I got a knock on my door about a week after the break up.

"Can I come in?"
Honestly, I didn't know if she could.
"Where is she?"
"Her grandparents" she said, stepping inside.
It turns out ex-girlfriends are not like vampires,
They may, in fact, walk in uninvited.

"What have you been up to?" I ask,
As I close the door behind her.

"Work. You?"

"I had *** with a girl in Kennebunk"

"Oh, let me guess, nerdy with an irish face?"
She knew my type.

"No actually, Egyptian... I know, weird"

We walk up to the bedroom.
I try to hold her hand,
But she pulls away.

"I miss you."
"I miss you too," she says, "but it will make things harder,
You know that."

"Did you **** him yet?"
She doesn't look at me.

"So yes. When? How long did it take?"
"Nick, you don't need to know"

"I need to know, more than anything. When?"

"That night."
"The night I called you?"
She's quiet.

We decide that since we aren't together anymore,
It'd be a good idea to confess
All of the things we lied about over the years
So it'd be easier to hate each other.

We circle around the bed taking turns.
Getting angrier, and angrier.

"As soon as I walked in their door
His girlfriend stripped all my clothes off.
She didn't even let me say hello."

"Well you know that love song
I wrote for you?
It was actually for my ex girlfriend."

"He said I was great at riding him,
And when we were done,
We smoked a bowl and cuddled."

"You cuddled!?"

"Yes. Cuddled."

"I want, just.
To *******."

"Then do it."

I fade awake with her naked body draped over me
Like the world's most comfortable blanket.

This is the last time I get to feel this happy.
Like a dream.
Safe. Comfortable. Warm.

As I open my eyes,
I see the empty room.
Her things are already gone.
She is a foreign object in my bed.

Her once delicate touch turns
Hot coal and burns me.
I jump back and bury
My head in my hands.
The room starts spinning.
I don't love her, I'm not happy,
We aren't happy.
I hate her. I hate this room.
I hate myself.
I want everything to just go!
"Put your clothes on and just go!"

She is awake now.
She reaches for my phone.
"What are you doing?"
"Do you know my number?"
"I don't have it memorized."
"Good."
She hands me back my phone.
"If I need you, I'll call you."

She leaves.
Forever this time.
It turns out I was wrong.
Ex-girlfriends are exactly,
Like vampires.

Anybody else got that one person or song
You could go without it all day long
You could be angrier than a dog with rabies
Or someone who got robbed daily

Why is it that when that person or song Hppens to be around or on that all of a days Aonizing moments seem to just slip on by
To another place or another time in rhyme

It's like all those bad vibes fall apart when Something like that touches the heart
This is an odd little occurrence but im sure it's a normal occurrence Helping me decompress and acquiesce too I guess that mood changer is all we need Sometimes


(hint, pay attention to the capital letters)

the people vs. my every waking moment
                         me, for every heart I've stolen
                         the lost light given to homework
                         an idea embedded that our souls are
                         search machine engines
                         are we waking, are you my dreams

the people vs. contemporary art of all periods
                         angrier and more painful hearts
                         suicide as a solution
                         recycling factitious pollution
                         no one says a thing about ideas repurposed

the people vs. intelligence
                         truth
                         passion
                         anything other than money as a practice

I.

I cannot choose but think upon the time
When our two lives grew like two buds that kiss
At lightest thrill from the bee's swinging chime,
Because the one so near the other is.

He was the elder and a little man
Of forty inches, bound to show no dread,
And I the girl that puppy-like now ran,
Now lagged behind my brother's larger tread.

I held him wise, and when he talked to me
Of snakes and birds, and which God loved the best,
I thought his knowledge marked the boundary
Where men grew blind, though angels knew the rest.

If he said 'Hush!' I tried to hold my breath;
Wherever he said 'Come!' I stepped in faith.

II.

Long years have left their writing on my brow,
But yet the freshness and the dew-fed beam
Of those young mornings are about me now,
When we two wandered toward the far-off stream

With rod and line. Our basket held a store
Baked for us only, and I thought with joy
That I should have my share, though he had more,
Because he was the elder and a boy.

The firmaments of daisies since to me
Have had those mornings in their opening eyes,
The bunchèd cowslip's pale transparency
Carries that sunshine of sweet memories,

And wild-rose branches take their finest scent
From those blest hours of infantine content.

III.

Our mother bade us keep the trodden ways,
Stroked down my tippet, set my brother's frill,
Then with the benediction of her gaze
Clung to us lessening, and pursued us still

Across the homestead to the rookery elms,
Whose tall old trunks had each a grassy mound,
So rich for us, we counted them as realms
With varied products: here were earth-nuts found,

And here the Lady-fingers in deep shade;
Here sloping toward the Moat the rushes grew,
The large to split for pith, the small to braid;
While over all the dark rooks cawing flew,

And made a happy strange solemnity,
A deep-toned chant from life unknown to me.

IV.

Our meadow-path had memorable spots:
One where it bridged a tiny rivulet,
Deep hid by tangled blue Forget-me-nots;
And all along the waving grasses met

My little palm, or nodded to my cheek,
When flowers with upturned faces gazing drew
My wonder downward, seeming all to speak
With eyes of souls that dumbly heard and knew.

Then came the copse, where wild things rushed unseen,
And black-scathed grass betrayed the past abode
Of mystic gypsies, who still lurked between
Me and each hidden distance of the road.

A gypsy once had startled me at play,
Blotting with her dark smile my sunny day.

V.

Thus rambling we were schooled in deepest lore,
And learned the meanings that give words a soul,
The fear, the love, the primal passionate store,
Whose shaping impulses make manhood whole.

Those hours were seed to all my after good;
My infant gladness, through eye, ear, and touch,
Took easily as warmth a various food
To nourish the sweet skill of loving much.

For who in age shall roam the earth and find
Reasons for loving that will strike out love
With sudden rod from the hard year-pressed mind?
Were reasons sown as thick as stars above,

'Tis love must see them, as the eye sees light:
Day is but Number to the darkened sight.

VI.

Our brown canal was endless to my thought;
And on its banks I sat in dreamy peace,
Unknowing how the good I loved was wrought,
Untroubled by the fear that it would cease.

Slowly the barges floated into view
Rounding a grassy hill to me sublime
With some Unknown beyond it, whither flew
The parting cuckoo toward a fresh spring time.

The wide-arched bridge, the scented elder-flowers,
The wondrous watery rings that died too soon,
The echoes of the quarry, the still hours
With white robe sweeping-on the shadeless noon,

Were but my growing self, are part of me,
My present Past, my root of piety.

VII.

Those long days measured by my little feet
Had chronicles which yield me many a text;
Where irony still finds an image meet
Of full-grown judgments in this world perplext.

One day my brother left me in high charge,
To mind the rod, while he went seeking bait,
And bade me, when I saw a nearing barge,
****** out the line lest he should come too late.

Proud of the task, I watched with all my might
For one whole minute, till my eyes grew wide,
Till sky and earth took on a strange new light
And seemed a dream-world floating on some tide -

A fair pavilioned boat for me alone
Bearing me onward through the vast unknown.

VIII.

But sudden came the barge's pitch-black prow,
Nearer and angrier came my brother's cry,
And all my soul was quivering fear, when lo!
Upon the imperilled line, suspended high,

A silver perch! My guilt that won the prey,
Now turned to merit, had a guerdon rich
Of songs and praises, and made merry play,
Until my triumph reached its highest pitch

When all at home were told the wondrous feat,
And how the little sister had fished well.
In secret, though my fortune tasted sweet,
I wondered why this happiness befell.

'The little lass had luck,' the gardener said:
And so I learned, luck was with glory wed.

IX.

We had the self-same world enlarged for each
By loving difference of girl and boy:
The fruit that hung on high beyond my reach
He plucked for me, and oft he must employ

A measuring glance to guide my tiny shoe
Where lay firm stepping-stones, or call to mind
'This thing I like my sister may not do,
For she is little, and I must be kind.'

Thus boyish Will the nobler mastery learned
Where inward vision over impulse reigns,
Widening its life with separate life discerned,
A Like unlike, a Self that self restrains.

His years with others must the sweeter be
For those brief days he spent in loving me.

X.

His sorrow was my sorrow, and his joy
Sent little leaps and laughs through all my frame;
My doll seemed lifeless and no girlish toy
Had any reason when my brother came.

I knelt with him at marbles, marked his fling
Cut the ringed stem and make the apple drop,
Or watched him winding close the spiral string
That looped the orbits of the humming top.

Grasped by such fellowship my vagrant thought
Ceased with dream-fruit dream-wishes to fulfil;
My aëry-picturing fantasy was taught
Subjection to the harder, truer skill

That seeks with deeds to grave a thought-tracked line,
And by 'What is,' 'What will be' to define.

XI.

School parted us; we never found again
That childish world where our two spirits mingled
Like scents from varying roses that remain
One sweetness, nor can evermore be singled.

Yet the twin habit of that early time
Lingered for long about the heart and tongue:
We had been natives of one happy clime
And its dear accent to our utterance clung.

Till the dire years whose awful name is Change
Had grasped our souls still yearning in divorce,
And pitiless shaped them in two forms that range
Two elements which sever their life's course.

But were another childhood-world my share,
I would be born a little sister there.

I think it's sad where the poetry community has been going.
It seems as though deep, dark poetry isn't considered "good" anymore.
I wrote a "poem" called #Hashtag as an example of how braindead some people are becoming. As I write this, it has 44 views while the other 25 poems i've written in the past 2 weeks have max 23-ish views. I think this is completely ridiculous because poetry for me was once a place to escape the modern day stupidity and revel in the intelligence of literature. Now all I see are poems about computers and "some chick left me so I banged my side-chick". I cannot even begin to describe how much it bothers me that my poem "#Hashtag" has more views than my poem "From the Benevolent Ashes, We Rise!". It's absolutely appauling. I don't even know how to end this rant so it's going to seem abrupt but I can't continue right now or else I'll end up even angrier at poetry.

woke up late again

suffering somewhere close to you.


breezy and cool yet still wear these ***** sleeves.

cars and their occupants are angrier than ever-

everyone, including children
and animals

and old ladies at the store selling chocolate

are all angrier
than I remember.


could it be me?   but I've long since given up
hating
things because they exist

I hurt my back yesterday
and it ached and ached
and ached today
so I laid flat on my back
and twisted myself
all around
but nothing made it
better.

I took some pills
and I took a nap
and had my girlfriend
rub on me
but still nothing made
it better.

I got angrier and angrier
and angrier still,
at this aching
in my back,
so I flailed about
until I couldn’t anymore
and now I still hurt
but it’s been so long
that I forget what feels like
exactly.

I twist myself once more
and feel no relief,
so I turn back around,
slouch into my chair,
give into it,
and turn on the
television.

I've never had luck with blondes.
Well,
I've had lots of luck
falling ever so
deeply
in love with them.

With their eyes
of bright hues in
blue, green, and greys.
Going head over heels
for their charming smiles
that make your eyes linger a little longer
that what's permitted.
Dying
to feel their
godlike
comforting
powerful
touch.

That was easy.
Horribly easy.

But what surprised me,
kicked the backs of my knees
and made me crumble to the pavement
were that those handsome
heavenly faced blondes,
have no soul.

And I am sure of it,
because every
single
******* time,
they leave me...

Alone in the dark,
confused,
disoriented,
with not a single word.
Which leaves my thoughts
to echo in the emptiness,
rummage around inside my skull,
looking in the hollow cabinets
searching for clues
and slowly growing
frustrated
and angry,
angrier,
angriest.
But not at the blonde boys.
At myself.
As of what I did wrong?
Why did they go?
How could I let this happen again?

And every time,
I can never find the reason.
Those blonde boys
just appear in the rays of the summertime
with their golden locks of hair
and leave with their icy dark souls
in the cold breeze of the fall.

And I know,
they will be back next year.
With the sun,
and happiness
and my stupidity.
Until then though
I'm stuck with the abusive markings and stabbing aches.

Growing up at a young age with ADHD can be a lot of fun. Everything just becomes that much more interesting. The sky seems so vast and every single blade of grass looks just as interesting as the one right next to it. My mind raced with questions every single second. I felt the only way to express it at times was relentlessly running around, as if every step I took gave me a satisfactory answer to each question I thought about; which was ultimately a lot of steps. It would be enough to drive most people into a state of madness. Not me though, I swore to the heavens I’d have every question answered. Because believe me, the seconds would feel like hours for every moment I didn’t know just how much wood a woodchuck could chuck.

Here’s my perspective; Thoughts in general are like the light from the stars that always shine the same brightness throughout the day. They are always there. Existing, even when you can’t see them. At least that’s how it is for normal people, you get the grace of day to nullify the shining of the light from those stars at times when it can be overbearing. You get a break. If I could describe what it’s like to have ADHD, picture your mind never turning off. It is always bright for me, and there is no dawn or day to alleviate my eyes from the galaxy of lights I see. It’s a beautiful disaster. You’re always thinking out loud to yourself about everything around you. When thinking about the concept of having a conscious and subconscious, you don’t even believe in the separation of the two. You think so much because of the energy flowing through your nerves, that there could be no way another part of your brain retains knowledge you don’t already consciously know. There’s so many questions every single second, that there needs to be some sort of way to express it. Mine would come through continuos questions and obviously, a lot of running around.

I guess I didn’t understand much about people back then, though. I was too busy exploring my mind and all the ideas that sprouted within it every second. I never thought it could be a bad thing. My father seemed to think differently at times.

The worst part about having an overactive thought process, is not being able to express it. Those thoughts have to go somewhere; and if they don’t, they build up  in a *** on a back burner until the lid finally blows off and explodes as some type of extreme emotion, from anger to sadness.  

As a kid, I have too many memories of confrontations with my father when I said something he didn’t agree with. Almost as if he thought I was overstepping my bounds as a male in his house by only talking about what was on my mind. If he didn’t like what I said, or if he didn’t agree with it, “I was an idiot.” It didn’t stop there either.

Conversations about things I’ve learned had to be defended with the words, “But dad, my teacher just taught us this today in class!”

“Well then, your teachers an idiot.” he would respond. It seemed like he knew the answer to everything. Even after I went to school and got an education that his tax dollars were paying for, it wasn’t enough to get him to agree quickly with things I said. It seemed everybody was an idiot, and as a kid, I almost thought it was normal to be one at a point. Everybody seemed to be doing it.

But even the innocence of a kid knows when something feels wrong. It didn’t take much of looking at his gritting teeth and clenched jaw to know either. I would watch the muscles in his cheeks and forehead pulsate with blood every time he squeezed his fist in stubbornness; as if his fists were his heart in that moment

I guess what hurt the most about the confrontations, was the awareness that he was not always this kind of man. I’ve seen him in different lights before. Brighter lights, where his happiness rained in a room and brought joy to everyone. Times where you’d never think the same man was consumed by a darkness that made him blind to reason. The pain came with knowing I was fighting to express myself to the same man that would make me laugh till my ribs felt weak. The person who I loved seeing happy, that much more because I saw how the shadows of the clouds he carried with him, darkened his spirit.

His alcoholism and addictions didn’t help aid his perspectives for the better either. Bottle after bottle I would watch get consumed, all the while his fuse grew shorter in those moments as his BAC grew higher. Cigarettes on the daily, pills and ***. Anything to escape the pain he harbored like a shipyard.

I started keeping my thoughts to myself more. At that age, I was innocent enough to believe I was wrong for having an opinion, or speaking my mind. I thought it was wrong to think the way I thought, so I maliciously put those thoughts on a back burner; And that’s when it started.

The silence, or I guess people would say, “the introvert,” found its way into my life. It’s such a tragedy of irony. The person who always thought a mile a minute, and still does, now barely says a word. Keeping himself locked away in his brain because there’s no key that could unlock him from the darkness of judgement. I was told I was an idiot and that I was wrong so many times that I never wanted to be those things again. If I never spoke, I never had to worry about hearing it.

For years I stayed quiet about the things that went on inside my brain, and it literally killed me. I felt like I was being robbed of my imagination, or rather I was robbing other people in this world of my imagination. Simple and plain, my thoughts weren’t being put out there. They continued to boil on my back burner, occasionally exploding every now and then into anger and depression. All of those amazing thoughts I used to have, now felt like fire burning through my veins for every pulse that kept them there to never be released.

I resented my dad, and won’t forget the day I told myself I wouldn't become him. I never would of imagined that that would be the day I put an invisible blind-fold on. Because I had swore to myself I would never act like my dad, my foggy eyes would never catch the times that I did. There was just no way I would or could be like him because he character caused me too much pain.

Conversations with other people started becoming more debate-like, I was always quick to defend my point because I didn’t want to be wrong. I talked more than I listened. If you didn’t know what I was saying, you just didn’t understand where I was coming from. I kept and thought to myself all the time. So much, that when I finally did release what was on my mind, it had to be right because I spent enough time to myself analyzing it. Other people just couldn’t understand that. They couldn’t.

Remember that boiling *** on the back burner; that occasionally explodes? Well, now it was now on the verge of imploding. I was so fixated on never being wrong, it was almost like I was never wrong. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Yeah it did to me too. When I noticed it, that’s when I imploded.

I couldn't believe I became exactly what I told myself I would never become. All of those past thoughts and hatred imploded in my brain and trickled down the inside of my body, burning me. I burned, but not with anger, I burned with depression and more silence. It was a vicious cycle. Speaking, especially to other people, almost became taboo to me. It seemed weird and out of place because it involved more emotions. I was kind of tired of feeling at that point. I had already felt enough through all of the episodes I would have from my explosions. Not to mention, I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I was my dad spitting image when I talked to other people. Depression can really be a vicious cycle, and I remember how much it would recycle itself in my life.

I would spend hours in school, with a million thoughts to say, but never spoke out. I hated myself for it, which would get me depressed. Which would then get me depressed for knowing I was depressed; making me depressed because I was depressed I was depressed. There seemed to be no escape.

I started abusing substance, from alcohol to ****. My abuse, came from the justification that I told myself I was doing it to understand perspective. I wanted to explore the same world of addiction that my dad did. I wanted to come to understand what it’s like to live in a world of dependency and escape. Boy did that backfire on me. I went into it thinking I could just jump right back out of it; that’s not what happened. I was quickly consumed with darkness, escape and depression. Anxiety got the best of me now, because I felt trapped in this world of rumination and hopelessness.

What was depression for me? Its was being stuck in a dark room, separated from the light of happiness by a cruel lock door. A locked door that had a small viewing glass for you to see what lies on the other side of it, within your reach. It was having what seemed like an entire ring of keys to open the door with, yet they’re all the same key. Depression was refusing to stand up, to take advantage of the little bit of light that shined through the viewing glass for me. The little bit of light that would of shown me I was recycling the same key, over and over again. All because I tried to use the dark to see.

I felt that my voice was unheard and I finally got to the point where I didn’t want to live anymore. I used to wish and pray that I’d contract a horrible disease or illness cause I thought it’d be the only way for people to truly hear the words I had to say. It’s a shame that I would even think this. But what even more shameful than that, is how much more words really are cherished after someone has died, or is dying. I had a one track mind for sacrifice, and was hell bent making it happen. I smoked **** by myself; occasionally drank in my lonesome; compulsively ate more than I should; anchored myself to be a sloth in my bed, slaved away to TV and constantly stressed myself over the little things I did. Anything that would speed up the process of my downfall, I did.

I still felt empty though, my collapse wasn’t happening as instantaneous as I hoped, which gave my relentless mind more time to think about it. I did want to live, I didn’t want to have to be this sacrifice to get my point across. “It’s such a cop out," my mind would occasionally blurt out to get my attention. “So what if I’m like my dad? Shouldn’t that be more of a reason to be able to empathize with him when he gets the way he does?"

It wasn’t until the day I got the brilliant idea that maybe I should speak what’s on my mind, that I saw how powerful I could feel. I’ll tell you something though, fighting through the agita you get in the back of your throat is hard. It literally stops you from talking. You know what you want to say, and exactly how you want to express it, but you overthink it and think you’re going to mess up expressing something you know is simple. That agita is the fear in the back of your throat that reminds you of why you feel that way. I didn’t want to result to the back burner again though, so I fought through the pain no matter how bad my chest hurt.

Eventually, I stopped resenting my father. I took it upon myself to sit down and throughly write him a letter, expressing the way I felt about our relationship. About how all I wanted was to see him happy, I was very blunt about how I felt. This is a part of that letter:

"When I think about how long it took me to write this, it’s pretty sad really. And it’s not even because my writing skills we’re slacking, the sad part is what I thought I had to do in order to write this to you. Every day that I would try and write this, I would put alcohol and drugs into my body because I thought it would aid me in my creative writing. But instead, pretty much the opposite happened. I sat staring at a computer screen ruminating about my own troubling thoughts and personal anger. So I sat even longer staring at that screen thinking I needed more substance in my body to awaken the thoughts that I so longed to express. I used and abused until I just got too tired of trying to write and passed out. My point is, I made excuses to take in substances for my own personal benefit because the whole time I was really trying to run away from the problem instead of facing it. When I really sit back and analyze myself as well as you, I see a huge correlation between us. And to be honest, I think it’s a big contributing factor to my depression. Not because me and you are similar, but because we’re similar and you think you’re so different. Do you want in on something I’ve never directly told you? Growing up, I’ve always had persistent urge to make you a happier person. Ever since I noticed how depressed and upset you were, I told myself I would stop at nothing until you saw the good that life has to offer. I didn’t realize how high I set my expectations until they were ripped out from under my feet. My interventions got me nowhere but further into a rut with you, not to mention they were labeled as girlish emotions to have. It’s funny how fast you can go from being helpful to being angry, which is exactly what happened to me. I became so obsessed with trying to make you a happier person that I started becoming angrier that nothing was working. My anger turned into depression and I started smoking **** significantly more to run away from the fact that it seemed like there was nothing I could do to help you out. I started seeing all the negative aspects of life and didn’t want to go out and have fun anymore, so I started compulsively eating and religiously watching TV. Not to mention, I would spend an abnormal amount of time on my computer. I went to the doctor 2 weeks ago, and since the last time I went there which was less than a year ago, I put on 20 pounds. I feel like ****, but I lie to everyone because I don’t want them to see how much I’m suffering on the inside. You know, there was a point a few months ago where I didn’t care if I died or got extremely sick, I actually hoped for it. I looked at my life as a sacrifice for the well being of other people, as well as for my own benefit. If I had gotten really sick or diagnosed with a horrible disease, I knew people would pay more attention to me. I knew that people would listen to my opinion more because it was more “influential” on them because of the fact I was probably going to die. I kind of counted on pity to be an influencing factor on me being influential to others, which is kind of like giving up. It’s kind of strange that you hear that coming from me, huh?"

I took the burden of my father off my shoulders, and I must say we get along a lot better today. He never thought I'd be able to relate to him in the ways that I did in the letter I wrote, and he broke down in tears to me. I never chose to give up on the thoughts that went on in my mind. I still struggle with expressing how I feel at times, but it’s not stopping me from trying to fight past it. I know I can relate to him if I allow him into my life instead of shutting him out indefinitely.

I have this belief that traumatic experiences can be the gateway to self-change. Trauma happens to us all, and it can be the very foundation of a person’s character. It can be what shapes your fears, develops strengths or weaknesses to certain situations and can overall can be a burden-like thought that you carry with for the rest of your life. Trauma’s have their ranges of impact and can even go as far as sending a person over the edge to end their own life. One that has stuck with me my whole life, which most people wouldn’t guess to be, was disguised in silence. People that go through traumatic experiences don’t always have crazy superficial cuts and bruises, a lot of the scars of their traumas remain on the inside, hidden away from plain view.

"if my legs were longer,
they might carry us further"

my legs are the longest part of my body,
you described me as being high waisted
i carried us for as long as we could
for as long as i could shoulder the burden
of your not understanding my hurt parts
of the apple you held in your palm,
bruises everywhere, but not enough

you held something else, something more bruised
when you should have held me

when you held her feelings you dropped mine
you wanted your cake,
you wanted me to be something different?

you idiot
you gave me love but expended a tailored version of that love
to someone who wasn't me, at cost to my allotment
you loved me, you loved me
but it wasn't my mess to carry or burden
there are better things for me

feb292016

O! nothing earthly save the ray
(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty’s eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy—
O! nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill—
Or (music of the passion-hearted)
Joy’s voice so peacefully departed
That like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will dwell—
O! nothing of the dross of ours—
Yet all the beauty—all the flowers
That list our Love, and deck our bowers—
Adorn yon world afar, afar—
The wandering star.

’Twas a sweet time for Nesace—for there
Her world lay lolling on the golden air,
Near four bright suns—a temporary rest—
An oasis in desert of the blest.
Away away—’mid seas of rays that roll
Empyrean splendor o’er th’ unchained soul—
The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense)
Can struggle to its destin’d eminence—
To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,
And late to ours, the favour’d one of God—
But, now, the ruler of an anchor’d realm,
She throws aside the sceptre—leaves the helm,
And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,
Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.

Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth,
Whence sprang the “Idea of Beauty” into birth,
(Falling in wreaths thro’ many a startled star,
Like woman’s hair ’mid pearls, until, afar,
It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt),
She look’d into Infinity—and knelt.
Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled—
Fit emblems of the model of her world—
Seen but in beauty—not impeding sight—
Of other beauty glittering thro’ the light—
A wreath that twined each starry form around,
And all the opal’d air in color bound.

All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed
Of flowers: of lilies such as rear’d the head
On the fair Capo Deucato, and sprang
So eagerly around about to hang
Upon the flying footsteps of—deep pride—
Of her who lov’d a mortal—and so died.
The Sephalica, budding with young bees,
Uprear’d its purple stem around her knees:
And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam’d—
Inmate of highest stars, where erst it sham’d
All other loveliness: its honied dew
(The fabled nectar that the heathen knew)
Deliriously sweet, was dropp’d from Heaven,
And fell on gardens of the unforgiven
In Trebizond—and on a sunny flower
So like its own above that, to this hour,
It still remaineth, torturing the bee
With madness, and unwonted reverie:
In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf
And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief
Disconsolate linger—grief that hangs her head,
Repenting follies that full long have fled,
Heaving her white breast to the balmy air,
Like guilty beauty, chasten’d, and more fair:
Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light
She fears to perfume, perfuming the night:
And Clytia pondering between many a sun,
While pettish tears adown her petals run:
And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth—
And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,
Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing
Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king:
And Valisnerian lotus thither flown
From struggling with the waters of the Rhone:
And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante!
Isola d’oro!—Fior di Levante!
And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever
With Indian Cupid down the holy river—
Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given
To bear the Goddess’ song, in odors, up to Heaven:

  “Spirit! that dwellest where,
    In the deep sky,
  The terrible and fair,
    In beauty vie!
  Beyond the line of blue—
    The boundary of the star
  Which turneth at the view
    Of thy barrier and thy bar—
  Of the barrier overgone
    By the comets who were cast
  From their pride, and from their throne
    To be drudges till the last—
  To be carriers of fire
    (The red fire of their heart)
  With speed that may not tire
    And with pain that shall not part—
  Who livest—that we know—
    In Eternity—we feel—
  But the shadow of whose brow
    What spirit shall reveal?
  Tho’ the beings whom thy Nesace,
    Thy messenger hath known
  Have dream’d for thy Infinity
    A model of their own—
  Thy will is done, O God!
    The star hath ridden high
  Thro’ many a tempest, but she rode
    Beneath thy burning eye;
  And here, in thought, to thee—
    In thought that can alone
  Ascend thy empire and so be
    A partner of thy throne—
  By winged Fantasy,
     My embassy is given,
  Till secrecy shall knowledge be
    In the environs of Heaven.”

She ceas’d—and buried then her burning cheek
Abash’d, amid the lilies there, to seek
A shelter from the fervor of His eye;
For the stars trembled at the Deity.
She stirr’d not—breath’d not—for a voice was there
How solemnly pervading the calm air!
A sound of silence on the startled ear
Which dreamy poets name “the music of the sphere.”
Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call
“Silence”—which is the merest word of all.

All Nature speaks, and ev’n ideal things
Flap shadowy sounds from the visionary wings—
But ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high
The eternal voice of God is passing by,
And the red winds are withering in the sky!
“What tho’ in worlds which sightless cycles run,
Link’d to a little system, and one sun—
Where all my love is folly, and the crowd
Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud,
The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath
(Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?)
What tho’ in worlds which own a single sun
The sands of time grow dimmer as they run,
Yet thine is my resplendency, so given
To bear my secrets thro’ the upper Heaven.
Leave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly,
With all thy train, athwart the moony sky—
Apart—like fire-flies in Sicilian night,
And wing to other worlds another light!
Divulge the secrets of thy embassy
To the proud orbs that twinkle—and so be
To ev’ry heart a barrier and a ban
Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man!”

Up rose the maiden in the yellow night,
The single-mooned eve!-on earth we plight
Our faith to one love—and one moon adore—
The birth-place of young Beauty had no more.
As sprang that yellow star from downy hours,
Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers,
And bent o’er sheeny mountain and dim plain
Her way—but left not yet her Therasaean reign.

You know what i hate the most
Well not really
Its impossible to know what you hate the most
But anyway
What i hate the most is that i cant be crazy
I cant use the 'back door' as tge joker describes it
I have on countless occasions imagined myself freaking out
Storming through the house breaking things
Grabbing my mothers wallet
And leaving the house
Surviving off the streets
And my mothers credit card
I have imagined
That i would get involved in drugs and alcohol
Start hanging with the wrong crowd
Doing anything for the next dose
I have imagined immersing myself in a world of lust
Constanyly searching for ***
The newest *****
And then doin anything to enhance the experience
I have imagined myself having a mental breakdown
Becoming crazy
Doing things that can onky be excused by madness
Being given a straight jacket
Being forcefed pills
Living in a padded cell unable to **** myself
Coz even if i starve myself they will make sure i survive
I have imagined cutting myself
Living in a world of private torment
Until the pain becomes too much
Then i spend three weeks writing my suicide note
Because my emotions are so hard to peg
Coz i have spent my entire life hiding and running away from them
And so far i have succeded
And then i get the rope
Get the suit and spend three days 'gracefully defiling' it as my last piece of art
Then i burn it all because im too scared to do it
Then i restart
I have imagined that i sseek solace in violence
In crime

Stealing small things
Getting angrier and angrier
Ubtil i **** someone
Then spend my life in prison
I have imagined that i become a famous writer
Feeling empty and lonely
Fi ding the woman i love and wishing i hadnt
Because i end up killing myself and hurting her
I have imagined tgat i stop ****
Become a nobel peace prize winner
Become famous
Then die without the right woman
I have imagined that i am a gamous singer
But end up killing myself coz the fame is too much
And the attention drives me over the edge
I have imaginex that i go to sleep and not wake up
To go peacefully
Coz thats wgat i ****
Peace
I have imagined that my family throws me out and i fend for myself
I work hard
Survive by washing cars
Or working a petrol pump
I have imagined that my whole family dies
Then i choke up coz i love them so much i cqnt continue with this ******* illusion
And i  the end i cant do it all
In the end im just a ******* little boy with depression
In the end i want to cut but am so scared that i cry myself to sleep
In the end im a little boy that refuses to take medication
Because tgat is his way of defying this disease
In the end im a boy that says things like 'this is my way of defying the disease' but actually im just so scared
In the end i lie fo myself to make it better
In the end i know im lying but i still do it
In the end i still believe .it And i wish this was the end but its not
Coz ill probably die
Married to a woman i love
But never being able to do what i love
Because I care about other people so much I would give them anything for them to be happy

To the lake
is where our prayers
were air.

We dipped
our poles in the water
and bobbed
with our floats
in the bladder of blackness.

Nelle and Sabrosa
laid down together at the edge
of the still body
as the beasts of night
laid down at their feet.

Me, Dang, and Matt
took sips straight
from the mouth of Kentucky.

The night
creamed me.

Burst into a thousand
remembrances and I wanted to cry
with the fish.

I got angrier and angrier
and eventually we all left,
because I was yelling too loud
and the fish burrowed deeper
into the stomach,
a stomach I had yelled at
as love.

With so many poles
and so many fish
I slipped into the lake.

Let my body
wilt in that sink
where babies were made
with dead bodies,
dead ******* and dead *****
and spasmodic fish bodies
that were made for one thing.

I thought that thing was love,
that's what got me yelling.

The beasts let their whiskers get wet,
even their paws,
as they tapped at me in that water,
hoping for me to rise,
a flotilla of flesh
upon which they could feed.

And so we walked away
from the lake
wet,
and drunk,
the windows down
feeling the paws
and gills
in connection with life.

Nelle and Sabrosa
holding each other
in beach towels.

Me sitting in the front on a plastic sheet
Dang had previously reserved
for the fish we would some day
broil and eat.

So,
I sat on a plastic sheet,
made for love and loss
of the lake.

I sat on the bladder and
upcoming womb
from which night ******
and then made love
with the dead beasts
and catfish
of a shallowness reserved
just for me.

I never intended to write this poem
It sort of wrote itself
forced its way around the walls of my mind
making itself comfortable
never taking off it's shoes
leaving muddy footprints on every memory.

Salt, pure and unrefined, has been a cure for wounds for centuries.
So I will let the tears pour out like rain
I will let them wash over me
wash away every footprint
The waves of tears will wash away the evidence,
like an ocean repaving sand.
I will be new again
And in time, someone will fill your place.
The spaces between my fingers will be filled by someone
someone a lot like you,
because thats what a girl like me is supposed to do, right?
Look for my father in other men
Crave that love from someone else
And when my judgement of a real man is based on who you were,
and they break my heart too
we can just chalk it up to a text-book case of
that girl with "Daddy Issues" right?

I hate you and your new car.
                                             I hope every time you go to the gas station, it's three dollars per gallon. I hope you make so many enemies that there's a line to sugar your gas tank, I hope your engine knocks and your head gasket blows and your timing belt snaps and your rims warp and your tires pop every time you pass my street. I could still beat you in a race, even with your ugly sport package and plasti-dipped grill, I could still beat you in a race because I am angrier than you. I am angrier than you, and I always will be.
                                                             ­                                   I hate you,
                                                            ­                       And I hate your new car.

Five years old and they
   could not hear me in the backyard --
   I called out, the gate was locked and
  the screen door, mesh frayed at the handle,
  was locked too -- I could see it --
  and they still couldn't hear me and I
     was afraid and the mesh
     was frayed and my little finger
         just barely fit through and then
             aunt Lucy came and made sure
                 that I was punished.

(The reward for my fear was
the most frightening and humiliating
experience of my childhood)

                   I hid.

"Get out here!" my father yelled
and his voice made me flinch and
trembling I unhid.

       my uncle and aunt watched
as my father spanked me
harder and angrier than ever before,

       my uncle and aunt watched
the shock of every blow
reverberating
through my tiny body
                                    until

       my uncle and aunt watched
everything let go
and I ****** myself on the floor
in front of them

weeping and violated

I do not remember what was said after

they left the room and
I was alone with my shame
while the sun fell the walls
faded blue the ride home
was silent --

-- all over some torn mesh
      and doors they should not have locked.

I'm trying to find solace in anything.
Anything.
But I realize I'm angrier than before.
I stand in the shower for 30 minutes and just seethe in anger.
Anger at God.
Anger at my mom.
Anger at my dad.
Anger at my sister.
Anger at the guy who hit my brother.
Anger at my boyfriend.
Anger at me.
Anger at my brother.
Sometimes I wish I could just scream in there,
But I know my parents would probably freak out.
Maybe even bust the door open and see me in all my glory.
That'd be embarrassing.
I feel like I hate everyone.
But I also can't be mean to anyone.
I feel bad when I get mad at my boyfriend.
But **** sometimes he makes me wanna beat the **** out of him.
And then sometimes I just wanna pounce on him.
All these emotions got me ****** up.
I'm over here reminiscing old memories of my brother hoping for some sort of solace.
But I end up in tears just wishing the good Lord would just take me.
And I know its selfish but in this kind of moment, you only think of the pain now.
I can't see my future anymore.
The man I love doubt's me all the time and he has good reason to.
I don't know where I'm heading.
And it breaks my heart that he does.
But oh well.
I couldn't even convince my own brother to stay in the end either.
So much for solace.

Tearing up I-75 like bats outta Hell
The radio jacked up to MAX
to be heard to the roaring of the wind,
Seeing as the top is off of the jeep

Zeppelin and The Who
Van Fleet and The White Stipes
Generations of rock
Shared by the elder and the young
Different problems faced
Yet shared circumstances

The pace is rapidly set
Like invaders they ride
Or gunslinger of the old west
Buying into the legends of their own immortality
Like a final ride  before closing that part of the past for good

Even some of that Seattle sound trickles in
A much younger and angrier Pearl Jam
Sometimes even the garage rock get a turn in the spotlight
Their pace exponentionally increases like a runaway train
It's end destined to be in a glorious and terrible wreck

The road trip is on
These rockers of all ages are on the warpath to a good time

God help us all

In the dark
In the cold
In the sheets
I scroll through
The pictures

Pictures of words
Pictures of quotes
Pictures of people
Pictures of drawings
Pictures of memories
Picture after picture after picture

I scroll
Faster and faster and faster
Each swipe getting more vicious
Than the last
Until you could hear the tap
Of fingernails
On glass

The strange gripping
Sensation
Intensifying
With each flying
Image
Angrier and angrier
Annoyed and irritated
Frustrated and confused

Then I come to a stop
At a quote
A short one
By Stephen King
Small white font
On a pale blue-green wall

"Monsters are real,
Ghosts are real.
They live inside of us,
And sometimes,
They win"

And I know
This one
Already
Has

1:46 am
You wake up and roll over in bed
I ask you to light me a cigarette
but I fall back asleep before you can hand it to me

5:00 am
My alarm clock goes off
the ring is a recording of you screaming that we thought was hilarious
I pull on yesterday's pants and your hoodie
You kiss my wrist before I leave

5:30 am
I get back into bed before my mom realizes I was gone
Curl up in my own bed and go back to sleep

7:53 am
I'm already 2 minutes late for my first hour class
I take my medication before I leave
I kick myself for not taking the cigarette at 1:46 am

10:59 am
You text me three times during my math class,
the teacher hates me for it
"AL."
"Guess what."
"I brought you sandwiches from your favorite restaurant in town."
I love that you end every text with a period

11:20 am
You also brought me a *** brownie

12:30 pm
The brownie kicks in
I can't focus on the documentary about gentrification in India
All I can think about is how your hair looked like ****
I go to the bathroom so I can call you and tell you
You call me an *******
I almost tell you I love you before I hang up
But I bite my tongue

1:04 pm
I walk right out of my sixth hour class
in the middle of a lecture
Because everyone's acting like the fact that Rodion is mentally ill
somehow discredits his theories
And I know you read "Crime and Punishment" last year
and I want to know if you're an extraordinary man

1:22 pm
You get your sober friend Ryan to drive us to the theater
for a 2:10 showing of boss baby
you sit in the back seat with me
my eyes are glued to the way your fingers dance with the cigarette
I think you're the most beautiful person in the world
I think that I love you

1:25 pm
I think that the last person I thought those things about
convinced me I wasn't worth love.
And showed me just how cruel love can be
I don't know if I trust you
if I'm being honest.

2:04 pm
You buy me popcorn
and I buy your movie ticket
Somebody calls us ******* when we kiss in the lobby
Neither of us notice until Ryan points it out later

3:48 pm
Boss Baby's over
Neither of us notice because we're kissing
The theater is empty except for me, you, Ryan, and the employee
Ryan tells us we're gay

3:50 pm
By the time we get outside
We're yelling at each other
I'm telling you to stop talking **** about my friends
You're telling me to stop letting people push me around
I'm screaming a paragraph of information you should know
when you interrupt me with a kiss
Quick
Passionate
Beautiful
It only makes me angrier
Are you stupid?
This isn't a ******* romcom, Pete.

4:00 pm
We don't talk the rest of the car ride home
But we pass a cigarette between the two of us
and it's like we made up

5:13 pm
My friend Andrew picks me up
His car smells like ****
I don't say goodbye to you before I go
but I leave a lighter by your car keys
because I know you'll forget one if I don't.

5:57 pm
Andrew keeps picking up more and more people
He says we're "pre-gaming" for the party tonight
He lets me borrow hair product and cologne
Not so I can impress you, of course
Just so I can look good

6:00 pm
I suddenly realize
that out of 6 people in this car
I'm the only one with a ******
I ask to go to the party early

7:14 pm
I send you a text
"I'm here, motherbitch"
Bring me a hoodie. It's cold."
I almost tag "I love you" on the end
but I settle for
"P.S. you're gross and smell bad."

7:16 pm
You respond
"I'm bringing the blue one."
"Hope it'll cover up that ugly shirt you were wearing earlier."
We both know that it's your shirt
"P.S. you have weird leg hair."
"P.P.S. I think the Boss Baby qualifies as an extraordinary man, by Rodion's definition. He seems above the law. I dunno though. Think on it."
Sometimes I think you're a genius

8:37 pm
You're over an hour late
I'm cold
I yell at you the minute you step out of your car
You yell at me for being so selfish
I tell you to never say that about me again
You know that that's a touchy subject

9:22 pm
We haven't spoken since we got in that fight.
I've been drinking a little more than I should

10:10 pm
I gave one of your exes a lap dance
I wink at you over his shoulder
I want all of your attention,
your eyes glued to me.
I want you to forget the rest of the room exists

10:44 pm
I throw up in the bushes by your car
It's unlocked, so I lay down inside
I think about the look in your eyes,
half anger, half adoration.
I think about how I want to tell you that I love you.
I think about how the last person I said that to convinced me
that I don't deserve love.
I think that maybe she had a point.

12:16 am
I don't know when I fell asleep
but when I woke up,
you were sitting in the car next to me.
You aren't smoking, but you're playing with a match.
I think you look beautiful in this light,
just the flame from the match
and the odd shadows that come from inside the house.
You tell me we need to talk.
I tell you to grow a pair and talk to me when we're sober.
You remind me that we're rarely sober at the same time.

12:18 am
I tell you that I'm sorry I'm so mean to you.
You say you know that I don't mean it.
I tell you that I don't want to be another her.
I don't want to treat you the way my ex treated me
because you deserve better than that.
I tell you that you deserve better than me.
You give me an odd look but don't say anything.
I realize that your eyes aren't bloodshot.

12:31 am
I ask you to drive me to the high school
because I realize that I left my car there
earlier today when I decided to cut class.
As you drive
I realize that you never fixed your hair.
I realize that everything about you is messy
and that the bags under your eyes are just getting worse.
I also realize that I think you're the most beautiful person in the world.

12:40 am
When we got to the high school we didn't talk for awhile.
I didn't get out of the car.
You didn't ask me.
We don't look at each other for awhile
but our fingers keep brushing against each other.
I was supposed to be home 40 minutes ago.

12:41 am
You look at me and I realize what you're gonna say.
I can see it in your eyes.
"Al, I just want you to know..."
I know what happens next.
You're going to say that you love me
that you think I'm beautiful
that I'm your best friend
that you want to spend all your free time with me
that you think maybe you'd wanna marry me someday?
Ryan told me you've been telling him these things lately.
I look you in the eyes, trying to stop myself from crying.
"Seriously? Grow the **** up, Pete." I snap.
You don't say it.

12:42 am
I wish I was a better person.
I wish we'd met before she ****** me up.
I wish I could tell you I love you.
I wish you would stop laughing.

12:43 am
You kiss the inside of my wrist,
and I want to smack you but I don't.
Just before I leave your car,
I grow the **** up and look you in the eyes.
"I think you're the best thing that's ever happened to me."
You look shocked that I said something like that.
I know that you're an extraordinary man.

1:46 am
We're still in the high school parking lot.
I've given up on going home.
I haven't stopped apologizing for every ****** thing I've ever done.
You haven't stopped kissing each of my burnt fingertips in turn.
I ask you to light me a cigarette
but I fall asleep before you can hand it to me.

White collared men in pinstripe suits sit casually across from one another,
completely indifferent.
They discuss ways to obtain power and how to silence the opposition.
The opposition being women.
Power being the rights to our own bodies.
These are the men who make laws against abortion to disguise their ulterior motives.
Trump’s America they call it.
Where belittling women is somehow a “trend”,
Where this type of thing has become “okay”.
Where the women’s rights movement has been threatened time and time again.
All of this,
In efforts to silence our war cries.
But here’s the thing about us that even history seems to have forgotten.
We Are Women.
Our mothers have been crafting our battle armour since before we were born.
Gave it to us the day we were first interrupted in the middle of a sentence.
They told us to be brave, to be bold, to be unapologetic.
To speak our truth and remain strong even when we feel utterly defeated.
You see,
We don’t really do submissive.
Won’t sit back and let you do as you please.
Rather,
we’ll continue to challenge your authority.
Make you wish you kept your laws off our bodies in the first place.

To those who continue to undermine our capability,
I say to you this.
This body, is my own.
This body, is power.
In fact,
I don’t blame you for being afraid.
Because you and I both know that this body is capable of things so extraordinary that only God Himself can envision them.

You can try to silence us,
To take away our voice.
But we will only grow stronger,
Grow louder.
Angrier.
You will hear us
And you will listen.
My body,
My rules.

One white page.
One black dot.
One white page
with one black dot.
That is all.
You see it.
Good.
Now wiggle that dot.
Just a tad.
Watch it shake.
A single vibrating cell.
A fly in the wind.
Trembling up. And down.
And down and up and right and left.
It's a ***** smudge
ruining your clean page.
So rub it out .
With your pencil thin rubber.
But it dodges like a boxer's head.
A darting fish.
You want to get rid of it.
You want a clean white page.
Plant your rubber down.
A dramatic staff in the ground
cracks the white soil.
But it circles you.
That fly, that fish,
that blurred boxer.
That singular cell.
It circles your staff.
Your statement.
Magnetically.
A metal ball.
Orbiting your invisible eraser.
To erase the invisible dot.
But it is there.
Circling faster.
Wider.
Angrier.
Leaving a trail behind.
Too fast for the eye.
The sultry smoke of speed.
The slipstream of a cannonball.
The page is warped.
Earthquake epicentre on the A4.
Shook by the fault lines.
Jutting canyons drop down.
Ledges crumble and crash.
Sugared pie crust
hit with a hammer.
Everything collapses.
Invisible things are also under
the spell spell of gravity.
Hit on the head by invisible apples.
But it's not invisible.
It's not a cell.
A fly or smudge.
An agile boxing fish head.
A cannonballing canyon pie.
It's not even a white page.
Nevermind the black dot.
It's nothing.
Not a thing.
Not invisible,
but  the kind of nothing
that can't be seen.
Yet there it is.

Lisa and I were watching one of our favorite series last night, a Japanese manga called “The Way of the Househusband” and I could barely keep my eyes open. I went to bed at a decent hour (11:30) but when I got in bed, I couldn’t sleep, I just laid there. It was rude and caused me to oversleep.

I don’t mean to brag, but I can go from oversleeping, to bushed and showered in less than 15 minutes, I’m really a marvel of efficiency (with still wet hair), especially since we wear scrubs.
I grabbed my iPad, stuffed it in my rucksack, and hey, I was ready to go.

In the living room, it took me a moment to situate myself - it was a very noisy and disorienting environment - what with Lisa yelling at me for running late, but soon we were off.

Just a girl, her lemon ginger Kombucha, and her angry roommate, ready to face the world.

We stepped out into the morning and.. Ughh! I’d forgotten my AirPods. I double checked, not there.
Lisa gives me a threatening look. “PLEASE,” I begged, desperately, “MY AIRPODS!”
“OH, my GOD!” Lisa said, glancing, irritatedly at the Apple Watch I gave her for her birthday.

I ran up the stairs and was back in NO time, really, really ready to go.
Just a girl, her Kombucha, AirPods and angrier roommate, ready to face the world.

My sister’s apartment is about 7 walking minutes from the hospital. As we were walking, I had my AirPods in and was rolling with Kanye. I in NO way endorse his CrAzY. But If I start the day out, with “Through the Wire” and “Jesus walks,” I’m tweaked for whatever gamut Rebecca (my surgeon) has in store for me. I paused the slaps, momentarily, as we passed a herd of boys, but I was bouncing again in a blink.

Lisa and I are in the second week of our two-month, summer fellowships - shadowing surgeons (different surgeons) for “clinical experience.” The first thing I do every workday morning is bring Rebecca a large coffee (from the cafeteria). She comes in at 5:30am every morning of the week and leaves God-knows-when - certainly, well after we do at 4:30pm.

She spends the three hours before I come in, reviewing patient notes and surgical plans. I gently rapped on her open door. She doesn’t look up, but she knows it’s me.
“Good morning,” I whisper, Rebecca’s seated at her desk, working on her laptop. I set the coffee on her right side and after I remove the pre-existing empty cups, I hesitate.

“What’s up,” she says, leaning into her screen to check something as she keys to enlarge it.
“I have a small question,” I say, “Are we supposed to be filling out timecards?” She doesn’t say anything, continuing to examine the - whatever. After a few seconds, I added:
“Quinn said we have to fill out timecards.”

“Did he?” Rebacca asked, rhetorically, after a bit. She’d stopped studying the screen and gotten a faraway look. Then, after another moment, she said, “Well, bless his heart,” which made me chuckle, because we’re both southern girls and that’s shorthand for “f**k him.”

“Thank you.” she says (for the coffee). I’d been dismissed.
We have rounds in twenty minutes.

There is a storm
A storm inside me that never stops
Lightening in my eyes
Thunder inside my heart
And darkness filling my head
But something is wrong
So very wrong
I am weak

They ignore me
Take me as a joke
Storms inside me get angrier
Breaking the docks
Flooding lands
Lightning gets stronger
Thunder gets louder
only to be muffled by silence
I am paralyzed
I am *weak

Captured in the psych ward
The crazy father figure


Today was a weird day for Ron
As he entered the coffee shop ******* about the short sleep
Night he had after the police brought in a crazy father figure in mate at the bendigo police station and at 11 pm
At night Ron was awoken to get in his car to drive out to bendigo and pick him up and take him to the HDU
And put him into the solitary cell untill morning and Ron then said
We have to spend all day trying
To find out his story and then after
Ron finished his cake and coffee
He went back to the HDU and started to hear his story, so he can be put on the right medication
And be healed and he started off saying he was Robert jones and
He had this pact to daddy one if his school friends who was a bit unstable, but mainly because he wanted to bully him and then Ron asked why did you do that bad Robert said well, I hated what other people were doing to him, so I wanted to get him out of this weird situation and keep him with us heavy metal young dudes and Ron said
Are you sure he likes heavy metal,
Not everyone likes heavy metal ya know, and Robert said, he likes heavy metal, and another thing too
He never felt hostile when we listened to it, but then Ron said, ok
Did he show you he liked sports
And Robert said yes, but he drifted away from that and I hated how he was treated at school, I wanted him to have a cool life and Ron said ok
Why did your mate make this so called (quotey fingers ) complaint
And Robert said yeah but he is dellisional cause as my name suggests I am like a daddy to him
You see he lost his father when he was 12 and I felt sorry for him and
Another thing too I became a good mate, like taking him to footy and taking him to concerts and getting in trouble with the security at night clubs and also joining in on his family  picnics , you see Ron there is nothing wrong with me and then Ron said why did the police choose your friends word over yours, there must be an actual reason and Robert said
He is a fucken back stabber, that us what he is, a fucken back stabber
And then as Ron was trying to figure out that Robert should go on largactil and haliperidol and see what it does and then day after say Robert told of all the bad stuff that this mate did to him like tying up a young girl
And punching his brother Tom in the gut and breaking his entire guns and roses collection and then Robert said he is the fucken one who should be in this HDU, not me and Ron gave him the medication and went home watched TV and ordered a pizza and fell asleep in front of the TV as usual and the next day he went back to the HDU to talk to Robert some more and made him more angrier when Ron said that they have to keep him there for a while but Robert was no snitch and
Said I am no experiment you see
So just medicate me and then let me go but Ron said ok and at the end of the day, Ron went to the coffee shop and spoke to the owner for hours about not really listening to his problems because his hands are tied and Ron was puzzled saying I gave him the medication and I am letting him explain his problems and now
I say my hands are tied and then Ron went home and got on the Internet to find out what illness he has, but he fell asleep looking and then watched a man with similar problems on YouTube and yes, I think this might be the answer to his problem and then he fell asleep on the couch and went to work the next day determined to beat Roberts problems and he will


Sent from my iPhone

I sit in a flimsy plastic chair that squeaks at the slightest movement,
Ana stands because it burns more calories and says I should do the same
My arms are folded over my chest, slouching and brooding
The bracelet Ana bought me sounds like shackles when I move
The wedding band on my finger weights more than I do
"Why are you here today?" Our therapist asks
"She's been cheating on me with that **** Mia!" Ana yells
"I already told you it didn't mean anything. We were broken up then."
My explanation makes her angrier though and she snaps,
"You just can't handle commitment!"
I've heard her use this voice multiple times and a list of all the insult circumnavigates my brain
Stupid
Ugly
Worthless
Never good enough
Unlovable
Pathetic
Fat
Fat
FAT
"You call this uncommitted?" I point to my stomach which growls on cue
Our therapist asks how long we've been together
I say over 2 years
Ana says we've been together my whole life
I tell him she's abusive
"It doesn't look like she's done that much damage" He notes
When the hours up Ana walks to the door
I tell her I just need a minute
I turn to our therapist who's already packing up
"Please help me. I need to get our of this relationship now!"
He ***** his head up as if it's the simplest answer in the world,
"Then why don't you just eat?"

North cornered near the glass ain't gonna' last
Cause the money is running out
It's running out fast
Nickel and dimed' burning money burning pride
With the liquor stores all closing and mother mary praying whispering
"Sarah, sarah, sarah..."
No names in these streets empty touched' defeat
The meat is getting angrier surlier burlier
The heat is getting heavier breathier and touchier
Blankets burn in the Connecticut sun mother mouths something
But I can't make it out
With these posters on these white walls falling for their own droll
Committed to the picnic that is not life at all
Putrid in these notes that sail through the air never fail
With the heart that once was held
By a women that I thought I'd take the time to know
But then the winds came with the side ways rain
All that pain that I couldn't bare or understand to stay
There was the window washing maniacs pinching pennies
Letting go of their soul for another side dish and entree of dough
Ploughing through their TV screens which falls through their skin like
Love used to do but in the blue hue there was nothing
They could bear to do
Bear man breaks open the skin flecked electro heart machine
Shocking every last one of us past the point of divinity
Already through the heart and mind and limb of man
Into the skin and the blood and the beating eye lids
Of a brother I never had, that man named CID
Jesus named me no name so I wander wherever my feet may carry
Never had no religion only long lesions through the seasons
Cut wound bleed break breakfast dinner bird
There was a glint in the sun
The way she gripped and held Her sword
Graining through pages of past history *******
Seeing visions of kaleidoscope faker ***** with their blisters
Gripping their panoramic sisters
Beauty in the eye of the hair that twists
In the mid-west chilling winds of the whisp
Forests burning boringly gripping the last hope of
Mother murdering herself just to stay alive
In a stride of elegance tides of benevolence
Roaring rewind curb side b-lines
And a mix-tape that spins and spins and spins
But plays nothing
No nothing
At all

You say
Get angry.
Well
If I get angrier
It will poison me.
Too loud,
Too much,
Too needy,
Too fragile,
Too raw.
Be quiet,
Be better,
Be reasonable,
Be mature,
Be gracious,
Be
Sorry.
I am so angry that tears do no good.
I am so angry that violence
Does no good.
I am so angry that lungs
Do no good.
If I were to cry enough to match the heat of my rage
I would boil.
If I were to hit as hard as I hurt
I would crack open the earth and crawl inside
Tear out its heart and swallow it
And the pressure of my fury would press it into a pebble.
If I were to scream loud enough to dull my thoughts
The glass would blow out in stabbing shards
From every window and revolving door
And melt in molten pools into the soil.
This body
Is not durable enough
For this soul.
I know it. I have seen.
It is like living in a china doll.
I can break it just by breathing.
How is it that somebody can speak
And a rib snaps?
A decision made
And blood wells?
I am sick
And I cannot tell if my disease is my mind
Or my stupid,
Listless,
Hopelessly inadequate casing.
I burn through it like acid,
And it suffers and complains
And I have grown so **** tired of hearing its
Aches and pains,
Its needs,
Its failings and betrayals.
I have been cruel to it and it has been cruel to me
For we are a poor match
But we are all there is
And all there has ever been
And I beg it to work with me
And it begs me to be different
Just like everybody else does
Just like I
Beg me to be different.
But I'm not.
I am this
And I can't help but think that maybe there is a chance
That I can expand
That I can reach out through these eyes
And touch something.
The world is so delightfully raw
And I can't tell
When I reach for it
If it recoils
Or if I do.
You have told me to be angry.
Has it ever occurred to you
That my vulnerability was learned?
That my weakness was imposed?
That my kindness only exists
Because of how horribly
Horribly angry I am?
If I could emerge from this...thing
I would touch the ground and level every city for a hundred miles
If I could be what I am
I would destroy everything I looked upon
Not through any malice
But through simple release
Because it is my nature, my way.
Earthquakes are not good or evil.
Fire, lightning. They do not discriminate.
They only touch
And things happen.
I could touch
And things would happen.
This body is my restraining order.
My reminder to control myself
My rebuke for my craving to be vast
My constant and insincere apology.
This body and I,
We don't hate one another,
We are just opposites. We are just two things
That destroy each other.
It is so fragile and light
And I watch from inside
Snarling
I watch and people pity me
People abuse me
People underestimate me
People
Force
Me.
I quietly let them condemn me for the covering I wear
Because I know nothing else.
It is an agony, to never be seen.
It is a punishment I have been searching for reasons for.
And yet when the light has touched me, and I have been truth
Whenever I have been witnessed in full
I have been loathed with such vitriolic venom that
My poor little shell quaked
Pale and skittering
My small white hands fluttered like moths immolating themselves in the flames of my heart
Too foolish or too mad
To resist their craving for warmth even when it turns them to ash.
You try it
You try
Taking a risk
When you know that your nine lives are down to one
You try flying
When you've got moth wings and the breath of a phoenix.
There is something
Burning
In here
And I've never wanted anything more than to show it to the world
Except to live
Except to continue
And so I hesitate.
You tell me to be angry.
You don't know what you are speaking to.
I have worn this body not like armor but like glass
And it has carried me like a ticking time bomb
But if I know one thing
And honestly
Just now
I only do
If I know one thing
It is that, like the sun,
Even if I am scalding hot with chaos and held together by fear
Even if I am, after all, untouchable
I will always rise.

degenerate beauty queen
treasure from the dredge of the Earth
strung up like Christmas lights
white crystal **** aflame
hydrangeas cower from her gaze
pink ribbons stained with age
droop lonesome in soft noir locks
pulled loose from men along the way

she'll be lucky if she doesn't die young
photos on the television
gunned down in some gang's maze
or somewhere in the gutters she calls home
expensive death bought by scratch
she'll be lucky to make it to twenty three
cigarettes and xanax soothe her to sleep
dancing on a silver pole took her hazily

high school diploma left her trailer park bound
never felt love 'less it came from a bottle
kissed only by knuckles since she began
running from ambitions to become no one
just someone's baby mama left shattered
she smiles to the world, for anyone who can see
inside she's full of rage, i see the tear stains
mascara runs black from her bambi eyes

complacent at best, naïve at worst
****** never grew up, she just grew angrier
i pray for you and the person you've become
ring me when you find your head
ring me when you find your way home
there's nothing from you that i wanna take
no matter how insignificant or terrifying
i love you forever and always

Suicidal like a black widows father
And angrier than the midnight tide
I told you twice but why'd I even bother
Like Jim Carey you lie

I love you because I know I can help you 
You hate me because I can't
Now I'm suicidal like a black widows father 
Trapped in a large apes hand

I fight and I squirm and I spin
Yet the grip is just too tight 
Suicide seems easier now
I just give up the fight

He had a gold tooth
Right in front

I thought;
A hideous feature
Worse though
Was his aroma -
Certain death & ****
& Liquor.

He screeched some babble at me
I didn't understand
And he got angrier.
'What does this ***
Want from me?'

Unlocked my car
I got in
Slammed the door
Lock.

His index finger
Pointing at me as I drove away

The lyrics float through the air
A song I have heard many times before
An impaled heart on the album cover
Warning of the pain
They will convey through their lyrics
Lyrics that at times may as well have been taken
From the deepest recesses of my head and heart

A song in which the narrator
Finds the one who gives them
Everything they asked for in life
I found not one, but two
Two men like that in my life
Who both refused my affections
And whom I hold little to no animosity toward
Though when I think of it
They're rather different

This first one, we will code him Belase
Is so unabashedly in love with the 'nerdy' things
Things he helped me get into as well
Without him I would not have found a love for the zombie shows
Or for the older classic movies which he adores
Without him I would not have found the raggedy man
Who takes me on adventures through time and space
The raggedy man who in turn helped me find
The medieval sorcerer in Camelot
And the modern-day crime-solving machine
With a doctor of his own

When I was upset I went to him
He helped everything almost immediately
When I told him of my feelings he let me down gently
Too gently, perhaps, as I retain some sliver of hope
Knowing that that hope should have died by now
He made many jokes which lightened my mood
Though sometimes they were mistimed
And only made me irrationally angrier toward him
Not the source of my first wave of sadness or anger
But I always forgave him and talked of nerdy things

His love of the nerdy things hides much of himself
Though it does speak volumes about what he is willing to convey
He hides his slightly skewed views behind these things
He hides his *******
He hides his want of being in charge
His way with words like a serpents' venom through my veins
Makes me agree with what he says
Even if in my heart I know it to be against my own views
And it terrifies me

The second, we will code Silas
The first day we met, was in school
He was alumni come to visit
We spoke very little as I was shy
And in truth I had forgotten him entirely
What is the point of remembering
Someone you only meet once?
When he left I thought I would never see him again
But our mutual friend, coded May, held a sleep-over
Long, long after that first day

This first real night, as I call it
He held me in his arms as those still up
Wound down to sleep
At about four in the morning
And we slept very little, in the two hours before the others became active once more
As summer was almost upon us
The remaining high-school students, that is
I knew at the end he would be back in his second year of college
And I would be in my last year of high school

I told him a bit of how I felt
And he said no, he didn't want the emotional attachment
Of being my first kiss, or first anything as he puts it
Doesn't want emotional attachment, ha!
If he didn't want emotional attachment
Why did he continue to hold and cuddle me
Why did he take things further and practically taunt me
By holding himself over me and brushing his face across mine
All the times we almost kissed...
Though he and everyone who knows him
Says he does this with anyone who is willing

So there we have it
The fluffy serpent with the innocent face
And the man with the visage of a teddy bear
Both have taken over my heart
And even if I could decide
Which one I want more
Neither of them want me
And perhaps that is for the best

A girl who never leaves the house
A girl who had no friends until seventh grade
A girl Belase has known for three years
A girl Silas has known for a few scant months
Who would ever want
Little
Broken
Me?

She walked alone
In the cold dark world
A young child
Who knew things
By what her parents taught her

She was sheltered so far in her life
She didn't know what to expect
So she played
With other much older than her
They wanted her innocence
So when all was said and done
She sat there alone
Crying
No one consoled her
No one seemed to care

She continued in life
Becoming stronger
Mentally and physically
Her thoughts became darker
Angrier,
Hateful of those around her
She thought the nightmare was over
Until things spiraled out of control...
Hanging out with so called friends
Costing this young woman something valuable
Reality struck hard that night
The worse thing about it
The cycle repeated
She knew nobody would believe her
Nobody seemed to want to protect her

Wanting to die so much
Became her purpose
Being alone
Was her sanctuary
Her body became a vessel
Harboring everything and anything
Cold and Dark
Why?
Why was she made to suffer?
Why didn't anybody try to stop her
She kept shoving pills down her throat
Or cutting her skin
To relieve her inner most pain

Her parents could not handle
Anything about her anymore
They had lost their baby girl
She rebelled against them
For many years
It was always a civil war.

She became a mother 3 times over
And each time she vowed
Her offspring would not walk the same path
Or feel the same as she did when she was young
She became very protective of them
Her husband would try to understand
Only to realize his wife is a very complex person.

Though her closest friend understood
Her actions
Thoughts
Feelings
He decided to help her
Just to listen when she needed an ear
Or a shoulder to cry on
Or lean on
When times are tough
Through his actions
A bond was forged

So this woman
became the woman she is today
Through pain suffering
Not by choice
But through the situations
That made up her life
Judge all you want
Call her weak
Call her pathetic
And she will show you
Weakness
But she will tell you
I am a fighter
Strength comes from within
And wisdom
Comes from the lessons we learn
From mistakes made
In our everyday lives

You see this fighter
As you may have guessed
Is the real me.

You've been offline for 16 minutes
I could have said it, but I didn't
I had it written, but I didn't send it
I'm kind of a coward, I'll admit it.

I couldn't fit it in a space that I thought you would read
I had a tendency to ramble when you listened
or pretended, and in the poems that you've never seen
it's just as bad,
I go careening through a bending path of bramble
tryna scramble to the point
but I lost you
neck deep in the prose that arose
around a metaphor packed to the brim
with condescending tid bits
where I use your words against you
but a heavy weight that sits
over it all, when I lost the only friend I can talk to

so let me spend the next half hour
showering over you
another lesson in epistemology
honestly I don't know how you could be
so dim to miss what I've put in to this

Do you not see how wrong you are

Does it bother you
To have every miss step
pounced on and deconstructed
I was talking down
just to knock it through your thick head
but I guess I ****** it
I'll just have to say it angrier now

Let me spend the next two months convincing you
whatever you had seen in me was through a lens
I didn't deserve to be seen through
All it took was losing you to see
I'm exactly where I should have ended up

I know that no apology
will unwind the web I spun. the web I sit on now
to watch what I've undone with my own hands.
Hands that even now subside in fear
of what I'd hear then in your voice
when you reply
to let it die

So I'll let it die
I'm sorry