[x]

fast-forward through the goodbyesthis is the beginning of the end
“i know you,” he says.
and he looks defeated, he looks sad, he looks like
he's a boy who may one day realize how much
he cares for you, so you cut him off and say,
“minus all the secrets i don’t tell anyone.”
“well, yeah, minus those.”
“then you don’t know me at all.”

and then you tell him,
i love you. but you don’t use those words
because those are taboo. are jinxed.
are knock on wood three times fast.
instead you press him in a hug and say,
i’m sorry, knowing he won’t understand
that this is the first time you ever cared for some

count to infinity before you sleep.cause i know
there are days when
it's painful to even breathe,
your throat closing up on the knowledge
that you don't know
how much longer you'll be waiting on this
band-aided, superglued planet.

every cell in your body vying to be the next to die,
and all you have to tell them is
maybe. maybe next time.

those are the days you spend
cutting rose thorns into your palms
and clenching your fists tight around
jagged reflections and prismed rainbows.
the days you realize
we're losing so much faster than we're learning.
we're maturing faster than we're growing.
adults stuck in the bodies of kids,
moving around, making the mistake

tear the skeleton from his comfortzonei want to build a skyscraper, seventeen stories high
and fill each floor with a story from the people who never said goodbye.

i.
a middle child, born in 1994,
she always wanted to be loved the most
until she learned how to give a blowjob
in an alley behind Miss China’s Takeaway
at knife point.

ii.
she lost her childhood
to an ocean who always thought it was small
and never stopped pushing its borders.

iii.
he’s not sure how he’s supposed to live without her.
staring at the closed coffin, he loses the ability to want to.

iv.
it’s not fair, she thinks,
that the house creaks when she’s trying to sleep,
but when

lukewarmshe had the kind of voice
that seemed to be stuck
in the hour of four o'clock
in the morning - soft
and tired and luring,
mumbling her way through
subways and tunnel lights
all pale yellow with noise.

there was tea and long baths
and longer absences,
hiccups of breath
the best
she could do.
long springs and
longer falls,
one equinox to the next
and still the bad
was never that bad
and the good
was never that
good,
and she continues to hum
the birds continue to sing
the apples continue to
grow and
sour and
fall,

and bury themselves
again.

things i wish i knew why you follow me like a ghost
though i let you go hoping,
praying,
that you'd find your way out of this
godforsaken place

but you linger in shadows
you fucking haunt me
and it hurts
[more than leaving you
did]

calamity.the poor boy got a lecture from deaths secretary
"deaths busy enough as it is without walk ins"
"but it was urgent," he stutters.
"it couldn't wait, it was now or never"
he was simply told
"take a number, and wait over there with the rest
who 'couldn't wait' "

confessionalthey say sad girls change their hair color
and forgive their monsters.

i change my morals
and become one.

bad days.on my bad days,
i open notebooks like bibles and hold pens like lifelines.
i keep opening the book of my memories
just to see if it still leaves a bruise.
tonight,
i am covered in the bruises of your hand
tonight,
your ghost is in my bed. i can't sleep there,
so again-
again i find myself miles from home
wishing on stars i can't see
and spitting memories into the ocean like watermelon seeds.
i sit on my longboard like driftwood and send my shivers into texts
like letters i never should have mailed.
on my bad days,
i wear cuts like ropeburn,
like i just don't know when to let go.
i get lost inside the sadness and hold tea thats long since gone cold
as hours escape like small birds set free.
i forget to open the blinds
and paint my fingernails black
and stare at the too-big numbers aligned on the scale i can't stop stepping on.
my th

internalwe had a code, a way of telling the other that our mind wasn't stable that day
'i feel like smashing all the plates in the house again today'
not so secret; not too clever
but it worked
you said it every single day for two weeks, and it was always followed by you tossing your head back to gulp down half a
bottle of rot gut. i told you to stop it, and you tried.
it lasted two days.
then it got worse.
worse, worse, worse. i started to wonder if you were just getting more 'you'.
maybe you were just an inherent fuck-up, and it was hardwired into your dna.
god, you really were more than just unstable.
but you were delicate.
fucking fragile.
god dam this world makes me mad sometimes. everyone is too busy trying to stop
people hurting other people, that they don't notice those hurting
themselves.
i noticed you.
no-one else did though.
no-one ever fucking does.

001 i am a whirlwind of
bruised knees
(purple)

an aching heart
(dark blue)

twisted guts
(red)

&
a regret that could
crumble mountains.
(green-green-green)

gravity's holdsuicide is selfish,
and rightfully so.

when your mind bends back upon itself
with pressure enough to burst open the
floorboards of your stomach,
something has to give.

and though i refuse to jump from
ships before they’ve even set sail,
i know, before happiness unfurls itself,

before recovery is washed out by the tide,
when you are anchored in self-doubt,
leaps of faith feel less like jumping,

more like walking into thin air,
just to make sure gravity still has a hold on you.

sometimes, risks are the only way
to untie yourself
from this pier holding you steady.

sometimes i am greedy,
gasping for answers that slip from my hold
the

the living roomyour voice echoes through the cracks in the walls.
you whisper secrets into the cove of my ear, i hear you curse God.

why does the greater lion always have the tamer mane?
how do i chip away the paint from my wrists to open up my scars again?

peel away my skin like a velvet curtain.
my living room heart sports dust on all its furniture.
take a seat on my will power, wipe your feet on my good intentions.

would you like a warm cup of boiled tears?
i am here to please you.
please continue to mutter those secrets under your breath,
my scars are far past healing.

the pots & pans in the kitchen cupboards are rather rusty.
i won't bother to re

Laurynlauryn is the best example of the reason
i like writing about people.
because i have waited too long
and now i have forgotten—
because now i do not even remember
if i spelled her name right.

lauren? laurin? lauryn?

here's the three things i remember
about the girl in the back of my spanish class
who showed up late for video rehearsals,
but pronounced español like she'd been speaking it all her life

one-
lauryn is the only person i can
remember asking me to write a poem for her.
the rest of them just sat back and thought
that eventually i would write a poem about them
that they could steal and read.
she is the only one who ha

O FevraleWitching hour, welcomed with a sigh,
bare-breasted and ink-stained in the night.
Half in love in this half-life half-light;

pisat O Fevrale navsnryd, dreaming
of the gods. Wanderer, today I died and
died again, and whispered prayers

to clasped hands… until the nestled
droplets fell away like sunrays at dusk;
and when moonrise came, I sang again.

a town i don't want to call mineon the right of the turquoise green sign
that welcomes you to columbia,
there are two gas stations and a church.
on the left side, there’s a morgue.

when i was five years old, my father pulled over
and stopped on the side of the road while black car
after black car passed us, going the other way.
“did we know them?” i asked.
“no,” he said, putting the car in drive. “but someone did.”

at seven, mr. jimmy down at the ice cream shop
let me have free samples of all the new flavors he made
before he put them out to the public.
a favor, he called it, for his little henry.

(years later i would realize t

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AWOLWhere are you driving, woman?
Going to another busy day at work?
Let's take a detour for a second
To a kindergarten Christmas recital.
You might see a familiar face.
Look, the little snowflakes are dancing out.
And oh, she looks just like you,
With her blonde hair
(Pulled up in a tight bun
So she can perform well and look the part too)
And her blue eyes
(Searching for someone who's not there
And who'll never care)
And doesn't she have the prettiest smile?
Except... she's not smiling
As she stands in a row with all her
Dancing and singing peers.
She's peering out into the audience of parents
(Where are you, Mommy?).
Look, sh

Granite TearsI once knew a girl
Who always wore
A ponytail of wispy golden hair
(That you could count on to be
Half falling out by the end of the day),
A smile full of white teeth and pink gums
(That was so bright and wide
The whole room would light up when she walked in)
And a black jacket with
The sleeves rolled up above her elbows,
As if she couldn't stand
To have anything on her arms.
Her eyes were the most brilliant shade of color
I'd ever seen, and I often found myself
Telling the summer sky,
"You could learn a thing or two from her eyes."

I know a girl
Who always wears
Her hair down in front of her face
(And it really did look be

NameMy words are my expression
The things I'm afraid to say
In a crowd, to other people
(No one likes you here.)
(Stop telling me you care.)
(I don't belong here.)
The 'inside' of my box, if you will.

I write these words down not for
Attention
Revenge
Or people to read.
I write them down because if I don't
I'll implode
On the words
My tongue refuses to say.

But my words are mine
Yet you steal them,
Read them,
Judge them
And never let them go.

Every love poem isn't about you
(Liar)
Every dark poem isn't because by you
(Trust me)
You don't inspire all my words
(Just most of them)

But the worst part of it all
Is that I can

Unfinished PortraitThe greatest artist in my first grade class
Drew me a picture.
It's unfinished, of course,
(Because great art takes time,
And it was only a thirty minute class.)
The sunset's half violet and half white,
And the grass is green straw that we float above.
There are two girls who aren't holding hands.
(You knew already I didn't like to be touched)
We're both wearing blue and facing the sunset.
(I couldn't help but feel like you were a princess in your dress,
While I was just a lowly servant in her jeans.)
You scribbled a signature,
(You knew cursive already?)
And I took it home.

In sixth grade, we'd both grown up into people someo

Wedding Rings"No honey,

I don't
Want them."

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not all humans go to heaven

by ~MisfitableGrae, Feb 1, 2013, 10:57:43 AM
Literature / Poetry / Emotional / Free Verse

_{cock it
april 23 2008
“bye mom. i love you so much, i swear
i’ll be home soon.”
“please, you’re only eighteen, you have your
whole life ahead of you, please
don’t throw it away.”
“i’m going, mom. i’m going overseas
but i swear i’ll be back before you
miss me. love you!”

aim it.
now
most nights he shakes himself awake
with the vision of bombs and fire and bullets
still imprinted on his eyelids.
he doesn’t know what to call them.
the dreams, i mean.
what do you call bad dreams when
you’ve already lived the nightmare?

his therapist says his problem
is he thinks he’s not normal, that he doesn’t fit,
that he’s a special kind of monster.
she tells him that the key is figuring out the ways
that he’s the same.

so when he’s alone, or worried or stressed
or tired or hurt or wishing he were dead,
he traces over his collarbone and says
clavicle. down his arm and says humerus,
says ulna, says one, two, skip a few, nine, ten phalanges

at night he traces words into her back.
“what do you write?” she asks him once over microwaved coffee.
nothing, he says, secrets.
“you could just tell me them instead.”
some things aren’t supposed to be said out loud.

he remembers running down hills,
away from people.
now he feels like he’s falling
or flying or both.
he can’t pinpoint the last time he’s been okay,
just like he can’t pinpoint the first time he heard a gunshot.

his mind is a caved-in maze,
bleeding from the inside out,
body set on self-destruct.
and he sticks the gun in his mouth
and he clicks the metal against his teeth,
once for every life he took
and he pulls the trigger
for the ones he wasn’t able to save.

pull the trigger.
they bury him in a suit two sizes too small—
the one he wore to granmama’s funeral when he was seventeen.
it was the only one he had.
he had told her, “when we get married,
i can just wear my brother’s.”

in the coffin, his sleeve cuffs hang tight around his forearms.
you don’t need suits in wars.

there is nothing to remember him by—
everything and everyone who loved him
is either dead or pushed away.
the only two documents that prove his existence
is the release from service form—confused, risk to the team
ptsd, ptsd, ptsd, ptsd
and the medical examination after his death—
well, hank, it looks like he blew his own face off.
messy clean up there. kids these days….

there are lots of ways to die in a war.
bullets, bombs, bleeding out,
sticking the gun in your own mouth
and pulling the trigger. if you make it home,
there’s only one way to die:
gratefully.}

not all humans go to heavenby ~MisfitableGrae

Literature / Poetry / Emotional / Free Verse

_{title based off the title "all dogs go to heaven"
poem based off of nothing. i know nothing about what i wrote about, i just wanted to write a poem about ptsd. this poem is too long in places and doesn't really make sense, but. i wanted to try. sorry.

the poem dividers are the steps of shooting a gun simplified by a lot}

~~love 0 0~~

~~joy 0 0~~

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

sad 2 2

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~violetense Feb 19, 2013 Student Writer

if you make it home, there's only one way to die: gratefully.
That's a great line.

~arabesque-o Feb 3, 2013 Student Photographer

_{god, this.
reminds me of a line from andrea gibson's sleeping:
'the news caster says that the number of US soldiers killed in war this
month was outdone by the number that came home and committed
suicide.'
and this whole poem just killed me. its beautiful and sad and scary.}

~MisfitableGrae Feb 4, 2013

_{oh, i love andrea gibson's poetry.
i've never heard of that poem, but a poem by her that's close to this
is For Eli--
'Jeff Lucey came back from Iraq and hung himself in his parents' basement with a garden hose.'
it's an excellent poem and i really tried to stay away from it with this poem--so instead of hanging him, i decided to have him shoot himself.

but thankyoureallyiloveyou}

~arabesque-o Feb 4, 2013 Student Photographer

_{gah, me too. i recently got to meet her, and i can't stop raving to anyone who is unfortunate enough to fall victim to my fangirl moment. x)

you have such a unique style,
and i love the way it doesn't mimic others, even when a theme is similar
.}

~rayoflight20 Feb 3, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

You drew me out of my own mind and into the haunted mess of someone else's. Kudos to you for that. I think I'm envious of the fact that you claim to know nothing of a situation and somehow manage to expose its raw emotions.

*Darth-Arthur Feb 2, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

You know nothing of what you wrote about? Hmm... I rather felt you knew some of us.

Powerful. I agree the little details make this.

Thanks for plumbing an experience that can be a daily struggle for many of us.

~facile-guise Feb 1, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

really nice job on some of the rather minor parts of this... the little things you put in that were already commented on added so much.. by the end it was like you knew a little bit of what this guy's life was like and you cared about him...
thats sort of amazing in such a short piece of literature.

~Natafin Feb 1, 2013 Student General Artist

This. This is beautiful.

~ChocoCoatedLemons Feb 1, 2013

"and he clicks the metal against his teeth,
once for every life he took
and he pulls the trigger
for the ones he wasn’t able to save."

I think... Yes. It's confirmed.

I cried.

*GentlemanAnachronism Feb 1, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Augh. Good, really bloody good, but augh.

Best bits? Naming of bones, secrets, too tight suit. Just the details that make it.

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