When the summer days were still long
and the nights still smelled sweet
like your sweat laced cologne,
I asked you to strip me
of skin and muscle and bone,
told you to look between my organs
and tell me what it means to be alone.

Your hands felt like warm metal rails
left to bask in the sun for hours
unsteady and loosened at the nails
with peeling polish and rough perfection
like unforgettable fairy tales.

And that’s who we were for too long
entwined and lost in the feeling
of never being so wrong.

She gets lost between piano notes and
Champaign bubbles
I swear her eyes are always just a little
Too far away
But she sings that it won’t matter
In a million years
So I forgive her

She still gets lost between piano keys
But forgets to play them these days,
I catch her staring at the notes
And there is something oozing from between knotted heart strings
she whispers that the chords are too tight
so I just nod
There are clinking glasses
And the quiet hum of dishwashers
But I don’t think her smile
Even flickers anymore

Someone told me
She still gets lost sometimes
Forgets which road takes her home
Probably because her Home was between the notes
And there was nothing
Even there to begin with.
Someone told me
she uses beer cans instead of wine glasses
and I didn’t even know she had started drinking
wine on the weekends.

I don’t think her cheekbones
Can stop screaming

But she still washes the dishes
With the bubbles all overflowing
In the cold metal of the sink
I guess there wasn’t much left to
celebrate
after the going away parties ended

She is pretty lost
Sometimes I catch her and beg
But there is no point to her madness anymore
I think she got lost between
Straight ideals
And
Bent chords
Forgotten words
And everlasting thoughts
I catch her in the street sometimes
Singing --

I secretly love the way she says the word music
Because she never speaks
These days
She only sighs
In the warbling mutter of someone
So far away

She is
Just the muse of a hundred musicians
With Champaign bubble eyes and
Track marked heart leading nowhere but hell
I think she begged them to stop
Serenading her sadness
But there’s addiction on her lips

I never kissed her fears away
Sometimes I think I’m sorry
but all the bubbles popped
and it was time
to go

You asked me once why I felt safe with you
The answer is simple, really;
you speak to me sweeter
than the southern twang
of lightly painted china cups
twinkling with an old tonic
your great grandmother grew up with -

Peach tea,
more sugar than ice
and the chime of silver spoons
stirring away low hanging sky
in a lazy afternoon haze.

You speak to me with the comfort
of a tea cup
cradled by the saucer
lips meeting gently against each other
so as not to scrape a scar against the fragile cheek
of either companion

Sometimes you even whisper
with the rattles of old age
chiming away at the edges
of sweet forgotten bliss -

You, darling, speak to me sweeter
than any grain of sugar
that rubbed me raw.

I can count on my left hand
how many boys have had a taste of my lips
I can count on them like I can my pinky in a bar fight
Clipped nails like flightless birds
Nothing to scratch my initials into their flesh
Because most nights
I didn’t belong there

I can count on my right hand
The number of boys that I’ve slept with
Some naked and others fully clothed with the lights on
I used to be afraid of the dark
Until I had too many secrets to hide in the shadows
Sometimes I’d beg them not to look at me
Because my scars were always illuminating stories
I didn’t want to tell
Sometimes I’d beg them to leave me
Because my stories were too long
To begin to tell
Sometimes
I didn’t want to be there
At all

I can count with my eyes closed
The number of times I’ve cried in front of someone
Because of a boy
My eyes have to be closed
Or I won’t let myself remember it
Sometimes I don’t
And I tell myself I have never cried
For such a silly reason
As a boy

I can count on my hips
The number of times I’ve felt like nothing
While lying in a place I didn’t want to be
And counting the sounds a darkened room
Until the sun washed my eyes open
And told me it was better to forget
So I forgot
But every time I lie awake
I remember you like taste of your palm
Against my mouth
And I really
Really
don’t want to

I can count the seconds
Before I fall asleep
Strategically within the first few thousands
So as not to keep listening to the sounds my room makes
Incase our windows creak at the same time of night
I might burst out of the blankets
And run until the sidewalk catches up to me
Or I might lie there
And pretend not to hear it

I can count with my heartbeats
The number of times
I pretended not to hear myself

I can count on my eyelashes
The seconds I spent with my eyes closed

I can count on my body
The number of panic attacks I’ve had

I can count on
Myself
To never speak to you again

It was the beginning of the summer
And life was darker than the underside of frightened eyelids
I told you I needed someone to depend on
You told me to count on you

and I’m sorry that I ever did.

I was once too young for exhausted sleep
So I tiptoed to the window for a peek of excited light
Flickering in the solid wall of insufferable darkness
I wanted to hold that tiny pinprick of moonshine
Twinkling and twirling just our of reach

I was once too young to know what forever was
So I grabbed a mason jar,
Coaxed a bemused spark to the secrecy of a sleepless room
And sealed the lid just a twist too tight

In the morning I found my once glowing prize
Dark at the bottom of his suffocated tomb
And in that moment I learned to fear the darkness
Of tomorrow’s dreaded night

Sometimes I'd call her sunshine just so she'd smile
smooth and easy, like it was the natural thing to do -
but we both knew she was rain clouds and tornadoes
heavy hail and broken thunderclaps.
Yes,
she was my storm but I still loved her silly

she'd call me silly
never said "I Love you" or
ask for another kiss or
trust me with any of this -
no,
she just called me silly
so I loved her that way

He was stronger than wax attached to dry skin
tearing into your senses with a cascade
        of sweetness
just to expose the inner layers of guilt.

Fingertips traveled up my hunched back:
bent into submission by a weight
         of ecstasy.
Soft hands like unsure gestures --
time to straighten up.

Whisper to me in the night an idea
like blush to my cheeks
with the ooze of forgotten lullabies
and brighter mornings
like the residue of sleepless-nights
and sticky pillow tears:

surrounded by his simple childish love
I find my softest bones.
Easily corrupted by the twisting of unmade beds,
striving to give the perception
of clean innocence.

I could only shudder in the screeching wind
like a little Flower
in the arms of the strongest Storm;
        nails ripping down my brain stem,
        winds blowing away all my petals
        heavens pity money raining in coins
tainted with human sins;
it’s all rushing down
my pulsing roots--

So pluck my mane of tasteless purity,
with hands coated in goose bumps
and soft beats
of warm
            breathing.

“How can a flower love the hand
that took it from its earth?”
I ask.
but my lips are sealed in a kiss.