EMPaThY

Broken record

Speaking words

Of static

Numbness

Knowing you were right

About everything

Ness

How he could hold

Us up to the light

Examination

Invasion

Tell me everything

I thought was

Absolutely

Entirely

Wrong

Three years

Asking her to leave

To separate

To become her own

Being

She smiled

A broken smile

My smile

And never said

Why she never

Would

Never said why

I would never

Be good

Enough

I can’t compete with

A premature brother

Eight years older

Not any wiser

He only knows

How to break hearts

She never left

He says

Because divorce

Would be to hard

He says

She’d lose you to him

He says

She’d already lost you

To the music

And the rhthym

And the words she

Didn’t understand

She couldn’t lose you again

He says

Like it was more

Beautiful

More eloquent

More substantial

Than the fact

That she wasn’t

As strong

As I thought.

Broken record

Speaking words

Through the

Static

Numbness

Everything

Ness

Devil child

You’ll never be mom

You’ll never be good

Enough

Waves breaking

Coming up for air

Fighting the same

Exact

Tidal wave

Winning

By walking away

It’s cruel. Looking the same as my mom, seeing her when I look in the mirror at the shining eyes, and seeing myself when I look into her pale, gaunt face. Somehow, we’ve switched places, like a Freaky Friday flashback and there isn’t anyone to help. I know it’s gotta kill them. The man that fell in love with her, and the baby that always depended on her. They look at me, and they’re wishing it was her. And there’s nothing I can do about it, other than write disjointed verses that don’t really make any sense.

Believe.

Sugar.

She’s full of weird dreams

Pointless things

Frayed strings leading

To nowhere

Nothing

At all

Like a simple apartment

Where it’s okay

If the roof leaks

Or if her clothes

Aren’t in style

As long as her

Car is yellow

She wears on

Weird, pulling you

In with oceans

For eyes, shadowed

Eyelids, bright

Shining lips

That snicker

Tease

Speak

Breathe

She comes on

Too strong,

Cracks the wrong

Jokes, listens

Too intently like

Every

Single

Word

Has her

On the edge of her seat

Heart barely

Beating

She’s strange,

This one. With

Tiger stripes

And a kiddy

Spirit for

Holidays and

Fun days

And fun things

Oh, she’s odd,

With peculiar

Habits and

Even more peculiar

Knowledge.

She pulls you in

With riddles

Rolling off her

Tongue and the

Sweet smell of

Skin and these

Rhymes she

Traps you in

To dwell

In hollow cheekbones

Rest inside her ribs

Curl up between carpals

And meditate on thumbs

She’s trapped you here

A maze of words

Rhythm and song

A whole new

Beat like hopscotch

Jumping rope

And applejuice

The faded heart

On the sidewalk,

Smiling up through

Your window

And

BOOM!

Just like that-

she’s gone.

Dark Blue

I could be writing

Or reading

Or breathing

Doing something

More productive than

Reflecting.

The sun shines

And the wind blows

And goosebumps grow

Because it’s already

The end of October,

And I’m not sure

Where the time went.

I’m scared at how

Easy smiles come back

In a day,

Overnight,

They are there,

Staring back from the mirror

In a hollow face

I’m not sure I

Could recognize anymore.

She’s still gone.

Not completely,

Not by choice,

But the house

Is still cold.

There’s no feeling

No blood

No emotion

No nothing

Replaced by sadness

Pumping through the air

Vents, breathing in,

Closing in,

Dropping out,

Going away.

I cook and I clean and I read and I breathe.

I can’t help them,

I can’t bend us back together again.

There is no us, no them, no we.

There is me, my lack of

Anything, really.

No college applications,

ACT scores,

Exams, grades, books, papers,

Essays. My life spilled out in

Black ink. No work

No play

No fun

No hate.

I smile at the biting sunshine,

How it invites you outside so the

Cold winter air can steal your breath away.

And I wish, honestly, that more things

Were that way, entirely unexpected

In such a good way. I wish that they all

Would hurt less, feel a little less, and invite

The good things in. It scares me to smile,

Until I realized I gave in

Butane.

I am waiting.

                Waiting for his lips to taste sugary sweet,

                                For him to mean something,

                                                Anything.

                Waiting for a lover I can finally love,

                                The boy with the chemicals,

                                                To make me numb.

                Waiting for watermelons, and dreams

                                Of dirty dancing,

                                                In a summer of death.

                Waiting for a moment to breathe,

                                To shine,

                                                To exist.

I’m waiting.

                For conciousness to break the surface.

                For fingers like spies to sneak across my skin,

                For reality to sink in.

I’ll be the needle, if you’ll be the thread.