To look upon the world
and no longer be
afraid

You call me a dreamer
Who's the one who says "I love you"
To a complete stranger
Every day?

Basically, I was born to be yours.
Babe, don't be a stranger.........

Maybe if you throw broken glass at me
I'll finally understand what it feels like
to be shattered. Right?

I want to feel the tiny stabbing pains inlay
themselves in my face like diamonds until
I can't feel my lashes.

And why, you ask, do I want to learn this
pain more than I want to live myself, and yet
you forget I am more.

I am more that you'll ever be because I wish
unlike one I've ever known to feel the pain
that comes with life.

Because I know
we are lost
without it.

Once put aside, it never dies,
but lives fervently on.

Tis but a shame that love will droop
when thine effort carries on.

Her moonlit fingertips grace
the snowy wetness of the strawberry bush
as it waits silently for
a melancholy song
in the form of torn skin and blue blood
to grace its' leaves

Why are Sleep and I no longer friends?

We used to spend so much time together, used to be so close, wasting hours in idle chatter about meaningless and skewed ideas and figments of our imaginations.

But now, when I come knocking at her door, there is no response. It's like she's ****** at me, for reasons I can't understand. But it's not unlike her to leave me alone to the tortures of my Mind when I need her most.

While I lay and wait to hear from Sleep, Mind weasels his way into my conciousness, sitting down and pretending to feel sorry for the thoughts he has created within me.

And that's where it all starts.

Example; last night.

Remember? Hannah, do you remember?

Do you remember when you had it all within your grasp and you said NO to spare someone else's feelings...but didn't spare your own?

Do you recall the two hours of waiting between words that would make the suicidal feelings within me rise from a puddle to a tsunami?

Do you recollect the pulse that assaulted your eardrums as you tried to block me out, but couldn't?

Do you?

He taunts me thus until an ungodly hour until he finally allows Sleep to enter, and I am too tired to socialize with her.*

Someone, please tell me why.

Why does my mind hate me, why do I shake more than smile, why do I cry more than laugh...

And why can't I ever get it right? Why do I always hurt everyone I know? Why can't I make myself as happy as I wish I could by making others?

And God, why can't I have just one little sliver of happiness? For just an hour? A minute? A nanosecond?

How little do I deserve?

Gone are the days
When life was a ride
And I just grinned
From the passengers side

Gone are the nights
When life was a dream
And I could follow
Someone else's scheme

Here are the weeks
When life is full force
And I have to push
Like battle worn horse

Here are the years
When life becomes death
And I gasp my last
Living my final breath

The wings of the sow, they bled with tire
and wear and love that did perspire
in bold red beads across her back
where feathered things did slake and slack.

But fly she wouldn't, for fear of life
and judging, based on that stereotype.
So if you chance to see her now,
she'll be naught but a flightless sow.

Miss.
Us, you, my sanity.
Life, thoughts, reality.

My mind can create so many things
that I maybe shouldn't
but do

Miss
Your banter, her smiles, my laughter.
**Our talking, their acceptance, the love.

Oh, no.
You don't want these hands.

Worn and weary from many a night they've spent tapping against a tabletop, waiting for an inspiration that almost never shows itself...

Not these.

Battle scarred from wars fought against an ivory foe, the checkerboard pressure staining them a white and then a red deeper than Macbeth's blood....

Trust me.

Full of pain from furiously scrawling onto shredded napkin bits hopes, dreams, and fantasies that can only be revealed by the power of the pen...

They're broken.

They do not expect
       Think
                  Want
                            To be held in another's.

But then, there's you.
Just you.
How?

I see you.

And suddenly, my hands-worn, weary, battle scarred, full of the deepest pain imaginable.......

Suddenly, they're not empty anymore.

I'm holding you.

I wonder what's for dinner.
I loved that steak we had the other night.
Well, kinda loved. I don't eat much anymore.
Maybe I can finally fit into those Guess jeans since I've lost so much weight.
I mean, it IS picture day tomorrow.
Oh God, what am I going to do with my hair?
I'll curl the top maybe.
She said it looked nice the day I did that.

Ah, can't think about her/it/that.

Do I have any homework left?
I don't think I do....
My planner only lists things due Thursday.
That reminds me, I have to come in early Thursday,
I have to meet with a teacher on the third floor.
That's close to her locker.
Maybe I could say hi.

No, no, no. Concentrate.

Okay, so outfit for tomorrow!
Picture day always comes around so fast.
So I'll wear those jeans- they fit now-
and maybe that white top.
Does it look good?
Maybe I should ask someone.
Her opinion matters the most to me.
What would she think?

No, I'm not going to bother her.

I'm so tired.
Life is just tugging and tugging at me.
I don't even feel like me anymore sometimes.
But I feel more than like myself when I'm around her.
I feel alive.

So just this once, I'll let myself dwell on her a bit.

*It's crazy that it only takes one person to make me feel truly alive.
And that person isn't me.

I killed a man with my bare fingers
his blood like satin
seeping through my jeweled nails

I bit the beating heart of a diamond
whose only wish was
to be loved like her mother never was

I cut open the heart strings
of a forlorn cello
battle worn from the field of shining lights

I made love to the curtains hanging over
your ice sharded chandelier
hoping the heat would cool my soul

My mind can travel
Farther than any airplane
Any train
Any Titanic laying waste to thousands of icebergs
Deep pools of liquid twilight
Know my name
I visit briefly
Then am on my way
Broken shards of starlight
Pierced through by the screams of a newborn
I have heard
Seen
All there is
And when the feathery light axe
Begins to fall down
Down
Onto the neck
Of a plasmic colored swan
We will know
All there is
To fear

If we can make magic with our mouths
and enhance them with the strings
strung onto a piece of wood

If we can pull the strings that move our lips
and the strings that create our sound

If we can weave our strings together
into a perfect triple harmony


The world will be perfect
as the string of immortality
that never gets tangled...

Sing with me

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you
Oh, please don’t take my sunshine away.”

HOPE
is like sunshine.
Here one moment, gone the next.
Shadowed by clouds,
Hidden by the moon.
Sometimes comes in small installments.
Through a windowpane
Or the cracks in a door.
It’s always there.
But sometimes we can’t see it.
And what little we see
Is overshadowed by stormclouds
Of doubt. Is there anything
superior to rain crying in the
sunshine? Crying because
HOPE
has finally shown itself.
This is one of the
Only natural exhibits
of true beauty.

pain from within is like a shot of lightning to the chest
that no one sees
but everyone hears

how were we to know that just because we see light
doesn't mean that
better times are coming

light stands for good but connotates putting the bad
out of our heads when
it just gives us a better view

It'll be hard for them to realize. I flatter myself in thinking that but I believe it is true.

Now they're free from the drama. Perhaps that breaking point was what I needed to realize that I'm doing them more hurt than harm.

They never asked to get involved with me, to let me drag them down, to make them think they did something wrong.

The only thing they ever did wrong was to let me in.

And I loved every sainted moment.

I just wish I had been strong enough to contribute to them like they contributed to me.

They're going to blame themselves. Loving them from afar, watching them grow, learn, and love from a distance will be one of the hardest things I've ever done.

But I wouldn't have hurt them like this if I didn't know
that they'd benefit massively.

.....goodbye.

Slowly, she scraped and saved and sighed
over all she had left
and she realized the little love she had left
wouldn't be enough
she could never, would never afford
the cost of her heart

How can I tell someone how to feel
When sometimes I wonder if I've forgotten
How to feel anything myself?

Enlighten me.

The learning is with the entwining of fingertips
Of two pairs of hands that desperately need
To learn a lesson about who they are and
What it is they have to contribute to the world.

That, I believe, is the one and only magic
Remedy that even then can still fail...

It just makes you wonder
If the hands you wish to be holding
Are really even there.

Take mine for example-
Maybe I'm not as outward about my
Condition as I should be, but
How do you know that I'm not
Fading faster than you are?

Perfection.
It’s what we strive for.
Some believe it is their destiny.
Others, much like me, believe it is the world’s curse.
Sure, it can be a goal. We look to it for guidance, as a role model for how our lives should be lived, for information on how to handle certain situations. Yet for me, it is a cruel, twisted, sadistic black cloud and threatening my life with a torrentous, eternal thunderstorm.
Perfection daunts me everywhere I go. The people I see passing by reek of it; not a hair is out of place, and they ooze with confidence and clarity.
Like a viper eyeing its’ prey, it waits for the opportune time to lash out at me, when I’m weak, vulnerable, or most of all, happy.
One is led to wonder; why should I care? I don’t have to be perfect in order to live. I just need to be me. Yet when you’re sitting in a room full of tiny anorexic models, do you still feel that courageous? No.
It all comes down to your inner strength. It is more beautiful than the most perfect statue, more potent than the most perfect of medicines, more withstanding than the most perfect wall. What is inside you should not be taken for granted. It is your own, personal powerhouse, ready to fuel you when your perception begins to lag.
So would it be better to shun perfection altogether? Honestly, it does not do much good for a girl to start cutting the word into her thighs, a boy to repeat it over and over again as he ties his own noose, or for a convict to mutter it as he stares at the ceiling unable to sleep. What point is there?
My resolution? Shout it from the rooftops, scream it from the skyways. “I am flawed……………...And I am beautiful”.

i reread every single piece i wrote about you. it was painful.
i don’t think either of us ever realized how much i cared about you. or that you probably never read them or cared or reciprocated or will even read this one. but that’s completely okay.
it just makes me wonder. if i has been more mature, if i had had myself together, if i hadn’t been anxious, if i hadn’t been a victim...where would i be now?
that was my starting point when i reached the insurmountable amount of pain that is college. and it’s where i needed to be.
going back is like going on a trip your parents decided to take you on and you have no choice but to be strapped into the backseat for the ride. once i started reading i couldn’t stop.
these words mean nothing, but the words i wrote years ago don’t. they meant more than just a mere something.
they were all i had.
and now it’s so enlightening to look at myself and see so much more.

It isn't so much the realization as it is the process.
The life blood that contributes to it, the feelings that emanate from every wavelength of it.
It's the doubts and concerns and hopes that line the path with light or darkness, all the pathfinder's choosing.
It's the way.

Just because we felt happiness
And you saw little tears
Doesn't mean that our time
Wasn't all just broken years

You saw the good, you optimist
You never asked what I fear
So you can't blame me for being ******
All of those long broken years

Dear no one, this is your love song*

I may not be the prettiest
or the smartest
or the most eloquent
or the most accomplished

and that's all

Once, if it please thee,
snip back hedgelings overgrown
to reveal in a silent plea
the child who's all alone.

Fought for freedom to forget,
finding fear that seems aught of time,
her wisping tendrils wrapped twice, twice yet
round her throat with reason and rhyme.

To love is to look,
like an unbequeathed shield
for a ring or a hook
that will help thee to yield.

But yielding is not for the feinted of heart
or for the young vain and trampled,
for in my own heart i feel set apart
and no longer feel life is ample.

Just another moment....just a little more time. The most sacred letter of the alphabet.....just j.

If we weren't so sensitive
We wouldn't need
This iron curtain
Would we?

"We"?

I digress.

smiling makes it hard to breathe.
i don't like faking.

smiling makes it hard to breathe...
...when you're the one doing it.

blood isn't effective
because someday you'll run out.
we know this.

soak up sun instead
drench yourself in salt water
kick up dirt under your heels
let blades of grass slice open your back

then slice open your mind
it you let your pain come from elsewhere,
you'll have time to produce your own happiness

How is it that living can so easily be mistaken for sleeping? Like, I could be dreaming all this right now and wake up to my words flying off the screen and into an oblivion lit with only the red of eyes of monsters ready to eat me up at a second glance. But maybe not. Maybe we're all living a digital life that we'll one day just digitize away from because we ran out of power. Sometimes I wish I knew how to pull the plug.

White fences, blue skies,
and laughs.

So many laughs.

Popcorn, angels,
and Korean.

So much Korean.

They say living in the past can destroy you, that dwelling on what you've lost can shred your very being.

But what if it's a good past?

We learn from history so that it doesn't repeat itself.
But we also learn how to relive the good moments.

We need not weapons.

Speak.

And daggers will fly,
Lifting from your scratched penmanship
And we will conquer all.

They say we can sense
hearing
smell
sight
touch
sound
taste

but what about danger?
love?
fear?

we can sense that someone is creeping up behind us
and sense that something bad is about to happen
can sense the change in the pressure in the air
and the need of someone else for a hug or kind word.

to say we have only five
is underestimating

but to say we have infinite?
we understand but few...
and that is why we teach five.

Now I feel guilty.

I'm having trouble wording everything right now, I'm sorry.

No, YOU'RE my life.

There's just so much...so much else people expect from me.

My parents, my friends, my teachers, colleges.

Juggling it will be hard....and I want to make sure you get the attention you deserve.

And I'm just saying, it won't be easy.

*Can't promise things won't be broken, but I swear that I'll never leave.

You can read my thoughts
blankly

and pretend to understand and sympathize
with what I write

But if you could summarize me
what words would you spin?

Who am I
to you?

We are terribly sorry to inconvenience the public in this way for yet a third time. Due to multiple setbacks in emotional distress, lengthy loneliness, and suicidal overdose ridden thoughts, we are still not ready to welcome the public into our new edifice. As you all know, the most recent Hurricane Heartache undid some of the work we take so much pride in. We ask humbly for your forgiveness and are still unable to give a completion date as of now.

i'm like that scarf i made in third grade.
i'd just learned to knit, was cocky, confident.
the yarn wasn't that expensive, the plastic needles were shiny and made me feel professional.
i could make something all my own, i had the ability.
knitting it was easy.
watching movies, listening to music, laying in bed.
my fingers never ceased weaving in and out, in and out.
soon it was finished, and i wove it around my neck instead.

and only when i needed it most did i realize there was a missed loop in the first row of stitches.

and it caught on a branch, and my scarf was suddenly back to square one, a mess of tangled yarn meshed with the winter snow.

and i was cold.

just one mistake...and it unraveled everything.

so much work.

so little time.

metaphor?

Rest your eyes and relax
Cause today is beautiful....
But not as beautiful as him.
Open your eyes
Before he's gone....

And he smells of the lavender that presses into his back
Each time he presses his hand against my waist

May I bleed my thoughts onto a page, splattering the words in a sentimental frenzy of feeling?
May I?
Is it socially incorrect for my thoughts to soar as soon as his picture greets my eyes with the warm scent of his cologne afterwashing my brain?
Is it?
Am I allowed to close my eyes and hang his picture on the red curtains that cover them, leaving me to see him when I see nothing else?
Am I?

I ask questions such as these much too often.
     Do you deprive me the curiosity?
          Do you wish me gone?

Farewell then, my dearest friend.
You know not what I suffer.

Being told you are a beauty is beauty in and of itself.

Knowing he thinks that means the sainted world.
    But how do I know....unless he tells me?

May I ask, "Do you find me attractive?"

Is it socially incorrect for me to wish I knew his true intentions since he speaks so little about them?

Am I allowed to cry a little when I can only see him but once per cycle of the days and only dare to dream for the next meeting of our hearts, the next connection of my head to his shoulder?

May I?
Is it?
Am I?

Perhaps.

here

at the press
against an arrow
suddenly

there

You said you loved me.
But I took that mask off a long time ago.

What classifies as a panic attack?

Maybe it's the breathing that escapes me when I think about the past, the future, but most of all, the present.

Maybe it's the horrible thoughts that stampede loudly through my head begging to be written out onto my skin.

Or maybe it's the inconstant shaking that decides it can be controllable only when it doesn't have to be.

I miss my little self.

She didnt panic over words, not like I do.

Well, hello there.
Awkward, isn't it? Reading what I say without hearing it for yourself?
I know it is for me. I want to see your face as I read everything to you, my face turning redder than yours ever will.
But I know I can't.

How is it
That what I write
Is something you find
To be beautiful?

Beauty is so subjective, darling, I don't believe we ever truly find it on this earth until the day we aren't searching for it.

Was I looking for you?

No.

But I found the most valuable beauty there is to be found on earth
In the solace of your arms, your smile, your scent, your heartbeat.

I wasn't seeking, and you weren't hiding.
But I found.

Case closed.

They are so fleeting,
You know, the memories.
The ones of him as we talked about our lives, moaned about homework, philosophized about our futures.
The ones of him smiling as we sat in the same room for the first time, not knowing that the two of us were about to be in for the biggest fall of our lives.
It was a fall. Two, actually.
I fell for him.
He fell for me.
In the cold of the fall, we both fell.
The feelings seem fleeting; but yet we forget---
There is always a key to that file cabinet in the back of my brain, as there is one to his. There will always be a way to revive what seems stretched through limited contact, through busy times, through musicals and businesses.
There will always be time.
And there will always be us.

I often do that a lot.

Find words that mean what I wish she'd say.

But the real question lies thus;

who was that meant for?

No one really understands how strong they are until they feel pain.
Pain brought on by others, sure.
But pain brought on by oneself.
Ink by ink and bone by bone,
We write our own rifles
To shoot our penned images down with.

Don't feel as if you are alone.
How many views do you have?
How many witnesses are there
To your black stained suffering
That could turn to red any moment?

Who knows.
I know.

I know the silence a written page can scream
Louder than any thoughts and any people.

Just know that no matter the lack of comments
No matter the absence of physicality to hear you
Your pain
Is being read.