Before you love me,
I need you to know that I am the cracked knuckles you got from punching a wall after your mother told you she was leaving for good.
I am the old mascara marks on your pillowcase you've yet to wash off, the window in your bedroom that won't open all the way and squeaks like hell during the night.
Before you love me,
You need to see me on the nights when I can't breathe correctly because my mind can't stop counting all the people I've lost.
You need to see me lock the door 17 times and make sure all the faucets aren't dripping at all because I'm afraid of drowning.
You need to hear my voice crack when I shout, raw and insecure. And know that I'm not violent but my words sting more than the 14 shots you took the night your ex broke your heart.
But before you love me,
I also want you to know that I love to pick flowers when I'm at stop lights and I'll give them to you but I always forget a vase.
I'll sing about how our eyes match and how you kick me in your sleep but I don't mind.
On days when you can't stand to live anymore I will vacuum up all your tears from the ground and we'll go to the roof and scream until our lungs collapse.
In the morning I will kiss the nectar from your cheeks and trace the letters of your name on your skin so you remember to always think of yourself first.
I'll probably dream of silly things and we'll laugh about them and I'll make you tea with extra honey because I know you love it.
And even though I know you hate it, I'll always smile because of your dimples and count the freckles on your back and give you a new reason to love you every day.
Most of all, before you even think about loving me, I need you to love yourself.
Aug 14, 2016
Aug 14, 2016 at 9:18 PM UTC
I would hold a vase I made in high school art and wonder why I could never fill it to the top. I never understood what people filled them with anyway.
I would go to both my parents graves and ask them to forgive me even though I never forgave myself.
I would take the time to write out every disgusting and broken part of me and indulge in the fact that I am truthfully human.
I would paint stories on my skin in crayon, the kind that get turned into lessons and read to small children.
I would thank Mother Earth for letting me **** the life out of her until neither of us could bear it.
I would cry once for the children who only know what it's like to breathe underwater.
And I would take a yellow rose, plucking every last petal and name each one of them a different country I would visit; in another life, on another shore.
Aug 4, 2016
Aug 4, 2016 at 11:33 PM UTC
the year of deflated lungs and vases full of withered flowers
the year god turned into a complex, liked coming down more than going to church
the year my body turned into a black market; makeup remover stung more than purple skin
the year I layed in the snow until my body was just as numb as my soul
the year I built my home out of straw and my heart of cement
The year I sang to the trees because I liked to listen to them breathe
The year I realized my body fit into the reflection for a reason and no person is comfortable unless you paint them yourself.
Jul 9, 2016
Jul 9, 2016 at 11:47 PM UTC
Don't let the crayon coated pictures on the walls fool you,
this is a battlefield.
These cracked tiles are martyrs of a half-way love,
the structure of our home build on promises made with heavy tongues.
Mouths too full of bitterness to taste anything anymore
The floodboards weep for the long dead,
the hollow hearts and peeling paint.
Bitter words are bullet wounds,
we are proof that the dead can walk,
each skinned disguise masks a hungry soul.
Untrusting and unforgiving.
May 3, 2016
May 3, 2016 at 10:09 AM UTC
If you love me,
promise to me that you will hold my bones,
tuck my soul into a box and send it away with your thoughts.
If you love me,
wrap my tenacious spirit around you
when the sun resigns and the rain pours heavy.
If you love me,
whisper to the trees of how selfish and ungrateful and sad I was,
praise me for being truthfully human.
And If you love me,
you will erase the miles of self revulsion from your genes and
let me carry your misery with me when I go.
Apr 4, 2016
Apr 4, 2016 at 8:15 AM UTC
Week 1: I was laughing exactly twenty-two minutes after I held your lifeless hand. They called it coping. I called it insanity.
Week 2: I haven't slept a full night in a week because I can't remember the last thing you said to me.
Week 3: I still reach for your hand every time an airplane flies by. I still despise planes.
Week 4: Can you ask God if I'm allowed to be angry yet?
Week 5: I mourn the grandchildren you will never meet and I will never bear because they might have your eyes.
Week 6: We lit a cigarette for you today as if God would let such a deadly sin into the pearly gates. Happy birthday.
Week 7: I've never liked this house.
Week 8: I jokingly call other people Dad until it doesn't sting to say that word anymore.
Week 9: "I want to have a better relationship with you," turned into "I'm so sorry," too quickly.
Week 10: Depression is such a mouthful, three course meal of arsenic.
Week 11: You always told me I had a natural beauty, didn't need to paint a face of porcelain. I wear a lot of makeup now.
Week 12: I'm still not ready to write about you yet.
Dec 11, 2015
Dec 11, 2015 at 10:16 AM UTC
it is like
little blue men that **** the home out of your soul,
make it feel like a lonely hotel room.
it's the heartbeat of a worn out clock,
welcoming old songs and new forms of self destruction.
what do you do after you're young and invincible?
you kick and scream and crawl back into your mothers womb,
a woman who is as long dead and gone as the way you say your name
like each syllable has a nuclear weapon attached to it.
like it is an apology and a curse in one.
i am lost in the forest of my unrighteousness
i wish to be clean but hate the water.
let me wander in the lust and grief of my own tongue.
my soul will answer to it's master one day
carry me home,
carry me home.
Dec 11, 2015
Dec 11, 2015 at 10:05 AM UTC
Loving you was
the veins full of
Percocet,
Bad decisions and empty words.
Used our pasts to cure our presents,
Or to numb the pain
Enough to make it to sunrise.
Loving you was
The liquor lies we told
That burned my throat raw
When they asked about us.
Silent swears and repentance.
"Tomorrow."
Jun 20, 2015
Jun 20, 2015 at 9:51 AM UTC
War
can be like
love.
Gun shells and slamming doors
like confusing
apologies for ammunition.
trading
one life for the other.
Me?
or
You?
What are we fighting for?
starving countries.
Our hearts are
arsenals tucked behind closed minds.
Are you getting tired of the
shattering hearts and insults.
It started with
You.
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 5:47 PM UTC
I am a mixed drink of contradictions.
My blood runs in two different directions.
One toward poverty,
the other toward power.
They both run out of fuel too quickly.
I am your midnight lover,
made up of hallucinations and desperate
attempts at sanity.
Always falling short of falling in love,
while falling between you and the bottle.
I am a broken record stuck in place;
repeat, repeat, repeat.
Impossible to move on.
Never learn from your mistakes,
just learn to make better ones.
Apr 17, 2015
Apr 17, 2015 at 6:51 PM UTC