"Sorry, what's your name again? No, give me a second, I got it."
I forgot your name
"Sorry, I don't really remember anything before 6th grade!"
My memory is awful
Trauma made me block it out

Sorry, what was I saying?

But the bird came back, despite what you say,
Despite your thinking it’s better to go away.
The bird came back, the bird is fine,
It isn’t sore from all that flying,
It was just an adventure, one that was worth the pain,
And what would it be without a little bit of wing-sprain.

My alarm in the morning screeches
And I woke up with a headache
And a strong desire to just
GO BACK TO SLEEP

I came out of my room
Skipped the breakfast
"What's wrong?"
****, I've been caught.

"Just... In my head, I guess."

I forgot the lyrics to the song I loved,
And now I don't even know how it goes.

God, coffee smells delicious

fresh coffee
Straight from the ***
It tastes so good, and--

O U C H ! ! !

It burnt me
But at least it tasted good

I'm a mess

A beautiful mess, murmured a voice in the back of my head, the optimistic one; it sounded almost like you.

A smile tugged at my lips.

Death is not a race
So wipe those tears off your face.

My girl's a princess
Though her mismatched socks
And scraped knees
'Unladylike'

My girls beautiful
Although
I don't yet know
What she looks like

My girl's a dork
And that is the best thing about her
My girl's gorgeous
My girl's perfect

Though, I don't yet know
Anything about her

He sat by his kitchen table, alone, eating the chocolate cake he had bought the day before.
Just like last year, nobody remembered.

Stop trying to live your dreams vicariously through your kids.
I cannot keep up with all these assignments,
I cannot keep up with all these extracurricular activites
I can't keep up
Because you couldn't do it yourself

We've been
Migratory animals
Leaving under
Changing weather

I lied down on the floor
To go to sleep
Not wanting to sleep in the bed
Because I remembered.

I put down my blanket
And flopped into the pillow
And I jolted up
More flashbacks

I remember how I made a pallet
On the floor
Too scared
To be in the same bed with you

So
I picked up my blanket
Threw it on the bed
Sat down on the floor
In the emptiness of my room
And didn’t sleep

Too scared of the thought of you.

He broke up with his girlfriend, I think
"Darling, I miss you,"
Yeah, he broke up with his girlfriend
"But not enough to hurt"
He's getting over her
"And darling, I'm sorry,"
Ah, here it comes
"But now I love her"
Ouch

A sad life
To be the girlfriend
Of a guitarist who nees
Some money

But a fulfilling one
Nonetheless

Yellow triangle,
Warning me to stay away
I kick it over
And slip

A deck, poorly illuminated by the moon up above, shining down and judging me. “Why are you even sad?” Moon asks me. I don’t respond to her. How could I answer that when I don’t even know myself?
The wood is old and creaky, and when I walked out here to sit on this old deck my steps filled the silent night, but the silence quickly followed when I stopped shuffling around. Like a shadow that was always near, the silence. It follows.
I closed my eyes and listened to the wind and crickets. No music, no laughter, just the sounds of the forest behind my old family home. Owls hooted, crickets sang, cicadas cried, and the moon judged. “What do you want?” I asked her, growing annoyed by her watching eyes.
“I just want to observe,” she whispered. “I am intrigued by human emotion.”
“There is nothing to feel intrigued by,” I explained, “It is only pain and grief.”
Moon just sighed at this. I sighed, too. “Untrue,” she started, “I have seen such fantastic emotion. I have seen love, happiness, tranquility-”
“Well you won’t find any of that here,” I cut her off.
She seemed annoyed at this point, like she was sick of my complaining. She looked down on me, but I’m sure she saw way more from up there than just me. “You are foolish for believing that.” She said finally.
“Believing what? The truth? Nothing of interest is-”
“Perhaps not yet.”
I paused at that. I realized she had a point, but I wasn’t sure if I believed in a future of great happiness. I wasn’t sure I believed that I would ever feel anything besides pain. Perhaps I didn’t believe in happy endings at all, but I couldn’t help but hope that she was right. Just a little bit.

So many actions
Could do so much better
Than words or poems
that try
too
hard

What would you have to say about the world if you were the last man standing?
No, not the last man standing on the entire planet.
Imagine you had just finished a war and you were the last man standing.
Would you lose your faith in humanity??
Would you recognize that you have just slayed real people??
Who had families??
Would you feel pride that you have defeated the enemy??
Or maybe regret?
Guilt?
Numbness?
Your face is covered in someone else’s blood,
You’re trembling,
You’re processing,
And you’re thinking.
Perhaps thinking so much that you forget how you feel??
What would you have to say about the world if you were the last man standing?

Sorry
Sorry
I'm so sorry
I'm sorry
My bad

The nurse walked in. He smiled at us and then checked his clipboard. He turned to Kody, who was looking at him with an expression I couldn’t read on his face. The nurse gestured for him to follow and Kody got up off the floor. I watched them leave. Kody and the nurse both turned around to smile at me reassuringly.
What were they hiding??

Use me,
I don't care
I just want to have a use
Be it a replacement,
A backup,
or a coping mechanism,
use me.

Because I love you,
Wherever you are
And I hope that if you're out there
You're not very far
Because I hate you,
whoever you are
I hate that you
Are so very far
I miss you,
If you even care
Because while I've been here,
You've been there
And there is a reason
For all this pain
All this sadness
And without any gain
Because I want you
Whatever you are
I'm longing for something
I will only find afar

Because I need you
Whoever you are
And I hope you're okay
Not wrecked in a bar

The trauma specialist
you know, the one with the leopard print glasses
the neck that sags
the voice that cracks
the one who always has
fruit snacks
yeah
that one
the trauma specialist
is starting to call
The Moon a she
And that pleases me
The Moon's a she and she The Moon she pleases me and she's a she
She The Moon
She pleases me

We grew up believing that no one would ever fall in love with us.
And so, to this day, I let people in too easily.
I let people do as they wish, make me hurt, make me cry...
All because I want people to be pleased with me.

Which is why on Monday, when the sky was crying,
She felt obligated to invite me to her house
And so, on Monday, I was crying,
Because I felt obligated to sneak off, quiet as a mouse.

I didn’t want to go
But I didn’t say no
Because if I said no,
Where would she go?

To this day, I believe in the moon
Because the moon is all I have
The moon is quiet, the moon is calm,
And, like me, the moon is sad.

I told the moon I hated her once,
In anger and in sadness,
And she understood
That my broken heart is like a cactus

I’ll let people in quickly,
And I’ll cry when they’re gone
I’ll cry when everyone leaves
Like when the moon leaves at dawn

But it happens,
It’s alright,
She’ll be back
Again tonight.

I opened my eyes to a deserted highway. Sand was rearranged on the ground by the soft breeze, which caressed my cheek as it went by. The heat wasn’t too hot to bare, but it was enough to make me take off the jacket I always wore and tie it around my waist.

I hopped up on the tailgate of my rusty black truck and swung my feet back and forth. I cranked up the volume of the old radio and hummed along, leaning back and looking at the light blue sky.

A donkey cried to my right and birds cawed all around me. The donkey quieted down and wandered over next to the truck to simply stand there and observe and I sighed, taking a deep breath.

Birds sat calmly on the wires that trailed along the sides of the highway and a tumbleweed flowed by, taken along with the wind.

I came across a smell I was familiar with: Wet dog.

I sat up and looked at the ground of the highway, coming face-to-face with a panting wolf, who’s hair was matted with a mixture of sweat and blood. I stood up and slowly walked to the back door of my truck, making sure to be careful and not scare the wolf away.
I grabbed a pack of hotdogs that I was planning on saving for myself and brought them back to the wolf, the donkey watching both cautiously and curiously. I opened the pack and threw one into the air, the dog catching it with it’s mouth and chewing with it’s mouth wide open.

I glanced over to the donkey and held my hand out for it to come to. It didn’t, of course, but I wasn’t bothered by that. I enjoyed the company. I went back to the back door of my truck, less careful this time.

I got out a sack of apples that I had previously gotten from a store back in the town where I was from, though that town was nowhere to be seen. I brought the sack of the red fruits back to the donkey and laid them at his feet. “You got a name, buddy?”
He didn’t reply. I don’t know what I expected. “How about Jack? That’s cliche enough, right?” He kicked his feet as he chomped on the apples. It was a funny name for a donkey, and it was good enough, too.

I turned my attention back to the wolf. “How about you? You got a name?” The wolf whimpered and begged for more hotdogs, and I obliged, throwing them in his mouth as I did before. “Kato.”
My husky’s name was Kato, so I figured this would be a good way to honor him, in a way. “Your name is Kato.” Kato ignored me and chowed down on the hotdogs.

And I breathed, and I relaxed, and I felt okay. The song on the radio was that of great joy, and the breeze against my skin was oh so calming. Even the donkey cries didn’t bother me, nor the wolf whimpering, nor the eagles cawing. I paid no mind to the loudness of the scene, only to the calmingness of it.
But, like a snake chasing its own tail, I was bound to end up back to where I started.

The chatter in the hospital always died down around this hour. In the quiet, Kody sat in a chair beside me and read to me. He foot was kicked up on my leg and he was slumping down in his chair. He always scolded me for doing that.
“Shoot all the blue jays you want if you can hit ‘em,” He read, “But remember…” I looked at my feet, which poked out from under the blanket in front of me. “It’s a sin to **** a mockingbird.”

I excitedly drew the fractured blade against my skin
So long without a tool to do this deed
Has done horrible things to my sanity
Like a drug, it draws me to it
And I use it,
get addicted,
No matter how much it hurts me,
and then go to rehab
or a mental hospital, as some would say
No matter
It feels great

God, I've spent so long trying to find the word to describe you
I have tried addictive, but that just wasn't true. Unlike a drug, I don't always have to come back. I could so easily stop... But I just don't want to.
I have tried beautiful, but that would belittle the facade that your pretty little face really is.
And god, you know I've tried wicked. But that is just simply not true. You are so **** amazing... and so **** horrible. But you are not wicked.
And, after all this time, I've found it. The perfect word.
Darling, you are
Intoxicating.

Chasing my own tail
Biting the feet that walk to me,
Biting the hand that feeds
Biting the same kind
Biting
Nipping
Always
Hurting
Chasing my own tail
Bound to end up back to where I started.

I love everything about you
But I can never have you
Her sister told her I was bad news
Touch me once and you'll know it's true
I can't leave, there's nowhere to go
Now I'm at an all time low
Where'd you go?? Who the hell knows...
You left me with no road home.
An illusion you have shown to me
A delusion you have given me
An intrusion on my fantasies,
But I'll admit, it was a nice dream.
Maybe I was clingy,
Maybe I was boring,
I'd try to tell you stories,
You would just be snoring
I know it's late, but at this rate we'll never talk again
ANd that would be to much for me, this can't be how it ends.
Say you're sorry 'bout what you said,
Say you don't really wish I was dead,
Say you're sorry 'bout making the new guy's face burn red.
I don't care.

There is a rabbit in my room
Though, not really.
There is a friend in my room,
Though, not really.
It is stuffed,
It cannot speak,
It lies still,
But it is my friend.
Though, not really.

The walls in here are light blue.
And they feel like they are drowning you,
And I feel like there’s nothing I can do.
To resist being taken under the current, too.
The ceilings in here are white,
And freckled with big lights,
And looking too long might cost you your sight.
The people in here are sad,
And the silence makes me mad,
But I know there’s no conversation,
Worthwhile to be had.

Today in school, I learned a lot about supressing how I feel.
Don't cry, chin up, smile, or else teachers will start to be worried.
I even learned how to force a smile!!
Oh, mother, I am so glad that I learned this skill...
If one more person asked how I was, I would probably start to be angry,
But now I've learned how to pretend like I really am alright!
People will no longer care,
No one else will notice.
Today in school, I figured out how to pretend to be okay.

It's only a place
It's only a place
It's only a place
"But it was only a place"

"And you weren't here."

The stale smell
of beer
and wasted lives

“We’re so sorry.”
So that’s it, then. They’re ‘sorry.’
It’s not their fault, I know that. But still, I can’t help but feel angry.
Everything was about to change, but at least they’re ‘sorry.’

Dinnertime
I ignore my mother calling me
Just as my stomach rumbles
Just as my stomach stings
And I am starving,
But I will not get up
Because I'm not hungry enough
I feel like I'm about to *****
My saliva has turned sweet
And I gag every once in a while,
But I will not get up
Because I am not hungry enough
I feel empty,
Like there should be more inside me
And I mistake it for an emptiness
That stems from depression
An emptiness that says something is missing
From only my mind
And not from how little I have been eating recently
It's not a disorder,
I am just not hungry
While other kids eat their lunch
I gather some celery sticks and some broccoli
maybe drink a little juice
And then I'm finished.
I'm not finished as in I am no longer hungry,
I'm finished as in I will not get up.
Because, although I am hungry,
I am not hungry enough.

I recognize that you need an idol,
but I am not that person.

I check your profile
I write a text
and backspace

And then
When all hope seems lost
I get that beautiful, long-awaited

dot
dot
dot.

I want to take you in my arms
We met 2 days ago
But you are so sweet
and kind and caring
and I have never known anything
Like that before you
So
Is this okay?
Or does love have its speed limits, too?

I've been doing
Pretty horrible, but I hope you're well
I hope you're happy
Up there in Heaven, cause I'm stuck in hell
I didn't use to
Believe in Christianity, God, or anything
I read the Bible
As a mechanism to pretend you're okay
I hope, however
If there's a 'Heaven' that you're up there
Where are you darling?
I hope you're at least somewhere
Cause it's scary to think
When you die, you go nowhere. ...
So, here lies the love of my life,
I hope that they're somewhere

Do not touch my skin
No matter how much it calls for you
Because it is not me
that is saying your name
It is my skin
And my skin doesn't know what it wants.

Midnight by the window
I lie awake
Thinking about the things
I haven’t said
Midnight by the window
She lies awake
The moon
Looking out over the sky
Midnight by the window
The moon is lonely
And so am I
We sit alone
Outcasted by the endless sea of stars
That said we were useless
But we still do everything for them
The stars
The people
The monsters
Praised for their riches
“The stars are so bright!”
“They are very successful!!”
When in reality
It’s almost always fate that brought them to their money
‘Money.’
The variable that determines success
Midnight by the window
I cry with the moon
Her and I
All alone.

Holding on
For dear life
Please
do not let go

But I feel much worse
When I'm calling your name
Out of nowhere
When I'm calling to you
And you don't respond
And I grow heavy
And it grows bigger
Feeding off your absence
And I feel
Way
Way
Worse.

It's been a while, old friend.
Old razor, the one I put away.
I have been good, I have been okay,
But then I was not, and I needed to see you once again.
It hasn't been great, old friend.
I have cried too many tears,
and now I need a friend to console me.
Oh, how I've missed you.
How I have missed you dancing across my skin...
How I have missed the scarlet beads you summon whenever you prance by,
How I have missed the bumps on my arms and the burn in the shower.
How I have missed this feeling: The feeling that is not numbness, but cannot be described.
No, maybe it can... Relief.
Relief that I can still bleed,
and I am not a robot.
I am not a monster.
I am not evil.
Hey, old friend, am I evil??
Am I selfish?
Am I a good person?

My brother says that he is better,
My mother says it's true.
Though, when I tell her all I'm good at
She says, "Oh, that's cool."
My brother punches walls,
I try to get straight A's,
My mom says she is proud of him,
But for me she turns the other way.
My brother says he's the good kid,
I don't think that's right,
But if I tell my mom I love her,
She just tells me goodnight.

He shook his head. “Is he going to be okay then?”
“Yes. We can add some meds to his regular ones to treat this, too.”
“Okay… how much?”
I looked out the window at the skyline, fogged up and cold. Matched my mood. It was rainy and the gray clouds covered up the sun. Kody sighed and rubbed his head. I ignored what they were saying and looked at the IV in my arm and rolled my eyes.

When I see you walking around with someone else
I wonder if you might actually go somewhere

"Stay, please. Just stay. It doesn't have to be forever, just for a little while... please. Just... stay."
"Forever," I promised.