Paper heart, you've been drowned and torn,
you'll never be whole once more.
The cracks have been illuminated,
dry what is left of this fragile love

String of trust, unwound and tangled,
you've been knotted and cut.
What was strong now deteriorates,
hanging listlessly to drift with cold winds

Yesterday I swore it'd be the last time
I'd shed tears over this broken love.

Today I heard your name in a conversation
where petty girls gushed over your voice
(the only voice to have ever comforted me)
and I'd never felt so disheartened before.

(what once was, now feels like forgotten lore)

Tomorrow, I banish you from my mind -
no longer free to hide in the dark crevices of my heart
or tear my soul apart.

(glow in the dark stars)
A pack costs two dollars
But the joy it brings is worth manyfold.
They laugh,
Calling me immature, childish.
But have you ever been afraid of the darkness the way I am?
When the dark arrives, so does isolation,
and emptiness and hate and pain and self-loathing.
That's all I know of darkness,
so leave my packet of stars be,
they watch over me when no one else will.

(dreamcatchers)*
A bit of string, a few feathers,
and perhaps a bead or two.
Call it superstition, but I believe.
Because nightmares aren't just bad dreams to me,
they are possible glimpses into the future, where desolation dominates,
where the monsters in my head are as real as you and me,
and they tower over and hunt me.
Be sure not to break the string,
for they say all the bad dreams
will be released into the real world.

A hooded figure lying in wait,
winds dance around,
hiding, revealing, twirling in circles,
it's almost time.

Hoarse coughs sound throughout the night.
He is not scared, he will not be harmed.
Time is endless, but time will stop.
This book is ending, another is near.

Him and his friends, they dance,
gracefully protecting,
in return, he gives them life,
one of darkness.

Blinks open his eyes, there is calm.
He greets the other as a true friend.
A life well lived, no regrets.
This new dance, slow and ageless.

Light emerges,
shadows retreat once more,
you are safe, for tonight.