Isn't this a clever poem?

The secrets are stashed between my ribs, they are shrapnel so pull them carefully through my spindle bones,
Lest you cut me open.
Carbon monoxide guilt but I keep breathing,
Lest I lose the feeling.

Consonance

What a sight to see,
A common thread divided here, and
What a life we lead,
To lose the dark but keep the fear, but
This is how I bleed,
At the top of my voice with no one near, I
Guess it's hard to see,
What's coming at you slow, my dear.

Grin and Bare Your Soul

If you were to peer into my eyes and see the way I think,
it probably wouldn't be too difficult to discern
That I've always prided myself in my ability to play well with others.
You'd probably guess that in preschool I would hand over my toy to keep the other kid from screaming,
and maybe walk over to another part of the room where I could find something better.
Things haven't changed much, and
I guess old habits die hard because I'm having trouble remembering old regrets,
Being drowned inside out by eyes like silhouettes.
Pulling me past the moment we occupy
and underneath the darkened sky,
You can make me think otherwise when we're standing face to face but
I guess I don't know whether to trust the girl in the mirror or my reflection in your pupils anymore,
I'm still learning about walking away and things, I'm young, you see.
Maybe it's the way you make me think I understand, or maybe it's the ocean at night,
I'm going to ramble until this sounds right.
I'm not really sure what this feeling is that I would do anything to preserve,
And it's beyond me why all my 11:11 wishes are for things to stay the same, things are awful,
I'm a little bit sick of tiptoeing around these shards of glass, let's just shatter the whole fucking house while we're at it.
Write a poem about me and stick it under your bed
With everything else you'd rather forget,
I'll stop trying to rhyme my feelings,
I guess,
Just write me a story and rip it to shreds.

Desert

I am in the middle of a life,
Mine is at a standstill and I am hardened by the fact that there is nothing I can do about anything.
So hardened, so bitter about the collapse and the rebound and the push,
The constant ebb of the time against my skin,
Like succulent sand, slipping through my organs and out my eyes and into my inside.
What else is there?
Listen.
Listen for it in the crevices between empty words and emptier stares,
Because you can’t even begin to know me until you pluck out all of your eyelashes.
And I don’t care how hard you’re trying to make this okay, it won’t be, ever.
You have to understand that with me, they haven’t even started making the right spare parts, in fact,
They don’t even know where to begin.
Leave me here and I’ll hate you forever, just
Leave me here and you will be better.
Lick on the promise and slip on the never,
Sullen as silence and thin as a feather.

Nothing

This dimension, my dear, is a teller of half-truths,
the Earth creates people that it cannot hold,
Those who are tethered to the bedrock with the gravity of a fateful umbilical cord that whispered to their mothers that they would never belong here.
Suffocated by their skin and
Disgusted by the frantic pumping of their hearts,
Outvoted by natural instinct, beaten by the will to keep the breath in their lungs
And disarmed by the logic that they cannot stare a hole through the night sky and escape to a less corrupt universe.
Plucking a rootless flower leaves me with something beautiful that will perish within the hour.
A wave of anxiety whispers at my feet as I turn, and seeing my footprints, confirm that I do not know where I came from or what I am made out of or what animates my carbonic shell.
Or whose breath fills my lungs, and whose elemental residue fabricates my reasoning.

Not sure what it's called yet

Tuck yourself into bed and hope it’s better tomorrow
April rain is the sweetest form of sorrow
You can be anything you want, little girl
That is what we are taught, so we expect the world
Drown me in your words and tell me when
Sing a lullaby and wait for it to happen again
Dive under the water and be at peace
All the time denying that you ever had this weakness
Drown me in your words and tell me when
Sing a lullaby and wait for it to happen again
Ribs like a birdcage, heart of a dove
Sculpted by an artist with a fear of love
I will take a chisel to my body and scrape away
Try to make myself into something you could chase
I will paint a thousand different patterns all over my face
Try to compensate for all the moments I have wasted
Drown me in your words and tell me when
Sing a lullaby and wait for it to happen again
Dive under the water and be at peace
All the time denying that you ever had this weakness

O Positive

It's rare, apparently,
Wrapping around a ferris wheel core,
A merry-go-round is my spinning periphery,
Absorbing every grain of salt.
two drops of ink have i swallowed,
for every love i have shoved down my throat,
my esophageal secrets.
Tying strings around my fingers and consistently remembering to forget.
There was nothing there,
I am a face-painted hero, a clown with glass lungs and lead feet,
living in a house of recognition.

Intermission

These days,
I can feel the sand in the hourglass slipping away
Weighing down my wings and choking what I wanted to say
Meeting your eyes brings back memories I cannot face
You are a reminder of every chance I didn't take.

I can't even give myself a reason I'm not walking away
Partially healing and then scraping the scabs away
Make-believing my heart is broken, manufacturing pain
Take all your tears and save them for the matinee

But you are a reminder of each blown out candle and
You are a reminder of each worn out melody
You are a reminder of washed-away words and
How even now my bones seem so fragile and weak.

I can't even give myself a reason I'm not walking away
Partially healing and then scraping the scabs away
Make-believing my heart is broken manufacturing pain
Take al your tears and save them for the matinee

Here's for Hoping

Look at that girl, now a couple months pass
And she only ever wanted something to last
Oh, I'm turning my back,
I want you and I want you to want me back.
Look at that boy he's so afraid,
Pushing anyone who takes a step in away,
Beautiful bird, locks himself in a cage.
So here's for hoping he don't go and want her back
Cause she's already five feet six inches down the track.

But this is the first time that I've ever felt so alive,
Cut the string I've been holding onto for dear life,
I will fly away from what's better left behind,
And I won't apologize

Here's for hoping
Here's for letting it show
Here's for giving in and
Never letting anyone know

Truth be told I only want what I know I cannot have
So here's for hoping you don't turn around and want me back
Disappointment runs in our veins but I will not bleed myself dry
Let yourself forget that I ever meant more to you than meets the eye

But I will send a whisper your way on the wind
Here's for hoping you finally let someone in,
This is my surrender I'm letting you win,
Drink the poison and never go thirsty again.

Here's for hoping,
Here's for letting it show,
Here's for giving in and
Never letting anyone know,
I want you and I want to want me back,
Yeah.

Misgiving

rainy faucet
walk right by,
the yellow-lit room,
and the sink.
This machine is broken,
the tightly sealed fissures
splitting like scabs,
the toothpick appendages
wobbling like the
cheap manufacturing plant they were concieved in.
Between the places of open,
and closed,
squeezed inside of the almost,
I am squeaking,
I am leaking.