My cells are renewing all the time,
You've never touched this new skin of mine
Yet I feel your touch on me all the same
My old cells can't die fast enough
One day my mind will deteriorate
To where I won't remember my own name
But I will still remember I'm missing someone-

It's all the same

"I love you"
Funny, mechanic, polite
Sticky flypaper
Chewing paper
Tobacco filter
Pretty, warm, sugarcane
My *** and whiskey lies
I'm trying to abstain

Like passing off my straight coke
As *** n Coke to a drinking friend
Who will never understand
And I don't love you,
But with a watered down reply
And a smile wound too tight
Think maybe someday it won't hurt

To not walk alone at night, or to
Swim with someone watching out so
I don't. Disappear. But instead I'm unwillingly ensnared
Netted so I can't
Dive away in the stormy sea
By you
It's immaterial, I could go, should go, any time
Though how many have I hurt by... shredding their
Expensive ****** fishing gear

When I go night swimming alone
All I think of is someone else beside me

And when you're in the car in the drive
Picking me up instead
I feel oil, dust, condensation and ..
...
I'm heading for a reparation, instead,
Because "I love you" makes my heart, head
And tongue full of lead.

I keep checking to see if you've called
(you haven't of course)
I'm just tired of feeling stuck on hold-

So I take each step, heel to toe,
On this tightrope, swaying
Alone
I used to do cartwheels
On the balance beam
And fly through the air
Parallel bars.

I jumped off a bridge, climbed myself up rocky ledges,
Zipped over canyons
Dreamed of repelling down mountains

I'm afraid of falling like I never have before
Trembling here on a rope beneath the stars

There's just one thing I want you to know
Please don't catch me if I decide to let go

Hold my drink as I take the stage,
I drink too much, more than I gauge-
Hold my lighter, cigarettes,
I'm dancing for the strangers' gaze
Watching me, watching them,
Throwing my head for a good time
Only a good time

Before we leave, slow dance to Bowie,
You don't know the words but I
I know every instrument
Could that be what you meant
When you said "I love you"
And I'm freaking out on your
"I love you"
Because

I get it if this night was enough to
Throw you over the edge into
but I'm still stuck on a preface,
Preface, intro, first chapter
Did we even open the ******* book, dude
I just want to
Fall into the music and I
Can't back out of your confession so I
Said I love you back. Before you could ask.
If I really meant it, I'll just pass out and

Then you can't ask me to say it again
Maybe I can just pretend it never
Will happen again.

Falling.gasping. Desperate.scared
Wet concrete, colder than the laser light dome
tendons aching from the running.
Collar bruised. Lip bleeding.
Costume... tor n at the waist.
It was. Well it makes more sense
When you know it was a big bad wolf
who threw her against the-
Blood. Biting wind. Headlights passing.
But there was warmth
Green eyes. Sunshine hair. Toothy grin.
Arms saying "everything will be okay"
Not like.
The wolves.
With their rough palms. Leers. Cars.
Heaving. Sobbing. Spitting. Running fingertips
across the cold concrete until they bleed.
A broken cell phone so like a broken bottle
Its so much worse to be betrayed by
One's own last hope.
Starving.empty*

Black