i dont like the feelings you give me
like discarded gifts with ripped wrapping paper,
a "sorry" and a promise for more later.
anger builds like a carpenter early in the morning
restructuring and stabilizing walls i put up
for people like you, and i knew but here i am.
always relying on the world outside myself
to lend a hand. and *******, can i breathe please?
suffocating on everything you think i should be
where's the spiritual audit?
where's karma?
where's the righteous accounting for being everything i said i was, for not doing the things you think i did, and for not dying.
no cameras to show how ****** up this all is,
no one to hold my hand tightly as they say what i really needed to hear two years ago:
NOT THIS ONE.

I cry for countless things
For birds with broken wings
For toys left by growing kids
For discarded wedding rings

I cry for characters on screen
Personas I've never truly seen
Whose stories echo familiar
With wisdom that I might glean

I cry for broken hearts
For unsuccessful starts
For fields of wildflowers
That are staked then ripped apart

I cry for rivers that can't be crossed
I cry for things not yet lost
And even within remarkable love
I cry, knowing what love will cost

I have a friend who cries
For rose-tinted skies
For the first looks given
From a newborn babies eyes

She cries for happy endings
And noble, generous spending
She cries for torn friendships
That are slowly but surely mending

She cries from staggering laughter
Or jumbled kitchen disasters
Or while attempting obscure talents
That we both know she never will master

I think it's something special
To have tears so freely deployed
At the sight of heartbreak and beauty alike
What a gift, to cry for joy.

What I see in her brings tears to my eyes
I crave that untethered jubilee
And in my longing, I realize
The beginnings of it in me

A wilting aster
Questioned Death
Whose body surrounded
With field of flowers—
Would they cry?
They answered,
Yes, though
You wouldn't know why.

I wake up creaking,
stiff and wanting to cry,
from pain or sadness,
I'm not sure.
I wake up not here:
still dancing in lilac fields
where nothing seems to matter,
where you disappear
and my stress follows.
I wake up not wanting to;
wishing I could turn over
and rock myself back to oblivion.
I wake up cursing
and I know it's a new day.
I know the sun comes back around
but fate seems like a *******
and it won't let me in
am I going to be great
or am I just here?
I wake up waiting.

When existing is the same as breathing in water
Drowning, sinking to the bottom of the deepest sea
As the sun gets tired from making everyone else shine
And dips her weakened toes into the depths of what is
Slipping past what could be and slumbering
At the edge of every river i’ve cried
Trying to be more than the dead end of the void.

They both stopped my tears from running
Smiled fondly as they caught them in their tracks
Unable to stem the flow
Unwilling to let them fall
But my cause, you cannot be the cure

I'll close my eyes. I'll smile. I'll keep quiet.
Tears are nothing and I realize it.
I realize, but I don't want to!
To live, to breathe without you, like you do!

I'll give a hug and run my hand over
Your rough unshaven cheek, my lover.
And I will go away, I'll pass you by with no trick.
But only my heart will be filled with a heart-break.

You're a stranger and I'm a stranger too.
I swear, I won't cry and I won't be blue.
But how can I calm down my heart after all?
I don't want to stop loving you! Forever and whole!