What is it?

Paradise is Axl Rose naked on a cloud

Just a-waitin' for me!

isn’t it funny how suicide is alright?

but god forbid you reach for the needle

takes you from martyr to junkie,

druggie, smackhead, waste of potential, no good

die young at your own hand and live to see yourself loved

or stretch it out long enough to medicate and fall before a judge

maybe it’s just me, but i think they’re quite the same

and we should hold the standards as such.

watch the twisty turny ripples on the telly

brains melt to nothing

leaves every orifice natural to the body

we're dying but we keep going

minds and teeth and hearts rotting

hell of a lot of baggage we're towing

where did it all go wrong?

when did we lose our taste, our respect,

our feeling?

we're numbed to the sensation

of our dignities ripped from our weak hands

impressionable and indoctrinated

if i die before twenty five,

i hope hell is where i land

these days my focuses have shifted

heavy rock glam kid to a

careless teen with reckless dreams

how i long for the sting of peruvian

for help, for love, for anything

i can not bear feeling this way

everything and nothing at all

please lord, tell me something

a tidbit i've wanted to know all along

where the fuck in the world do i belong?!

how do i live with the blood spatters

the pieces stuck to the walls

uselessly wasted brain matters pasted to the ceiling

for my soul i call

for a solution i beg

if there's a god out there

i guess all i can do is fucking pray.

here i sit, wondering where i’ll be in a month. in two months. in six months. in a year. in two years. in five years. in a decade.

what will i achieve?

who will i know?

how will i see?

who will i be?

they say that life changes people.

it has already damaged me,

beyond repair?

shit, maybe.

no one knows where it started

he was there and you were screaming

his skin was pale and his nails were long

you consider- was there really no sun in heaven?

he approaches you, and you back away

you bit your tongue but he's the one who bled

he begins to fade into a cloud of smoke

“i don’t want to forget about you!”

he’s already gone, but this moment is real

his fingernails graze like razors

watching your back and guarding your heel

he is here, he’s breathing but his heart has stopped

his cousin's CPR just wasn't enough

his sister watched his soul elevate to peace

you feel terrible for her,

at seven years old she saw too much

baby blues watching mocha browns die

the road before her is awful tough

and though his existence was ephemeral,

you remember that your love for him is eternal.

his lungs expanded for thirteen years,

he's been gone for three and

you tell yourself it's been seventy

because every moment he was gone

you were the only one at the grave

blonde boy blonde boy

ripped skinny jeans

blue-eyed sad boy

acid wash hoodies

comfortless and

your mom was a druggie

went to school where i met you

you hated everything

blonde boy blonde boy

bouncing legs and

vapes in class

you smoked your pot

popped your pills

followed in her footsteps

you never did fit in

you went to school and

pulled up late for class

they ignored you and

mocked you and

laughed at you together

they took your money and

they took your clothes and

stripped you of your dignity

they blew smoke in your face

wrapped their arms around your neck

watched you choke and twist about

your eyes went dead

six months later

you followed their footsteps

and hell welcomed you

with open arms

i miss you everyday

your big smile and your laugh

i miss your sweet face

your boldness and your words

i hope they gave you a switchblade

to carve your poems into your grave

is it really fine

are we okay

or are we just desensitized

guns meet temples

just because it happens all the time

dead bodies in the streets

just because it happens all the time

doesn’t make it any right

booze, booze.. yes, for my age, i know too much of the waking up on linoleum and vomiting up cold pizza on an even colder night off your buddy’s balcony. i know of the subtle dusting on cheeks after one glass of wine suddenly becomes two, and three, and you don’t remember where you put your drink but you know you had it somewhere before you went to find becca. i know of music swimming through the ears and singing solemn tunes to yourself while you lean over a measuring bowl because trish didn’t have a bucket. i know of all sense of awareness going and losing yourself to the freezing floor and not feeling a thing, getting up and asking if you really just fell, or if it was in your head. i know of the stomach turning at the smell of liquor the next morning and your hair wreaking of vodka and redd’s and whatever the fuck else you ingested that you lost track of while you buy cheese puffs at the store nearby. i know of kneeling above your own friends who lay unconscious, lost to cough syrups and the last shot of the fireball that you know she shouldn’t have had. i know of coffee doing flips inside and the groaning and the crying and the screaming and the incompetence. i know of the way it screws you up because you drank and forgot to take your meds and now you’re fucked in the head for the next two weeks until your meds balance out again. i know of it all and i hope to never know of it again- as a sixteen year old girl who has laid her hands on the bathroom floor and promised and swore like an elderly man with a problem, that she will never drink again, even if the girls are down. and, like an elderly man with a problem, there’s a party next saturday if you’re in to do it all over again.