wearing your heart on your sleeve is a dangerous game
that only the lonely people play
and i have found, that when you smoke a pack of desire a day,
you are constantly searching for a flame.
onlookers examine all the fissures and clefts left by yesteryear's guests
the men who treated your heart like a map, riddled it with tacks,
realized it lacked a place to live in, and left.

all the antiquated philanthropists who searched for their languages in your pulse,
strands of hair in your bed, so pleased to have left their scent on the pillow
and you've begun to hold your breath
to prove to them that only you can make your heart skip a beat
and you've begun to dry clean your sheets, cold water
hanging them from the rafters of your childhood bedroom in your mother’s house
sweat it out girl, you’ve gone too far south
found yourself melting like butter in the devil’s mouth
and now you wring out the warm bodies tucked in your every pleat and crease,
letting the sun bleach away the pieces of people still surviving in me.
when you look at the sky, blink your eyes and change your rotation
so what if this society treats infrared incubation like it’s latent
I’ll rip the past from every pore, i abhor those kind of TV audiences,
the ones that are obedient and well fed
coming back to dine on the same lines each time, it's high fructose revenge
the sinister scent of stereotypes is hanging in the air
those little lies people tell when insisting that they care
about anyone outside of themselves.

and genuine kindness never really seems to come in stock
but i never **** the birds because i refuse to throw the rocks
my life is not just another kiss laced with arsenic, that
sick kind of hint about how thick my blood really is.
this is not a drama, this is not a soap opera
my life is not a novel and you are not the author
sure you’re having a hard time but you’ve been improving your posture
and it looks like he didn't know you were nitric until you dissolved a linguistic string,
and now he's realizing you bite back when attacked, and you have some surprises to bring
my new hype track for the evening is silence not seething
they didn't know; arsenic can only dilute a nitrous being
so this time, my knees will not break like the fickle figs from their stems,
sequestered in skin cells, ****** shell dropping dead
and this time I’ll find the strength to change, isn't it strange,
how you can wake up one day, and refuse to keep being misled.

and today they brought my bones to the cellar door in his chest
he didn’t mistake even an instant of no for the plump petal of yes
and he tells me, "there will always be people out there who will love even your
imperfect blisters cracking like transistors,
because when you're looking electric everyone’s listening to the frequency within ya
you were put here for a purpose, you will never be worthless.”
and this is no longer a decision; there are places you belong and places you'll fit in
where you'll flourish and gain a thicker skin
and it's about time we stopped chalking up our mistakes to bad habit.
so when i see that golden ticket i'll grab it and let life flow because see i've been told
rivers reflect train windows in the mornings till they glow, first gilded and gold,
then subtle and slow. the hope creeps in, i make the decision
to go

according to the social disaster disclaimer I’m folded into
I’m essentially a stupid kitchen joke and a statistic of abuse
cause in America whenever we see someone else
choking on public schools and rules
we kick them when they’re down,
cuz apparently cruel is cool
the world is gonna burn, and we forgot the golden rule,
I should be more concerned but
I know i'll just go continue without you
knife, butcher, this is a hunter culture
carve apart, fall apart, throw your daughters to the vultures
wish you never met this year, wish you never met this lifetime
but, it's just human nature to check the basement
see what crimes you might find inside
to peel apart the paradigm and feel the wall for a light
I know your first instinct is to shut your eyes tight
but if you want to know, you gotta open wide

so if they call you ugly, understand you are a mirror, they’re peering into and sympathize
that's another stigmatized child feeling vile after so-called civil society spat them on the wayside
and if you've ever felt radioactive in the spotlight then you understand the way anti neutrinos decay,
moving at the speed of light in spite of unstable nuclei producing beta rays
well ***** it, i will wear all my shortcomings and benevolent reveries with pride
you told me not to lie so i stopped writing about those infinite why's
and what truly happens after we die. i started writing about life.

those who did stick around for the trickle down are the people i realize aren't fickle, now
i don't flinch when a strangers shoots me a frown, i just laugh to myself; i'll get out of this town
i'll swallow that bullet and rip my mouth open
I’ll cut down your Trojans with each verbal round
i can't stop Rome from burning, and I can’t suppress this yearning
but i sure as hell can take Nero's crown
I will draw an army of waves from the Tyrrhenean Sea
pluck my lyre instead of expiring, why not enjoy the heat?
you have so many rotted adjectives for me
but i know i'm not, i'm a noun and i always will be

this hesitant resident living in a glass house of evidence
impatiently anticipating dunce cap vengeance isn't it evident?
you are constantly vigilant and aware of entitlement
yet you find yourself, intent on grasping the advent of your descent
into this environment
not afraid to admit that when you feel, you crack the pavement
not pretending to be angelic, sprawled out coughing up your appendix
procuring the puzzle pieces, rudimentary ligaments and appendages
and you don’t even know who’s pretending anymore
so you sit at the pier, think about jumping off shore
always stuck in the system and frightened to vent
fearing this consistent emotional dismemberment

tell me when you find the box where my heart sits
my head beneath the guillotine where my grief splits
brief pieces of sweet dreams, teasing me if I don’t seize it
no longer fitting in my cracked ribs, like degenerative diseases
I can’t swallow anymore scorn for your entertainment
they’re turning me into a neuro-amputee with every arraignment
feeling like a hazy ******, bona fide public offender, a opened letter returned to sender
on a really bad day that somehow turned into a week
and you still can't shake this discomfort, now that you know love’s not cheap
so you've stopped agonizing about destroying the feeling
instead of stealing in, you just let it creep and seep
I’ve started stopping myself and i've stopped starting to give up
i won't let a feeling keep me from being free

M) C - G - Am - F
1 ) bridges F - Am - G - F -F - C - G - F - F - Am - G - F

strum pattern 1 - 2 - 1

M) yesterday somebody told me that my poetry
didn’t contribute to my community
so i put it to some lyrics and picked up a ukelele
because apparently nowadays
you’ve gotta get a little bit more crazy
cause you’re not the only one who’s jaded
it’s amazing how we front

1) so i don’t want any more of this beer
and sometimes i still question why i’m here
talking away like it’ll pass the day
but i don’t wanna just give directions, i can steer
M) so **** the world that made me
because i am thirsty and chasing
the spill of all these messy messy messy messy messy messy years,

M) but you can’t clean up your reality
when it’s splattered on the pavement
so maybe i’m just angry,
because my words are the catalyst and
1) everyone saves themselves
i’m just like everybody else
M) so okay, okay
maybe i’ll just finish this forty for my health
just today

M) you should have stuck to dreams
it would’ve been so much easier
you should’ve kept the confessions to yourself,
now they’re hangin from the speakers
1) in this little room full of people
i don’t know you but i’d like to meet ya
have a chat and then perhaps maybe you will realize that
nobodies as bad as you first see them as

M) so hold my hand, and then you’ll understand
we all get sweaty palms after a bit too long
and if you let go, i will understand
because hands are comforting to fall back on
but we, we are all so strong
unconsciously strong
1) and no one needs sympathy
we all live life on our own terms
beliefs and ideologies
respect is the easiest remedy

M) and when you can feel your blind purpose vibrating
in every bone of your body
it’s much harder to hate anyone
cause their emotions are kinda sloppy
cause you get like that too sometimes,
when you cry
so despite the differences, you always
try to empathize

1) ‘cause some people feel alone in packed rooms
and in some way or another they all embody you
you, they are the people who are here right now with
you, and you are them too

M) while you’re singing this song hopefully
some people are humming along
and can stand here with you for a minute
look around with new uninhibition
and you don't think that's a word but
i know it's a concept and at times
it’s hard to tell if anyone ever gets
that at all

M) it’s just so hard to connect
when we’re talking so loud
we can barely
hear ourselves when we fall
there’s not a sound at-

chase the dream? or does the dream chase you
will i ever clean up this spilled ink,
or this messy ******* room?
all these unknotted strands of excess
stressed by lessons in having less
and not caring when it’s left
i don't care what is left

let me undress and leave my jacket
for someone else who needs to have it
i have enough to take this test
everyone survives their own sadness
in order to progress
i can share

and it smells like you’ve
been ******* someone else
but today, i don’t really care
or think that it’s my fault
and i think you can tell
the world is too big and too small
for those thoughts to manifest themselves
to fall into the small of my back
no more carrying rocks around in my backpack
the wealth of having nothing is the unrobbable stolen eyes
the stealth of the wise, being whole with parts,
it's the holy art of being too tired for lying to self
i guess jadedness is a start
but i'm looking for something else

options options options keep making me stumble on
and today the wind said no one ever listens him out
when he speaks for too long
and today the earth said no one cares
about her body heaving through each breath of this song
and yesterday i understood them but now
something is off kilter, something is wrong

i can feel when they cease to breathe
just like us when we sit in public places
hostile when someone gets in our space and
braced for impact, so enraged by this stranger
pull away, pull yourself up
she's about to go, so much love
how could we lose it all
in the flood of manmade lakes
the depths all caked in mud
like the inside of our stomachs
did you not notice what was at stake?

but now she is demanding a toll
for our rubble, so let's clean up the blood
the sky is chaotic and exotic
let everything love everything for once
this spoiled patch of stumps
is all we have left
so let's sit in the warm sun
pull our ringed fingertips up
to touch the clouds as they run
away from us again

the wasps caught in the cusp of our lungs
squirming towards our fleshy throats
that book i never wrote
it was a ******* masterpiece
the scars i stole
hurt like a headache in my hands
and where again do i find the right spot to sit
where is safest to land
and when do i know it’s the time to leave
i will wait, i will create, abate hate with silence
until she comes to, and cries, don't you see
it's time, and have you done everything you could
and then whispers
and if you didn't, would you

would you return and rewind to where it begun
grow up learn a trade, and marry a man, and have a son
or run to the apple orchard, and dance with someone
and touch the bottom of the pond
when it is at it's stillest and then wonder
will it ever be possible without ripples
and how many of these lakes are human limits
with potential unsung
barely digging into the bedrock soil

have you learned to love everything yet
and accept what you do not know
instead of seeing each error as a small death
each progression as an excuse to grow
and grow and grow

life isn't a saying
there is no chasing involved
there is only you and gravity and resolve

i don't think that you know
what privacy means to me
i'm staying drunk in the quiet
of my safe liturgy

of thoughts because concepts
are honest and curious
they aren't gonna judge me
and that's what i need
some company with peace

but inside them i'm violent
i'm rough to the touch
i try to be silent
so i'm not caught searching
the corners for love

when every house party is about
"that idiot who said" or her "stupid makeup"
so i'm not sure where i expect to find
any sort of understanding
in these social engagements
i don't see meaning in
ripping down others just for being
in the same room as you
and minding their own business
it always makes me uncomfortable
i don't see the usefulness knowing it's
easier to call someone else useless
when you feel so

and draw your own conclusions
than admit you don't really know
it's easier to stab the surface
than to learn someone's breathing well enough
to understand the way their blood flows
it's easier to make a snarky comment on their clothes
than to sit down and get to know them

so admit it
our darkness thrives on judgement
and you will feel so much better
because once you let go of them
emotions flow through you like weather
extend your arms for once
and realize that every single person you know
knows something you don't understand yet
instead of barraging them with
the ways you wish you were better

you thought i was going
to say they weren't you

because everyone's partial
to weak knees and weak ankles
it's easier to strike the person
who opens their arms to you
even once is enough
to break them because you justify
they allow themselves to be
so breakable

and though i feel these things to be true in my gut
and want to validate every single person
i can see needs the love
i'm in need of my own breed of saving
and i'm sick of this negative engaging

i just don't have any more chances
to be so kind
as to offer you
a target

you came to me drunk and looking for love
when before it seemed i had plenty of
suddenly my eyes must have been
mazelike and empty
it falls out of me
so neat and yet so unkemptly
all these bodies in storage
and the coroner sent me
but i can't clean up this mess
i'm only good at disassembly

you cupped my chin in your hands
and begged me tell me what you're thinking
i told you i was staring at the wall
with that smile quickly shrinking
too fast for you to catch it
i felt your breath kiss my neck
as you tried a different approach
with a more subtle effect
i should have explained i need a while
to think before i talk about these things

My memere liked the smell of gasoline, i do too
the tiny shreds of dying nice and slow it pulls from inside of you
and stale cigarettes in mom and pop drugstores
and burying the dead birds, saying it was just time for them to go
explaining that they don't realize they are killing themselves
every time they slam into the glass doors
she loved the seashells welling up from the atlantic
and the waves that held me detained
when she disappeared from shore
the glass that cut, that taste of blood
the stillness of death and linoleum floors and the whining dog
i couldn't fathom how they could all remain

her still skin was first time i noticed
the shifting quality of epidermises cusps so waterlogged
like lotus leaves and flaking logs of driftwood in the ocean
the way it's currents pushed and pulled everything above and below our bodies'
disturbances and submersions of purple i didn't love
i wondered why our bodies couldn't just come back to us
couldn't learn to rigor mort this
still deaths leaves me feeling purposeless
waxy and elastic, with small hairs like the cactus on the windowsill
she said so but i can't convince myself that this is a beautiful thing

when i was young i dreamt of falling down the wooden rungs
of our staircase, screaming in pain in the airway and waiting to be saved
it felt so real, and days later we were pulling over on the side of the highway
when we got the call, saying no one was there when she had the fall
when i saw the sunset from the beach for the first time in years
that night i cried for the beauty and
washed off the tears, purple and red clouds
salt water and tender sounds
and stared for a long time
at the empty shell of a horseshoe crab
did not eat the poison berries
removed the glass from my feet
set down the photographs in defeat
sat and read the dusty books
still caked in her fingerprints
sitting on the shelves of the library

and he never liked gasoline
he always liked fresh air and talkative people
the little things, and the adrenaline of strings
the 4 am sunrise over town center's church steeple
i was terrified of loving this good person
this aversion confuses me,
i teeth at these pseudonyms for something so real
being turned into something transient
i can't explain it i just hate dominance
and love hurt children

i still see his face like it was yesterday
saying that it was his birthday, and he was smiling
about going to the lake
i still can't retrieve a single date
last year from the months of august to may
i just remember the pictures and google pages
i would read 1 through 25 internally enraged
by this rememberance of you
my fists clenched in a faded grip
feeling the searing headlines
cutting through the blackness
i forget what it's like
not to lose it all every time
i close my eyelids
and the waves i love creep in and rip
i've just conceptualized it to be a pattern
and accepted it

They tell me to stop remembering
But they don’t understand with
Each blow life hands me
Another is already sewn
Into my ribcage, bruises in each hand
between each crescent bone,
this isn’t a coincidence
Most nights i hang my lungs
Dangling from my spine
Watching the walls cave in
the sticky residue of surgical tape
Strapped around my bicep
Will not wash off in the shower and then
This guilt will not wash off in the shower
and then, you are a burden, hidden
In the paperwork, between the lines
Three weeks later and there is still
Traces of it on me
Parts of me trapped in glass vials
i wonder what people thought
when they saw me in that blue robe
on the bed in the little blue room
I still remember how thick the
needle was
I was never scared of them
until now

i trick people when i feel like
i'm not seeing at all
i'm just feeling, not healing
with these words
that's my downfall
i wish i could give more
but this is all i have left
if i can't keep it locked in closet doors
i know the effect with be my last theft
don't force it out of me
just let the drainage catch your crests
let it come in time
when i feel safe knowing you
would catch my conjested confessions
and lay them to rest

love me when it's convenient
love me when it is useful
love me when love is necessary
on the terms that
i stay simple, i stay beautiful

love me because your mother thought
i was pretty, i was quiet
love me because your father looks at me
like a *****, successful diet
love me until i’m not always sweet
love me until it’s not easy enough
leave me at the station
kiss me like your lips
have become strangers
just for me
and wish me luck

love me until somebody else better comes along
love me until i misstep to the words of the song
love me until those nights
you see me when i’m not strong
love me until it’s not profitable
until it rubs you wrong

my words are no longer useful
when they are not lucrative
your eyes are no longer protective
they are punitive

i am no longer a friend
just the tail end of another
distended friendship ready to
split hairs and end it
not a person but a thing
not a person but a problem
you’ve been dissecting

you don’t want to bend back
and mend, it’s easier to
wait it out, pretend away the tension
show your teeth, your venom’s condescesion
not so lost in your eyes
so resenting my mention

and i’ve been taught
not to stop giving
until you’re ready
for me to stop

and i’ve been trained
to drink up the blood when it puddles in
to treat people i attach love to
like my king pins
no one is just a lapsed vein

and i’ve been told
i’m not allowed to pull the plug
once i open my body
and let you dig into my love
so here i am, watch me now

to keep my ugly hidden
to keep my thoughts restrained
to keep the stains upon myself
cloistered and contained

by nature we are greedy
and you can’t seem to stop taking
because you’ve grown bitter dancing feet
and i'm aching, you say i'm not grounded
yet i’m a burden underfoot
and you wish i’d just break life
or break life in
and forget what it took

you want me to be punished
or you want me to go
you think i don’t know
oh you think i don’t know
you wish i’d just open,
then you wish that i’d fold
i don’t melt in the heat,
but i crack from the cold

your affection is grotesque
and my voice has a certain note
that makes you want to wrap each finger
tightly around my throat
you hate me, more than you love me
but i don’t want to be loved
if love barely stays afloat
you hate me, much more than you love me
and i was never told love
was so naturally cutthroat