Ranyn

I’ve always seen the car crash in your eyes

Since the day we made our friendship vows
On paper made of bruised skin and bones
Resembling our broken lives
That seemed to fuse us together
With blood transfusions
Of each other’s emotional DNA

We made like safety nets

Catching each other’s falls
Pretending to be our own personal heroes
Because we knew
That we were really just victims
Playing God
While we drowned in the rivers
Of our own destruction
 
You dedicated songs to me
And I wanted to play them back
Paste them on your wounds
As bandages
Write a “get well” note and sign my name
With shitty hearts and fake smiley faces
Because your pain
Reminded me too much of mine
Making accidental empathy collide into yours
Like something caused by carelessness
And carelessness always gets the handcuffs
 
But we were careless anyways
Feeding our sorrows to one another
Like feeding flames with gasoline
And problems became forest fires
Burning down foundations along with the trees
And somehow
I still thought I could save you
With the safety nets that we claimed to be
But I forgot that I was with you in the smoke
Inhaling deadly fumes
Alongside you in the blackness

And we struggled

We struggled together
Two helpless people
Panicking in the deep end
Trying to rescue one another
It didn’t make any sense
 
But we still held on
To our invisible life jackets
To each other
While we sank
To the bottom of everything
And I think
You forgot to breathe
Before we went under
Before we began inhaling sins
Like unwanted fluid
Entering our lungs
With no more room for one last gasp of air
It was too late

And pretty soon
I lost sight of your outstretched hand
The tips of my fingers just inches away from yours
Slipping
Slipping
Slipping away
And I didn’t mean to let go
But I did

And I’m sorry

Speak

Her eyes
Are like rusted bullet holes
Rooted in a concrete wall
From the guns of mafias that never get caught
Remaining silent and forgotten
But still holding memory
Of police chases and ransom notes
When you look in her eyes
It’s like witnessing
The replay of massacred secrets
Buried beneath the hard wood floors of rumors
 
Her mouth
Is a locked door
Concealing words
With illumination
Holding back honest secrets
Disguised as fabrication
That will never be revealed
Like that night
That night
Of intoxicated mistakes
Eating her alive
More than the world will ever understand
More than they’ll ever care to know
 
And her lungs
Have been set on mute
By remote controls shaped like lumberjack hands
Playing rewind
With her stifled screams
Like the numb of paralysis
Invading the core of every nerve within her body
Traveling with hindered speed
Unable to keep up with the thoughts not yet processed
Bribed
With manipulation
Money can’t even buy
 
Her heart
Is an isolation room
Surrounded by white walls
Fluorescent lights
And signs saying
“Contact Isolation”
“Caution”
“Don’t touch”
Enclosed in a building for the sick
And the wounded
She is diseased
Her heart is putrid
Filthy
The contagion from her guilt
Like airborne toxins
Polluting the air like secondhand smoke
 
Her body
Is made up of clichés
Words spoken too often
Words that have lost their dazzle
Words like: perfect
Replaced with
“Whore”
“Slut”
“Skank”
“Tramp”
“Don’t tell me you were raped because we all know what you did, you fucking bitch”

And she remains silent

As silent as the corner of her room
Stained with tomorrow’s desiccated blood
From the arms of a girl
Who just wants to be hugged again
Or better yet
Who wishes she was forgotten
Invisible 
Just like how things used to be
 
Now
Her name is plastered
Onto the lips of everyone
Like flyers to the lamp posts
Of missing children
Except nobody gives a shit
Nobody wants to know
True from false
Right from wrong
Good from evil
 
They just want to know the stories
That look good in their minds
That taste good on their tongues
Spreading like the black smoke from wildfires
And she’s trapped
In the middle of it
Of this predicament
Of constant conundrums
That she has no control over
Because words have never been so menacing
So restraining
As a prison
Security of significance
Slipping from her trembling fingers

She is helpless

Like that night
That night of intoxicated mistakes
When he held her
Whispered sweet nothings in her ear
Like death threats
Stealing the precious foundation from her feet
With force
Aggression
As her world collided upon itself
Like an apocalypse
And all of a sudden
She had never known what fear was
Before that night
 
But nobody listens
Nobody believes
Because she is nothing
The lies are screaming louder
Than her own thoughts
And she’s suffocating
Drowning
In a pool of secrets and deception
 
Break the silence
Take the word “rape”
And embroider it
On the scars that line your wrists
Unlock the door to your lungs
And scream concealed revelations
Until they drown out the lies
From their ears
Until your truth
Becomes a part of their atmosphere
Freeing your mind
To speak

Painted Porcelain

Child

Your face holds expressions
Leftover from the tale ends of their arguments
With your name of broken records
Plastered firmly onto the last word spoken

As much as you wish you could

Don’t get used to it
Because you never will
You will continue to cringe from their nail-to-chalkboard voices every time
So hide
Shut out the world
Just like you’ve already taught yourself how
 
Wear that face until people assume your life
No one will understand you anyways
Painted porcelain that once coveted your skin in diamond flesh
Will chip away
But repaint it
Every year
Until residue of past is hidden beneath the layers
Blanketing your scars with counterfeit apathy
 
They will never cease to scrutinize you
Their fingers
Tapping on mahogany tabletops like silent enigmas
Awaiting constant revenue of lingering smiles too wide for your honesty
 
You’ve always been like broken French Italian demitasse
Beautiful
Detailed
Delicate
Now simply just another mess to clean up

So find yourself

In the wreckage
Of anger-induced declarations passive aggressively flung to the wall
That shudders
Craving the ability to turn itself inside out
To avoid the inflicted destruction
 
You’ve become one with the wall
 
So, young child
Sleep with your ears closed
And your mind wide open
So that the biting resonance from their acidic screams
Will defer from entering into your distant dreams
That catch fragments of idealistic childhoods in mesh-nets like fireflies
 
Inconspicuously
You’ve been taught not to love with freedom
And you’ve learned
That you will endure whiplashes of constant loneliness
Because eventually
Everyone you think you love will always leave you
 
Remember
That you will never be as perfect as they wish you were
Significance is a daily visitor
Pain is your nightly friend
Mistakes are not allowed
And you will always be a glass window away from happiness
 
So go forth
To your pit hole of estranged darkness
And wait for your dehydrated tear ducts to form rain clouds
Accumulated forms of madness
Erratically filtered with pandemonium
They say
Depression is nothing more than perspective
 
So conceal it
Embed it underneath your paper skin like a secret
It will make you itch
But don’t scratch it
It will fester
But don’t medicate it
Because they will only tell you
That you can fix yourself

The Apology

He enters the room 
As tension fills the air

Smothering my lungs

Into complete deterioration
Until I swear
I can feel my heart cease
The hands of the clock begin to slow
So leisurely
While I wait to breathe a sigh of relief
His authority cages my sense of being
And I long to escape
Because I am nothing here
I desire firm resolve
But will he care to hear me?
Feel my love though respect is shallow

Only respect can be earned in due time
Yet time has vanished
The chance is lost
Now who’s at fault where pure honesty pleads?
My apology is genuine
Yet, you won’t accept
As I am human
Full of lies
So where do we go from this point?
Relationships shattering
Like frail windows of abandoned temples
Once untainted
Now broken
Unspeaking
As pressure builds
Within this “home”
Assumed hatred exposes itself
But truth
Is settled within my soul
There exists no hate
Only frustration
That festers every ounce of me
Driving me to become despicable
At the sight of myself
I feel pathetic
In which a thanks is in order
Now I will forgive
And ask for help
Where change in one’s self initially presents
But like a cycle of birth and death
You persist to behave in that manner
Believing destruction and ignorance will conquer
As affectively as a bulldozer to a feeble shack  
And, yes, I am the shack
Embodied with weakness, deficiency and shame
Containing nothing but insignificance
In which you have compelled me to become
So I stand here and I watch
So helplessly
While our precious dwelling is demolished
One wretched morsal at a time
Because stopping you would be a waste of energy
Your character has become the very definition of stubborn jackass
But why must you obliterate the bonds in your life
Relationships infused with a love misunderstood
Which you selfishly throw away
Because your blindness prevents you from seeing
What I’m worth and the person I have turned out to be
Growing up to find my perspective precisely as yours
So hold me in your heart just as you did when you first held me in your arms
Take a long, hard look
For I will evaporate from your grasp
Like the last rain drop from a single pond
Until those blinders disentigrate from your eyes

Pills

I take these pills

In hopes that some day
These diseases will flee not only my body but my mind.
This mentality has been instilled into my head
Like an epitaph for a headstone
I take these pills
Because day by day they make me weaker
But it’s ok because the doc said I’ll be fine
Though the chemicals infused in those pills
Become the cause of my already frail bones
I take these pills
So that my body can be intoxicated
With the promise of premature goodbyes
Only to feel the sulking souls of existence
Surround my very being
Insistent upon hearing the echo
Of those half immortal, putrid lies
I take these pills
Because I’m forced to realize
That these are the precious gems that keep me breathing
So I swallow these drugs
One by one
And wash them down with my heartbroken pride
In hopes that I will soon
Very soon
Break free from this invisible chain
That pins me down like a thousand knives
As I anticipate
My imposter’s course of action to incarcerate my brain
And as I wait
Every day
For some new symptom to arise
I mask my pain with a smile
And tell myself there is no room for sorrow
But I’m not allowed to wear that smile for long
Before fate appears behind a disguise
In which I am told to refrain myself from hoping for tomorrow
And sometimes I agree
And lower my head in defeat
Not wanting to live this agonizing life
Oh, but don’t you worry
Because sometimes fate can be a scheming bullshitter
And sometimes instead of agreeing I decide to fight
Until this illness
That attempts to debilitate me
No longer makes me bitter
So I’ll proceed to battle this
Accepting that my days will be filled with lows and highs
And I’ll stubbornly refuse to let these ailments get me down
Because I want my wounds to be healed
By my persistent motivated drive
So that I can wear my scars
With the same pride as wearing a graduation gown
I have excelled to a new level of hope and sense of relief
Because now I know the meaning to my existence
Which I am determined to strive
With a new hope in love and faith to extend my new belief
That I am a luscious lavender lupus butterfly
Spreading my wings to the skies

Hayden

We go through life

Like a text book of small print
Flipping the pages with swiftness just to get to the end
Bored by our daily rituals of saying ‘I love you’
With lost meaning
Because expectations for tomorrows have left us ungrateful
While each day passes
Taking a piece of our memories with it
Until we forget
That the distance of life can only run so far
Because life itself will stop short and lose its breath
Just as easily as never imagining it could

Then the unimaginable happens

Shocking us with a blow
That comes up from behind with a bat
Striking us in the back of our hearts
Just like we’ve always deserved
Causing the memories that time has stolen
To ignite in our consciousness
Burning a hole into our membranes
As the pain of realization inflames our thoughts
With a wake up call
So loud and unexpected that it rings into our ears like a constant echo
Playing over
And over
And over
On the classic vinyl subliminally attached to our intellect

Finding that tenderness
Will not subside so quickly
When tragedy forgets to warn us
Causing heartache
Only the Lord’s precious time can mend
One stitch after another
Because the open wounds of loss
Has a predisposition of possessing stubborn attributes
Connecting with what the mind wants
Compared to what the heart and soul need

So when the suffering of broken hearts and misunderstanding is present
Duties of humanity should not only be displayed
But should be offered forever
Until a mother’s heart no longer breaks with fragile memories
And a father’s soul is innovatively pieced together
Until he stands as tall as a Roman statue

But reality
Sets in so comfortably
While it kicks its feet up with hands behind its head
Watching our disturbance on a television screen
Corrupted with the calamity of destruction
Because coming to terms with God’s plan
Is the most difficult concept of life He has to offer
Giving up a life unwillingly
Without the reassurance of knowing why
But we know how we tend to lose faith
As we raise our hands to the skies
Screaming for answers
Wondering how a valued spirit could be taken
So early in his youthful prime

But truth
Is what holds the key of freedom
From the chains that keep us from comprehending
That 4,745 days of his being was not cut short by the scissors of life and death
But that his numbered days will continue to expand into eternity
While he watches us
Side by side with the Lord
In a paradise he would never had envisioned
Hoping the world will open their eyes
To the delicate beauty of existence

Because God

Would never have taken an innocent soul without reason
So let us not settle down
With just the facts of losing another one to misfortune
But let us recognize
His task of bringing value to what we have to hold on to
So we
As a society
Must now refuse to go back to just flipping through the pages
Because his life was too valuable
To just let him go

Drink me in
Precisely like the first time
You tasted vodka between your lips
Eager
With caution
I am not worth being reckless with
Consume every portion of my personality
Take it down smooth
With a chaser
Because you might not be able to handle
My bitter tendencies
I’ve been known to acquire
But don’t let that stop you
Take that risk
Taste it
Let it settle on your tongue
Until you can understand every part of me
Like the back of your hand
I don’t want to be your poison
Even though I’ve been known to be a hazard
Not only to others but to myself
But all I want to do
Is make you feel euphoric
Let my unique sensation of tenderness engulf you
Relief in all senses that I can be your escape
Take my hand
Before it’s too late
My affection is on a time schedule
But don’t swallow my warmth too early on
For I am impatient yet prudent
So sip on my qualities from a shot glass
Because I don’t like taking things too fast
Savor me
With a steady pace
Ensuing that in order for you to know who I am
You must enjoy me
Thoroughly
Until your senses become numb with the thought of me
You’ll find I can be intoxicating
My words like passionate symphonies
Lining the walls of your veins
So that your bloodstream will be stimulated
With my voice
Instilled with sweet seductive surrender
That will travel through your heart every 60 seconds
Drowning your body in what I call withdrawals
Because at that moment  
You won’t even be able to comprehend

That I will have just stolen a sliver of space inside your conscience

Making you want to feel that drunken stupor from my presence
Every day and night
While my addictive high leisurely flees your body
I want you to feel my effects
Not only the next day but every day after that
Until you realize how good it feels to be by my side
But don’t fuck with me
Because if you take too much from me too quickly
Drinking me in with carelessness
Consequences of regret will haunt you from the middle of your core
Like alcohol poisoning
I am fragile
Like the glass bottle my emotions are encased in
So don’t drop me
Or I will shatter
Leaving razor-sharp splinters embedded into your heart
In which you will feel a stab of pain every time you inhale
So please
Just be gentle and vigilant
When you handle me

Dream Boy

Boy  
The first time I saw you
It felt as though I was riding my first roller coaster
With a 108 foot drop
Straight down to the deepest places in my heart
I could not feel my body
Or sense that I even had one
I was head over heels
Tripping over carefully handpicked words
My tongue could not keep up with
Thoughts racing 7, 8, 9 steps ahead
Of what my brain could not yet process
You were nothing but a dream boy
Because that’s the only time I could visualize
Still framed photographs
The dye of black and white reminiscent cinemas
Staining the back of my irises
With you
Embracing me close to your body
Like I was the last thing you had left in this world
Like I would fly away
If you let the slightest bit of atmosphere come between us
But you were only a dream boy
A person I could befriend in reality
And a person I could love in my night time delusions of impracticality
I only let myself get close enough
To listen to you vent about your frustrations
Of life
And
Girls
But I comforted you with genuine words
In which I hid the key to their authentic meanings
Locking my feelings behind a black painted wooden door
Hearing them banging with brutal fists
Desperately yearning an escape
Because all I really wanted was to tell you
That I am an actress
Pretending to be the best friend you’ve ever had
Understanding your every meticulous dissatisfaction
So that I may be that much closer to your heart
That beats
Every time mine skips one
When I think about possibilities
Of what it could’ve been like if fate had aligned our stars together
Just for one solitary moment
And I wonder if it could have been just as magical
As combining my childhood enchanted story book fairy tales with Disneyland
Because not only were you something I knew would never be real
But you were also my happiest place on earth
Making me feel like the word “us” could be just as easy as riding a bike
Bringing joy to my fervent mind
Until reality sneaks up from behind and drags me out
Clawing the floor boards
Kicking
Screaming
All because I was this close to that favored part in my constant reverie
Where you would look at me
So deep into my eyes
That you would be able to see every detail of you and me
Etched into my irises
If only
You were anything but a dream boy