I know myself better than you.
In my heart there is a banshee waiting to drown themselves on the shores of a beach covered in discarded glass.
Her body ragged, bruised, and gaunt in every view.
She’s sharp and harsh with every cut that may pass.
Her hair obscures her eyes with a taupe wash of strands.
She pierces into the tiny drums with a venom only meant to break my spirit and erode past the bones.
Into my soul she will cut with those talons on her hands.
I can’t progress without her because she is my cornerstone.
My foundation would collapse without her haunting inside.
She’s seen my cracks and my missing parts.
Instead of leaving me numb she waters my plants.
Together we craft love and we create art.
She raised the goblin in my head to laugh and dance.
He leads us through her pain.
It’s something that helps me smile no matter how heavy the rain.
He swallows the flames we light each day or eliminates the obstacles in our way.
His skin so full and flushed;
It contrasts so greatly with her hair unbrushed.
His eyes so clear, bright, and colorful.
I can feel the joy radiate so extensively.
What he gives so soft like the silky breeze she echoes back with a call so guttural.
I always valued him more so selfishly.
There would be no him without her.
There would be no parts in me without the parts I don’t prefer.
So before you tell me that I’m intense or too much;
I hope you see how important they both are inside.
They are more than the things you can see or touch.
They are every laugh that I’ve had or every tear that I’ve cried.
I don’t need you to believe that I am the right amount between too much and just enough for you.
I believe in my own beauty and wholeness; we all do.

My lips hold back the lava in my chest.
The burning, consuming, encroaching destruction is hardening my resolve more than you could have guessed.
I feel so at home in the flames that water is so underwhelming.
It’s the coals I sleep on through everything.
To look so long at the light only to blind myself each time;
You’d think I’d learn my lesson after each rhyme.
I’ve never felt comfort for long enough to recall.
The videos of me laughing are something that now make me bawl.
I don’t know how that feels anymore.
I don’t remember what you sound like or the color of your front door.
Your voice no longer echoes in my head.
Your face no longer plagues me in bed.
I don’t know you outside of memories;
Moments of my time that bite like fleas.
You make me itch still,
A symptom that which the spot can never refill.
I’ve been battling between anger and grief for so long now.
It’s a why; it’s a how.
It’s a feeling I can’t live without.
No matter how hard I try to erase the pressure or smother the intensity, the kindling always relights in this drought.
With a deep breath in, releasing all the smoke back out.
It’s my meditation now.
It’s my medication now.
To smell it on someone else and be engrossed in the poison that this can allow;
My dear, that’s intoxicating for me lately.
A mass we are swallowing with the passing moment cornering us innately.
I don’t partake with my own vessel but I will consume a host so absorbed.
They don’t see me molding my character every time I get bored.
One day I will have the entire puzzle lined up together.
Each piece fitted so perfectly, completely combined in a tether.
They will compose a tale so broken and numb.
That’s the feeling that fills my ****** drum.
Every tear is a bad dream.
Every eyelash is a wish for this story to have a different theme.

It’s been so many sweltering months.
I still choke at the smell of pine and cloves.
These scars are growing after I end all these hunts.
You can see the bruises on my neck and the carving on my bones.
Each individual finger and each single tooth.
They embed into my being as I try to mend what you broke.
My foundation rebuilt with my basement of truth.
It’s there that I have to wander through smoke.
It’s there that I crawled through the blood and despondency.
So desperately trying to maintain a hollow connection to someone so lecherous.
You stripped me of my color; of my effervescence.
What once were gilded rays turned to acid showers.
My skin began to boil and my heart began to spoil.
I ripped myself apart to keep you whole.
You threw my pieces aside like they never mattered.
You had no plan, no goal.
Instead of a future so lovely and lavish you abandoned me hopeless and tattered.
After swelling to the poison in your silence, I finally understand who you wouldn’t let me be.
Now I know them, and I hate what you did to me.

Our blood is golden wine,
I’ve been told to try sweeter blends.
My cups lay in my favorite number but the unknown in my shadow still stand.
Inside could be my salty songs for a memory that never ends.
I pull you down underwater to see just how far you can be from the sand.
Eyes wide open to the flame of your being;
It’s confidence and conflict that drag me out of my stalemate.
A torch to gaze upon something I know to be worth seeing.
Whether together or apart we still crawl the same trail to feel and be something great.
The oleander and roses course through our veins like the wax that holds together our armor.
We’re meant to grow our vines past the heavens.
That’s the place that holds serenity and storms that you never have to barter;
Where admiration never leads to lessons.
To be strong through our valleys when we feel like we’ll never climb back up.
In this garden is the place where I can accept your oceans dichotomy.
No matter how many wands, no matter how many cups;
I’ll accept it completely but of course cautiously.
All the eyes can see all the burning in my hands.
What could be sparked by nature feels easier to light on my own.
Is it gasoline I smell on demand
Or has the apple already grown?

It would be when the air would feel like silk or like the hues were almost brighter.
It was when the hills felt lower and the low felt lighter.
In the speckles of day when I would sing to the tune of another’s brass,
Somehow my daydreams would still hold a conversation with you.
You’d saunter in with kindness and class;
The kind of attitude that sometimes I wish I had.
Your tone and diction were hard to imagine,
They lacked the luster and the passion.
They were all the corridors to every phrase.
They were all the oddities I wanted to praise.
I can feel the wax melt from my wings with just the thought of knowing you in abundance.
You are a Sun to my sand with a depth I should never learn.
You’re a distance that feels relaxed and at a level I could never convince.
At your hand would I bloom into my hyacinth petals or would my roots begin to rot?
Would I compliment your warmth by offering a place to rest or would my minerals begin to harden into a glass for my next cathedral?
It’s necessity the keeps the unknown locked in a mental maze that which I have mending to wrought.
Still, my stargazing will end when I fall.
Those feathers left to remind me of how little about you I’ve ever actually known;
And yet how bittersweet to imagine having ever flown.

It’s red and burnt and there’s nothing more beautiful.
You look like an oasis.
I feel myself melting the second I see your face.
It’s like I’m baking in this oven and there’s nothing more lovely.
You smell like all of my favorite foods with a voice like honey.
You wear my favorite color well and with every passing moment I can feel my heart swell.
I find myself aching to see you smile and to make you laugh.
I would love for you to be as fond of me as I have grown of you even if the feeling is only at half.
When the trumpets roar I feel this sense of peace and I think of the words you say so little yet they leave me building these cathedrals of utterance about you.
There lay no cracks or puddles of grease;
The glasswork is blazing and brilliant with how you attract my attention.
I would build for you a place that displays the warmth I feel that I forbear to mention.
You’re enchanting,
Something to look forward to,
And someone my heart won’t let me forget.
This impression has lasted since the day we met.

Take my tongue and speak my new chorus,
Let my skin absorb this.
Shoot down my hopes from the skies above.
Let me drown in the oils from the place I want to be free of.
Brand my thigh with the rods of this fire.
Resting deep down inside my chest with the resent for the new pyre;
Breaking the bones of my collar that shine blue in luxury.
Shaping my future back into a void from discovery.
Eat my heart from the rips in my company.
I let this story in,
I let the wheels spin;
Like the youth yelling a wasted truth.
When the effort outweighs the gain;
As if the world exists to let you drive the wrong lane.
To fight any adversity,
Even if there is no such thing that exists blocking their sea.
The waves keep crashing and they create more violent drops.
This world won’t allow their daily hobbies to evade natures stops;
Crafting the clouds is difficult when you use such ugly means.
Purpose is lost when you let your life live behind your amphetamines.