When I think of her,
I travel back to the age
of precisely 14. Five years
pathetic from my current
life place, but I almost can't
help myself. Almost.

After all this time, it's not
you I don't trust. Really. I'd
be able to admit that. But it's
her. It's the thought and feeling
of knowing she once danced across
your skin, breathed you in and held
you so close like I desperately do.

I never want to lose this. Never want
to lose you, in my arms and I in yours.
It's inconsequential, but then again,
so were a lot of things.

Life is a perpetual state
of confusion, along with
a few other ingredients.

It's hard to nail down
what my personal recipe
is missing at the moment.

I feel as though if I were to
enter into the oven as is,
I would be the throw away batch.

You know, of course:
the brownie pan with the sunken
warm goo center.

Not bad, just ill formed
and underdeveloped
like myself.

But each day, I walk
and take one step
like mom always says.

It seems as though those things
I took for granted so much before
are the things I miss the most now.

Like waking up next to you
for nearly a week straight,
hair a mess, but heart in place.

Or you. Your stupid, ******* humor
which made me feel just a little more special than anyone else here.

I could write lines and lines
about different yous and she's,
but then it would lose track.

It's about me, finding my place
somewhere other than in sadness
or work or in being busy.

Because there's so much more
than that to this story.

Here's to the ones that deal
with the annoyances of every
day life. To all who choke down
the pounding alarm of morning
and avoid falling asleep on the
highway to another day of mindless
"living life." No questions, please.

No interruptions in the routine. No
radical injections of new ideas or change...but most importantly, no criticism of the daily dose of life here, in the Valley of average and desemated.

To those who fall in line with the rest, hoping that this morning's coffee is the last they'll ever sip. Or to the paper man driving and praying today's the day his car will finally slide off into a ditch of peace. Some type of homicidal heaven to escape the suffocating grip reality seems to hold...to break free of the fleeting expectation of greatness, when all you have to offer is yourself.

Who the **** wants to hear
another sob story of a girl all alone,
bored with her thoughts or the
agony of being home?

How the light of the sun casts
out all her faults, or simply
pretending that long, hot
June days are soon to be lost.

Summer is choking in more
ways than one, forcing relations
with those whom you'd rather
be done.

Lost friends we call them, those
from your past. But truth be told,
everyone knew we'd never last.

**** foundations split sooner
than hoped, but what was lost
to her then was more than just most...

Most of what she clung to from
days of old, where the glory of
embroidered polos signified gold.

But here, two years later from the
grim summer of '12, she closes old
books and shoves them back to their shelves.

Banished are the memories of these
days from the past, and cut are the ties from "friends" who'd never last.

Two level heads aware of the other,
chasing round and round with voices.
Things said back and forth, yet nothing
different when making choices.

All for one and one for me,
inclined on being right before 12:30.
Fighting isn't new, just a shuffled voice in place of the last feud.

It comes too easy, the chase, that is.
Preying back and forth for another
opportunity rather than miss.

That's the true difference between
you and I, you see. I look for
truth: bitter and cold, while you look for sympathy.

Lost are the ways
of respect and love,
people just searching
for lust and other drugs.

It's easy to lose yourself
in the world,
so many moving pieces--
easy to sway a girl.

But I will continue to
root myself in faith,
and search for who I
am in this crazy place.

Tell me this,
why is it that
in immortalizing
my thoughts into
words, they make
more of an impact
than when they spew
from my lips?

My heavy heart
on paper with ink
or in type--black on
white--somehow are
more symbolic of my
pain and suffering
than the tears I shed
alone in my dark room.

The consequences of
daily living are the most
brutal, I suppose. In
some cynical fashion,
typing it out numbs the
ordeal...hoping for a
soul or two to relate to.
Maybe, just for a night, a
connection...some other
nebula of mind and body
to share our baggage.

I'm addicted.
Hot. Rushing. Yearning.
Every weekend is my fix.
Monday through Friday
are a mere blur.
Days & nights I
pray for, are the ones
I spend in your company.

What if the hardest thing
was waking up in the morning?
Begging and pleading with your
body to release you from your bed.

The blankets grow from warm
and comforting to a shield from
the light outside. Pillows embody
the brick wall you build around.

You don't want to move...don't dare
to disturb the shaking peace that you've accomplished by remaining
motionless: the stage of least resistance.

There are few things
that compare to the
crippling, pounding
defeat of feeling so
irrevocably broken.

Who wants to try
and fix her this time?

It's easier to fall in empathy
than to fall in emotion.
It's all about the fall, isn't
it, after all?

Words are easy to rhyme
and stitch together for
what seems to be the best
of all intentions, however
do you feel any better?

I could spill blood and tears
and scribble the toils of my
troubled years and beating
a laundry list of my
inadequacies and over-
coming such consuming
emotion, but all that remains
is a vulnerable self, beat
senseless by society's cold
heart and the simple pain
of not giving a ****.

Maybe it's my soft self
or nature's cruel way of
putting me in my cosmic
place, but being cut down
regularly and thoroughly is
an experience I can't forgive.

I'd rather allow my skin
to burn with the emotion I
feel than to allow the surge
of cold ice through my veins.

It gets to a point where I'm
not sure I want to feel either
anymore.

I keep telling myself I'd
rather feel something than
nothing at all, but what's
the benefit of that?

It's easy for tear drops
to fall past midnight.
It's even easier to let the
raw emotions of day seep
into the darkness of night.

I don't mean to be so sensitive
or to pretend that these things
don't matter to me...but they do.

The little things, they say.
They're what **** the beast.

Today, I'm going to try.
Try and renew a broken bond
between heart, mind and the
belief I have in myself.

Some days, I have so much
to offer the world: care, love,
compassion, hope and joy.
Other days, I sink into my
blankets & sheets, praying for
some sweet release.

My heart feels like it's clutched
between loathing and defeat, but
light keeps pouring through. It
desperately pleads for unclenching
to offer more of what I have inside me.

Feeling hopeless, lost and alone...
these feelings, I don't desire. I feel
like my lungs are filled with smoke:
elusive and toxic...but inescapably
dooming. But I seek the wind. The
clear, fresh breakage from the dark.

I seek hope and promise. I seek self
love and not shame. For the skin I'm in
is entirely my own. And I should be
happy for it and for me...because no
shallow appearance change will make
me a better person. Only drive, goal reaching and love will heal what I pray for.

There’s nothing quite as visceral
as the hate that burns your heart,
breaks your soul, and leaves you
feeling empty.

There’s nothing quite as powerful
as the radical self love you learn,
that builds your dreams, lifts
your spirit, and fills your cup.

There is light within all darkness:
we must embrace both to make it through.