I've thought about a lot this week
I'll write it down before I sleep
The words that I'm too shy to speak
While you and I are lying face to face.
I'm too shy to unhinge my jaw
And let the syllables freely fall
I'll lie awake and write it all
So maybe you can see.
People leave fingerprints on our soul
After the curtain's closed and they've played their role
But they also leave us with a gaping hole
That fingerprints won't fill.
But you were the one to make all the difference
And understand the purple scars on my wrists
Some people wrap our souls in their fists
And refuse to ever let it go.

You and I were introduced as the wheels left the ground
And we angled towards the heavens.
Hundreds of miles per hour,
South bound, towards the Florida Keys
And you mentioned the  unusual serenity
That lies at forty thousand feet.
I memorized a trusting face while turbulence
Interrupted our peaceful flight
And you found your first opportunity
As you played in on my fear of heights.
You ended up following me, something I never expected
And like an unwelcome pest,
Like a moth or a spider,
You took up residency in the cold dark corners I neglected.
You so intricately spun your web of lies outside my home
And when you introduced your bait,
You let it dangle above my doorframe,
And I didn't hesitate.
I sunk my teeth into your tragedy and you wove me in
Leaving me tangled in the silk you manufactured,
All along that's how I let you win.
I let you tear open my stitched up wounds
And peel back my flesh and expose my interior
I let you examine how my brain functions during REM sleep
I let you study my neurological system,
And I gave you a private screening of my dreams.
While I was busy over analyzing your past
You were rerouting my neurons
And creating malfunctions within the synapse.
You rewired my entire nervous system
While I let you research the functions of my cells.
You're nothing more than the insects and the pests
With too many legs that crawl along my cellar walls.
Like a daddy long leg spider, I never saw you as a threat
Until you tangled me in false intentions
And left me for dead.
I learned the daddy long leg spider
Has a poisonous venom, lethal if injected
But it was cursed with a mouth and teeth too small
To leave any human the slightest bit affected.
But I was the one who allowed you
To shrink me down and make us the same
So your tiny teeth could penetrate my skin
And leave venom in my veins.
And it was only in that moment, finally standing eye to eye
That I noticed the lack of conscience in your irises
For the first time in my life.

I can only identify Autumn as entirely bittersweet
I cringe at the sting of it as I breathe it through my teeth.
Isn’t it ironic how it’s viewed as beautiful in most eyes?
The season when everything transforms and withers away and dies.
The leaves changing colors, the forests in flames
And the vague sense of comfort in the shortening of days.
It’s underneath the ocean of stars I overanalyze my place
And I realize I’m just one out of the entire human race.
There’s something about Autumn, when everything dies,
That nags at me, insisting that I acknowlege I’m alive
And that no one can take that life away from me but me
I am not like the forests and the leaves and the trees
And I do not need to engulf myself in the colors of the flames
And I will not wither into nothing in Mother Nature’s name.
It is not neccesary for me to die once a year
Or hibernate all winter just to dismiss all my fears.
So why is it when I breathe Autumn into my bones
I become hyper aware that I’ve constructed people into homes
That have long sense been forclosed on, windows boarded up
And I’m the last to understand that the doors are locked and shut.
"That habit causes chronic homesickness," the doctor explains,
"I have no cure to give you, I just have something for the pain."
It’s in a self-medicated stupor I re-evaluate and say,
"I’m the only one to blame for why I ended up this way."
And in my cloudy mind state I think of what I’m fighting for
It’s been years of battles, mostly won, but I fear I’ll lose the war,
For overnight Winter will creep up to my window and make its way inside
And the tired worn out troops I have left will be taken by surprise.
My mental health will grow sleepy but I’ll push it to stay awake
And I’ll cling to that last dying ounce of comfort Autumn gave.

Call it quits if you want,
Call it whatever you want but it's left me feeling empty.
Say it's better with you gone,
But even as you say it, know that I'll always be angry.
Not that you left,
Or that you thought you had nothing left to lose,
But for taking away my say,
And for putting our friendship in that noose.
Call it useless as can be,
Say we're what's important but still keep us safe away
Say you'll always tell me,
Yet never let loose the demons you keep at bay
Not the jokes about never reaching thirty,
But how you believe everything about you
Is toxic and *****.
What happened to that third story apartment
Where we watched B movies
And smelled like stale cigarettes?
Northeast Ohio winters are always reminiscent
Of that two bedroom home.
And this holiday when my family asks
"What have you been doing?"
I'll tell them I write ****** poetry and think about you
And how the seasons so routinely changed,
And no one noticed you had too.
You always used to tell me,
"We have to play the hands we're dealt."
It's not like you to throw the cards down
So tell me stranger,
When did you decide you didn't feel like yourself?
You took a chance at finding heaven
And you left behind this hell
Of bone chilling anxiety,
And endless nights without sleep
Spent counting every chance I missed to save you
Because I ran out of sheep.
I've racked up nights spent with stomach knots
Wondering if your spirit found a home
And did you ever once consider
You might still end up alone?
Unanswered questions create insomniacs,
I haven't been the same since they were introduced
I'll find a cover story for the circles under my eyes,
I haven't slept well since I got the news,
But I just cant bring myself to hate
The problem at its root.
So mark it down as another statistic
Some of my dreams feel so realistic
You cross your legs, your laugh alone
Is enough to turn my heart into stone
When it sounds, resounds, vibrates my ears
I start to remember all my darkest fears
But they're fully realized in the empty space
You left behind, and I had to face
The fact I'll never see you again, not at least
If there's no heaven. ******* it, rest in peace.

I spend quite a few hours on the clock contemplating my life reliving and the memories of drunk nights on the floor and mornings we chased the sunrise and I try to be profound but the words cant seem to climb my throat to reach the air. The words unsaid often tear holes in our stomachs and make our tongues bleed from clenching them between our teeth. This stream of consciouness is all I can muster. But I do believe this anguish is better than spreading the disease to you, because I’ve already caused so many nights of gut twisting agony.
I have a pitch black mind with twisted words and false intentions. I am a poison I have created myself and to remove the venom you must **** it out from the source. Its wrong of me to linger in your blood and your veins when I have nothing good to give. I am merely a parasite. You can strive once you have been healed of me.
Do not let this discourage you. I am not who am I am. I’m a shadow of the past. I am venomous and vindictive and wrong.
I must repair this.
You must get up, and keep living.

If every day I wake up is filled with new inspiration,
Shouldn't that be enough?
It seems this lack of motivation has left me feeling tired and numb
I think I'm worthless and dumb
Used to run with my imagination
Now I'm leashed and chained to a stump
This constant pacing in a circle has created a rut
That's been dug by my own hand
While I'm trying to understand
How the Sandman could forget about
Adding a stop at my house
On his midnight route.
But that ***** would probably just cram the entire **** bag
Of Sleeping Powder down my throat,
Sit comfortably at the foot of my bed
And laugh as I choke
On all the sleep he's been selfishly keeping for weeks
And I can't decide if he's doing me a favor every night
Or if his revenge is keeping me up
Until the first sign of light
While I lie awake exhausted and hating my life.
See, the Sandman is full of animosity and anger and spite.
He skips over my house while I plead
Just a pinch of sand in my eyes,
One night of half decent sleep,
I can feel myself going insane
And the Sandman's to blame.
That grudge holding monster will only have it one of two ways:
Either I fall asleep for good or he'll keep me awake.
So I choose the latter, I won't allow myself to fall apart
And I know that we're so much more than just the sum of our parts
But my mother keeps telling me I've got a heart so huge
It'll swallow me entirely
And if I can't put the pieces together from the start
I'll never see the big picture in its entirety.
I'm a black or white thinker,
Wandering through the gray areas tiredly
I don't understand the in between
And I'm still starving for sleep
Eyelids heavy, I've been dying to dream.
I need a plan.
I'll climb to my roof, I'm making a stand
With revenge in my gut and a rifle in my hands,
Wide eyed
The only thing on my mind
Is the relief I'll finally feel when I shoot that Sandman out of the sky.

And when I fell, I fell for every inch of you.
The miniscule details that the naked eye would miss.
I fell in love with the way you sipped your tea
And the way your lips looked pressed around a cigarette filter.
I fell for the way your fingertips caused electricity to run through my veins.
I loved every follicle of hair, every fingernail and freckle
These things consumed and wrapped me in their arms
They infected my brain until it was all I knew.
My heart filled and exploded from these things I felt.
I was scared
And I ran
And I’m sorry.
These details still swim in my skull and I try to get them to disperse.
But there’s no escaping something that’s become a part of me.
So I'll yank at my limbs and dismember my ribcage and pick apart every last aching memory of what I've done to you.
And I'll lie there in pieces feeling more whole than before.

It’s a constant knot in my gut

And lump in my throat
,
I’m always stuck between the feeling

Of either bursting into tears or throwing up
.
And my chest feels like it’s either caving in 

Or being torn apart

And I worry about the permanent damage

Left behind by the war between my head

And my heart.

I keep my hands balled into fists to keep anyone from seeing

My dull jagged nails and torn cuticles that never stop bleeding

Due to the hours I spend tearing at my skin.

Maybe I’ll rip enough away to let some of the sickness spill out

And the sunlight spill in.

The doctors called me a wolf biter, due the way that I chew and I tear 

At the flesh that surrounds each of my fingernails.
The same way a wolf gnaws on the flesh of its prey

Using its nails and its teeth to shred the outer shell away.

I back myself into a corner and paralyze me with fear

Then turn around and destroy the body keeping me here.
Maybe soon I'll peel back all my skin

And make myself disappear.
A wolf biter, because I allow myself to simultaneously become

Both the hunted, running scared, and the hunter out for blood.

I feel like I should be more bothered
By the current amount of debt I’m in
And my desperate need for more income.
But my anxiety can only be blamed
On another loss faced
And what you’ve all left behind.
It was too heavy, I get it,
And I know that I’m small,
But you’d be amazed at the weight I can carry.
Instead of asking for a favor,
You doubled the weight and you threw it at us.
You didn’t care how heavy it felt
To anyone but yourself.
Wherever you are, don’t ******* me,
There’s no heaven and there’s no hell
But wherever you ended up,
I hope you retained your conscience
And I hope you’re shown the mess you made.
I don’t know if ghosts sleep or not,
But you better find a new late night hobby.
You’re taking up the room in my skull
That should be rented out to something else
Like the student loans I owe,
The fact that I drive a beater,
The fact that I still live at home.
If I could choose, I’d decide to rid myself
Of any anxiety to cross my mind
But my brain’s not wired like that.
You’ve made it impossible to focus
On the present.
I should be awake at night worrying
About my future
Not our past, or where you’re at
Or why you’d just up and leave.
Forget it, I'll never say that I hate you,
Because then I'd have to also admit
That you don’t mean a thing to me
And we both know I’d be lying through my teeth.

They say that time is just a metaphor, extra stress humans create
Tell that to the man who’s got a time bomb to deactivate
I think in hours, minutes and seconds, the clock takes control
The minute hand constricting my airway, while the hour hand picks at my soul.
And please don’t let my irrational thoughts push you over the edge,
I could really use a friend, I could really use a friend.

Mom says I should stop running from my problems. I couldn’t hear her over the sound of my sneakers hitting the asphalt and my heart pounding in my ears.
Mom says I should slow down but I’ve been just out of arms reach for so long. I can’t see the finish line yet, but I’m winning at a full sprint.
When my endurance falters, I will lose.
But until I grow weak, Id run until my lungs shriveled into rasins and my legs collapsed beneath me and then as my knees met the concrete I would meet my demise in the form of the demons who’ve been chasing me in this foot race for years

It's midnight in September and above me all I can see
Is every word I could never come up with
Formed into constellations I could never articulate.
Perhaps if my mouth were as vast as the sky
I could spill out my mind without second guessing.
Even after choking down a spoonful of ipecac
I can't manage to regurgitate
The paragraphs I swallowed an hour ago.
I still haven't grasped the concept
Of translating from Emotion to English
The meaning always gets lost somewhere in between.
My stomach remains forever tied
In the bunny ear knot my brother taught me.
At five years old I didn't realize
The pain I was putting my shoelaces through.
And I still remember when my mother told me
"You've got a heart so big it'll swallow you whole"
It's taken me all of my nineteen years
To fully understand what she meant.

I don't want to sound cold, but my bones have been rattling,
Teeth won't stop chattering,
I've been at this thing for weeks.
And I'm usually not one to bite my tongue,
But I'll sink into it this time
And **** the blood from between my teeth
I'll swallow this whole and let it digest me from my head to my feet.
My graves been dug before I've even been diagnosed,
It's not fatal yet.
But I've convinced myself of certain death,
I'm losing my mind, but I'm willing to bet
You've got this all figured out  you're on top this time
Karma's a *****, believe me I've already gotten mine.
I lost my friends and my pride,
You think I'm oblivious, you think I'm blind?
I've dug myself a hole, but I'm building stairs
There's not a **** thing you can say that can keep me down there
I'll let this roll off my back, I've hit bottom, you've won
From this far down it's so hard to see the sun
But six feet deep, I can promise this is by no means the end
From here I'm on a roller coaster that can only go up, my friend

I know right now you can't differentiate
The ocean from the shoreline.
But darling, please believe me
The horizon does not mark the end of the sea
And the beach it washes up on does not define it.
They are still two separate entities where they stand
Despite the way the waves will continue to return to crash on the sand
No matter how many times it is pushed back away.
But darling, you have to believe
That you are not the salt of the sea.
And high tide will periodically consume
The driest sands of the shore
And it will erase all the footprints on the beach's floor
But it will always be pushed back.
Do not allow yourself to return to that
Which does not recognize your endless effort
To keep its natural state in tact.
You are as fierce as the storms out at sea
You have the strength and power of a tsunami.
Forget the shoreline, darling
Your deepest waters contain some of time's greatest mysteries,
There is still so much of you to be explored.
You have the capability to carry a ship from coast to coast
So forget the shoreline and focus on the soldier at the sternpost,
Your rough waters can turn boys into men
You are a force to be reckoned with
But steady waters never made a skillful sailor.
Give 'em hell and put an end to the myth
That calm waters will guide us home.
Forget the shoreline, darling, forget about the sand
Because there will come a day
Where you will consume every body of land
That this earth has to offer.
Only then will you begin to understand
That the horizon, the shore and the sea
Are dependant on one another for the tides and the storms
But the ebb and flow of the ocean's waves is all it needs for beauty.

I just need you to be here
Because it's raining in my mind
And you aren't here to hold
The umbrella over me this time.

I’m trying to acquire a taste for black coffee
But the bitterness of it just seems to resonate
All too well with this heart in my rib cage.
And I’m learning how to sleep alone
The sheets on your side of the bed stay cold
But I have to learn how to tackle the nightmares
All on my own. You won’t always be there,
Well equipped to shoot down the demons.
I’m building up my own artillery,
I spend most of my afternoons at the shooting range.
I cannot continue to rely on an unreliable army
So I must learn to rely on myself.
This black coffee stains my teeth
I’m dropping weight again, it seems,
But my outward appearance is none of my concern
I have an entire enemy base to shoot down
While I build up a defense of my own.
Perhaps it is better to win this one alone.

I’ve spent an eternity comparing me
With someone I’ve never met;
I’m not even finished yet
Anchored by this absolute uncertainty
I’ll let the person I will never be
Define me.
And I will sink to the ocean floor
There’s not much else I’m looking for
I will drown in my own misconception
That I won’t amount
To anything.
I will fill my lungs with self doubt
Before I finally plunge down
Tired from treading waters of malcontentment
And when I close my eyes one final time
Losing my breath but finding my mind
I’m finally sure of something
For the first time in my life.

Its unbelievably unsettling to try and digest
Every word from your mouth that comes straight from your chest,
Your heart on your sleeve, while mine tries to take a breath.
If you could see past the pretty things that drew you near,
Our flawless connection that preceded your dismissal of fear.
If you could see the ugly parts I keep so inconspicuously stored,
Would you still think the world?
Could I still be adored in your optics, would I still hold some sort of light?
I’m not over thinking this, right?
I mean, with an exterior this thick it conceals my inner light
I’m essentially a walking disease with a mind of its own,
I’m lethal to you, I should let you go
But you’ve ignited a war between my head and my heart
And I haven’t known who to side with from the start.
I just need you to understand this terrible nightmare I fear
Don’t take this the wrong way, I’ll try and make myself clear,
I won't forgive myself if you end up getting ****** down here.
But I can tell you this much without a shadow of doubt
You’re the only human with potential to help pull me out
And I hope the day you finally decipher exactly what I’m about
You’ll be able to keep your eye on that dull light beam
Shining through the cracks of my shell to remind you of what’s underneath

Midnight marked the twenty year anniversary
Of my arrival here. It led me straight to
The grey area between teenage antics
And the road to adulthood and a career.
Weighed by the pressure to get it together
But still not old enough to buy a beer.
And twenty sounds so young
In relation to all the time I have left
But sounds too old to be stuck in the rut I'm in
While my peers are riding on success.
Did I fall behind somewhere,
And when?
Or is my pace just fine
For someone with such an unsteady maze of a mind?
I've reached a standstill in my life but they tell me
My story is just now beginning to unfold.
I gave my dreams a head start in hopes my passion would grow with time
But I've been chasing them in this foot race
And I've let myself fall behind.
Twenty years seems plenty young in light of medicine today
Allowing us to expand our life expectancy at such a high rate.
But I feel I'm wasting so much time when I realize it's been two decades.
I have more ideas than my head can hold
But when they sound the alarm and try to make an escape
Every emergency exit gets backed up and crowded leaving me in a state
Of anxiety and panic and I lose all motivation.
It's like when my brother told me the things we fear most
Are the only things worth doing in life
But the future leaves me feeling like I'm standing sixty stories high
Blending into the city skyline, glancing over the edge
And my intrusive thinking brings on visions
Of a fatal plunge to the rush hour traffic below
And I step back and shake off tunnel vision
Choking back nausea from vertigo.
Two decades into my time on earth, I'm still just a baby
I've learned the bare essentials
And was dropped off on my own
With nothing but limited knowledge of the "real world"
They've tried so long to protect me from.
And the sugar coating that they sprinkle over every word they say
Was always too sickeningly sweet, I can no longer stomach "It will be okay."
And they've left me with a harsh reality to face and a mouth full of teeth that have decayed.
And twenty years is just the start of the life that's directed exclusively by me
Unscripted, raw, and entirely too real
The way they never explained life turns out to be.

You rub the sleep from your eyes,
Pick up your needle and thread
That you keep so conveniently placed
In the drawer of the nightstand
That sits on your side of the bed.
My nightmares shook you awake at 2am again.
So you sew me back together
My tattered, loose clothing has begun
To tear at the seams.
You put the breath back into my lungs
So that oxygen can begin once again
To flow smoothly through my bloodstream.
I've been falling apart so much more frequently,
Or so it seems.
You spend the early hours of the morning
With a needle clumsily resting between your fingers
Drawing tiny beat red beads of blood
Each time you ***** yourself,
You waste a whole night of sleep
To end up feeling like hell in the morning
So how could you think for a second
I wouldn't hop out of bed,
Throw on ***** jeans
Disregarding the still torn, frayed up seams
And drive through the snow or the rain or the dark
Just to calm your nerves and hold you
Until the shaking stops
And your breathing begins again.
I will spend the earliest hours of the day
Driving to your house to ensure that you're safe
And when you find yourself panicked
And scared and alone
And fraying and tearing and trapped in your head
Don't ever doubt for a second that I still remember
Where you keep the tools you use to repair me
In the drawer of the nightstand
That sits next to your side of the bed.

My blood feels like it's begun to dissolve
And my heart's been impaled by my rib cage
I swear to god, you breathed fire down my throat
The last time our lips touched
Because my lungs are full of smoke,
And not from my Marlboro 27s
You've done more damage than my six years of smoking.
And I'm not bitter,
No,
I'm the coffee you sip before it cools
And the steam warned you it would scald your mouth
You ignored it
And now you'll be reminded by that sandpapery feeling
That it leaves on your tongue.
And you will do the same thing next week
While you sit in rush hour traffic
And your car's heat doesn't work
You try to get warm
And I will be your double espresso
That betrays your mouth again
And will make you jittery and nervous
For half your eight hour shift
And when you finally crash from your overdose of me,
While you're adjusting to a bed that's too big for you now
You'll rub the burnt patch across the roof of your mouth
And I will be that sandpapery feeling
That you can never seem to get rid of.

There's break lights in every direction.
I can't stand this deafening silence.
Your lips are pressed together tightly.
My eyes wander towards the sky.
We quietly sit through endless traffic
While tourists and businessmen walk by.
We're as stubborn as they come.
No one claims the first word.
We silently sit through stop lights.
During the quietest hour I've endured.
I search for a sufficient apology.
I can't seem to keep still.
We may not live on forever.
This regret sure as hell will.

I find it a bit unsettling how

The more familiar a house becomes

The more I begin to fear it.

Perhaps it is because over time

I begin to learn the finer details

Like where the silver wear is kept,
Or where the person split their forehead

On the banister at the bottom of the steps

And their father took them to get stitches

While their mother complained 

About the blood stains on the floor.

I memorize the creaks in the stairs

And learn where not to put my feet

So I can quietly leave,

Undetected in the morning.

I feel haunted in the comfort

Of another one’s home because

The moment I begin to treat it as my own

I start to learn about all the secrets,

The ghosts in the walls

And the past that built the foundation.

I wonder if this is treatable

Or if I’ll live with this homesickness forever.

I want to feel your hands around my neck
While the pressure of your fingers rides the line between
The ability to stop my breath
And the ability to quicken its pace.
I want to feel your fingertips as they trace my capillaries 
And raise the blood to the surface of my skin.
I want to feel your pores melt into mine
While your mouth grazes the arteries in my neck
And our hearts pound against one another’s chest.
I want your body heat to engulf me
While you fill my lungs with air.
I want to feel every word you whisper 
Dance from my ear to my gut to my toes
While we hide quietly under wrinkled sheets.
There’s a childlike innocence that envelopes us
Each time we shed our clothes 
And allow our limbs to become knotted.
Bumping teeth and tangled tongues,
I feel more at peace than I ever have
With your fingerprints stamped on my hipbones
And your grip tightening around my throat

Like the blooming of the green on dead branches during spring
When the color all starts shining in and the birds begin to sing,
I'm bursting through my black and white and coming out my skin.
Alarmed I don't recognize the colors, or that deceitful twisted grin,
I think, "****, that can't be me. Have I always been so thin?"
And I watch as every soul I've touched lines up to throw the towel in.
I'm standing nose to nose with my reflection, I'm screaming in her face,
And I put a crack in that glass mirror for every mistake I'll ever make.
Pathetic and self loathing, I raise my arms out to the sky
Screaming, "Alright, that's it, I'm giving in. Oh god, just let me die."
I wear my scars with shame and anger, I'm losing faith in getting well
And I walk around draining my color, I create myself this hell
Reverting back to black and white, its a Russian winter in my mind
Don't even dream of trying to take me by surprise,
Let me struggle to get out alive.

Sometimes I worry there will come a day
Where you study my writing, frantically searching
For where you hold your place.
Questioning, "Could a writer truly love me
If I can't find myself in the subtext of her words?"
And you'll spend your nine to five distracted
Replaying each stanza and line in your head
Blindly searching for a hint of your importance
In the way I arranged the alphabet into scribbles on a pad.
And when you wrack your brain and still
There's no sense of you in any of it
Your thoughts will race with ideas that you are not worth
My messy handwritten interpretations of my emotions.
I have not put you into my own order of letters and phrases
And praised you in metaphors and vague comparasons
Because even if I tried to write it out point blank
I'd never have the poetic ability
To piece together a beautiful enough string of words
That would ever do you justice.
You are worth more than any sloppy stream of consciousness
And even the most intricate metaphor.
If I cannot capture your importance in words perfectly
I will not attempt to at all.

I was given a simple piece of advice,
“If you want to be a writer, then write.”
I’ve been told it’s therapeutic, even
To put my feelings in black and white
Give some tangible evidence
Of everything I’d rather hide,
Spill out everything I feel, unjustified
Onto hundreds of loose leaf lines.
“If you want to be a writer, then write.”
So I bleed out this stream of consciousness
Endlessly, until all the pages are gone
But as the lines on the paper come to an end
All my thoughts continue on.
And if I go on writing this fiercely
The world won’t stop spinning
As I keep anxiously scribbling.
When do I get on with living?
“If you want to be a writer, then write.”
With me, there is no black or white
Emotions have always given me trouble
See, I’ve been every different grey on the spectrum
But never one or the other.
So if some day I’ve got nothing left,
Then leave me with my paper and pen
And I will dry up when the ink does.
I’ll never be able to grasp it,
Why I feel so ******* inadequate.
This is the only time I feel passionate.
“If you want to be a writer, then write.”
You’ve never really lived, you know,
Until you’ve loved a writer
Crawled into her busy mind
And walked around inside her
Explored the dark spots in her brain,
Entered her bloodstream
And swam through her veins
Then out through her fingertips,
To become immortalized in ink.
When you love a writer, you never really die.
“If you want to be a writer, then write.”

The second you sunk your teeth into my neck, I should have known
That each time your mouth grazed my throat and collarbones
You were ******* the life right through my veins
And injecting venom into my bloodstream to replace it.
I've learned now that the wings I felt fluttering in my gut
Were no more than the moths that took up residency when I felt alone,
You simply stirred them up.
They were trying to warn me.
But like a child, I confused them for butterflies and looked at you like home.
You were a view that left me blind
And I felt it burn each time your fingertips traced my skin
But I'm starting to notice the scars it left behind.
They tell me:
The monsters among us hide in plain view
Disguised as lovers
Or friends
Or relatives
Or you.
And in retrospect, the signs **** near screamed in my face
But I kept hitting 'snooze' on the alarm that the warning sirens replaced.
It's too late to duck and cover now,
I'm already surrounded by debris
I can't recall the explosion itself
The flash was blinding and the shockwave deafened me.
Covered in ash and rubble, I'm left to find my way through the smoke.
Coughing up blood and rubbing dirt from my eyes,
I'll find a way to rebuild what you broke.

Most nights are spent wrestling heavy eyelids
Until exhaustion starts fighting to win.
Between sheets I begin to feel myself drifting
While REM sleep slowly starts settling in.
My sleeping mind never had a warm greeting
Always unwelcoming, unsettling, and dark;
And as always, I am met with the familiar feeling
Of the awareness of the speed of my heart.
Within the hellish depths of my subconscious,
I grip tight to my connection to reality
But even as I tighten my grip,
I feel myself slip
With ****** hands, I succumb to defeat.
And in the darkness I feel myself tremble
With my blood running cold through my veins
The line between hallucination and awake
Start to become impossible to differentiate
Come what may, I’ll be ready to fight my way out
Of this sleep cycle induced test of will
And until the sun starts to rise
I’ll shorten my breath and try to keep still.
For whatever hides around that dimly lit corner
Will not meet me with any remorse.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned,
It’s that the unacknowledged
Will find me and take me by force.
And despite the painfully relentless nights
There’s always a hidden silver lining;
I get to look forward to the rare occasions
When around the corner a light is shining,
All apprehension and nerves are gone
And wrapped in the warmth of safety,
Breathing will come easy
Until the horizon is painted with colors of dawn