The memories still flow freely
Like a cut that won't stop bleeding
Though you've been gone for years
And to ghosts I'm left pleading

When love was severed at the root
Like a limb discarded
I've since felt dull ache
Perpetually disregarded

Like phantom limb syndrome
This missing extension can be felt still
Though there's nothing there
Naught but the occasional chill

I got too used to be on my own
that I no longer know if I am lonely
but sometimes it does hit me: my own isolation
and then without a warning, I realise
How alone I really am

i hate that we've been together so long without being able to call you my boyfriend
i hate how you never smile in photos, and the way you wear blue shirts that bring out the colour of your eyes
i hate the fact you think i'm beautiful when you've never really seen me
i hate how you call me at 3am and insist you're not drunk, and pretend it was an accident when you call me sober
i hate that you don't ask how my day was or what my favourite season is or if i like your hair like that
i hate when we don't talk for weeks and suddenly you miss me
i hate how you forget the name of my favourite song but remember the day we met
i hate that you promised your grandma you wouldn't smoke anymore but brag about your drugs to me
i hate how much i hate you, but that i have to, because the dumb truth is i love you, and
i hate how after all this time you still don't love me

I don't miss you
I repeat over and over to myself as my hands are trembling behind my wet blurry eyes
He was boring
I tell them as I iron my face to show indifference
I pop these pills hoping I can at least dream you here
I don't rely on you
I don't know when you're coming back
I don't think you're ever coming back.
I ask myself why I stay wrapped around you suffocating you blue untl you see stars and my eyes become the moon
I don't.........
       I don't know.

For the very first time
I trusted freely
Loved universally
Spoke in open truths
I believed a heart
And words that moved me
When my cracks grew large
And my flaws were unflattering
Words bit into flesh
Backed across the line of beauty
Where distance its kinder
Than reality
When all perception is clouded clear
For the very first time
I trusted freely
and I learned quickly
As I am
I will not be loved

Around this particular time i can recall bonfires on a Far Rockaway beach
in between two and three AM
The fire; a heap of AM newyork papers burning in a rusted trash can stolen from the boardwalk.
Kiah was beautiful
her hair, coarse honey ringlets framed
a narrow face. I watched her eat grapes
and pull her hair away from her eyes a couple
of times. She ate the grapes and their juice made her lips glossy she did this and sipped on a Corona
her boyfriend sat behind her playing the guitar
and no attention to anyone. I wanted him.
A few days before that I was in his room
He asked if I ever heard Shaggy's "Mr. Bombastic"
that's what was playing when she walked into the room
she stared at me like a cat plotting an attack
walked past me like one too
the night before that I lay on the floor
of his room. There was no furniture
a motor bike in the corner. Some drums,
and various painted wood boards hung up, some laying
on the floor. Oil pastels scattered along with
screws, and bolts. while he played
maxwell on his guitar, acrylic paint under his finger nails.
I woke on the floor with a fuzzy purple throw blanket over me he was still in the same spot strumming and,
smoking a beedie when the sun came up

"Oh say can you see,
our land of constant misery.
Where dreams are crushed and faded,
from the Nightmare we've created.

We are born full of wonder,
till our lives are covered with terrible thunder.
Hopeless we've become,
a country so accustom to glum.

We are taught education is God,
but really it's just a facade.
Learning was never the mission,
greed caused this division.

Smart kids made depressed,
over a school system we don't address.
They can't get the perfect grades,
so they turn to blades.

State testing, grades, our lives judged by paper,
so much stress caused, some choose to meet the Maker.
Future doctors shunned because of a bad grade in History,
they are instead forced to live a life of misery.

Colleges and the goverment want only the "best",
so who cares about all the rest?
The man who could fix the economy?
Put down because of a bad grade in Biology.

Speaking of money,
wanna know what's funny?
Our future crippled with debt,
but yet they tell us not to fret.

Other countries' colleges are free,
but us Americans can surely handle such a "small" fee.
The system feeds on our scores and money,
while some of us live on crumbs, isn't that funny?

We start our adult lives behind,
and the goverment doesn't seem to mind.
We have to make the change,
we surely can't be this deranged.

We are the ones who have to fight,
with ALL of our might!
Remember, life isn't fair,
espcially in this American Nightmare......"