i see the sun coming through my window but only feel the winter air
i say, you are dear to me, you are so dear to me, you are so, so,
as i watch you dance in the golden light outside, out of reach and seemingly unaware
and you are basking in all that is not me, all that you can hold within your hands, feel the weight on your palms, close fist on and restrict
and i've been there, yet i still wish to be
the soft and pliable thing in your grip, struggling to breathe
beaming lover, blinding me
and i thought i was over it, i thought i wasn't gonna grieve this time,
cos you're not gone, but it feels like you're gone with this wall between us,
these panes of glass and you on the outside, but not bothering to look in to see this boy you left behind
this stupid boy, dying to be your winter coat, your autumn leaves, your summer sun to dance in
to be outside and to be in your grasp
oxygen or lack thereof

i'm doing it again and i don't even mean to
i realize by evening that i haven't spoken a word all day
sitting in silence alone in my bedroom
and i know it's not okay
i know tomorrow i'll be restless
i'll be itching just to move
i'll be calling out for someone
i need someone to talk to
i keep sitting in my lonely
forget it's even there
til i'm tangled up inside it
choking on stagnant air
i don't mean to do it, i don't want to isolate
but by the time i finally realize it's already much too late

there's a pretty hole within me
there's candy, sweets inside
on edges made of sugar crystals
shards and sharp corners hide
there's a rotting hole within me
it's dark and growing wide
it smells like cherry filling
the air can get you high
dependency like poison
a cold and gaping need
can be strangely alluring
it plays cruel tricks on me
say darling, don't you love me?
say baby, you're my need
say please don't look too close, dear
screaming please, love, don't you leave

ive been having trouble sleeping
without purpose
text me in the morning, a reason to start the day
i am comfortable and safe under covers
but stagnant, alone, and awake
i am just floating in time and space
coexisting with the day as it passes me by
ive been having trouble sleeping
without someone to wish goodnight

Dramatics aside, I am healing
Learning to drink the rainwater as the sky falls
And learning that the sky falling is only gravity
If I fall with it, I can pick myself up
Knocked-out teeth and bloodied knees
Still breathing

should've seen it coming from a mile away,
saw it coming but pulled the covers up over my eyes,
suffocating but reveling in the warmth
as if i could ever have anything good
as if anything good could last
i thought you were
forever
for real this time
i thought i grew out of **** like that
guess i'm dumber than i thought

let the embrace of naivety rock me to sleep
cloak me in the past
in days before i was weak
let me hold the stars
for just one more night
let me rest for real
let me wake up unafraid
to the sound of a city i know

im doing it again and i crumble
take it, take it, take all of me
throw my heart at you, pour out my being
i try to reclaim myself with distance but only succeed in isolation
i say "i can't do this" like this is my purpose
like i am nothing more but a resource to give with no source to replenish
i hang onto the tiny fractured pieces of myself and constantly get cut on the shards
i make promises like a death sentence
i say "i can't do this" and crawl back into my cell away from everything i need because
i am needed
needed and given and taken and used up
and i need
but when i need i am grovelling, overflowing, and still trying to give with nothing left of me
somewhere along the way i convinced myself that i need to be needed
but i've been serving purpose all along
i exhaust myself with being needed, with putting myself forward even when i am not asked for
i need to be able to need
i drain myself dry of affection, passion, compassion
i will not eat for days, i will wear my binder for days straight
i will put everything away for you like a guardian
like i could ever be anything but a broken thing with a mask
trying to fluff up my chest to seem large enough to take care of anyone who needs me
i have been walking on broken legs and i think they healed wrong
i have been tearing out the same stitches over and over again, bending over backwards, contorting myself
i am so afraid to speak in anything but metaphor because i don't want to shatter this, show my underbelly, cave in to my own weakness
i don't want to say i need more than this, that is how i get broken, that i how i am discarded
i don't want to show my marred skin and remind you that i am bleeding, too
i don't want to be anything but a shelter for you
i will continue you to tear myself apart in chunks, crying
take it, take it, take all of me

i am carefully stacking building blocks in uneven patterns
trying to keep going up
and i know i said i'd be there but if you lean against me i will topple into pieces again
i have to accept the truth that i am not strong
i am finally learning to take care of myself and it is lonely and it feels selfish
and i hate breaking promises
but i cannot be an anchor when i have no hold on the ground
i am a tightrope walker with shaking knees and two left feet
you say it's okay in a way that lets me know it isn't
and i stagger on the line
please, please, please
i'm trying to stay alive

with my head in my hands i count my breaths
name 5 things you can touch, 5 things you can hear, 5 things you can see
can i see that? is it there? is it really? is it really?
the way i ebb and flow
the sights behind closed eyes
whispers of foggy memories
in 2 3 4, out 2 3 4
try to catch my body where it slips outside the lines

2 AM on another night when I cannot settle down to sleep
The sun bursting from my fingertips, I tense and relax my shoulders,
Try to focus on the feeling of soft blankets, odd silence, hot room
Anything real and in this moment
Because I am slipping into
Fifteen thousand worlds contained thinly within this skin
Like fifteen thousand lives
So much energy
Souls in mason jars
I am crackling, fuzzy at the edges, burning burning burning
I cannot hold everything within me,
I am aching, chest-deep in grief missing loved ones from different lifetimes
Reaching out towards the static-y edge of reality like I could touch it, pass through it,
Push through the walls of my own body
Release this energy in waves
And if I could scatter myself across all of existence,
Maybe I could finally sleep.

I think I really forgave you this time
But you still find your way into my mind
Linger somewhere deep in my thoughts
And I wonder if you'd be happy with who I am today
And I wonder if you'd be proud of the change I'm trying to make
And I think about those nights we spent talking through the dark
And I wonder if you ever think of me where you are
I am a better person, now, I stand a little taller
I wonder if you'd like me now that I'm a little stronger

You are in the passenger seat of your best friend's car. Souls you love so, so much are with you, howling like wolves to the radio from the back seat. This is your pack all together. You feel connected, like a single string is tied to each of your hearts. The windows are down and the city is asleep as you fly down the highway, but the music and spirits are high. An unimaginable number of stars swims in the thick black inky sky. It's midnight but you are not tired and you have no where to be. You can sleep when you need to; for now, you're wide awake and buzzing, swelling, about to burst with this feeling. The pack howls along to songs about this, this very moment -- About experience, about connection, about raised voices and pounding hearts. This is the feeling of being alive. It is all you need, and all you've ever known.

My mind consumes my reality
I absorb stories into my skin
I breathe escape
What do you do when the worlds in your head eat away at your life in the world outside?
Indulging in fantasy comes before school, work, or sleep
I do not live in this world
I exist within it
My heart and mind are elsewhere,
Places this vessel cannot travel
Places where this world doesn't exist
To beautiful worlds I go
And in beautiful worlds I stay
While this body is left behind
As I let myself decay

Something's gone
Ripped out of me sleeping
Someone put me out
And the smoke is filling my lungs

Our carbonated hearts beat neon
We tear out into the melting scarlet sky as it spills onto candied clouds
The birdsong resonates within me
All life, all energy, everything
It somehow all leads back to your hand in mine
Our feet echoing bare against the cold pavement
You are the sun that rises to warm the earth
I am moon in waiting
We break the peace with our laughter
We are the morning glory

I am wasting
You can finish the phrase any way you like, it will be true
I am wasting my
Time, potential, life
I am wasting your time, your concern
I am wasting resources, waste of oxygen
I am laying here in bed wasting time on fussing over wasted time
A cycle that only ever endlessly repeats itself
I cannot get back the time I spend thinking about time and how I spend it
My life is drip drip dripping away, spilling from a paper cup with only so much still inside and I am tipping it, drip dripping away

I am wearing his marks, his sweater but I am not his boy
He tells me without wanting to tell me, he tells me with the collar tucked under my pillow, with his mouth fresh on my skin
And this is not to say he does not love me but he cannot be this
And I am trying trying trying to be okay while my chest busts open, while the bruises feel like burns
I know he doesn't want to hurt me but I feel like scrubbing my memories clean, taking steel wool to the inside of my skull, cleaning up the vulnerability I've shown, scratching it out
My eyes sting, my chest aches like he's gone- he's not, he's right here, it shouldn't matter,
But I adoringly opened a particularly delicate part of my already fragile heart for you, my love
I am not mad I am not angry I swear I am just so hurt I was so scared and I was right, dear, I was right,
I always have been and always will be an overdose of a person, there will always be a part of me too tough to swallow,
Foolishly, I still wanted to give you all of me
And it hurts, it hurts

I feel like I've failed some sort of test
Like I've already lost
Allowing myself to need
Is just waiting for the other foot to drop
I am here to serve
Seen, used, and not heard unless spoken to
And that has nothing to do with you
But it is my reality
The moment I am human is the moment I am no longer amusing
The moment I am left behind
I need you I need you I need you to allow me to need you I need to be allowed to bend I often break and that is so often the breaking point but I don't ever want to lose this i don't ever want to lose you but this feels like losing, trying to cry silently because I'm so scared of disappointing you, of disappointing you by panicking about disappointing you, disappointing you by-

I am trying not to be but I am so afraid I am so afraid I am so afraid
I am so much I am too much I am too loud I am ten thousand miles an hour I never want to lose you but I know I am a thunderstorm I am the loud sudden noise we are both afraid of I am the inevitable heaviness and I am so afraid

I can't help but still feel unlovable at my whole,
At 100% of myself
I am an overdose

It is 3 AM and I am so blessed to be next to you
But I can't help but wish I could make time go faster faster until we are both awake again, reluctant to move, warm and close and I will slow it all down, slow motion so I never have to leave your side, never have to get back on that plane and fly all those miles away from you and your warmth and your presence

I do not control time

2 days remain
And there will be glass and time and distance between us
But hold me for now

We are large chests on large bodies
Bodies like valleys
Bulging hips and shoulders too wide
We still make ourselves small, try to hide
Because we are not the pretty boy flower princes you say we should be
Nor the perfect picture of masculinity
I wore a sparkling Cinderella blue skirt to my senior prom,
Paired with a button down and a bowtie because *******, I'm gonna be me
Even if I cannot shatter in your hands
And there are days when I stare at the mirror for hours wondering why I look so wrong
Why I wasn't born the way I was supposed to be
But **** that, this is my body
I am my definition of man regardless of yours
I am not your Token Trans stereotype
And I do not have to "pass" at anything, my identity is not a test
I do not have to press the air from my lungs every day to be valid to you
*I know who I am
I didn't ask for your point of view

today is one of those days where my heart beats too harsh, too heavy in my chest
where my skin is a cold and barren wasteland and my chest a cavity
earthquake fingernails, itching to scratch, pick, pull skin and hair
i can hear the gunshot ring in my ears
i can feel the world cave beneath my feet
the walls close in and i wonder how i can be so
nothing and everything all at once
the silence, the scream, and the whispers between

and it's the feeling of being alive again
of being inspired
i want to write everything for you
i want to learn how to turn my sour notes sweet
everything seems so bitter in the past
this is something new
this is all thanks to you
i will be in your arms soon and i cannot wait
i cannot wait to sit silently in the same room
i just want to be near you
you are everything in brights in color in music
you are the world as it turns
you are the sun that warms me
you are the adventure, the happiness i've been trying to learn
and i know we're tiptoeing on cut up skin, trying desperately not to fall into the chasm of old habits
but i've got your hand
we can make it i promise we can make it
we will take these broken pieces and build a castle, a kingdom
sentimental streets and loud citizens
so very human
you are the most genuine person i've known, you love completely, you smile a fire, you feel a windstorm
i haven't ever met someone so like me
i can be the high tide, the flashing neon lights with you
i can say i love you i love you i love you a thousand times
my chest warms, swells, i can cry from happiness and not from fear with you
and there will be times when we are afraid, i know, i know
but i know we will get through
this is too good to lose
so i will say, again and again,
i love you i love you i love you

the parts of me that i hide from most people are the parts i need you to see
see me needy, desperate, scared
see me holding onto you like i'm afraid you'll float away if i let go
see me at your feet, see me curled against you, see me needing your affection like i need oxygen
i am not simple, i am not easy, i am not low maintenance
i am not indestructible, i am not strong
i need you to see me needing you
i need you to understand
because i'm not good at asking
but i need the reassurance
i need you to want me for me
i need you to need me because i need you
i need you to hold me please just hold me
tell me you're never gonna leave me tell me you want me tell me i'm good
i will sing your praises forever my angel but please
i need you to see this
i need you to see me

I often feel like the means to an ending
Filling in the blank, the wrong word with the right amount of letters
A shoulder to lean on, tremble though I may
And weak as I may be
I will slide easily into character
I will do my best to be everything you need
But what you need may never really be me

The weights have made their home in my bones again but I feel like I don't have the right to drag my heavy feet
The sun is bright, right outside my window which I crack slightly to let in the breeze
And I breathe the fresh air but it won't reach my lungs
I double-knot my shoes so I won't trip over myself but they still keep coming undone
I try to ignore the thickness of the ink in my veins
The slow drone of my own heartbeat
The thoughts that invade once again

it sinks in when you're gone
the ink wells up again, floods my veins
and i wonder if i will ever really be happy
or just a parasite
feeding off of you
i say i love you and i mean it
i say i need you and it stings
alcohol in open wounds
so afraid you will turn away
and i will be plunged into my ocean again
freezing cold and drowning
when i never learned to swim

I wish I could build myself perfect for you
I'd have the prettiest eyes you could get lost in
I'd make myself strong enough to protect you
I'd make myself everything you need
But here I am
Underwhelming
And my eyes are black
And I am soft to touch

how come the people who hurt us were so close
and you're so ******* far away?
i danced with the devil in the city
but i just wanna hold your hand
we don't need any music if we've got each other, and i don't need to dance
i just want you close to me
the one good thing,
my darling understanding
i just want you close to me
but you're somewhere by the coast
and i'm stuck here in the middle
demons can sun with me by the poolside
i have held my manipulators close
but i can't look you in the eyes without cameras and screens between
and the world seems to be laughing

when we are finally close enough for you to see them
there will be many things about me that you will inevitably hate:
the way my leg shakes when we are trying to sleep, or trying to cuddle, or trying to watch a movie;
the way i am always moving, always tapping my foot or touching my hair, like a moment of silence and stillness is impossible, like the anxiety that inhabits my brain has branched out to possess my entire body.
you will either love or hate the way emotions come over me like a crashing wave,
rocking back and forth when i am uncomfortable or side to side when i am happy,
waving my arms with excitement, repeating and repeating and repeating myself, or the doorbell, or the passing car, or you.
i am a nonstop wind, a room with multicolored lights blinking to varying unheard rhythms, music in my head that only i can hear, rising and flying and falling and crashing.
you say i could have anyone and i wonder if you have ever spoken to me before,
really spoken to me,
noticed the way i grin when i am sad and laugh when i am angry and cry when i am happy.
you say i could have anyone like you haven't seen me living outside of my body, thoughts somewhere in the stratosphere,
like you haven't seen me thrashing and wailing and bruising my skin.
anticipation to meet you aches my bones but i am so afriad
you will meet me like you've never met me,
blinding sun and pitch black and blaring laughter,
all fidgets and fire alarms;
i am so afraid
you will see me, living caution sign, and run.

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

One day I hope to feel
Not so lost without you, not so
Broken into pieces, scattered too thin across creation
My heart weeps to read your silk but it has been so long since you have written
I will stop checking, I will stop refreshing your page like something will materialize, some confession about that wild boy you decided to start missing
Like you'd suddenly grow new sentiment, years later
I swear I will pick myself off the floor
I won't see you in everything that smells like summer
One day I will move on
I will be okay without you

I experience the world in neon
I stare at the bright, bold colors, mouth open in awe every time I see them as if it's the first
I will fall in love with something new shamelessly every day until the day I die
Play a sweet song and I am ecstatic, I am dancing, I am emanating light and life and joy from my fingertips
Tell me a story with heart and I will hang onto every intricacy, hold close every character
Tomorrow I will be chasing a different star in a different direction
So I may not ever get anywhere, but that's not really the point
I will never run out of things to chase
You may tell me this wonder is immaturity
But one day you will have the light clasped between your palms, escaping through your fingers and you will not feel the warmth and you will not know the beauty
and what then?

things were so simple but then they got messy
i couldn't stop screaming
you covered your ears, then you left me
and i miss you so much some times it feels like im dying
and sometimes i'd rather than live a life without you beside me
remember the times we had? remember how perfectly we fit?
you were my everything
the guiding star to my ship
and i loved you loved you loved you
i look back at the days when we were everything
but it all got so messy

things were so simple then

today I woke with a bad start and I pushed my way through the quicksand of the morning,
sleeping in isn't an option for my 4 am shift life and a good night's sleep is called showing up late for work
it took a week for 9 am to become 10
and everything felt so slow that I ran a red light without noticing on the way home
I am drowning at 1:30
the afternoon sun taunts me for crawling back into bed but I don't have the energy to fight this today
feel my throat close up and I cry for no reason again
eat lunch from a microwave pouch
'cause I don't have the energy to leave the house for fast food
I will only be awake for  7 more hours today
I am sure that I will waste every second dreading tomorrow
when it all resets just to replay

the taste of lonely lingers on my lips like my last kiss, 6 or so years ago,
like blood seeping weakly through cracks, like salt and iron
it feels like i have been alone forever

once i held a firework in my hands
and the colors were so pretty
and i got so, so burned
i still have the scars
but i'm begging for the heat

tell me you adore me
and i'll sit at your feet
while the water rises

love me desperate ***** like we're dying like i'll leave you tomorrow though we both know i won't love me burning up at your touch love me groveling love me sick it's all i know but i'll take anything over lonely

I roll over to hush my alarm and swear I'll quit my job today, every day
Eye twitching, hands shaking, vision unclear and gaze unsteady
Falling all over myself until I fall asleep uneasy
Here comes 3:30,
Looming over me
So I rise before the sun
Roll over to hush my alarm
And swear I'll quit my job today
But I'll swear the same tomorrow

it's the first time you've washed your hair in a week and it comes out in clumps
you stare at the water and try not to think about who you've become
scrubbing away the sweat and dead skin
moving lightly over the bruises where you've struck yourself
watch it all go down the drain

tell me how to write
the gnats out of my skull
the static from my fingertips
the fire from my veins
the infection from my wounds
tell me how to write
you out of this body

when you hurt me
I spit venom
Make myself a barrier
Of vines and thorns and roses
I will burn bright, neon anger
Passion poison
Callous caution
I will shut down, shut off, shut you out, anything to get away
I won't be hurt again

when you cut me
I bleed candy
let you walk all over me
repeating I love you I love you I love you
gooey bright pink on the pavement
bubblegum bruises
sugar sweet scars
I will do anything, anything, anything not to lose you
I will rot your teeth

you are just a child
and the world is not out to hurt you
darling, darling, please
slow down and take the love in
you are young and beautiful and reckless
no where near wise
far from invincible
you are running, flying away into the sound of your own voice
telling you you are so close to the sun and
you can't wait to burn bright and beautiful and turn to ash
but the sun feels much nicer from the ground, oh, the sun feels much nicer from the ground
we are not made to live like bullets
you have blood on your casing and much of it is your own
you tell me you know best as you hold your gun to your temple and yell
fire away, fire away