pale circle
     sunken eyes
          hallow cheeks

cracked hands
     bulging flesh
          spidery veins

hated image
     broken shard
          self reflection

If they had the brains
to call me a misanthrope
you think they could know
that's what I'm not

I don't hate you humans
I hate your social conventions
and my chest gets tight
when I'm around groups

I'm introverted

fidget and shuffle
the weight of it pulls me down
surrounded but alone

pulling at your limbs
rubbing sleep from your eyes
dragging yourself through

what is true nature if not this
the whole feeling of sunshine
as it streams onto my face
bring such warmth and joy
as I soak in its morning rays

It's freeing
you can do whatever you want
no one to hold you accountable

It's terrifying
you could fall into bed and never leave
no one to help you when you need it

Though social situations
claw at my heart
and make it frantic
the scariest company
I am ever with is within me

Because alone with myself
is like walking a minefield
every thought a calculated move
to not step on a bomb

No matter what other say
it isn't as scary as me
because I cannot run away
from my own thoughts

People tell me I am ugly
I know that I am nothing
my thoughts already know
I am worthless and disgusting

The darkness lives within me
waiting inside my mind
to drag me down from within
and strangle the air from my lungs

Sure other people are scary
and social situations tedious
but nothing you can't avoid
or grit your teeth through

But as I grit my teeth in a smile
a voice within shouts at me
and tells me sweetly my inadequacies
I listen to it as it picks at me

It tells me what I already know
what I know everyone thinks
it tells me I am not worthy
of affections or connections

The worst place to be
is anywhere that includes me
because being with myself
has the hardest company to please

we all have thoughts
impulses, moments, similarities
we all know the actions
smiles, words, movements

out of sync, the feeling of missing a note
no arrangement to follow in a symphony
a world of music, no voice to sing

my own are broken
discordant, amiss, awry
my brain is hoping
wishing, waiting, wanting

one that is not my own
one a skin I no longer fit
one all my own but older
one new and fresh faced
one that no one ever knows
a list so long I could never find me
a list of them extending beyond all

you are not a narcissist
if you love yourself                                      
so take care of you                                      
and breath deeply

My tired dragging eyes
rubbing sleep out of them
or rubbing deeper in?

An impression of exhaustion
in my sallow skin
or my fragile mind?

The never-living
like rejected gifts
a whisper unsaid
The never-dead
like heaped trash
a broken thing

fizzy love wild days
like dynamite and lit fuses
you were explosive

no time for gender
when there are crimes to commit

It wasn't a problem
just a tick really
it's kind of silly

It was nothing much
correcting tilted things
organizing rings

It wasn't a problem till after
when nothing was clean
and hands had to gleam

Skin was cracking
it was like a disorder
everything had to be in order

dearest sweet ocean
i'm sorry so sorry
we never heard you

Oceans like black holes
   each continent a galaxy
   each city a planet

Suburbs like moons
   spinning around cities
   spinning through life

People like stars
   They're full of light
   They're full of potential

I whisper goodnight
so close your eyes now dear
because it all ends

The futures vision is pale
a bleak world of white
from an ignored plight

As we make oceans boil
we ignore the damage
and use it to our advantage

Filling our world with carbon
an element needed in all life
that is now creating strife

Ripping away the color
from our oceans and reefs
not seeing our misguided beliefs

killing off beauty and life
just as humanity kills algae
not seeing a problem we dally

A world without vibrance
starting with bleached beaches
we should be considered leeches

why worry the world
it is inevitable
we will start again

my faraway friend
in every note you send
I find your smile

life lines window sills
listener of whispered words
light lays on the leaves

I'm no puzzle piece
it's not a question
or some problem

I'm a little different
but that's not wrong
I can just be myself

I'm not part of your ideal
I shake, smile, and stutter
and get nervous alone

I'm a lover of many things
just not touching you
or being put into boxes

Everyone has something
that makes them doublethink
when they're standing
at the railroad crossing

wind screams at the door
thunder crashes down hollow halls
hide under the bed

the scratch of a record player
and a burst of static fills up
every corner of the room
thoughts in my mind are static

scratchy and skipping around
always bursting in annoyingly
during the best part of the song
intrusive and impulsive ideas

there the track skips a song
needle down another groove
losing track of the beginning
my mind down the rabbit hole

No matter how much you sleep
sleep finds a way to creep
into your weary bones
and broken dragging mind

It always clings tight to you
fogging up your view
like sea mist over your eyes
it covers everything in sight

Rolling waves of exhaustion
sleeping now would be noxious
because the sea that is sleep
is only there to drown you