You never told me what you thought about me, you were always scared of reducing these feelings into words.
I never knew what you thought about me, I was always scared of knowing those feelings you say are bigger than words.

rain gets carried away when
I pray a new kinda gray
into my life the
one where all the black kinda faded away
but stuck around in the residue, stuck around
behind everything I do
she screamed about the holy and I told her it wasn't the right day
to ask me again to pray to ask me again to pray to ask me again to get closer when I was the closest I've ever been in a while and none of it was something I'd ever tell
none of it was something I'd ever tell but I got hurt the last time
that I fell so I told her in pieces about
the peace I was trying to know

before i roll on my back and say
do you miss it already
the quiet and the empty
the light without the heavy
the move without the levy
are we going to ever go back

please don't
i won't

please don't
i won't

please don't
this time i can't
stay

i'm sorry i'm sorry
come back

hold onto this

hold onto this

i can't
then don't.

I said hold me
I'm sinking
and you kept
trying to teach me how to swim

if ignorance is bliss then call me ignorant if
reality is false then just call me

She said: I need you to hold still
or else how can I write about you

at times I want to thank paper
for her good listening skills
and other days
i want to tear her up
for letting me talk like this

And it was here
She said wait till Christmas, this place gets packed
with people and prayers

I'll call her by name next time I'll call her by name but
for now she's the beast in my head I've been trying to tame for now
she's the game in my head I've been trying to play for now

she leaves me alone and like this i learn where to go

gold plated, irony faded
Haded. tell me all the truth unjaded
if it's all meant to be i'd hate it

trying to remember what cupid used to tell me
after i told him if he ever came was there a chance that he would stay
cause i got so sick of feeling a certain way
then having it go away

when I go back to you
and you run to me
thank God for this

there were years i held
unburied but moving in undetected lingers
before i finally caught them in standstill
sore between my fingers

sore is sore and ache is ache
and i held both in silence for silences' sake
till weight made pressure and pressure made bend
I used to call them my Godsend I used to call them my Good Friend
but bend made break and break bent friend
and weight came back to make me sorry again
cause sorry meant take and take meant give
and give meant I forgive but
you didn't forgive

so came the break between real and fake
so came the merge between real and fake

you say you don't have to go there
don't haunt me like this
so good
so good
so good
because i didn't want to remember more than i should!
and if i could just stop myself yes i would, yes i would
i am so so sorry and if i could feel worse i would
and if i could feel better i would

but it's beyond letting, beyond forgetting
and the hand in all these memory choices isn't mine
the closest thing i had to control was time
the closest thing i had to sense was rhyme

here we have to choose where to store
up on surface? deep in core?
and when i keep it there, you'll finally tell me more

so you say forget and
i let it
sink deeper
ugly rivulet
down my back down my
back

come back to sink me too but
i won't let
anything that has to do with me
do with me

you know deeper isn't better you know
the same thought'll still get her

but it'll have gone deeper now
okay! yes! you're in my face! so i'll say this

yes i don't
remember it! yes it's not on the surface for me to look at it!
but i promise you
when i bury it i hear it saying
it'll come to bury me too

i just felt that i've been up brushing against all the words for a very long time
rubbing on the edge, sometimes it's sharp, usually
it's sharp. always
it's sharp.
they're stupid honestly

and i'm trying to lose myself somehow
and i remember wanting to sand away
the fact that i was another chip off the block another
boat off the dock
another piece of lint another stick of chalk
here's a space here's a space where we can talk

and i wanna start this walk
past the doors i hear it knock

(and i'm going to get on a bus and it's not going home)

and i have been wondering, i said
i have been wondering.

what have you been wondering?
at a time like this?

at a time like this?
I've been wondering if this is close enough for it.

who's going to know?
who has to know.

if this is close enough to feel and if this is
close enough to think and
if there's enough air here
to take you between now and then.

is this what I could be doing to survive? is this what i can live
in between. between the unsaid said and the unseen scene

i can live in-between the times, i said. in-between the times / hoping that since it's been spoken / this stupid spell's gone broken

but first we gotta
hold onto the rope
hold onto these cords
cause they're asking me
you wanna live in the spaces of your words?

i said if i could if i COULD
(oh God if I could)

and there's no hope here not with them
so I say a prayer and I say it fast
cause I need this beautiful life to last
and I need this beautiful hand to hold and I need to stop this terror fold and I need to
let this prayer go
into the air
God I'm so tense here hoping someone out there is gonna care
that I'm sending
for sweet beautiful survival yes have it
Sent please
bring me back to the last Good Place i went please
let me wake up the next morning and hear the Jack
and hack and hack he's going to go I know
this I know
hack hack hack he Went
the last Good Time that we spent
hack hack hack he went
at all the pretty wood
in this nice neighborhood

and i promise myself the next time i tell myself
to open up i'm gonna stay closed
and the next time you tell me to feel
the warmth
i'm gonna stay cold

softer you said
softer softer softer.
you can't be so hard
you don't have to be so hard.
not on yourself
not on me
not on this

and you say
i know you're clinging with your life to that victim card
and you can and you should
and i can't and won't stop you

but we rage together, on that lifesunk mission forever
i promised that much to you and i swear again that we always will.
i can't keep pretending there ever was another person for
who i'd ****
what hole are we trying this time to fill

here we stare out at that big volcano we nicknamed little hill

and in all those ragers i hear you speak
the same thing again

so here i am saying back to you
   softly      i promise you we'll stop before we break him
here hold my hand i'll say it louder
i promise you we might still live happy without him

and as we lay in my bed
you'd suggested instead
that we rage, rage, rage hard together
against the sorry night
and i'm begging you please fix that broken light
cause i'm a victim of all these stolen nights
in this bed where sleep couldn't cross me even if i had it in me to try
        cause here i lay here i lie
to remember
that this is far too close to where i felt it begin

here you suggested
to fight against the happy time
to hang in the stars
to stare at the new moon
and fly with it back

and i convince you to sway with me
and i convince you to stay with me
and the dance is all ours
and so is the world

and we made it rhyme
every single time
till the love we had for crowds was clear
till they screamed at us    we want you here
all over again till all appointments fell in stacks
hung them over ***** dish racks
here they were screaming for us
turning their backs

we want you back
we want you back

so all the time
all the time, every time
we stand the test
if coming together was trying, then we were trying to stand the test.
and i wonder if all this oblivion would finally put me to rest

would i finally be able to admit
who i'd love better at my best

There is new air
        and old air
             and fresh air
                    and stale air
                          cold air
                               hot air
             and air in-between.

There are young people
                   and older people
                            and corrupt people
                                  and naive people
                                      mean people
                                          kind people
              and people in-between.

I'd take air over people
         because
                people can be
  (sadly)
  (regrettably)
  (unfortunately)
                      S E E N

i don't know how to talk to you-
      i don't know where to start with you,

i thought this was a ship
       worth sailing

"dreary weather
        no match for us"

then,
      it started hailing

you took cover
     hid from feelings
of doubt

i put a shield  
    between us

i only wanted
     to protect you

or at least make you feel
      just as i had
  with you

no calls
   no texts
between us

a clean break
    with a messy outcome

avoiding you everywhere
      so you'd forget

no

      this is not a letter to you
merely an adieu

     i'm posting this on your wall
           to let the world know
        how people can fall
                     in love
               and out

we wounded up here
    on an island of fear

our ship had long sunk
      all our treasures
in its trunk

the ocean washing
    away our sandcastles

leaving a salty foam
       in its place

i dream
    of you from time
to time

you were a drink
    i liked
             for a while

a summertime destination
    an iced-beverage infatuation
    
                and

in case you were wondering
         your taste
is lime

days i have delayed
i've been under the shade
    for i cannot bear to speak
                                 to you.

ambiguous blots of ink
forming dangerous thoughts to think-
    will surely be reason for death
                                        for me.

who am i again(?)
just a girl with a pen-
    and words that can only cushion my fall
                                                            my crash.

conspiracy, i cause
propaganda, they pose
                                               posters, they stick
                                                                                and poems, i smack

find me in the corner
sipping my bitter capp
dreaming of paper
and ink
and y
         o
            u

distance rolls into the highway
as we vicariously live our lives
rebelling against the speed limit
whose faulted existence was deep-rooted
in restraints that meant well
but were restraints all the same

what I did!
and what you did!
then, what I did!
then, what you did!

this is how we go! this is how we keep up the
charade! this bed that we made.

this is how we
fight into the night! this is our grand scheme at its height!

this is how you
rob me of sleep! this is how i
keep you from peace!
this is how we
intertwine. until there is no more me or mine.
  
until the only way i seem to know you iswhen the anger hits your bones.
and i lose all sense of cool. guess you could call me love's fool.
i just have no sense of chill. i try to hold still.
but i can't hold still

so, i don't, and i spill out, and
i cough out, and i
run out
of ways to say
how deeply i have started to despise you

how to come clean, of all these thoughts, that sully my brain?
unless i share my pain?
what's the saying about fighting fire with fire?
but you called me a liar!


so i finally wanted it out
i just wanted to have it out on the table
and there you go again you call me unstable

but i'm honestly just tired.
i just need to sleep first,
and i'll call you when i wake up

so you put your face close up to mine before
your eyes flashed a little wide
before you said hey let's go inside before you said
hey it's warmer in here before you said
why don't you have a beer
before you said all of this
        your eyes flashed a little wide.
so i guess that's when i should've known.
but as i felt my hand grip over my phone
i realized how badly i had to be done with the trust games
you said i knew so much better than to trust old flames
and you're a new thing. up and away
cupid's a shooter till this very day
and you were excited for me to
learn what would happen if i did it your way

you were excited for me
to finally see what was on the other side of this kind of fear.
so i let you be and i let me be too until my
fingers loosen and i don't even have my
thumb on speed dial anymore when our eyes finally lock again.
somehow i just
know this is a bad idea but at the same time it feels like
something i should've done a long time ago.

hold you like a wake
hold you like a funeral
rolling in your sleep, mourning on your part
good night tonight, kiss you good
bad night as well

wake up, bad knight
back to screaming, wrong or right
break a switch, unfix
get your fix, learn your tricks
i wish magic could fix us too

instead i crack open a ringing nightmare
dragging me in ear and hair


hold me like a martyr hold me everywhere
fold me like i'm dying for you
   don't you see i'm dying with you?

but good times never last

run my mouth, break my cast
run my secrets, like i ask
bathwater never tasted or felt so blue
i'm going crazy! because of you!

i hate to love! i hate you too!
hold you, feel you, learn you, heavy
i'm going heavy
drowning in rain, drowning
in lightness

darkness without option for brightness
hug me till i'm good and dead
till i forget what's now in my head

and i wish you would come for me! like i come for you!
like i do for you! like i am to you! but i'm nothing to you!
and you're nothing to me! and you're dead to me! and i'm dead to me!

and no one is ever sorry! everyone is always swearing to be clean
you're not clean! there's blood on me, there's blood on you
past is past but future's gone too
and i'm sorry about this although not specifically about you
i've gone into myself
as refuge now

i stand around like freedom in the doorway
lending a sense of urgency to the air
if you take me now, you will find out sooner
the paths you could take, if you dare


but i don't hang around the doorway long enough for you to take me
because to be taken at my challenge would have given me a scare
and i know the next time i look to find you
you and i won't truly be there

to see what mark you left on me, i look back into the corner of my mind.
dust-filled, nothing swept, it's a mess in here.

i once devoted much of my thought to you. put you in the main floor, dragged you to the bedroom.

today you're an attic of my mind
where i keep old memories, faded, dulled, no edges like the days they stem from
where i let she who was me but no longer is sleep.

i flip through her thoughts, they used to be mine/
can i call them that still?

so, i put my hand on your face
in a wave of wanting closeness,
in a wave of resisting fear
and it washed over me
and passed us by
as if it was hardly ever there

i had my hand on your face
and thought: this is vulnerability

and thought: i will hurt you

and thought: i will hurt you

and thought: i will hurt you


and i could not stop it. i could not stop the thought.

and i waited for the wave of bravery, of resilience, of belief in the greater good to wash over me.

but it was like waiting for a train that never came

required home this was our required home
we decided
this was a place we couldn't let go
we decided
this was a place we'd bend
and crack
hack like a lumberjack
till pores erupted in the wood
and we filled this place we couldn't let go
with moonlight glow
seeping in the most
standing on the edge of the moment like a ghost
at the very last hour in the very first night
when we began to call the wood with us in it a home
our dearest home when we
recognized the need for home when we
recognized the need for a place to shelter
when we recognized the heat the swell and the swelter
when we laid in concentrated comfort
in morning sun
baby this is the unloading of a spiritual gun
and you said it could be the most fun. if we stayed
if we prayed. if we
let go of each other.
and then like you said in the script
you started to talk about departure and leave
and you said you had to take yours
but before you did
you said your hands need a place to stay and here
is the place i promised
and here i am not sad to leave you in this world.
and here you can't be in a rush to leave.
and then you took my hands out of yours and placed them on the tree
and then i turned around
and it was only me

my heart came to me to tell me she was on the verge of a realization
i was in my favorite state my state of bliss held together by the seams of denial i stitched myself. so i turned her away and told her to come back a year later
she agreed and said she would find me on the edge of myself

at which point i told her i would not be there if she looked for me. i would not be there on the edge of myself. i will have no more edges, i will have sanded all of them away
you will find my doors closed, and locked, and you need not enter.

i said come back a year later and you will not recognize me
come back a year later and you will not find me in a crowd of all the old mes

come back a year later and i will not be who you presume me to be
who you underestimated me to be

who you so sorely held onto the belief that i was.

if i got my revenge i would have broken all the windows in your house. to show you how violated i felt. this is how violated i felt.
like i was naked in my own spaces, like i was exposed in all the worst places, like i couldn't breathe without feeling a threat of a death on me. you said it would be on me if i left.

taking forever to open up and even
longer than that to close
it scares me how much she knows
here the truth comes here the truth goes
     here i am sought for sad
doubly ***** prose
can you tell me again how much she knows
    
as she watches onward i float off ****** propriety
      i am a ghost coming through the drift of society

does she wish
she could chain me here
does she wish she could change me here
i am a ghost stepping through
a different body

to myself i cannot be recognized.
  through things i love i remember myself
i see trees i see a breeze i feel
and conclude that
i am a person of ease

then i see spurting
silver
smoke
      and remember another part
of me and hope
to God it's not from another thing that I broke

she looks at me and I already feel what she knows
you are a breeze and fire as it blows
                 through a different body
       and it steps on my toes
tough chalk take it easy with all those throws
tough chalk take it easy on the hose
      why was she the one you chose
// // here she confesses to be a concept to expose
// //   here i confess to already know
// //  here she deviates from
internalized dialogue rendition
lending me renewal in my own special edition
          here the deviation is turn that suffices
                        to scare all existential devices
kiss the existential murmur away
here she faces me to colors parts i used to call my favorite of the day
    till she comments on the fact that i didn't notice they were gray
here she fills here she pours here i am floating on her insistence on coloring with elemental cores
here is a gas that makes me feel more lighter than higher
        here she gifts me brighter day
better ray. does more than she will ever say
not to be pathetic but i'm definitely hoping that all this coloring could forever stay
though i love her enough to send her away
     but  beautiful fire don't put yourself out don't
put yourself out. don't show me what's brighter
then gift me a lighter
then put yourself out.
 here i feel the reach here i feel
a gentle tug and it's
good for me, i can tell.

here I am laying in a light painted on for me
      and I am so happy to be living off a dream

performing live in this city here I am performing
live in a town
old lady don't tell me to come down
here I am learning names of
a crowd

I'll die before I lay ties to it and I'll live before I lie
to it

this is when survival feels tempting

but I shouldn't let a dream take me off another
if it was my dream to never be a bother
if it was my dream to lay low and live wild

i woke up this morning
feeling at ease
today was "the day"

      oh, don't be alarmed
spare me some charm
     i truly won't be missed

if anyone happens to wonder
  for the sake of table-conversation
     the cause of death was overdose

oh no! i wasn't troubled
     tortured or muddled
i just saw through it all

like a moth to a flame
   death called to me by name
blinding me
      until it was
           all i could see

i wasn't leading a life
  i was merely following one

i was winter when it was fall
a large in a small
nothing ever
quite
fit

it wasn't always this way
     i remember:
pink robes
    stationary
              gel pens

depressed mother
absent father
    i guess you were always there for me

it's hard to plan your day

no friends
no mail
no drive to do anything

my will
         it's inside
the closet

i am sorry
    you will lose your job
so i've left you
                         all my money

my mother-
       the rest of the pills
i will surely pass out
       before the bottle is finished

my father's inheritance
doesn't fall too far from the tree;
absent.

i have no friends
   i only have my poetry
        please submit it for me

i could never do it myself

we are praying
by the day

we are hoping
to find the way

in a crowd
we are lost
open your mouth
speak your thoughts

in this world
you are judged
for many things
but
your beauty
has no amount
if the words
stuck in your mouth
on the very tip of your tongue
in the essence of air you breath out don't
make their way
around.

you call yourself the starriest gazer
sharpest blade on a razor

pull apart skin pull apart

faster

the starriest gazer, sharper taser

come apart faster now

sit on the grass
this afternoon- minds lazing
this afternoon- cows grazing
all gnawing on thought
all knowing of thought

but can you really know

and does this grass ever regrow

here i hear of home
here i hear of home and it is a twisted old melody
   humming back at me
who's humming back at me

in this deep-seated parental regard
will you look at me like i'm smart
about to take a scholarship from juillard

for the instrument of pulling apart
for the compositions of tearing heart
for the rendition of dizzy art

the water doesn't always spill
it doesn't always soak
it doesn't always drown sometimes it is lovely and i like to put myself under the shower head to feel my problems come down with it
down the drain and i am no longer drained or worn
in fact i am washed and brand new car clean and pure and no longer what i was

in the corner she put her  hand on my face.
and stared at me for the longest time before
she put the other one too. i wasn't sure where this was going
she had cupped my face and pushed it up a little

before she took a deep breath and said you are a baby right now
i told her i was thirteen
but she said it doesn't matter
growing up is painful
the future is painful
the past is painful
the world suffers every day from
a thousand afflictions, baby.

i said don't call me that
i'm not.
she said you don't know anything
i said i do. i know this.

she said the world suffers every day
every week every hour
even things we can't bear to think, the world endures persistently.
the world overcomes.

she said you need to wait this out.
it gets worse and then it gets better
      i said how long
she said it doesn't matter

you're going to grow up and it's going to hurt
and there's not a thing you can do about it.

i told her to watch me
she said she will. from a strait jacket.

and that's when she told.

i hated how all her advice was useless in this way
and how she always ******* me over in the end anyhow

I thought all this time that understanding was currency and it would
buy me reciprocity, it would buy me good faith
so i gave and gave till i deflated like a balloon
going from full and heavy to nightmarishly empty so quick and so soon
you know me well, so treat me well!
but you don't, you don't. my hell and your hell spell a hell of a hell. you know it and you wish you didn't
so it is now a bigger injustice, i can't lay blame on ignorance, you know it now
a truth interchangeable with yours! i'm hurting! i'm hurting!

you're a part of the fire now!
that can only mean i am a part of yours.

so you got it all along and it didn't save me.