Cracked Ice

I walk on the edges of the ice on the sidewalk
Because I have it bad
Over a boy I'm not good enough for.

I want to hear that crack
Of breaking water frozen long ago
Because then the sound
Is coming from something physical,
Not the metaphoric heart breaking.

For he is blind in a way,
And though adorable it still hurts,
To sit in obscenities
And half-remembered alcohol,
Knowing you've crawled a little upwards
But he had never fallen to begin with.

(just look at all those sentences
ending in prepositions.
curse you poetic license and bad grammar)

So maybe,
I'll walk out onto the pond,
And smile as the ice cracks beneath me.

I wonder if those jagged lines
Will match the ones
I carved into me?

Soon.
Less than a week.
Then I'll have performed,
Again,
With lines,
In front of people.
I cannot wait,
For fear
And for excitement.

I cannot function.
Too much to do.
Too much to fix.
I cannot eat,
And forget to sleep.
I drink too much tea
And too little water.
Someone save me.
Rescue me
From my own folly.
How can I catch up
When I have thus
Fallen behind?

A Pleasant Future Stuck in the Now

I'm sitting on an old couch,
Wrapped in a dream
Even as I am solidly rooted to now.
It's not so hard to see this fifteen years older,
Still a mug of tea to drink,
Snow falling to watch
As the wind pulls it in ribbons to the earth.
And I can dream of silence
Broken only by the purrs of a cat
Then padded footsteps
As he tries to slip in next to me.
But I'm pinned my a cat on my feet
And the sofa arm on the otherside,
Leaving him to complain
Of the cat's claim to the throne of the house.
But the cold of the windowsill on my elbow
And the near-scalding warmth of the mug
Keep me rooted to now,
To here,
Staring out my dorm
As the weather roars.
Through the trees I can see the light
Of the house that I hold so dear,
With the men I have come to care for
And that care for me,
Perhaps beyond reason on both sides.
So I am in the now
For "then" will come
And likely when I least expect it.
I'll still have that cat though.

Can I be your someone?
Can you be mine?
Let's be friends
And dance into life.
Let's be.
Let us be.

They all want in,
Want to know my pain
And to share my joys.
But do they want me?
Do they want my stupid jokes
And sometimes silly questions,
All the unconscious things I do
When I focus on something not them?
Do they actually want me?
The stuff in the middle
Of joyous high and raging low
Is at least a third of my being
And no one seems to be around then.
At least,
no humans are.
The ones I call family,
And the ones I call friends
Even in the deepest of my sorrow,
I somehow consider something more.

now i feel less.
feel wasted
and useless
and pathetic.
it's usual
yet worse
than the norm.
why won't
sleep come?
why must
i lie in this
agony and
think when i
could instead
be blissfully
asleep?

I grow weary
And lose the strength
to rise.
But you do not,
And I thank you
For that.
It makes the thought
of waking
Just a little sweeter.

I just sit and absorb
As wisdom flows forth
On how to be brave
But not stupid.
I see how to gather energy
And expel it to defend,
How to be deadly
And beautiful all at once.
Elbow to the head,
Heel to the knee,
Thumb to the eye
If you can manage it.
Drunks can fight through pain
And the high go on forever,
And don't you dare
Try to take on a knife
Unless you can take cuts
Where you won't die.
So rule number 1:
If they're gonna hurt you,
Hurt them first,
Hurt them fast,
Hurt them hard,
And then run.

To Write Poetry

Writing breaks my own heart.
That is what she does not understand.
She wants to be better.
She wants this talent.
But I can't bring myself to tell her
That I'm this good
Because I ripped my heart out years ago
And am just letting the wound bleed.

It's ridiculously early in the morning.
I have not yet slept.
Perhaps it is because
I am on a self-destructive kick,
One that has lent itself to too little sleep
And a blasé attitude towards eating
And the lack-there-of.
Perhaps I have not slept
Because the sting
Of trusting too quickly
Has not yet worn off.

Here I thought I had ceased to do that,
Ceased to leap in blindly with people.
I know where I stand with all others.
I then gave him my whole-hearted trust
Too soon and too fast.

Poor child,
Poor little brother,
Trapped in my head
With all these expectations he once fulfilled
But cannot,
Still saved from anger
By a love too strong to betray.

How swiftly he fell.
Perhaps it is true then,
That if you do good everyone forgets.
Do wrong, and no one forgives.

He's the friend that cares but forgets.
I and all the rest
Get buried in the labyrinth in his mind
Forged from endless names
He tries not to forget.

But someone will always slip
Through his fingers.
Tonight it's me.
And I am buried,
Alone and suffocating,
In the twisted rabbit hole
My own mind has made.

The quietness
Or falling snow
Gives me such peace
Even as a storm
Rages inside my mind.