The gravel stirs under my feet,
The wind caresses my skin.
As I walk along this path, a sense of peace and unity sets in.
I am a part of nature.
The young rabbits that scurry to hide in the brush fear me the way I feared thunder as a child.
I am a force of nature.
There is something lifting about remembering that I am just a part of everything that surrounds me,
And that everything else is simply another piece.
Nature is made up of an incomprehensible number of little pieces simply trying to find a balance.
I breathe in the summer air and my breath becomes part of the breeze.
We are, for now, at peace.

How selfish, how vain of me
To look for myself in your poetry
Your life has evolved beyond the dancing of our past
The laughter I hear in the rainfall is far off
Light travels faster than sound
And you are my light
You have flown past me now
But I still hear you in the night

the sky lives in your eyes
the stars spattered across your skin
you are made of something beyond
and the beyond made something beautiful

Emotions hushed in the dark now threaten to spill out
Smiling sadly over streetlamp lit memories
I stand at this unfamiliar corner and look up at the sky
I swear you're somewhere in the constellations

I want to renovate a van into a little home
So I can go wherever I want to, drive around the world
Have adventures every day and never grow up
(And maybe sit on top
And watch the sunrise with you again
Maybe my head on your shoulder
Maybe your hand in my hand)

I do not want this play to be a tragedy
But I'm afraid that may be all that's left for you and me
I wish we could put this puzzle back together
Like we're not missing any pieces
But there's a hole, so much space between us
I wish I wasn't miles away, maybe it would be easier
Because I want to run my hands through your hair and press our foreheads together
But I'll cover my mouth, now I've said too much
Shown too much of my heart
And I think that's dangerous
This play, afterall, is a tragedy.

Tell me if it's wrong
Loving you
After everything, after all this time
'Cause I can't help missing the days when you were mine
And talking to you now aches a little bit
Mixed up, uneven nostalgia
I don't understand how my heart swells when I talk to you
After everything, after all this time
Why do I still want you to be
My everything, after all this time?

I will give you butterfly kisses
While you pretend not to notice my illness
Slowly, deeply
We destroy each other
My darling, enabling lover

Being a bomb is exhausting.
I am so tired of counting down.

I whisper "I wish I were beautiful" into a thin-necked bottle and quickly stop it up with a cork.
Carefully, I place this bottle on my bookshelf.
It is one of many.
I collect wishes but they loom instead of glitter;
The whispers,
They sound like the disorder that ate away at me when I was younger and this all feels so similar.
I bottle up these secret wishes and together the whispers collect into the screaming of my thoughts as I catch my reflection in the window in passing.
In private, I try to press myself together, to make myself more compact, as if somehow I could force all this fat into a more pleasing shape.
In private, I look at the picture I took when my stomach was near flat and my wrists were more dainty and though I know I would be in the hospital the month after that photo was taken I can't help but wish I looked like that again.
I whisper "Make me sick" into a thin-necked bottle and let it weigh down the air around me.
When did I start to believe dead would be better than this?

I will pick myself up off the floor
With sharpened teeth
I will shake
It's not exactly "brushing the dust off"
More like a punishment for feeling and acting out and breathing in someone else's space
I have holes in my neck and my back and my heart
Times I have stabbed myself, times others have stabbed me
Times I have thrashed my own body around, locked jaw and sharpened teeth
No one around cares to encourage me
So I have learned to punish me
Though I never seem to stand when I drop myself back on my feet
No one taught me gentle touches
But I know how to use my teeth

I see people take their heatbreak in their hands and mold it into poetry
The same way I did for Memory
(I see her in the lettering)
I wonder, tarnished souls,
If we will ever write a "last poem" for the ones who burned us
(It has been over a year, now, and I am still finding new blisters)
How long will we wait to grow new, thicker skin and try again?

after the doctors, the family therapy
there remains a feeling of white walls and sterilized gloves
sterilized gloves, handling me very carefully
they make you wear non-slip socks but you can't have your shoes
you might strangle yourself with the laces
and my pills are all locked up somewhere now where i can't get them
my mother's voice sounds like the hush of tiptoeing feet on too-clean tile floors
they handle me with sterilized gloves and panic when i'm in my room for too long
as if it's abnormal
as if i haven't been known to hide
the echos in the hallways sound different on the other side of the hospital
nervous, uneasy peace and hushed whispers
i am made of glass
but being treated like it feels like standing in drenched clothes
my fingers are pruning up
i have a feeling
this will take a long time to dry

I have no words I've lost my words
I cannot word the way I feel
My art, my song
They're so far gone
Buried somewhere beneath the ache in my chest
And I want to see the world but I don't have the means
And I wanna live without regret but I've got rock bottom self-esteem
I want stories to tell but there's so much I haven't seen
It's eating me alive from the inside, it's hard to breathe
Teach me how to get up and do something worth doing
I wish that I could say I'm living a life that is worth living
I need to be more fearless, more outgoing, more giving
All I wanna do is live a life that is worth living
Light my words on fire, bright LIGHTS the world's on fire
I need some motivation to take, take me higher
I have a timid heart with bigger than life desires so I need a little something to take, take me higher
I'll feed this little fire, breathe in a little smoke
Give me a spark and you'll never forget the words that I spoke
I have a timid heart with bigger than life desires
But one day you'll know my name when I start, spark the fire

I have to say
I don't see the point in trying to fight
When every night feels like a losing battle with your own mind
And the consolation prize is you're still alive
Well, "alive"
Define life
'Cause I'm pretty sure this isn't it
And I'm trying to feel it
Trying to find it
Hoping maybe I'll get it if I turn the music up loud enough
Sing my heart out enough
Write my thoughts, feelings, fights down enough
But I'm pretty **** scared that it's not enough
And it'll never be enough
But *******, that's enough of "enough"
I wanna outgrow this
I wanna leave this town and forget it
I wanna do everything they say isn't "realistic"
I wanna prove that I'm worth it
Mostly to myself
But to everyone else who contributed to my hell as well
Though I have to say
I'm really tired of trying to fight
And it'll be a long time in this battle with my mind
And I don't know how much longer I can keep pretending to be alive
'cause I'm not really alive
And when I define life
I know this isn't it

I need sleep, but I just want an ending
And I haven't taken my pills in a month because I don't trust myself not to swallow the whole bottle once it's in my hand
On my medical file they call that "uncooperative"
Instead of "survival"
The doctors don't understand what it's like to be a quickly unraveling thread
I'm pulling on it,
Pulling myself apart
Habitual self-destruction is more familiar than healing
And I feel more comfortable knowing the end game
Recovery is a shot in the dark
Unraveling is much easier

Head ache, heart ache
My body tries to make up for my lack of feeling with pain
Reminding me that I am alive
But I don't feel alive
Sitting still 7 hours a day
All my art has fled my system, all of my words have fled my brain
Show me how to breathe in stale air and still exhale creation

I ******* worshipped the ground you walked on
For you, I picked up the pen
I wrote poems, letters, songs
I wrote my heart out again and again
I felt lucky to breathe your air, blessed with your company
I couldn't for the love of God figure out why you'd waste your time on me
So I praised you, kissed your ******* feet
I wasn't prepared for you to step on me
Force the breath out of me
Even though I watched it coming, it ruined me
You abandoned me, loathe me
Kicked the emotional living **** out of me
Now it's been quite a while and I still can't breathe
I'm trying to move on but all I do is bleed
Your blood, my veins
Your veins, my blood
It doesn't make a difference
When all's said and done
I'm colored rust with the stains and you're somehow clean
And I have only one conclusion for what the hell that means
You don't care at all, you don't care a bit
I'm bleeding out on the ground, you don't give half a ****
I loved you, I held you, tried to be anything you'd need
You scorned me heartlessly while I watched lovingly from my knees
Now talk around like I'm a demon, like I was anything but doting
And they listen to your every word, trusting your fake-sweet candy coating
Queen *****, queen bee, I hope this catches up to you
Queen cold, queen cruel, I hope this **** haunts you

Brutal reminders that nothing is assured have stirred in me the desire to assure those I love that I love them dearly and let them know just how much they mean to me.
And maybe it isn't accurate to say that "nothing" is assured because I can assure you that I love you, I love you, I love you.

To my moon with big blue eyes who spent countless hours by my side:
You remind me of safety and warmth and the feeling of living, you have been there when I've cried.
You remind me of music and soft things and book stores.
You have been a precious friend and every day I miss you more.

To my sun who I don't always see but always come back to eventually,
I know you're not comfortable with these types of touchy-feely things, emotional dedications, suffocating affections
But you are my oldest and dearest friend
And it'd be like leaving my heart at home to leave you out or squeeze it in at the end.
I grew up with you, laughed with you, stayed up secretly all night with you
And so many nostalgic memories bring me right back around to you.
You have been a home to me when I've felt lost and without direction and it breaks my heart that we seem to be losing our connection.
I love you till forever and forever even more.
I'll be here until whenever, I'll leave the light on by the door.

To my somewhat-soulmate and my Sky,
You are my safe place and my star.
I'm so glad we've come so far to the place where we are.
I have to say that part of me will always regret not being quite what you wanted or needed, and yet,
You are my closest friend, the one I confide in.
You are someone I know I can trust to cry on or to hide in.
I am convinced we are soulmates in some way ,
Kindred spirits, if you'd like.
A string of fate and friendship connects you and me
And I hope it doesn't come undone, ever,
Or at least for a very very very long time.
I want time to watch you grow,
I want to be there when you shine.

This isn't very poetic at all,
It doesn't have much rhythm or flow,
But I wrote it with a lot of feeling
And I hope that it shows.
I love you three to bits and pieces,
And regardless of if we're near or far,
You'll have a room in my heart, light on in welcome and door ajar.

How dare the world keep turning.
Can't it see we're still mourning?
I am still stood still with shock,
Still shaking,
My heart still racing.
Still so soon, 50 other hearts stopped.
If this world keeps turning, revolving as normal
Then I fear that the sun may set and rise and bring us tomorrow.
A new day. How many hearts will stop?
How many hearts will be stopped?
The world keeps turning without a thought
Of the panicked, the broken, the shaking, the shot.

I wish reality was physical so I could hit it back,
Sucker punch it in the mouth,
Scream in its face.
How dare it take my time away?
How dare it dangle my passions in front of me,
Separate them into paths,
Then say I can only walk one way?
My soul burns too bright for my body.
I have to take out some of the tinder,
But I kinda wish, kinda want to
Just burn up.
It'd be easier than playing duck-duck-goose with my passions
Chasing one around and around when I might not even catch it
And passing the others up completely.
I want to do everything.
I want to inhale theatre and exhale animation.
I want to rise with writing and sleep with song.
I am struggling, I don't know if it's possible
To just choose one.

I don't know how to claw my way out of this one
This well feels deeper than those of the past
And it still somehow overflows
So I can't get a breath of air and I can't find purchase on the cold stone walls
I don't see how there could be any light at the end of this tunnel
When I stare up all I see is the thick black ink which drowns me
I have trouble keeping my eyes open, keeping my legs kicking
I am not a great swimmer but it is still much harder to tread this darkness than it has ever been to tread water
And I honestly don't think I'll survive this summer
There's not much oxygen left in these weak lungs
And everything seems so dark
And I am
So
Tired

We used to live down each other's throats, in each other's homes and now I'm lucky if we speak monthly and it hurts somewhere deep inside me
We used to talk about cartoons and books and nothing at all while we'd listen to music on your bedroom floor but now it seems you're caught up in more taboo entertainments and I'm caught up in my tailspin
I think the only thing that hasn't changed is the love for cartoons but we have kept none of the childhood spirit they used to bring, inspiring us to stay up all night hush-hush talking through your DS
I'm afraid that we don't quite fit together anymore, puzzle pieces bent at different spots so we don't quite work
I never expected to be out of place in your company and I'm so scared to talk to you and risk realizing that when they say Everything Goes Away they mean EVERYTHING and 7-year friends are no exception
I'm used to everything falling away when it's not ripped up from the roots but I guess I'd convinced myself we were two branches on the same trunk so the roots didn't matter
But here we are, old friend, here we are.

Softly I offer my heart to you
And bare my throat and open wounds.
Something foolish inside me hopes you pocket it,
Hopes you memorize every **** in my skin.
Something selfish inside me
Hopes you hold me closer, closer
So I can bury myself in you and call this home.
Pleadingly I press my heart into your palms
And you hold it, don't dare to harm it
But I think if I get closer
I can see something glassy in your eyes
And i think, maybe
You're not really looking.

I hate the sense of obligation I have when I write.
I could care less if there's a pattern or a rhyme.
I do not write to write poetry.
Poetry is a form of delivery, a more delicate voice for the battlecry inside of me,
A way to release my chaotic thoughts.
I hate wanting to make sense to you
But I want to make sense to you
So maybe somewhere someone will read my heart and know they are reading my heart.
My brain and heart clash, clatter,
Chaos in a cluster intangible, so I instead try to make it legible
Because I cannot physically fight my demons or the thick inks that weigh down my veins.
I hate this,
I hate every word coming out of me right now,
Artificial and laminated,
Served to You, my Reader,
Seasoned to what I hope is your liking:
Far too mild.
I wish I could scream through words,
I wish I could finally write something with enough honesty and emotion that I feel like it was worth writing.
After every sentence I want to exit this page,
Close this book,
Slash big ****** red "X"s on everything in this artificial life.
I will not end this gracefully.
My thoughts are not graceful.
Dear inner artistry: go **** yourself.

The heavy, dark Lonely sinks into my skin again,
As it always does this time of night.
I don't even try to sleep, I know my thoughts will win the fight.
I'm always kept awake by my overactive mind,
And the ache in my chest gets stronger with the time.
The Lonely manifests in physical pain,
Double-teaming my body and my brain.
I want to spill my ink,
I don't want to rhyme,
I want to break my ukulele's bridge and burn every page of my sketchbooks,
Because no matter how I try to show people my heart
They shrug me aside—
And I know I'm not wondrous at art,
But I could write you a symphony if you'd just let me
Lay my head against your chest and listen to your heart beat.
I'd sing for you forever, at that tempo, about that safety.
I swear to god I'd worship you if you could somehow **** my Lonely.

FIREWORKS, STARS
I WANT TO FEEL SOMETHING BRIGHT AGAIN
I WANT A SWEET SONG TO WRITE AGAIN
LOOK ME IN THE EYES AND TAKE MY HAND
LET'S CREATE A KINGDOM AND RULE OUR OWN LAND
WHISPERS AND LAUGHTER
SECRETS WE KEEP WITH THE HILLSIDE AND THE TWILIGHT
CONSPIRING WITH THE STARS
CARBONATION IN OUR HEARTS
MAYBE IT'S THE SUMMER, THE WIND, THE HEAT
THAT MAKES ME YEARN TO UNBIND THESE SHACKLES AND RISE TO MY FEET

I'm playing your game,
Trying my best,
Going through the process just like all the rest.
I went to my therapy,
I go once every two weeks,
I tell her my problems;
She tells me I overthink.
I am a machine, though my gears may be rusty,
I still cannot make my frenzied brain stop its running.
I tell her I'm trapped, I say I'm alone.
Our time runs out and again I'm isolated at home.
This neighborhood sleeps but my insomnia taunts me.
It's dangerous, being the only living thing around suburbia's zombies.
Handfuls of pills,
Stress ***** and writing.
I'm playing your game but it's hard to keep fighting.

I have told myself I cannot die until I meet Savannah
And walk her streets, feel her sand beneath my feet,
Tour the town I've only dreamt of.
Someone carved "LOVE HAPPENS HERE."
On a wooden pole at the dock
And I am determined to find the spot.
I have told myself I cannot die until I trace my fingertips over every splintered dot.
It may sound strange or silly
Saying "I cannot die until"
And placing my life in a town I've never met,
But I believe dear Savannah
Is where I need to be
To finally breathe and laugh and feel alive at.

I sit here in my room with 4 hours to my appointment, having not slept but stewed in my mind.


I wrote several stanzas following this but I can't. I can't. I cannot turn this feeling into poetry.

I am haunted by the knowledge: I was never meant to amount to anything. Child of a paralegal and a burnout. I will never amount to anything.

I cannot bring you into my world by any form of art.
This haunts me.
I cannot make you see my point of view, perfect sketch in point perspective, through pencil lines or paragraphs.
This wounds me.
I cannot make you understand that I am timidly, delicately passing my heart into your hands, so you do not know to treat it gently,
And this kills me.

I count up the artificial things in my life and cannot stop the sigh that passes my lips as I include myself in the endless list.

I had a dream about us last night.
We went to the movies and bickered about snacks,
It was almost like a normal day
Except we were on the bus instead of the backseat of my mom's car
And you could still look at me without disgust in your eyes.

I will tell myself not to trust you
As my heart silently takes your every word as a promise.
Every promise ever made to me
Has been broken
But I fall back to your arms
And still feel shock when I hit the floor and pain shoots through my body.
I will lock myself to you and give you the key,
Trusting you to treat me kindly
And you will cut off my hand instead of opening the lock.
I will cry as I make the same mistake with the next person who lets me show them my heart.
I will give a piece of myself to you and as I watch you with wide, trusting eyes
You will hold it in front of me and rip it apart,
Too many pieces to repair, leaving me less than the start.
A new soul comes along and tilts my head up by the chin,
Telling my not to cry through their fake-honest grin.
I will tell myself not to trust,
But I know my heart will take every word as a promise.
I will shatter as I hit the floor,
Giving away my pieces until there's no more.

last night when i held the razor to my throat
the voices that held my wrist, wouldn't let me pull across
were the voices of perfect strangers
and i felt the deafening silence of where yours could have been, my friends
and so when i see you say you have no friends
i will not rub circles in your tense back
like i always have done in the past
you cast me to the rocks without thinking
don't expect me to keep you afloat when you start sinking

Yes I've taken my pills but they cannot tame
The violent thoughts that rattle my brain
There is no cure for the pressing desire
To know the taste of the barrel of a gun and retire
Some of my ills are the chemical kind
But worse are the demons inside of my mind
And therapy has never worked for me,
I fear it never will
And that I will live out all my life
Insurmountably ill

THIS DATE IN MY MIND SHOULD HAVE A JOYFUL ANXIOUS AIR TO IT
BUT SOMEWHERE ALONG THE WAY I SLIPPED AND ADDED YOU TO IT
DON'T YOU DARE PICK UP THAT PENCIL AND ACT LIKE YOU CARE THROUGH IT
WHERE ALONG THE WAY DID I ADD YOU TO IT?
DEVILED ANGEL HAZEL EYES SEEP INTO EVERY CRACK AND PORE OF MY MIND
AND I CAN'T HELP BUT FEEL LIKE
THE DAY I TURN TWENTY -FIVE
I'LL STILL WONDER IF OCTOBER 7TH MAKES YOU SAD
AND IF YOU REMEMBER YOUR OLD FRIEND WILL YOU SIGH FOND OR WILL YOU WRITE MAD
I HOPE YOU NEVER PUBLISH A PIECE OF POETRY
WITH OCTOBER 7TH THE DATE OF ARTISTRY


(february feels gray and heavy when i think of how far from each other we've run away)

maybe our happily-ever-after
is that we reconnected after everything
after you hurt me and i scorned you
we came back to each other like
we were one another's boomerangs
finally coming back around after bring thrown away.
(i wish our story ended
a little more like a fairy tale
with us back in each other's arms
proclaiming the other home
but, my love, our lives have never been
that simple
or that sweet,
have they?)

I like to think
That one day
When I strip down after work and
Curl up with a blanket and a book,
It will become habit for you to join me.
Let me lay my head in your lap,
Silent connection while we read,
A moment perfectly still in time and in peace.
I love you. Press against me.

Tell me how my voice sounds like late night summer laughter
And my smile feels like sunlight kissing your skin
Like I used to
In our golden years, years ago
When you smelled like home and comfort and sleep
And I'll sleep in your hoodie to breathe you in deep
Like nothing ever changed.
Your voice sounds like late night summer laughter
And your smile feels like sunlight kissing my skin
Like you used to
In our golden years, years ago.

A silent sort of sadness
Quiet, deadly depression
Weighs me down, anchors me deeper
Dragging me into the dark syrupy ocean
That I created within myself from emotion
And it's surrounding me, drowning me,
Filling my lungs and coating my insides
Too much of it touching my skin to feel it within so I'm
Drowning numb, giving in to sleep
Adding to the secret scar collection I keep
Waiting for the tide to pull me to shore
Or waiting until I can't breathe anymore

I curse my heart and all it stands for
I curse my laugh for rolling on
I curse your eyes for being so blue
I curse myself for falling again for you
Why do you have to make things easy?
Why do you have to make me feel safe?
Why are you so fun to talk to?
Why are you my happy place?