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

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?

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.

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

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 wanna read your mind
look into some crystal ball, see all your thoughts
I am not good at deciphering meaning or feeling
every word blazes neon, colors flashing
I can't make it stop or slow or clear to see a color I could find meaning in
I sit cross-legged on the floor and look up at the neon lights
the rapid blinking raises my heart rate
I should look away
but I am determined to read the sign

if you find me somewhere along your way, let me know
i think i left me behind somewhere
back on that path, in that past
somewhere between the shopping carts and the street lamp and the long, long drive that lead me here
i'd look to find me, too
but i don't think i've ever seen me before
so i ask you
if you find me somewhere along your way,
let me know

please don't hate me
if we don't get to live these dreams

i have found that dreams never quite work out
not even in sleep

please forgive me if i give up
even after all this time
all these pills
all this therapy
after hours spent in behavioral unit B

please don't hate me
i'm just tired
this world is exhausting and unfair
no perfect god created us
there is no guaranteed light waiting at the mouth of any of these dark tunnels
we just go along
everything just happens
and i am not "meant to be" anything
not even alive
not even breathing

try to understand
i live for very few things
my future, my dogs, the need to be loved before i'm gone
but my future looks rickety
the wood is splintering and the nails are mostly rust at this point
i wasted too much time on things i can't control
and threw away all my potential
and my dogs are getting old
and i only leave muddy footprints on the world
stuck with in betweens and goodbyes
she wrote a poem that called me cancer
i listened

please believe me
i hate my lies, i do
i wish i could control it
i wish i didn't keep color coded strings tied to my fingers, coordinating who i am to different people and what has spilled out of my mouth, burning my tongue, deceptive acid
i hate my lies and dreams and body and breathe and spirit
hell, i hate my passion, it leaves me covered in scars and red streaks
i don't know how to keep energy from turning into anger from turning into marred flesh
i have no self control
but that's a lie, i do, i've stopped myself before,
it's just sometimes i think if i carve words into my skin these things can never leave me please god don't leave me

my chest hurts
all that's left is
i can't touch that, can't listen to that, can't look at that
can't really explain why except for that i can't
can't tell the truth to save my ******* truth
can't remember what i said two minutes ago
can't keep it together keep it together keep it TOGETHER
and i have all these dreams but that's all they can be so why do i fight so hard?
ruining my own life just because it's in my hands
i ruin anything i'm entrusted to take care of
my hands shake too much and i can't quite hold on
and now i'm making excuses like this is out of my control
is it out of my control? is it under my control?
i can't answer these questions i don't know what i'm making up anymore
it all just runs together looming dark and dangerous over my skin
sometimes it sets into my bones and i call it electricity

can you try to understand why i don't want to live like this
and i don't know how to change
i don't even want to get better because i don't know who i am outside this cage
i constructed every piece from scratch and i think it's the only thing i ever made
did i get this from my father?
sometimes i think we're more alike than i'd like to believe
we just hide different kinds of scars under our sleeves

but please don't hate me
if i finally finally leave

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

Erase her curls and hazel eyes and smile
Pour thick black paint over every time I have said or thought [REDACTED]
Whiteout the sound of her voice
Laughing
The sound of her voice
Haunting
Dissect my emotions and pull out the quick anxiety that set in at that concert where I first realized she wanted away
The hurt I felt when she first shut me out
The hopeless loyalty
Take back the drunk texts from that night
And the anger when her boyfriend responded instead
Because can't I get any ******* closure
Pack it all up
The hurt, the summers, the memories
Light it on fire
Watch it burn
Try not to breathe the smoke
Pray the thoughts are gone for good

A change of scene
New surroundings
New faces
Charming places
None of these
Can change your mind
Fix the chemistry
Fix your calamity
I'm afraid
You will always be
A sad and broken thing
Lost in the world's beauty

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.

I wear many masks if you keep me at a distance
I make an art of emotional masquerades
So if you are wise you will keep me at a distance
I tend to become attached once you let me within arm's length
And you will learn terrible things you didn't need to know
About the things that break me or that broke me long ago
So smile sweetly, stranger, from miles far away
I'm impulsive and imprinting
Hate it though I may

Your pretty gray eyes look sad and you say
"I guess I just want someone to love me back."
My laugh sounds sour, an odd rumble tearing into a half-hearted roar, not in tune with what laughter should be
Because I love you-
And I have loved you-
And I will tell you-
And I have told you-
Over and over.
I have years of smudged, tear stained writing,
Whispers
All in metaphors:
"I just want someone to love me back."
We'll continue this interpretive dance,
Catching and dropping one another
From higher and higher cliffs.
One day we'll die or fly.

I guess I live life moment to moment
Not so much in a spontaneous way
I'm just waiting for something to happen
I need a change of pace
Less time spent breathing in and breathing out moments with no action
Time slipping through my fingers like sand
Time not spent but wasted
So I wait for the change to come to me and cross my arms and sigh
There's gotta be a domino I can tip somewhere
I wanna live life moment to moment
I wanna laugh real and bright and true
Appreciate my friends and kiss you
And run down the streets like we're kids again
But objects at rest tend to stay at rest
For now I'll curse inertia and dream of carbonated spirits

Jamming the self-destruct button
You slam your fist down on it
Red lights are flashing, sirens blaring
You're waiting for the countdown
You can't wait for the explosion

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

Pack it all up
Condense life to an old RV
Paint the sides
Redo the interior
Drive and drive and drive
Wherever the job takes us
New place, new project
Live life like a roadtrip
A constant vacation
Have adventure at our fingertips and in our veins
Play every song
Watch every sunrise

Won't you come fly?

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?

another recovery story
another story about the kid who killed himself
that isn't really about the kid who killed himself
but the things he left in his wake
i hate stories like these
stories about suicide
never quite sit right in my stomach
i think i just want the story
where the kid gets better
where the kid stops hurting
but doesn't just, stop
and it's not some other kid that saves him
some angel who finds it in their golden heart to love the broken boy
but so much love
an all enclosing embrace from the universe around him
from the people he needs and has been reaching for
his friends stop laughing at those jokes and his mother starts to understand that screaming can be so, so quiet
and when he says he doesn't want to be alone
he isn't
and when he says he needs someone to hold him down so he doesn't float away
the world cradles him gently
and when he needs to cry
he can
and it doesn't feel like knives and empty and drowning
and the kid gets better, slowly,
the kid gets better
the kid can get better, right?
if all he wants is for the hurting to stop
can the kid get better?

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

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

I always knew it would end up this way
But I guess I hoped I was wrong
A foolish child with stars in their eyes
Cursed to see the future

what are you recovering from?
Your description says
"Learning to be okay again"
But what's so wrong, darling?
It's hard to imagine you sitting anywhere other than your throne
Mrs. Cancer Poem
Tell me again how I *"threatened suicide" by posting on my private blog about wanting to die
Cutting people off like you throw away toys
Little girl
Are you seeing the error in your ways?
Does it hurt to know you're not flawless?
Are you hurting from your mistakes?
She lacks a fundamental understanding of what mental illness is and feels like
Lavender princess lavished by adoring peers
Pouts in her a room for a while
But it's okay
Cuz she's learning to be okay again
After walking away with human wreckage in her wake
Crying that she's been shot when she's the one taking aim
Has the pretty heartless girl finally experienced pain?
Will she ever understand?
(Will she miss someday?)

heavy
it sets in heavy
in my bones and chest and conscience
and i think i've spent too many nights wishing and
i think it's not fair to anyone involved
(again
suicide coils around my heart
coaxing
never ever feel alone again)

do you ever wish you didn't?
do you ever wish it were simple?
i often find myself longing for something easy
something readable
but we've built ourselves from complex wood engravings
i suppose that's part of our story
and i wouldn't trade a minute of our starlight
but you have to admit
sometimes simple sounds perfect

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

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

I find a poem that reminds me of you
In all your restless moonlit spirit
Besides
A few discrepancies

I forget that the whole world does not have your laughter memorized
And that others, too, have owned the night
From their own little corners

I forget this
So I softly curse the author
For confusing the color of your eyes

I want to rewrite the lines
Of every beautiful, breathless, footstep-tempo piece of poetry
Make little corrections
So our story is never convoluted

Our nights spent alive are far too precious and important

Sometimes I forget that these are not our stories
Others, too, have owned the night
From their own little corners

or maybe*
I'll pack it all up like I've said
Take my dreams on the road
Spend my life alive
Just driving to the future
Wherever my art may lead me
Run laps around the coastline
And memorize the feeling
Of your hand in mine,
Racing off to some new adventure,
Lost on purpose

tell me what i am to you
it doesn't have to be a song, though your voice is lovely
i'm afraid our song is sung and what's said and done is Done
and even though i can't look at you without my heart trying to escape my chest i still don't know
so tell me what i am to you
a lover, a friend, a parasite
just tell me where we stand
you call the shots, i'll bite the bullet
feel the bleeding from the inside
it's easier than the unknown
so tell me what i am to you
i need to know, i need to know

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

one day i will stop writing
dead poems to dead lovers
but my feelings
have a tendency to hold on-
i read over memories of you
like scripture
because if i forget the pain,
the sentiment, too, is gone

I don't know I don't know I don't know
Clawing at my head
Picking at my skin
Blood under my nails
I wish I could just know where we stand
What you think of me,  
What he thinks of me,
Does she think of me?
Do they still think of me?
In everything we are and have been,
I struggle to find my place.
*(Maybe I cannot find it
Because I have none here.)

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 will force my eyes closed, try restlessly to sleep
Knowing that I have messed it all up
Fearing that I will never get it right
Gently, I cling to your heart
In hopes that if I hold it close enough
I can piece it back together somehow
Undo the damage

I love you
But I guess it doesn't count

we were never anything,
but, oh, you were my everything:
my hazel-eyed addiction,
my heaven and my hell.
we sat hidden in the tunnels of a playground
pretending we were children
playing make-believe
to the tune of cicada sound.
i've recalled too many times, now,
the sunlight in your lashes,
but maybe one day it won't be true
if i say it again:
when i spent last summer
next to you at the poolside
i wished
(i wish)
it would (have) never (had to) end

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.

I read your name and it makes me a moment to register the word
Those letters in that string
Still tied, tightening, around my heart

i. i can survive on my own. i will be happier on my own, because no one will have the power to hurt me. my chest will finally stop hurting. i'll finally be able to breathe.

ii. i can and will stop giving special meaning to words by naming people after them. the sky is just the sky, not their eyes when they smile. dreams are simply what you think when you're asleep.

iii. i will one day hear music without thinking of you. i can make myself forget, given time.

iv. i don't remember the way the sun shone on your eyelashes. i only ever thought of you as a friend.

v. i'll be okay.