Why?* If we had such a great start,
to my bed I ask before I fall asleep,
while I'm trying not to fall apart,
before memories roll down my cheecks.

Did I made you inside my head?
Your smile nourished my soul
and now I'm starving in my bed.
You where all I could've imagined.

Did I made you inside my head?
I'd die for another night in your bed.
I'm not smart enough and I blame this heart.

I can tell you
Who am I
Where do I come from
What I believe
What do I refrain from

I can tell you
My fear
My pain
How my skin rejoices
When it touches rain

I can tell you
how free am I
bound with you
How fast my heart beats
walking slowly with you

I can tell you
How I am going to wreck your mind with a stare
And rip your tender soul
beyond repair

But you won't let me
You won't ever believe me
You'll believe me to stitch all the broken pieces of you
You'll believe me to admire your skin and flatter your ego

I will,
Always.

But if you hide your scars
Your stupid ugly dance
Your fumbles and mistakes
Your moments of disgrace

I won't rip your soul
I'll leave you in your catacomb,
Safe and secure
Like a ship on the shore

She sits in the room,
It's dark and it's quiet.
Above her, though,
It sounds like a riot.
Chairs are moved,
Sounds are made.
But if she's to whisper,
The price would be paid.
They call it a prison,
They call it Hell.
But only she knows,
The pain this well.
They'll pick,
and they'll tease,
and watch her,
As she falls to her knees.
She tries not to let them,
But they come anyway.
The tears, they fall,
As her head does in shame.
She doesn't want,
To face another day.
Alone in her room,
She'd much rather stay.
She's sick of the torture,
Sick of the pain.
But she goes to the bus stop,
And stands in the rain.
The bus ride *****,
And the picking won't end.
So a text to her mother,
She knows she must send.
"Hey mom, come get me,
I know you're at work.
I'm sick from dinner,
Last night's pulled pork."
She knows it's wrong,
To lie and deceive.
But she needed an excuse,
To get out and leave.
She's back in her room,
It's a safe place to think.
"I don't want to live anymore,"
She says with one final blink.

and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it

i don't watch home movies
hate them
reason being because
when i was young
i was looking for a movie
my mother
had recorded for me
and accidentally
put one in the vcr
that i'm not sure
i was supposed to see
i know the obvious response
"uh oh, ****"
sorry to disappoint
they were only marked with dates
  1991
on live television
montel williams asks my father
"how can you just throw
your child away like a piece of trash?"
   1994
i spend so much time
in the emergency room
that my parents stop
penciling in growth marks
on the frame
of my bedroom door
i always thought
it was because they believed
i would never grow out
of this sickness
sometimes i believe
the reason that they
never bought me a dream catcher
was because they never thought
i'd live long enough
to see them come true
   1996
i am eliminated
from a spelling bee
because i didn't know
the 'dad' is silent in 'family'
   2013
before i got into poetry
i used to do standup
none of my jokes were funny
one of the other comics
tells me my skits are dry
sometimes sad
he says "why don't you joke
about something like your family?"
so i say
"i never wore any sunblock
because i didn't want anything
to keep me from my father"
i say "what do you call christmas
without lights or heat?"
before he has a chance
to answer
i say "1997. better yet
why don't you
make like a dad and
leave"
   2014
every time we drive
past the hospital
my mother reminds me
how much it cost to save my life
like she'd rather
have her money back
she doesn't have to say
that sometimes she wishes
it was me who had died
instead of my brother
i can hear it in the way
she says "love you"
sometimes i imagine
that if i were to die
that she
would pick out a casket for a child
because she never loved
the person i became
yesterday i told my father
how close i'd been
to suicide lately
and he said
"that's my boy,
livin on the edge.."
and i can't remember
if i laughed
or cried