i am not the answer
to your mind’s unrelenting questions.
and no matter how broken you
think you are, you are not
a puzzle to be put together– i
cannot fix you.
do not put me on a pedestal
where i don’t belong.
do not put me on your shoulders
where i might fall.
do not tell me you need me–
tell me you don’t,
but that you want me
anyway.
Stop looking through me and look into me.
silence slows them down,
stretches them out
like taffy
until they are ringing in slow motion
inside my head.
I’d shoot you up,
swallow you whole with
a glass of orange juice
in the morning—
inhale you
during my lunch breaks.
I thought that I needed you.
Now my sheets are drenched
in all the words you’ve ever said and
my eyes roll back to replay
your smile until it distorts
into a sneer.
And I can smell your sweat.
I can taste your lips.
I can taste the milk going sour.
You are leaking out of
the bullet holes—out of
all of my pores—but
I know this
is part of getting clean.
Even too much of what keeps us alive can kill us.
When I told myself I’d love again after you broke my heart, I always imagined it would be with someone else.
I used to be crazy about you– now I’m just crazy.
Another light has gone out.
Another line of a story that will be continuously written,
a battle you are and forever will be a part of.
You were born a billboard of lights, though.
You were made to be seen.
You were made to be heard.
And you fought valiantly, you beautiful souldier.
It isn’t your fault– sometimes you fight your hardest, and yet
the enemy cracks your armor
with their words and their eyes and
you are left exposed.
But there is and always will be an army behind you.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
I met your smile last week, and I am in love with it still.
I will fight for that smile.
I will fight for others’ smiles.
I will fight so that there will always be a smile
for you in someone else when
you cannot give one yourself.
Because I know what it’s like
to have clouds dim the suns in your eyes,
or to have the weight of the world lay heavy on
the corners of your lips.
And I’m so sorry
the spinning tied you down and dragged you
and hunched your shoulders
all while making you wear a mask–
when all you wanted to do was
spread your light so others could learn to love
themselves, too.
And I’m so sorry we aren’t fast enough.
I’m so sorry people cannot love what they don’t understand.
I’m so sorry you ever believed your life wasn’t worth living.
I’m so sorry the world has let one more light
die.
Do not ask me to spit
up eloquent words in a
fifteen minute box.
This is not a contest.
This is not about sounding pretty.
This is about truth.
When I am welling with
emotions that I
no longer understand or know how
to feel, when I am anxious
and gasping for
breath in wheezes,
it is how I breathe.
It is nothing, it is
everything— it is happy ever
afters and a knife in the back.
seeing the world in a
drop of rain.
finding
meaning in the leaf that has just
fallen onto the pavement.
discovering truth in the
cracks of the living room
couch.
frantically catching thoughts–
like flower petals in a
whirlwind–
in the palm of my hand
before they escape
back into the universe.
hearing stories in her
breath as she lies
next to me,
how much i want
to kiss her.
seeing the universe through
a kaleidoscope,
smashing
it on the floor
in hopes that the colors will
repaint
the skies.
how reading
perfectly phrased metaphors just feels
whole, and like truth, and
like home.
Silenticel 