the silence is chasing you; you are neck-deep in humiliation.

your head is just slightly hovering over a body of water
and the men watching you are slyly enjoying a smoke
their ribs are sticking out through their well-sewn suits
as they caress the cigarette through their fingers,
while the feeling, you notice, is vibrating their brains
and the thought of their lungs collapsing
doesn't seem to tug at their heart strings.

this is all a vivid dream and you cannot pinch yourself out of this one.

there are women beneath you, pulling at your legs.
their skirts are slowly fly up as they reach for
what they only could've wished to become.
you notice the cigarette burns on their wrists
and the all-too-deep bite marks piercing their feminine limbs.
they drown you until the rebellion sheds off of you and
when you're gone, they'll find another to replicate.

you wake up; when did this dream become reality?

My father’s busy with the lady two streets down and my brother’s in the car with a bowl full of sadness evaporating into memories of the good ol’ days. My mother’s cleaned the house five times in the last minute or two and she won’t be satisfied until her fingers numb to the bone and her smile is sharp enough to pierce through diamonds.

I was born to even out the family but I cause more panic when I’m asleep than when I’m awake and I’m addicted to anything my little hands can get a hold of. I’ve been here for years, desiring for the walls  that surround me to become more than just an address and I can’t help but wonder what’s been holding me back. A broken family, a lost home or the streets I never thought I’d leave?

How many hands have to melt like burning candles until I learn that shoving seeds down my throat won’t turn my veins into the roots that support me? How many layers of my skin need to be burned through before I realize my heart will always be cold? My body has always been warmer than my passion. My fingertips create fires underwater and even my tears sweat sometimes.

I often lose myself in familiar streets in hopes of finding somewhere to hide. This tunnel is the only true shelter I have. The heaviness of the lump in my throat drags me down and the soles of my feet glue themselves to the floor I shadow over. As the walls around me vanish, it tears apart the person I used to be.

I buried my identity in the ground and built my safety net out of pebbles and cement, but the cracks beneath the sidewalk ****** me in and I’ve been hidden here ever since. Sometimes home is somewhere you never thought you’d end up. Sometimes home is a word so foreign that the folds of your brain reject it. Sometimes home is nothing but a house.

they read between the lines,
but they'll never understand what goes on beneath the ink.
they won't see how every word i write somehow
transfigures itself into the letters of your name.
it reminds me of how you used your lips to trace
the pattern of your initials on my skin
and how you were always so afraid of letting go of the past.
they'll overthink this as if it's a metaphor for something
of a deeper meaning, but i've never truly understood it myself.
i'm still trying to comprehend why you left without any warning
or why you threw me away as swiftly as you picked me up,
but i'm beginning to think
*there is no underlying message.

I think you'll find me engraved in your bones
Carved on your skull
Dug into your icy skin

No, you're wrong.
Shut the **** up.
I want to hit you so badly.
Pick yourself up and deal with your **** problems.
Stop.
That's not funny.
Don't leave.
Please don't cut me off again.
Don't do it, I love you.
You keep trying to make me feel guilty.
Why?
Why does it seem you always put her first, before me?
All I did was try to please you, all you ever were was jealous.
There's something terribly beautiful about you.
I'm sorry for being an indecisive *******.
I wish we could just restart.
I like you too.
I like you back.
I think I'm in love with you.
It's because I care about you more than anyone.
I care, I still care, never stopped. Always have and always freaking will.
We're drifting away and I don't know why.
I really hope you remember me.
Do you want to hang out sometime?
Will you go out with me?
**** me.
I really like you and I have feelings for you. I'm hoping maybe we could turn our friendship into more than just that.
You make me happy.
Thank you for everything.

I hate the letters that spell your name
And I wish they weren't spilled
On every page of poetry I've written
Since the day we met
I wish your smile wasn't engraved
Into my brain and on my skin
So that I wouldn't see it every **** night
In images I used to call "dreams"
I wish I didn't need to write about
him or you or (your initials)
Because I've always hated pronouns
And I know I'd never be able
To muster up enough courage to tell you
Every secret held by my pen

Nights like these I count the number of poems
Caused by a shattered heart
As if writing about you will piece it back together
I count the number of really bad rhymes
And the amount of times I wished you hadn't left
I count it all out, write down dates and times
They won't mean a thing 6 years from now
I think in the back of my mind
I'm hoping you'll read them some day, some how
And wish you hadn't left

Your eyes are not the oceans
They never will be to him
And his face doesn't light up when you walk into the room
Because you are not the one he wants
The shape of your fingers will never remind him of a perfect puzzle
As they were never petite enough to let him hold
You will never be his metaphoric love
Or the spark that lights his fire
You are not his everything
And he is not yours
He is not your world or your galaxy or the stars in your dark soul
So stop letting him be