Eyes wander
Through a crowd
As I search for someone who
Is not as loud
As I search for someone who
I am allowed
To touch, to feel, and
Unashamedly gaze

If foundations were people
If the houses on top
Were those they love
If the builders and contractors
Were a person’s maker

What does it mean
When the foundation
Is set up to fail
With ****** concrete
And cracks forming too soon

When the house realizes
Instability upon which it sits
It will empty and
The foundation is left alone
Needlessly weighed down

When it topples
A few decades later
Lasting shorter than it should
Do we blame the builders
Do we blame the foundation

It's said that coffee
Is a bitter drink
Today I swear
It's the sweetest

I am of my mother
Tired hands shake
When the days are long
Letting others take
If I'm not strong
Unable to truly hate
Shoulders that carry
Insurmountable weight

I am of my father
Stubborn, obstinate
A ridiculous bother
Against any threat
A mind that curdles
When it is bored
And a heart that hides
When it is adored

I cannot leave
And run far away
From the me I perceive
The price I must pay
To be human is steep
More than my sum
Yet it's all I’ve become
In this body I keep

Who told you
To handle me
Like a carpenter handles a saw?
I am made of glass
and I swear
If you love me
I will break.
I will shatter
into a million tiny pieces
and never be the same.
Repaired things are only weaker
never stronger
and I, my friend,
have been loved
too many times.

I’m ok, I swear it.
(I’m lying.)
Don’t look at me like that.
(I know you’re seeing through this.)
Yes, that’s my real smile and no (*******) I don’t want to talk about it.
(Because you don’t want to hear it.)
There’s nothing to talk about!! I’m doing just fine.
(I’m really not.)
I don’t look sad this is my normal face.
(I just spent 20 minutes crying in the shower.)
Can you just leave me alone?
(Please don’t. I don’t want to be alone.)
No, you don’t need to stay, thank you though.
(Insist on it, please mean it.)
Okay, see you tomorrow!
(Maybe not.)

Unfocused and lazy
Tired and vision hazy
Somehow they never see
Who you could be
You’re too strong
You’ve waited too long

Now all you do
Is just to get through
You cant seem to think
And thoughts always sink
Into the black of your mind
Harder and harder to find

Caffeine running fast
The high doesn’t last
Slowly slowing down
Just starting to drown

Waiting for the drugs to kick in
Waiting for them to knock me out
Winning the battle is all its about

Demons that destroy and wreck
Beat me to the bone
And wring my neck

I want to be free
I want to be left alone
I beg and I plead
Yet here I am,
Still me

So I take the pills
I think I need

I’m not okay
Maybe this time
It's okay to say
I’m not doing well
But none of you
Could ever tell
I’m dying inside
It would be better
If I just cried
Losing control
My tears blurring
Taking their toll
I’m not alone
But my eyes are
Hardened like stone
I’m not angry
Only sorry
That I am me

Who wins in a fight
Death or War
Who would make it into the light
Who would fall to the floor

Would Death with his scythe
Carve War into pieces
Would he scream and writhe
As the fighting ceases

Would War with his ire
Crush Death in his hands
And dance around his pyre
As victorious War stands

Would Death live without War
Would War live without Death
Or would they simply be
No more

We cry silent tears
We mourn forgotten years
We search for a reason
Wanting only to run away
You haven’t listened

We scream into the abyss
Until we learn that what we miss
Will never truly belong
In a world we dream of and long
You haven’t listened

We break boundaries
We conquer the seven seas
Just waiting to be found
Yet without a sound
You haven’t listened

Been too sober
For way too long
Wonder if another
Would be so wrong

Just another taste
Another tiny sip
Just enough to linger
On my lip

Set me totally free
Send me flying
And please God
Forgive me for trying

I’ve been too sober
For way too long
I don’t think
I can be strong

I’ve been told I have walls,
That aren’t too easy to break,
They’ve been up for so long,
That my smile is entirely fake.
They’re made of unshed tears and a broken soul,
Of emotions that have taken their costly toll.
Tear them down if you feel you must,
But it takes too much to gain my trust
Strip me down to every pebble and stone,
Shatter me like a mirror and break me to the bone,
But don’t you see you’ve already lost,
For even my walls have a cost.

I’m not making sense anymore
Overdramatic and overdone
But no I never won’t run
Dropping parts of me
All over the floor and ground
Yet falling tears don’t make a sound
Careless and out of place
The look of my own face
Staring into my eyes
Suddenly I despise
More than just me
I hate the thing that shows me

You tell everyone you’re ok
But you hide in the dark
Buried beneath insecurity and doubt
Fearing the next day’s spark

You have a smile
But its never really real
Because you stopped feeling
And it stopped hurting after a while

You can feel your heart beating
But after so long
It doesn’t seem to be doing its job
After every beat failing and restarting

You can't believe this is living
But this is all it will ever be
Shaking and cracking with every breath
You simply want to stop being

The universe
Has me
And I must
Not
Relent

This isn’t a poem
So don’t expect anything more
Than me ranting about how
My head, eyes, and heart are sore

This isn’t a poem
I’m telling you it definitely is not
Yet why do I feel like writing
Is like undoing a knot

This isn’t a poem
No, I promise that I don’t lie
And that my tongue
Doesn’t feel like it's tied

This isn’t a poem
That’s not what its meant to be
Rather it's just simply
A rhyming expression of me

Waking up to nothing
But there was once something
You can feel it
It was there and now it's not
What was it you wonder
As the dark pulls you under
What did I miss
And what did I lose
That made my heart bruise
You wander in and out
Of yourself and other things
And you don’t know
Where exactly to go
You had a purpose
you know that for sure
But why suddenly
Is it there no more
Someone grabbed you
And pulled you apart
And now you’re left
With a broken heart

Help me get up
Give me a hand
Never let me go
So here I can stand
Darling, we will live forever

Hold my heart
It’s now yours
You only can make it start
Darling, we will last forever

Look into my eyes
Really look
You can see past my guise
Darling, together
We will love forever

Can you see the way she holds herself in
The way she won’t let anyone in
Can you see through that fake smile
And her face cracking like tile
Can you not see she needs a hand
To get up and stand
Can you see her eyes losing light
Like a lantern on a dark night
And can you not see
That maybe she needs more
Than just to be

I could write of lovers
With hands intertwined
I could write of foes
With guns primed
Of people running the streets
No idea of why or what for
Of people next to empty seats
Sitting and hoping for more
They only have so many years
They only have so many days
Suddenly all the tears
And the empty “always”
Doesn’t matter anymore
For your time is long gone
And life eventually
Will not go on

It's an exorcism
It's a release
I release my demons
Screaming into the night
And in the darkness
They're finally out of sight

No one wants me
No one cares about you
No one wants to be
Like me and you

No one wants to hug me
No one wants to hold you
No one wants to see
The mess of me and you

No one loves me
No one ever loved you
No one hears our plea
To be loved too

We are the tired
We wake every morning
With eyes dropping and limbs heavy
Dragging ourselves out of bed
Wondering if we’ll fall asleep at our desks again

We are the weak
We have been beaten down
And told to not get back up
We don’t speak because we are scared
Of being told “no” for the hundredth time

We are the lonely
Our hands are always cold
Our arms long for someone to hold
All we want is someone to love
And someone to love us back

We are the depressed
We enjoy rainy days
We smile with sad eyes
And we don’t seem to enjoy much anymore

We are the damaged
We fix our wounds with false smiles  
And laughs that don’t reach our eyes
And we wonder if we’ll ever feel whole again

We are the living
Simply just being

I think I can make it
The end is almost here
Im already there I can feel it
The finish line becoming clearer
My life isn’t finished
And neither am I
Dreams extinguished
I must say goodbye
I think I can escape
This endless cycle of death
That keeps rewinding like a tape
As I keep
Taking
My
Last
B    r      e       a        t           h

I want to be loved so bad
That romance movies make me sad
I want someone to kiss me on the forehead
And someone to tuck me into bed

Someone to be there when I’m upset
Someone to help me forget
And instead make me laugh and smile
Someone to think that I’m worthwhile
To let me snuggle in their lap
And take a four hour long nap

I want someone to hold me
When I’m so scared I can’t see
When I’m so exhausted and can’t walk
And all day listen to me talk
I just
Would love to have someone love me

Facing your fears
That cause all your tears
Will only end it all
If those fears have a name to call
Think on it for a few:
Do the things that scare you
Have a name?
I think that
Demons need names too

I think that
To write
You have to feel
You have to dig down deep
And tear open your heart
Pull out all of the emotions
That you’ve buried for so long
Then bleed, bleed onto the paper
Your inner turmoil scrawled in blood
Bleed yourself dry of all emotion
Claw it out of your chest
And onto paper
In the hopes that somebody
Maybe just somebody
Has felt like you too

The best source of warmth
Comes from feet intertwined
And pairs of legs crossed
It comes from two hearts
Beating as one
It comes from the closeness
And the breath of another
The best source of warmth
Comes from arms holding
And eyes gazing
It comes from a body
That is not your own
But belongs to the person
Who now holds you
Close to their heart

The author reached into her book
And over her characters she took
She attached strings to the humans
Led them to their happiness or ruin
Controlled who they became
And made not one the same

She painted trees with her eyes
And created mountains and skies
She let the scenes drip from her fingers
Onto the pages as her influence lingers
She slowly created worlds and wars
Fabricated houses and hidden doors

She plunged into her story without a thought
And the rest of reality she forgot
She painted with her mind body and soul
A masterpiece of her own control

From her tale and made up lands
She slowly removed her hands
and the author came back to the world
To recreate her story already once told

If I let myself think
I feel myself begin to sink
For one second
I feel my demons beckon
“Come on down,” They’ll say
“We can play all day
It’s fun down here
And there is no fear.”
If I let them into my mind
The world is left behind
And shrouded over
As the demons take over
If I let myself think
I might just sink
And let the demons come in;
Let them wear me thin
Maybe I’ll kick them out
But then I’m in doubt
Of whether it’s worth it
To fight and leave myself split
Between the good and the bad
Between the happy and the sad
So they might just stay
Until I decide to push them away
And if I let myself think
Further into my demons I’ll sink

“You have to move, get up.”
“I don’t want to.”
“This is sad you need to get over yourself.”
“I’m broken, and I don’t think I can be fixed.”
“Then fake it. Get up and put on a smile.”
“It hurts too much; I just want to cry.”
“No crying! It’s not worth it.”
“But I just can’t let go…”
“You have to move on. It’s the only way.”
“Please, all I want is five minutes to let it all out.”
“You’re pathetic. Fine. Five minutes.”
“Thank you,” said the heart.
“You’re welcome,” said the mind.
And the heart and mind cried together.
Just for five minutes.

I’m a writer
I’m a fighter
I’m not a crier

I’m a dreamer
I’m a reader
I’m a fairy tale believer

I’m clever
I rarely say never
I want to be better

Pretend it all away
Believe only the good things will stay
Try not to think about it at all
Instead lock it behind a wall
Use a chain and a lock
And of it never talk

Pretend it all away
Then the days won’t be so grey
Everything is okay, everything is good
Everything is as it should
Don’t let it in
And keep it hidden within

Pretend it all away
And create a new way
To go about life’s travels
As the story slowly unravels
What has been seen
Is all caught in the in-between

Live to the last day
And pretend it all away

Count your dreams
One by one
As they turn into streams
One by one
Catch them if you can
One by one
If only you ran
Count your thoughts
One by one
Calling the shots
One by one
Show them you should
One by one
If only you could
Count your emotions
One by one
Go through the motions
One by one
If only they stayed
One by one
If only they didn’t fade
Count your words
One by one
And cut all the cords
One by one
That tie you down
One by one
As we
All
Fall
Down

She cared too much
About how they thought of her
And how she looked
She cared too much
About finding “the right one”
She cared too much
About having the right friends
And the right pair of shoes
She looked in the mirror
And realized she hated herself
Hated what she had become
She said, “***** it,”
And the girl that cared too much
No longer cared at all

She’s so tired
She can barely open her eyes
But she has to,
She has to make it through.
Her head droops,
All she wants to do is sleep
But for her grades’ sake,
She has to stay awake.
Movements sluggish
And she reeks of no sleep
But she has to keep moving
For her deadlines will not.

Drip, drip, drip
Words fall onto a page
As the clouds start to drizzle
And thunder rolls overhead
Drop, drop, drop
Go the words on the page
As the storm picks up
And the sky turns a darker gray
Splat, splat, splat
Faster the words come
The rain pounds and the wind gusts
As thoughts and feelings roll in
With thunder and rain
Plop, plop, plop
Words scribbled on a page
Written with a new ferocity
As lightning strikes the ground
The right word finally found
Suddenly the rain stops
As the writer is finally through

Keep your thoughts inside
Pretend you have nothing to hide
You have to appear strong
Show them they’re all wrong
That you’re worth something
That you’re not made of nothing
Shove it all away
Even if the feelings stay
They can’t see who you really are
Broken down and not up to par
You can’t appear weak
Your life cannot look bleak
You will be happy
Your world is not ******
It’s all good put on a smile
Just pretending all the while
You need to make it through the day
They won’t see you any other way
So you fake it all day long
Hoping no one figures out what you’ve been doing all along
You’re slowly sinking and not rising
And each day devising
How to hide
In an effort to keep it all inside

It’s been a long day my friend,
The hours blend together,
And it never seems to end.
It’s been a long week my brother,
Every piece has fallen,
Just dropping, one after the other.
It’s been a long month my sister,
Thoughts caught in a blender,
Carried away by a twister.
It’s been a long year my lover,
Rain dripping, drizzling, dropping,
And without you, no cover.

Ever since my birth
I’ve been gripping the edge of the earth
The scientists aren’t right
The world isn’t round
Making not a sound
I’ve been hanging on with all my might

All day long
People walk
With their heads down
Because in their phones
Is where their faces belong
All day long
No one talks
No one glances up
No one smiles
Where did we go wrong?