Don't touch-
Don't touch the live wire don't touch-
Don't touch me don't touch me don't TOUCH Me
I am a Live Wire
I am made of fire and thorns
With lightning in my veins
And trembling in my hands
I will rattle unstable
Reaching out for a tether to the level-headed world
And wondering what it's like to not be made of
Fire and Thorns and
Fear and Anger and Electricity
Really, truly, I am soft
They say I Lash Out but I am soft
Like flower petals
Like down feathers
Like memory foam
You could press against me and leave imprints
But I will not let you hurt me
Don't hurt me
Don't touch me
Static Electricity
When I'm angry, or scared,
Cornered and baring my teeth
You will watch me,
Tense,
And not dare to approach me
So as not to be shocked
You will not hurt me
You will not touch me
You will not try
And I will ignite again

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.

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

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 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

cross legged in my bedroom strumming uselessly at an instrument i only barely know how to play,
crying "make me feel something good" to my bedsheets like a secret, like a prayer
and everything is still, so still
silent besides the strumming
waiting to hit the right chord
so i can write the right song
that doesn't feel like desperate noise
just something to fill the dead air
the only things moving
are vibrating strings
and trembling fingers
and i want you
to light me up
like Christmas Eve

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

I cannot stop moving, cannot quiet my thoughts.
When did I start crying?
I'm not really upset, I'm just feeling a lot.
When will I stop lying?

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.

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.

today will begin and end and not be missed
which is to say, i've been wasting time again
when i swore to hold on to each second
when i took the sun in my hands and slipped it into my pocket
the problem with carousels is that they move in a circle
twinkly circus music and fun aside
we end where we began
rising and falling
but never really progressing
i will tell you recovery isn't linear
but keep quiet the question
of possibility
listening to the twinkly circus music
rising and falling
coming back around to the beginning

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

Hello, my bleary-eyed conquerors of morning.
Again you have slain the little beasts that cling to your skin and weigh you down, urging you to dismiss the sun.
Some may not understand the war we wage,
But I see and commend your strength on this day.
Many battles have we lost to the weight of our thoughts,
To the repetitive rumbling reminders of the day's duties.
But today,
My Warriors,
We have defeated the dreary drag of depression
To fight another day.
Hello, my bleary-eyed conquers of morning.
I hope we meet again at tomorrow's dawn.

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

She takes the hand of the bright-eyed girl beside her
And declares they've been best friends since first grade.

I think back to myself
And I can't even remember
My first-grade best friend's name.
I can go through the list of people I miss,
My dearest of friends from the past,
But when your life is ripped up from the roots every year there's no chance for a friendship to last, so I
Feel these little broken pieces:
Parts of childhood I missed.
The chaos that my father made has somehow come to this.
I can't believe I didn't see you turn sixteen.
I can't believe how many friends I had to leave.
I wish I had a steady past,
A memorable, nostalgic memory,
But everything came and went so fast
And now, I guess, it's only me.

She's known her best friend since first grade.
To whoever you were, now are, out there,
I wish I could've stayed.

i disappear
into drawstring pants
with the drawstrings cut out
and the tee shirt i wore
for two days
before i was brought more clothes

paper shirt paper pants
see through when tight
and bright yellow non-slip socks

if i try
i can easily return to that place
the white lights
the pills in dixie cups
the isolation room with chalkboard walls

i can return
anytime
to that post-attempt numbness
just shuffling along
destination a to destination b
"okay everyone,
it's time for group"

watch the yellow socks move along
forget you're controlling them
forget your feet are within
forget you exist
it's almost peaceful

Don't ever let anyone make you feel like you're "nothing."
You are not nothing, you are everything.
Matter cannot be created or destroyed;
We are all SOMETHING,
Something incredible and constant,
We are a part of the beginning and end.
You are made of stars and oceans and canyons.
You are BEAUTIFUL.
You are INFINITE.
So when that boy with insecurity dripping with the sweat off his forehead calls you "nothing,"
Tell him "we are the same.
If I'm nothing than so are you,
So let's take these blank canvas lives and build
Because your atoms will be passed on.
So let's make a little magic for whatever we become
And they will be magic, too."

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 am aware, logically,
That when Winter comes and all things die,
The numb cold of snow will eventually clear
And the flowers will bloom
And my plum tree will bud and provide fruit.
Spring will warm all of creation once more,
Rain will wake my skin.
But today all is frozen,
Iced over and silent with​ no growth to be found,
And logic aside,
This feels
Eternal.
I cannot feel the sun that does not warm my skin.
I cannot taste the rain that does not touch my lips
And the flowers that have not yet regrown
Show no signs of life, here.

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)

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.

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

Allow me to make a home for myself inside of your body
Somewhere in some cavity
Where I can be close to you and cozy
Let me latch on just tight enough
Let me memorize your voice
I do it without permission
From my host or from myself
This parasitic living
Will cause all of us hell

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

my bones urge me to
reach out, reach towards you
bear an honest to god broken smile
tell you how violence lives in the back of my mind in a whisper
tell you my will is as thin as paper
dissolve slowly in your arms
but you're so far away
and i have to find a way
to do this on my own
force myself to be okay
gotta stop getting you caught up in my
messy hot glue strings

I tear pages out of other people's scrapbooks,
Pretend I had a normal, happy childhood,
Dance around reality till I fall over dizzy
And my hands shake with the weight of everything.
I spend my life spinning in circles;
I regress and repress and repeat.
I tear pages out of other people's scrapbooks.
I paste up a collage and I name it Me.

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

I shake when I think about us
When I think about how much more I need you
than you could ever need me
When I think about the defeat in your words
And how our hearts can hold so much
But yours just can't seem to hold
mine

Take a shot when you say something quick
To avoid repeating past trauma.
Take a shot every time you get sick over this big web of lies that you've spun up.
Take two when you say it without thinking at all and don't realize for hours later.
Take two when the shame of it creeps up your neck and you want it to leave but it lingers.
Three for the white lies and pity plays,
Three for the guilt that you feel.
Four when you've said it all so many times
That you're never quite sure what IS real.

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

I am losing you
I never wanted to lose you
I am angry I am scared I and waiting
Waiting waiting for the axe to drop
I am trying to act tough
I am trying not to care
I am trying to brace myself
Cut things off early,
Let's not drag this out any longer
I can't take another drawn-out heartbreak
Wondering over and over if it's okay,
If it's okay to talk to you,
If it's okay to love you anymore

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.

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

I wish I hated you from the start
I wish I couldn't feel love at all
I wish it didn't overwhelm me
But God, it's so overwhelming
Tear out my feeling,
Rid me of empathy
Take every memory
Go on and destroy me
The base of my being
The intensity of everything
It's so overwhelming
I'm so overwhelming
So take it apart
Tear it to pieces
Throw it away
Distribute the ashes
Of every love
That I've ever lost
'Cause I'm feeling so lost
I don't wanna be lost
I want to be free of this, of me
I'm so overwhelming
So go on and destroy me

DEMONIZE ME, MY DARLING, AND I WILL BECOME YOUR DEMON .
I WILL SIT HERE ON YOUR SHOULDER, DIGGING MY CLAWS INTO THE SOFT SKIN OF YOUR NECK,
DIGGING FOR THE NOT-SO-SOFT MUSCLE UNDERNEATH .
I AM MADE OF FIRE AND LIGHTNING,
I WILL BURN YOU UP.
I HAVE TRIED TO KEEP MY PATIENCE
BUT NOW I'M JUST FED UP.
COME, MY DARLING,
A LITTLE CLOSER,
SO MY VENOM LIPS ARE BY YOUR EAR,
SO MAYBE WHEN I SCREAM YOU WILL FINALLY ******* HEAR.

I close my eyes tight
Grimacing hold them shut
I bare my throat to you
And feel your disgust
I'm sorry that I'm not a person
I'm afraid I may have mislead you
That you mistake me for something I'm not
I'm not much of anything and I'm sorry
I don't have magic in my bones
I used to pretend I was made of starlight
And that the night was something I could own
But I'm secondary, you see
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
Forgive me

compulsions.
check on you.
don't stop kicking.
check on you.
is that thunder or is my head throbbing again?
check on you.
something is touching my face, make it go away.
check on you.
cold. it's summer. why am i so cold?
check on you.
it's thundering AND my head is throbbing again. both is always an option.
check on you.

i don't know why i write so much
mediocre words jumbled together in a desperate need for expression i suppose
sometimes i wish you'd sit down and read my spirit right out of me
and maybe i'd finally feel heard, seen
*this is a cleansing
my scars and soft spots bared to you
i curl in on myself as the world blinks innocently
this is a cleansing

I've spent my whole life with WIPE YOUR FEET written on my forehead in thick waterproof ink but I never really notice because I tend to avoid mirrors
And people always seem so happy when you let them leave marks on your skin so it's easy to forget it's wrong
To forget that I am not made to kiss the feet of those who step on my mouth and silence me
If I look in the mirror I feel used and unclean so I don't
The realization that you are not human is heavy and unpleasant, it leaves you nauseous and restless but people seem so happy when you let them leave marks on your skin so trying to reclaim your being is selfish, right?
Often times when I am suicidal it's because I feel I have nothing to give to the world, I'm not important or valuable but of course I'm not valuable, I'm dinged up and ***** from a lifetime of use
Maybe then it's my purpose to be used
Or maybe there's no purpose at all
Because maybe I am not a tool
So how ****** up is it that I feel I should die if I'm not able to be used?
I'm sick to the stomach as I try to scrub the label off my forehead or at least the dirt from my skin
And feel selfish for looking in the mirror

Tell me how my eyes look like hot embers when the sun catches them just right
And how they light up when I talk about my latest obsessions
Tell me you love the way i jump across rooftops
Unpredictable
Always an adventure
Sketch a more beautiful portrait of this marred flesh
Like you don't see my scars
Like my extremes aren't deadly
Like you aren't afraid that one day jumping across rooftops will be my literal downfall
Just a simple slip
Always just a simple slip away

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

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

Love me in the summer when it's easy and we can chase the nights down wherever they may lead
When we can waste our afternoons lazy and warm in park fields on picnic blankets
Love me with the reflection of fireworks in your eyes, caffeine and alcohol in your veins,
Tell me you wish the plants would grow right over us,
Swallow us up into the ground so we could be beautiful too
I'll give you everything,
Anything,
Be up for any adventure
I'll love you like I can't think straight
Like the sun's in my eyes and I'm driving blind but the wind feels too good to stop
Even though it's dangerous
Even though we could crash
Just promise me you'll love me even when January comes
And we're standing under gray skies
I'll bundle up in you
Hold you close
We'll still see our breath
But we'll be warm like summer