So cold and hard
Gives the deepest and darkest thoughts
The right directions to your heart
Your mind
And your soul

So wild and unwanted
Gives your nightmare space
In reality
It makes everything real
It makes everything come to life

So loud and sad
Gives the word pain a new meaning
Let you remember why
It makes you never forget
It forces you to always remember

So dark and painful
It keeps you up
It's knocking on your door
Invites itself in
And there it stays
Making your life
A living hell

So run
Run
Run
Run
Before it is too late
Before the rain has soaked you
Run
Before it drowns you
In your own mind

He was the epitome of a loveless boy, and he knew it. In fact, that was what kept him restlessly awake most nights, especially on this particular evening. He glanced down at the dark mess of hair that was laid across his chest and listened to the soft emission of peaceful breathing slipping from the lips of the girl whose name he did not remember. For a second, he debated on searching the dark corners of his mind in an attempt to remember it, but he soon realized he never even bothered to ask. This disappointed him for one reason - it was another question mark that he had to add to the list of names that he kept pinned to the front of his brain. At the thought of this particular list, he felt sick, as though an ounce of regret had seeped into his stomach and spread like an infection and now threatened to rise like bile. He knew he needed to keep it down, so he leaned over his bed and wrapped his fingers around the neck of the glass bottle he kept hidden in the bed springs. He sat back up and slowly unscrewed the cap, his eyes mesmerized by the amber liquid that swirled around the bottom half like a whirlpool of gold. He brought the top to his lips and tipped it back, filling his mouth with the warmth of forgetfulness and feeling as it burned his throat like fire the entire way down. It instantly washed him clean of every bad memory he had done his best to forget for the past week. Every tear that every girl had shed on their knees in front of him, begging him to love them; every cigarette that he had chain-smoked on the rooftop of his apartment building in an effort to cloud these very memories (unsuccessfully); every streetlamp that he had found solace in as he walked the streets mindlessly at three am, searching for answers that never came to him. He closed his eyes and imagined the whiskey rising inside of him until it leaked into his lungs and filled them, drowning him. He held his breath, pondering how long it would take for him to go lifeless in this position. But the sudden stop in the rise and fall of his chest caused the female lying on it to stir in her sleep, draping her arm around him and pulling him even closer. He felt sick again so he took another sip. He knew that when he looked back on this evening, he wouldn't remember it, which was becoming a classic move on his part. In fact, his life had become nothing more than disconnected nights with nameless and faceless females and fire whiskey that filled all the empty space within him. And he wasn't sure how that had come to be, but he no longer cared enough to even attempt to figure it out.

It's 4:26 am
I still haven't got any sleep
I don't want to go to bed without you
I don't want to live without you
I don't want to be without you

It's 4:27 am
I still haven't got any sleep
Without you sleep feels pointless
To be honest
Without you life feels pointless

It's 4:29
I still haven't got any sleep
But it doesn't matter
I wont see you just because I go to sleep
So why not just stay up and watch the sunrise

If I can't see you
That will at least give me something else thats
Beautiful
Just like you

It's 4:31
I still haven't got any sleep
I'm fine with that
I have the rest of my life to sleep if I want to

At 4 am,
When you can't sleep,
I dream of being the cigarette
That you indulge in on the back
Porch, loosely holding it between
Your fingers like you once held on
To me and softly exhaling it like
You did my memory.

At 6 am,
When you can't awaken,
I yearn to be pill that you slip
Beneath your tongue and the
Tingle that resonates within
Your bones like the sensation
I once thrived upon from the
Touch of your lips.

At midnight,
When you can't think straight,
I desire to be the bottle that you
Clutch between your two hands
The way you gripped my throat
The night we made love when you
Begged me to scream that I was
All yours (and I was).

I don't like to be close to people
I can't handle the feeling of people touching me
I don't want people to touch any part of skin
That belongs to me

Still I would do almost anything to sleep next to you
Just one night
Nothing more than sleep together
I would give so much to fall asleep holding your hand

Sleeping next to someone is something I hate
I hate the feeling of having someones warm body
So close to my own
But that is all I wish to do with you

This is all new to me
I don't want to sleep alone
I don't want someone to hold me
I just want you there with me holding my hand

Please don't make me sleep alone
I'm scared

We walked along the cobblestone street like it was memory lane and we were retracing our steps all over again. I reached for your hand and I saw the hesitation in your eyes and the twitch in your little finger, but you wrapped your fingers around mine anyway. The first thing I noticed was that our footsteps were no longer in sync, as they once were (and neither were our heartbeats). But each step carried us closer to our destination, although neither of us knew exactly where that was, so we kept walking. I watched (out of the corner of my eye) the way your free hand was fumbling around in your pocket as though searching for every apology you never had the courage to offer me, but you pulled out a cigarette instead. In order to light it, you needed your other hand back, and although I wanted to grip it in my hand like a vice and never let it go, I let it go. You reached into your pocket again, much more swiftly this time, and removed a lighter. With practiced ease, you flicked the edge and the flame was suddenly alight in your eyes, like a fire burning upon the driftwood of our broken promises in the middle of an eerily serene sea. But just as quickly as hope appeared in the form of that orange and yellow burst of heat, it was gone and back in your pocket with the rest of our unspoken confessions. I allowed myself a second to glance in your direction and note that you had placed your hand in the same pocket as your lighter, instead of back into the safety of mine. Maybe you didn't think of my hands as safe anymore. Or maybe you just learned to find safety in other things instead. And suddenly I found myself wishing you could teach me a thing or two about that. But our feet miraculously carried us forward, towards a sun setting on a much darker day than most. My hands and my heart were as empty as your left pocket, and your mind was as full as your right. And I was still unsure where we were going, or how long you'd be willing to walk beside me, or if you were doing it just to appeal to me. However, I couldn't help but wish I was able to climb out of the depths of your left pocket, swing across your belt loops and land safely inside your right, along with the rest of the broken pieces of you.