I guess this is what oh shit feels like (21)

tocsin/toxin

(the afternoon leaves my nails chewed and golden, but i swear
all this breakdown started with such potential)

tonight i am trying to fly on my cardboard and spraypaint wings and i just might
figure out the secret of uplift and rising, and i can, i totally can
if those guys over there will just put away their goddamn cameras

the reason i hung my ballet flats over the railing of the dormitory balcony in the first place
is because there's always a voice in the canyons of my head that tells me
if you bust all your crooked teeth, you'll be rendered perfect, weightless

this night is the first warning bell, softer than all the others.
tonight, i might be all magic but i don't know these people and i'm homesick
enough to go sit outside on the smokers bench and call my mother and cry

this is the first swallow of shame and it burns as it goes down and it's doled out in red plastic cups

(i'm trying to tell you the truth and the shape of things
but i'm afraid there aren't words for a truth like this,
a faith that makes you huddle in your closet and bawl and anyway,
most of the memories are a tangle of legs and pumpkin seeds
and it all smells like loreal hairspray and cigarettes.
the photos from last night reveal a distinct sensation of fluidity and grace
just restrained by the weight of misery-to-be)

i guess i'm in this here mess because i like striking matches and watching them almost,
but not quite burn my fingers, in the same way i like kissing girls whose last names
i don't need to know.
some people say that's a waste of matches and youth, but i'm eighteen
and there's arsenic in the water these days.

finally
stumbling down telegraph avenue, he tells me
angels are only good because they aren't buffeted by free will
and we'd all be so good, if we couldn't choose.

starting to scare myself.