Cold,

Bleak.

Definitley not an ideal place for me.

But there I am.

At the bottom of an abyss.

Crying out,

My screams rattle my bones.

My words echo off of the sides of the walls.

A puddle of my tears,

Sloshing around my feet.

The drip,

Drip,

Drip,

As my tears roll off of my face.

This is where the real me resides,

Desperate to be free.

I'd like to see it all,

I'd like to save her.

I'd like to close off that abyss,

So that I can finally breathe.

i relate

to everything.

it's a curse.

even when

it doesn't apply to me

i feel the pain in every

tweet about a messy breakup

or instagram post about a dead uncle.

i relate to

the edgy quotes and the lovesick poems.

the fictional struggles and

the all-too-real wars.

i relate to it all,

yet i have nothing new to name.

i have nothing to say that can make you feel me

the way i feel your words

even if they're superficial.

i have nothing to say that can properly convey

the borrowed feelings i'm

living on.

the problem is

most people won't let you borrow anything

unless it's shit.

so all i have

is a bunch of negativity

that people generously donated to me

to fill the void with more darkness.

and now,

suprise

suprise,

no one wants to take it back.

purgatory is a

lonely rose garden

full of roses

tinted with

sapphire blue

impossibility.

far away from

the red of hell

and the

white of heaven.

hell is made of thorns

and heaven is made of petals

and purgatory has both.

trapped in a wall of

blue roses and black thorns.

impossible to escape

no one to talk to.

all you have

are those blue roses

and over time

you start wishing

for the red,

or anything, instead.

two boxes

❏M

❏F

opposing sides,

forever at war

pink and blue

like black and white

yin and yang.

no one

can upset

the balance.

you must choose.

no one likes

when you mix the paints

in the watercolor tray.

suddenly

you're the bad guy

just because you feel like

purple.

male

or

female

?

i have to pick one.

i want to pick one.

but nothing feels right to me.

so all i can do

is suffer in the impossible inbetween,

full of dysphoria that

doesn't exist.

at least

that's what people tell me.

these thoughts in my head

are ramblings of a lunatic

and i just need to

get over it.

i have to close my eyes

swallow my vomit

stop looking in the mirror

ignore everyone

ignore even myself

and choose.

Sometimes I feel I'm repetitive.

All of my words come out stale.

Sometimes I feel I'm repetitive.

It's like a Goodwill sale.

Everything's been used before.

Like themes of love, death, sorrow and war.

Sometimes I feel I'm repetitive.

Is repetition the key to learning?

People tell me it is, but I'm so competive

Feels like my learning is burning.

Everything's been used before

Like that line, it's such a bore.

Sometimes I feel I'm repetitive

Have I already used that word?

Sometimes I forget that I live.

Sometimes I wonder if that's absurd.

Everything's been used before

Maybe it's just a shadow of another's lore.

Sometimes I feel I'm repetitive.

All of my words come out stale.

Sometimes I feel I'm repetitive.

Is repetition the key to learning?

Sometimes I feel I'm repetitive

Have I already used these words?

Sometimes I feel I'm repetitive.

Everything's been used before.

Have I been used before, too?

Is that why I'm

already rung dry

with no new ideas to milk?

When I was a child

I found a clearing

In the center of the clearing

Was a tree.

In the center of the tree

There was a plaque

That I did not see.

It mourned someone named Chris,

Someone that I never knew,

And in my ignorance and bliss

I picked the flowers that lay.

There must have been a whole bouquet

I scattered them in the woods

Along the way

And when I returned to that sweet clearing

I saw the plaque I’d been ignoring.

I saw the words and began to panic

Afraid of supernatural vengeance.

I searched and searched through all the woods

But no flowers grew that season.

Years later in the hot summer breeze

I returned on a whim.

I remembered the tree and the flowers I stole

I remembered Chris and the debt I owe.

So I wandered through the blooming woods

And picked a few flowers that I could

I laid them down at Chris’s grave

And apologized for the mistake I made.

A debt finally repaid

did you know that

people can be identified

by their handwriting?

whole identities shaped by

a few hasty strokes of a pencil.

everything about you

contained in paper and pen.

on the internet,

my identity is hidden

by uniform typography.

anonymity is the cloak i use

to pretend that i am something more

than me.

on the internet,

my words can be

whatever i want them to be.

on paper, they are real,

and they are crude,

and i fear that

one day

they may come back and bite me.

when i close my computer screen

i always feel as though things cannot be seen

a childish notion, of course,

the one of privacy.

privacy doesn't exist,

especially not in websites and tv.

when i write in my notebook

things feel so much more real

like if i open the flimsy plastic cover

the pencil could peel off the page

and become a graphite monster.

like one day,

people will read my handwriting

and know me

better than i know myself.

or maybe,

i fear that someone will see this smeared pencil

and that

all they'll see is an unreadable mass

of blurred lines

between this world and mine.

i fear people will erase the words

i worked so hard to form

and i'm scared that pen and paper

aren't permanent enough to be meaningful.

so the only things i write on paper

are dark thoughts and ideas

crammed into notebooks

where i can either

use them later

or forget.

I worked hard for you,

Composed words into phrases,

Diluted my thoughts into a cocktail of joys,

And painful truth and I,

I pressed my palms into my eyes when tears,

Beat against them,

I mourned the death of my darling words,

I killed the weak ones and fed them to the strong,

And every day I toiled into the fields of damned letters,

Wrestling with my brain and the hopes that lie dormant,

Within,

But I know,

It is hopeless.

I crafted these words, these lives, these places,

This world,

For you.

I cut through mountains and carved,

Smooth paths for you,

To walk,

And I opened the gates,

And let you stride right into my heart.

But you shat on my throne,

You burned down this home,

A home I had made,

For you,

And you laughed,

You mocked,

You did not care,

And worse.

Some of you dear readers

Did not even embark,

On the path I laid,

You ignored the world I labored over,

And you ignored my soldiered words,

The tired words,

The strong words,

The unheard vowels that echo,

In caverns of unturned pages.

And you, reader, left me with nothing,

Just this untraveled road,

And this writhing heart,

The wasted hours, days,

Years,

Pile upon me like rocks to crush,

And you don't even watch me die,

You don't care.

But why should you?

I am the fallen,

The worthless,

I understand even as I write,

That nothing I can give,

Will be enough,

Nothing I have,

Will be received.

I beg you Reader,

Respect the writer,

They bleed for you,

Give their lives for you,

And in the end,

They emptied their hearts,

Knowing full well,

You would never understand,

No matter how hard we try,

To help you see,

Hear,

Touch,

Taste,

Feel.

But you won't.

You never will.

Sweet dayless slumber or the warriors heart plundered.

Subtle slip into careless blunder or great ocean turmoil take me under.

Blissful succumber to young illness or bashed bloody by bloodlust wonder.

All manors of fate in which I could live in,

to die for you I would gladly pick any sweet brother.