and sure and fearless and afraid
running forward, bold and blind,
shrinking back a ways
trying to cling to, yet shake off my past
trying to slow down, but still live life fast
this strange imbalance
don't want to rush, don't want to drag,
wanna live, not dwell, but i don't wanna miss it
i want to make memories, have fun with friends by my side,
i want to cherish these moments,
but if i think too much, they'll slip by,
and I'm so afraid of every laugh line I'll miss
But so ready for the opportunities.

i'm like a dog running in circles round your feet
like you've come home again every time we speak
and i've been tailed tucked, waiting at the window
didn't even realize i was waiting til you came
and i'm running round in circles, jumping up again
making myself dizzy, giddy

a part of me will always be attached to you
and coming back to you will always be like coming home
i think these are facts
and i'm not sure how to feel about that

You crash into my heart again as our favorite songs mesh easily to medley
The ambiance of inky night accompanied by songs I listened to on repeat
And I’d think of you, think of you, think of you,
And I don’t want to think of you,
Not to the tune of Marry Me,
Not to the sound of songs to which I once wept with joy and warmth
I will sing along softly to I’ll Keep You Safe
Keep myself present through the white line fever
And I will try not to think of you
Like a reflex,
Like muscle memory

deep grooves mark the places in my heart touched by loved ones
by people i once bonded with, felt inseperable from
verbal quirks and gestures adopted from the friends whose back pockets i once lived in
and if you're close to me, i will lovingly carve out a home for you in my heart

and it will be there when you walk away,
unmarked and unaffected