“Dad, where’s Mama?”

I keep my back to Alex and wrestle with the tears in my throat.

“She’s gone.”

“When will she be back?”

“Maybe in a week.”

How can I do this to him? I know damn well those bottles will get her before he has the chance to tell her goodbye.

“Dad?”

“Yes Alex?”

“Are you okay?” His voice trembles.

“Yes, I’m fine. Do you have homework?”

“Yeah.”

“Go finish it, I’ll call you down later.”

“Okay.”

I don’t want to do this to him-

It’s the only way I can hold his reality before it crashes down.

Sometimes, when the clouds are just dark enough, when the leaves of the trees shrivel to dust, when words evade my system like breath, the world ends. For even the briefest moment, I have doubts. Not the doubts of a supernatural being, or that my existence isn't meant to be, or about my impact on those around me. It carves deeper into my chest, leaves scars of damage over my mind and seeps into my soul.

I doubt that I am a writer.

Why bother to scrawl words over a page that no one will care about? What makes my thoughts, my internal stories that shut sleep from my eyes, any different from millions around the world? Selfish, naive. I am nothing but a dreamer, the one who trips before the race even starts, the one who dreams climb inside to sleep. Ideas find me and die. The world will never care. No one will ever know. My name will forever disintegrate with my youth and spring of ideas. They are nothing.

Then, the sun pokes over the horizon.

I sink into a chair and uncap my pen, and magic sparks sputter against the page as a new world unfolds. One where anyone is important, everyone has value, we all have a chance to make our dreams come true. And I know.

I am a writer.

Never did the wind howl louder than on the day of reckoning.

Tall men came out of pockets of gentle ladies.

Unsuspecting widowers saw their wives rise from their graves.

Moons fell from the sun’s rays.

The world

seemed

to

slant.

It was the day of reckoning.

All the little people ran around in wonder

when they would see their gods fall from the sky?

Maybe they would all ascend.

Nobody really knew.

“…but sometimes it’s just roses dying too young” (1)

Men out of old wives’ tales find their lovers

to keep their beds in splendid array of naked body.

And women wondered where the heart of the universe resided.

History stopped

and time

ceased

to

record

anything

but

breaths marking

lives

on hold.

_____________________________________________________________________

1.) Song-“Revelation Blues” by The Tallest Man on Earth

* ~

d e a t h,

p l e a s e

remember to

t u r n

t h e

lights

= = =

off

&

l o c k

the doors

w h e n

y o u

l

E

a

v

E

Why? God.

Do you fight? Your nod;

Has it not come to light, no thought,

At your cowardice of plight? For naught.

Do you save us? In arms salivating

Salvation, Damn us, too, to

Burn us for sins our heirs bear.

In fire; Inferno; kindled by whom? You

Plead, Bleed, yet seed pregnant twilight due, too,

And reign King, stand bearing thrones of ore?

Yet. Your feet. They’re cold. Through days—old—long—gloom—

Red eyes beat. Prayers told in blue rot, too soon.

Set your greets ’way where souls sin, rue, do woo.

Rest now, Rest.

Rest.

(Rest.)

(Rest.)

.

I’m walking on scars . on your faded moonlights

it’s tugging, it’s pulling

yet, I don’t stop . just small curious steps

cautious, but moving forward

drawn to the things that color your atoms

I chose not what to look for

if I see dark matter

that once pulled you in ( deep shadows of pain and doubt lingered )

I don’t stop, my feet are not fractured by the glass on the cold ground

a sign of something

that was once so fragile and loved

that burned the suns in your eyes . that ripped your insides

when beating flesh turns into unanimated shards

( mirrored cracked just from one tap )

you were there

inhaling the dust

recklessly it might seem, I don’t stop

I rest under a tree in your lost woods

only human

need time to recalculate my state

get up - spirit calls , venture through

so, I walk

and in the night I stumble until the light grabs me

grabs me whole

after faded moonlights . came a sun hidden within the universe

that universe was you

catching once again on fire of hope

reflecting in the comets

made of breath constructed from my lungs

last night I was caught into your gravity

falling into those skies

they pulled at me

I couldn’t stop

didn’t want to, if I can be so honest

my light ventured into the darkness before me

never realizing

that I would stop the night

remembering sun rays that were once lost

had the earth shifted , so much that I stumbled into this path?

not a lot, love, just an inch, that’s enough

last night I was caught into your gravity

falling into your skies

and now I stay

walking on scars . on your faded moonlights

both feeling your pain . and melting within your joy

( that simple )

.

I often feel like a wild beast, fleeing at the smallest movement.

I fled when I realized that we weren’t in love.

We weren’t in love,

but fuck it if I wasn’t.

It dawned upon me too late that you were a wild beast too,

gnawing on your own leg to get out of the trap

that I apparently was.

You left me to pick your hair out of the drain

and the pictures down from the walls,

like picking scabs off too soon.

I don’t know how to translate that into poetry.

And know I’m here, smoking your cigarettes just for the scent.

When the sleep won’t come,

don’t open the vodka.

When the words won’t come,

don’t pick up the phone.

I don’t know if you touched me just to break me like a promise.

I don’t know if you touched me, because I was the first thing

in a long time that felt good,

but it’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair,

I never got to yell,

I got to sit in silent tears with hangovers

you could name battleships after.

The first time you touched me, I didn’t know what to do with my hands,

like they were alien things, like I’d never had hands before

and this was the first time, and maybe they belonged in my pockets, and maybe they didn’t.

The first time, we were in the same bed I tried so hard to stay still.

It was the first time, our bodies were that close, the electricity could light whole cities.

I felt like screaming, or think of Charlie,

‘I got a Golden Ticket, I GOT A GOLDEN TICKET’,

breathing was hard like algebra, or why we do the things we do,

only thirty seconds had passed, this was worse than breathing under water,

I wanted to say so many things and nothing,

I felt everything.

I know I leaned into the insecurity too fast.

I’m either slow and shuffling or colliding at maximum speed.

I don’t know gray, never have.

And now I’m sitting here, five beers in,

with charred lungs from the cigarettes I devoured

in the attempt to smoke you out of my head.

I am still surprised I’m alive.

I tried to forget you, you know,

but you grew roots around my ribcage

and sprouted sunflowers below my cheekbones.

I wish my mother had told me

that you can’t water flowers with vodka.

And now I can’t think about anything else other than the hickey on your neck.

And you’re out fucking some blonde girl who gets high all the time,

and I’m a fucking mess.

You’re up in the mountains, and I’m drowning in lakes while you’re describing the water.

I’m scared of the nights.

I’m scared I’m losing my mind.

I’m scared you’re going to stay in me forever.

The day you left, I realized why hurricanes are named after people.

oh what thoughts that race,

back and forth they pace,

unyeilding in fury,

and absent of faith.

there is no jury

for these rampant thoughts.

the lines get a little blurry -

“you must have opinions, surely.”

yes, but i throw them into knots.

there is no thought that will cross

the threshold of my teeth and lips -

i make my opinions die in three dots...

oh it’s easy to speak in scripts,

but it’s a challenge to kill the bias.

everyone is bound to slip,

that’s just how privilege grips.

as ignorance is a crisis,

i combat it with defiance.

all my life i’ve chased the eclipse

of change, following science.

call me what you wish

but i refuse to trip.

i won’t give voice to these thoughts.

i’d rather murder my negative ticks.

there is a reason words are stone shots.

they can cause empires to worry.

they can kill with the right gloss.

i am careful when i type these dots...

my professors state that mercy

is found in every culture and race.

so if every life is a journey,

and every path is murky...

why does negativity have a place?

oh in my mind, i will purge every trace

of darkness corrupting my story.

i want people to know i am a safe space -

that they can rest here on their journey.

They say who you are

Is who you are when you're alone

But I don't feel anything.

I'm like a stone in rushing water,

Unmovable, slowly wearing down

And when I feel a chink in my armor

I pick it at, pulling it back

To reveal the layers hidden beneath,

So many layers, so many faces,

A paste-on smile for each day

And they pile up around me

But I keep on digging

Through the faces of a girl my parents want to see,

Through strange and foreign words my friends want to hear,

Thoughts tumbling onto the ground

Implanted by a society that screams for diversity

Yet dresses us all the same.

And the pile's so high I can't breathe

But I need to know the person hiding underneath it all

Because I don't know her anymore,

Just who she's suppossed to be.

Am I even there?

How can I know people

When I don't even know myself,

If I don't know if my thoughts are truly mine or someone else?

Why can I deal with other peoples' problems

But never my own?

How can I listen so well

But never hear myself over the sound of silence filling my head?

How do others feel so much,

Driven by the whim of emotion,

Yet my days pass in blurs of nothingness,

Dirty puddles in the cracks of broken asphalt.

You don't understand--

Who I think I am and who I am,

They're not the same

And I don't know which is which.

The girl buried under all these layers,

Too scared to live and too scared to die

Is not the same as the girl in the mirror.