Flash back to grade four, sitting in my room, listening to Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance. Pin up posters of Pete Wentz and Gerard Way filled my room. (Thanks a lot, Tiger Beat.)
My sister held out her pinky saying, "Promise me you'll never be emo."
Fifth grade me, not even know what emo meant, intertwined our pinkies.

Flash forward to grade six, sitting in my room, listening to Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance. Pin up posters of Pete Wentz and Gerard Way filled my room. (Thanks a lot, Tiger Beat.)
My tiny pale wrist appeared to be a canvas for art. I wanted to draw a self portrait; a sad little girl with big dreams, no friends, a mommy with a heart condition and a daddy that didn't love her.
I took a tack from my wall and began to paint my wrist with blood.

Flash back to grade five, when wen we spent all our time on the soccer field behind the school.
Whether we were playing soccer or picking at the leaves that hung by the fence, every recess we were there.
Sometimes the older kids would come along, if not just to bug us.
Eighth grade meant swearing and spitting.
My best friend was always braver than I was. I remember her saying "the Earth has never tasted anything as vile as your spit."
I swallowed down my own saliva.

Flash forward to the eleventh grade, where we spent all our time in the smoker's pit in front of the school.
Whether we were smoking cigarettes or waiting for someone to finish, ever lunch break we were there.
Sometimes people would walk through us to get to the bus stop.
Ninth grade meant coughing as much as you could just to let everyone know you were ******* about breathing the smoke filled air.
No one was brave anymore. We were all cowards, our vile, nicotine infused spit hitting the pavement in front of us.
I stepped on my cigarette ****.

Flash back to first semester, grade nine, hearing about people I used to know doing drugs and hooking up.
I said I couldn't believe it. These people that I used to know. I couldn't believe Sarah was doing drugs. She was so pure and innocent.
I promised my best friend I would never do anything.
She promised me she wouldn't either.

Flash forward to second semester, grade nine, doing drugs and hooking up.
I said it was just a coping mechanism. The person that you used to know was still there. I'm still pure and innocent.
I promised my best friend I was okay.
She asked me if I was high.

Flash back to my first day of kindergarten. Letting go of my mom's hand for the first time.
The caterpillars in my stomach had turned into butterflies for the first time.
I kissed my mom goodbye and finally, like the caterpillars in my stomach, I broke through my cocoon.
For the first time in my life, I was free to spread my wings and fly.

Flash forward to my last day of high school. Wrapping my arms around friendships I had worked so hard to build and saying my final goodbyes.
The caterpillars in my stomach had turned into butterflies for the second time.
I shook my teacher's hand and took my diploma and finally, like the caterpillars in my stomach, I broke through my cocoon.
For the second time in my life, I was free to spread my wings and fly.

2003, where did you go?
My Scene dolls and All Time Low
Red Jeeps and glitter cheeks
Thirteen and hip hop beats
Tube tops, pop n lock
Don't forget your frosted lipgloss
Butterflies and Blink's First Date
"Forever Yours" on a silver keychain
Belly rings, snorting pills stings
Tiered skirts and ankle bling
TLR, Summerland
South of Nowhere, Degrassi: The Next Gen
Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton
Travis Barker and Ashlee Simpson
Fall Out Boy and Timbaland
Pete Wentz almost ended it
Promiscuous, Grand Theft Autumn
Jeans hung low, and girl you got em
I wanna live there over again
Everything was better then

Twentysomething Emo
looks at teenage Emo
and laughs.

It was something purely aesthetic,
with brain chemicals churning
and wiry bodies yearning

under the guise of straightened bangs
and perched beanies,

skin tight black outfits
parading the dusty grounds of Warped Tour.

Twentysomething Emo is the real deal--
lamenting over high school salad days
because real life is so unsure,

college degrees and full-time jobs,
watching friends and lovers come and go in our lives.

After a long day of responsibility and groveling,
we drive home (or somewhere just as distant)
with our emo anthems blaring through the speakers.

We scream the songs back at them,
truly feeling the words for the first time.

I'm the same age as William Beckett, Adam Lazzara, and Pete Wentz
when they wrote these songs--
and though the bangs have receded
and the jeans have slackened,

I am perpetually Emo.

The unrequited love and the nearing distant future--
it's come too soon.

I hope thirtysomething Emo looks back
on my meandering twentysomething Emo
and laughs--

as he plays the melancholy tunes pouring out of the speakers
with some more of life fading away in his rearview mirror.

This town gets smaller every day.

Don't look at me
Don't touch me
No, you can't stop me
You're never gonna stop me
I just want my seven minutes in heaven
And to overdose with Pete Wentz
1:30 looks so sad on an electric clock
You looked so hard going up the front walk
You used to bend me back
Till I squealed, stop it  
Your cologne washed out of my hair
And when you talk about World War Two
And special oil rings
I bet she doesn't even care

the first time i went to a real concert
i thought my heart was so full it was going
explode all over the speakers.
it was a ******* patronus moment,
you know the kind of **** that’s gonna drive away
all my demons like thieves in the night on buses out of town
when i think about them now.
and you know how hard it is to find somewhere
where the people don't make fun of you
for singing the wrong words?
because listening to the same music is sort of like
instant camaraderie, all of us singing off-key
to the same beat,
even the jaded twenty somethings
who complain about how all the music theses days
just has less words and more synth.
we’re all hearts without ribcages tonight,
and i didn’t care what they said because
i swear i didn’t even feel the broken bottles
under my shoes when i was walking home after that show,
i was so far on cloud nine.
it was like the best kind of high
only i was sober as **** and i didn't need to
take anything i was offered
because it felt like i already had it all.
and i knew what to do with my pain now:
take it and dress it up in it’s friday night best,
make it into something everyone will know the words to
and suddenly it’s a lot harder to hurt you
when it’s not still rattling around in your chest
like parasites disguised as butterflies.
and maybe i’m not punk rock
enough to rock a mohawk,
because to be honest the only band
i’ve ever been in is the marching band,
but i still got **** to say even if it doesn’t have a chorus
and my pen’s bleeding ink all over my kitchen sink,
because i’m not afraid of myself anymore
and i’m not afraid of being alone anymore.
and i never had a punk rock john
or any type of pete wentz guru in my life
patching up my knuckles,
just the music
and it was enough.
so i think i’d rather watch people cough up
their hearts onstage
and come home smelling like *** i didn’t smoke,
X’s still on my hands,
than cough up mine in the bathroom,
in my bedroom, all alone like i used to.
just because i’m not afraid of being alone anymore
doesn’t mean i really want to be
and kids like me we want immortality so bad,
why else would we write?
why else would we go to concerts,
spend all our money on experiences?
so maybe that’s why
i’m spending all my money on concerts tickets
because i know we either grow up to be rockstars
or parents sending our kids to their shows.
there isn't much in between.
and i want to scream myself hoarse
before i run out of breath.
because tonight we’re all just kids at a concert,
pressed in on all sides and dancing even though
no one has enough room.
we’re all just singing about the same things tonight.
because life is a lot like crowd-diving,
it’s scary and i’m not sure i’m cool enough for it
and you can’t be sure anybody’s going to catch you.
because when you’re fifteen,
i think everybody thinks about
getting the hell out of their veins at one time or another.
when you’re fifteen,
i think everybody thinks about
disappearing at one time of another.
and i think inside we’re all kind of still fifteen sometimes,
whether we’re twenty-one or forty-five.
no matter who you are, sometimes you wake up
and you’d give anything to be somebody else.
and sometimes we’re all kids about to get trampled in the mosh pit,
but you know the rules:
when you fall down
somebody’s gonna pick you back up
if you don’t get back on your feet yourself,
i promise.

that one unfinished bird metaphor
     Wear me like a birdskull necklace.
     Grind my hollow bones into sugar for your coffee.
     Pluck my feathers plume by plume to make pens for your washed-out poetry.


math note lines
     1. I SWALLOWED EVERY PIECE OF GLASS THAT REMAINED FROM YOUR SHATTERED REFLECTION. *******.
     2. WEDGE RAZOR BLADES BETWEEN YOUR TEETH AND SINK THEM INTO ME. TAKE EVERY LAST BREATH FROM ME. COLLAPSE MY LUNGS AND RIP OUT MY TONGUE. LEAVE ME WHERE YOU FOUND ME, VOMITING INTO THE KITCHEN SINK LIKE IT’S NOTHING, SHOULDERS HEAVING. I’VE BEEN PUTTING OFF THIS 3RD PARTY SUICIDE BUT IT ALL COMES CRASHING DOWN TONIGHT. KISS MY HEART GOODBYE.
     3. BREAK YOUR JAW BITING BULLETS LIKE YOU’RE TRIGGER HAPPY. I NEVER ASKED FOR ANY OF THIS BUT HERE WE ARE, STANDING ON THE CLIFF WITH NO COMMON GROUND BETWEEN US. IS THAT WHY YOU JUMPED SHIP? YOU COULDN’T HANDLE IT? I WASN’T BULLETPROOF ENOUGH FOR YOU, AND YOU WERE JUST TOO MUCH.

blinker
     my mom uses her turn signal like an afterthought
     it’s pointless at that point but that’s conditioning
     and her train of thought has always been linear


ugh
     when i was 15 i asked my mom to start taking me to therapy
     she said baby why pay a stranger when you can just talk to me about anything
     and i smiled like i wasn’t dying inside and started writing poetry.
     funerals cost less than student loans
     at this rate when i graduate i won’t be able to afford myself a home
     the american dream has been dead for a century
     a degree is worthless and it’s not likely i’ll make much of a salary
     have you even imagined yourself outside of high school yet?
     i’ve never thought about my life past my graduation date

thinking about someone
     sing serenades through silent car radios like static
     through sleepy stormcloud eyes that could swallow you whole
     he’s got a smile with more stars than yours ever did
     wishbone collarbones and long eyelashes
     stringing together dreams in constellations
     piecing together fractured calculus equations

i’ve been reading pete wentz’s old livejournal posts again*
     you’re apocalyptic chemistry, a candycane of all the things i never was and never could be to keep you stable. i’m a broken spine and you’re fading. love is hard to quantify so i’ll just keep counting and catching fireflies.

expecto patronum.
the first time i got on stage
and read my words to a library full of high schoolers
with wide eyes and open ears, i thought i was going to puke.
everywhere.
my hands were vibrating like all the molecules in them
were trying to break free and leave,
like i was trying to break free and leave.
but *******, i’d never felt so alive.
i’m learning that if you’re afraid of things that, sometimes,
it just means that they matter.
the first time i was on stage, i practically shook out of my skin.
i thought i was going to ***** or faint or explode all over the front row.
and when i didn’t, i realized nothing else would ever feel good enough
after that in comparison.
i guess i’ve always expected to be a poem that everybody forgot about,
not one they memorized all the words to so when i stood on stage
and people told me they like the way my heart beats,
that’s… that’s everything.

expecto patronum.
the time difference between rome and kansas city is 7 hours.
we pile all the pillows and blankets into my hotel room,
and we drink limoncello from paper cups,
talking about everything and nothing.
our mouths are always running away, tangled up with our hearts.
we have been laughing too hard and running into the ocean
without looking back for the last two weeks.
it’s a funny feeling, to know that you are in the middle of a memory.
there are places to be in the morning, places to leave behind.
you sing along to weezer, half asleep under a mess of blankets,
and i like to pretend that you sing for me.
you will always remind me of the sun of my skin.
i love every single person in this room so much it’s kind of ridiculous,
a bond born of late nights and dumb jokes and stranger streets.
this is the time of my life thus far.
around 3 AM the room clears and i feel a little less lonely
than i’d ever been.

expecto patronum.*
we are singing along to saturday, front row of the lawn.
it’s been twelve years since 2003 but we still know every word,
learned them along the way,
and fall out boy still closes the show on
the same guitar chords and melody.
some things don’t need to change.
the song gets more relevant by the year,
and that’s how you know art is good --
when it still matters after you probably should’ve outgrown it.
our feet still keep time.
so we’ll always have saturday and the songs we play,
blaring loud from borrowed speakers and mouths.
i close my eyes and sing along, not caring if it’s off-key.
my ribcage feels like it is not near enough to contain my heart.
and when pete wentz says
“can i see the kids on the lawn tonight get ******* loud?” into the mic, we all scream.

expecto patronum.  
i am seventeen today
and i still fluctuate between feeling seven and seventy,
but that’s okay.
today’s not a day for counting candles anyways.
today, we drove downtown to sit outside as it gets dark
and listen to other people sing because we can’t carry a **** tune.
later, we climb and sit, watch the city lights spread out beneath us.
in that moment, there’s nothing better. there’s nothing else.
we know it’s a lie, but it still feels like this city belongs to us,
at least for tonight.

expecto patronum.
we are groggy, somewhere between sleep and consciousness
as 2016 rolls in.
the last week of 2015 has been a good one,
full of sore feet and laughing and sunsets i’d never seen yet,
but we’re tired now.
the display menu for star wars: the empire strikes back
is playing in a loop on my TV screen,
we both fell asleep before darth vader tells luke that he’s his father.
upstairs i can hear people counting, cheering.
tomorrow i will drink flutes of champagne for breakfast
and think the snow outside is beautiful
even though i hate the way it feels.
the morning light will feel new and old at the same time.
my skin fits a little better now than it did a year ago.
i’m not always good, but i am so much better.
right now, there’s nowhere i’d rather be.

Wishing that I wasn't Patient 139

The one screaming the lyrics to I'm Not Okay

Sometimes hopes that someone understands me

Relating to Tess Stevens and her song Tourist

Crying to Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)

Wondering if anyone has the time to listen to me whine

Trying to not do what Pete Wentz almost did in Hum Hallelujah

Thinking I'd just like to be only me and not also someone else every day

Asking myself why music is my novacane

Just wanting to know why most people don't care about me anymore

It's like every time I listen to music or watch YouTube I feel numb and I have gotten used to it

When it comes to my mental age I feel like the Clock Forgot It's Hands

In the end I'm the one who walks a lonely road the only one I have ever known

I slow dance with Circumstance
She looks on me with even calm,
Sickly disdain and pure love, puncturing the moment

I listen to love songs,
And my lover is Time.

I wish I was The Weeknd slow dancing with
A fine woman
I wish Pete Wentz would just come our of the woods and save my ***
Buy me a truckload of music equipment
And everything I need
I have piles of these desperate wishes saved up in my soul

Because I feel too brilliant to be down this far
I feel mixed up in my circumstance

So I tell her I love her
Tell her I mean well
But I figure I'm just as ambivalent as she

I listen to love songs
And my lover is Time

I want to be looked on fondly by the future
I want to be remembered
But there are so many other people.

Waking up every day knowing  it’s not a mistake

Feeling like the world's on my shoulders

I'm living in a world where I have no friends

Just listening to the Emo Quartet all the time

Living my life like it's old times to some degree

Back when people where in a fringe state

But i'm trying to be Pete Wentz while looking like Patrick Stump

Cause i'm like a broken Emo Pop Punk cd stuck on repeat in 2007