How does it feel to be desired?
How does it feel to have your skin brush against mine?
How does it feel to finally give in?

Maybe our hands are tired of being pushed so far apart,
And our bodies deserve to finally interlock.

When I have you,
everything else falls into place.

Tell me, what's it like to recognize yourself?
Does it feel like you'd remember it?
Why not?

With all of the years blended together,
my reflection blurred across the spans of time,
stretching apart any resemblance of self.
My reflection is a black hole that ***** away any knowledge of who I am and regurgitates a flat, shiny depiction of someone else instead.

The sound of wind bounces against my bedroom window,
and the roar of thunder soon follows,
but despite all that noise,
all I can focus on is you.

Gazing down into those gentle green eyes,
I know that I'll never want anything else.
I could see everything through you,
and the softness in your look
is enough to never let go.

Do you really know me like you say you do?
I don't like existing in memories of others when I cannot remember my own.
You can't possibly remember me.

It makes me so angry when you tell me that,
angry that I can't verify it,
angry that those ideas of me still linger,
angry that my past exists at all.

I want to purge this dissociative self
I used to be from all consciousness,
and it isn't fair that you can still remember her.

I am so mad that you can compare me now to me before
and that you can clearly recollect all the signs.
I am so envious that I couldn't have seen the signs myself when it was happening and that I still can't now.

I envy the way you can tip your sight backward to how I was before and that you can see the progress.
I want to see it too.

I am so angry
and this feeling burns my throat
when you remind me of what you know.

Why did I think you could cure
all the aches and pains
I had held for years and more,
when you were never my remedy?

Every dose I took
was another ******* placebo,
and you'd have thought
I could tell this treatment wasn't working for me.

Did you love me in a past life?
Is that why you made a pact with me
to conjoin this time in a karmic unraveling?

What did you intend to learn from me?
Our energetic ties implied we should have known
how this would all end;
I felt it in the beginning,
that this might not be sustainable,
but I persisted and so did you,
dragging our feet into the trenches.

Did you care what the end result would be?
Was it satisfying enough to watch the soft shell
surrounding us crack?

I'd be such a good girl for you,
making sure to cram and compartmentalize every piece of me
into whatever shape you'd prefer;
I've never known any better.
It's what I've always been told.

If I'm not here to make you happy,
then what is my purpose?
I've never known to take care of myself,
but I would take care of you in a heartbeat.

I don't know how to stop,
I don't know how to love correctly,
and I definitely don't know how to be loved.

If I keep giving,
what does it mean if you give back?
I think I'd feel nauseated knowing
you spent so much energy into me.
I'm not your sink, I'm the output source
and I'd never let it be the other way around.

Have you ever woken up inside a flashback?
Do you know how it feels to be pushed down into your own body after years of being pulled apart?

I awoke many times in a haze,
wondering what year it was;
months ago I finally came to and I thought I was trapped in 2014
and instead of waking to go to school,
like I was so convinced of,
I went to work and went through the motions of something I somehow knew all too well.

How did I go so many years in this separation of self?
I awoke to all of this abundance and responsibility I don't remember creating.
I could have cried out screams of mercy
for whatever stole all these years
to give them back.

I typed away at my computer,
but it all felt so foreign.
I was supposed to be in high school;
I'm supposed to be myself.

I've awoken many times in absolute fear,
not even sure who I am,
where I am,
what time period I'm in.
It's terrifying and I'm so tired of being ripped apart from reality like this.

Have you ever been consumed by a flashback?
Hurled and spit out by the jaws of the past
and regurgitated into the present?
I've never understood why it has to keep happening.

I am tired of living in waking memory;
I want this tortuous cycle to end.

Was I ever really his favorite?
From the words, he spilled,
I would have been inclined to believe it,
but his actions say otherwise.

Was I ever anyone's favorite?
I've been chronically revered but overlooked at the same time.
They spoke so highly of me, for someone so apt to abandon at a moment's notice.

I couldn't imagine him willing to take the time to get to know me,
and yet I expended my energy to know him;
it's funny,
to think I vowed my love to someone so distant.

I have never been the favorite,
I have always been the connecting piece from one person to another,
leading them to each other like a sheep dog with its flock;
I have always been alone,
One way or another.

In the early hours of the morning,
you asked me to marry you;
I pushed it off, taking it as a joke,
but you leapt up from our bed anyway,
and I protested, saying there were no rings in sight,
and yet, you wrapped paper, so delicately, into a ring for me.

From the dim-lit room,
I saw you kneel on one knee to ask me.
I swore you were mocking me,
but you persisted that we elope,
and even then I couldn't take you at your word.

Did you really love me like that?
And if so, why did you leave?

Sometimes I think I see it in your eyes;
you want to devour me,
to have me, solely,
all to yourself.

Do you see it in my eyes too?
That I would give myself so willingly to you,
that you could have me at your feet in a single, sharp snap of your fingers.

Pulled into a trance like that,
I'd almost say 'yes'
each time we lock eyes.
I could relinquish myself to follow every suggestion that flows from your soft lips,
but would you believe that?

From week in to week out,
the cracks in foundation do form,
and the ceiling begins to leak;
should those in the castle's embrace choose to evacuate?

The lovers huddle in the stillness of their room and contemplate their position,
but something crumbling so quickly needs an equally quick decision.

Dare they take a break and flee from the impending ruin?
And what does it say about them if the structure of their loving home won't support them?

And if the lovers falter
from the tower to the uneasiness below,
will there be enough arms to catch them both?

"God, I really wish she talked like you,
dressed like you;
how do I get her to think like you do?"

Policing her to be like me will never serve you
because the one who does me best, is me.
Be truthful with yourself,
when you ask her to behave like this,
do you dream of me?

You cannot easily transpose my image onto your lover,
because no one else loves like me,
talks like me,
dresses like me,
can transfix in your mind like me.

Do you love her like you love me?
Does she know the blueprint you use to mold her from?
Could she handle knowing what I know?

If I have the energy to heal,
then do I have the energy to expend?
To let myself try to love again?

Is it wise to take the little bit I have
And turn it to another and not myself?
Shouldn't I have learned by now?

Why am I not more reserved?
This energy isn't truly in abundance,
and would it not be selfish to think the small amount I have to give is enough for someone else?
It is barely enough for me.

This heart is so foolish,
and I have yet to learn how to tame her rash desires;
I wish she knew to quiet down.

Every time I push people away,
I wait for the door to rat-a-tat-tat
and revolve back into my face;
I had never considered how often I steal opportunities away from myself by running.

I run until I collapse,
and I've stolen compassion, and understanding with every half-sprint I take away from everyone that has ever cared for me,
because what do you do when they genuinely love you?

I don't know why it is so hard to believe that they could love me,
or that I am not wasting their time by asking for help,
but I know that I live in this doublethink,
where I both love myself, but no one else could possibly love me too.

Haven't you seen me like this before?
I'm on the brink of understanding
I have a difficult time loving myself in actions, just in theories in my head.
This is why I run like this,
and by constantly shielding myself from perceived danger,
I am actually blocking potential kindness too.

If I shut off the danger and the kindness, what will I have left for myself? Nothing.
I can't keep doing this,
I am going to have to let them in.

What if you were to see my tears of joy, instead of sadness?
What if I were to bask in the warm waves and let them consume me?
What would the world be like if I could branch out my wings and fly like this more often?

Would you even recognize me?
Would you understand all that I missed during my times of sorrow?
Would you notice when I am reborn into happiness, and will you remember it too?

God, I hope so.

This feeling is transformative,
to be alive like this,
and it is so comforting to be
held in the universe's embrace.

Perhaps you'll get a taste of who I've always been.

Tiny porcelain masks;
why not see what happens when you watch them fall?

Look at how
fragile and delicate they are,
each one hand-crafted to hide away
life's torments.

Be honest with yourself,
and retire them
before they crack against your own will.

People keep trying to tell me that it wasn't real love,
and I know how wrong they are when they say it;
people don't want to face the idea that a bad person is capable of love,
but they are,
and a lot of bad people have loved me.

I always took to doubting myself
and so it was no surprise I did
again and again and again
when you had me under your fingertips.

That night I finally saw you,
after months of being apart,
you hoisted me up on your bed
and the look in your eyes seemed so foreign;
there was a hunger there I had never seen before.

I was a bit uncomfortable,
but I missed you so much I didn't care
to think on it further;
but your touch was different too,
and for a split second, I thought,
I'd almost jolt up and leave.

It was so bizarre to me,
you used to be so scared to have me to yourself,
and all of a sudden your hands
were no longer afraid, and,
your grip was a bit stronger than before;
I should have known something was wrong.

This was the closest I had ever come to
feeling like your prey,
and it wasn't right;
every other time you held me,
I could feel the restraint,
that you had chosen a gentle touch
instead of being so demanding,
and I thought that meant you loved me enough
to be delicate.

Was that the case?
Why, now, were you able to be different?
A mechanism like that shouldn't be so easy to switch on and off.

What happened?
Was it becoming too difficult to keep up your facade?
Did you even realize you didn't change back for me?
Why do I always doubt myself?

What did that look mean
when you glanced at me like that?

Yes, it was true,
another person's lips had grazed mine
when you left me the first time,
and now that you'd come back,
you seemed to know something I didn't.

I hadn't lied
when I told you that
your lips felt right against my own
and his smokey breath did not,
and then the secret you had held was revealed
only slightly, of course,
and I didn't even notice.

When I told you that
I had wished I was kissing you instead,
what I had first thought was a look of love
was actually your look of embarrassment and shame
and this was because, you too, were a man with a smokey breath,
leaving imprints of your lips on another's
long before we had parted ways.

So, it wasn't her who kissed you first;
you filthy little liar,
and you were starting to feel bad
about what you had done.

I was none the wiser,
and sympathized with you,
thinking you too had felt like me,
a big misunderstanding between two people
and that you'd come back to me
because you realized my lips were better than another's,
not that you liked the idea
of getting away with infidelity
and then rushing back into my arms.

I always missed these signs,
and it eats away at me now
when I think about how many
times I should have known.

Why am I made to feel guilty for having loved him?
It wasn't my fault that he wasn't who he said he was,
and it didn't make my love any less genuine.

Why do I have to brunt all of this shame
for my innocent first real attempt at a safe love?
How was that fair to me?
All I wanted was to love and be loved.

But no, I had to pull myself together,
and immediately turn to shunning,
mocking, and avoiding him,
not even a month after he left me;
I had to repress how I had felt before to show face.

No one else had loved him as I did,
I was the odd one out,
and so I had to "hate" him too.
I still loved him; it wasn't fair.

He ruined everything
and I couldn't say anything about it,
stuck in the battle of knowing
I had to stand for justice and condemnation
of a man who had last held me in his arms
months before.

His bad behavior, in turn,
stole the grieving process from me.
I had to skip all the steps and lock it away
to protect others, to be strong,
and it wasn't fair.

I'm tired of feeling miserable
for having these good memories of him,
and it isn't my fault that he did bad things;
I just wish this never happened at all.

No one warned me about healing,
and that when you begin to let go,
it means working through all the things
you ignored along the way:
every weeping wound,
every halted, furious scream,
every memory you tried to forget,
and even the things you never knew
you'd felt in the first place.

To let go of everything that no longer serves,
I have to go back in time
and tell myself how it is all okay now,
and hope that will be enough
to set me free again.

Ask me to fall in love?
Love is a sickness,
and should it leave such scars
as it had the last time I was afflicted,
I might shrivel up and die.

Dare it to leave wounds without sutures?
Skin without scratches?
Bodies without bruises?

Two afflictions of the mind are unbearable:
Both of two in love
And the sadness that sullies it.

Distance has become my new lover,
and I cower behind her,
I beg her not to let me get hurt like before,
Lest I fall sick again.

The thought of being in love with anything else feels
Intense,
Like fingers digging much too far
Into my skin,
Drawing the deep oxygenated blood to the surface.

Foreign bodies with foreign bodies,
unknown hands with unknown hands,
we said we are in love together,
but we don't know where we stand;
such is the torture
of ghosts loving ghosts,
you never dared to tell me who you were,
nor I shared with you who I am.

Look at us now,
just two shadows in love,
no wonder when the two converged,
they slipped right through each other.

Can't you see this was all one big, cruel joke?
I have finally clawed myself out of my grave,
just to turn around and spit at the headstone,
and I no longer recognized who was put to rest.

I was wrongfully buried here,
so why won't the grave digger free me from the cemetery?
I implore you, please, to listen, as I insist
I don't belong here!
I have healed all the things that put me to my death,
and I think those that decide to live again should be exhumed.

Why must the past keep trying to push me back
into shallow dirt?
Trust, I know,
that the grave plot never cared one way or another;
it was already calling my name and continues to try
to call me back,
but all I ask is that the darkness let me start over.

The same mouth that kisses,
Damns you,
The same arms you run to
Swing back,
And the ones you love the most
Will hurt you,
It's all a part of the plan.

Let's have a quiet talk
Among our thoughts
In dreams spread far apart,
And come together
To see our distance
In simulations.

Your face is caked into impressions;
My nights had gone so long without
Sleep like this,
But if you are to litter my mind,
I can only ask for you
To let me do the same.

Sleep with images of me,
Burn them in your head,
Remind yourself how I looked
How I sound
How I feel;
Do not let your image torture me alone.

Have nightmares without me,
Find your soul shaken,
Your bones rattled,
Your skin cold and clammy;
Get uncomfortable with me,
For me,
Because of me.

This regret should linger and sour.

Every time I see you,
You should see me,
For every pang of guilt,
I hope you rot a little more,
I hope you never recover,
I hope you find discomfort in it all.

Meet me in the alleys of thought
Just so I may watch you suffer
Like I have.

Wake up in hopes you never have to sleep again.

I don't make art anymore.
It's so tedious and eats up a part of me
that I can barely hold up.

I'd rather just be a resting body,
but that route seems to cause just the same
discomfort.

Tired, irritable; I want to do as much
as I do not,
and I feel like all my time goes to waste.

My reflection isn't me;
I feel like I am five
years younger than I am.
My art is fueled by the discordance
which makes it so hard to make or write.

I fluctuate:
okay to awful,
to make to give up,
I'm me, who is she?
I don't make art anymore.

There I was.
Resting.
You remember, don't you?

Me; nuzzled into the crook of your neck,
my hands gripping at your shirt...
you fancied it, you know.

The embrace was warm,
and our heartbeats may have synchronized
in hopes of lulling us to sleep.

You remember all of this,
I'm certain,
but there are some things
you don't.

At approximately five or so minutes
before I buried my swollen, dark, brown eyes
into your chest,
I was choking back tears.

Every time I hugged you,
it dulled my depression just enough
for me to pretend my heart
didn't live like someone was having
a boxing match with both atriums and the aorta;
no, it was a searing pain that dulled
in moments like these,
replaced with a suffocating tension.

I knew as soon as I left you,
I would be shaking,
on the ground in panic
or digging my nails into the utmost layers
of my body;
you didn't know that this moment we shared
was more about me
masking how much pain I regularly endured,
and about using you to soothe my psyche enough
to pretend I was alright.

These puppet string are held by me,
I’d say I’ve lost my grip,
this autopilot hand-fidget has really gone to ****.

I don’t feel the same anymore,
nothing bubbles in my chest,
but who’s to say I cannot feel
if its only feeling is in my head?

Hello, how are you?
I’m doing simple math,
The strings aren’t taut and funny how
every movement is an act.

The doll’s alive, and she does dance
but watch at your discretion,
because if you knew her once before
she isn’t the same person.

Cold as ice and cold as sin
a man that lost shouldn't've been
but he played his cards
and he played them right
cause nothing touches a man
cold as ice.

Every time I think of you
I imagine myself transported
to this notion we had of ourselves
together in the woods,
but somehow alone,
and I'd kiss your lips every morning
but it'd be bittersweet,
and I loved bitter so much at the time
that I'd melt anyway
and somehow in the woods,
in this tiny cabin,
you'd be able to hide from all your sins
and maybe you could protect me
from the bears
from the harsh weather
and from you.

The flesh, the flesh,
it's always the flesh.

I sometimes wish I would have
given up
just to see how much
you'd try to take.

It's all too much to handle;
the tangible and intangible
taunt and mock me
and the vibrations of the room shine through
this lowly, softened flesh of mine
as if to punish my existence.

"It's not love."

Okay, sure,
so suppose I were to concede.
Then you're positing that
more than half the love I've ever received
has always and forever been null.

Memory loss;
I know you're serious,
but every time you try to speak to me
I'm dropping words and sounds
like an imaginary hot potato,
thrown to me by a very rude child
who thinks making me lunge a thought
away from me counts as being safe.

I know you said something,
sounded like white noise,
sounded like the conversation
I think we're having right now,
I'm behind five sentences,
or maybe five minutes,
something there sounds about right.

Keep speaking, I can only hope to catch up,
this constant amnesia is aching
and my head is in a fog,
but I know you're serious
and you said something, something...
memory loss.

You held back with so much tension,
every time you laid a finger upon my skin,
and I never realized how much
you must've been fighting
your compulsions
to break through me.

Soft lips, the absence,
cold hands touching a boiling ***,
all of it overwhelming.

Lisps, nothing but blurred
s's and slurred whispers
of reassurance and love.
So much blind love, so much
lying, so much forgetting,
so much resting in the
space between the absence.

I loved you once, then I
forgot, and loved you again,
and forgot, and loved you
again in memory, I have forgotten.

The absences are wavering;
they teeter like a fresh vase on the edge
near an unruly cat,
nothing tethering the events
of the slurred words from
soft LIsPS, but the
love almost did.

So I think.

The man I loved is dead and gone
and rest before me, a carcass;
his shaky hands and shaky breaths
are almost fully silenced.

I don't recognize that sound of his,
unusual and discordant,
those mumbled songs and deepened voice
have surely lost its purpose.

Say it's you one last time,
suspend all disbeliefs;
with open arms and inviting eyes,
tell me all that you've repented.

Salted, flimsy orange rinds,
bittered instead of sweetened:
these are all I eat nowadays.

Crystalline textures coat my insides,
my blood pressure’s at an all-time high,
and my tensions are shooting through the roof.
By god, I’m so naïve,
So untouched by anything other than this,
it seems unlikely
that I would taste such saccharine things,
I’d be much more inclined to shrivel up my insides,
dehydrate all my limbs and pack them
like raw meat in a harsh winter.

I feel useless again.

It’s a trigger, I think.

I’ve had a talk like that one
a million times
in three voices, two men, one woman,
in my many nightmares,
in my day to day living,
I’ve heard that one too many times.

A swirling tunnel,
a downcast drain, flushing
twisting impressions
of time and space, corrupted
in their voices
in my ears
and I think, surely,
that had to be a trigger.

Crinkling, sizzling
grey, listful energy
always
waiting for the collapse,
perhaps it can hear the discordance
in your voice
when you tell me
it's over.

If you lied
and he lied
and everyone's lying
then what am I doing here
listening to everything
when I could be damaging my ear hairs
another way?

Loosened tie,
loosened dirt,
one's gonna **** you
one's gonna hurt,
what's it gonna be boy,
when everything's turned,
suffocated misery
or the underground resort?

Parts of him,
Everything
Was broken into parts
Of him.

I was told the story
Of when his boy lungs
Couldn't hold another gasp,
And his father found him
Five
Or was it ten? Minutes later
And they had to bring
A dead boy back to life.

They were told a story
Of how his mother drank
A bit too much, often
But they musn't, he musn't
Speak another word of it,
There are parts of stories left untold.

There are parts of him
So many parts
But never enough parts
To make a man whole.

Disgusting,
tongue stuck out,
nose closed;
she always hated it,
and no matter what
we’d press and press,
forcing her to stomach
things she never wanted,
smelling that sourness,
those vinegar troubles
and tangy juice
covered in coercion;
we’d ask her time and time again
and never once did we respect her wishes.

Why must I consume?
is it not enough to exist,
is that not enough consumption?
How greedy it is
to expect me to take
more than I desire,
to force me to eat another
out of house and home.
That’s kind,
so very kind,
a sickly kind,
the sort of “kindness”
that destroys marriages,
uproots families and destroys psyches.
I’m not like that,
I don’t want to be controlled.

But we kept on shoveling
these aged, old traditions,
those nasty pickled ideas,
those greedy, grubby hands
of control over her,
and she could never let herself forgive.