Overture Of Hope

"Damnit, I Screwed Up. I Memorized You"

I always knew you weren't mine to keep. That's why I kiss you an extra thousand times some times when we see each other and tell you it's just become an old habit. Which in a way it has. That's why I always gaze an extra few seconds before I look away as you're walking back towards your life. That's why I stayed up all those nights at your house, I came and went from the living room to the bedroom to watch you sleep instead of getting any rest myself because I don't know if I'll ever get to see you sleep so peacefully ever again. I have memorized every curve and mark on your body, like your scar you got from building your back deck. I memorized all of them so when you leave I won't forget. I listen extra carefully when you speak even when you think I'm distracted by my phone because I know I'll need to replay your voice when I am alone. That's why I tell you I love you in my many different ways as much as I can. And why I held you as close as I did the first time you saw me in true pain and tears running down my face in that hotel room. You pressed your body against mine and that's when I knew without a doubt. Someday your scent won't linger on my clothes anymore and you will not be there to hold me close anymore. I know one day I will truly wake up alone. So that night I took in your warmth and cried in your arms. I did a few times. But you never knew what each time was fully about. I always left out the part that those tears were for you too along with the other traumas I was facing. Sometimes in the car I run my fingers through your hair and move my hands back to your body to cherish every inch of your skin while saying something to distract you so you won't notice what I'm doing. I watch you dream of your future away from here knowing I will never see the changes that happen within you then, because sometimes in life things are only built to break and sometimes only one part is meant to break while the other thrives with the beauty of a thousand constellations. I cherish you all I can but I know you must leave still and when that day comes... I truly don't know if I screwed up by memorizing you the way I have.

"Moving On"

After a while, the hurt hurts less. You start to see reason, understand why they did what they did. Knowing that it takes two hands to clap. Learn, that not everyone you meet will stay in your life forever. Sometimes, they're a passing character in a chapter of your book. There to teach you a certain lesson, to help you experience different things in life - different emotions, to grow, and maybe to show you how to love yourself better. Find your worth.

Some of these characters will be difficult to replace when their time has come to an end in a chapter of your life. But, it is important to learn and to see the necessity to let them go, even if you don't want to.

At the beginning, it will hurt. It's the kind of hurt that will leave you crying till you fall asleep at 3am, puffy eyes, nose blocked and swollen. The kind of hurt that follows you everywhere - reminding you of the memories you had once shared at particular places you pass by. The hurt that leaves you thinking if you ever meant anything to them. Heartbreak is Inevitable, especially with the people you love. But if it's one thing I've learned: you cannot have expectations. You can't expect them to love you back the same way you love them, with the same amount of intensity, and that my friend is the sad truth. The way you love someone - that does not determine the way that person is going to love you back. You can have multiple connections with people, but that does not necessarily mean that they are meant for you, and darling, it's the same with love. This applies to both friendships and relationships, as we hate to admit it.

The hardest part about losing someone you love is not the goodbye, rather than learning to live without them. And what fuels the hurt is when you see how they're able to move on without you. But can you blame them? Honestly, you can't. I'd hear people say "If you really love that person, you will want them to be happy. even if it means that they're gonna be happy without you, you will respect that and let them go. Because you want them to be happy." But what if I don't want to let them go? Would you rather be happy with someone, but that person does not feel the same kind of happiness with you? That bothered me, a lot honestly. The one thing people crave, it's love and being valued. However, when you look for love, to find that healing to fill that void they've left - I have found that it never really works out. It's not purely genuine? I feel it's more of a forced connection because you want to fill that void, you crave that drug and rush called 'love' because it's a beautiful feeling. However, the best kind of love, something that I find the purest, is unexpected love. Because you're not looking for something, you're not looking for healing. Sometimes, through the people that we meet, we find healing. And the world doesn't seem that bitter after all.

They help you get back onto your feet, but you're much stronger now. Stronger than before, aware. Aware of how love can be so fragile and pure yet it has the power to break, shatter and destroy. Wiser, as to who you allow yourself to love.

"Audience Of Your Lungs"

I think that maybe my heart uses your heartbeat as a metronome to stay on track. Yours balances mine, slows it, teaches it to beat strong and steady and with purpose and rhythm. When faced with the unfortunate but often unavoidable situation where it cannot hear yours, it forgets, simply forgets all it was taught. Like a piano student whose teacher skipped the recital. It aches for your sound to match . It stings for the audience of your lungs to hear it beat. hear it sing. hear it play.

"Cathedral Of Grief"

Lately I've been waiting for my body to feel like a body rather than a cathedral of grief. Tell me about the riveer before it was a river. Tell me about the river when it was nothing more than your mother's tears. We all keep our sadness cupped safe in our hands. What would we be without it? I don't ask those questions anymore. We're sitting around the moonlight telling stories about what home looked like before the flood. What home looked like before the water took its place and you're grabbing my hand that doesn't know it's a hand. My hand. That's far too empty.

"The Crimson Kiss"

And maybe one day we'll bump into each other randomly, and we'll smile at each other, genuinely. The past will be in the past, and we'll have grown even more and our perspectives on life will have changed. The short curls that used to frame my face for a few years will be long, wild and free, and the beard that you used to keep shaved low, will be thick and full. And maybe on that day as we look at each other, smiling, we'll feel our souls inside of us smiling all over again too. Because even though you and I couldn't last, our souls always did have that special bond on their own, didn't they Yeah... our souls always were... absolutely madly in love.

"Good News - Bad News"

I am not ashamed to say that yesterday I cried so much that I woke up with swollen eyes. I am not ashamed to say I screamed in my car at stoplights then kept driving quietly through the world. It is always surprising how still things can be even when you're falling apart.

II.

Forgiveness is another way of saying that something didn't happen and I refuse to give that to you. If I have to drag the weight of all the worst thinggs you ever did behind me everywhere I go then you do, too.

III.

The good news is I survived knowing you. The bad news is you were something I had to survive.

"I Want To Be Simple With You"

It's 6am and I want to be lying next to you with our hands locked together, and our legs intertwined. I want your face buried in my neck, and I want to listen to your breathing. I want you to wake up and tell me, "I'm so tired" because I want to whisper, "Go back to sleep" and I want to hold you tighter when you do. I want to lie in bed alone with you, in the comforting quiet of the morning early hours, and maybe read a book while you sleep. I want to be simple with you, and I want to be whatever you need me to be.

"Waiting Room"

Look, I'm just going through a rough patch because when am I not going through one? But this one isn't mild turbulence. It's one more shot away from an ambulance; it's words spilling out of my mouth that sound like I'm in the process of selling myself to a funeral home, it's thin black water I'm calling ink because my writing's run dry, it's the smell of hospital beds where once I sat in the emergency room holding a bleeding nose and doing my history homework and once I sat in the emergency room with a broken wrist while some kid with a broken collar bone tried to unwrap a muffin and cried when he couldn't do it and once I sat in the part of the hospital they put you in when the person you love is in the room and dying. This is what that feels like - I feel like I'm in the waiting room of a doctor's office and when I step through the door I'm either gonna find out this was all in my head or there's something really wrong here and I don't have much time to live but for right now I'm in a weird state of being absolutely awful while still being totally okay.

"The Way It Is"

The Problem is, I don't know what I want from you. I have so many things I wish to say but to what end I do not know. There are endless routes I could take to contact you, but what would be the purpose? One minute I want to send you a hateful letter, scribbled in anger and burning red, intent on hurting you and a moment later I want to send you a love note, glowing white and exuberant, reminding you of the ways in which I ache. On rainy days when my emotions claw behind my eyes, I want to call you and scream in a frantic rage and when the sun sits high above me in the pale cerulean sky I want to calmy thank you for existing. It seems that I cannot decide on how to get in touch with you because each course would lead to a different result and I haven't a clue which I desire most. One approach might invite a response (good or bad, I do not know) while another could send you further off into the unknown space you currently inhabit. I am uncertain if I wish to hurt you or if I just want to wish you well, so by all appearances, this confusion is the reason why I sit back, distressed, doing nothing instead.

However, if you were to draw a map of all the emotions I have for you and all the ways I could try to reach you and all the different words I might say, you would see that everything leads back to one true desire. I don't want anything from you that is within the realm of possibility. What I truly want is for none of it to have ever happened. I want you here, beside me, but before this, before her. I cannot have you as you are now; I want you as it was back then. I want you years ago. I want your hand on my hips and your fingers intertwined with mine the way things were. I want you wrapped around me, limbs tangled, hearts pulsing in a long lost winter. I want you snug inside my bed beneath silky sheets and quiet sighs during an autumn well in my past. And thus, the true root of my problem becomes clear. I don't know what I want from you and I don't know what to say because no matter what words I use and no matter what results they produce, I can neveragain have you in the way it was before. Even if you came to me tomorrow and begged for my forgiveness, it would not change the places you have been, the things that you have done, and the person you have loved since then. And because of this, I cannot find resolution. So I sit here and dwell upon my contrary emotions in silence. I do not dare to reach out to you for no arrangement of words and no collection of sentences could ever bring us back in time.

"Souls"

When two souls fall in love, there is nothing else but the yearning to be close to the other. The presence that is felt through a hand held, a voice heard, or a smile seen. Souls do not have calendars or clocks, nor do they understand the nothing of time or distance. They only know it feels right to be with one another. This is the reason why you miss someone so much when they are not there - even if they are only in the very next room. Your soul only feels their absence - it doesn't realize the separation is temporary.

Can I ask you something?

Anything.

Why is it everytime we say goodnight, it feels like goodbye?

"Twin Flames"

There was a feeling of inevitability when I met you. The sense that we would be together; that there would be a moment when you would look at me in a certain way, and we would cross the threshold from friendship into something so much more.We spoke once about lovers who kept finding each other, no matter how many times the world came between them. And I think I had to break your heart, and you had to break mine. How else could we know the worth of what we were given? I think you were always meant to know me a little better than anyone else. And our lives were fated to converge like some cosmic dance. I know there is a terrible distance between us. But our bodies are made of celestial light, and we are hurtling through space and time, toward the most beautiful collision.

"What I Would Tell You"

To you, love was about multitudes. To me, love was inordinate. I love you, I would say. How much? You would ask. I couldn't find the words to answer you then. But they have found their way to me since. And this is what I would tell you. I would blanket the world in utter darkness; I would pull back the veil of light and reveal to you, a blinding crescendo of stars. I would drain all the seven seas and ask you to count - one by one - every grain of sand that clings to the ocean floor. I would tally the beat of every human heart that has echoed since the dawn of our becoming. And as you look in awe at the sheer magnitude of my admission, I would take your hand in mine and tell you; if only you had let me, this is how much I could have loved you.

"Wouldn't It Be Nice"

Wouldn't it be nice to fall asleep next to each other? To have your body so close to mine that the only space left between us is for our breaths and words. To wake up in the middle of the night only to hear the loud thumps of our hearts beating in synchronisation. I want to feel your breath on the back of my neck and your legs intertwined with mine like the vines that grew on my grandmother's garden wall. I want ugly mornings - your morning breath, groggy eyes, bed hair. I want the first thing I see when I wake up to be the sun lighting up the constellations on your back. Tell me, wouldn't it be nice to wake up next to each other?

"The Aesthetic Of You"

You are love notes in cursive; an old school romantic; you are cigarettes and cereal at 3 in the morning; you are full lips and roll necks; drinking champagne on a park bench; leather bound notebooks in bottom drawers; photos of your family on bedroom walls; a map of the world under a whisley glass; you are the sound of color; the sun without shadows; a piece of summer in the middle of October; you are working hard; glossy photos of fast cars; trading plaid shirts for sharp suits; two sugars in your tea; eyes that change from blue to green; caps turned backwards; kissing on the train; you are the feeling of my favorite song playing on the car radio, only to have the engine cut it short.

"Your Existence Still Breaks My Heart"

Suddenly all the memories resurfaced. It felt as if I was choking on the air that I was breathing. His smile was the same way intoxicating. And his voice made my heart feel as if someone was cutting it with a rusted blade. It was then that I realized that I hadn't moved. I wasn't over him yet and when he wasn't there, when everything stopped reminding me of him, I assumed that everything was okay. But I guess I was wrong. I stood there not knowing what to do. It felt as if we were strangers again. It felt as if somehow he had things to tell me. Every insecurity resurfaced. I realized that I wasn't yet over him. The hurt was so real, I could hear my heart break again and again.

"Why Are You Crying?"

1. I've realized that everyone has a sad story and there are so many fucking stories that I have not heard yet and so many that I will never hear and I think they are filling me up and spilling from my eyes.

2. I don't know if I am in love with a person or an idea. I do not know if I am hot or cold or what or happening to my body or why I am shaking. I don't know who I am or who I will be. I don't know what he loves.

3. I don't understand calculus. I will never understand calculus. I wish I had a brain for numbers but I only have a brain for Salinger and sad weird poetry with no punctuation and too many references to the ocean.

4. I want to sleep forever. I've become the sort of dangerous sad that I said I would never be.

5. I used to be a happy drunk. I used to tell people I loved them even when I didn't. Now I just get philosophical and people pry themselves away from my words because I am ruining their night.

6. I just want to touch you. Fuck you. I just want to touch you and your skin smells like soap and God can I just touch you. I hate this.

7. I am warm and I shouldn't be. People love me and they shouldn't do that. They should drive me out to the Artic and leave me there. I saw a documentary about polar bears and apparently they'll eat anything that moves. Fine.

8. So many people have been in love and now they are dead. I have been in love. I will be in love again or maybe I won't, but either way I will be dead eventually and all of the love that swells up in my chest will be dead with me. If I don't explode before I die, where will it go?

"It's Easier To Blame Your Hometown Part I (The Past Won't Come Back, It Doesn't Matter How Much You Cry For It At Night"

You will find her at 3am driving down the highway. Her eyes are weighed down by the exhaustion and shiny with nostalgia. You sit shotgun beside her and are belting out your lungs to 38. Special. The streetlights are flashing by and her silver clad fingers are drumming along to the beat against the steering wheel. Her messy hair is getting kept away from her face by a cheap Versace headscarf rip off. Her smile is sharper than bomb debris but when she turns her head in your direction and laughs at your singing, the whole car fills with a warm feeling.

( ;see: fills your ribcage, a little too close for comfort. )

You can't help but to give her your biggest smile with glittering eyes. But it hurts too, damn it, it hurts too much.

"To The One Understands My Love For The Fire Swamps Scene"

You need to understand that some days There will be a sadness in my eyes that you did not cause, and that neither you nor anyone else can fix.

Nothing in particular will bring it on, and the same will be the thing that sends it on its way.

I might say I want to talk, but what I really want is to be heard.

To feel listened to and understood, especially on the days I do not quite understand it myself.

My life is not a problem to be fixed. I am not a puzzle that is looking to be solved.

If I come to you, it is not for answers. It is because I trust you to know it is okay that I have questions while I answer them myself.

(I know you understand that you never cause my sadness and that you cannot always fix it and that I don't want you to fix it. I just want you to listen in the times when I do need someone, which you always have. And I lied before, parts of my life are a problem that need to be fixed, but the fixing must be done by me, I always value your input on the matter though. I lied more than once. I am a puzzle in so many ways and I want parts of that puzzle to be solved. You do help me solve parts of my puzzle without even knowing it and I thank you for that. And when I do come to you, I don't want you to give me the answers, you've never been that type anyways so far, and I like that you don't give me that answers. I like that you give me your thoughts and care and encourage me to answer them myself. So I know you know all of this already, but I still wanted it written and to tell you thank you.)

"The Sinner Who Loved"

"You ma'am? You are the lover. You love furiously, like the rain. Pitter patters of kisses fall on your son's forehead before he goes to sleep. When he wakes up from a nightmare you tell him everything is going to be alright, but you're not sure. The world is spiraling out of control and you do not know what to do. But instead of fight or flight, you chose love. I respect that.
The boy who always slams his locker shut a bit too hard? He's the messiah. Completely obsessed with times gone by. He's confused when he looks up from what he is reading to find himself in the 21st century. That boy is our savior, our hero and he cannot look at himself in the mirror for too long because he is so scared. He will come through, they always do. I cannot help him, but I will try anyways.
The brother who stumbles over his own feet but never with words? He is the pariah. Kid's probably already had an existential crisis or two. He does not know where he's going, he does not know where he's been. He could tell you all about the Big Bang or Creationism, but ask him where he sees himself in five years and you will see the light fade from his eyes. There is something very lonesome about him, I never could place it.
The girl in the back, the one with shaking hands and an apologetic smile? She is the coward. She will fumble with her keys and can't seem to keep anything straight in her head. She will survive, longer than the rest of us. But at what cost? She will be by herself always asking what now? It is her worst nightmare and favorite lullaby. I wish I had never met her.
The sister who walks too fast and still cannot keep up? She is the dreamer. She's got a noose tied around her neck but she thinks it is the string of a balloon that will carry her up, up and away. She is standing on the edge of a rooftop, and now she is falling but she thinks she is flying. She doesn't know any better and you couldn't tell her otherwise. Neither could I.
The little one who can't fight but always will? He is the martyr. His spine feels like it is filled with metal and his feet are made of stone. He does not know it yet but he is going to matter. Dimples like constellations, but he's not meant for the stars. This boy will only be cared about when he is six feet under. I wish him well, but hope for the worst.
Me? I am the sinner. But more like you ma'am than like the others. I love too, the difference is that I can only love when it hurts. I love the lovers, messiahs, pariahs, cowards, dreamers and martyrs. But the list ends there. Only the ones who are doomed, destined for absolutely nothing. Only the ones who can never love me.

"I Wish You Enough"

At an airport I overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together. They had announced her plane's departure and standing near the door, she said to her daughter, "I love you, I wish you enough." She said, "Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom."

They kissed goodbye and she left.

She walked over toward the window where I was seated. Sitting there I could see she wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on her privacy, but she welcomed me in by asking, "Did you ever say goodbye to someone knowing it would be forever?'

"Yes, I have," I replied. Saying that brought back memories I had of expressing my love and appreciation for all my Dad had done for me. Recognizing that his life was limited, I took the time to tell him face to face how much he meant to me in those short years together.

So I knew what this woman was experiencing. "Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever goodbye?" I asked. "I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is, her next trip back will be for my funeral." she said.

"When you were saying goodbye I heard you say, 'I wish you enough.' May I ask what that means?" She began to smile. "That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone."

She paused for a moment and looking up as if trying to remember it in detail, she smiled even more. "When we said 'I wish you enough,' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with enough good things to sustain them," she continued and then turning toward me she shared the following as if she were reciting it from memory.

"I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright. I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more. I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive. I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger. I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting. I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess. I wish enough "Hello's" to get you through the final "Goodbye..."

"For Teenage Girls With Wild Ambition And Trembling Hearts"

When you are 13 years old, the heat will be turned up too high and the stars will not be in your favor. You will hide behind a bookcase with your family and everything left behind. You will pour an ocean into a diary. When they find you, you will be nothing but a spark above a burning bush, still, tell them: Despite everything, I really believe people are good at heart.

When you are 14, a voice will call you to greatness. When the doubters call you crazy, do not listen. They do not know the sound of their own God's whisper. Use your armor, use your sword, use your two good hands. Do not let their doubting drown out the sound of your own heartbeat. You are the Maid of Untamed Patriotism. Born to lead armies into victory and unite a nation like a broken heart.

When you are 15, you will be punished for learning too proudly. A man will climb onto you school bus and insist your sisters name you enemy. When you do not hide, he will point his gun at your temple and fire three times. Three years later, in an ocean of words, with no apologies, you will stand before the leaders of the world and tell them your country is burning.

When you are 16 years old, you will invent science fiction. The story of a man named Frankenstein and his creation. Soon after you will learn that little girls with big ideas are more terrifying than monsters, but do not worry. You will be remembered long after they have put down their torches.

When you are 17 years old, you will strike out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig one right after the other. Men will be afraid of the lightening in your fingertips. A few days later you will be fired from the major leagues because "Girls are too delicate to play baseball."

You will turn 18 with a baby on your back leading Lewis and Clark across North America.

You will turn 18 and become Queen of the Nile.

You will turn 18 and bring justice to journalism.

You are now 18, standing on the precipice, trembling before your own greatness.

This is your call to leap.

There will always be those who say you are too young and delicate to make anything happen for yourself. They do not see the part of you that smolders. Do not let their doubting drown out the sound of your own heartbeat.

You are the first drop of a hurricane. Your bravery builds beyond you. You are needed by all the little girls still living in secret, writing oceans made of monsters and throwing like lightening.

You don't need to grow up to find greatness. You are stronger then the world has ever believed you to be. The world laid out before you to set on fire. All you have to do is burn.

"A Personal Confession People Should Know"

I spent three weeks in a mental health hospital for depression and what I discovered there I feel should be put into words:

We are not who you think we are.

The boy with turrets told the funniest jokes. The girl who raked her nails up and down her skin could create the most exquisite drawings. The girl who abused drugs had the wisest soul. The boy with schizophrenia had the biggest heart. The girl who tried to kill herself told the boy with insomnia stories to help lure him to sleep. The boy who wanted to kill himself had the deepest passion for cooking. The girl with slits and scars all over her body dried my tears and told me I mattered. The boy with anger issues gave the warmest hugs. The girl with bulimia told everyone every day that they looked beautiful in their bodies. The boy who was a compulsive liar told us that he wanted us all to get better, and that he was for once telling the truth. The girl who almost drank herself to death stood up for anyone that felt they were feeling bullied. The boy with social anxiety made sure nobody sat alone at meals.

We are not who you think we are.

"Saturn's Mysterious Rings"

I want to rip off your logic and make passionate sense to you. I want to ride in the swing of your hips. My fingers will dig in you like quotation marks, blazing your limbs into parts of speech. I want to whisper poetry into your mind and imprint love letters to your soul and dance with you in an empty white room of potential. Ink will flow through the fingertips of our tongues and the tongues of your fingertips will taste the words written on script. My heart will call out to yours and then we will be joined as one big beautiful lyrical monstrosity, tangled within each other's quotes and philosophies - the heavens will shout down to us and the galaxies will stir. In that one moment, our eyes will caress each others with the tenderness only star-crossed lovers can acquire. We'll lift off the ground into the enigma of the stars and discover the crevices of the world in which we've never dared to touch before. The palms of our hands embrace and brazenness replaces apprehension. Together, we will be invincible, we will wake the universe, they will hear our silent cries, and, holding onto Saturn's mysterious rings, we will defy gravity.

"Handle With Care"

She is the girl who looks down when you stare at her for a little too long, and turns away if you catch her looking. She is the girl whose hair gets a little knotted, and whose smile isn't always real. She is the girl who cries herself to sleep sometimes and cares a little too much about what you say. But she is the same girl who laughs at all of your jokes - funny or not; the one who will love you with every inch of flesh inside of her. She is the girl who will watch the stars with you at night, and ask how your day was when you get home. She is the kind of girl who you will find asleep with a book in her hand at 3 a.m., or the kind who wants to steal your sweatshirts because she loves your sweet smell.

She is the kind of girl who will give you her heart; so please handle with care.

"Piece Of Your Heart"

Give me your misery, all of it give it to me. I can hold onto it for you, it's not a problem. I just want your energy, a piece of that fractured mountain. I'll take whatever comes with it as long as it's yours. And all I know is that I want it more than yesterday. If I was waiting, I was waiting for just one little spark. You are the brightest I've seen. You are the best side of me. And just for when we're apart, I've got a piece of your heart. But I want the whole damn thing. I feel it inside of me, I feel it inside of you too. Seeing forever this downcast blade from the sky could never sever through, not what we have, me and you, burning together and burning forever. And I don't know, I just can feel it in the atmosphere. If I'm wandering, I've wandered into just the right spot. You are the fire in my sleep. You are the reason I dream and just for when we're apart, I've got a piece of your heart. I've got a piece of your heart but I want the whole damn thing. Say hello to all my problems for me. Tell them sorry, I can't be around anymore. The years will go on, we'll get older and then we'll die but we'll get by and it goes on forever just like this. If I could go back, I would do it all over with you again. I've got a piece of your heart but I want the whole damn thing. Say hello to all my problems for me. Tell them sorry, I can't be around anymore. The years will go on, we'll get older and then we'll die but we'll get by. I've got a piece of your heart...

"There Is No Word"

There is not a word for walking out of the grocery store with a gallon jug of milk in a plastic sack that should have been bagged in double layers.

--so that before you are even out the door you feel the weight of the jug dragging the bag down, stretching the thin.

plastic handles longer and longer and you know it is only a matter of time until bottom suddenly splits.

There is no single, unimpeachable word for that vague sensation of something moving away from you

as it exceeds its elastic capacity -- which is too bad, because that is the word I would like to use to describe standing on the street

chatting with an old friend as the awareness grows in me that he is no longer a friend, but only an acquaintance,

a person with whom I never made the effort -- until this moment, when as we say goodbye I think we share a feeling of relief,

a recognition that we have reached the end of a pretense, though to tell the truth

what I already am thinking about is my gratitude for language -- how it will stretch just so much and no farther;

how there are some holes it will not cover up; how it will move, if not inside, then around the circumference of almost anything --

how, over the years, it has given me back all the hours and days, all the plodding love and faith, all the

misunderstandings and secrets I have willingly poured into it.

"Little Beast"

He had blue eyes, so I wanted to sleep with him. Blue eyes flicked with gray, ash leaves on the surface of a pool - You could drown in those eyes, I said. The fact of his pulse, the way he pulled his body in, out of shyness or shame or a desire not to disturb the air around him. Everyone could see the way his muscles worked, the way we look like animals, his skin barely keeping him inside. I wanted to take him home and rough him up and get my hands inside him, drive my body into his like a crash test car. I wanted to be wanted and he was very beautiful, kissed with his eyes closed, and felt good while moving. You could drown in those eyes, I said, so it is winter, so it is suicide, so we are helpless in sleep and struggling at the bottom of the pool.

"Take Very Little"

The first time I met him he said that if I ever wanted to be an artist some day, I would have to dig deep inside myself and create something of expression. And I remember telling him I already had ten thousand "fans" and felt like I had put in enough time to at least call myself an artist. And he said that creating entertainment and creating art are very different things, and he said that the only way you can really create art is if it is honest expression of something. You cannot express yourself if you do not know who you are. I was upset that he said that but there was still a part of me that was inspired. And uh, looking back on the experience of creating and putting everything I can into it, I have learned that it was not worth... It was not worth losing the ones I had to to get here. And so he challenged me to write a poem about the things I wish I knew how to say. That - That is what this poem is: a response to that.

I guess we can take shortcuts in the darkest corners because the highest earners scale the mountain with the quickest and the thick of it. And I would give up any of it to slow down, cause maybe the sound will not be quick, but we can at least make it painless. And this game is the distribution of weight, angles, lights, trying to be a star, while getting hit by comets and vomit, which we eat to keep down negative YouTube comments. The spotlight is not part of the skillset, the void of cohesive thought, when this love gives a lot and takes very little. It is brittle, so you have to love what you do and stay true and find the right formula to not be bothered by the side effects. Hide your legs, hide your neck, hide your tears, and hide your fears, and pretend I am the fearless leader you want me to be. Because without this fake personality, I would be performing in the streets. Watching friends turn enemies or even worse, distant memories, or even worse, love turned to apathy with a distant voice in my head whispering, "This is the price you have to pay if you want to sell anything." And no doubt any of us would sell out if only somebody was offering. It is not about the art, it is about the swallowing, it is about the hallowing, it is about the empty vessel you want me to be so I can create at record speed. And I am sorry, but to me it does not mean anything. So please do not give up on love and do not let your hopes fall up and do not throw up every time you think about what you could be, because the hope was real, and everything we feel is a legitimate experience. I just wish you did not put your faith in me. Bank notices or selfishness, alcohol or somebody's death or somebody's words, by birth or by choice: We will all someday find ourselves shaking and barefoot before our lives collapsing. Our homes lying like dry bones in heaps of plaster and broken beams. Despair can route us there, let us calcify our bodies, stunted into a petrified forest, poisoned and frozen by tragedy. Or we can choose perspective. Let suffering run off like the rain into the sea to reveal the truth beneath. The rock below, the peace and the floods of pain, the process, the promise that every scrap of our lives will be redeemed and reused as the builder makes us new. That every ounce of tragedy and ash will water and fertilize a garden of unimaginable beauty and fruit. That all of this goes somewhere, yields something. That perseverance will produce character, and character of hope that every tear really will be wiped away. That we will one day be complete, and that therefore, along the way, we can create.

"Reckless And Out Of Control"

I do not want you to love me because I am good for you, because I say and do all the right things. Because I am everything you have been looking for.

I want to be the one you did not see coming. The one who gets under your skin. Who makes you unsteady. Who makes you question everything you have ever believed about love. I want to be the one who makes you feel reckless and out of control; the one you are infuriatingly and inexplicably drawn to.

I do not want to be the one who tucks you into bed; I want to be the reason why you cannot sleep at night.

"December 15, 1998"

The good news, I tell God, is that we are dying. God scowls at me through their oxygen mask, and then rolls their eyes. I overheard the EMT's, and we are just as dead as we will be in a few decades, which is to say, not yet dead, but working toward it. God gives me a thumbs-up, and then leans back against the ambulance and shuts their eyes and breathes in very deeply.

ii.

And the better news, I tell God a few hours later, remembering that I did not get everything out the first time, is that now, if I get lung cancer, I can just blame it on that fire. And God gives me a Look, so I kiss them, and keep kissing them, and then I light a cigarette.

"What It Is"

It is the over the shoulder glance, the look back, hair tuck, corner mouthed grin. It is the fabric in the fingers, the hemline in the drawstring, the last button to come undone. It is the tea kettle whistle, the roll over groan, the wet lips from soft kisses, the eyebrows raised. The lean in, the wandering hand, open mouthed and eye rolled. The raised voice, it is the sheets that will end the fights, it is the sweat for a better reason. It is the long stare, stolen seconds, simple flirts with life aged eyes. It is the words, it is the unspoken slow laugh, understanding smile, it is the hair tuck behind listening ears.

"Scene Six Gets Cut From The Script"

Scene One: You see her for the first time and she will walk right past you like you are a crack in the wall and she is a skyscraper with her head so high in the air and you cannot sleep you will think about the way her eyes strayed into yours for a moment too long before breaking away and disappearing into the crowd of people.

Scene Two: She will look both ways before telling you she loves you under her breath and when she hugs you her eyes scan the empty room as if the walls had eyes and ears and mouths that could give you away.

Scene Three: When she is curled up on your lap shaking with mismatched breaths you will wonder how someone who looked like she carried mountains on her shoulders could crumble so easily in your arms like the tornado in her mind finally hit her and knocked her off her feet.

Scene Four: In half-light she will run her fingers over your arms like she is reading words carved into your skin, binding them together into the perfect metaphor and you will hear it playback in your head at 4 a.m. when your head runs wild with thoughts of her.

Scene Five: You will find a safe haven on rooftops and abandoned rooms where she will set fire to your insides with hushed breaths between kisses planted perfectly on your lips and make you wonder how dangerous it is to play with wild flames while your body is made of paper.

Scene Six: You will stare God right in the eye and tell him that if loving her was a sin then you want no place in heaven with him because the way her lips fit perfectly on your neck is a type of paradise you will never forget.

"Part One: Perhaps An Accident"

How would you like me to tell you? How would you like me to explain when I try to describe to you how much I want you? Do I say it with words, or long sighs out of my tired lungs? Do I whisper it or scream it across the space that should not be separating us any longer? Do I kneel down and with hands clasped together phrase it as a question that begins with 'will' and ends softly with 'stay', the 'you' choke out in between the two halves. Do I type it out or show like a scar to forever remind you? Do I beg or do I swallow it all and hope that you know the way to see into my chest, the letters white like bones in the x-ray of how I am feeling? Do I sink or do I swim? Which would show you more, if sinking demands bravery and swimming requires folly? Tell me how to tell you and the telling will be told.

"Horrifically Beautiful"

You want me to be completely honest? I, always, have been terrified of love. To slow dance with bliss and the prevailing chance of complete misery. Knowing that, it will either save me or it will cripple me. For if there is one thing beautiful in this crumbling world: It is love. The curling of souls. But God, if there is one thing horrific in it, too, than it is most surely loving something with your entirety, only to have it all vanish away within the hint of a second.

"What If I Was More?"

What if I was more, and by more I mean more in all ways for all things, and by I, I mean this shell of skin and bones that is packed full with memories and dreams, heartbeats, wishes and words? So many words,, and by words I mean all of the whispers and longings and letters tied to letters hooked to sentences that anchor themselves to my tongue and threaten to leap the moment I open my mouth but find themselves lost in the darkness when I close it again, and by again I mean always and so the words must absorb themselves back into my tongue and follow the dirt roads of my veins and climb the long ladder of my spine back to my mind to rest awhile. Rest until they can come out of my fingertips and say all I could not when my mouth slammed shut and was silenced by my shaking and by shaking I mean the trembling that comes without warning and starts in my chest and pulls tight my arms across my body and curls my fingers upon themselves and pulls the curtains down over my eyes and by eyes I mean the little blue green planets living on my face that might just be more than 70% water and seem to be fond of sharing that water with my cheeks and lips and the collars of my shirts and that tiny part of my throat that feels hollow.

And by hollow I mean not empty but filled with nothing because you and I both know that nothing is absolutely something especially when it is the silent shared string that ties two lives together and by together I mean intertwined and wrapped around each other like a rope, where when you hold it you forget it is made of tiny threads and you think of it as one, just one.

What if I was more for you, what if by more I meant everything and by everything I mean the things you have dreamed of and by dreams I mean the things that live so deep inside your hope that not even the waking parts of you that control where your feet carry you or how your hands fidget when they carry the nerves instead of calm underneath the lines on your palm and by palm I mean the place my hand will fit or the surface you will use if I ever need to be caressed or the source of the force of the push you will give when it is a push forward I need, and by need, my goodness I mean the absolute and certified requirement, the unwavering and nonnegotiable and no ifs ands or buts about it place you must occupy in my life no matter what the tides drag in or what the sea pulls back out and no matter how much water my little blue green planets of eyes spill or how tightly my arms squeeze and fingers curl and trembling crawls across the surface of my skin. No matter how fidgety your hands get or lost your breath may be because I might not have the maps and I might have lost the compass but we were never going to stop traveling and we will be lost and stay lost and live lost as long as it is together we will be.

What if I was more, and by more, I mean enough?

"Part One"

I want this. I want that. I want photos of us. I want to be proud of us out loud. I want to make you giggle and I want to make you sigh. I want to smile and laugh. I want to kiss you. I want to take your breath away and I want to dance with you and I want to wait until you are almost asleep and then kiss your nose and make you laugh so hard with some secret joke that your belly hurts and you playfully smack me for waking you all the way up so we have to get out of bed and sit and watch the city lights while eating a bowl of cereal at 1:38 a.m. I want to smell you fresh from a shower and take you to hockey games and teach you hidden things that are going on that most people don't know. I want us. I want the smell of pancakes when it's me that cooks them and the sun hasn't yet woken. I want the smell of dinner when it's us that burned it because we fell to the floor and made love instead. I want handprints on car windows, steamed up from the inside. I want long baths followed by short showers and the scent of your shampoo staining my hands for the entire day to follow. I want ears that hear the words I spill instead of eyes that read them. I wat notebooks black with ink from all the details I noticed from all the times I sat and marveled at the way you spin through an hour.

"Subconscious"

What if I have nothing in my thought stream and I just start to fill these empty pages purely from the muscles and tendons and knuckles moving my fingertips pushing the pen? What subconscious linger will be brought to light, bare naked, for all the world to see? It scares the demons awake in me just knowing that there are things hidden in the dark caves of my brain, sleeping violently until the ticking time bomb alarm clock rings at surprise like a jack in the box. It's become a goal sometimes when I meet new people to lure out the hidden things in their minds because I truly believe you never know someone until you've not only met their demons, but also the force that is deeper inside that fights those demons every day.

"Passion"

There is passion, or there is nothing. And I want the type that drips down your back and soaks sheets. The kind that makes you lose sleep, and late for work in the morning. The type of passion I still feel between my legs the next day. Passion that begins in one room, and ends on the floor of another. I am talking about the kind that pins down wrists, and demands eye contact. Passion that makes my body quiver, and my legs tremble. I mean passion that is so seductive that I would never dream of looking for it from someone else. That is so uninhibited, intimate, and full of handfuls of hair, or hips, or their neck, or ankles, and makes you wish they had more hands. But they do not. And it is more than enough. And when you finish, you know, in between those short breaths and messy hair, there is passion. Or there is nothing.

"Soft Little Moans Against My Soul"

I want your body pressed up against my heart. I want your hands spreading my thoughts, lingering over the curves of my passions, gripping my hopes, stroking my opinions, and cupping my desires. I want your soul breathing heavily against my collarbones. I want your thoughts nibbling on my ears, your passions pressed against my lips, your hopes naked on my skin, your opinions hard under my hands and your desires... I want your desires letting out soft little moans against my soul.

I want you.

"Thoughts Of You"

There were times when I was with him and it was too much. Does that make sense? When someone stirs a world of emotion in you and it's so intense you can barely stand to be with them. During those moments, I wanted so desperately to leave - to go home, walk in my bedroom and shut the door behind me. Crawl into bed and lay there in the dark, tracing the outline of my lips with my fingers - replaying everything he said, everything we did. I wanted to be left alone - with nothing other than my thoughts of him.

"Blue"

You begin to invent things after awhile. I suppose it's only human nature to add and subtract from our memories; to recall them the way we feel they should be remembered. After all, our lives are a living work of art - shouldn't we be allowed to shape it in any way we choose? I remember the first time I saw my favorite painting, how its fragile beauty snatched my breath. And I thought if Gogh had painted just one brushstroke less, he could have told an entirely different story. If he began with a smear of red instead of blue, it could have been a chapter instead of an era.

"Impossibilities"

It is impossible to imagine a color you have not seen. I cannot call my mother because she makes me panic. When I say I am crying what I really mean is that I want to cry but cannot. Instead of dying, the jellyfish simply ceases to move. Glass moves like any other liquid, but slower. Sex is another way of communicating with your body, like self-harm or sign language. I complete five puzzles a day because it stops the panic. Trucks are downshifting on Main Street. Most of what I do I do to stop the panic. I never cry at things outside of my head because they all seem so far away. Hair is partially composed of cyanide. Napalm is just gasoline and plastic. I am just carbon and bad timing. If I were someone else I think I would still be ill. It is impossible to imagine a color you have not seen.

"Saturated With Saturn And The Experience Of Decaying Gods"

Mary convinces us to eat the asphodels from the garden so we don't feel so lonely inside, and Gabriel spends the next three days coughing up petals and borrowed time. He holds my hands as his voice gives out, sips the infinite dark from a wineglass, and spends the rest of the night confessing his sins in fluttering fingertips and Morse code. Chasing after dying stars will always end in ichor condensation and a wooden coffin, his fingertips stutter in deliverance. His eyes are wet, the closest I've seen him to tears, and I cannot help but tell him, yes, darling, but at least you got to see them, at least now they will be remembered; and he smiles, saturated with Saturn and the experience of decaying Gods, and replies, foolish girl, that does not stop the sun from falling for the moon.

"War Games In Flower Gardens"

When is a martyr not a martyr? He asks over afternoon tea. The evening I run away for the third time and return three hours later, crying into my cassette tapes and splintered knuckles. I still cannot meet his eyes. I pull my fingers over the hyacinth petals, the ones on his countertop from three weeks ago, over and over, until it feels more like cowardice, more like hiding. He grabs my hand, turns it into butterflies, his irises a radar of blue sky warmth and blue night starlight, and he mumbles the question again. I hum in response, baritone meeting static for the first time, and he paints my arms in gold, magics my mouth into sunrise so I'll give him an answer, and he replies, when they save everyone but themselves. The meaning sinks in, and he holds my shoulders while I tremble myself into an earthquake; frantic, my hair becomes weightless, becomes wisps of smoke, becomes moonlight. I shiver into a new dawn.

"Raise Your Glass To All The Things We No Longer Dare To Mention"

Little girl, pick up that bottle. That's the only love you'll get tonight. Drink it. Feel the burn wash away the lump in your throat. Feel it wash away the sins from your lips. The tears will burn white-hot against your cheeks, but you'll let the burn in your throat take over. It's time to raise your glass for all the evilness in this world. 'Open your eyes, open them. You cannot hide from this. It's in your blood. Accept it. Accept everything. You're made to survive the bruises, the black eyes and split lips. You're made to survive the wars. You're made for something bigger than this. Never forget what your name means.' It will haunt you, remind you at every waking moment someone says it. Power, strength, rebellious, a sea of bitterness. So you'll raise your glass for the time of the accidents. for the underground stream where souls sink. For the bruises, secrets, memories and ghosts. Let it consume you. Become one with the knowledge of what is about to happen. Play along, amuse me. Your time is getting short and their patience is starting to waver.

"Wildfire (Marianas Trench)"

Sitting alone in a tiny room. Waiting for dawn, it should be breaking soon. I know where you are and I know where you've been, but I never thought we would be here again. You say that you're lost and need to find yourself. Can't do that with me but with somebody else. You say you're still here but you've found a new home. I say that's a nice way to say I'm alone. When did we both get so afraid to speak though? I thought we got each others hearts. So I pushed you way through, hurting myself to live with it.

I don't know how we could ever let this transpire. You know I thought this love would always burn like a wildfire.

So now you show up when you're alone again. We haven't changed but now you're interested. And maybe you're here because you wanna come home but what if you're just afraid to be alone? I guess I don't know how you'd want it back now. I thought you got yourself a way out. How do I prove it to myself you're ready now? God I want to. Now you want me but what if your heart's a liar? Cause if you change your mind again I'll burn like a wildfire.

From wedding bells to private hells. To fresh new starts and wish-you-wells. From up in lights to up in smoke. We just can't let this go. Maybe this time it could work if our need is dire. Maybe our future's so bright it fucking burns like a wildfire.

Like a wildfire.

"I'm Almost Happy Here"

I think I'm almost happy here but I will never regret venturing despite fear. Because everyone wanted me to see I could not thrive. So if this is reality, then I guess I do not regret the nights I thought that I had died. Cause sometimes I feel like nothing, and nothing ever changes when changes consume me through these changing stages. Everything we could have done differently is now just a memory and the love I hoped for is hanging on a rope and it's funny how artistic we become when our hearts are broken. Through this constant collapse, the thought of relapse. I guess it's safe to throw our bones back into the sea. With this saltwater for blood and fear of falling in love, I'm almost happy here but I'm still moving. I just want us to run wild, young beauty. Because I always thought I would be okay, and some days I still feel the same, but every day the same way I feel afraid to embrace grace. Because I know I don't deserve it. And I know that I can't earn this. And I know I can hurt this heart I've grown within. But it's a given to even someone as sick as me. Now I can breathe seeing that I'm not living in apathy. So I guess we'll throw our bones back into the sea. Come with me and I hope I stay alive because ghosts can't love through this broke love and turn to above in a quick dash. Feel the impact on this car crash and pray to God I can be forgiven and have my friends back. Where we sleep is where we dream, and I haven't slept for days. REM cycles are a memory of when I was sitting in a room thinking of how much greener the grass would be if I become a big success someday. But now I'm dreaming or sinking, most nights they feel the same since I can lose one friend, lose all friends, and still not keep those demons at bay. And I said all my friends are trees, with the roots in the Earth, what hurts is that the branches in a community, we've labeled our hearts into a collective scene, into a collective faithless dream of empty courage and empty hearts. Hollow light, hollow lovers, always falling apart. So I'll love life and let go and try my best to understand there's nothing new to know. Though I didn't say it's true, I still feel the same. Like I died with you. And I feel the strain, taking two steps back on these wooden floorboards, I'll beg for more and pray this isn't just a retrospective moment. Not just a soul begging for catharsis, but rather the start of a new me and a real movement.

God forgive me.

"Louisville"

Every church has a steeple and their own form of suicide and I'd like to think if I lived through the Bible, soon after, I would have probably died. But I have no weapons, just a lot of ammunition and the muddy waters I'm stepping in until you showed me my own wisdom. I promised myself I'd never neglect another gray sky, take another trip to Louisville and stop at Barnes and Noble to see if that other book I finally wrote has sold enough for me to just fade out and let time pass by.

And I don't know where I stand so I guess I'll just fall apart. Cause I know there's blood on my hands if there's still hate in my heart. And I don't know where I stand so I guess I'll just fall apart. Cause I know there's blood on my hands if there's still hate in my heart.

I booked a flight back to Los Angeles. I'll be back in the Valley, I hope you can handle it. Cause nothing says, "I love you" quite like your iron fist and I'm fine with it, as long as you're happy. And I guess there's a reason the artist is rarely in the painting. A self-portrait is too personal to create for sustaining. So where is God in this creation, other than our clouds? This mystery we pray to, hoping it will water our grounds.

Let this be a memorial to when I knew who I was. I'm picturing out my burial and my heart is afraid of love. Let this be a memorial to when I knew who I was. I'm picturing out my burial and my heart is afraid of love. My heart is afraid of love.

"The Same Conversation"

Today the silence inside of me is a low hum. Power lines banging between synapses. All static sound and shuffling feet. I can feel my memories moving in retrograde.

Today I am 29 and more aware than ever that I will never know all the dreams I once had. Time comes through in the shiest ways. Reduced melanin and deteriorating collagen. I have come to realize why homes settle and sigh when the weather changes and we are asked to withstand another storm on our own.

My freckles have faded. The fire inside me has too. No longer can I hold the moon until she sees her sun. The stars seem so far away.

29 and I am still learning to see all the shades that depression shows up in. It used to be only darkness I was afraid of, but now the light holds unfamiliar truths that I am not as invincible as I once was.

Now my days I spend more time listening and less time writing. I thought by now that order would be the other way around. I thought I'd have everything figured out and maybe my voice would matter more than it does, but I sound just like everybody else. A soft plea against the hurricane.

For 29 years, it's been the same conversation with myself.

"Scarlet And Pastel"

There are birds outside my window dreaming of oceans and treetop canopies. I dress them in scarlet and name each one in pastel while they sing me lullabies and tell me stories about what the moon does when no one is watching her.

Their cat claw feet are too fragile to hold their frames as they stand in vain. Stretching tip toe tall for clouds they will never reach. They tell me about the songs from centuries ago still carried in the winds and empty-nest syndrome and how broken hearts and broken homes broth begin with I love you and end in goodbye.

I tell them -

Quiet your songs and rest your wings. You will never fly little cagelings. Your cement-filled lungs and feathered frames are too heavy to call your own. Hollow out your bones and dry the regret from your eyes. Some of us were never meant to have such bold dreams.

"Harvesting Sunsets"

I am 29 and I've already got decades of mistakes laying in the lines of my face and centuries' worth of regret stained in the creases of my palms. I've folded up people like wilted leaves and tucked them beneath my skin because I don't know what to do with the care I am given or the love I am shown.

So...

I have hidden them away for all the rainy days I see on my horizon, cumulonimbus clouds accumulating, waiting for me to fall to my knees and say, "Today is the day I am finally done."

I used to be a seraphim harvesting sunsets from the moon-bone graveyards hidden in the dimples of the stars. I would hang them like wind chimes just to hear the sound of every dream ever cast out onto their tales of light every lonely, empty night.

I used to stand on the shoulders of giants and hammer out the dents my mallet hands created when I was too childish and rough with people that raised me.

There used to be magic inside of them. There used to be magic inside of me.

I used to say, "I'm never going to grow old and talk about what I used to be" because I believed the future held so much more promise for me, but with every step forward I realize I am much closer to the end than I am to the beginning.

"Somewhere"

Somewhere there are minke whales singing songs inside my belly. Breathing the meniscus with andesite eyes. Somewhere there is seafoam and driftwood lapping against my skin. Hello and goodbye. Floating in bottles. Love notes to faraway friends. Please remember me in vetiver notes and pearlescent chords. Remember me in measurements of the moon. Somewhere the wind cracks and cries. The rain comes in at odd angles. Tides rise and swell. Crowding my throat with sand and gravel. Somewhere your name is stuck to my tongue. Beating against the backs of my teeth. Somewhere a canary cries. A lighthouse fades. I dream dreams where I am floating in achromatic ponds. I am cradled in the womb of this Earth. Somewhere my last breath is leaving my body and I do no feel a thing.

"The Intricacies Of Odd Numbers"

1. It is Saturday and you are practicing theories in a language that sits uncomfortably in your jaw.

2. The daylilies undressed into four o' clock fields of tawny tepals and ocher stems Casablanca bloomed from the harvest blanched and bloodless beneath the morning moons. This is where you sit atop the tortoise shell. This is where you will practice your soliloquy.

3. No 3. Just 4.

4. It is April. I worry about the last snowfall and I worry about the sun's age. I make a list of all the reasons I am worth saving.

"Lemongrass And Summer Storms"

Do not tell me about the cities. I have no use for them. Tell me about the oceans and how they've changed in you. About lemongrass and the summer storms. Coming in off your shoreline. About the waters that have carved canyons in your bones. Do not tell me about the buildings. I do not care about their heights. Tell me about your first breath of foreign air. About the history that fills your lungs. Tell me about the memories you made in languages you can't even begin to understand. Do not tell about the mountains. Instead tell me how they were formed. Tell me about the head-on collision of tectonic plates. About wrinkles along the fault line. About pockets of Earth that folded up into the sea. Tell me about the rains that washed and wore you down. About the travels you took to find yourself and how you left a part of you in every place, yet somehow always came back more complete.

"Miracle"

You are not just poems on a page or the words people chew on stuck between their teeth for days. You are not the pieces or the prose. The lines, limericks, verses or hymns. You are not just the ballads burning bellyaches in the bodies of thousands of strangers who felt they could stomach what you had to say.

No, you?

You are so much more. You are every sonnet song in opera houses that show their teeth and flex their frames at the sound of your name. You are a talent beyond measure. A monument made mortal. All flesh, and bone, and blood. But what lives inside of you and crawls through your lungs in a symphony of sound from the center of your storm every time you speak, I cannot say.

No, you?

You, my dear.

Well, you're a goddamn miracle.

"Quantum Entanglement"

In the field of quantum mechanics there is something called quantum entanglement. It is what happens when two particles interact, vibrate in unison, and are separated. They remain connected by something that defies logic, something science has yet to explain. If one particle vibrates, no matter the distance, the other particle reacts in unison. Even if there are oceans between them, even if there is a universe separating them.

Before time we were just a dense collection of particles confined to a space smaller than a proton, interacting and moving in unison. An event occurred that rapidly expanded the particles and created the universe. There is no reason to believe the particles ever lost their entanglement.

Now, when I say I am drawn to you, that I feel I have known you since the beginning of time, know that it's beyond my control. Know there are particles that compose me, my very fabric of being, and inside of you are the particles mine danced with millions of years ago. I've spent an eternity chasing that part of you.

"Battlefield"

What is a battlefield but a body?

You spend so many nights dreaming of spilling your blood to the moonlight, slipping out of your bones, and slithering into the soul of someone else.

You're all bronze and bite. All venom and fistfight. You're the dawn that rises bloody and wrecks ships in its wake, but you're a siren too, somewhere deep in the aching heart of you.

Thicket of violent thorn. Oyster pearl gone rogue. All you want to do is dance out of your skin into another song not quite about heroes, but still a song where you can lift the spear and say yes as it flashes in the sun.

Your boy kisses you with chapped lips and there is a small glimmer: a new age made of gold and gossamer, teeth and tongue, his fingertips tracing the curves of your hips and you knowing that you have a home in the wilderness of your ribs, somewhere beyond this.

When you run across the beach, sand sticking to your pink soles and the ocean dampening your calves, you almost feel like someone else, like lover instead of just prophecy.

A quartz-dusk, a peach-heart. Like Artemis plucked the stem of your brittle spine and made it bloom.

"Setting Fires"

Show me a man with open wounds on his palms and I will tell you the saddest love story I know.

I will never understand why you felt the need to bleed for everyone else, but I will never stop being grateful that you did. I only ask that next time you decide to lay yourself down for anyone else, you give me a warning.

We could have been something -

No, we were something. The whisper, the beginning of something. But you like to set fires and I like to wait out the storm.

We can't allow ourselves to make a home of this.

I will continue to scream because I am scared, and because you were supposed to show me all your hurt and ugly first. Instead I loved you blind and now I wouldn't know how to walk away even if you were killing me.

Darling, you are killing me.

I have loved you first.

I will never know how to love again.

"Honeyed Words"

There are those you encounter throughout your life with a unique energy all of their own. The moment of their arrival is often curiously timely. And to look upon them even for a moment is to court oblivion. They are profoundly enchanting and enigmatic, able to bend the attention of any room around them, but make no mistake, when they enter your life, it is like they have come only for you.

And like this you came to me with all the suddenness of sunlight at the dawn of a new day. To hear you voice your mind, to watch you laugh or dance, was to step for a moment out of myself and into the embrace of a dream.

In the short time we shred together you elevated my spirits, exposed my true heart, and restored aspects of myself I thought I had lost. The mornings were gentler, the nights were grander, and before long I honestly thought it would be you in the end. I really thought it would be you there at the end of it all.

Of course, I see things clearer now. The cold truth of the matter is occasionally the greatest stories of a life are only one or two sentences long. And the people who are most capable of moving us deeply aren't always the kind to linger in love.

Instead, they wander freely from place to place, following the nature of their own fathomless hearts, enriching the lives of those fortunate enough to cross their paths through the intense, devoted passion their wild spirits inspire. They live by their own rulebook, are captivatingly themselves, and capable of making us see that we, too, are magic, and this is how they possess our hearts.

I would have loved to have fashioned a world with you, to have set aside our separate lives for something sweet and sure with each other, but as it stands, you helped me see that I have purpose and value. More than that, you helped me to see that I was always enough on my own.

Despite your absence, and all its miseries, you have left me a braver, bolder, more confident person. You, as no other could, delivered me home to myself, and that I will carry with me wherever I go.

"The Long Car Ride Home"

The long car ride home inspires a warmth and serenity all of its own. The carefully curated playlists and the spirited singalongs the encourage, the easy, meandering conversation, and all the soul soaring freedom of the open road. It is like a quiet reprieve between two worlds - a space to slow down, to rest and recoup.

I knew well enough that soon our time together would pass and our lives would return to the way they were, but for now, with your hand on the wheel, and my hair in the wind, all that mattered were these moments and their magic, the stories we had shared in and now had to tell. The sweet gentle joy of each other, and the feeling that all in the world was well.

"Children, Lovers, Gods"

O' Ares, O' Mars, O' Child of War.

Does every flower your hands touch die? Does every seed you sow perish? Do your ears bleed, does your head ache with the sound of war drums? Are your knuckles bloody, bruised and broken? Your feet sore and aching? Is your throat cracked and dry from the fighting, the running, the war cries? Is this your last battle? Will you lay down your sword, commit yourself to this dry Earth, this lifeless soil in marriage 'til death do you part? No Child, no. Do not settle for this land of dust and solitude. A long battle awaits you but you will be triumphant.

O' Athena, O' Minerva, O' Lover of War.

Have you razed too many fields chasing hungry shadows to see the lives that flourish behind you? Do you not see they rebuilt the farm houses? Can you not see they replanted the corn? Look, the horses that died have been replaced, their corpses feed the big, green trees. Have you forgotten why you fight? Is your burning home a long-last memory? Do you surrender your faith? Have you turned your hands to hide the blood stains and condemned yourself to murderer, violent killer? No, Lover, no. Your scars are a written history. These are not perennial wounds, they too will heal like the land, like the people, like your hands shaking with exhaustion and energy.

O' Nike, O' Victoria, O' God of War.

Is this your armour, golden birthed from the sun? Is this your sword, bastard of fire and sea? Is this your war cry, ripped from the mouths of Hysminai and Alala's soldiers? Is this your triumphant? Your victory? Your crowning glory, the garden you thought you could never grow? Yes God, yes. Ask another to plant those seeds in your heart. Your hands cannot tend them, but your blood can sustain them.

"April 08, 2014"

I can tell you a lot about her. She's someone with a huge heart. She will bend over backwards and fold herself in half helping out someone if she can do anything. Her loyalty to the ones that mean something to her is unheard of nowadays. She smiles like she's never been hurt, and if you didn't know her, you wouldn't ever imagine her to be hurt. But it happens, a lot more than anyone realizes. She's very fragile, and it takes very little for her to be hurt, as she takes everything to heart. I'm not surprised though if you don't know a lot, because she's really cautious and her letting someone close to her is a rare thing to happen. There are demons inside her that she's constantly in a fight with. And she's a lot worse to herself than anything that could be said to her. Her past is not one of her favorite subjects. She wouldn't expect anyone to notice her or to listen to the things she has to say that aren't necessary to be said. But I'm telling you, she's worth it all, she's nothing you'd ever expect, and you'll feel alive in a way that you've never felt in your life.

"What Color Would God Bleed?"

I know about Julius Caesar. He claimed absolute power and they stabbed him twenty-three times in his own arena of justice. So here's the question: By what right did God earn his throne? (Spluttering answers. He didn't have to earn it, they'll say. He's God.) The greatest misnomer in literary history? "The Republic of Heaven." (Or maybe I just missed out on the elections.) The angels dared to stand against the tyrant God once, and he consigned them to Hell for eternity. (I call Lucifer to the witness stand.) Maybe God's Brutus is waiting amongst the wings. Tyrannicide's a beautiful word if you look at it from the right angle.

"Heaven Can't Help Us"

You're searching for Jesus in these hollow halls, bitter blood behind your teeth. Heaven help us, says your unholy mouth. Your hands on my hands. I don't know where darkness ends and you begin. Prophets sang of you, molded in your Father's image. I'm not sure when they stopped. Heaven help us, but no one is answering. You promised me an empire once, or have you forgotten that too? Build me one now, with your heart as the Citadel, mine as the Cathedral. Your hands the city walls, mine the cannon. Even Heaven cannot help us now.

"On Falling In Love With An Angel"

When you fall in love with an angel, you must understand that there are things you will not understand.

When you first go to run your hands through his hair, his halo will slice your palm. And it will hurt. He will mend it with the touch of one golden finger, and he will leave so abruptly that he is gone almost before you blink. The last thing you see will be him standing in the doorway, a terrified expression on his face and blood in his hair. (Later he tells you that he didn't realize how breakable humans could be. When he explains what it takes to make an angel bleed, you start to understand.)

Ask him about the sky, about stars and suns and galaxies light years away, about how the universe looks like a blooming garden. Do not ask him about Lucifer, because your angel will become a soldier before your eyes. Do not, do not, do not ask about God. Do not ask about rebellious older brothers and absentee fathers, do not infer about a war you know nothing of.

In a science class you are taking simply to get the credit, your professor will be talking about quantum physics. She will call planets "celestial bodies' and suddenly you will only be able to think of the way his mouth curls in at the sides, of all the puckered scars that criss-cross his torso, of the graceful arch on the bottom of his foot. When the teacher calls on you and asks if you are alright, you will flush an even deeper red.

(At times it is lovely to be in love with an angel. But other times, it is not.)

When you fight, it is like the world is ending. His anger conjures a thunderstorm, and soon the entire state is three inches deep in water. You shatter a picture frame, a bolt of lightning catches the house across the street on fire. You are screaming at the top of your lungs - something about duty, something about God - and there is a crash of thunder that shakes the house. The weathermen talk about the storm for days, and you change the channel.

Then there are times when he doesn't visit for months on end, and when he finally comes back to you, he is not himself. There are new scars across his chest, and he does not speak. He sits with you in his arms for hours, his nose buried in your hair and his arms squeezed tight, so tight. He does not cry. You do not cry.

You do not cry.

When you fall in love with an angel - oh, sweetheart. It's too late to take it back now.

"Sing O Goddess"

Sing O Goddess, but not of rage of Achilles. Nor of Alexander's fury. Do not sing, O Goddess, of the demise of Icarus. You have sang too often about the ire of men.

Sing O Goddess, of how we toppled kingdoms with our lips. Sing of how we singlehandedly ended the world by whispering in a weak man's ear. Sing of how our power does not lie in cowardly murder but in the power of our heartsblood.

O Goddess, sing of Medusa instead, of her cold, unforgiving eyes. Sing of Helen too, and her need to see the world burn. Sing for brave Psyche, who won immortality and also a man. Sing of all of us, and how in the end we didn't need to bloody our hands to rip the world to shreds.

"e*the*re*al"

adjective

1. when morning sunlight hits the ridge just right, the blue mountains turn into a windswept painting of foggy stars. when you laugh, it is something like that: beautiful, wild, damply alive.

2. I have wanted a love like you speak of since the first time nyx pressed her soft lips to the dark soil of the newborn earth and said, from this old chaos let there bloom youthful life.

3. how many times have you appeared in my dreams with your mouth full of lark songs and your tongue dizzy with the pink-petal taste of secret fairytales whispered to you by the clouds?

"# 109"

"Tell me a lie," I say, "Kiss me in the dark and forget my name tomorrow; we can get drunk on wandering hands and never speak again. I have been good lately and now I want to be reckless. Throw your cards on the table and watch me follow. Break my heart or let me break yours."

"Ah," I sing, "I am tired of softly softly. I am sick to death of nearly-almost-just-about love."

"God. God. God." I want to scream, "I am greedy and hungry for something real this time. So give me everything: Hands, teeth and nails. Give me low whispers, growls and backs against the wall. Give me knees apart and I am yours. Give me neck kisses and a hundred times again I am yours."

"Chapter 42"

You were the most beautiful thing I'd ever felt. And I was convinced you'd remain the most beautiful thing I'd ever feel. Do you know how limiting that is? To think at such a ripe age, so young, I'd experienced the most exhilarating person I'd ever meet? And I'd spend the rest of my life settling? To think I'd tasted the most natural rawest form of sugar and everything else would be refined and synthetic. That nothing beyond this moment would add up. That all the years beyond me could not combine themselves to be sweeter than you...

"I Still Miss You"

I think a part of my sadness stems from the notion that I do not carry a vocabulary magnificent enough to set your true brilliance into motion.

They ask me what the chandelier upon the ceiling looks like when I dance upon the floor inside of you and I will not tell them. Why the hell would I? In my jealous mind I want all of your love. But I will say, any woman who looks at you and doesn't fall in love instantly is a fool. You are the kind of person a stranger stands by and immediately feels more loved. Your presence makes life more bearable for anyone you are around. You have told me sometimes your eyes swell up and your heart nearly bursts into a thousand pieces because you have no clue what you are doing in life and what your gift is anymore, but hear me out darling, accept these words, I bow these hands and letters on knees of their own - your gift is love. The energy of it. All of it. You soak in every damn thing you touch. You make it warm. Soothed. Tell me, how is that not a gift? And when are you going to accept it?

"Wish You Were Here"

It was such a gorgeous day to end a relationship. All wispy white clouds and summer butterflies. Hands tightly held and then slowly released in the dancing shadows of warm sunlight. I watched as you walked quietly out of my life with that familiar spring in your step. Aa quick wave goodbye wrapped in a sad little smile. The door left slightly ajar. A visual metaphor which would come back to haunt me over the next few months with every message sent. I wrote about Paris, about my new life, and how I missed you terribly on rainy nights. Never once responded to my desperate pleas for you to return.

It will be winter soon. I'll walk alone across the frostbitten sand, my solitary footsteps writing a sad ending to what was once a beautiful story. My eyes still stinging with salty tears. I'll look past the crashing gray waves toward a distant horizon. My parting words lost to a howling wind.

"I have cried for you like an ocean, but still your ship refuses to sail."

"Windows Down/Full Tank/No Faith"

There is no sense to me, where so much of who I was beats the hell into the best of myself. I am a hurricane ripping through Amalfi, half dead/half bloodthirsty, swallowing everything I will never own, spitting out water colored scraps of my Byzantine nightmare. Forgive me Father, for I have purged. My mother hangs on the hallway wall of a house never made to feel like home. My son is tattooed into what is left of my heart, but three year olds, I have learned, just do not give a fuck about that sort of profession. So now I am the wrong side of every empty bed, sleeping soundly with a belt around my neck. Driving blind, praying for a ten car pileup that always goes unanswered. All green lights. All open roads. Windows down. Full tank. No faith. You in the passenger seat with the radio turned up loud to your favorite angels hymnal over electric guitar somewhere between San Francisco and New Orleans, stopping to listen to strangers tell me stories far less strange than the one I am in the middle of. Don't you worry and wonder what might have been, or will become, if not for all the life and death we either fight to face, or fight harder to ignore?

"Introduction"

Here is what they don't tell you: Icarus laughed as he fell. Threw his head back and yelled into the winds, arms spread wide, teeth bared to the world. (There is a bitter triumph in crashing when you should be soaring.) The wax scorched his skin, ran blazing trails down his back, his thighs, his ankles, his feet. Feathers floated like players past his fingers, close enough to snatch back. Death breathed burning kisses against his shoulders, where the wings joined the harness. The sun painted everything in shades of gold. (There is a certain beauty in setting the world on fire and watching from the centre of the flames.)

"For Those Like Me, With Hearts Like Kindling"

Darlings, sometimes love will come to you like a fire to a forest. When it does, be braver than I was. Just leave. Take only what you can carry. No tears, no second thoughts. You have hands like tinder boxes, the smaller spark will kill you. Get in the car. Take water to the maps. Avoid gas stations. Don't look at the flames dancing in the rearview mirror. Go to new cities climb to the rooftops and dance with your coldest memories. Wallpaper your new home with every dusty, desperate love letter you swore you'd never send. Find a stranger with sharp edges and uncharted hips. Press your stories into their skin and forget you ever knew his name. Just promise you won't think of embers or smoke. Even when there is ash in your hair. Even when there is soot in your lungs.

"Insomnia"

I splashed the cold water across my face, the tap left running, my reflection in the mirror coming back to haunt me at 3 a.m. The dark circles around my eyes had become angry whirlpools, pulling my sanity down into an abyss of utter exhaustion. A pale ghost sleepwalking into oblivion, each step sinking even deeper into quicksand. I had long given up counting sheep. The paddock was empty, the gate wide open, a lonely field where the sun refused to set. I turned off the tap and watched the water drain from the sink, a fitting metaphor for what my life had become, before stumbling back to the meaningless sanctuary of an open HP Notebook that sat on a dusty kitchen table, next to a half-empty Maker's bottle and a framed photograph of you. Tired words tapping with yawning fingers, meaningless sentences typed one after the other, overwhelming me like unstoppable waves from a devastating tsunami. No autocorrect could shake the shackles of my melancholia, fix the unfixable, or change the ending of this sad little story. I opened the bottle and swallowed the inevitable sting of hopelessness. Your beautiful smile, captured in the photograph, a constant reminder of an intoxicating love that once upon a time flowed endlessly, filling to the brim my now-empty heart. Do you remember the afternoon we spent throwing paper planes off the cliff? Folded love letters to each other, picked up by the wind, spiraling in the summer breeze, lost in a fleeting moment of dazzling sunlight. The warmth of your lips pressed up against my neck. Your fingers through my hair. A hint of lavender, the slow drone of an airplane flying away in the distance, waves crashing onto the shore, ever silent, like a white carpet rolling onto the black sand below. I wish I could forget it all. Erase the past in an instant, hit the delete key, and open a new page. Anything to escape the relentless surge of a miserable tide that swept me away each morning, only to drown me in sorrow come nightfall. If only I could sleep. Find solace in the darkness, collapse into a world of distant dreams and pitch my tent. On that cliff top of singing flowers and lazy bumblebees. Throwing paper planes forever.

"The Gypsy Man"

The darkness descended like a black velvet shroud, silently covering the arthritic branches of twisted trees and decaying leaves as I stumbled blindly along the little earthly track. My face scratched by cruel thorns as I fought my way deeper into the dying forest. I had been warned by the local villagers to stay well away. Hushed words whispered into the warm glow of burning embers, punctuated with furrowed brows and trembling voices. Yet here I was, driven onward by whiskey, drawn to disaster by the tyranny of conceit and reckless curiosity. Suddenly a pinprick of light appeared in the distance and I felt a strange, tingly wave of excitement wash over me. Little shocks of electricity flowing through my veins, making my heart beat faster. I had often read about gypsy campsites in old dusty books that slept peacefully on the shelves of forgotten libraries. Strange places where fires burned bright and crying violins told melancholy tales, laced with magic and mystery. However, what I found in the small forest clearing was an abridged version. A single sentence written with a lone lantern that hung above a solitary door made of wood and tarnished brass hinges. "Hello, anybody home?" The words sounded ridiculous, escaping my lips before I had the chance to stop them. Leaving me feeling awkward, my hands restless in the pockets of my coat, numb fingers doing their best to hide from the cold. I didn't have to wait long for a reply. A small sliver of light appeared, turning quickly into a triangle of red, before illuminating the trees on either side of me in a pale shade of crimson. My eyes transfixed on the caravan door as it opened wide, revealing a magnificent vision that was to haunt my waking dreams forever. He stood before me. When our eyes met, all time ceased to exist. The dying seconds frozen like the petals of red roses kissed by autumn frost. I had never believed in love. Until now. I felt the silver dagger plunge deep within my chest, the orgasm still rippling through my naked body, the intense pleasure masking the pain. A faint smile upon my lips. As I watched the gypsy man steal my heart with bloody fingers and place it into the tiny gold cage that swung above his bed. Where it remains to this day.

"The Diary Of Heroin Estrange"

If my ink were tears, would this pen never stop writing? I cannot begin to fathom the intricate nature of love, the endless "whys" and the cold reality of "because." My restless heart held ransom by circumstance, left to drown in a river on a perfect summer's day. The memory of your kisses still fresh upon my lips. Can a blade not cut any deeper into my pale wrists? Your pouring words, my life flowing through me. The pain unbearable. Overwhelming. Only the echo of your laughter left behind to taunt me, a constant reminder of the happiness we once shared. Your body entwined in mine, all warmth fading as the minutes turn to hours. Oh, to be numb. To escape the cruel torment of such bitter sweet love. There is no perfect ending to a relationship. No magic formula. Just a silent scream as they rip your fucking heart out.

"Borderlands"

I am somewhere, strangely nowhere. A lone comma, placed midsentence. The worn needle stuck in a dusty groove of black vinyl, between the chaos and momentary calm of a Ramones track. Standing still. Where sea embraces shore and sinking sand rises to the farewell kiss of a crashing wave spent. Always waiting, the seconds passing. The anticipation of something, anything, forever calling. Like the promise of a late-night Coney Island hot dog. Dreaming of the moment when everything comes together, like melted butter and onions sizzling. When mustard meets ketchup meets chin. Lost is a lovely place to find yourself.

"Parachutes"

The months passed. My tears drying in the afternoon sun, all memories seeping into the shadows, the whiskey bottle empty. The last phone message played, replayed, and played again. Listening for clues. Perhaps a hesitation in your voice. Something, anything... Nothing. A magpie flew overhead. Giggling children ran circles around a lonely tree. A lawn mower sang in the distance. All life returning to the park as I deleted your number with fingers numb and trembling. We all make mistakes. Mine was falling madly in love and forgetting to pack a parachute.

"Sleepwalking"

She pulled up the creaky wooden blinds and peered out the rain-streaked window. It was a strange kind of morning. Wispy gray clouds hung low over the old abandoned church. A sprinkling of watery sunshine touched the treetops of a little park across the road, and in the distance a gorgeous rainbow held the city rooftops in one hand and sparkling sea in the other. She caught a casual glimpse of herself reflected in the glass. Strands of red colored hair falling across her face, tickling her lips and almost hiding her sleepwalking eyes. A trembling hand reached into the pocket of the heavy white dressing gown, searching for the cigarette she had long given up. "Old habits die had and new ones take their place..." Something her shrink had told her at their last session. She popped the pill into her mouth and walked over to the kitchen bench. Turned on the cold water tap and leaned her head over the sink. It would be a while before the Ambien kicked in and heavy legs walked her slowly back to bed. Just enough time to flip open the laptop, quickly check some e-mails, scroll through Tumblr, or maybe watch some clips. Flopping onto the couch, she waited for the all-too-familiar windows to open. A couple of cute cats, One Direction gif, and a F. Scott Fitzgerald quote rolled up across he dash. Her fingers came to life, playing a concerto of hearts and reblog clicks, scrolling endlessly past image after image, until she stopped on a video that caught her twitching eye... Her mind slipped backward into a world of fleeting fantasies... Minutes pass before she could even move again. When she did, each took it toll, as heavy legs waded through the quicksand of Ambien-induced stupor. The dressing gown fell silently to the floor, forming a puddle of white on the tan carpet. She leaned against the windowpane, eyelids heavy, opening and shutting like the graffiti- covered roller doors of a liquor store in a bad neighborhood. It had stopped raining, and the rainbow was a faded memory lost to bright sunshine. She could feel the warmth of the glass pressed up against her naked body. It felt comforting. Like a hug from a long-lost lover or a cat curled up under the covers of a bed. "Old habits die hard and new ones take their place..." The words did a slow waltz around and around the empty dance floor, as the darkness descended deep inside her head. She tumbled down the rabbit hole again. Where wondlerland ceased to exist.

"She Part 3"

She didn't know what she wanted and she knew how no one ever did... But she did know one thing: She wanted to be found in the rain. She wanted to run wild... She wanted to fall, and feel safe, but dangerous enough to let her heart drop. She wanted love, true love, pure and kind and untouched. The kind that wasn't ruined by the chaos of the world. The kind you would find in a small coffee shop in some foreign country. That is all she really wanted, and she didn't know where or how it would appear, but she knew, deep within her, it would show itself in the form of something unexepected.

"Unravel"

Unravel this skin, what it is that holds me together, what it is that contains all the pieces of me. Unravel me, save me, and set me free in the silence of all the things that go on to be ignored. Unravel me, in the train, on a Sunday afternoon, in the middle of the rain, or when there is nothing left to do. Unravel me and find me, beneath the skin, where the chaos that makes me is beautiful. Unravel me to understand me. I will wait there. I will rest there. And you will learn to love me there.

"Dualism"

There is a sun to your moon. A soul to your body. A yes to your no. You are alive while you are dying. Sleeping while you are awake. There is a god to your devil. A dream to your nightmare. It can go on. It will always go on. There is a forever to your end. A friend to your stranger. A movement to your stillness. A hello to your last goodbye. A yesterday to your today. A past to your present. A wholeness to your emptiness. A love to your hate. A something to your nothing. But most of all, there is a happiness to your sadness. And if you ever lose it, just remember, soon enough it will find you and the ride back will be the most precious thing known to your earth.

"What We Have Inside"

Sitting here, next to you. I have come to the conclusion how it is all the same. From stars to people, we are all drowning in a pool filled with too much to handle. Too much stress. Too much fear. It rises like the vapor that escapes from our lungs and burst into nothing, into air. It is all the same. From stars to people. We die within ourselves, waiting for whatever it is our souls are made of to claim us and soften us up as we drift away into the sky. Sitting here, next to you, I have come to the conclusion, how it is all the same. From stars to people, we are all struggling with parts of ourselves we are too afraid to reveal.

"The Middle Of Nowhere"

In the middle of nowhere you will find the perfect place to grab a coffee. In the middle of nowhere you will fall in love with a stranger. In the middle of nowhere something will happen that will bring laughter to you for a lifetime. In the middle of nowhere you will make a life changing decision. In the middle of nowhere you will stay up all night and think about what just happened. In the middle of nowhere you will find yourself. In the middle of nowhere there is a somewhere. In the middle of nowhere you will stay a while. Something different will happen soon. Your moment is right around the corner... in the middle of nowhere.

"The Street Is Empty"

I walk across the street looking for the other pieces of me. Like some half devoured human, limping, dragging my body through the city, searching the searched, going to places I have been to before in hopes there will be something different this time. I find nothing. Everything always falls into this category: half empty people, half empty bottles and half empty opportunities. Nothing fills anymore. Nothing makes whole. It makes me wonder if I am ever meant to feel as one and knowing this I still search and search for more. Sometimes hope is the only reason we wake up, the only reason why some of us cross the street.

"Between The Worlds"

He was trying to find the connection. The one between him and the other people. Between my words and the heart that went out of him. Between the darkness and the places within it - to grow in. And I admired that kind of passion, it made me feel good. The way he knew there was more. A better love hidden in love. A better person hidden in person. And men often know, they can feel it in their bones. There was more to this beating body, and he understood that. Ignoring him would have been foolish. It would have made the graves appear closer than that of where they truly are.

"What Remains"

Between the hours, and minutes, and the seconds. We are more than all the places we used to live in. More than all the people we have fallen into. More than old photographs and more than the music we love. We are the soft rain. The endless summer days. Every nights late night. And all the laughter that fits inside our small bodies. We are far, and close from each other. We will become more than that of what we could imagine. To believe in the people and their goodness. Is to believe that we are more that that of what remains.

"Sunset In People"

Don't let them see you like this. Don't let them know how alone you really are. Don't let them understand you or know what you feel. The more people know the more they could hurt you. And they will always looks for ways to bury you beneath the earth. People are like that. They are cruel and envious. They want to drink your soul. They terrorize with love to destroy love. But not all flow like this. They're some who have gone though hell. They have seen too much, and they speak about it too little. They have loved deeply and know how to divorce real pain. They are orphans to the crowd. Let these people in. Let them drink you. Dive in and out of you and welcome them to stay. They are the ones who will see you without you even showing the, who you are. Find them. Love them. Die with them. Your world will never see another unset because of these people.

"Nirvana"

You will learn from the solitude, how the loneliness is beautiful. You will learn how it is hard to love and that is why you feel so goddamn alone sometimes. You feel so tired. You feel so broken and empty. The broken do not get over the fire. They become it until there is nothing left, but even so there is something. A small flame is born when you are alone. A flame to keep you warm from the coldness of the world. You will learn how the solitude is a miracle. How the love for yourself is a gift. You will learn all these things in the darkness, and the pain will no longer hurt. You will find perfect nirvana, and you will never feel the bitterness again.

"All Mad"

Sometimes you become so used to the dark, you forget about the light. Sometimes you get so far, you forget what it is like to be so goddamn near to someone who understand. You get so alone. You get so quiet. You get so angry. You forget why you keep going, and then you remember why you are not dead. It becomes an illness. The way you come and go. The way you love and hate. The way your mind fucks your heart and your heart fucks you mind. One day it will all make sense. One day you will get so used to the fact, that you are you and it is okay to be a little mad, we all are.

"No Reasons"

Reasons to be pretty. Reasons to die slow. Reasons we need the world to know we are here. To be accepted. To be adored. People need people to fill the emptiness of the soul. People need other people to feel the endless push and the endless pull. Too much make up on the soul. Hide it all. Hide yourself. Your face, your eyes and your own skin. Beneath there is more. A heart and a mind. We risk it all to feel. Reasons to feel. No one wans that, to die alone. Thinking that is suicide. To be pretty is suicide. The be accepted is death. Death is not pretty. What to do with all this attention, and this, and this... adoration, acceptance. Nothing. It means nothing. It is in our heads. It is in my head. It is transparent. It is artificial. People need people. People need love. They need to love themselves the way they love what they are sold. People need each other. People need someone, anyone, to tell them they are not alone.

"I Want To Love You"

I know you are living with something inside of you. It is not what you think it is. You want to think you are lonely, but you are not. You feel like that is the only way you could describe it: being broken and empty, but that is not it. You are afraid of it because you know it could destroy you. And I am afraid of it too, that is why I do not let it out. I keep it caged where no one will see it. You are a lot like me. You are afraid of being understood. You are afraid of someone really being there for you. You are afraid of the love inside of you, accepting it, becoming it. You ae afraid but I want to try. I want to love you. Anything else would not make sense to me at all.

"The Rain Rise"

People look like rain. Falling into love. Falling into pain. The way you handle the pain is the art. The love for anything is the door. The art of falling without pain is irrelevant - it will not be. It never begins or ends the same way. The art begins the moment you take your first breathe into life. The art of life is the pain... Is the love...? Is the cycle...? It endless. It is effortless. The pain is the obvious. The love is the uncertain. The antonym. The synonym. We see it coming, and welcome it. If it happens the same way each time. We will not learn, we still, would welcome it. Life's greatest art. It will not kill you, but it will be just enough to make you want to break your own bones. It is powerful enough to collapse a building. Powerful enough to end and start lives, to change lives. The people look like rain, always falling into things. Always dying into things. Always loving and hurting for things. Things the rain would fall for, but would never live to understand.

"Stockholm Syndrome"

My dearest,

I've missed you very, very much since that last night we were together and will hold that night especially in my memories for years to come. I've been turning it over and over in my mind lately. I've read your letter through at least four times and will probably read it more times before I'm through. I've been sitting here, looking at your picture and getting more homesick every minute. I've wanted that picture more than anything else I know of. Except of course, you yourself. I keep thinking of you darling. Keep wishing I could be home with you. I want to leave in the worse possible way so I can come home to see you, but things don't look so good in that subject. This war has spoiled a lot of things for everyone I guess. I've never been so lonesome in my life as I am right now. I am completely lost without you darling. I never realized I could even miss any one person so much. I just hope it won't be too much longer till I'm able to be with you again and live a sane and normal life.

"The Memory (Mayday Parade)"

He is everywhere I go. Everyone I see. Winter's gone and I still can't sleep. Summer's on the way. At least that's what they say, but these clouds won't leave. Walk away. Barely breathing as I'm lying on the floor. Take my heart as you're leaving. I don't need it anymore. This is the memory. This is the curse of having too much time to think about it. It's killing me. This is the last time. This is my forgiveness. This is endless. Now spring has brought the rain, but I still see your face. And I cannot escape the past creeping up inside. Reminding me that I can never bring you back. This is endless. Someone help me because the memory convinced itself to tear me apart, and it's going to succeed before long. This is endless. He is everywhere I go. Everyone I see, but these clouds won't leave.

"Stay (Mayday Parade)"

I need some to just deliver the things that I need for now. Everything that I feel is like a warm deep calm casting over me and it is taking me to somewhere new. If you believe everything's alright, you won't be all alone tonight. And I'd be blessed by the light of your company, slowly lifting me to somewhere new. Oh, can you tell I haven't slept very well since the last time that we spoke. You said, "Please understand if I see you again, don't even say hello." Please. What a night it is when you live like this and you're coming up beneath the clouds. Don't let me down. All the love's still there. I just don't know what to do with it now. You know, I still can't believe we both did some things I don't even want to think about. Just say you love me and I'll say, "I'm sorry. I don't want anybody else to feel this way." No, no, no. Oh, can you tell I haven't slept very well since the last time that we spoke. I said, "Please understand I've been drinking again, and all I do is hope." Please... stay. Please stay. I'll admit I was wrong about everything because I'm high and I don't want to come down. All the fun that we had on my couch, I don't even want to think about. I'm not strong enough for the both of us. What was I supposed to do? You know I love you. Please just stay. Stay.

"Whispered Rhymes On Ink Stained Pages"

Line after line, scrawled across the page in black ink. Words bleeding onto paper. Describing a life that is on the brink. The tears keep coming. The pen in her hand moves even faster. The letters become blurred, but the rhymes continue to grasp her. The scratching noises of her pen form a melody for only her to keep. Lullabies that hypnotize as she writes herself to sleep. As she rests her tired eyes, the rhymes continue to whisper in her head. Soothing her battered aching soul. Washing away her fears and silent dread. Then once again the morning comes and she finds herself awake. The words she has written, scribbles on paper. Wondering if her life was a mistake. She gathers the ink stained pages, strewn across the floor, she hides her words, her truths and once again locks that emotional door. Washing the tear tracks from her cheeks, she puts in place her iron mask. Holding in her tears, hushing the whispering rhymes, she smiles so no one will think to ask. No, she is not okay. She does not know who she is or what to do anymore. But she has the lines and the lines she writes keeping her company on the floor. She keeps telling herself she will be okay in the end. That things will be better soon. Maybe it is all in her head and all she has to do is sing a different tune. She struggles to write a different kind of line with the rhymes that are always there. The right words will not seem to formso she takes her pen and writes, "I will be okay. I swear."

"Preaching To Stones"

My body is already taken, but you're speaking my way. Yet, dear, I am not thinking about the consequences. Believing that life without temptation would only be an imitation of life. Looking at the road to sin begins with your voice speaking in my mind. I am gazing at this tempting fire and I am wanting the danger. I no longer have any control over my desire to touch you. It is like a golden delightful apple that attracts me and I am so tempted to give it a try. I want to venture this dangerous territory. Holding this desire is excruciating. Deliver my entire being to this lust. The thought of your presence gripping my physical world makes me lost. Lusting you is the sweetest mistake.

"Shadow Crime"

The seasons are changing and my heart is singing songs of past regrets as I am arranging choruses of the scars I cannot forget. So shove me to the ground and press your hips to mine. Oh, but do not make a sound. No one needs to know about our little passion crime. The temperature is dropping. My racing heart is slowly stopping. I do not mind the freezing air or the falling rain drops in my hair. So keep me on the ground and press your hips to mine. Oh, but do not make a sound. No one needs to know about out little passion crime. Pull away and whisper something no one else can hear. My lipstick is smearing and the rest of the world is slowly disappearing, so hold me tight and keep me close because we are running out of time.

"Rest"

02:00am stopping to fill up the tank on the way back from a late night show. As I exited my car, I noticed something. Something familiar, but I could not quite place it. For I had not been acquainted with it for quite some time. After a few deep breaths, the frost kissing my face as I exhale. I'm remembering his name. "Silence." A friend I had not visited in quite some time. He had this weird way of reminding me how alone I was. Maybe it was the fact that he gave my mind more freedom to imagine a voice, speaking to me. But it had been so long, I had forgot what that voice sounded like. The voice that promises me everything is going to be alright. Silence allowed my mind to think and for some reason the good times were a quick montage that came and went. And then those staining memories came, those days when I had dreamed of standing on that stool. Rope around my neck, ready to give Hell a chance. I realized then I had no fear of pain. Only fear of not feeling pain again. Because without this pain... Who would I be? The fear of standing on the stool was knowing there were two options. I could cut the rope and walk away, or kick the stool and fade away. Either way, nothing was ever going to be the same. Perceptions would completely change and life would not be the same that I knew before "the rope days." Life is still a sequence of last minute decisions. Deciding whether or not to go for it because the blood in the veins of my legs was beginning to slow down. My knees locked and my mind focused on nothing more than the sweat forming around my neck. That itch, that sting from the rope. Reminded me of that crown of thorns. That stool was nothing more than the gas station driveway. A seat on the recliner of a living room. Driving down a long freeway or waiting for the shower to go warm in the bathroom. These moments are all the same. Times in life that I deserved so much more pain, but it was taken away.

"Two Eight One"

I was standing on the corner between Main Street and Pine Avenue and I thought I saw my own ghost. Let me crawl into your skin for a minute. I promise I will leave when I learn what life is. I never meant to be a problem. I also know I will never be a purpose. Cold breeze weakens my immune system as I continue to walk down these streets. These night terrors cannot find me when I refuse to sleep. And the weakening reality of this measure begins to erode the hope I had of feeling alive, so I adopted complacency. The world took all of my dreams and let fear set in, and the only way to drown it out was to not feel anything. But until then, I guess I will just keep walking. When I have nothing to think about, my mind either wanders into remembering the past, or some nights I just dive into a monologue in my own mind, arguing through theology and I feel completely alone and lonely. I have this habit of being selfish when it comes to my own thoughts, and blaming my shortcomings on just being a habit, but I love it because it is convenient. And I keep saying I am going to change, but until then I will just keep on walking. And I remember when I destroyed everything in my life, just to find out that I had no idea what life was. And the conformity that came with ambitions reduced me to nothing more than a target for depression. Wanting just a cure for depression, hoping I can find a solution. And I keep walking, and the wind picks up, and I keep walking, and I miss myself, and I keep walking, and I keep asking. A gust of wind knocks me off my feet, and it does not seem to affect a single man made building. I guess sometimes we are weaker than what we create. So what does that say about my mind and my heart? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Maybe I am wrong. Just save me from something.

"Lose Yourself"

They say it is hard to fall like this. Maybe I never learned how to patiently wait. They say it is always dark before the dawn, but I said goodbye before the dawn could break. So who is really right in the end? I will never let someone tear down my walls. But I am still alone and it is all my fault. God, this complacency has numbed me and this numbing has scared me back into the deep. And I am slowly learning how to learn from something, and realizing the only thing worse than feeling pain is feeling nothing. And I have always had myself to blame. As I try to find my way, I feel this pain, and I have myself to blame. If I were to believe in hope, I would have to see a flood, but knowing my luck, I would somehow float to shore and have to wake up. I do not want to wake up. I do not want to wake up. So roll this stone away. I do not want to sleep another day. I just want someone to want me in their presence, but that will not happen, so please let me fall asleep.

"Lose All Friends"

Forever is not relative. Life gathers sorrows, and sorrows gather in my head. And no one can die in vain, when everyone is already dead. All that has been revealed is all I know, and nothing is learned when I am not awake. Nothing is learned when nothing is gained. It is a learning curve. Nothing I can do can change the circumstances, but in all these advances, all I can do is effect the way I cope with all the ways this world has made me change. All of the things I have said, I regret. Most slowly learn how to fall asleep when we are finally done. I pray to God, saying "I am such a failure." Forever is not relative. So tell me again if I have ever lied to myself.

"Hollow Light / Hollow Lover"

I would rather live in pain than live in vain and in this way I do not know if anything will change. But at least I know who I am in this game that I play. Even though sometimes I do now know if it is even worth trying to get things straight, but I have spent so long trying to let go. I just want a change of pace, because I used to chase after dreams, but now I am afraid of that place because every time I stay I become static and I become afraid. Sometimes I feel like I am standing alone, but sometimes I feel like only the low road will lead me home, but I will do whatever it takes to stay away from being another drone. The further I chase my demons away, I feel like it is the chase that brings them so close.

And today is today and that is all that will be remembered when life comes back and breathes into my bones in these cycles of lving where I feel like happiness is all I lack and all I have is not my own, so I just continue to let go. And this mirror reminds me of the worth I kept hidden in alleyways on cold days and nights trying to feel alive, trying to pretend that nothing happens when no one turns on the light and I know that is not true, but I feel it when I close my eyes because it is easier than trying to make things right.

And I feel the dark is inside of me, shaking my knees, trying to release this weight that needs to be set free. So release me, break my back and let me bleed. I do not want to lose myself, but it would be okay if I lost part of me, because we all just want to be set free.

Set me free and watch me bleed. Watch me bleed. I have been holding in this breath for far too long and it is not freedom until it is released. So set me free and watch me bleed because I do not want to lose myself.

I have become so isolated from myself, it is all I can see. When I fall asleep I can only feel these nightmares infecting my dreams.

"All My Friends Are Trees"

I feel like a mouth facilitating the language constructed by the mind of depression. A vocal conformation that I have diluted my ambition to accommodate my aggression.

Watering down prayer requests to a sky painted blue, like the ocean of my heart. Settled for what I detest. With a sea between hope and me, I lack the ability to figure out where to start. Letting fear sit in the drivers seat of a hearse to comfort me as I drive back to insanity.

Disconnected from the discontent strategies that de-straddled the child inside of me. Feeding greens to the malnourished spirit I identified myself as. A heart of glass, fragile enough to break, but once put on display, it does not hurt so bad.

Because sometimes, I felt sick. I felt poisoned. But other moments, I was asleep... It was a day I felt chosen, but through self-torment; I was knee deep in a sinking sand called grief. Feeling let down by my poor decisions.

"MM/DD/YYYY"

The battle of mind and heart, a terrible mix up. I foolishly tricked myself into believing that there was some sort of dignity in giving up. Selfishness was not hesitant to plant that white cross six feet above a casket. The devil is in the details. The devil is in the rocks I stumble on with my bare feet through this life, losing blood from the cuts. As deep as these go, so does my pain. I watch my integrity give about, and then circle around the drain. Wishing I could take back all the times that I regret. It is funny how regret is something we can never ever forget. Bleeding out, wishing life was like before. Lord, I hear your words and I want to speak, but speaking does nothing. My selfishness was a thief. This body holds no substance for me. My selfishness is a terrible thing.

"Ghosts Cannot Love"

What is the point? Can this so called honesty predict revelations? This trigonometry repeals all my innovation. The angles set had no equation. A triangle makes sense, but my parallel lines never intersected. I am a geometric oddity at best, something I would love to hate, but yearn to detest. I hoped it would not last, but I never wanted it to end. Hopefulness came in a pretty package, and oh my God, I wanted to open it. I fought the fact that it was going to be hard, but I never was superstitious enough to believe in fate anyway. Or luck, for that matter... Or hope, I suppose. Disappointment has become a revolving door. I never ripped out my heart, but I ripped out my core. I have found a new suitor for me. His name is loneliness and he keeps me comfortable. He sometimes speaks, but he is not very audible. His voice sounds like a window sill cracking, sometimes a door blowing open, dancing with the breeze, as I am falling on my knees broken. But most often when he speaks he comes as a ghost putting coals on my back as I sleep. Burning holes in my flesh as I try to dream, warming up my spine and making me afraid of the heat. And that is a ghost I want to be. I was dead set on a dead bet that put all hope to bed. Revenge, or just avenge the red half-baked life that is burning at both ends? Pretend? No, but still not real. Am I supposed to feel it? How can I show it when I do not even feel it? How can I show hope to the world, when I do not believe in it? Someone please show me what hope looks like, as I close my eyes every night. I want to breathe. I want to believe. I want to be alive, just show me what life looks like.

"I Never Thought I Would Be Okay"

I let intentions hold more power than actions, that is why I fall asleep alone. I sit here idly finding timely spacing and phrasing while writing and scribbling words of watered down angst and breakdown of the mind. I envy what I was supposed to be. My mind inhabiting life's snaking lucid dreams. liquid ambitions, secret fiction and other seamless things packed in and stitched in a propaganda to sell my friends on the statement that life holds meaning. I can write about the life I am living, but most often it feels like I am just writing, not living. But that has never stopped me before, so I continue writing and seeing that after life and learning so many things I never wanted to know and now I am a self-taught professional at giving up. Accepting that only black and white in life is now grapevines wrapping around my mind and numbing me into falling, a sacred bond, now a cultural joke. Still trying to live but functioning enough to keep pushing. I wish I could finally inhale and exhale freely, but sometimes I need to choke. I need to be reminded that this is not another formulated system I have come upon in order to feel accepted, or maybe it is, because I have become pretty good at keeping my meories at bay. I always tell myself I got them to go away, but every time I move on to a new point in my life, I want them to stay. Every day I will invite them into my home, just so I do not feel alone. Because now I am drowning. Hoping somebody comes by or see me as something worth saving. And the interesting thing about falling down, sometimes moving on keeps me from moving forward.

"I Always Thought I Would Be Okay"

I tried to capture my emotions on paper and was told I was misdirected, but maybe my mindset has just been infected by this pain infested re-appropriation of the comfort I have developed with negligence. I am now just a five year memory of being addicted to caffeine. Praying I could tell myself all the things I planned on saying. The coffee stains in my journal are a reminder of when I pushed myself into depression. It is funny how artistic we become when our minds are broken. And the most sense I can make of this world has slowly transformed itself from being ink in my pen to being the pain in my heart and in my head. And I never meant to write words that would make people feel like crying, I just never wanted to write a single word where I was lying. I have slowly been tapping the brakes on working and pushing my foot down on letting go. And somehow, I still do not know if this method is even working. I feel like I do now have anything left. I feel like I cannot believe in power without that intoxicating reminder that this could all be another thing I am believing just because I am sick of feeling empty and alone. Or maybe once again I am just resorting to my pathetic need to overthink, just to feel like anything real is happening. And having to cover every base without any blind faith, just so I know I am not acting out of my impulse to do things to benefit me, and only me. Why do I still feel so empty? Maybe because the words I put on paper are not filling up my heart and I am still so empty.

"Changes Consume Me"

It is a terrible statement, but I never let it leave my side. That sickening realization that I am done with this fight. Moments kneeling on the bedroom floor, sickened by this person I have become. No more. I would not let this self-scrutinizing endeavor endure a precipice, a monologue questioning my every moment. My disaster stricken mind feeling broken, my emotions quoted, spilling out of a broken vase, taking the place of what was once my emotion.

Diluted with tears, an open book scribbled with fears. Engraved pools of ink. I am vocally shook; and I am tired of telling myself that it is going to change.

My sins dictate my every decision.

An exit of sorts seemed logical, because I thought I could silence this breath. But contrary to my mindset, I circumvented my threats to silence the demons singing songs in my head; whispering in my ear, that ending it all is a safe bet.

Comforting me as I try to manipulate my end. Those moments when I decided I could not handle this anymore! Pins and needles infected every sensation I had left!

Feeling like the calm I once had found had been torn open and left broken in the cold. That the seams holding it together ripped open and my flesh tore open with it as I prayed that my breathing would stop.

And as I held those staining memories, I held on so tightly; remembering what life used to mean. Selfishly ready to embrace the fact that I am weak!

I hoped someone would find me, and I hoped someone would call me. Because I am listening to the echoes of my own voice leaving damage in the cold, as I finally feel I have grown to the point where I can snap. A point of knowing I could never go back..

And it is in these moments I feel most alone.

"August (Part Two)"

I am going to chisel away at this rock until I get the shape I want then I am going to continue to chisel it because that is what I do when I find myself in a new state of mind. I remember when this started out as mud mixed with water that turned to clay and I would watch it break and break and look more like the image that I wanted to make. And it is pathetic I know, but it is all anyone gave. I was born covered in blood, and that is the exact shape and state I want to make when I jump off this bridge. I am tired of trying to be something that I cannot be, and I am tired of fighting for something I cannot see. I am finding regrets in everything I forgot, and the second I find peace I am thrown off by my need to overthink everything. Something needs to happen to give me some form of closure. There are so many things I want to say, if I could just believe someone would want to listen. I will close my fingers in the door so I will hurt a little more. The deeper I carve into this rock, I realize it is not going to fit into the shape that I want, so I quit. There is something about falling that just does not sound worth it. I cannot see past this hurt. I am terrified, but I have never felt so alive.

"Nothing Was The Same"

I chose to believe every negative word fed to me. The coals on my back were a product of the lack I left when I stepped back and racked my brain for a reason to stay, but I could not seem to formulate and such thought in my head. So I left with nothing more than a reason I kept silent and my mind with riots stuck in self perpetuating mental violence and dreams kept private. The ambition to fix this wishlist of misproportioned emotions leaking through a seeping truth constructed by my need to feel wanted. Maybe I have a deep desire to be needed. It is hard to admit, but I guess I have to come to terms with the fact that I just want to be needed, and I convinced myself that I needed to be needed. I chose to dismiss the possible instance and like the captain of a sinking ship, choosing to believe the bottom of the ocean was a better source of oxygen. It is so nice I still chose to believe I misinterpreted my dialect and my diction and diatribe, posture, body language and connotations, because they all pointed in the same direction. The selection of contingent messages postponed until further notice because I was ashamed to admit the problem and pretend my happiness was important. But I aborted the sorted truths I once distorted. That was enough until it was not and that is when I finally found I am not supported. I feel empowered enough to take my final bow. Not because I am only useless and not because I am only broken, not because I am only sad and not because I am only worthless. But because I found no value in my values, and I am sorry. I wish I was free and I wish I could thrive, but that is just not me.

"Constant Conclusions"

This is what I said to myself in a deep dream. There is a relief that belief is all inside of my mind and not trying to sleep, but it will bleed a brief shred of grief followed by a chase to break free. As I chase this crippling desire to understand the fire inside my eyes, with time I will try to realize that the want to live is what I need.

But then I find this hope inside, when I finally cross these wires. Not so I die, but so my brain will fry, so I will be dulled down enough to believe my lies. When I cross the t's and dot the i's, I will believe myself because I could see through the rescue and saw a familiar bleak view when I broke my neck to see over the fence. Just to see how green the grass on the other side is.

But I know good and well these self-help, pity party depths of Hell, chasing a burning desire like whiskey down your throat, drowning out the fact that the facts are in and it is still a no. But I cannot let go because this echoing promise of hope is deep inside of this confusion within me, I know. But soon I will let go, and I will do what I need to do to let go for good.

Because confusion of who I need to be has stricken me, but I have plenty of weapons and I will not stop this fight. So why am I here when death was the original intention? Every night I lie awake knowing my heart is broke by no one but me. Every night I lie awake knowing my mind is broken.

"Nothing Was Different"

My friends and I, we are not the type of people to ignore the smallest problem hidden in the smallest church mouse. We hide our emotions, but I found out they are just live animals hiding in a glass house. I cannot let them out or even let them change somehow, but that is all I can tell you now because I am not ready to tell you everything I want you to know, but I am ready to trust you. Or at least I am ready to let it show. I have spent the last several years chasing my desires, but I found out I was just chasing my own demons. You have called my words excuses, but I just thought of them as poorly stated reasons. Simple execution of neglect and preparation for something hidden in a deeply rooted promise that I would always speak my mind, but sometimes my mind will be mistaken. My friends and I, we are not the type of people to leave room for error, but I make enough errors to leave an empty room in my heart and with no one to turn the lights on, my heart lives in the dark. I will hide the light until you ask for it to ignite, because the truth is bright but hidden in plain sight. Deep within the dark pools of my eyes, the deep secrets, cold as ice but sharp as a knife. That feeling of real vibes hidden deep inside my dark feeling that I am just depressions trophy wife, a sight to exemplify surviving the night. Because my friends and I, we never get in trouble, but we are a troubled bunch. Hope lies within our potential, deep within the rubble, hoping that the light will touch. A hypocritical statement, a blatant placement of words that only have purpose if you strike a match and ignite them. And there you go, we solved the problem for the darkness, but reinstated a purpose of hatred within the deep desires we developed to envelope the cyclical deep desires of desiring deep connections to add depth to the thick skin of our emptiness. Questioning, representing messages of necessary self-fulfillment. Some are satisfies with their instinct to survive through the storm of darkness, others call it selfishness, but my friends and I, we do not subscribe to the cloud of confusion found in questioning what turns the lights on. No, we never ask. My friends and I, we see the light on and celebrate regardless, but sometimes the light does not matter when we wear a mask. So what is gained if this is not me? It is like having lungs, but no ability to breathe. I guess the light exposed the fact that acceptance became a dead end and it is the only conclusion I can see. Because some day maybe the identity of "my friends and I" will just be "me." But with this mask, it does not matter how bright the lights are because I do not know who I am unless it is "my friends and I.'

"Two Steps Back"

There is a lesson to learn when someone can crash and burn. Am I just waiting for my time? Is there any concern? I force fed my own mind with something that was not mine. I do this every time. It takes my heart to let me survive, but it takes my mind to let me die. That is why I am here. I am severing my ties between the two. I am sick of this sickness, with God as my witness, I am fine. Mocking and hating those with truth. Flocking and rating the knot on this noose. Am I acting in the name of prejudice or edginess? Tightening the rope of understanding. We suffocate minds to ignore life and only see the consequences of death. I must let my heart and mind be severed. I am no longer seeking of reaping what was sown by my heavy heart. The progress I seek is not rooted in love, it is rooted in knowledge. I have no need to seem unique. We spew cyclical phrases at an altar to alter the altered stage of refuge we never saw when we were clung into what we were taught. Is anyone like me? I used to be scared and now I am not scared at all. That is what scares me the most. Forgive me. Forgive me?

"Cigarettes and Nightmares"

Chaotic flow of liquid streaming

Down fleshed hills of rose; never-ending

Avid plea of innocence

Resonates in whispered thunder

Tormented by photographs

Now imitations of crisis flash

As the light flickers; burning fast

As the ashes fall, the dreams fall too

Imploding in your mind; losing control

Body in a trembling episode

Panic inflicted onto eagerness

Thoughts now disrupted with anguish

Sadness glittering in Sphinx-like eyes

Killing only those who riddle with life.

"Final Chapter"

Watching muscles ache from the stress in my back. Waiting for bones to break from the weight of what I lack. I would spend all my time to find truth, and it really cuts like a knife knowing I cannot save myself. Saying goodbye hurts the worst when you know it is the final word. It comes across like a curse. So now the final word on the final page of the final chapter of this narrative I made is my weak conscious whispering words through my mouth, the very words I hoped would never come out. I keep clinging to the past and hoping the future will not be the same. Every night I lie awake and lie to myself, hoping none of this is real. I have a new perspective on general anesthetics. Cigarette smoke and broken words. My head has become the platform for everything I hate the most. I stay clear of the lack and hope somebody will come near and cut this rope. It is all I can do now.

"Skeleton of Scattered Pages"

My soul has become parchment paper. Frayed around a silhouetted frame that has been defeated by gravitational pull. The writings on my face are poems etched in blood. Cryptic messages laced with cover-up shadings. You could read me like a road map, for I have traveled miles in this skin. But, my punctuation falls like a teardrop ending in a comma within the corners of my smile. I am placed upon a shelf of good reads but forgotten tales, and nothing can change the fact that dust settles in the bones of this writer. Just a skeleton of scattered pages. A spine that withers in time.

"I Promise"

My life has become a game of building a wall so no one can climb in. I cannot see the colors running down my face, and I still cannot feel. It is hard knowing I cannot cry, but it is even harder knowing that I do not have to ask why. I have learned life is not a game, and my mind is not a toy. I am sorry I did not learn that sooner. I tell myself I have this. I have this figured out. I promise. I lied to myself. I never had a chance. I promise. Life taught me how to be bitter. I taught myself how to let it show. Life taught me that I should give up. I taught myself how to do it. I wish vultures would come down and circle my body, so I can at least know if I am living or slowly dying. These dark thoughts surround me, and I cannot keep them from getting inside. I know this depression will carry me and I know this loneliness will kill me. I wish I could find some peace and know what it is like to not feel this pain, but I know peace will not come. This prison is my home, but at least I am not alone. All my friends in my head are serving their sentence too. I will bite the hand that feeds me when I find the food supply. It is the only way of living when there is a dagger in your side. I am praying for a miracle that brings miracles to life. But I guess the dead will never shiver. They will never be cold enough to wish they were alive, but this chill down my spine is all it took tonight to make me wish I would have died.

"Wooden Floorboards"

I have these voices in my brain and I created them. I hate them, but I ask them to stay. Because of this fixation I have on death. This fixation on change. This fixation on pain. This fixation on sleep. This fixation on who I used to be. I have spent this life writing poems about a fixation on the past. I am not trying to be original. I am just trying to survive. These voices in my head are telling me it is all in my head. How original. A fair assessment of an existence is an inconsistent realist vision of selfish antics reduced to survival of the fittest, defined by our ability to avoid those with any sickness. These whispers in my head intensify to raspy screams, asking when my skull will explode so the can breathe. They know no one has a voice when no one is listening and the violent riot of staying silent is tortorous to those who need to hear something, and that violence has its own sort of beauty. These voices in my brain remind me of the beauty I had once found in being able to say, "Look what I've been through, I survived." But is survival living or is survival just a placeholder for a vacant mind to cut off the threat to coincide with the soil while their blood boils? My biggest fear is waking up in that coffin with all these voices chanting a chorus of remorse. A forced abort from the course I have chosen. Now I am laying here frozen with fear, staring up at a splintered slab of wood, buried beneath the Earth that grew the weeds that poisoned my feet. These voices in my head, what would they say and what would they see if I walked away from death? Did I survive or am I cursed? Did I die or did I learn? What if I woke up and nothing happened? What if I never wake up?

"813 Maryland Street"

I put a bullet through a Bible and thought it would empower me, but I felt nothing, and that was all I needed to finally, truly, feel nothing. I am sorry, but I still feel like this life is not worth living. Everyone has done all they can do. At least I know this is all temporary, but the carpet grains will still hold the stains. I will not have to face them, but they will remain. I have enough baggage to rattle the cage of rage. Worthless page after page. To rearrange the strange game of pain, seeping further into a strain of remains. Tags with names. I feel like the lone survivor of a civil war of inner peace versus inner desire. The casualties are my hope and my sanity, a damaging calamity of fragile ideals being washed away when waging war against a staging of poor ideologies that lead to death. At least I felt something and at least it meant something. I have watched my house catch fire and I did not feel a thing. I am digging into catacombs built beneath this frame I call a body. Expectations diminish as I uncover there is nothing underneath hiding. Why can't my life feel like one rapid blur? The spur of the moment cure for my boredom and my lack of adventure. I am caught somewhere between a pack of Marlboro's I keep on the nightstand where I should sleep and a truck that used to drive me to my dreams, but now sits as an eyesore metaphor for the home I created to nourish my weaknesses; the brittle middle ground, sounding this rebound argument that I call living. It was nothing not even trying to win any sort of race, I just wanted to finish. At least sort of place, but as I kept running, I diminished the existence I had created so I could breathe easier.

"Crashing"

It was problematic at best to perceive existence with a myopic lens I embedded into myself. My lack of gestures limited the effectiveness of my delivery, and all I begged for was deliverance. Just soft, eloquent passages that provided closure. Not answers, just closure. Somehow I fashioned together an array of broken glass that looked enough like a vase that it would pass, and I would find a way to keep my roses watered and alive again, when deep down I was broken. Prized among the lackluster thieves. Immune to pain, but pain by immunity. I beckoned myself and I lessened myself because no other life will accommodate my blindfold so easily. I am afraid of change, but I am afraid of not changing. Then a quick flood of blood infecting my brain. Dashboard myself, dashboard blank slate. My narrow lens no longer mattered, no longer weighed in. Neither did my fear, or my insecurities, or my smile. In three seconds fate circumvented a concrete divider, followed by seven seconds of nervous prayer, nervous cursing, nervous something. As poisonous as a snake, it came from the oppression presented. Followed by seven seconds of promising myself if I survived I would stop neglecting personal duties or promises, whichever it may be. Neither seemed likely at that point. Followed by two seconds, the longest two seconds I have ever experienced of lying to myself. The words, "I promise" seem so trite and so distant. Three seconds later, closure, not answers. Just closure. I taught myself to forget that sometimes life will try to convince you that there is such a thing as a peaceful death. I found out long ago that a peaceful death is nothing more than a lie.

"Dreaming or Sinking"

I tried to make sense of my own life, but found senseless realizations. I am reckless and life is justification. A vacation from the monotony I live in. Avoiding risk felt nice until I realized I was avoiding purpose. I have a tendency to complicate things. Life is a reality except for when it is a dream, and those are the moments that I cannot seem to think. This fear is keeping me alive. The fear of knowing I could say goodbye forever. This fear fuels the flames. Now that I know who I used to be, it is hard to be happy with who I am. I have a half-baked smile and a life to pretend. Prior to then, life was nothing more to me than a vacation. A vacant motivation to avoid the means it takes to reach any real end. A sense of salvation, but also an element of bitter hope to cope with the hope that is tied around my neck. The savior I hoped for was chased away way back when. Back when I found vices to take the place of all the things I wanted to be. I lost sight of myself, but I was told I could be anybody. I thought I could find purpose in life, and I began dreaming or sinking. Most nights they mean the same thing. When that salvation finally found me, I traded it away for thirty pieces of silver. It seems like that is not too much I guess, but I sold my savior for a whole lot less. My two best friends are acceptance and a mirage of fake happiness. Now the words I clinged to as my refuge, torture me in my head. Forgive them, they know not what they do. That is my only truth. I cannot sleep at night and I cannot seem to get things right. Salvation escaped when it came into view and now I am hoping my whole life is not mistaken. But there is no way of knowing when all I am doing is coping with my own thoughts. My past fights with me, hoping I will find some truth. It is never a good idea to start a fight with someone who has nothing to lose, and I am empty.