it was time for you to leave.
you veered off into the woods, into the brambles.
i stayed on the rabbit trail
and saw the holes you left through the brush from afar.

you are the antagonist in my story.
i do not expect you to understand this.
i know that you will never be brave enough
to admit; you're your father's son.

1. the phoenix flapped her wings and we were reborn.

2. when you met me
you had a lifetime supply of love.

3. you bathed me, your hands so gentle.
you stroked my hair and told me that i was beautiful.
you promised to never hurt me.

4. overcompensation got the best of you
and you wasted all of your love within a week.
you burned up your ability to care,
to be seen as soft and safe

5. you told that you thought i was a source of happiness,
and let me watch as you pumped me dry.

6. you bathed me with cold water.
soap slowly dripped down my face,
into my eyes and filling my mouth.
remember when you promised?

your quilts are long gone and the mattress is new.
this one doesn't sag in the middle.
we sleep on opposite edges, not touching.

we draw poems on each others skin with our finger tips,
telling stories and myths with closed eyes and the lights off.

on top of the sheets; i'm in your arms.

we've gotten good at pretending after all this time.
our skin is slick from sweat,
you stained your sleeve with red wine,
i ate earlier when i got coffee with my mom.
these are the facts we have been forced to accept.

it's easier than fighting.

the moon loves you so dearly
as she illuminates your features in the darkness,
casting shadows to hide the pieces of you she doesn't want me to see.

the moon loves you so dearly
as every night she calls out for you, employing crickets to create her lonely midnight sonnet.
and eventually, finally, you venture out from your house to sit under her light.

the moon loves you so dearly
as she is the only one there for you when your chest begins the contract and the bile in your throat threatens to drown you.
she longs to hold you, but she sits in her sky as always, patiently waiting for you to return to reality.

the moon loves you so dearly
as she has witnessed all of your downfalls and betrayals and late night breakdowns that you've kept secret from me,
and through all this time, she has kept them a secret, kept them so close to her heart.

the moon loves you so dearly
that when she finally illuminated my own face,
and saw herself reflected in my pupils,
she did not protest when you began to empty yourself out of your love for her
to make room for me.

the moon loves you so dearly -
but you must give her space to heal. she has only one night each month in which she hides from you,
disappearing just long enough to shed a single, lonely tear;
a star shooting across the sky.
after wards, she begins to rebuild herself once again, piece by piece,
sliver by sliver.

details are important.
they are scattered across the floor like a painting. each shadow, a different story.
too many details can pile up and hurt you, consume you entirely. they nip at your ankles and trip you, dragging you across continents.
i don't want to know these details anymore.
i want to sweep everything i know into a bucket and burn it all.
i want to burn.
i want to forget what i know, forget how they hurt, how we hurt.
the windows need to be scrubbed clean of the blood, their blood, our blood.
they are broken and sad. we are too full of details.

i am not a bad person.
i was born in the cellar of a murderer's home, welcomed into the world by a concrete, blood-stained floor.

i was born into blood, grew up through anger. i hid the memory deep underneath; plenty of time to grieve for my younger self later on down the road.

the wolves allowed me to shelter my broken skin in their caves, licking my wounds and entwining their souls forever with my own.

i cried tears blacker than the nail polish she used to paint my nails with on friday nights; they hit the earth and singed the grass.

the first time another man touched my scarred legs, i felt the rat you buried so long ago sprint from my body and exit through my mouth in the form of a sob.

at your funeral, i sat alone, kept my shoulders square, my head angled downwards. i met no one's eyes, for i didn't want them to see how dry my own were.

two men - one whom i adored and loved more than anyone, the other whom i wished death upon every single day.
it took me until they were both gone to realize that both left the same impact on my shaking spine.

it's winter time now.

your grandmother's quilt
is gone now -
it has been for some time.
you got rid of it, remember?
after the second -
no, third? or was it even the first -
time you tried to -
well. you know.

after i held your body together with my own,
waiting for a miracle or at the least the **** ambulance -
remember how they drove past your driveway twice?
     i wanted to run out and flag them down
     but could not move
     fearful that in my absence,
     you would leave.
- as dawn broke through the blinds,
painting lines of light across your
red red red red red red
arms.