You were all I ever wanted to be
And yet I never despised you for it,
Instead I pretended as if you were never real
Only living in a book I once read
I can't remember when
All because I could never think to do anything 
But love you. 

You were all that I intended to be
But I would always be your shadow
If I had really followed what I had thought was my dream. 
I would have always compared myself to you
In ways that would be unfair to myself. 
It would go on
And on
And on
Until nothing anyone ever said would ever mean anything to me
Because I would give their words to you
And you would tear them letter by letter 
Apart in my own head
-or, at least, my version of you would.

You were all my past was following
But now I have my own future ahead of me, not yours.
I can not, will not, ever be you, or your shadow

She pauses, and puts a hand on her chin thoughtfully, 
Wishing that the fire crackling in the woodstove 
Would swollow up her thoughts 
And create a picture for her to watch 
Because it would be less painful
If it wasn't inside her head. 
The colors swirl 
And let her eyes inside the thought
But never let them out
As they fall like snow 
And melt like snow 
And dissapear like snow
But it is not snow
It is the fallen ash of her cloud
Of her thought
As bright as winter 
As cold as summer
For her hands will not rest 
Until all of the thoughts are thrown
D
  O
    W
       N
Onto the ground.
Maybe it's snow after all.  

When I play the piano 
It is like a torture of the sweetest and yet most cruel kind
As I can not play it
Fast enough to stop the burning in my fingers
That can never stop moving
Twitching
Tearing the paper in my pocket into shreds
And trying 
Over
And 
Over 
Again
To pour my heart into the old cracked ivory.
To catch up with my mind. 
The fingers on my left hand
Are calloused from the strings
Of my guitar, 
The pain that I felt when I was first learning,
When my fingers were not used to the bite and dig of the strings,
Is gone, though not much missed,
For the pain was the one thing that stopped my fingers
From drumming
From digging
From burning
And the burning is the one thing
That makes me keep playing 
Creating
I must play until I have nothing left
Until I stop ticking
Ticking
Ticking my life away

MOM:  It's almost tomorrow, and we have to leave tomorrow. You three should go to bed. 

SISTER: Okay. I'm tired. 'Night. 

BROTHER: I'm watching Spongebob before I'm going to bed. 

ME: I'm watching... um... *tries to come up with something clever and funny to say but is too tired.*

UNCLE: The inside of you eyelids? 

ME: That's such an old person thing to say! 

UNCLE: Ouch... that wouldn't have been as offensive if I said it ironically... but I actually thought it was funny... (Pretending to be angry:) Well, anyway, now I know what you're watching. Season three of Stranger Things! Oh, wait! You can't! You have to wait until 2019! HA!

ME; NOOOO!

UNCLE: (Still pretending to be angry:) Serves you right for calling me old! 

ME: (Pretending to be hurt:) You're cruel! *Five minutes later goes to bed and laughs for like an hour and keeps siblings awake.*
 

The sky is bright with sun
Killing the remains of the night

burn

burn

The day is dark as love
Swallowing our only cover

burn

burn

The fire is scalding hot
But only we will live

burn

burn

The coldness in our eyes
Will freeze your doubts

burn

burn

Hath no fear of the dark, of the cold
For it is fire that will betray

burn

burn  


 

 

     When I was eight years old, my mind began to find loopholes to obsess over in everyday life. Some things would randomly freak me out, and some things would bore me to death. One night, as I was lying in bed, I was obsessing over the image of a pool ball rolling on the green carpet in my mind. I fell asleep eventually, and when I did, the image of the ball rolling was still in my mind, but it was rolling closer and getting larger and larger, but it never seemed to reach me, and sometimes it would get small again and start its journey closer towards me all over again. The green carpet turned into grass that was getting torn up by the ball. 
     When the ball was at its smallest, it was so quiet that the silence was almost deafening, taking over every corner of my mind. As it got larger and larger, quick tapping sounds would grow louder until it was shattering me from the inside... 

     When I was ten, me, my sister, my brother, and a couple friends were playing a game of capture the flag -inside our house. My brother and his friend had control of the upstairs, and me, my sister, and our friend were based downstairs. Now, we don't have doorknobs on most of our doors, just these weird latch-things that you lift up to open the door. So there was no built-in lock. But sometimes, we used clothes hangers to lock the door from the inside -as it could be only be done from the inside- by sliding the clothes hanger over the latch. If this was done, in order to get into the room without having someone let you in from the inside, you would have to break the clothes hanger by pushing on the door as hard as you could. (My mom wasn't a big fan of this method.)
     So in the middle of our game, all of us kids were called into the dining room for dinner. But when we resumed the game a little while later... 

     She was beautiful, but in a different sort of way. I decided that the moment I saw her. She looked at the world with interest and a tilt of her head, with a mingled look of nervousness and excitement. Her whole persona radiated purity. She would say things nervously, but relax as soon as the people around her accepted her words, almost like she wasn't used to talking to much of anyone. She was beautiful in the sort of way that made me cherish and love her, always wanting to be the one that made her smile. Inside and out, she was -is- beautiful.