Astrum, lux caeleste et clarus
Princeps aetheres et spes
Dux meus in aeternum

Rough translation:
Stars, light celestial and clear
Ruler of skies and hope
Guide me for eternity

Soft brown eyes
Shattered like mirrors
Scattered with abandon
What happens when
There are hearts working in tandem
Sharing and loving and growing and
What happens when
One just dies
Without
A
Goodbye

I've spent hours
Perusing your porcelain
It won't tell me lies
Right?
Wrong.
Staring, paring
My soul into
Shreds of dignity
Refreezing the melted
Puddles of my being
Into a shaky sculpture
Of perfect imperfection

Where I'm from, turbulence is arbitrary and the top layer is a dream
Violence and suicide hidden by pastel pinks and blues
A fragile frosted shell

Where I'm from, dark secrets come from a college in Santa Monica
Where someone drank too much
And no didn't work enough
My dad was in custody of the state 9 months later

Where I'm from, we pride ourselves in Edward Rutledge
Who picked up a pen in 1776
How does a single signature outweigh
A blurred auburn plantation in South Carolina
The sweet scent of fat, and the relatives I'm not allowed to meet
The men under another red, white, and blue flag

Where I'm from, pills are passed out like candy
Anxiety, depression, take your pick
My second cousin, she jumped off a bridge
We don't talk about her

Where I'm from, my cousins are bi-racial
I take pride in myself, and will never fall back
On racism, sexism, words that make my skin crawl
Where I'm from, I'll never stay silent again.

I've heard skin described as porcelain or mirrors
Sometimes scratched, but smooth and unique
Well I guess I was left to be heated too long
I can already see my distortion breaking out

Do you think I enjoy this
Say I lack age to employ this
You do know stress doesn't need a reason, right?

What do you take me for?
I want to know right now
Cause this "gilded perfect person" is
Full
Of
Lies

Complaining about their scores
Saying that I'm calm
You're lying
I'm just more experienced at hiding it

Why are there these jokes
Tying twine into nooses
Resting dinner knives on wrists
While the people who do
Rub their pencils against their wrists until they're
Raw and bleeding
Suffer in silence and are erased as a joke

In
Out
In
Out
Deafening and deaf
Quiet and Loud

Let me fade away into the distance
Like temporary hair dye
Or a cloud after rain
Not into pages of books
Not into family secrets
Into memories covered in cobwebs
Not gilded in gold

Gee thanks for your thoughts
Your sympathetic pats
Trying to help by saying nothing at all
"Oh you're just worried"
To hell with that.

Endless stars in your dark eyes
Like streetlamps lighting up city skies
Drowned in a pool that's filled with lies
A shattered mirror while all else dies

Gee thanks for your thoughts
But do you really know
The battles I've fought
The numbers I've lost
All while saying 'I'm Fine'
Ha.
What a lie

Silence is a lonely dream
Meant for others, but
Never
For
Me

I want to live
Where the sun never shines
Where the stars litter the endless sky
Serene and never-changing
To live alone
Where my thoughts can never find me

Its enjoyable sometimes
You're never alone
Feeling pride in being different
But after a while you lose trust
And start to wonder how many of those colors and sounds
Are really coming from yourself

My perfect pastel way of life
Smudged by emptiness and strife
Tread on, rained on
Nonstop
Just let me
Breathe

Empty
A numbness nobody understands
Blank and unfeeling
Yet somehow feeling everything

You say I'm fine and turn a blind eye
When my rashes start to bud
Guess your glasses are so rose tinted
You can't see the blood

You say you love me
I reply just the same
An auto reply
In this dumb old game

Tears streaming
I'm screaming
Nonstop flashes littering
My brain
The ground
Me
Remind me why you think I'm fine?

I used to be terrified
Lights on all the time
Even a glimmer
To keep it from enveloping
Me
My thought
So scared of blindness
A battle I fought
Many years
And yet now I stand
Eyes gouged out by fears
Seconds into months and into years
Standing on a precipice
Slipping back in darkness

Stressed
Depressed
A mess
My dress
A tangle on the floor
I can't live like this anymore

I need to write a melody
I need to write a song
But my pen won’t work today
My brain’s not turning on

I read a book so long ago
During a certain phase
From when I was just a little girl
Awaiting my coming-of-age
But I remember the prominence of a line
When a character birthed a girl
She hoped she would stay ignorant
And avoid the truth of this world

I once knew a girl
Her eyes were like the sun
Her heart painted gold
Always punctual
Never stopped for a breath
Pulling others along in her light
But though she is long dead and gone
My friends still think she and I are the same

They called her a comedian
A shining star
A talent
They love her paper mask so much
They never want it off
But once they start to notice how the ink will start to blur
Little dots of saltwater
All coming from her

When I was a child I'd always spend this time of year
Debating what to be for Halloween with my friends
The most gripping thing
So many possibilities
but I must only choose one
To put on  another mask
Along with the one I already wear

I've never understood how some people can just write
To give two pages in an hour
Writing, to me, has always been personal
Personal in the way that it reveals who we are
Writing is the crack in the masks we all wear
That's oh so sweet, maybe that's why it's so rare

Don't tell me I'm fine
And feign disappointment
When I decide not to trust you
Tell me, why should I?

I've never understood why people like noise
And call it a living spirit of crowds
Middle school bands when teachers leave
A gossiping friend, voice carrying through breeze

Absorb my spirit I beg of you
Take me to a world that I don't know
For even though new trials may await us there
It's better than all that's here below

I never like it when things change
When people become something new
It's easier to just keep labels on faces
It's easier to not change my whole world view

Why should I pour out my feelings
Make my weaknesses too well known
'Cause even though I might feel better, some things
Are better left alone

Sit here with me
No need to stay quiet anymore
I know how it feels to hurt this way
I've been down this road before

I'll take that extra burden
I have room for some more
I know how important it is to you
I'll treat your aching sore

I don't need some chocolates
Nor robes nor sapphires blue
I don't need commercial love
A single word will do

Color and sound are far too similar,
They never come without the other.
Instruments, voices, names, notes.
Concerts are entire light shows.
The lime of horns, the flash of drums and whistles,
Entire fireworks shows all at once.
I have always hated fireworks shows.
Voices are strong too.
In noisy corridors where everyone yells, I see brown.
Mud or dried blood color clutters my mind.
I call it ‘brown noise’.
Nobody else understands.
I don’t blame them.
And then there's you.
A baby blue name, a rosy coral voice.
Others have names of sharp yellow or brooding teal.
It differs.