You know who.

Underneath a concrete sky, my darling, darling girl, I'd shield you from the hailing stones, from the fire and the burns. In the city jungle, scraping at the edge of reality and sanity...I'd hold you back from jumping, which is definitely the reason I have not jumped myself. But wouldn't you say I'm too caring? Wouldn't you say that's a little too sweet? Wouldn't you smack the backside of my head and tell me to fucking go home?

No, you wouldn't. You'd leave me outside for a second while you grabbed something to keep us safe, and then you'd make it your job to keep the demons off. You'd fight them unarmed and I'd be worthless, I'd be quivering and my hands would be shaking and my legs shaking and my head and my heart and my entire existence would tremble at the edge of breaking so easily... And you'd step back, having killed them, but they'd be back and someone would need to kill them again otherwise they might kill me. Or worse. They might kill you.

And yet you wouldn't leave me. If the world was ending, if it was all my fault, ....but wait. You left. You're gone. 

You're gone and everything has changed and everyone. 

You're gone and I'm still here, suffering beneath the sky of...something. I wouldn't know. I'm looking down. I wonder how far it is, I think. The fall. 

And my toes are over the edge and the wind is at my face and your hand is on my shoulder trying to keep me from jumping over... 

but what can you do from way over there?

You're gone and everything's different now. 

I might as well be dead. 

Red Bird

Red Bird Red Bird
Calling for your mate
Munching on the bread in trees
Is your darling late?
Is she off flying somewhere
in the sky, is she?
Cry Bird Red Bird
You're last to die indeed.

in the hospital

the beautiful words we once created so we could talk...well now we're lining them up inside our hearts because we feel so alone. The point of the words was communication, wasn't it? but who's using them to speak anymore.
We're using them to complain,
to cry.
To explain just how alone we feel,
when really, just outside...

I mean, they really are a beautiful thing, words. In themselves, a coded poet lying inside our worded thoughts.
Animals, do they have them?
Does the sky?

But we're greedy, and as easy as it is to say hello, to say goodbye...
we're greedy and we're silent, and we abuse our creations.
There's so much beauty in our words,
but could there be more in the silence?

wake UP

And to the people who said I'd never make it
thanks. You're probably right so you might as well shoot me now
because there's absolutely NO CHANCE I'll make it past this moment,
right? It's impossible for me to do anything
but do you actually understand that you and I have very different ideals? Do you get that I'm only looking for a roof somewhere else and a field, and some paper? Some paper, a pen, some charcoal. I'm looking for the nights where I'll sit by the fire, and you're looking for the newest gadgets in your pocket, the newest the best... YOU CAN LOOK FOR MONEY AND FAME AND you can look to be sane
but you and I have very different ideals indeed.

Death, you see as dying. And dying you see as bad but
we die every day. Parts of us fall and our skin regenerates, and EVERY NIGHT YOU DO WAKE UP
right? Right but now tell me how that's not dying

and tell me
how because I'm not living
and I haven't succeeded

BUT DO YOU ACTUALLY KNOW
anything? For me to live this far

okay so we go so far and we'll have so far to venture yet (from here)
but I'm surprised I'm not already
"dead".

The hours between 7:30am and 9:00pm seem worse and worse every second and counting down the minutes isn't helping me at all. I wanted to be more stable, not less. I wanted to be able to wake up in the morning with less regret than more, and last night was in fact another nightmare.
ANOTHER.
This isn't helping at all.

longfellows

Around every corner, oh. Every time a light flashes, every time we move an inch...fuck. 

I'm waiting on it, letting the fear build up and

it's only getting stronger.

The anticipation is killing me

just take me already. 

The empty frame...
it's an image the whole world works for
but I guess they haven't realized
it's nothing.
Atoms.
But they never put the picture in
what a clever little fucking trick.

...but

The ivory skin of monsters

an ivory adolescent

in the words I cannot say.

"I love you...but." 

BUT and I don't

and I'm sorry. 

The iron bars as I sleep holding me back from waking entirely.
They tell me to "wake up! wake up!"
but I cannot,     will not                      understand that within these shaded eyes I'm harsher
inside.         Understand that I am not all right
and              more now as opposed to then
I'm darker
inside;;    
like night
and everything sleeps at night.

This isn't enough anymore. Keep trying, they say, but for what?

Smashing the piano, and screaming. And that is the reality of my music now. TEARING up pages, and crying. That is the reality of my words. Silent solitude inside my heart, and trembling. That is the reality of my flight.
Who are we?-who am I?
What can you say that will make it better?- but this isn't your job and you feel trapped. I am sorry. I know those words are versatile, and seldom mean much, but they have my whole heart, if there's anything left.
I am so, so sorry you got pulled into this.
None of this is your problem.
I am not your problem.
I never was.

to them

EVEN IF IT'S SOMETHING SO LOUD. no one else seems to hear it. EVEN IF IT'S SOMETHING SO LARGE. no one else seems to see it. EVEN IF IT HURTS SO MUCH. no one ELSE seems to feel it at all. BUT EVEN THOUGH IT'S PERFECTLY REAL. to them it's just nothing

voice

No voice, louder than
well nothing because you're all gone.
and talking to yourself doesn't count as an audience,
even if you are many voices at once.
A chorus, but all they see is one person.

Trapper

Smaller than
these demons who are teeth and bones are raw
Sized by fear we're tiny
who are hiding from our scars.
Smaller than our stories
and our maps of wrinkled words.
Cameras and in ink we have been
pictured by the world.

and finding.

I've been a million miles away
someplace you'll never know
but what it takes to get there
is years of sailing boats.

Over the ocean and down the pool
past whirls of ravenous hate.
The thoughts you'll cross
along this path
are the ones you cannot take.

It's people in shadows and monsters in trees
with cats and with claws and with multiple mes.
I you cannot take it I think you should leave.
These are not real people but our thoughts unleashed.

Now that you mentioned I have gone mad past flickering lights
and past ticking clocks. Now that you ask I figure you're RIGHT
that's what this is but this is the fear we from hide. So tell me please
who's after my socks; tell me who's after what think I have thoughts
tell me who's chasing my toes are on fire-- and tell me before my
tan map should expire.
Lest I get more lost before I get found.
Dogs are just wolves and people just hounds--
they told me in aeons that people are dead
but what are these thoughts which say NOW in my head?

When I was out of things to say

To feel like asking them just now, if they care...asking them to say something before I let go because
it's different now. It's unbearable now. It's after me now like a lion hunting, like a wolf cashing.
it's different now
how the distance has us fooled, how the memories have us caught in spider webs of auto-play.
How I have no control, oh god it's so different and I just feel like begging you

to care just this once so I don't do it.
So I leave myself alone because I need that. Isolation. Mistaken for...human, I think that's what they said.
But they misunderstood me. I could go right now. I could JUST LET GO but
as always you're holding me back.
Of course I scare myself. I'm scared, and tired of being cryptic because I can't do it anymore. Any of this.
It isn't screaming that's after me now
it's screaming that chases it out.
The whispers are fucking silent but my bones are like electric gravity
falling down
and

I'm falling too
but a bit too far
to recover.