I remember the first time
My heart felt
Sick.
Sick for someone else.
Her face has faded from my
Memory
But not the feeling of my chest
Hollowing
For the first time.

Every pulse spent with her
Was like that of a fist
Hitting the head of a drum from
The inside.

Or like sinking.

A soft, crumbling
Concave.
Like fleeting footprints in
The sand of a bad
Dream.

I suppose it was pity, mostly.
Slumped with the stature of a
Vulture.
All crooked and
Insecure.
Of course my adolescence couldn't
Identify
With the terminology
Of such a foreign
Energy.

She wasn't alarming.

There was a subtleness to her.
She was like creeping
Quicksand.
Only,
I didn't know I was being drawn in
Further
Until the air became
Thick
To breath.

She wasn't evil.

There was a
Timidity
To her.
She radiated
Stagnancy.
Something I had never
Audienced before.

She was like the only
House
One finds at the
End
Of a road long
Forgotten
By civilization and
Laughter.
Broken and splintered from the Weight
Of buried burdens and
Contraventions
Of the white picket fenced
American
Dream.

She was like the figure one
Reluctantly
Forms in the
Dark
And her
Silence
Was the comforting thought that
Nothing
Is ever really there.

I know it's because of that
Forced
Reassurance
That she oozed the
Disregarded
Desperation
Of an
Unsolved
******.
The one tossed in a
Box and thrown on a shelf.

Overlooked.

To think of it
Now
I can't help but wonder if

The others saw her too.

Tomorrow is the day
I have imagined
For nearly
Two decades.

I am almost two decades old.

I never really pictured myself
In the ruffled, black
Window drape
And
Cardboard diamond.
Standing with "all my friends"
While everyone I love washes
Me to my diploma with tears of
Pride and joy.
I pictured the end.

Naive.
Of course.

But at six years old
Everyone made high school
Out to be
Life
And then life goes on
Hiatus
While we work our dream jobs
Raise kids and
Die.

Ironic.

It is always those preachers of
" Practicality"
Who make that dream
A goal.

Youth is idolized and coveted.
But like the
North Star
It was
Ignorance
Who led me through the darkness
Of my adolescence.
Not beauty or
Vitality.
Blind Faith and
Forced hope
In all the
Inevitable failures
That would seemingly lead me
Through a life time of
Social experiments.
Or as society prefers,

"friendships."

Ironic.

As it was I was being tested
More than I was testing.

Tomorrow
I will be graduating with
176
Cardboard diamonds
And of most of them
I only know
Their names.

Some led me to believe that they could sparkle
But in the end
Couldn't stomach the
Entirety of a mine.

So tomorrow we will be handed
Paper telescopes
Through which it is
Advised
To look towards our
Futures.

Cardboard diamonds will not look.

They will wipe their brows.
Flatten and restrict
Their futures to a
Five dollar plastic
Frame
And hang it on a wall as
Eggshell or beige
As the next 40 years of their
Hiatus.

Some led me to believe that they were pearls.
But in the end
Just couldn't bare the patience of
Becoming.

I am no cardboard diamond.
But I am not quite a pearl.

The day after tomorrow
I will be the same
Grain of sand
That I have been
For the past
18 years.

And for this,
I am truly
Grateful.

Restless tonight
Strange
The things exposed in absence of light

My demons snarl
Yet
So do I
A morbid pleasure
I can't seem to hide

To be so close
To what I fear most
And still possess the urge to smile

And when day breaks the seams of night
And allows the sun to bleed my eyes
A glass blown glaze affects my sight
A candy coax
A paperweight
Upon the desk
Of time and fate

But when night falls
As it always does
Reality crawls
To oxidize my rust.

In my mind I've lived and died
Seen shores swallowed by the tides
Waiting for you

All along I knew you'd come
Underneath familiar sun
You were there
Somewhere

Maybe you never stopped to wonder
If the stars that fill the sky your under
Shine on me too

Maybe you never stopped to think if the same winds that kissed your cheek
Kiss mine too
And

Maybe you weren't waiting for me
But I've been waiting for you

It's all been said and done
If we aren't dying we're numb
We should put down our guns
Cause all we need is love

Ignorance is queen
The world is cold and mean
And when I'm dead and gone
You won't remember me

Equality is all we yearn
Conformity is all we've learned
Convince ourselves that we still care
Sing the same old song

The tune that gives us hope
Reminds us that we're ******
Anchor in the water
Feet tied in the rope
You're a good one of you strive
And even better if you die
We have faith you'll break the surface
Just know that we're proud
Humanity is worth it
We all know you'll drown

Remember you in honor
Because you soldiered on
Even though you're gone
It's all been said and done

History
a struck match
The future
A broken record
In between
We still believe
It just keeps getting better

Honesty
A ghost no one seems to see
Denying all the signs
Refusing to believe

It's all been said before
Recycled metaphors
Intrigue you all with rhyme
Sing the same old song

That whisper in the wind
Instilling you with purpose it's bestowed time and again
Inside you lies the power to make that final change
Slit there throats
Or when there hearts
I guess it's all the same

Remember you were chosen
We have faith you'll stand your ground
So beautifully heroic when the same wind knocks you
Down

Remember me,
Or don't.
I'll exist again.

Honesty's ghost
A message in the wind

I can feel my halo
Dimming
I can feel my tolerance
Slimming
I can feel my sanity rot in this
Forever stagnant state I'm
Sitting
I can feel the madness
Ripping
Holes of confusion in my
Heart
I can feel the courage crawl to
Fool me alone in the
Dark

But where the
**** am I?
Search for shadows in the light
So easily could I just hate
But I suppress what none dare take
Let the tears soften the break
Coping illudes as release

I pray for the real fall
I pray to end it all
They say to get it off my chest
Let my burdens find some rest
But I take comfort in the hope
One day my cares will *******
Choke

I could feel you spitting every
Insolent complaint
Hammering like nails in my
Tolerance
I swallow hard
Push down impulsiveness
Caution can be a burden
Praised as wisdom's yoke
Yet, so can capriciousness
So I sit back and choke

So where the
**** am I?
Anxiety is too **** high
So easily could I just break
But an act of risk
The fence won't take
Just sit there and
Equivocate
Coping illudes as release

I pray for the real fall
I pray to end it all
They say to get it off my chest
Let my burdens find some rest
But I take comfort in the hope
One day my cares will *******
Choke

Sitting pretty on the fence
Next to indecisiveness
And he tells me
"Here, there is no right or wrong. In the grey is where you belong."

So I look to either side and
They're all living their lives
Doing what they feel is right until they die
And here I am alone
Wasting away as I
Erode
And I realize I'll never
live at all.

So who the
**** am I?
Risk is the breath of life
So easily could I just wait
Second guess and hesitate
But there's no freedom in a place
Where coping illudes as release

Moon lights up the night with that Cheshire smile
In the
Black
Blue
Bruised sky

Stars shine in
Paralyzed combustion
And I get the notion
To never move again

How could the day compare
To a beauty so rare?
The sun will always rise in time
But each night is one of a kind
And here I am amongst the trees
Hear their praises in the breeze
As they reach up to Heaven
Longing to be lifted
While we both stand rooted
In Hell

The lights blurr together with every tear that fills my eyes
Knowing one day I'll fly forever
When God paints my star in the sky

I feel the pleasent creep of
Possibility
Sort of like a
Euphoric serenity

And I can feel it in my veins

A breathtaking surge
You can't deny
But won't be sure
If time is a pawn,
Cruel in its waste,
You and I are as hollow as
The threat of
Check mate.

Poets say how beautiful it is
that the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shore
no matter how many times it is sent away

How chasing thunderstorms can make you feel so alive
that sometimes you forget you are in the path of a hurricane.

This is how we fall in love
This is how we fall apart

This is the burning flame
This is the burst balloon

This is saying “I love you”
and only hearing a siren song

This is feeling at home
even with your hands around my neck

Maybe I jumped knowing exactly where I’d fall
Maybe I held your heart so hard it exploded

If we are just two people playing with fire
Why am I the only one who gets burnt?

In sixth grade biology class they taught us
that the average human heart is the same size as a fist.
I didn’t know we would all grow up learning to use it like one.