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.

Nothing good happens in winter.

What if I told you I could hold all your wishes in the palm of my hand? Would you believe me if I told you that I can stretch out my fingers across any ocean and grab all the stars above them in one move? I blow them out like petals to a flower. Make a wish. My empathy for you has turned into pain, but. I like it. It keeps me warm through the wind stinging my cheeks. Crying never felt so bad before until you cry in the cold. Every tear stings your frozen face. Makes you wonder. Why is it that everything bad happens in winter? Is it because its the time where mourning and sorrow hurt the most? Happiness is a warm gun. Something about the weather change always flashes me back to a better time. When studying was fun and everyone was alive and well. Christmas was fun, and snow was fun, and we decorated for the holidays. From pumpkins to turkeys to a tree. One by one everything fell. Hi, hello, hey there. You're an adult. Naturally every thing you hold onto represents childhood. You're not naive, you're just trying to stay happy. I grab up all the stars in one scoop. I hold them so tight that my hand starts to bleed. So much hope, so much faith into nothing. Why? For what? Dusty books you never finish. Tye dye dreams of laughter and friendship. Imaginary friends to make up for the fact that no one is ever really there for you.Your narcissistic complex you've given yourself to counteract the fact that underneath all of it you really think your thighs are too big, your cheeks are too round, your breasts are too small, your...stop. Remember a goofy face. Remember a girl not much smaller than you sitting beside you as you sob like you have never sobbed before. Remember the yearning, the want, the pain, of wishing for him to be the one sitting beside you. Now he pretends like you two never even met. All while smiling pretending not to care, I'm repairing the giant CRACK that has manifested itself into my heart from all the pressure around in within the past five years. Ultimately, all alone. Blink blink blink. She said she could fly. Told her not to. Once you go up, you won't want to come down. Reality hits. boom. Its gone. Guess what? That one time you had that made you feel alive and restored your faith in people, yeah that was A YEAR AGO. All blotched up. I keep dancing hoping that it will all melt away but it just always comes right back. Rent a book, watch a series. Completely obsess over fictional characters and their love for each other. They're really you're only friends, you know. Heartbreak is literally your only company. Its too cold to cry. Your body betrays you and your friends aren't really your friends. You hide under the covers and discover the power of magic through a small rectangular screen. Come to think of it, I've always done this shit on my own. The fights, the anger, the heartbreak, the creation, the dancing, the imagination. You've always been there for yourself. Never fear. Mascara is only as strong as you allow it to be. I release the stars from my hands and blow them back where they belong. They were never my wishes to begin with. Then again nothing is ever really mine. Especially during the winter.

Home is where the heart is.

Can you even hear yourself fucking talk? You're selfish. You are so selfish. You know it, you admit it. You're okay with being selfish. In fact, you bring other people down and justify it by saying someone brought you down, so why not? You want someone to go out of their way, and go so far deep down in searching before you let anyone see the real you? And how far down is that exactly? Fucking bottomless pit. And when they don't reach the bottom, its their fault for not trying hard enough? Fuck that. I used to be the same way and as frustrating as it is, its a wake up call. I remember how I used to feel. Then I remembered how stupid I was for feeling that way. I cannot waste time dwelling on you. I have to remember how stubborn I was and be glad I realized the smut I was sitting in and got out of. I stood up on my own, shook it off, and realized the beauty in the nature around me. And you will have to do the same, on your own. Anger seeps into my eye sockets just from general lack of realization. You're not stupid, you're blind. I remember how great the sun makes me feel, and how liberating the dirt between my toes is. I remember sentence fragments and ending sentences in prepositions. Then I remember how silly everything is. How we over-analyze things that don't have any meaning at all. Papers, words, structure, rules, other people's ignorance. Insincerity oozes out of you as you apologize for something but then just do it again seconds later. Prime time example of a mental block on someone who was never worth it to begin with. I photosynthesize like the chloroplast and I breathe just like any other animal. I mellow out, turn on my art, then make some of my own. I know deep in my heart there is a way to defeat the system and live as we were supposed to. I want to succumb myself into nature and art and beauty and meaning. I realized this week that I don't want to be a machine, or part of one. My body rejects it and so does my mind. Where is my outlet? Where are my wrinkles? How am I here? Somewhere out there, there is a heart that beats in tune with mine. There is a knowledge tree, there is a fountain of youth, and there are time machines. I just gotta find them all. Even if its within the confines of my own patterned mind, I will pacify my desire to dream, my desire to live. You'll just rot in your own smut. It hurts my heart, but it no longer angers me. I'm ready for the world to pick me up and put me exactly where I belong. And I will not miss you.

Money makes the world go round.

This one is going to be different. But in actuality, they are always identical. Pause. Breathe. Remember. Continue. We were Yin and we were Yang and I was intoxicated from everything, including my emotions. Like a bubble map or a flow chart of sorts, I poured myself to her like batter to a pan. She is what I've always wanted. She's the voice of Marceline, the ears of a mute, the eyes of a porcelain doll. As I stumble upon my own reasoning, I wonder what makes myself tick; What makes myself tock? How far can intelligence fill the void of sheer loneliness? The reasoning I have always had has psychedelically transformed into a matter all of its own. Energy once formed is never lost, just transferred. That's a fact; that's science. My neurological tendencies and abominable imagination are being completely wasted within this ocean of stupidity we all live in. Society. Let me allude to a different country of people who are far more intelligent than we. Within its boundaries holds a mind far greater than any other I have seen. And he loves me. They all do. I purposefully take them all for granted in an excuse to hide from my own fears and realizations of the world. He wants me to write a story. That's not what I do. I imagine stories, I do not write them. I feel as if I live in a different plane than most people. I see things from my own perspective. That of which, is an infinite amount of possibilities. No one will ever see things from your gaze, perspective, or heart. How far do good intentions go? I said this was different. Maybe I lied. We all lie. Why are people offended when they do the same thing? I'm starting to feel as if I'm the only person who understands why everyone around me behaves they way they do. Maybe I see things from a different point of view. One day my brain will have reached its capacity. I try to fill it with insight, creepy stories... eloquence from my surrounding neighbors. My head is filled with silly ideas and my own fucked up reasoning for why I do the things the way I do them. I'm surrounded by beauty. All I want to is explore it all as my brain feeds off of the earth. Therein lies my beauty. Beauty that I will share with all who listens.

Because you're beautiful tonight.

I am slowly sinking into my mattress and becoming part of it. The weight of everything I'm trying so hard to ignore is pushing me deeper into it. My eyelids start falling like a garage door and even though my body hurts all over, words and ideas are ricocheting in my mind like a bullet in a metal room. I imagine a pair of arms wrapped around my goosebump ridden body. I do not imagine them attached to anybody or anything, just that they're there. It's very hard for me to look at everything the way everyone wants me to, but that doesn't mean I'm not still trying. While everything gets jumbled up I envision a person that does not exist coming in while everything is so fucked up and just laying down next to me. Nothing more, nothing less. Just someone to be physically there for me. I have literally never felt more alone than I do right now. I am more than well aware that I am so much stronger than I'm allowing myself to be. I'm just too exhausted, physically, emotionally... As I slowly open my eyelids, I stare at the ceiling. I turn the shapes of my popcorn ceiling into either familiar symbols and pictures or made up characters. After realizing what I am doing and convincing myself that I'm going mad, I close my eyes once more and make up my own fairy tale land. Grass the greenest of grasses rolls onto hill, after hill, after hill...freshly cut of course. A few trees here and there, the kind that only exist in cartoons, with the exception of lower branches, so as they're easy for climbing. Don't even get me started on the flowers and meadows. Places like this actually exist, I think. Or so I am told and I want to believe. But here I am, sunken into my jersey sheets worrying about boys and money. Do you think that this is what life is supposed to be about? Spending year after year wasting away in front of a desk just for a piece of paper? Sinking into our beds trying to forget what we read or heard? And do you think we're meant to go through people's lives the way we do? Passing by strangers that may not be such strangers after all. I just want to hug everyone. Let them know that while I may not really have anyone here for me, they have someone here for them. I honestly think that everything around me, every single atom, has a beauty far deeper than we ever imagined...and while I may pout, and whine, and indulge in my own loneliness, deep in my heart, I know its not about me. It's not supposed to be this way. Every single person put on this planet has a story. And I want to hear every single one. I don't even care if not one them asks me about mine, I just want to know what its like to live on this planet through every single person's perspective. I'm missing something. I'm right there, its on the tip of my tongue, but I am missing it. All my senses peek and I'm struggling to find away to be at peace with them. It's odd to me how someone can tell me all these nice things, and fill my head and heart with hope, and even though they shatter everything I looked forward to in them, I still hope they end up alright. Maybe I'm so exhausted because I spend so much time caring, and so much time just thinking. Constantly. Infinite amount of possibilities. Science. Alternate universes. Imagination. Books and cartoons. Characters, people. What-ifs and how tos. The human body. The human compassion. The human mind. Art. All of it, it astonishes me to no end. And yet as I try to soak it all in, here I am metamorphosing with my manifestation of a sleeping place. Something needs to change. I just have to figure out what.

Long lost lover.

I want to feel it so badly it makes my heart pop like an over inflated balloon. Nine times out of ten I expect it to end up differently when I know better...why? My skin is raised and my chest is turning red. You've all just used me like toothpaste and now the tube is empty and I'm ready for the trash. I've decided. I won't fall in love. My love lies within the grapes in wine and the melodies the hurt, betrayed, and lonely lead singer wailing through my speakers. My body parts fall asleep and for a second I enjoy it. Reminds me that I'm still working the way I should. My glass is empty and my heart is loud enough to over power the music. Why can't anybody stop thinking about their selves for one second? Just remember what it's like to be on the other end? I'm wheezing now. Asthma. Chalk up another issue with me. Where are you now? I clung to someone because they reminded me of someone else one time. Someone that I barely remember. I'd rather be angry, I've realized. It's my favorite. Its more energetic and fueled and it feels much better than sorrow. Why is everything always the same? The further away someone is from me, the safer I feel. You can't drink away your problems, but you can drink enough to where you start to not feel the pain. There will always be someone better than you, there will always be someone there first. And while you're reaching out with bloody palms hoping that someone out there gets it, you have to open your eyes under water and realize that no one does. As many times as someone says they do, they don't. This isn't home. Home isn't home. Home is dead. And I wanna go home. Don't think that just because you read this that you know me. Don't consider yourself enlightened because you relate to me. Two people can go through the same process and realize they are still in two totally completely different places. I love being angry. I haven't felt anything for so long and its my favorite emotion. I remember being center stage, curled into a ball screaming and crying with the spot light on me and EVERYONE FUCKING APPLAUDED ME. I like it. I like it so much because everyone thinks I am pretending and that I am talented but every fucking drop of it is one hundred percent real and I WOULD GIVE ANYTHING TO GO BACK. People paid money to see me drop my barriers. I stood, on risers, down stage center, spot light on me, and I gave a monologue about tulips and windmills and I made people cry. It was real. We are all trying so hard to be people we think we are not. But really, that's all we were to begin with. As I sober up, my anger dissipates. The bleak numb feeling I am so used to having has approached itself upon my shoulders. The alcohol mixed in with my blood stream and time moved faster as if I stepped onto a carrousel, but now the ride is over. I am patient. I am kind. I don't like it anymore. I get sick, feel okay, get sick, feel okay, and the process repeats itself. Its something we overlook everyday, kind of like gravity. Gravity gets in my way. I want to bounce so high up in the air that only the ceiling can stop me. Like the characters in the story I love so much. Bet you didn't know about that either. I want you all to be happy, and if you need me to be your doormat in order to get there, then I'll just suck it up and deal with it. I live on music. I live on art, beauty, lust, and lies. I live upon the shadows. Where I hide. In the closet, the cubbard, hoping someone will realize that I am missing and come looking for me. They never do. I'm clogged. I'm stuffed up. I am wounded, but it's nothing serious. Truth is, I didn't want it anyway. Everything I've ever wanted bounces between scenic. Bounces with confessional. Bounces with every word you didn't say. And you know what? I'm okay with that.