cherrichan13

We echo within like sea-shells. We are tourists within our own skulls, fingers straining to reach threads, words that will not come. What is left of our spirits hide in box-hedge bushes and the easy regulation of brick paths. The people we always wanted to be have left us behind, staggering, solid entities chained to a sordid earth. Our souls are birds flown south, ocean currents long turned, spring breezes scattered on hard city winds. We find ourselves counting words and dictating spaces, acts of desperation that never used to be necessary. We find ourselves missing a loneliness that left us raw and uncensored; if only being alone would bri

There's a serial killer in my neighborhood and it has targeted my family. It went after my sister first. She knew it would win. It stalked her from the shadows, dripping its poison into her soul. Not pretty enough, it whispered. Not smart enough. Not worthy. Not loved. Her smiles turned into grimaces, her eyes darkened into those of an animal's glaring from within its burrow. Cynicism became a lifestyle and she wore headphones like IVs in her ears. When the bus pulled up to my stop three blocks from home after school, I would run home to her like my life depended on it. Since she was a high school student and I was still in middle school, s

There are dew drops rolling between my fingers when I think of you- the sun is coming up and the grass is newly wet. There's a thin line between the layers of time; translucent stars and purple skies are coated upon the sun-scorched clouds of a new day. You're up there in the stars somewhere, tucked in bed, living out your dreams and blissfully ignorant of the world. I reach for a hand that isn't there, a touch that cannot comfort me. The familiar cut wells open again, impossible to sew shut; memories of your hand in mine, pinning me softly to the bed. Making silly faces for a camera on that first night because we don't know what to do. You f

So this is the end. I don't think it's worth writing this. Not to you. You've done so much for me, but you've done so much more to me. Sun-freckled days were interrupted by staccato periods of dark, pinprick anger. That's fine. Be angry. But not at me. I can't fix my father or your mother or you. Nor would I want to. And I sure as hell won't be fixing myself. I like to think that getting away will be worth it. I will ride off into a golden sunset of friends and school and life; you will stay here and bow your head and change your ways. I will come home and you will cluck over me and feed me until I burst and we will laugh again. I will thin

i.Loose Threads I'm coming undone. There are flakes falling to the ground, soft and white. My breath steams around me, barely any warmer than the night air. I stare upwards, watching pieces of the sky come down. It has been a long time since I doubted my own sanity. For this is a prison, you see. There is the hard slab of a bed and there are the bars and there I am, huddled as far into the shadows as possible. Maybe it's been too long since my wrists were chafed like this, but these walls are dark and ominous and I don't know if I'm getting out of here alive. They say they want to 'fix' it. Fix me. They're about four years too late. ii.Ho

It's probably sick that I have such an addiction to you, but I can't find it in myself to care. Your attention is something that I bathe in. I let it run under skin and catch between vertebrae, warm and heavy. It is the coat you cannot put over my shoulders, the wisp of hair you cannot brush from my face, the question you cannot answer. My spine has become a staircase for you, molded by the treading of your continuous feet. It's becoming soft and it's caving in, and the butterfly nerves in my fingers just can't stand you anymore. They're itching to make you fly away. I never used to think thoughts like these, thoughts that I would be ashamed

"Sleep," you said. So I slept. I buried myself under a pile of moth-eaten quilts and stuck my fingers through the holes. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the feeling of the rough wool on my skin, the smell of dusty attic boxes. I breathed deeply, expanding my lungs as far as my constricting ribcage would allow. In, out. In, out. I added oil to the flame; you burned out. The shabby little shutters on the windows are cracking. The paint is peeling away, and the hinges are squeaking. Late at night, I like to pretend that is the sound the door will make when you finally come find me. Your life is entangled with mine, vines twisted farther

"I'm going to break your heart." she tells me. "You already did." I laugh, "I'm not going to let you do it again." But she smiles and slams her fist into my chest. "I don't love you," she says softly. "I don't love you either," I lie. I pretend it hurts, but really, I can't feel a thing. Our eyes meet and I start to wonder what we're saying. But she turns and walks away, leaving me with tingling lips and a bruised heart. I'm so tired of being sad. -- It's hard, watching his heart snap under that pressure. He's no twig, but he isn't strong enough to hold the whole world on his shoulders. He's got cracks, just like the rest of us. The