He gripped her hand and called her "dangerously beautiful,"
From a place one could only describe as where his broken pieces must lie.
Who taught this man the lesson,
That someone could be a such pleasure to behold,
So much that he'd face punishment for enjoying it?
Who is the source of the fear he held in his eyes,
As he clutched her hand, frozen,
Silently expecting her to rake his heart across the coals?

Ice-cold beer
Late nights
And your smile -
The things I cannot resist.

The summer sun
A heavy sweater
And the touch of your hand -
The things that make me melt.

Your voice, my favorite song -
Your breath, the blanket that's kept me warm -
Your eyes -
The only stars I need to see.

I'll take to the streets with my flame,
Light up their darkness
So they can see the strength in my words.

I will not be silenced,
Made meek by the fear that my shoulders are too broad
For their expectations.

I will climb their walls
And fight for my right to love when I want
Or cry when I must.

And when the battle ebbs,
I will calmly sit beside the river and wait for you still.

Who,
or what, would you be running from,
or to?
Would you be aiming for a vacation, some relaxing,
a respite in the sand?
Or would you be trying to escape something,
or someone,
that is persistently after you in this moment?
Upon prompt,
did your mind flip to a lover's arms, a safe place of warmth
or did your stomach drop
at the thought of a pair of cold,
sharp eyes you'd love to hide from?

Or are you one of the lucky ones,
one of the blessed that feels no discomfort in this exact place and time?

There's a lock of grass in my pocket and clusters of stars behind my ears.
The warmth in my heart remains kindled by the guiding moon,
While I drink the air given to me -
A gift I wish not to squander.
The music of the trees and the cleansing from the river
Are the reminders I wear around my neck
So that I may one day earn the grace to be here.

Like moths to a flame or a sad man staring from the top of a bridge
We're drawn to the places where we should not go.
The places that make us feel better,
Help us forget what makes us hurt.
If only looking ourselves in the mirror was enough keep the steam from fogging up our reflections.

Your name coats my tongue and my mouth waters at the sound of it.
The scent of you in my blanket twists my lips into a smile,
And I hum the tune of a song I don't know.
Memories of you curl themselves around my fingers
And I find myself stuck to the image of you lying in my bed.

Heavy sighing
Falls and rises around me

Yet amidst all that comfort
Darkness holds me tight to remind me I'm enough for only myself.

I've forgotten my legs,
how to hold myself steady without leaning.
I've been so busy finding my voice
I lost the value of shutting the **** up
to let the silence show me where to go next.
The Earth spins and no one is around -
what a reminder how important it is to maintain your center,
since they don't make helmets to protect you from your own mistakes.

Darkness pours in and dampens the shimmer of my stars.
My voice is lost to the expanse before me,
Muted as my soul searches for your echo.
The silence is deafening but the music we made keeps my heart on repeat.

You do not have to fall back,
Shrivel small and meek
In fear that your power will intimidate him -
Real men will revel in the beauty of a beast.

You're bleeding.
You're getting it all over me,
All over my ****.
You're leaking it on everything
And it's going everywhere.
It's already in every part of my life,
I made a mistake
And took memories of you everywhere
And left them lay.
Now you've become part of my day,
Part of my night.
I put you away
And you still find a place to sneak in.
You warned me,
You didn't want this.
But here I am,
Trying to figure out
Whether I want to clean it up or just throw it out.

Writing well falls harshly upon me
As I have to rip down the walls that help me cope with myself.

Like spelunking in a cave filled with diamonds in the darkness,
I have to break things apart and hope the whole thing doesnt collapse.

The journey to insanity seems long,
But worry not, as each attraction is short-lived--
Allowing for only a minute to stop
At each broken heart,
Late nights and early mornings,
Memories of dark
Under-eye circles and unbrushed hair,
And each iteration
Of the inability to recall the last time you ate a good meal.

Surrounded by mirrors in some ******* hotel room -
I just wanted a bed.

I wasn't planning on sleeping with 
50 copies of my worst enemy.

She fell too fast
For him to catch her.
On impact
She shattered,
And his fingers bled
As he tried to pick up the pieces.

Today I hope you're able to get through the whole day with confidence,
With a lust for life that shines through your smile.
Today I hope you are enough for yourself.

Today I hope the mistakes you made yesterday fade into last week,
Last month,
Until they're lost to time forever.
Today I hope you can forgive yourself.

Today I hope time slows down and you can wallow in happiness,
That you drown in euphoria and the sound of laughter deafens your tears.
Today I hope you finally dream of tomorrow.

I struck a match to chase out your darkness
And burnt down the whole ******* thing.

In one small space,
Time ceased to exist and we became the very stars we were in awe of.

Lying in bed,
A mattress on the floor.
No sheets, but a beer in hand.
The darkness doesn't phase me,
The clock on the wall still blinks from last week's storm. I won't reset it.
I don't want to know what time it is. I don't care.
No sounds arise but the breath of a sweet old dog in the corner.
At least I'm not alone,
And she doesn't care how many beers I've had.

Two weeks is a weird amount of time.
Too long to be sick,
But not quite long enough to know someone
And suddenly think that the color of their eyes on a clear sunny day
Is your new favorite color.

Once I have the perfect words in my pocket,
I could write love notes on paper airplanes
And preserve our youth -
The novelty of what makes it so  special -
Filling Mason jars with all the ways you make it easier to get through the day.

As a blooming flower in the garden I'm always plucked,
Used too many times for an indecisive man
To find his way,
Ripping out my petals, singing
"I love her, I love her not."
But as a wildflower, slurping up the raindrops and growing towards the sunshine,
You might be surprised what wishes come true
Now that I've taken root.

I rise every morning to the view of mountains,
An instant homage to my freedom,
An image presented by little angels-
Whispy curtains hovering by my window.
The sun slinks across my bed and demands embrace,
Humbling me to another time,
To night so long
I thought I'd never again be kissed by warmth.

Maybe I'll be presented
With something of higher priority
That I'll choose to ignore
Because the threat of being with you
Looms over me like a pinata,
Just slightly out of my reach.

You know,
Maybe might
Actually sting worse
Than an outright no.

I wouldn't have the anxiety of talking too much about myself

If I could just let someone get close enough to figure me out on their own terms.

Freedom is
A wooden floor with a nest of blankets
And snuggling up to the baseboards
To keep my pride warm.

And then I packed up the tent and retreated to the forest
In search of what I didnt know was lost.

My heart pounds like a rhythmic explosion in my ears,
And it sets my body on a course, rocking me -
not to sleep like grandma,
But shaking me awake like there's an emergency I cant see.
This isnt music,
It's a battle cry.

I've got diamonds in my spine
That help me stand tall and sparkle
But I hide from the sun
So no one sees me clearly.

I check beneath my fingernails
As if I might find a new place to hide,
And pull the blanket up past my eyes
So I can pretend I dont see the shitstorm coming.
The wind picks up
And for once I dont go to run in the rain,
Instead I roll under my bed,
At peace with the darkness swallowing  me.

The hunger darkness has for the scent of the blues
Is what chases away any chance for light to shine upon your waters.
The depths are boundless,
It's easy to get lost in not knowing where it ends.

I've been stuck in this spot for hours,
Days now.
Because I know that if I move,
"See you in the morning"
Will become a lie.

At the end of the day, sometimes I'm sick of taking care of everyone else.
Who the **** is going to take care of me for once?

Sure, it's strong
And beautiful
And poetic
And modern to take care of myself.
Because, woman, and roar,
And I can do it too.

But what about the days when I just don't have the energy left to?
What if I just can't.
Then what? Who?

I want to learn little tricks to make me interesting at parties
Because who doesn't love a girl
Who has more to offer than who she is.

I just want to remember what it's like to feel warmth from another soul,
Let it shine on me without fear or hiding from the light.
I want to go back to when I didn't feel like I had anything to run from,
Anyone I had to escape before I could feel worthy of taking a new hand.
I want to demolish these walls that I had to build
Just to prove I could keep myself safe
And sane,
Because I'm tired of being the only one on this side.

Crawling out of my skin and scaling the walls
To find the door to a different life.
Opening the refrigerator a million times
Hoping when the light comes on I get a new idea how to handle the chaos.
And driving fast with no hands and my eyes closed
Wishing someone else would pave my path.

If I could breathe under water,
I'd swim to the bottom of the ocean
So when I resurface,
I'll remember I can get much lower than this.

It's simple for the devil to apologize for his wrongs

When he has no intention of making a home out of the arms that have enveloped him,

No plan to bed down in the memories he has created,

And no desire to keep warm the hearts he has collected all these years.

The fan blows quietly and aged snored murmur in the corner. 

The window is open and I dont mind

The sounds of lives, buzzing outside. 

I can almost hear how soft my blankets are as I lay upon them,

Warm light from a low place illuminates mountains around me. 

We are safe.

We are home.

Just when things begin falling into place,
Like stars dancing above the earth in some grand display,
The wings fall off the butterflies in my stomach
And the sun burns out.

Someday the words will come,
Before I can draw my sword and straighten my shoulders.
They'll burst from my mouth like a gunshot,
A blast from the cannon in my chest.

Once I'm ignited, there's no stopping the war.

It's always blown me away how people can sleep with a sweatshirt on -
That burns me up,
Chokes me.

It wasn't until now,
Now that I sleep alone in the dead of winter,
Desperately trying to be my own best friend,
Doing my best to hold myself together,
That I've realized
The more layers I wear,
The longer it should take for me to fall completely apart.

Does your name define who you become,
Or do you give meaning to your name?
If the latter answers that question,
In what way have I brought pride to mine?

I can actually enjoy the sound of my own voice
When it's muted in the crook of your neck.
Hearing it bounce back
Means there's something solid before me.

Is the glass half-empty
Or half-full?
May I be half of you, or would you rather be
Half of me?
What if we
Each made half of us?
Or maybe
The glass was spilled
And as fate would have it
The milk is sour.

The difference is hidden in how I feel even when you're gone.
I still feel whole,
Like a part of me is just somewhere else
But it will be back,
Because it said it would be.
And I don't feel like I'm going to die
Every time I wake up alone
Or rest my head
In my own hands
Because that doesn't mean that
I've crumbled,
It only means I can hold myself together.

When it pours, take my hand
and I'll help you find the music to dance to amongst the raindrops -
If you listen closely, my heart beats to the same rhythm as the lost notes from your favorite childhood song.
When it's dark, follow my flashlight -
I'll lead you into my fort of blankets
And keep you warm through the night.

I've been lookin' for you.
The one with the kind eyes and the humble laugh,
The smile that spreads across the whole sky
As I find myself lost in the clouds that are born from the scent of you.
I don't think I ever knew what you'd be like,
Other than that the warmth of your heart could thaw my hands after trying to keep me afloat all winter,
That a keen stare could be so gentle that it smooths every corner of my armor,
Or that a tree so steady could bend so far
To show me that soft can still be strong.