lingering scents and blood in my mouth.

Brace yourselves for this one. The facets of a person are limitless and we know this but it still shocks me how easily we forget that. I am in love with nobody. I am in love, but it is with existence. Or non-existence. One of the two. Here's the thing: my imagination goes much farther than my actual life ever will. I perceive this as a false understanding better hindering myself into a bleak state of sadness, or nothingness, depending on the position of the moon and the weather that night. Always, after midnight. Sometimes you can even imagine the very scent of another human being. Dream of it. Dream of all the magic that is buried in your bone marrow and wake up with your smile fading because nothing you ever imagine happens. But, hey. It's all good. Nothing is quite ever what it seems albeit right or left. Right or wrong. Whichever. Every thread within your pillow case holds every single thing you've ever wanted to exist. And that, my friend, is exactly where they shall remain. Let's talk a walk. Find a tree. Climb it. And you and I will sit on a branch and become sponges to each others' spills. Then, we will trace each others scars, freckles, bumps, wrinkles, and delve into a realm of laughter. Your turn. Go ahead. You scared? That's okay. There are little tiny things in this world that people find fulfilling. The heat of your breath as you kiss your way down my tummy. The period printed at the end of my favorite sentence in my favorite book, concluding my favorite thought. You are everything in this world that you want yourself to be. A simple turn of the head, flick of the wrist, one tiny smirk. It all adds up to everything and absolutely nothing all at once. We give ourselves checkpoints. Vanity checkpoints, happiness checkpoints...sadness checkpoints. all for our own mindless self indulgence. You gasp for air, hoping that the oxygen stretching out your lung tissue will be some sort of reminder that hey- you're alive. and you're okay. It still won't negate the fact that you're twitching in artificial pain. But...we all know you like it. I lick my lips. I chew the inside of my mouth until it bleeds and I realize that I'm doing it. Its sort of like...a prism. Each side has its own secret story, but once a light shines through the gem, all the sides combine to form a rainbow. You don't really know how you got here, do you? To this exact point in your life? Take a step back. Remember every single word you wanted her to say, but never heard fall off her beautiful, beautiful, lips. Your body will always forgive you for the things that you do. Your heart, however, won't. I muster up some sort of paradoxical idea that not being myself is actually being more myself. And I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. Is anybody ever really sure how they feel about anything? Your eyelashes catch your sweat, and your fingertips curl into your mattress reminding you, that your body is kind of the only thing you trust. For the most part. I want to feel like a broken piece of glass in the ocean as it smooths me over. I want to be pressed up against the wall with someone's breath heavy in my ear. I want to be lost within the bass of a speaker and have my concerns be bumped away. The difference between me and you, is that I am open to interpretation. I taste your cigarettes on your mouth. The same mouth that lies and makes fake promises. I prick myself with the gift you gave me then demanded I give it back. Because it was special to you but I'm not anymore. I want a tear to fall on the tip of your tongue and you realize how bad sadness tastes. You say the same thing in circles but no one ever hears you say it. You hide notes and letters inside crevices of corners, but the only person reading them is a ghost who never lived. See things from a different perspective. See things with a new taste, a new smell, a new slimy, disgusting, sticky texture and then you tell me how exactly the fuck you feel. The doors have opened a path for you into a new way of seeing every single thing you see every single day. You crush molecules beneath your feet, thoughts and ideas within your head, and you think nothing about it. You're haunted. I'm haunted. We're all fucking haunted. I demand more. The thing about that is only I can make it happen. Every single hair upon my head will be pulled out upon request. I count ceiling tiles. I fit my foot in the boxes printed on the floor. I make sure each side of my mouth chews my food equally. Imagine a world with no melody. Imagine living in it. Imagine living in filthy quietness until one day you scream at the top of your lungs and that is the first sound you've ever heard. The one thing you love the most will be taken away from you after you realize how much you fucking love it. The one time I ever wanted to run as fast as I could, I was wearing shoes that were too big for me. Mottos and lyrics will get you through the day, sounds and images through the night. Always. I forgot what you smell like. Your voice, the bumps on your skin, the smirk on your face. My imagination makes up for it, but I know it isn't right. I let it all go within the words on my shampoo bottle. Let it go within the numbers as I count money. Let it go within the miles I put on my feet. Think stop explode. Sleep. This is it. I have run out of excuses to make.

All the world's a stage.

Its that person you want to hate, but you cannot. They're too much like you. At one time, I felt complete. My purple streak poked out of my short red hair and all you ever saw plastered on my face was a smile. But you see, the time I was complete was a time that I wasn't myself. When someone dies, people expect a month or two for people to get over it. They don't imagine that it takes a year to eat at your sub-conscience, then a few more years to eat at your flesh. People forget that its the little things that make us the way we are. The old boyfriend shirts we cut up from years ago. The purple streak in your hair that you held on to for dear life. Jeans. Flip flops. Zombie Audrey Hepburn. Sup. A bruised ego. If I could take back some of the things I've said, some of the time I wasted, I would. Bridges were burnt since then and I cannot repair them no matter how hard I try. I ran away one time. It was all I ever wanted. Yet somehow, I couldn't manage to escape my problems. My growing hatred has turned to sorrow but my pride won't let it go. Funny how the thing that brought me to that new place was the reason I left. Seasons change and we are growing old. Pain is so constant we've have come to not even acknowledge it. Some days, I'd rather just sleep. And fly. And dream. A phone call could have changed every thing. A nod. A smile. So many friendships wasted. Because of you. Because of me. Needles were pushed through our body parts as a sign of our ability or inabilty to grow up. I'm not sure which. We inhaled until the world muted itself and we were left with nothing but our own inner thoughts. I remember sitting in your spot looking at your back yard. With every cloud of smoke I inhaled everything became brighter and details became unimportant, or more important. I'm not sure which. The world we live in has so many set backs built into it, setting us up for failure. And while our friends all have the time of their life, we stay in the same spot searching for answers. Yearning for acknowledgement. I know there is more than this. There has to be. Its so simple for us to forget. One little scene or even one person can bring you back. You say you're making progress, but now its a big mess. You know its cold this year. The time might have been worse but it felt so good to indulge in it. So good to allow it to overcome me. Close your eyes, inhale, pretend you're not coming back to the same source several times in a row. Pretending is natural now. Remember how easy it used to be? Remember how you could channel it all into eloquent imagery? Its that split second when you realize everything you thought you knew was the opposite. Its that exact moment when the only thing you want to be compassionate about, you can't. Someone born deaf wanting to sing. The blind wanting to paint. Being spit on in your time of expression. You cannot love any person or thing, just sounds and ideas. I am in love with ideas. In that last moment before sleep when your head touches your cold pillow. When you close your eyes hoping for a better outcome of tomorrow, you realize you are one hundred percent completely and utterly alone and that the world will go on as it is without you. When your world shatters no one takes a second out of their day to recognize everything you've been taught as a child and have loved for so long is forever gone. Never. Coming. Back. You show a little skin. Confidence covers the fact that in reality you have no friends, no one to love, nothing to care for. Welcome to hell. But at this point, its not even an issue. You sleep, wake, work, sleep, wake, work, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Puke. I am small. I am warm. Its the same song, the same character, the same show, the same feeling, the same person. Always. Repeat, repeat, repeat. I want it to make sense, really I do. But you. You're just not there to understand. A monologue to an empty theatre. Voice bouncing off the walls into empty ears. Its real. Its raw. Its unheard, and its beautiful. The world continues to turn whether or not anyone else will be there to listen. Its writing notes to ghosts. Its marking out names on my wall. Its swallowing the things I can get my hands on, because they make me crazy and going crazy just feels so much better than whatever this is. Open. Exhale. Breathe me. Use me. Hold me. This is what I am and if you can't make sense of that, that is okay. Because I can't either. Its so many little cogs and gears inside my brain, bumps on my skin, beats in my heart, adrenaline in my veins. Every single second that is me. None of you will take time to figure out. Polaroids of strangers having fun, lights, smiles. Such things that make you happy but you don't know why. Memories of the salty wind blowing through your hair with not a soul sharing in your collective thought. Utterly alone. It's all a lie. Remember a time when it was real and it was honest. Hold on to that until your hands turn white and start bleeding. Push an unmovable force until you realize your body is shaking and your face is covered in tears. They will applaud you. That's all you've ever wanted anyway. Recognition. Take your bow and repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Scene.