I make hellos seem more like drawn out goodbyes and I wave to everyone who is standing still. I walk faster than my feet can carry me and I bathe in acetone to shed off the layers of therapy painted on over the years. I scream whispers of a broken home and wear broken watches to remember what time it was last time I felt alive. I keep sunglasses in my pocket but I can never put them on because the world is too dark for me. I hide feelings inside of mason jars and write "moonshine" on them so people think I know how to have a good time. The mirrors around my house are all cracked from the inside out. The books on the shelves are all tearing themselves away from the spine. Nothing wants to be what it is intended to and no one wants to be who they are when I am around. I stock tears on a shelf that was built by the hands that held me as a baby and by the same hands that have not held each other's in so long. I take long walks in circles and run trails that teeter on the edges of cliffs. I write soliloquies for all the things I should have said and I bite my lip when you come around. My heart skips two beats when you look at me and I wonder why it isn't just the one this time. What makes you different than all the rest of the world, what makes you bring a smile to a man who knows nothing short of despair? I wonder what you will do to me when you leave and I wonder what I will do to myself to try to keep you around. I wonder who else in the world could make my heart sing like this. I remember every other eventual end to a bond that I once called unbreakable. I know the pain of empty bottles and half smoked cigarettes; of broken mirrors and letters burning in the sink. I know the crunch of my knuckles on concrete and my unwillingness to try trusting someone again. I will only ask you to stay if you know what my pain is so that you would never leave me with it again.

Another drink;
spit in the sink shows
red against porcelain,
fleeting concern.

Another drink;
what is there ever
to worry about?
I could make an
argument for nothing
and everything both
alongside one another.

Another drink;
taste the iron alongside
the bitter burn of alcohol,
the body goes more often
than not before the mind does.
It is unfortunate to have it
the other way around.

Another drink;
spit red again,

I am fighting myself
to keep the pace.

Bend me
Break me
Shatter me like stone
Hold me
Kiss me
I'm still the one that you know
Beat me
Bruise me
I love you I swear
Hug me
Keep me
You promised you'd always be there
Take me for granted
Then love me the same
Pull me so close
But I still feel the pain
See these markings are bleeding
And staining my clothes  
But I still tell myself
That you're the one that I know
You bend me
You break me
You're a powerful man
Don't hold me
Don't kiss me
Why don't you understand?
See you beat me
You bruise me
I don't love you anymore
Don't hold me
Don't keep me
But I can't run out the door
See you've trained me
You've morphed me
You have me so scared
You've pinned me
And torn me
Oh yes I'm aware
But I can't seem to leave
Although I want nothing more
I want to break all your things
And storm through that door
But I'm tired
I'm hurting
I'm scared just to breath
You have me like a pet
Crawling on my knees
You're a worthless pathetic excuse of a man
But I guess I'm the same
For I still held your hand

                                        Alysia Marie 2014 ©

It's been a day or maybe a few,
That I haven't heard from you.
It's not exactly depressing yet,
But I know I'll cry soon, and get-
Cold sweats.

It's not like you'd care,
You don't give a ****.
I'm just sort of there,
To you, I'm throwing a fit.

And you say I have no right to.
Well what did you expect me to do-
When you're telling people such hyperbole?
Your mispresentations have flustered me.

I've never met someone so treacherous.
I trusted you and you put on a display,
Which I must say was completely impetuous.
Where did you come up with such nonsense?

I guess I never meant anything to you,
I feel like I was just a fill in for others.
Others whom you actually befriended,
Or maybe they're just like me.

Discovering that you're really a bully.
An emotionally abusive person.

The silence now pierces my soul
Grieve is a grey mist in the air
Like a funeral with four people
Burying their respective
Broken promises

The way you conquer me
In a bottle of wine
Like I was an object
Made out of clay
So easy to form
Into a doll
Or a ball

You taught me people make mistakes
In the name of love
And how pain feels
When you refuse to kiss the scars
You have made

The way my voice shivers
When I say no
The way my hands shake
Like a paper not finding its way
Back to the novel it belongs to

I keep having dreams
Of finding wounds on my hands
And glass shards
I realize
I do not miss your touch
Printing me to be yours
A property of glass
Everything that you have
Put together in me
Is shattered now
My glass hands
My glass heart

Your voice makes me weep
Because what once was magic to me
Now makes me bleed in despair
Breathing you is poison
Distance was never a hinder
Although now I wish it was

Everyone can see it in my eyes
The crack, the glass
Everyone can see the broken in me
A woman so broken
I bleed shattered glass
And ink

Somehow, you will always smell like home
And I will always lose myself in you
With you, I wrote love poems
And now, sad poems too.

To love a man that gives you the moon and all of the constellations,
                      this gift, I did not receive.

Instead, I loved a man who could create skies of jade and violet among any area of his choosing with his own bare hands.

To love a man that gives you a bouquet of twelve burgundy roses,
                     this gift, I did not receive.

Instead, I loved a man who could produce a field of golden pansies atop my right cheek with his own fingertips.

To love a man that gives you a kiss beneath a lantern string of lights,
                     this gift, I did not receive.

Instead, I loved a man who could shoot the most colorful of fireworks and streamers from the booming sound of his own voice.

To love a man that gives you a floral path from the door to a candle-lit room,
            this gift, I did not receive.

Instead, I loved a man who could toss a book through the air and before it struck my skin, it would burst into pink rose petals with a clap from
the same bare hands that painted me jade and violet skies.

if i could,
i would hold your hand
even if your rings would hurt my fingers

if i could,
i would embrace you
even if your hold would be too tight

if i could,
i would kiss you
even if it would leave a metallic taste in my mouth

and if i could,
i would love you
but.

If a song can have power over you
Enough to control the rhythm of your heart
What may one say of the composer?
Who when immersed in the art
Commands the spirits to closure
Is he real enough to feel
The power when awake?
Is he deceptive enough to conceal
The grip of a bygone state?
Revel in the magic till it lasts
Even if for a while at any rate!