sat by the ocean

flawesome

drip,
drop,
drip,
snakes the venom from my mouth.

a long, cold winter
keeps me frozen, going south.

cracks in stone, oh, they bind me
but they're never finding out
just what I come from.

I come from the mountains
of junk against my walls.
I come from the wolves
who don't answer my calls.
I come from the mouths
from which awful words do speak.
and I come from the heavens,
from hell's highest peak.

drip, drop, drip,
slides the venom down my throat.
seeking the blood dripping down my jaw—
lick it away with an open maw

crawl inside me,
inside my ribcage
and take a damn look around
there's not a single thing in sight
that would allude to what you see on the outside.

inside my ribcage is a garden.

it changes faster than you can blink.

like winter, it freezes over,
and then suddenly,
I'm drenched in overbearing heat

come forth to me
let me show you my windows
so that you can have it easy when you should choose to escape
this frothing mouth,
this bleeding tongue,
this venomous, hungry thing.

I have danced with the night,
withered away from her sweetness,
let her coax me into death,
and then rebirth again.

I have slept with the sunshine,
boiling my blood on beige pavement
as wonderous feelings awoke me
I was burned alive and afraid.

my pleasantness,
oh,
it befouls me
because I am so much darker
than the sweet candy you taste on my tone.

tread lightly,
new stranger,
because the moment you want to touch my skin
is the moment you must decide your fate.

watch me drown myself again,
or suck it up and face me
and throw me into the rivers yourself.

there are only two paths with me:
the path we walk together,
hand in hand as we face the sun,
and the path you take without me,
remembering naught but the humiliating strangeness that I own.

my secret garden,
it grows and is easily destroyed.
I am brought back anew again my daylight
and forgotten in the wisp of noon

I read poetry that has no meaning
because they're all following the trend
and I think I'd matter much more
if I had a new friend

because maybe they could love me
the way you never could before
maybe they'd show me I don't ruin everyone
before the walked back out the door

some part of me wants you to leave, darling.
it's a very, very small part,
and it's trying to get me to detach.

detach because I'm starting to think you really love me
in that all-important way
and I'm starting to lean on you
and trust you
and love you with all the hell-raising power I've got

and that part of me wants me to leave and never look back,
wants me to abandon you and all our promise
before you have the chance to do that to me.

I'm so terrified all the time
but it's not the kind of terrified that makes me irrational.
no, this is something stronger
and you should be very afraid of my power

.....but I don't see you being afraid.
maybe it's hidden deep down inside there—
I don't know.
but we've never really talked about it.
I love talking about myself,
up until I remember that you're a real person
and thus capable of not giving a shit about any of these deeply personal words I'm saying
and I remember that nobody cares,
kid,
get used to it.

well,
I am used to it.

but.....
you make me feel heard and loved sometimes
and I don't know what to do with that.
should I learn to anticipate that?
or is that selfish of me?

any time I think something
that isn't completely selfless and perfect,
I feel selfish
and greedy
and foolish beyond belief
because why did I think THAT?
I SHOULD be thinking THIS instead—

but I need to realize that I don't have to strive for perfection.
human beings are messy,
not perfectly messy in a tactful way.
I'm supposed to mess up
and make things harder on everyone else just by complaining once
and ruin lives
and start love-ending fights.

but instead,
I reside alone in my own corner
of perfect imperfection.

I wouldn't say I'm trying to make it pretty,
because I don't care much about being pretty anymore.
I dress to impress,
yes,
but only because it feels better than leaving the house in my nightclothes.

I'm not trying to make my flaws pretty,
I'm trying to make them perfect.