If I walk until my feet bleed you would tell me I didn’t walk far enough.

I will never be good enough in you’re eyes.

Your words they replay in my mind.

Your eyes don’t see what I see.

I see my potential and you see me failing.

I see opportunities and you see wasted times.

“I think

You smudged your khol

A little.” He pointed

Under my eyes.

I chuckled

And replied,

“Yeah

It won’t fade

That easy.”

-dark circles

I remember the weeds

as if frozen in time

firelight dancing

arcs on our cheeks

we couldn’t color

tomorrow

but swallowed whole

the time we had

indifferent

to what lay ahead

and savored the now

cushioned by

dandelion blooms

bobbing their heads

yellow dreams

reflected

on our chins.

i always wonder why i gravitate towards bad people

their hurtful words are like melodies to my ears

and my pupils dilate when i see their knuckles coming close to my face

i smile when i’m spitting blood on the cement and feeling my cheek throb

purple has always made my eyes pop

but how could i ever find my way towards something else

when this is all i’ve ever known

all i’ve ever seen in my own home

no one even thought to teach me how to say i love you

instead all i picked up was how to stab and sting with my words

how to bleed through my smiles

violence means comfort to me and pain is normality

because no one, not one person in my life, has ever mentioned that love is not supposed to hurt.

My mouth is sewn shut as people ask "Are you alright?"

"Is everything okay?"

I can only nod as they pass by and act concerned. If they really cared, they'd be able to see I'm not. This isn't fair to them, but my brain plays this thought on a continuous loop until I almost believe it.

"Are you sure?"

Why won't these stitches come out? My head is stuck in an endless motion of nodding up and down. The muscles nessecary to shake it it from side to side are long gone, ripped from my body the second I set foot somewhere with other people. My face is involuntarily pulled into a smile. Why? I don't wan't to smile. They walk off, reassured of my wellbeing.

I want to scream and yell I'm not okay! Please, help me. but the stitches pull tight across my mouth and keep the screams inside. The only way to speak is to write, as the numbness and inability to move has yet to reach my hands. I suppose I should be happy about this, I can say what's on my mind. But, emotions were the first to go. Before the ability to say I'm not okay, before the ability to ask for help. I thought it was all gone. Maybe it is. But maybe, just maybe, it's not. If that's the case, maybe I'll be able to talk again. Maybe I won't even need to because there will be nothing bad to talk about. But, for now, I guess I'll keep writing. Who knows? Maybe it'll help.

Heartbreak has been degraded until it no longer describes the pain it originally meant.

Heartbreak feels worse than just a broken heart. It feels like the very fabric of your existence is unraveling, your veins are short circuiting, and the atoms that make up you are falling apart.

A broken heart can be taped back together, but there is no repairing what I feel. Maybe it’s not heartbreak. Maybe it’s just devastation. But whatever it is, I don’t think it can be summed up with a single word.

John Green once wrote that maybe metaphors were created to describe pain. I don’t know if that’s true, but it feels right.

I know you didn’t mean to, but you broke my space-time continuum. You broke my heart or malfunctioned my engine. I don’t know what makes me run, but somehow you destroyed it.

There is no medicine, no words or magical remedy to repair the damage that’s been done. I fear I will feel like this forever. I know everyone says it gets better, but I don’t want to get better if it doesn’t include you.

Maybe that’s my downfall, or maybe it’s just you.

Saline stars

dripping

pools streaming

slipping

clouds in your face

dipping

solitude of sobs

unremitting

crystalline drops

spitting

rainbows of wretchedness

tripping

sympathies of soul

unzipping

stained sorrows

transmitting

furrows on face

flipping

folded floods

gripping

corrugated creases

ripping

aches of anguish

whipping

when will the sun

shine its face

and dry my tears

once more?

Poor unfortunate lost souls

Nowhere else to go

Travelling after dusk

Seeking for something to eat

O how they hunger

Beware of these specters

Only movin’ lookin’ for flesh

#Specters

Mirror pool of my soul,

a splash heard but not seen

reaching for white-capped brine

of floundering past

growing colder and shivering

in its fading rippled reflection.

Veins of moody swan wings

hearing waves of my soul

throbbing inside and outside

on sheen of mirrored water.

Two faces under water struggle

with swells of true essence,

sands of time burst from my heart

drowning in turquoise tears.

Tides weep in salted crash of currents

duplicating the shell of my soul

I watch my ship sink into the silt

blowing whispers into heartbeats.

The forest is gone, or maybe it was never there to begin with. A sapling stands, dead, its brittle yellow leaves scattered in the autumn breeze. And it hurts all the more for the knowledge that that tree was once a seed. And it hurts all the more that it could have been something. It could have filled the sky--but it didn't. It's dead now. And that's all there is.