Try to Explain It

The last anxiety attack is still stuck on my lips,
parching them, reaching down my throat
to the pit of my empty stomach.
I’m never hungry anymore.
You asked if you could get me food
as I laid there, pupils wide as the moon,
shaking from the inside out.
I told you no. I told you
I think I might throw up.
But not from the tequila, no
from the anxiety.
And I’m sure you wondered how I got there.
You see, we had been fine, talking, sharing,
the same subtle things we’d done all night.
But you brought up the probabilities of loss.
You mentioned the ideas of leaving,
the weights of mistakes,
all of which clawed incessantly at the
back of my head, my eyes, until
I started to feel overwhelmed. The ideas
of losing, and hurting, and loving, all tiny
little seeds,
they began sprouting vines in my body
with off-shoot leaves full of
“what-ifs” and “how comes”.
It was all I could do to lay on the floor,
my body, vibrating with the intensity,
motionless otherwise.
I could not tell you the weight these things
press upon me,
or why my brain chose now
to entertain futures that may not exist.
All I know is
it took every single effort to keep the tears
from spilling out in waves of sobs.
I didn’t even want to tell you.
Who really wants to hand out shares of their misery?
But honesty has always been my biggest strength (and,
also, occasionally my biggest pitfall), and so
I told you I was panicking.
My brain was aching to be able
to convey the reaons and the meaning,
but you never asked.
No, you simply smiled your effortless, wide smile,
and embraced me the way I was.
You took care of me and stayed closer
than I ever could have hoped for.
What a beautiful thing it is
to expect the rain clouds,
but find the sun.

Love/Control

This body and mind are no longer that

of a fragile, little child.

So why would you have me live like that?

Why would you put safety gates 

in front of opportunities for me to grow?

The world is a vast place 

and you view it with a fearful eye.

Always watching for any speck of glass

that might cut my supposedly fragile soles.

But it’s not as scary out here

as you think.

Things are growing and changing

and each new dawn brings

more innovation and life than 

even the wisest among us imagines.

There is compassion and kindness 

that still exists among even strangers.

Why, why do you choose

not to see that?

You soak yourself in your supposedly

God-like values,

and say “The world is falling apart.”

But you stand by idly.

You are the pieces breaking off

as you blindly judge kind hearts

in the most un-Godly of ways.

The intentions started off well-meaning,

I know.

A way to protect a fragile, growing life.

Well, I am no longer fragile.

And I wish I was growing but

the stifling atmosphere of this

cinder block house

allows me no room to do so.

So I stay stagnant. And you throw knives.

Maybe, I’d like to think, you do not realize

that you throw them so often

in my direction.

Lines that question,

“Will you ever grow up?”

“How will you ever have a family?”

I can’t. And I won’t. If you keep things this way,

I will be stuck, standing in time, wearing down like a rock in a river.

You’re the river.

I am drowning in you. 

You cannot love someone so much

that they drown in your once, well-meant gestures.

That is not love.

That is control.

It breeds anger, resentment, and anxiety,

and it keeps me awake at night

wondering

if I will ever feel okay long enough

to grow towards the sun

and away from this graveyard where

my dreams

slowly, silently

perish.

Can’t Right Now

What a little tipsy hurricane
I can’t see ahead, it’s all the same.
This is what I’ve been talkin bout,
this game
It’s up and down and back again.

We don’t know where we are
We don’t know how we got here
We don’t know who we are, it’s
a sad truth of the times

Rip the band-aid off of morning.
It’s too bright for me to look at,
but maybe one day...
Maybe one day.

I'm Sick of Hearing It

"Your disability has got way worse."
"I think you taking that medicine just made all this start."
"You can't be home alone."
"You can't have your own place. You can't even handle being alone at ours."
"I don't think you can handle doing that."
"You shouldn't be going there."
"Are you really depressed? I thought you were over that."
"What?! How can it be hard to brush your teeth?.....Yeah but not every day."
"We're cutting our vacation short because someone can't be with you every day."
"You'll go crazy if you have no one to talk to."
"You know you can get over this."
"Sometimes you have to try a little harder."

You Can't See It But It's There

I cried twice today.
I wasn't sure you were alive.
What if I had ignored the signs?
What if you were gone?
I was hurt and then
I was angry.
It was only a fraction of the feeling
the reality would have brought on.
Do I care too much,
or not enough?


"Who cares if one more light goes out? Well I do."

You Know the Feelings

Everything about you is what I used to be
and still am
if I look hard enough.
But I don't want to look.
See, you don't see the inside,
all disaster and lost.
The stories in my head were set fire to
....on purpose.
I lost them on purpose.
Do you know what that means?
Nobody knew it would be like this.
Nobody does know.
Now everything is grey.
There's no color here.
There's no light.
And you are a soul-searching shadow-stepper.
You create the love they need
and hold them together
until they've stitched up their core.
You would sit there until the world ended,
wouldn't you?
Holding them, helping them, telling them
what you aren't even sure of; "It's gonna be okay."
You and I know
we don't ever know that.
And we're stuck now.
You're trying so hard not to show them
that the walls are breaking
that its cracking you from the inside out.
I can see right into you.
I can feel everything that's weighing on your chest.
I started doing this when I was twelve.
You know, the saving thing.
Walking home the suicidal kids.
Sitting with little ones when the police came.
I wore myself out in my youth, but you,
you have so much light left.
You weren't ready for such a heavy fight.
I can't stop you.
I can't say anything.
I feel like I've let you down, you know?
I feel everything you're carrying.
And it's been years but
the shadows in me are waking up
saying, "It's time again. Do what you were made for."
Brother, I haven't been honest about what's inside of me.
There is nothing. Nothing for myself to keep going.
I've been out of commission, in repair,
waiting to be thrown again to the dogs.
You see, I wasn't made for me.
It's a beautiful, terrible thing.
And maybe, neither were you.
But every inch of me hopes that's not true.
The you
just need a redirection,
a little repair,
a little saving.
I used to ask "If I save everyone else, who's gonna save me?"
Well, no one. I'm too far gone for that, but brother
you're not.
Please, know you're not
and let me help you.

It's You

When I look at you
all the world stops spinning.
Something behind
those subtle eyes
makes everything in me
stop.
I can't breathe for a minute.
I can't describe it to you.
I just die
a little bit
in the best way.
The first time you kissed me
I knew I loved you.
I knew it in the way
we fit together
so completely.
This could be the best thing
that I've been caught in
in quite a while.