You make love taste rotten, like something that has been sitting out on the sidewalk underneath the afternoon sun. People like you only know how to love yourself and take more than you give. People like you love storms, ravaging the homes others have constructed, leaving nothing behind. You turn something wonderful into something I wish I never had. To you, love must mean Winning, must mean always being right, must mean crushing the person that I am just so you can build your ego a little higher. To you, I must look like a fight, a competitor, a challenge to defeat. You use your words and threats to make me forget that I am a vital part of the relationship, your kisses fall like duct tape on my lips, you don't let me be anything but yours. Yours to love, hurt, twist, break, yours to keep, own, manipulate. I know it is wrong to love someone like you. But that is why things like this are hard- you fall in love with oceans before you realize how easy it is for them to drown you, you fall in love with people before you see how even seemingly best of them can abuse you.

At night, when the sky is darkest,
just before the glow of dawn,
I think of you. Pitter patters
of memories, right down
to the curve of your smile,
the fluttering of lashes,
your refreshing curiosity, like a child;
reviving them before they turn to ashes.
Add daydreams to these memories.
With wishes and dreams,
love, humour and fantasies;
bursting at the seams.

What is it like, to be a part of you?
You are a godsend, a blessing.
My dear, nothing compares to you.
You are as smooth as a dark satin,
as precious as gems on a king's crown.
Oh my, more precious perhaps.
You are flowers blooming all year round,
as joyous as a baby's first few steps.
You are as eloquent as a scholar,
with looks blessed by Aphrodite,
as humorous as a jester,
and you are a star to me.

A life-long dream, manifested in a body.
Who would've thought it'd come true?
Your presence makes me
fearless, safe as being on a plateau.
I can conquer anything;
even my nightmares and insecurities.
The painful past I carry doesn't sting
as much when you're here, Achilles.
Perhaps it is a mistake
to adore you this much. But oh,
it is a risk I'm willing to take.
Especially when you give me this much hope.

I pray that one day,
our matched souls will meet
at the gates of heaven.
I will finally get to speak
these words of love I've written;
to unleash my undying thirst for you.
Maybe we'll get to dance among
the stars I've whispered to.
And we'll all shine brightly.
Our reunion will be rejoiced,
with me in your arms safely;
and close the book on our story.

-m.b

If I could wake up tomorrow
And be someone new
I’d hope to be someone
That didn’t care about you

A person who wakes up
And smiles at the sun
Not a recluse
That hides from fun

Someone who looks in the mirror
And values themself
Not insecure
Loathing herself

I wish to be someone
Free as a bird
Not someone who cares
What others have heard

But when I wake up
I will still be me
Hoping and wishing
One day I’ll be free

Cradled minds in ruptured beds.
My twisted dreams run through my head.
Rear-end crashes with dark lit chases.
It's been so long since they showed my races.
Pavlov concepts in my daily words.
I try to conceal my dreams because they could build swords.
You’d cut me down if I spoke the wrong things,
It'd be my fault because I gave away my wings.
I want to be grounded here next to you.
I lived for my mother and father and sometimes I lived through.
I lived for the sunlight rising in windows.
Sadness crept into every smile in my photos.
Swept in from the wind you came riding.
Still despairing I greeted you with what I knew about flying.
Hoping you stay with me through the days.
Now I live for the lovely words you might say.
On top of my heart will rest this book of fears,
The pages are tattered and ancient.
Full of such terrors that escape me only in the darkness of your bed,
These horrors that I thought would only leave me when I was dead.
I know I don't live for you.
I know I love you.
This nightmare became an adventure the second I saw the sun.
Resting was in the daytime to save me from the darkness that had always won.
Steel made from my chest.
Iron into only the best.
I hope you take these weapons I forged without you.
This ammunition for the machine that rippled through my senses.
The blades that butterfly my heart with every syllable I accidentally utter,
Such wings that will never flutter.
I hope all these mines I plant are ones you can see.
I hope you never use these weapons on me.

You called her beautiful, but that’s not what she was.

She was fire and flood. her words pounded against the sand like waves.

Her hands created art from pain, each stroke a painful stitch.

Her thoughts were flames from a wildfire, taking the world by smoke and ash.

She was not beautiful, and anyone who called her that felt her wrath.

When I was fifteen, there were only three more years
until I could leave.
I numbered the days like some people count calories
or steps
or breaths
onetwothreefourfivesix
counting until there was no air left.
Out of breath, out of step, out of line,
one more time;
try a little harder,
push a little faster,
be a little better, a little stronger,
smarter
sweeter
tougher.
Braver.

I'd spin in circles until I was dizzy,
around and around andaroundaroundaround
before starting all over.
Out of control, too fast to ever really stop.
And then back to the beginning again
where I first began,
reduced to less than nothing,
just a slip of the person I'd hoped to become.

When I was fifteen, life was a game
where there were winners and losers
and then people who didn't ever quite make it.
Neither a winner, nor a loser,
neither a hero nor an enemy,
just nothing at all.

I ran around, afraid of everything,
hoping if I ran fast enough, whatever was lurking in the shadows might never catch me
consume me.
I ran until one day, I slipped and fell down the rabbit hole,
past where anyone could see
or hear
or reach.
I fell through the cracks I sidled around everyday walking home from school,
books in one hand,
memories in the other,
clinging to both for dear life.

I was just a sprig with dead leaves and a damaged stem,
no petals or blooms,
flowerless,
my roots growing in the wrong direction, defying gravity.
Empty hands reaching up into the air,
grasping for something to pull me back to earth,
push me forward into the world.
Desperately searching for something to believe I was enough,
believe I was worthy.
Believe I wasn't a mistake,
a surviving **** in a blossoming garden.
Hoping.

When I was fifteen, there were only days
weeks
months
Every minute accounted for
yet all forever lost in one sleepless dream,
in one fell swoop.
Time lost, standing still, forgotten,
my watch the only thing keeping each day from running into the next.

I am not fifteen, anymore.
I have found my roots,
my time,
my place,
It's safe, it's home.
There's hope.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Time is not forever,
but neither is this.

It'll be okay.
You'll be okay.

memorize, dismember, revive
This isolation has left me rigid,
eteranlly printed into this desolate landscape.
rememnants of the bones
that I tore from my chest for you
the residue of you still on my skin
inadequate, remember
I am hollow, my insides disseminated
around your creation.
How can one march with no bones?
souless, I cannot find myself let alone you.
How does the Earth dilate
deprived of it's oxygen?
dismiss, absolve
My heart was dug out
to replace your resonant ribcage,
but now we are not parallel
I am the hollow one,
depleted and collapsed
from the albatross I've seized from your lucidity
scarce, barren
i cannot reassemble, i am still sown
should I condemn you
or bear no malice?
recollect, release
absolve, exempt, alleviate