i find coffee leaves a bitter taste in your mouth long after you finish it (unless there is more cream and sugar than coffee). and your heart keeps on beating even after you think it’s broken (isn’t it one of the strongest muscles?)
you know that feeling you have when you jump off a very tall building, only to wake up to find it’s a dream? isn’t there a sick part of you that wishes that feeling was forever? (don’t jump off a building in real life to find it)
dirt under your fingernails (only your fingernails) means you’re still alive (don’t listen to me, i don’t even know my own name. not really)
i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry
when morning light breaks through your window (cheesy i know) close your eyes and smile before the world tries to rip you apart. drink your bitter coffee (lots of cream and lots of sugar) and clean your fingernails (contrary to popular belief). your heart isn’t really broken because if if were you’d be dead, no?
and the dirt under your fingernails will be in your lungs and your hair and your eyes. then everyone will forget your name, just like you, and me.
Don’t you hear them?
Those sad ballads that blow through the trees in the middle of the night. And don’t you hear that lonely wolf who howls to the moon.
He and I are alike, don’t you think?
We’re both so lonely and sad, and we both sing sad and lonely songs.
Sad and lonely and lonely and sad.
It’s a bit like how a child leaves the hallway light on at night, because monsters come to get you in the dark. Monsters are afraid of the dark too, in case you didn’t know.
But all everyone wants, even monsters is someone to turn the hallway light on after they tuck you in. Doesn’t that sound just about right?
And everything is so much louder and heavier in the dark. Even the silence- if you let it- will sit on your chest and suffocate you. Then the monsters and the wolves really do win. I guess we aren’t alike at all.
Don’t you think?
An cup that has been empty for five days.
A dirty t-shirt and abandoned papers.
They say she was crazy. And they say she would kill herself soon.
Late night swinging at a park on the edge of town.
Long fingers and a fragile heart.
They say she never talked to anyone. And they say she has no one.
Tear stained pillows and ice cold toes.
Broken dreams scattered her bedroom floor.
The same book she read last week lay open, on page fifty.
Alone and insane, they said. She talked to the moon, they said.
They didn’t know she liked snowflakes and blueberries.
Trapped in childish daydreams.
They didn’t know she was just lonely.
An angel with tangled wings.
He was from Spain, Madrid I think it was.
He was allergic to the mosquitoes here, I know because I put afterbite on his arm once. His glasses were nothing special, to everyone else. Just thin black frames, sitting on his straight Spanish nose. He’d always wear a white undershirt under his regular t-shirts, and they would always smell like what I imagined Spain to smell like.
And his smile was magical. His whole face would light up when he smiled, his white, white teeth would come out of hiding and his eyes would sparkle. I remember when we snuck into the kitchen hall and filled a cup full of Cheerios, before going to share them on the couch. My legs were on his lap; it was only us. His English was a little broken, but I understood what I needed to. He taught me how to say “Kiss me” and “Dance with me” but it’s long faded.
I say I loved him, but I can’t remember his last name anymore. Was it so long ago? I’m still so young, it couldn’t have been that long. Cueller, Rodriguez, Blanco, I know it was on of those. He was from Spain, Madrid I think, but I can’t even remember.
My childhood room had a dollhouse as tall as four year old me.
It was white, and my dad made it.
He used to be a carpenter, and a semi truck driver.
He built bridges, and castles I used to think.
I didn’t know really, I was four.
My room had pink walls and shelves with stuffed animals.
Giraffes and penguins, and elephants,
animals that don’t belong anywhere but in the wild.
My bed had a canopy on it,
I used to imagine I was a princess and I used to dream.
Now I’m taller than the dollhouse hidden away in my basement.
My dad has a broken heart, and an almost broken back.
And pink walls fade so, so quickly.
My dreams have been stolen.
My pillow had been replaced with rocks,
and covered in itchy wool.
I try counting sheep, but wolves have taken those too.
To shut my eyes, means to fall into a pit of lonely little lies.
Every single night.
I imagine his jawline in the dark, how I traced it with my thumb until I fell asleep. I remember his lips when they touched mine gently, sweet and salty. He tasted like London. He breathed my name into the curve of my neck. I want to close my eyes and be there with him again.
Can you tell?
Can you tell I’m fading?
Can you tell I’m
F
A
L
L
I
N
G
falling
falling
and I can’t stop it?
and I’m very A L O N E as the cold bites at my fingers
and still I seem to be
falling
and
fading
and dying,
I’m tired of playing with words, I hate using them to try and help me figure out who I am and what I’m still doing here. I already know life is a struggle, sometimes it’s beautiful. It’ll whisper soft words into your heart one second, and the next it will run it’s razor blade fingers across your skin and throw you into the ocean without a second thought.
I’m tired of playing with words because at the end of the day, I’m still tired.
At 3 in the morning,
when you can’t trust your lungs anymore,
have one more smoke
and go to bed.
