his feet were already numb. he should have listened. they said that running wouldn't get him anywhere; it wouldn't change anything or him. even though his body was number, his mind would never cease to destroy and rebuild itself all over again. he fancied himself a phoenix, but he ignored the burns that were becoming more and more prominent. he ignored the pulling desire to remain ashes, to warm himself in the embers and never again have the burden of a body. he is running, but he is only going from ashes to ashes. its starting to become a lonelier journey, the more his body disappears. they said his bones would crumble and his skin would peel, but that would not change a ******* thing. he'd still be that sorry old pile of ashes, balanced on the border of flames and smoke. everyone told him to set himself on fire. he should have listened.

when people look at her, they see a girl who’s eyes are wild in her head, who never slows down enough to let the fears catch up. she has bruised knees, she kisses too hard and laughs at her own sadness. she has always just woken up from a nap, talks in riddles and thinks in haikus. she tricks everyone into liking her, but she isn’t capable of liking anyone. she definitely does not like herself. she is broken guitar strings, eggshells and forgotten secrets. but the first time you looked at her with your full moon eyes and too many eyelashes, you saw a girl who just wants to fit into someone like a puzzle piece, she wants to be lost in someone else’s bedsheets. she wants to count the freckles on your shoulder and kiss each one. she wants to sing you to sleep because she never wanted to sing until you looked at her. she wants you to trace the bruises on her heart and then give her new ones, because she is tired of being alone.

if i fell in love, would you be mad? on a scale of apathy to indifference, i think i can guess how much you didn’t care. when all i wanted was slow smiles and endless cups of tea, you wanted the wind in your hair and drunken mistakes. and i get that, but you didn’t have to treat me like a landfill, like i was a dumping group for your insecurities and wasted time. i’m holding on to you like repressed anger, even though i think i forget how to be angry at you. you’re the years i enjoyed wasting but now i realize there were so many things i could have accomplished. and it’s my own fault for letting your twisted way of loving make me forget how to love myself.

i’m always trying to dig pens into my veins, hoping soon my pulse will be words rather than sighs. i say i can’t be around you but the truth is i hate your guts, and i wish you were more sorry. but i can’t keep wishing on fallen eyelashes, because all i’ll end up with is dust in my eyes. there are some people i’d walk to the edges of the earth for, but i never know if i’m supposed to turn around and walk right back. most things can be traced back into an algorithm, but i don’t know the value of pretend i love you’s.

these are my shaking hands, this is my apology to myself. this is me waving my white flag. i am drawing your name in bruises, ginger tea, on the back of dollar bills. i am starting to understand that i am not worth it, nobody is. this is me carving YES onto my skin-i've always been a fan of irony. let me put my shrunken lungs into your hands, because apparently now i only breathe for you. this is me seeing your face in the moon, in the sigh of morning wind, in my unmade made. this is me disappearing; there is only you, you, you.

last night i dreamt i didn't love you, that the butterflies never fluttered from my eyelids to your cheeks, that fear never crept up on me when i was life was too blissful. i dreamt that i could see beauty in the way the light hits stained glass, how roses grow thorns and books that smell like their stories. now i only see it in the way your fingers flutter when you're nervous, how the only thing you know how to calculate is risk, your crooked teeth. my face is a window and i think you were the only one who took the time to push back the vines, open the curtains. the rooms inside swallowed you whole and i was left writing songs about people who don't exist, waiting for the light to shine through my stained glass.

forever paralyzed by words because they are the sharpest knife, a threadbare dress, the reason why you can't fall asleep at night. they're on the tip of my tongue like a loaded gun. oh if only i had the courage, oh please don't let it get me this time. they're always reminding you of what you have; lucky lucky lucky, blessed. well you shine so much that it hurts my eyes and i'm tired of polishing with lies. if my thoughts are so wrong then why do they always push through the cracks, like reality through beauty. my body is a little off rhythm i'm waiting for a metronome to put me back together, but the symphony is playing backwards and conductor doesn't believe in music.