I don't pretend to be a closed book.
I'm so open my spine is loose, falling apart.
I've been opened and slammed shut more times than I can count.
Pages are falling out of me and I can't put them back.

You asked my poison,
as we stood at the bar.
Your wallet in hand,
paying my way into your car.

Give me bourbon and I'll sway to the music
and lean my shoulder against yours.

Give me whiskey and I'll show you my passion
in the backseat of your car.

Give me beer and I'll be one of the guys,
feigning detachment, remote.

Give me ***** and I'll show you my youth,
tears reflecting my innocence lost.

Give me *** and I'll whisper I want you
as we fall into your room.

Give me any poison you like,
I drink them all without  a wince.
I tried them all to forget things,
one after another 'til I lost sense.
Choose what poison will have the effect,
how do you want me before you tonight?
Set it in front of me and smile sweetly,
I'll down it, my every cell feeling it's bite.

I can't sleep, she said, *tell me something.
"What do you want me to tell you," he asked.

Something that doesn't feel like knives, something that makes me believe that a burn can be soothed, something that doesn't sound like the way brakes screech right before the worst accident you've ever seen, followed by the gut-wrenching collision of metal on metal, like two hardened hearts trying to soften each other, but only further denting one another and spilling gasoline that ignites a fire, consuming the cars and their prisoners, something that feels like sunlight on skin that is tickled by a breeze, something that grabs my mind by the hand to slow it down, something that doesn't remind me of what will never be. I just want you to tell me something that softens the moonlight and keeps the dark parts of this room hidden. Something that will keep the sun from coming up. Something that shows me that my world hasn't stopped spinning and fallen off its axle. What do you tell yourself when you need that? Will you tell me the truth, or just something beautiful?

"I can tell you that both exist in one word I whisper to myself every night."

Then he said her name, barely audible, and her eyes closed.

I open windows every day,
to let the wind air out my room.
Blowing out all the memories,
clearing out the lonely gloom.

The smell of flowers covers
what lingers of your cologne.
And in the fall the smell of leaves
masks that I am here alone.

The sounds of outside drown out
your voice echoing in my head.
Trees rustling and birds singing
ring in my ears instead.

The breeze feels so familiar,
slightly cool across my cheek.
It replaces the touch of your hand,
saying things without having to speak.

But I wake in the dark of the night,
shivering from the cold.
The wind has crawled in my bed,
and you're not here to hold.

I push down on the window,
but it's stuck, and so am I.
My sheets are frigid and foreign,
I can't sleep but I still try.

The sounds are now haunting,
crickets and howling at the moon.
I touch your side of the bed,
and pray I fall asleep soon.

There is a whole world of words in my mind.
At night, they dance around,
waltzing with each other.
Entangling themselves into sentences, into thoughts.
Spinning at their own fancy,
the music never ending.
And I, kept awake by their frivolity,
am terrified by the dust disturbed by their dance
on the floor of my subconscious.

I could trace patterns in your skin,
erase it like sand and start drawing again.
My hands would never get tired,
they would chase the sun and moon away.
Caressing you to sleep is a productive use of time,
muscle-memory repeating the designs of infatuation.
Lulling you into dreams with my fingers,
then waking you when the light creeps up the sheets.
Fingertips replaced with lips,
space between bodies closing,
skin is so addictive, especially yours.

as im typing this im thinking a million miles a minute, miles past the stars that i see whenever i look up at the night sky when im smoking because if  i dont have your lips on mine i want something that tastes like you do. you. you with your whiskey lips and ***** tongue and absinthe eyes and *** hands that warm me and drain me and knock me on my back from the overdose i so eagerly crave. crave you like you crave everything and everyone, you cant just have one you need them all because how could someone like you ever be satisfied. satisfaction flees from you and you reach out with broken hands to grasp it but your fingers no longer work from all the walls youve punched and hearts youve shattered. theyre dry and cracked and blistered from the fires you started and leave behind everywhere you go. you create and you destroy and you abandon only to come back and apologize and try to build again but nothing will be as beautiful as what you have destroyed. the foundation is shoddy and the door gets caught sometimes and wont open and the floors creak and the windows arent sealed so the cold wind flows throughout chilling all who try to live there. and the chiminey is blocked so fires built to warm only create smoke that choke the visitor and make them depart wondering how anyone could have created such a house and who in their right mind would ever live there. i was a beautiful victorian estate created by your hands from the ground up. i was in pieces when you found me but you put me together and showed me my beauty and my spaciousness and grace and loveliness and age old charm. i was demolished in the wake of your destructive force and now no one can unlock my door but you sneak through a window after you break it with a rock that says im sorry and i always let you in but the fires you light envelop the house in a black cloud that stains and ruins. you escape before you choke and i wait for the smoke to clear and replace my window but never with bullet proof glass like i should and i sit and wait and listen to the sound of the door **** turning unsuccessfully and another person gives up on trying to come in and i sit and i wait to hear the sound of breaking glass and the sound of your footsteps across the creaking floors.