the map of places

i could be your original sin
twisted up in your t-shirts
and crumpled next to you in flame
i could move you

i could be your movement
pasted into you
and gazing like wildness and evil
i could make you need me

you could be my fire
filling me alive
and making me hurt for wanting
you could make me shake

everytime it touches
like some secret screaming in my blood
it eats away my veins
and leaves me craving

i'm still walking in your highways
i'm still shooting up your drug
lying in the blanket of your stars
calling your name with spakler dims

come
and
get
me

nottingham

i'm selling my soul to the industry of staying alive
sipping a pepsi full of switchblades
and showing my heart for the price of a wrist watch
it could be a bar fight
we're toppling gravestones in hot pink combat boots
we're waiting in our boudoirs with pistols and feathers
we're armed to the teeth with lovers

our hometowns rain down bullets
my soul is longer than the brooklyn bridge
and i wear it on my sleeve like acid
billboards pour out like stones
untouchable angels walk above
on mirror seas of shattered catwalks
we reach out and pluck them from the skies

we lie alone in darkened doorways
waiting for the boys with the needles and shine
swallowing phonecalls for the hope of a drug
put up a body for the loan
until we feel the pain slip inside us
i'm writing your name in the sky
so i can get it out of my heart
the cost of manufactured love and
fabricated beauty
it's not what was on the box

we lose our friendships and our minds
we find broken buildings and shutterbugs
infesting the vines of our beings
the relics and remnants of the bomb and its winter
i'm watching the snowfall
skies full of ash
like the soft gray of nothing greater than Gatsby
your hands are like a phonograph
and they play songs of my voice

this concludes our broadcast day

i have been blessed with a few very good days this past week. i am blessed with even better friends who, no matter how busy, can somehow find time for a simple word of help. but the familiar tremble in my stomach and the ache in my bones has begun again. the {pink} pills kept the edge at bay and helped me want to stay put, while at the same time sucking all of what makes me who i am out through my open bedtime windows. the kicking is back, that urge to move... or maybe the urge to leave. i see the simple lies in this town, the looks of untrusting others, and all the red red kroovy i ever care to. and it seems somehow i have managed to outstay a welcome. a wlecome in the doorways of old campus buildings, a welcome in the bars and tattoo parlors. lastly a welcome overstayed in the hearts and minds and bricks of the city. and when we put on those songs about leaving... they are more than the music and words, they are my private thoughts. "you don't know me and you don't wear my chains" i would only ever leave in the hopes of finding someone who could.

but this place just isn't bright enough to hold me. this place just isn't alive enough to keep me sane. i need to get up to the city. i need to climb mountains of granite that carve out the sky. i want to see some snow and some sidewalk. a desire that aches harder and faster than the sex i am not having. this whole world is forgetting about places like this until we simply disappear inside of ourselves. i don't want that for me. i'm making music every day. strong heavy notes and snowy chords both soft and apparent. but there's no signal in this town and only a few of it's beautiful people are picking up my sound waves. i write different songs for all of them. but i've got to get to where the waves carry. i've got to go to a place where i can shine.

maybe i'll get there before the broadcast days are over.

tired of (this) sunset

if you began to hate yourself for the fucked up things you have done...

would you drive back to the last place you tasted my kiss?

if you began to understand the trail of blood your love has left...

would you sing those songs for the wounded?

if you had a heart or a soul...

would you say you're sorry?

a fire inside

I cannot leave here, I cannot stay,
Forever haunted, more than afraid,
Asphyxiate on words I would say,
I'm drawn to a blackened sky as I turn blue,

There are no flowers, no not this time,
There'll be no angels gracing the lines,
Just these stark words, I find,
I'd show a smile, but I'm too weak,
I'd share with you could I only speak,
Just how much this, hurts me,

I cannot stay here, I cannot leave,
Just like all I loved, I'm make-believe,
Imagined heart, I disappear,
Seems...no one will appear here and make me real,

There are no flowers, no, not this time,
There will be no angels gracing the lines,
Just these stark words I find,
I'd show a smile, but I'm too weak,
I'd share with you could I only speak,
Just how much this hurts me,

I'd tell you how it haunts me,
I'd tell you how it haunts me,
(cuts through my day, as i sink into my dreams)
I'd tell you that it haunts me,
(cuts through my day, as i sink into my dreams)
You don't care that it haunts me,

There are no flowers, no, not this time,
There will be no angels gracing the lines,
Just these stark words I find,
I'd show a smile, but I'm too weak,
I'd share with you could I only speak,
Just how much this hurts me,
Just how much this hurts me,
Just how much you...

decemberist

And if you don't love me let me go
And if you don't love me let me go

And I am a writer, writer of fictions
I am the heart that you call home
And I've written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones

the last good thing about this part of town

i just wanted to say:

thank you for this past week

thank you for your caring

thank you for the love

thank you

...

and

...

i hear it

it lives in the music

its keeping me safe tonight

it's the way you talk to me about it

i just wanted to say

i hope you

still like

me

for an empty hotel

the playlist for _ _ _ _

7. welcome home - coheed and cambria
6. you oughtta know - alanis morissette
5. the quiet things that no one ever knows - brand new
4. grand theft autumn/where is your boy - fall out boy
3. losing a whole year - third eye blind
2. it ends tonight - the all american rejects
1. hate (i really don't like you) - plain white T's


the playlist for my holiday

7. AFI
6. the kids are all fucked up - cobra starship
5. when paula sparks - copeland
4. don't wait - dashboard confessional
3. boston - augustana
2. welcome to the black parade - my chemical romance
1. from yesterday - 30 seconds to mars



merry _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

my paper heart will bleed

i've been betrayed one last time. i've played the game until the very end. we have come to a most painful kind of standoff. all this time i thought i could never settle, in the light i understand that i was just afraid to find i was wrong. i was wrong about you, love. wrong about every tender moment, every sweet kiss though the car window in nameless parking lots. wrong about waking beside you, about perfection in cheek bones. janis joplin says freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, and today i am free from you. free because you've taken from me all i could give, now there is nothing left in me for you to destroy. every moment i begged for kindness and you turned your face... every second i mouned it, every time my arms bled for you while you held me under your ocean... they cannot be undone, love.

you kicked and tore. you thought it would heal again, some scar on my soul with your name on it. but this scar will bare only my own. i used to think i wouldn't know what to do without you, but i know very well. i will live. i will live for myself. i will turn away as you have so many times. i will save myself. and soon, the paper heart you owned will lie next to something so much more.

today is that day, love. that day i'll say goodbye. remember it while you think of me in someone's arms, laughing and smiling the way you thought only you could make me. remember today when i finally feel loved, loved in a way you could never give me.

i won't sleep if you won't sleep

once again the music sings about my whole life... and once again i'm caught up in Dashboard Confessional
-------------------

The signal is subtle
We pass just close enough to touch
No questions, no answers
We know by now to say enough
With only simple words
With only subtle turns
The things we feel alone for one another

There is a secret that we keep
I won't sleep if you won't sleep
Because tonight may be the last chance we'll be given
We are compelled to do what we must do
We are compelled to do what we have been forbidden

So I won't sleep if you won't sleep tonight

Our act of defiance
We keep this secret in our blood
No paper or letters
We pass just close enough to touch
We love in secret names
We hide within our veins
The things that keep us bound to one another

There is a secret that we keep
I won't sleep if you won't sleep
Because tonight may be the last chance we'll be given
We are compelled to do what we must do
We are compelled to do what we have been forbidden

Until the last resilient hope
Is frozen deep inside my bones
And this broken fate has claimed me
And my memories for its own
Your name is pounding through my veins
Can't you hear how it is sung?
And I can taste you in my mouth
Before the words escape my lungs
And I'll whisper only once...

There is a secret that we keep
I won't sleep if you won't sleep
Because tonight may be the last chance we'll be given
We are compelled to do what we have to
We are compelled to do what we have been forbidden

'Cause you will be somebody's girl
And you will keep each other warm
But tonight I am feeling cold

-------

thank you emily

the secret's in the telling

i lie on my back on the car staring a graveyard tree in the face, its branches more unreal as the higher they climb until suddenly they are painted against the backdrop of that sleepy winter sky. i think about what is yet to come and all the things that have gone before. i think of how i have loved. i feel the sting of loss and the beauty of surprise. pull around and i hop in without a second glance or adolescent fear. i wonder if i'm dreaming.

some short hours later i can feel the warmth on my shoulders, breath on my back, and palms on my sides. i will tell you all the things that help you fly. i wonder how i could ever have wanted to kill myelf. and for split moments i am safe, and beautiful. shake. hold me tighter than anything i've known before. emo songs and new ink bleed though my clothes. you wonder if you're dreaming.

and then i drift as you watch me on my sea of sleep. i know that we're both dreaming.

tried to find you to say goodbye

tired to find you to say goodbye
i've got the feeling i won't be around much longer
on into the night, they couldn't hear me whisper
stories of how much i will miss them

a cry goes unheard
a candle blows out
and the smoke in your eyes
the only reason for tears
on into the night, you never hear me whisper

you won't notice that i've left the door open
(for others will follow in as i go)
until the snow falls in with my passing
and you'll sweep out my memories
with the soft, frozen glow

and on into the night you could feel me screaming
and still you stood idley by
no longer of use and certainly,
no longer use for you

the cry goes unanswered
but most certainly heard
and a heart stops beating for you

tried to find you to say goodbye
left to yourself in your hiding
locked doors and cold blankets
left behind in the season
of what was once its begining

defining moments, defining lovers, and brilliant busted thoughts

---defining moments---

"what has been the most defining moment of your life so far?" i asked over lunch. he answers back a small story of accomplishment in his writings. and he paints the words in blood on my heart. he writes me in epic overdoses and southern dust. i skip a beat or so just to know whe's touching my hand. he's lovely. i answer my own question with one moment of affirmation, followed by another a sickness. and i write the words in blood across my arms. i write him in desparation and need. with wild youth and the ever beating heart of some tiny 16 year old lost in his eyes. i imagine things tearing us at our seams. "do you think the distance is killing us?" i ask lying naked on the bed.


---defining lovers---

the silky red crumples and jumps around my hips. a different red from the night before, but no less beautiful. i hold him close. the sheer spreads down to my feet. the preceeding evening's gentleness and tears replaced by fever and constant ache for the very edge of our ability. anticipation and sweat mixing in late afternoon paleness. he puts a hand between me and the wall. he gives me everything i want. i will keep my stockings on until it's over. the silky red slips down around my toes.


---brilliant, busted thoughts---

sooner or later, all the songs that make you shake will be by me.

every sound reminds me of our song.

maybe, baby you could keep me up in bed.

i'm someone's pin-up girl.

afternoons are better when lazy and naked.

i will stop trying to expidite the process.

buy me a puppy.

to write love on (my) arms

i urge you all to visit the myspace page for a group called "to write love on her arms" if you or a loved one is suffering with self injury. spread the word


thank you sybil.
-----------------------

looking back over the past year, i have come to understand just how out of control and harmful my self injury has become, not just to myself but for those around me who love me. there is no way to undo the damage or the scars. they will serve as my reminder of the darkness that can easily consume a soul when gone unchecked. a good friend asked me the other day what i will tell my children one day when they ask about the scratches and scars taking residence from shoulder to wrist on my left arm. the truth is i have no idea. but sites like the one above are forming to show love and escape to people like me so that we won't have new ones to explain to our future loved ones. to write love on her arms is a story about an amazing girl who broke into the souls of a group of people determined to rock away her pain and mutilation. it envolves an amazing acount of an embarkation to shows of some of the best rock groups out there.

it's really beautiful, and i just wanted to share this with you all.

maybe it's because i see so much of my life reflected in it. certain of my companions have taken it upon themselves to take me off to shows, concerts, movies, or midnight trecks in the wilderness. each of you know who you are.

thank you for writing love on my arms

black parade

you couldn't begin to understand the hours spent fighting in my head over life and the worth of its living. and my mind wonders on outside the rooms they kept me in and beyond the things they've taken from me. the world sings me a poem about pain and wishing. and again i am alone in this december. a december can hold so much: life, loss, death, rape, freedom. we pick at the wounds and begin to believe in the bleeding. truth comes in terrible forms... and it will not always set you free. can you tell a story? can you spin on sorrows and write the souls of the dying? i know that i wish i could. is someone looking on for something like me to happen? to lead out of this darkness? or will the fears reach the better of me and plagarize my heart in the words of the newborn ringing in the ears now deaf to its beating? what do we do here alone in our times, some dark army brooding forth to nothing? it makes you wonder if it's really worth the doing anymore.