Mama always says that you are
what other people think of you,
how you present yourself to
each and every acquaintance.
The way people see you,
even if it isn't how you meant for
them to see you,
is who you are.

A monster.
An object of hatred.
A manipulator.
An abuser.

Though I can be told by few
that I am good for recognizing
my mistakes and my flaws,
does the good outweigh the
bad within myself?

I kept warning you not to
get too close to me.
I knew you wouldn't like
what you would see.

if petals droop too far
without sustenance
what harm will slicing them do
if it brings back their shine later?

you may be used to holding the strings
but my mouth moves on it's own

all i do is break up friends
hurt their bonds
burn the ends
all i do is make them cry
and it's my fault every time.

all i ask is not for love
time to remove
it means to shove
all i ask for is empty
for everyone to leave me.

your words hurt
more than any punch i'm scared you'll throw
your glare is sharp
but not as deadly as the pentameter you hurl

why yell at me
let loose on me
when I knew I had done something wrong?

why  be forceful
why be rash
when I was already hurting enough?

shaking, shaking-
did YOU know I was shaking-
quaking, quaking,
for my thoughts have run sharp.

if the daisies told you to make your own decisions,
would you?
if the rosebuds asked politely for you to be yourself,
would you?
if the hydrangea bush pled for you to think your own thoughts,
would you?

i am lost in a myriad
of tangled, tangled
forsythia;
for shame,
you told me not to write strong sentiment,
that my drafts were best left in the drawer.
scared am I of that thorny vise,
but they're not drafts anymore.

i can claim to know my flowerbed
and the lives left on the shelf
but to water them, says my lost head
would destroy my vacant self

did anyone ever care about my flowers?
i never watered them
as they should have been
i drew them in gentle, attentive
detail and kissed every petal and leaf
i smelled their virtue until my arms
ached with the repose of memories and triggers

i never watered them as they should have been
for that would have required
slicing them.

Breathing, breathing,
all I can do is keep breathing
living, living,
I've lived and now I'm bored.

You handled it well. I know you're strong.*

You can do this, you did all you could.

Words floating between ears and mouth
are easier to decipher when one is yelled at,
easier to comprehend emotionally when
points are pulled at.

Out of lives and into holds I can
fall, but into hearts I never will
chance to venture, for fear of
hurting more people still.

One day perhaps I'll understand just
why I'm made this forsaken way;
big mouth, shriveled heart, no love
but until then this is how I'll stay.

For to grow, I think, is a means
of hurting, a means of letting go
of the things we want most in life
and to which we can't say no.

So goodbye to feeling sadness
and goodbye to feeling blue
The anger and destruction stays
in the place where I kept you.

is it possible to become
someone you know you
would frown at if you saw
them walking down the street?

I don't recognize that girl in the mirror.

Eyes dark, shining with manipulative malice;
Lips red and ready for a deep, deep sin;
Hands twitching to unravel someone's mind;
Heart....wait, what?

Where her heart should be is a gaping hole.
Flies fly by, and breezes breeze through
the emptiness, craggy and grey
like her entire being.

ropes are stretched over her entire being,
worn, weary, strung tight

how much longer until she
-like this mirror-
begins to crack?

it has begun.

Swirls are better than slashes,
and I can tell you why.

Swirls are better than slashes,
for they help you up to fly.

Swirls are better than slashes,
with ink instead of red.

Swirls are better than slashes,
but they do not help your head.

Becoming she who hurt you until you couldn't breathe for the tears...and causing that for someone else

Then leave.* Her voice lilted like light on snow, the snow that was fast to fade.
I... My heart beat faster, faster, faster still, and I closed my eyes.
I want. I need. But I....I can't.
Her eyelids fluttered. *Well, as long as you're here...

But how can I see if there's too much smoke?* she pleaded, latching onto my arms with thorny tenacity.
How can you complain when you create that smoke yourself? I combatted question with question, ******* snow into the grey nosy wisps.
It's your fault. Liquid roses dripped to the snow.
Steam kissed the smoke.
**I know.

They say we can sense
hearing
smell
sight
touch
sound
taste

but what about danger?
love?
fear?

we can sense that someone is creeping up behind us
and sense that something bad is about to happen
can sense the change in the pressure in the air
and the need of someone else for a hug or kind word.

to say we have only five
is underestimating

but to say we have infinite?
we understand but few...
and that is why we teach five.

You think you know every little crack, every crevice in my soul; yet there is so much of my life’s book that you haven’t read. My hair is a carefully styled mess, strategically placed static, and my lips are what they are- lonely. Sometimes I think you wonder about who I am, my origins; I can’t say that I don’t either. How’d I end up as such as mistake? You love me for what you say are perfections, yet you see not the real me, you see the front I put up, my acting. How can one be addicted to a person who doesn’t even know themself? Yet loving you makes me want to learn.

We both **** the life, the very being from each other; yet it is still not enough. I want to hook myself to you like an IV, to pull the gold running through your veins into my conciousness and let it light me. If there was a way to evaporate your essence and save it in a bottle for later, I’d be the scientist who discovered the way to do it. The very scent of you carried on the air from yards away is enough to register me for a few centuries in an asylum. You say you don’t even wear cologne, and I understand it. You wear yourself, a fragrance I wish I could rub all over myself every second of every day, every time I curl up in a ball on my bed after you drive home at night, wondering why it is you can’t just stay.

You belong to the road, you’ve sold your soul to the feeling of the wind in your hair. I can’t break your contract with independence, but I can tag along for the ride. Seeing you so happy, getting your racer’s tan, blaring the radio until the speakers want to scream. Why can’t I partake in your happiness? I wish there was a way for us to share the love for the world that you have; in its’ place in my mind is loathing. The only reason for living I have is you- and all I ask of you is to answer this one question; how have you fallen for this fallen angel, the outcast of society, the girl whom everyone forgot to remember and who you didn’t remember to forget?

If I were to drop out my heart on a platter
and give back what's given to me;
If I were to cry hard but make not a splatter,
what's there left for to see?

Emotions are made for the playing of heartstrings
and picking of sentiments true;
But if we were bigger and grander with love-things,
wouldn't we be happier too?

Minds are the makers of falsehoods and lying
and pressing the lighting of thoughts;
But pulling the curtain on Fate's newen'd vying
could overturn many famed lots.

So treasure the ringed things that protect your heart
and plastic the lives that you own;
For living is telling, and telling, an art
that helps us to thrive and to grow.

I've been pushing this piano
up this steeping hill
with no thoughts of taking breaks, no,
or of pushing harder still.

I've been dragged by this piano
down this slowly sloping ridge,
for music makes a heavy soul
that'd overweigh a bridge.

I've struggled with this piano
to traverse the gravel ground,
but there's no easier way to go
than down, just markedly down.

I'll pull up at this piano
with the fervor of a few
that will help me even though
it's getting harder to pull through.

So away I'll fly with this piano
though the heaviness is grey;
for the music that I do know
could well save me someday.

Reasons for having life;
keeping it, giving it, sustaining it;
glitter speckles around the shell
of a protective covering that breaks only
when tears splatter around the vortex
that is the human heart.

And building it up?
Naught is easier than the
gradual accumulation of
galactic residue that can
keep, give, sustain
the heart;
and the eyes?
and the ears?
and what of the soul?

Protection is not found in years
or the ticking of an idle clock
who's days in the attic number
far higher than the minutes
of eternity counted by Zeus;

No, it is a given, taken element
which lives fast upon the air
that wheezes through stars,
squeezes past arguments,
and opens eyes.

Forever.

tell me you hate me
scream your words through cracked glass
and mend the renting vocality
push me against a wall and
give me a reason to cry
because i gave you one to
hate me for

do this for me
be direct
for how can we learn from our mistakes
if we don't know we're causing them
in the first place?

through my heart
through my soul
when i hear your voice
through my mind
through my eyes
when i see your hair
through my life
through my death
when you have to leave

We are sorry for the inconvenience.

While our project has made some headway- a new and improved venue coming soon!- there are a few impasses that have come to our attention.

Once we eradicate the hurt feelings, loneliness, and confusion from our work site, rest assured our progress shall continue.

We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Pressed between two walls
of written words;
Barely breathing between paragraphs
of love and hate;
Drying out between words
of confusion;
My petals are dropping
and we are none
the wiser.

Because of me.* She let me stand, snow falling off my bare legs like a shower of ash. Because of us.
What us is there left to lie about... My legs tensed to run. **Who can lie about what is in plain sight?

No, she breathed, melted snow dripping from under her eyelids like a fountain of frost. *No.
Feelings can lie. But, my head swirled as I stood suddenly,**Why would I?

Oh really?* interrogated her cunning eyes, Speak you the truth?
Doubt what you will, mine glowered in return, the ice melting to fragmented liquid between my fingers. **But truth and desire are the same thing, no?

Numbers are swirling in my head
I regret regression
But I have to graph instead
Of a gossip session.

she follows me everywhere
does what I do
says what I say
brews what I brew

she wears what I wear
and eats what I eat
plays what I play
and meets who I meet

she cries when I cry
and talks how I talk
she drinks what I drink
and walks where I walk

but to think what i think
is not her cup of tea
her name is depression
and her target is me

But you said, she whispered, her voice laced with poison and smoke. *You said dragons don't exist.
I never said they didn't exist, I breathed, the snow melting beneath our twitching fingers. **I said I'd never seen one. Until now.

is it stress?
is it life?
is it trauma?

aches, all over
hurt, all inside
pain, all over
heart, all but died

what's the source?
what's the plan?
what's the use?

To hold a candle in one's palm
And let the wax drop into a soul that yearns for brightness;
To polish off a set of silverware
That is set in the back of the china cabinet;
To these actions does one owe the breadth of sincerity
Reached only by the mobile and task-less mind.
When I was a young child,
Cloud scanning was naught but a foolish game
That only the sloth did chance to play.
Yet white pirate ships and marshmallow fantasies
Would still laugh and dance just out of my stunted reach
Until my tangled shoelaces tripped my idleness into
An emerald green oblivion as my knees met ground.
Parallels exist when one matures;
It's just as easy to trip over a pair of high heels.
To what end, then, do we owe the dusting off
Of the old mahogany boxes of memories?
To which source do we credit the rolling film
That replays childlike nostalgia through a sepia tinted lens?
To the wonders of the mind and the memories within,
We owe our deigning to produce and beginning to dream.

is where all the ropes swing free
from the willow branches
with no inhabitants to wish them
a steady tugging downwards into
the grass and magma flowing below

i'm going to start a tally
of things i've done wrong
but i need you to tell me
what it is i'm doing
before i can know how
to change...

if you find yourself
attracted to the simple
swirls of black ink against
white lined school paper in
a locker you know belongs to
her, you know that you have severe

problems.

part the curtains of your life and let
the sunshine filter in.

it won't burn, and it won't blind,
I promise.

Just a crack. C'mon.
I'm always here to lend you sunglasses
but first you have to be willing
to open the curtains.

if my life is a constant case of
deja vù
then why am i having so much trouble
**remembering myself

Tell me a tale of the sparkling seas
full of odd riches and timidity,
covered in lives lost with nary a thought,
stained with the coral-bound lessons you've taught.

Weave me an epic of the gold-crusted clouds
that filter through air and make not one spare sound,
filled with the voices of chanting young boys,
and all of the most heavenly ilk of noise.

Spin me a story of leaves green and pure
which drift toward the heavens with sensory ores,
that make for the sky as they stretch emerald-tall
before the time comes when they just have to fall.

lightning, bright as the sun
etched on eye, and mind
shaking with the thunder
rendered, deaf and blind

clouds, passing on
to the beat of striking shards
and ears, listening fond
as the storm's bright music starts

the darkness always passes
it's always been this way
storms and gales revealing
a newer, brighter day

so sitting on my roof
I sigh and blink, in time
I will no longer be aloof
because in a stormcloud, there is rhyme.

No, I'm not just shy,
I'm anxious.

No, I'm not just rude,
I'm uncontrolled.

No, I'm not just cryptic,
I'm confused.

No, I'm not just distant,
I'm numb.

And no, I don't just hate you,
I'm scared.

Miss.
Us, you, my sanity.
Life, thoughts, reality.

My mind can create so many things
that I maybe shouldn't
but do

Miss
Your banter, her smiles, my laughter.
**Our talking, their acceptance, the love.

always is there one stuck in my eye
distorting my vision
causing pain
requiring the time for removal
but by the time i've eradicated it
-it sometimes takes ages-
there's another to take its place
why is there an endless supply?

not gonna ask you to stay
not gonna wait for an explanation
don't know if i should leave or love or cry
won't sit and play little games
won't hurt and take all the blame
don't know, so i'll keep screaming at the sky
if love was a myth then it's all just pretend
so i'm shooting at the stars
cause it's not gonna end

...are you even reading this?
Rereading, even seeing this?
Do my words reach your ears
or get buried within the years
stretching between you and me?

"Home is where the heart is."

My heart has been on vacation,
got lost at the station,
missed it's connecting flight,
has come down with a plight.

It's missed the school bus,
forgotten how to trust,
spilled coffee in its lap,
fallen into a trap.

It's still playing dress up,
afraid still to mess up,
losing its car keys,
crying after a tease.

If home is where the heart is,
a place where a warm hearth is,
then mine has missed the boat
for I'm still just out afloat...

what you don't realize is there
until you don't have control of the wheels under you
and you're forced to look back at your deeds

whispers can emanate from all over
angels on shoulder pads
devils on shoulder blades

but the whisper i'm hearing comes from below
whispers from my heart
telling me to start

hope can form in the murkiest places
and i believe that we
aren't quite finished yet.