I Wish That I Had Been Brave

I wish that your white hair never reminded me of tombstones and goodbyes

I wish that when I held your hand

The folds in your skin did not look like God releasing your body from your soul

So it would be easier to fly home

I wish that your laugh did not sound just like my dad

I wish that I had been brave

I wish that I had not been to so many funerals

Was not so well acquainted with cadavers 

Who looked like people I loved

Had  not been so young

And so familiar with death

That I could feel him in your walk 

Sinister smile standing over my shoulder

Coming for us all

I wish that I had been brave

I wish that I had loved stronger than death

That I had brushed your white hair while you fell asleep

Because it was the only way you could sleep in the end

Wish I had told you that your face has been in every memory since I can first remember

And that I have often wondered if I was the legacy you intended to leave

I wish that I had been brave

I wish that at least

I could have told you that it was not you

It was the ground beckoning me

It was all the pieces of me that I been buried 6 feet under in coffins

Holding bodies that used to hold me

It was the fear of losing

Again

And again

And again

It was the look in your blue eyes

That look just like mine

Reminding me that I am afraid on dying

It was the "Other" section of my resume

Where I put a bullet point for "Saying goodbye"

It was the cold feeling of hands that used to warm mine

Nothing lasts forever

I wish that I had been brave

 

Love Never Fails

So near that I felt Your pain in moments

Your love is a mystery

So close that it creeps up next to me

Asking me how much I believe

Your love in an alien

Nothing like anything on this mass of green and blue

It's an invasion

And I'm ready

This place was never home

Everything here

Is so... temporary

For so long I tried to fit Your love into boxes

Places marked "my mind"

Never grabbing

Or jumping with blind faith

Knowing You were the only lover who would ever catch me

Fear found me in my sleep

Seeping into my dreams

Convincing me that unconditional love was something I wanted

But would never be fore me

Fear was the nail

Keeping my feet planted on this earth

Telling me that this place is safe

That salvation was something for people a little more perfect

A little more worthy

Love never fails

I needed rest from this earth

I was drowning in the ocean

And the ground could not hold my feet

And I was gasping

Fear left me gasping

To breathe

Love never fails

Leading me straight

The arms of Christ

Where love found me

And rest took me

Where all the fear that kept me bound

Was set free

And You hold me so sweetly

The only arms to ever carry me

Love never failed me

I Still Can't Pronounce Your Last Name

The park sign glared back through water logged lenses

Blades of grass looked as familiar as family and old friends

Bending together making beds

Where once our fingers lay playing Twister

And your thumb ran back and forth across the top of my hand

Reminding me that you were still learning the bends of my body

The sun shown like warm blankets and happy ending

Whispering promises

Your hands were home

More like home than any four walls or skylines that fell familiar upon me

I sunk under your embrace

Wondering if I could jump in arms strong enough to break my fall

I drove by your place

Burned like the sinner I am

Remembering how you treated me

While hiding under the blanket that you named "god"

And I can not help but wonder if it was us or the timing

I told myself it was the right thing to do

Walking away

Walking and driving

And shouting profanity into the memories as if I could scare them away

You were supposed to have the last hands I would ever hold

The last body in my bed

The baby was supposed to be yours

And we were supposed to be living proof of happily ever after

That park sign

So dark and it's raining

Nothing like the moments we spent resting on it's land

Daydreaming

And I started thinking that maybe dating would stop looking like cheap prostitution

Right before you cast me back to the streets

Right after getting off on my leg

And telling me that I was too dirty to be your first kiss

I read books between the cushions

And I screamed for it to stop

The pain of us ending

Was in the force of your body holding me against the bed

As you took the promises back that you gave me

Go back to church

Pretend like last night didn't happen

And maybe the music will drown out my screams

And I will fade back into the darkness

Back onto the streets

I never meant to love you

I was meant to love fiercely

When I met you I was drowning in an ocean of fear

When I left you it was an ocean of ice

My prayer if for a bright sun

A sharp burn to melt me

Fear is my chain

And some part of me still wishes to love like the earth were shaking

But the only thing shaking now

Is me

Be Near Me

I pulled away from Your love

Clung to my hurt

Made a bed for my pain

I stopped speaking to You

And found solace with my fear

Forgot how tenderly You hold me

Holding fast to my adulatory

My shame called me foolish for believing

That You could love a sinner like me

I started living in closets

And under beds

I thought of God as the one pushed on me midst measured skirts-to-the-middle-of-the-knees, two buttons on a polo shirt. Look good and no one will know you're hurting kind of god. He was looking over my shoulder waiting to find a reason to punish me.

A god made by fearful hands

And human minds

He's big, distant, and constantly disappointed in me

He was found right where I left him

Laying in a basket of broken dolls, razors, tube tops, and dirty jeans

The thought was lurking

Waiting for the past to find me

The god of my childhood found me again

With whip and chains

And the crushing sense of disappointment

Kept me hurting

Kept me wanting

I do not know where one died

And the Other was born

I believed it to be in coffee shops with books and prayers. It may have been on my knees, but I have a sense that God has been fighting with mine to set me free.

I forgot how You love to hold me

Clung to what I imaged you should be

And I am on my knees

My prayer is simple

Be near me

Death Has a Smell

Death has a smell

It dwelled between his fingers

In the toxic smoke resembling his breath

And out of his gaping wounds

Infected and bleeding onto my skin seeping dreams

Dreams leaking from glands built from baby dolls and tea parties

His hands were pinecones

Taking my skin as they pulled down my side

Rejected by the forest

Forsaken by nature

And what once harbored seeds for the ground

Is planting his destruction inside of my womb

His eyes

They stay with me

Speaking my name

In hoarse painful tones

Justice found disgust in his eyes

Turned a back to them

In the form of empty words

Buried under the tortured thought

Words remain… useless…

Sounds paint sympathy lightly

On heavy eyes crushing

The second finishing what the first left behind

They lay on my chest

Buried under my skin

Making their way to my heart

My perspective floated

Years have pushed me back… slowly

What am I seeing

After time

Floating, I saw his hands digging into my thighs

They broke like branches

And he tore my skin where he left depravity

The courage of a soldier

The bravery of martyrs

Begged fear to be cast aside

To look in those eyes

Laying frozen

Time had not healed my wounds

Time left all things behind

Moving selfishly

Telling me I could pick up the pieces

If my heart ever came to mean that much to me

Again

A phantom feeling

Taking years of pictures of the world

And painting them over

Darker and out of control

Always dangerously balancing between

I can control this…

And I can not control anything…

Constantly searching for

A point

The point ends with the words

Bastard remains quaint

Son of a bitch takes your spotlight and shifts

No, he will burn under spotlight

Skin dripping

Rape has been turned into poetry

Needles and Fire

Your voice is a pit of needles

I've been falling in for years now

And the last burn is the letting go

We were loving in a burn town

Trying in a hopeless world

And I've held out

Like a father waiting for his prodigal son

I always saw the best in you

I dug up who you were meant to be

And handed it to the girl you will marry

I was the best in you

And now I am buried

So she will never know

The boy you used to be

Give him back to me

Riding

I tucked courage in with honesty
Shoved them into the glove box
Of a car I didn't own

Too flashy to be impressive and expensive to be practical
And I rode
Tried to pretend like my skin wasn't falling off with the road
And maybe given the right pair of jeans and some Coach shoes
I might look like the girl who is supposed to ride in the front of this car
Unhappy
And a lot of nothing
Just wanting the company

I took my morals and shoved them in the backseat
Grabbed a hand full of dreams and placed them in the sheets
Of every Hilton this side of the States

Took the love of my life
And shoved it into a body too old to be a lover
But screwing me all the same
In more ways than one

I set flames to the life I wanted to live
And kept riding

I occasionally opened the window
Throwing out
"This wasn't supposed to be my life"
And grabbing
"I guess this is my life"
Shoving it in my bag like a belonging

This was supposed to be a familiar pain
A man like all the others
A nothing situation that I sold a little bit of my soul for
They were right... it gets easier to stop feeling

I just didn't see it coming
Nature has it's own way of catching up with me

And right when he was about the stop the car and let me out
He made sure that he grabbed my baby
The size of my thumb nail
And set it under the tires saying

"Life has a way of catching up with you, baby.
Now let me get back to mine."

Free

Silence
A stillness so strong that it brings me to my knees
Throws pride to the ground
Asking my legs why they are running

Stone cold
Apathy rid my body of joy
And left me.
Painless.
Without any happiness to speak of
But painless

I need a solace
A year of sleep and some peace
A place to lay my head
And a place to pray
... just until I am whole
Just until I can stand up again with feeling in my body
Asking to live a life worthy

If God can redeem my time...
I need 22 years worth of redemption
And a new life

I need my baby
I need my family

I want life away from this place and an eternity
This world has failed me
They said it would but I just kept fighting
I couldn't stop fighting
The pain
Just long enough to realize that it wasn't the enemy

I don't need a life that's easy
I just need Love

Love me
Set me free

I cry in cars

I cry. by myself. in cars. once in a blue moon.
And even then
It's embarrassing

Away
I'm always driving away when I cry

If I was asked where I am going
It would simple be... nowhere

I'm driving away from a past
A disappointment
Another thing that I painfully pull my contractured fingers away from
In the name of "I guess that's just life"
And it has been

My tears
They store up
They sit in my chest cavity
Knocking politely on my sternum
Asking to be free

After time I can only pretend
That the movement in my chest is me breathing
Barely
Like oceans
And bilateral rails

The cage
It adds to my guilt
That I can not give tears to my sadness

My ocean stopped my lungs completely
Begging me to move
To sit on the floor
Face in hands
And let go
It was the least I could do
After flushing my baby down the toilet in the Target bathroom...

Fear is the dam
The stop in my natural thoughts
And I was afraid
That I would sink into the floor
And become a part of that bathroom
And stay with my baby
Thinking that her heart would beat again

That God didn't spare her from a poor excuse for a dad
And maybe even me...

I am a statue
I am cold as ice
And steady as hollow stone

Despite the lack of depth
I always look the same

I made myself this way

I was told that no one was coming to save me
And I decided that even if there is nothing inside me
At least I look held together
Like someone you could lean on

The sarcastic voice
The heels that make my 5 foot 7 inch stature tower over everyone saying... "I'm aright with you looking up at me."

I thought I was strong
I thought it looked like strength for so long
When I've never been strong enough
And at the end of the day

I'm not sure what strength looks like

Dreams

If eyes really are windows to the soul
Than he knows

Our DNA just held hands
And he can feel my sadness
It transcends reality and sits on our shared chromosomes

I gave myself set amounts of time
To be destructive
Angry
But sadness won't confine itself to my time
I can not bind it and force submission
No music is breaking me from it's claws
And sleep doesn't seem as easy to come by as it once was

This is my problem

I'm barely post adolescent
And this was when my life was supposed to begin
This is my moment
And it looks just like everything I dreamed it would be

Did anyone tell me?

Dreams change so quickly
Maybe that's why they slip through my fingers
Dancing in breezes right in front of my face
Reminding me that I can't hold them

This was my dream
Until 4 excruciating months ago
And who would have known
That my dream is missing little fingers and toes

I can not communicate
I can not write
I know nothing of this sadness
Or microscopic heart beats

I know nothing of these dreams

Wish My Life Away

I walk.

Sidewalks made of diamonds and gold. The water was flowing into pearl gutters and I may have noticed, had I ever looked down.

I promise.

I would not have tripped had my dreamy head not been stuck in the sky looking for airplanes going somewhere ... where the grass must be green.
While crayon stained greenery lay around me.


I may have looked that child in the eyes one more time and noticed that they are not so different from mine, had I not been sitting around writing the "To-Do" list for my life.

I could have seen how beautiful my life is here and now if I were not always so bent on being somewhere else.... right now.


I would have loved better.

Asked for more solid things less likely to slip through my little fingers.

I would have seen that you needed me and cared enough to go.

I would have set fire to the street and pained our hearts on graffiti stained nothings.

Just to prove that this is my life and I'm right where I belong.


Fear never held me. My walls are cold and tall reminding me of all the places where only other people can go. I would love more. I would be fearlessly unafraid.

I could have been a good many things.

Had I not wished my life away.

Funerals

We should get together and cry.

... or have a funeral.

Please, tell me the difference.

We should pull our sorrow down to frail finger tips and hold hands compounding the distance between our minds.

Funerals are familiar faces.

They said that there's nothing worse than losing a child, but I never knew until I shook uncomfortable hands with her eyes. She said that it's like living through your own death and you no longer belong in this world or the next.

Her earth is a holding place.

Much like the girl in the next room.

Sometimes I think I can hear her soul begging to be set from from that shell of a mechanical body and I can't help but wonder.
What have we done to her?

I never thought death would look so merciful.

His hands were stiff blocks of ice and I could see the black sutures in their poor attempt to bring his lips into harmony and silence him... forever.
We have the same eyes and I was begging that he open them one more time.

He rose and conquered the grave.

Etched into my mind making an epitaph at every funeral... every wake.

I never said it out loud. I knew it was crazy before the thought was born, but death was sitting on my shoulder and I couldn't name him friend or foe.

He just was.



I will dance at your funeral if you promise to cry at mine.

I will hold your hand so tight that death has no choice but to take us at the same time.

Conscious

Tossed back and forth between my hands
I juggled the thought halfheartedly
Half keeping my distance

Partly rolling around in my brain
And mostly laying on the floor trying to breathe again


I was supposed to move on
Wake up and decide to be done
With little to no pain

This was supposed to be a minimally invasive procedure


I stayed too long...

I like pain
It's an old friend and oddly comforting like a blanket
... in reverse

And I'm pulling away
Slowly or quickly
Whichever feels right


... I'm moving on
One conscious decision at a time

There's nothing natural about this feeling

Natural Disaster

The ground would shake beneath us

Much like earthquakes we shake
Live on fault lines
Standing between revealing everything
And keeping just enough secret to cause a tremor when we speak

I knew that your love would be bigger than me
Bigger than my will
Larger than my abilities

Only your love
The size of quaking catastrophes
Could tear down my walls
And at the end of the day
I lived knowing that
God knew only an earthquake would shake me

We'll live like tornadoes
And love like tsunamis
We'll care like floods
And in the end

We'll always make a way
We'll always Believe



It will be worth it, only when I know that I would be better with you than I ever was without. We will love more, live more, care more, and do more. I've been living afraid of giving up my dreams....

But your my dream.

My dream.

The Things I Hate

You're like an ocean
I can't breathe in your presence
And if I were ever under you
I would surely die

We're Communists
We look great on paper
But we don't actually work...

Just another bad idea


And I've been kicking it with Amy since I was 17 and I wish we weren't so much the same but "I'll be some next man's other woman too"...

I've been drawing this out with other people's lyrics
With mistakes that I've already made
But at least I know how it ends
I've been waiting to get angry enough to want something different
To love enough to know that I deserve more
To care enough to shatter into a million pieces
And lay knowing that's where I belong

...


I've been painting my life with green dreams
And purple promises
Breaking
Looking much like what I said I did not want
But am too afraid to hope for... more
I want more

I'm taking these moments in strides
I'm refusing to wish my life away
And from the outside
This is my dream
And I'm living it
Selfishly

I guess I'm still too young to realize that time is a gift
Not a right of birth



I used to hear Your voice in sirens
See You in street lights

I used to find You in broken lives and beautiful faces
I found meaning in Your arms
And hope in promises
That for the first time in my life
I knew would never be broken

Your voice was in whispers and screams

And I swore I would never look for You again
At the bottom of my own bottles of truth serum
At the end of joints
In the silence between my sarcasm

Why do I do the things I hate...

Cold Hands and Summer Days

I loved you long before I knew how...

That was my favorite shirt. I don't know why, but I've always looked good in yellow. It shone like the sun straight over us and all around us. Your eyes were the best part of my day speaking words to me much more sweet than anything that ever leaked from your forgetful mouth.

You were so much of heaven that I forgot to hate earth.
A peace in my chaotic mind.

When you looked at me... serenity met insanity and they bred beautiful babies who looked just like the space between our eyes.... stop. Take a breath.
Some call it fate, but I refer to it as creation.

Like waves meeting at the shore to kiss... our blue eyes. Blue eyes.

I might should have been a little more tactful when I told you never to wear that shirt again. I should have walked a little longer. It didn't really matter if there was a hole in my jeans, we should have kept walking.

My new flip flops were hurting my feet.

There it is...
I didn't want to tell you in the moment because I was embarrassed, but that's just how selfish I am.

I just wish you would have told me that you had a month to live. I promise that I would have kept walking. I promise.

I adored every rock you kicked.

It was the first time that I feared a good feeling and it felt like insanity pained like a goddess.

You always felt like a dream come true. A boy I stared at from across the room in middle school and barely dared to wish for.

You told me it was alright when I awkwardly walking in my body. You taught me to stop hating. You taught me to live before you died and I kept on mostly because I knew it was what you wanted. I wanted you to have my life, and I wanted your eternity. Ironically enough I got it on earth, but I never meant for it to be measured in months. I was thinking decades. I was thinking babies and foreign countries. I was thinking about us.

Your hand was cold, maybe it was a foreshadowing. It was the middle of the summer...

and your hand was deathly cold.

Sparkle

I will stand
Until the sparkle in your eye returns to the stars
Until life becomes so normal
That I'm waiting for the next you to roll around

The time doesn't last as long
The moments are only half as sweet
And denial is more difficult that it ever was before
But this is it

This is what I prayed for

I'm Ready to tell the Story

Had I been born brilliant
I would have kept you guessing
Sometimes it is best to preserve the illusion
At all cost
Illusions have no skin

I found myself rolling through hills
Lacking the ecstasy
Tripping through the city
Searching for my LSD
I landed drunk on your door step
And stoned on your bed

But I'm in my right mind
My right mind

I've been legally down for years
And those were my prescription bottles
I swore
I swear

You're pathetic
And I am more so

Because I wanted you
Even if it was just for a minute
A terrible minute

I am best alone
I am best here
To compete with my mind
And never for your attention
Giving you the false illusion
That you could have ever been
... worth the fight
Worth the trouble

You were everyone else
When I thought about it
Outside of your persuasion
I was sad to find the truth
Hiding behind your smiles
That sadly
Very sad
The world is just as corrupt
As I knew it to be

I knew you
Long before dinners
And attempted dancing
I have known you
Always confused
Always searching for a new destiny

I've always wanted more

Sand

Going back
To sleep or to live
Relive
A dream

Backwards
Strange in movement
And it never seems the way
It is so fondly remembered

Those moments will never be here again
And he'll never been the man I knew back then

A sad understanding
A calm contemplation

It's a hope
So small that the light flickers
On and off again

It will always live in my mind
A sacred space
A corner in my heart that I cleaned up
Just to store these times
These moments
These memories

Time is moving
No matter the resistance that I place against it
It's moving
And taking me

I hold firmly to sand
Slipping through my fingers
Quickly
And I'm exhausted
But I'll hold on to you
At least in my dreams
In the few memories that have yet to be tainted
By the distance
By the apathy

The love
That I still hold for you

The last pieces of sand I hold onto
Sitting on my palm
Reminding me
Of where your hand used to sit
So perfectly

Let Go

I underestimated my circumstances
My feelings
My life

It was so easy
For so long
Believing these lies
But I sit in doubt

The first time things did work out I was told that maybe it wasn't my time, maybe it was a chance to learn to how to let go.

I said it again
The second time
The third
And every single time since the first time I realized
That life wasn't like my movies
Or even my dreams
Life was just a series of things
That probably won't work out

I've been letting go
This has been a journey
A long road
Of learning to let go
Learning to be the next best thing
And then watch
As the next next best thing rolled around
I'm letting go

I have been letting go

Let
Go
Of
Me

Your weakness sits in me
A constant reminder that one day
I'll forget how to hold on
Forget how to believe that in the end
I'm am strong
For better or worse

Depending On It

Like most things
It was over before it began
And I started mourning
The day we met

I held on like my life depended on it
And even now
I believe that it did

Not Yet

Death is like a wind

Feel it coming
Never knowing exactly when it will arrive

Death is a thief
Running in quickly
Just so we can never wake up
To know that everything is gone

Death is a game
And we're all playing

Death showed up on your door
And I saw him
So clearly
He showed up
In the form of god-like masses in your body
Taking at will with no one to tell them

That's enough
It's enough

He doesn't respect age
Or at least not from what I have seen
And I should have told him
You're too young and it's not your time
I should have told him

I should have done a good many things
But this wasn't supposed to be about me
Because you may never open another birthday present again
And that's the feeling...
The one that haunts me
The one that begs me to run off the face of the earth
And never stop

This one is for you my friend
This one is for you

He doesn't have you yet

Bricks and Endings

I had been uncertain of our future
Midst the concrete of our past
And somewhere along the way I grew enough
To know the difference

There was a storm that took us by surprise
I was more surprised that it took so long to get here
And you seemed shocked at it's presence

You told me I was pessimistic
But we were a time bomb
Waiting to explode
And when we did
I walked
Shrapnel clinging to my body
I ran

They said I was heartless
They said a good many things
But I survive
I've been surviving
Since the day that cord wrapped around my neck
I learned that live wasn't going to hand me anything
Including my first breath

You were not a victim
I painted you as a glorified bystander
And you were
You were
A bystander that I loved enough to break for
Picking up the pieces as I ran from our past
And crushed our future
I still love you

You were a rock made out of sand
And I was a block of ice with a pretty face
We were made for each other
Neither of us looking like what we really were
A facade of sorts
So oddly familiar
That I melted right into you
And hoped you wouldn't be angered
By the mess

Take life in strides
Keep your running shoes tied
And you'll never be disappointed
Until the last mile where you realize that you've been running alone
Trying to win a race of one
And that seems to defeat to purpose
But who said there had to be a purpose
Breathe a little
Breathe
Breathe for yourself

It fell on me like a ton of bricks
I wanted so much to believe in the world
And the words sunk into my bones
Floated in my blood
And buried themselves
Deep in my brain

"In the end
Take care of yourself, baby
Because no one else ever will"

The end

Everyone Else

I've been trying to trust you

This isn't about you
I've been fighting a lifetime
And if my memory serves me right

You won't be here for long

My guard is down
And it's slightly difficult to stop anticipating the shot
It always comes when I stop looking
And I've been standing guard
For years

You are the enemy

You're another person to lose interest in me
And I'm burning

I'll burn again
And again

When you tell me that I'm everyone else
The same person I've always been


I've been waiting for you to leave. I'm more trouble than I'm worth, come back to earth and look at the facts. You're no match for me.

Forward

The streets were calling me
Begging me to walk
To run
To get from point A to point B
Begging for anything

Still

It's never been my strong point
But don't worry
I'm still trying to believe

The city called me

I was too little to know that my soul would be buried
In the bottom of an eternally tall building
I just wondered how they got that way
Without falling on top of me

The wind took my hair
Only down because my mom was out of town
And my dad doesn't know how to make a ponytail
Correctly...
Remember dad, if we are nothing else
We are correct

That was the same day I learned about the tunnels
You know
The way the wind blows between the buildings
And with the lack of moment in my legs
That were just learning how to walk
Correctly...
I started walking backwards

Backwards

I didn't know much
But I could swear that I was propelling my feet forward
And that damn building was getting farther
And farther
Away

Until my dad picked me up swinging me over his shoulders saying...
"Maybe another day"

That was it

I was too little to spell my name
And I was unsure about what I was supposed to be
But I knew I would grow up eventually
Two eternities away
Stretching across my favorite galaxy

That was it

The day I knew that when my eternities passed
When life beat the hell out of me
And I stood back up

I'd be back on this street
Propelling my feet forward
With no one to help me

I found myself
In the middle of that street 16 years later
With a few more bags under my eyes
And a little less innocence
But still wanting
More

I found myself
And stood
For what was my new eternity
And kept walking

Dad, I kept walking
Forward

Chemistry

This is the missing
The inspiration
The touch

The way that you move me

And we move

Dancing
We moved

My sighs are so deep that they shake the earth
I sigh to catch my breath
Or muster up the courage to sit down
And my flat feet are left trembling on the earth

You move me

I am moved to tears
And beyond...
To care

Your breath covers me
And your fingers beg to dance on my skin
Like you just rediscovered your 5th sense
And it feels like heaven

You can be my heaven
In small moments and great distances
That make me wonder why life continues outside of this
Is there really anything... outside of this

It was the same feeling. It was the same feeling as the first day of 6th grade, my first time in school since I was 8 years old and I wasn't really sure what to do with people. Biology is strange like that and I felt a rush of who knows what when he sat next to me. It was just sitting and I swear that if I could have written back then I would have filled the earth with love poems from that one feeling in that one moment stretching across two wavering desks.

Too many years of homeschooling
And that was my first lesson in Chemistry

And when your strong hands
Found their way down my side
It all came back to me

Chemistry

Changes

I never felt like I belonged anywhere
Couldn't you see it?

I awkwardly sat in my seats as if sitting was foreign and I wasn't speaking the language. I flipped my hair and accidentally nicked my face.. I didn't even notice until you pointed out that I was bleeding. How embarrassing.

I was shy
Painfully shy

Not quite sure if it was more painful to be... or watch
But eventually
It never really made a difference

My body didn't look right
And I wasn't exactly sure when I was supposed to get boobs
But... the future wasn't looking too bright
I patiently waited
Never really saw another option

I was a little girl for too long
Just the way my parents planned it
And I was too angsty to realize
That maybe I should step out of the shadows for a minute

It was awkward, around and upside, it was awkward. The more I looked at it, the worst it got, and I could have swore that I had planned on having a different life.

So,

This is to dreams coming true.

The grass is green.

In My Mind

I called what came over me, a rush
But...
It was calm

It was the feeling of you
Building a home in my mind
Where you would contently reside
.... without my permission

You're an ass

Then again, you always were
Doing things without my permission... that is

Go Home

I dug graves for you
As deep as my sin
The depths of my longing
And even...
Further

My heart sunk into your palms
Where you wistfully toyed with the idea
Of crushing me
So swift
That I would never know the difference
Only a sharp pain that felt like
Home

I tried to be happy
But even that felt like dying
Every time you found me
I drug another grave
More deep
More precious
Right next to
... your father

I mean to be crude
To tell you
That I would have never known that no one cared
Had to never pillaged through my town
With a torch
And a tank of gasoline
Burning me to the ground
I burned
For years
Never ending
Never seeing

You were the devil in my eyes
And when I screamed
I literally meant
"Go to hell"
Only back from where you came
I thought that maybe
They were used to you there

I buried you
Never the way that I wanted to
But in my mind
And you sneaky little fool
You keep trying to dig your way out
Right when I knew
That by now
You had to have run out of air

But maybe evil doesn't need oxygen
It just needs to know
That the desolation
That you so fondly brought out of me
Could be begging
For your wounds
Digging a grave
To live in misery next you you
What I knew...
For so long
So Long

Dead End Road

I hope you know
That when this all ends
For the love of my emotional health
Let's say...
Sooner rather than later

I will never cry for you
I sit with all intend of having control
And I do
I've been saying it over and over
But you're not listening
Not speaking and not listening
Serving as an irrelevant member of exchange

I know it's who I am again
And I know that I did it to myself
And I'm just a little disappointing

I will always be the distraction
I will never be the one
Never the love
Never the lifetime
I will also serve to divert reality
With my smile
My laugh
That find themselves grounded only in the
Uncertainty

Every time I do this to myself
I distrust the world a little more
And I'm oozing the loathing that I've been nurturing
All these years
Of realizing
That maybe this is all I will ever be.

I will never cry for you
But I may shed a tear for those before you
If only I had known
Where this would take me...
A dead end road

Still Blinking

I've been trying so hard
You have no idea
About anything
Because you left before I got to tell you that I loved you
At least to your face

When I found out you were gone, I swore that I wouldn't be angry. My hands remembered so tenderly the way that your fingers once lay in mine and your thumb moved across my hand like you were memorizing.

I miss your hands

Sorry, I didn't meant to say it
I swore that I would be strong
And I have been
Oh, you have no idea

... because you aren't here

Not here when I need you

I don't mean to sound angry, but the day that I knew they were putting your hands into the ground laying gracefully over your chest hoping that you rest in peace... I realized that a part of me would always be 6 feet under in an unappreciative lot. The place where no ground would understand what they held. But me, oh I would remember like I remember yesterday and fading like a dream. I begged your face to stop fading, but time took me while my back was turned and I can't get you back. The concrete substance of your fate is still killing me to this day... and I was too young.

I didn't mean to blink
When the bullet left the gun

Body Sized Hole

I lay naked on the hole ridden streets
Pretending like I wasn't slowly falling into eternity
With every breath
So shallow
So deep

When he left, this was the way he left me. It's the same story, but I'm willing to bet that he will continue thinking that he is... special. Smashing the streets as he wills finding a hole the perfect shape of my body to bury me. This is the way he lives finding places for people like me.

I've been here before
So many times that this out of body experience
Is nearly comforting
Like a horror movie that I've seen before
It's not so bad when you know what's coming

And this graffiti stains my world in technicolor
Like a dream
That I wrote before
Except in the last one I'm pretty sure that I was tripping
Find it
And tell me
I'd like to remember something

I want to publicly say something
Vulgar but sincere unsure if anyone
Would catch it flying by
To quickly to really see it coming

I'd like to be explicit
If I'm going to lay here half conscious
And half dying
That I should at least be honest
While I'm waiting

This is what I've been doing
Waiting for life to catch up with me

She May be Living

She was chronically ill
The entire time that she lived
She was dying slowly
So slowly that no one bothered
Noticing

Her pale complexion perfectly masked
Her slowly fading color
Life leaving her face
One painful day at a time

In the end she found only
An increasing desire to surrender
Everything

Dying was the final surrender
The destination
That one only takes in a blind faith
Believing that what is left on the other side
Is somehow
Better

It was exhausting
Her life was draining
From everything
Dragging the life out of everyone
Only to get vengeance
On the pain she was feeling

And when she died
Took her last breath
And surrendered to the light
I felt...
Relief
As if a burden had been rolled off of my shoulder
The Pilgrim's Progress
Was ending

It was the birth
Of me

She was resenting

I am made complete

My denial of her
Nearly my undoing
Forgetting that somewhere
Somehow her ghost wanders
Setting herself free
When no one is paying attention
To the creeks in the hall

And then...
I saw her walking
Walking around taking as she pleased
She was so real
So life like
That for a moment I found myself wondering

Was her death
Her ultimate deceit

Moving

It has become my solace
In the form of movement
Swaying in a silence
Taking in my breath
And handing it back to me
Just to let me know
... I'm still breathing

These are the moments
The ones I have come to crave
In the chaos of seemingly
... All my days
These are my moments
Where my heart is laid bare in my movement
And I don't have to say a word
Not
A
Single
Word
Just move and breathe
And stop looking at things from the outside
Reflecting back to me

I am perfect
In this moment
Nothing could go wrong
And everything moves
In slow motion
I'm in...
Slow motion

Take my breath and let it cover me
Movement that was always meant to be
Coming from this body
My space
To shake off yesterday

Finding something new
With every turn
Every heart felt beat
With all the energy that will ever be left in this body

This is where stillness found me
While moving

Estranged Eyes

I am an adolescent
With estranged eyes
A wayward heart
And much to be expected
A will of stone

I will never let you know
What goes on in the dismembered heart of mine
But I'll never stop hoping that you know

Did I forget to inform you
Of how much that smile means to me

Did you not know
That I come in this store everyday knowing
That you will be the only person today
Who simply asks me
How I am doing
And it means to world to me

It's the glance
The smile
The kind words with all the sincerity in the world
Sitting behind those eyes
My world is small
My life is short
And it's the small things
That will make it work

Trust me
These estranged eyes are not hiding
They're begging
To be set free

Shallow

My feelings are shallow
Flying below to radar
Scraping the ground

It used to be but moments
But now there are stretches
That lengthen into time
Measured by years
Where I feel
Really feel
The life-will-never-be-the-same
Eat-sleep-breathe to the depths of human emotions
Laying on the raw humanity of all things felt within
Sort of emotions

I may be preoccupied
Too busy to feel
I may be shallow
Preferring puddles over the oceans where I once swam
... or drown
I call it how I see
Which changes
Depending on the day

Or maybe
Just maybe
This is what they talked about when they condescendingly said
"You won't feel this way forever
One day, you'll grow up"

Is this growing up?
Is everything still intact?
Just presenting differently
With the time that tends to morph all things

Will I skim by on the ice of this life...
Feeling little but the hint of cold beneath me
Is this the way things will always be...

Waiting

Sincerity is a destination
Maybe a lifetime worth of a journey
But I want to start traveling
Anyways...

I am sincerely hurting
And it's the happiest I will ever be

Honesty once set me free
And again
It will be the only key
To my freedom

So, here is honesty
I am painfully living

Existing in the knowledge
That it all happened again

And it's in all the wrong places
Faces that I don't understand
And every last bit of my safe spaces
Have been invaded by this

I don't understand

Time
Is all I have to give

And if time brings understanding
Than I will wait forever

I am done burying
Done fearing
Half way living
Scared to be honest

I will wait

I will wait for the Lord
For Honesty
For everlasting Love
To come set me free
And I am prepared
To wait up until my last breath and all the time that I am warranted
Thereafter

Life is a surprisingly short things
And I am tired of waking up wondering
Why time didn't heal my wounds
And why the man in my bed didn't make me feel any better
About all the others

I am tired of waking one day older
With half the wisdom and energy

I will be here
And I will be waiting
For freedom
For understand

Words

Words fail

I speak not with words of much value
Much meaning

The words I utter
Are loud and off kilter
Sarcastic and vulgar
Laughing and insincere

If words are my melody
Than I am singing off key

Words speak nothing of my feelings
Nothing of what is going on inside

Words are merely another mean by which I'm lying

This all seems shallow
All seems below the bar
And I'm drowning in the lack of depth

It was so long that I tried not to care
And now I can't find the words to say
That I love you

It's the irony of life

It's not just the cat that has my tongue
I'm a chronic mumbler

Chronically saying all the wrong things
Hoping that one day
I will be a little more honest about
Everything

Just a little more
A slight bit of something sincere enough
That it's worth the burst of anxiety that I get
Knowing that I am at my weakest
Where I find strength

Soul and Body

I am not quiet
I am not a mystery

You just simply
Misunderstood me...

Words would have laid me bare
Far more expose
Than my naked body

The silence
The blatant desire to keep you quiet
It was protection

Take my body
But you can't have me

An unnatural disconnect
The soul and the body

Miraculous

Beauty has risen from the ashes
And we have something to celebrate

What starts off as a tragedy
Doesn't have to end that way

The life of a phoenix
We rise from the ashes

What was once desolate
Is reborn

We take desperation and become fulfilled
The hope of salvation
Of something more precious than our own humanity
This is a life

Life
To be living
With a story of grace
Of love

We are broken
Fallen
Seemingly abandoned
In the illusion that we work for what we get
An innate sense of what should be
But isn't ... fair

In the place
Where the Lord gives and takes away

Our story
Is still our own
One of the only things that we can cling onto
And can never be taken

It doesn't have to be a tragedy
It can be
Miraculous

He Listened

In a perverse way
I felt understood

The first time that someone asked
"How was your day?"
And wanted more than one word

I breathed in his presence
And felt as if for the first time in my life
Someone just wanted to know
To be there
Caring about every word that spilled out of my mouth

It was a God thing
It had to be
After all the beating
God sent him to me
A band-aid
For a broken child
Midst a storm
Standing naked
Alone
Feeling the first signs of life
Creeping up behind me
It was a miracle
At least to me

I swore that he didn't mean to grab my hand
Was that not innocent
He didn't mean anything by it
My best friend

I promise
That's the last time that I'll turn around
After he grabbed my ass
He's still listening

He listens so sweetly
He's here for me
I know it
I know it
Let me believe

Needing to be mended

Trying to convince myself
That his wife knew about us
It was an innocent kind of thing

Like everything else in my life
Nothing comes for free
And after months of talking
He could have my body
If it meant that he would still listen to me

17 isn't that young
I'm swear that I'm old enough
Old enough to know the difference

40 isn't that old
It's not that old

Take me

Please take me

Lock me wherever you want me to be
And I won't fight anymore

Just love me
I'm begging
Can't you hear me

Do you hear me

Why aren't you listening?

Love is Deadly

I can not tell you
How long I believed that my love killed you
It's poisonous
That's what they've been telling me
And I believed

I didn't mean to love you
I just didn't know that when they spoke of poison
They meant the literally kind of death

And you breathed in my fumes
Living dangerously
Out of everything that you regret
I always prayed that at the end
You didn't regret me

Cycling

I cycle rapidly
Four years of cycling
And I'm still going

Through you
Through me

And that one
He was just disappointing
Slightly convincing
And another reason to feed my hate

They don't have faces
The same dozen faces on different bodies
And humanity is funny like that
When it was sucked from me
It was pulled from everything I see

Guilty
Or guilty by association
It's all the same to me

And if I pull your heart right out of your body
It's the same as pulling his and the same to me
A pleasure
A high
A sweet sense of controlling something

It's what we do in this life
Haven't you seen it?
Over and over again
A melody in my ears
Abuse me just before I abuse another and we can keep this going
I told you
I'm cycling
I'm cycling
It's a cycle
And it's never ending

My dad told me I was insane
Doing the same thing over and over
Expecting a different result
But I'm still playing
Still chin deep in the game
And I'm starting to see the irony

Take back that ring because you're not good enough for me
And my arrogance keeps breeding
Because I can't see
I can't see
I've been blind for years
And I walk around like a tornado destroying everything

I don't care who hurt me
I will burn every last one of you until I feel better
About... something
And then wish for more
I'm always wishing

A dreamer with no direction

I told you that I would come back around
And around

Everyone falls into the same category
"They're all the same"
Catchphrase
I play the same game
Because I know the rules better than my name
And it's easy
Just like me

I told you
Shut your mouth
I'm not interested in talking to you
I'm interested in using you
And your hair matches my shoes so walk with me tonight

I'm Sleeping

In some ways
We all choose the life we want

I just want to know that He is near me
Called a crime
Or an uncertain reality
Faith if what I preach
But not always what I'm practicing

Deemed right the eyes of whomever
And the person who said that
Right after them

See, it's confusing
Slightly convoluted

And they said that we'd see him again in heaven
In heaven
Would you like to point out the direction.
Or are you better at drawing
Maps

See, I don't blame you
Any of you
Because I'd say it too

Right now I'm sleeping fine at night
So it must be working
It's working, right?

Was that not the point...
To make me feel a little better about this life
A little better about what I do
It's what I'm doing tonight

This is a slight collision
Your car and my bus are going different directions
On a way street
And I'm tipping... tipping...
Slightly

Call my bluff right before my rambling
But I'm sleeping
Soundly

So tell me again
That our God is forgiving
Right before you tell me that few will enter
Heaven...
Wherever that is
Eternity is just a few houses down
And one street over

And I knew a God
I knew Him
And He was merciful to me
I just want to know that He is near me

Near to me
Because I can't always sleep
As well as these half truths sedate me

Quietly

The quiet moments called
Out of the chaos of my life
Coffee to stay awake
And wine to sleep
Day to day blending perfectly
Into a mass confusion

The quiet was calling
Quiet was the distance and destination

Quiet is an unpredictable demon
And staying too busy has a predictable
Sort of unpredictability...
A lack of thinking
Instantaneous instincts.. and I'll decide if that was a good decision
Later

Later never comes
They told me once
And I'm still not listening
I walk through life with my hands over my ears
Screaming "Just point to the right direction"
Can you hear me?
Because I can't hear you...

They tell me to do more
More and more
Be better and better
And no one is telling me when more becomes enough
And better becomes the best
And how do I stay there?

I'm talking too fast again
But I don't have time to speak slowly
Don't have time to beat around the bush
To tell you the point that I'm trying to make

QUIET

... my stillness
My solitude
Seeing clearly
Only serving to confuse me
More

I know my demons are still lurking in the shadows
And it's the quiet that lets me see
How frequently I dance with them in the madness
That they are at the bottom of shot glasses
They are in between the sheets in my bed room
Around me

Quiet

It's where I want to be
If I were more brave
Had a little more feeling in my hands

Quiet

Remind me...

... that He loves me
And I burn deeply
As if someone has been watching me this whole time

And He wants me

He wants me
And I want to burn
Burn with the joy of feeling
The ground beneath me
Standing still
Quietly

Chances

It was a desperate place

Mostly consisting of open legs
And shut mouths
Just the way you like us
Perfectly content to fit into your own definition
Of women


I wondered if things would be different
Growing up
If getting older would make things better
And suddenly someone would want to take me out to dinner
Without laying down his back seat for the ride home

I wondered

I think
You know I think

Things will be the same

I know
Maybe I know

That this is the way that life will be

I could change
Oh yes, I could change
Just give me a few moments
A pair of scissors
And some tape
I'll be different before you know it
I promise

It's true what they said
More maybe it's just that no matter what I try
The truth won't replace these lies
Sitting in my head with a cocktail and a cigarette
Planning to stay, at least for the night

You ruined me
And I ruined myself
A couple of times and over again
Just to make sure that I didn't leave any work unfinished
I hate half way done... jobs

I swear that this wasn't supposed to be my life
I swear and I beg
And nothing will change
My story is the same as it was yesterday
And equally painful to remember
Thinking of all the things
That I no longer get and no longer deserve
I didn't mean too
I was young
I was too young, you know
Have you been there before?
You must have
Because you're old as dirt
And I really don't think you were born that way


.... breathe
Once for me
And twice for the memories


I know that I will never be whole. Not on this earth, not in this lifetime. I know that I can never erase the past or my memories. I know that he will stay with me. I know that he is with me. His ring clad finger still sits on my hips while I'm walking. This is where I found God. Have I never told you? As selfish as the day I was born. I found God hoping that I could believe. That even if my story never changes. The only thing I really own. Maybe I could be whole after death. Maybe there is such a thing as ... second chances.

Children

My solitude stood still

In the incandescent lighting of a child's face

Brilliantly placed in the middle of my world

Where I stopped... running

They stood looking at me

Through me

And straight into my saint and unworthy

Seeing only

Me

Laid barren my guilty conscience

And ask with all the courage of those

Too young to know how to be afraid

"Why do you fear?"

Life always was

And always will be beautiful

Through tile floors and skid free socks

From holes in our chests

And wheezing from our lungs

Punctured veins

From used up vessels

We are blessed

Life is short

And life is long

We are everything and nothing

Just soon enough to figure out

Than we want something that we don't have

Just breathe

It will be alright

In the face of a child

Who knows not of short lives

Because everyday is one more lifetime

And every laugh feels like the first time

And from those faces

I found meaning in my life

Stop thinking and start living

This is life

And we are blessed to be at each other's sides

Holding children

And the hands crippled with arthritis

Begging us to try and not think about

Getting old

And dying

Death is a new journey

And these children

Dared me to live unafraid

Dancing on the edge of eternity

Easy to Let Go

I thought you were there
Long after you stopped loving me
And I was always forgettable
Easy to grab onto and easy to let go

I was young
And I thought you would love me
Through everything

Maybe it was just me
The youth took hold of my common sense
Or some desire to be loved for a lifetime took hold of me
And blinded me from how unworthy you were of me

It's what everyone said
Everyone said I could do better
But I never wanted to do better
Or worse
I just wanted you

It was the way you looked at me when I was lonely
The way I thought that you believed in me

The feeling that I got when I stood by your side

The way that I dreamed about a lifetime
With you
And a lifetime had never seemed that interesting to me

My Dreams

I liked it

Here it is
As black and white as it will ever get
And I'm confessing

I loved being that girl
Your girl
And when you said that I was the only one
You ever wanted to come home too
I melted into the carpet and became your puddle too
Hoping that you wouldn't step on me on your way in the door

Step on me
And step through me

I was the face on your mind
And I was supposed to be the woman in your sheets
The one who raised our children
Who burnt chicken
While you swore that you wanted pizza anyway

I would have ask you to speak
When the world didn't want to listen
I would have stayed by your side

For awhile I was your everything
And no matter what I said
That was my smile
My song
My dreams

Your Legacy

He rose and conquered the grave

Through these streets of bloody messes
Smashed faces
And gasping lungs
Through the thoughts of our past
And our graffiti stained hearts
These are the things we hold onto

Through the battle that we fought to get here
And the fight to leave
We live on the streets




You're so still, and so alive. You are so present and so far away. A presence, a soul that senses how close we are to each other transcending our hands that lay laced as you squeeze with your last breath.

I went back to the house. I went back to the house that I've known for 21 years, and you were always there. Your face marks the picture frames hanging on the wall and all those reminders to take your pills in the morning aren't going to do you much good anymore. Your life floods that house with your old records and pictures that may or may not be the first ever taken. I want to find your soul in the captured smiles and finger prints. I want to find you again, like it was the first time. I'm your legacy.

Leaving

I knew that you were leaving
But I never thought it would come so soon

And in the midst of your struggle
I find myself still
So selfish
So absorbed in my own thought
My endless journey to run from death
And the thought of leaving
So soon

They said that death was coming for us all
I just didn't believe them
Until these small moments
When my breath has been taking away
And death stands in front of me

Taking people from me
Everyone leaves
In the end

Weakness to Breed

I feel you so near to me
So incredibly near
Indescribably close
Magnificently present

I feel you
The same way that I always knew what you were thinking
And somehow we were connected
On a level so much more intense
That the lack of movement
That radiated through every half-hearted
Action

Don't tell me you love you
And please don't forget
We were much more than what we speak
And much less that what fills me now
Begging me to go back to that place

And with it the weakness that you breed in me
The loneliness that you planted in my uterus
Until it could kill me 9 months later
Just like you
Just like me
Truly a product of it's poorly planning parents
A product of our design

Your favorite song
Slowly creeping up on the bridge
With a meaningful melody
And a chorus that cut me to the bone

Your poorly tuned voice cut me to the bone
Every regret and everything that said
I couldn't do better
Never to love better
... and never to be seen
The way that your lazy eye saw me
So... lazily

An after thought
And meaningless period of our lives
That dragged on long enough to tell me

That I'm not sure if I believe in love
If I believe that I have anything
Left to give
Worth the taking

The Doing and Undoing

Is there hope
In building a life
From scraps
And broken dreams

It is possible
To keep playing the same scene
Over and over
While everyone else moves
Farther and farther
Away

Are there possibilities?

In a life of questioning
You're my other half
But you can't fix anything
In being together in this thing
But having our own journeys
So different
So distinct

In all the puddles
And all the oceans
A oneness
And loneliness

In hoping that a few bad decisions
Didn't destroy everything
Undoing the course of my own life
And painting it will lonely nights
Wondering if he's really staying late for a meeting

In all the fear and confusion
The "I'll be damned if I ever let it happen again"
Only to jade myself out of another happy ending

I don't fear doing
I fear not being able to undo

It's not the wedding
It's the part when I regret ever getting married
And even worse
When you feel the same way about me

Presence

I was looking for inspiration
Somewhere between classes
Between awake and sleep
Maybe before or after work
Dancing
Or day dreaming

I have been looking

Looking to forget
And looking to remember
Something that will bring creativity
Out of the mundane lull of my life

Turning my lack of thought
Into brilliant poetry
Lying somewhere in the back of my mind
When I remember to remember
...forgetfully

I have been searching for a passion
A life lesson
A kick start
A shock
To bring me back to life
Put a little kick in my step
A smile on my face
Or a fire in my heart

I've lived a life
Looking to be a hero
Something of meaning or worth

Always being active in fixing
When all along
I've just needed to be present
To be still
And here
In this moment

Sometimes our souls say more than our mouths
And the very act of being so near
Is healing

Nastalgia

It was the spark
Of what seemed to be incandescent lighting

It was the beginning of what seemed to be
A new beginning to my forever
And forever after

He was my confusion
My clarity

He would live on
More so in a fantasy
Than the touch of his wondering hands

His memory is unshakable
Unattainable
Stored in my heart
Locked up by stained glass walls
And bared windows
Trampled by never-going-to-happen
And breathing with I-want-you-more-than-anything

His wink was my world
His walk my after thought

Possibly the last person
I've ever had these thoughts about
Coincidence?
I think not

He sucked me in
With the fumes of wordiness
That I may have been warned about
But didn't care to mention
It was a daydream
In black and white
More vibrant than any colors
I had ever seen

My little piece of everything
Holding out for nothing
And I became perfectly content
To let him live vicariously through me
As long as I got his everything
In exchange

My perversion
My preservation

Our Guilt

We buried our faces
Under masses of concrete
And the names that we gave our sins

Put our fists through walls
The depth of our dreams
And then claimed
That this is the life we always wanted

We sexed away our guilt
And smoked away our pain
Fell through never ending
Feeling
Nothing
With faint memories of what we once wanted
Before we ruined
Everything

Cigarette Stains

There were small holes all over my dress
Marking the places where my burning ash landed
Flying off of my lit cigarette
To the same beat as the wind coming through the window

There was a bit of mellow-drama
Leading up to that car
I over acted the entire night
It seemed better than the truth

No one wanted to know
That I had an hour long conversation with myself that morning
Trying to convince myself to get out of bed
Telling myself that life would go on

The goal is not to fall below 50
Not sure that anyone would find me
In a state like that

The goal is to keep getting out of bed
No matter how little sleep
How much sleep
Or how often it seems that life has stopped
And only the bed
Being honest
Acting out the solitude in my own head
Will bring justice to the time
And the truth

The car ride was shorter than it should have been
And I haven't worn that dress since