Story

And at 17 you will forget why you used to

Slit your wrists to write in blood

On brick walls and call it visceral poetry.

You will forget the way that two words rhyme

Would be an allegory for the ruler that is time- and then

You will forever try to fit words together that

You best believe would be ugly paradoxes.

My dead beating heart

My numb emotional mind

My unsure steady fingers

My lips on the most intimate parts of you…

Maybe those scribbles I wrote you

Fucking you with my words on bible pages

Was an attempt to free my rage

And maybe it worked.

These days I hardly feel anything anymore.

But it is not the confusing kind of numb

I felt at 16.

No, this is calm numbness-

The type of cold that knows how to be warm

The type of skin that knows exactly how to fit

Around everything I worked for to buy-

And they all have bite marks on them.

This type of cold is not the kind

That melts me down when someone walks out.

No, this kind of cold and that kind of heat

Are not interchangeable.

Love and hate are no longer the same substance in me.

I have finally freed myself.

I don’t need words anymore.

I’m not a fucking story.

No

They will knock at your door and

Force your eye to the peephole

The way a masochist would look back

At the flames he was running from.

And you will tell them no,

A thousand times over in your head.

It’s hard to cut the ties when

They’re made of time.

And you’re going to squeeze that knife

Between your fingers till the blood

Drips down into your conscience and

Weighs you down for days.

Until one day you’ll manage to open the door

And cut off the ties.

Until you can look them in the eyes and

Tell them no for once.

And when you finally realize

That you put those you love

On a pedestal of high expectations

You realize why it is that

You just simply give up on people.

Please remember that everyone’s just human-

Even those you consider gods.

Forgive me father for I have sinned.

I drank from the river of rage and

Wiped my mouth with filthy hands.

I am no longer capable of feeling anything;

Not even remorse.

Disconnect

The last time I dipped my fingers in fresh blood

It was dripping down my thighs from wounds never healed

My teeth are dirty from the iron from your heart

And you think I don’t know that I ripped you wide open.

If I were to say there is one thing fundamentally idiosyncratic about me

It’s the disconnect between my emotions

And my parlance

As if given a soul capable of feeling grief

But unable to mourn

Is supposed to be a beautiful tragedy I’d appreciate.

The universe has a twisted sense of humor

And I have all their laughs and

None of their respect.

I crave death through every breath

Lungs fighting for this sacred life

For every single piece of me

Is battling in an endless strife.

Eyes of a Writer

Gaze into the eyes of a writer

Burn your palms on the round globe

They have composed in their head.

The iris tells the story of

Innocuous pain twisted

Into unimaginable waterboarding torture

In simple parlance.

Gaze into the eyes of a writer.

Make sure you listen to the catch

In their breath when they recite their own poetry.

Watch the tragedy that is an adult

Once a child who was told

That their grand, universe filled souls

Are insignificant in the vastness of the cosmos.

Gaze into the eyes of a writer.

You might be the only one

Who can look past the metaphors

And find the guilty instead.