My feet are still stained black

As we ran through the night
The grass wrapped itself around our feet begging us to linger a little longer
Devils danced behind us
Licking our heels as we laughed because even the most vile creatures seem enticing at times

When you're five minutes late for curfew you might as well stay three hours more
Every passing minute building up a stronger reprimand
But the memories towered higher
In the form of teenage hands climbing onto middle school rooftops
The tar up top coloured our skin black
Darker than than the thoughts I had the night before
Darker than the closet I lock myself in
I watched the figures spin on the ceiling from my baby brothers lamp
Doomed to rotate in a predetermined route
I learned then how to walk with my feet pigeon toed so I could avoid a circular path

Fighting my aching knees from the awkward bend
I looked up and saw you
Knees bent inward
Wincing
But happy to be on a linear path

The tattoos on your arm still trickling blood
They were a statement though
And expensive
Your friends admired the candle design on your shoulder
Sadly the dim light burner brighter than their smiles
Brighter than your red swollen eyes after your dad told you how to be a better daughter
He calls it looking out for you
He calls it constructive
I call it a drunken state of discontent from a wasted life
I call it a six pack on his breath

So when you look at your tattoos and remember a few years before
When you want to relive the childhood adventures
I'll be waiting on the top of our middle school with a pair of warm clothes and a magic eraser to clean you up

I am afraid

I am afraid arthritis will take home in my fingers
Through the chain link fence in elementary school she told me that I popped my knuckles too much
I am afraid that one day I will be sitting at a table full of bills, papers, and envelopes
Forced to look her in the eye and tell her my pockets are empty
That we're losing the house and the dogs that the kids loved so much
I am afraid that one day I will be too quiet
Never speaking out and that may cost me or someone a few fingers
I am afraid of going on long car rides because I never know if she's just being friendly or if she's in to me
The way my mind races at speeds faster than I can react to the winding road makes me fear I'll crash, killing us both and I'll never know what she was thinking, never
I am afraid I am stuck in the high speed setting on a washing machine with the door locked shut but I wouldn't know because I am the one who crawled in
I am used to the head banging on the sides and the soap in my eyes, if I stay in here any longer it will kill me
I am so afraid of what lyes outside though
I am afraid that my siblings won't speak to me once I'm gone because I didn't know how to communicate with them
Their favorite part of me was my ability to drive them away from home
I am afraid of my drivers license and the power that gives me
I don't want to have
I am afraid if I don't figure out how to control all these emotions they will control me
But maybe they already are

I wish I had power lines in my backyard

Like Angus and Julia I want a mangoe tree in my backyard
I heard you like mangoes
Maybe you would come over and we could read books together in the cool shade

One time I thought I might try to talk with you
Your ears were as clogged as my sisters sink
Your eyes as sharp as the knife that left the half inch scar on my right index finger
But I heard you are a nice girl
I have heard a lot if things

If I had a computer for every time I ran through how I could approach you, I could be the CEO of Microsoft

But trees are weird now and it's all about power lines and cell phones
I don't have your number
That makes me non existent

I'll keep doing my math homework and never ask you questions on how to do things
I know that's not my place
You sit under the knight

You sit under the night
But not with me

An early onset of winter depression

When the tree leaves have fallen and the bitter cold comes around
I am going to need someone to hold my feet sure in the ground
In a season of fires and blankets to share
I wander around clueless with no emotions to bare

As the trees undress themselves barren beaches are all that's left
They stick out sore and crude like the hole in my chest
And the giants in my heart once occupied my time
Have all gone away and died leaving in my heart a black grime
Their bodies decomposing and rotten
The stench flows through the new wounds I have gotten

Through the time and temperature changes my body fails to adjust
And I too like the giants will soon turn into dust
Like the leaves on the ground and the hole in my heart
October brings about feelings of being ripped apart
At both home and at school faced by a great divide
Both parties petition me in an effort to decide

If friends were true and families molded as together
I would never have to choose between  staying inside or battling the cold weather

Biography

The optical spheres in your head
Generous, with the time they spend connecting to mine
I thought time wasn't taken, given, created, or destroyed
But every time you send a package the clock stops just for me

Your hands a source of vast intellect
Symbols and gestures of endless subtlety but so profound
They knew just how to position themselves
So that mine might join them in conversation when we got scared
And lonely
And happy
Tired
Sad

Fingers more careful than the hands of an angry father
The words they spell on my back reassure me I'm not completely illiterate
The way they run through the forest on my head creates a drug more potent than any handful of Advil PM
Or whatever the kids are using these days

The ways your toes cringe allow me to know your exact thought process through our most silent conversations
Inward usually means you're nervous and I hate that but it's cute too
Curling up and I know I either need to tuck you in or talk about something actually interesting

No matter how bushy your eyebrows, they tell me about all your anxieties
Each curve and contour has a story to tell
The way they dance across your face when you smile
Or keep me in check with a downward glare

Your earring racks prove so patient
I've been told I mumble
And the hearing aids I bought you don't even work
It's hard to know what I am saying through the numb lips and dull sense of humor
Somehow you've managed to dissect my dialogue and retain the most important parts

Lungs
I'm not sure if you have those anymore from all the screaming you've done
If you do I know they would be strong just like the rest of you

A wet heart reminds you it's there just as my incessant text messages and phone calls do
When your tongue dries up at night because it's allergy season
You wake up not sure if it's still there
Your wet heart provides texture in an assurance of it's residency
It provides assurance I'm not completely gone
Like brail I have left my mark on it
Both good and bad

Nosey as you are you're sense of smell is more keen than a hungry teenage boys
Smelling out my doubts and fears
Insecurities and opinions
I always thought you were a mind reader but I just haven't bought strong enough cologne to cover up my emotions

An Introduction to Sadness

A hole
Caused by a shovel from and unknown hand, perhaps your own but you couldn't know that
In your heart
Your head
It doesn't really matter
The void in the necessary part

Tying feelings to something tangible helps bring a reality to the feelings you may not understand
Like how I cringe at the people who park in front of my house only to go to the neighbors
A show of their superiority
They think can park there
Making me think I was almost worth a visit of theirs
I was almost worth a minute of their time
I guess I make better parking stalls then conversation
That's why unfamiliar cars make me sad

Acknowledge those things you don't want to become solidified in your mind
I think of how the two front trees are my favourite.
Maybe because I have had so little exposure to their fallacies
Perhaps this extends to other realms
Do those I love only have their place because of how little I know of them
Because I am blind to all the hearts strung around their neck
Am I unexposed to their true nature

Tears come to those who need them not to those who want them
In a vein desire for attention the water droplets refrain themselves
It seems they more openly come in dark corners and places if solitude
Do not try to make a show for others
This is a desperate attempt for attention rather than expression of feelings of sadness

Think and overthink
Numb your mind
Don't read about heroes or vigilantes
And don't try to be sad
Sadness will find you

Sadness will find you

Can We?

Can we sit by the river bed and get lost in the wrinkles of our hands?
Recounting
the stories they tell
Realizing
that some are scars and they still hurt
Reminiscing
in the memories
Reminded
that we barley made it out with our own two thumbs
Rationalizing
the fact that we stole others  emotions to patch the holes in ours

As we sat we talked
With our mouths and our minds
Our hands forming their own opinions
The duplicitous lives we have lived
A shame to their hierarchy

You watch the river pass by
Leaves and friends alike drowned in the dark abyss
I'll watch the insides of my eyelids if that's okay with you
They're a lot more understanding
The blackness no longer cold
A bold
representation of everything old
We told
them to make it what they wanted and that no mold
would cause a decay in their dreams to create a mould
of something they didn't want

I  carry my keys always
Half expecting the doors to be locked and the other half knowing it
Lets open them and run inside
Explore around while running our hands along the edges of picture frames hoping to upload those memories to our minds through our bleeding fingertips
Rushing through the blood, our veins, electrical wires
Stopped by another splinter to an already bloody patch of mangled flesh
Stopped to think
No one has ever done this
No one loves and stays

Love and leave now synonymous
So many have tried to stay and failed

Can we?

Soliloquy of the Single Strand

Those who listen close can hear the voices of our apparel

Soft subliminal messages from within
The interworkings of the tapestries 

Each strand helps those around us understand who their owner is

What would happen if I tried on your clothes?

If I wore numbers on my back

Kept my ankles warm with TEAM ONLY socks

Could they speak out my acceptance?

Would I then be allowed to walk safely in the commons?

Would I be allowed entrance to the v.i.p. club by the knight?

Or would my clothes hold their tongue because no matter how hard they tried to speak my insides wouldn't let them

Couldn't let them

They contradicted everything I was

I am 

Please be quiet

I'm trying to say something

I never was a loud person though
But my actions were deafening to you 

I'm sorry about that

About the cuts

The bruises 

The tears and fears

I'm sorry about the car ride I yelled at you for two hours

I'm sorry about it all 

Well I guess my clothes are more sorry than I am

After all they speak louder than I do 

Where I Am Standing And Where I Was Have Never Been So Close

Its nice to see places I have been to from a new perspective
With feet in a new spot I get a new appreciation for where I have been
For what I have done
And those I did it with

The Insecurities of a Boy Without Insurance

Gathered around time froze in the millions of pixels on an iPad screen
We were our cuffed pants
Our hairstyles
The ages of our clothes somehow gave us their years of wisdom
As undefined as we may have seemed
Football players in skinny jeans and eye glasses
Still smelled like their sweaty helmets
They smelled of their true nature

They had no idea
They didn't want to have any
Unsympathetic to my pain
My aches and internal blood pools
Their guns and kinfes caused

What I contributed to them wasn't mine
Their thanks tied to the inanimate
Somehow the machinery became much more intricate than I

In my bed but no sleep tonight
Not because I am a loyal servant to a blog constantly asking me to read it
Asking favors it promises to return
Never does
Sleep won't find me because of you
Because of the way you contaminated me
Tricked my brain
My thoughts tainted

You were the farmer and I was the field
You plowed me, planted me, and caused me to believe I was beautiful
But for what?
To impress the farmers society
The neighbors
Well neither of them care

In a drunken rage you set me aflame
My grounds black and scarred

Next time you ask
Or state
I will offer a supple smile
I'll look to the side
Downwards fixated on some speck of space
"It's a shame really"
" I can't say I am surprised you don't remeber"
You were there when it all happened