You have a spark that blazes past my ice cold eyes,
you're the six on a weathered pair of bad decision dice.
You're the smoke in my lungs; my hip's friction's delight,
and you're where I want to be at the end of the night.

So pull me by my the clasps of my black leather coat,
past the bar, to the back, to the room that Aidan keeps aside.
Whisper in my ears, past the roar of alcohol and smoke,
these words that I've longed to hear for some time.

Say:
"You are the cherry on a cigarette; the blade of a knife.
You burn me and turn me to melting when you enter my sight";
I'll say:
"Your lips are my addiction, your *** is my television,
and your eyes are where I want to be at the end of the night."

Then we'll explore love and bad decisions on the table and the floor.
You'll pull me closer, bite my ear, and whisper. "Shut the door."

1. Don't look at her like she's a victim, like she's weak. Don't look at her like she's incapable of living a normal life again.

#2. Go easy with her. Don't treat her like she's some destroyed thing, but handle physical contact with caution. Watch very carefully for signs that she's feeling anxious, or that her head has turned off and made her numb. Watch for reactions, for a look in her eyes. If she has blanked out, stop. How well do you know your girl? Does she want to be held and have her hair stroked and hand held while you both remind her that she is safe with you, that you would never violate her? Does she need you to sit back and make sure she can see you clearly? What she needs defines physical moments.

#3. Don't force her to talk about it. She will tell you what she is ready to tell you, when she is ready to tell you. It is hard to tell your partner that you've been made into a survivor. Do not ask for details before she is ready, and do not look at her like she has been tainted because hands made of greed and hatred touched her, scarred her. She is still herself.

#4. Listen. Listen well. Do not do anything without a yes. An absolute yes. She must say it and mean it and look like she means it. Do not coerce her. She has been coerced before. And taking no away makes yes meaningless. Coercing is begging, pleading, pestering, threatening, intimidating. Coercing is holding her captive and not letting her go until she gives you what you want. Do not coerce her, because you have then assaulted her.

#5. Being coerced into ****** activity can be as violating as being held down and *****. Because they made her go along with it to avoid greater pain, because they made her feel like she had no other choices. Because they pressured her until she broke, until she stopped resisting and just remained passive and silent as they did what they wished. Please, do not ever make her say no twice.

#6. Do not belittle her pain, do not compare it to another survivors. Do not call one survivors pain worse than the other, because you are hurting and silencing them with your own, ignorant opinion. You do not feel her pain, the pain all survivors feel. You are not making her feel better by reminding her it could have been "worse." You are minimalizing her own battle.

#7. Love her. Love her however she needs to be loved.

#8. Be patient. Healing takes time. Be her support beam, her hand to hold. Be there when she is having flashbacks. Be there when she is screaming and crying and scrubbing herself ****** in the shower. Be there with a soft blanket and open ears and an open heart. Be there to remind her she is not *****, she is not filthy or disgusting. Remind her she isn't less in your eyes.

#9. Sometimes, you will need to explain to her that she is perfect to you. Because she will stare at her body in the mirror and remember it was touched by filthy hands and feel unworthy of you. Remind her she is worthy, she is worth it. Remind her that those hands were not controlled by her, that she was not at fault. That she does not bear the sins of another person.

#10. Do not try to make her report it. Because she will have to face him that way, in front of a jury of people who has been given the job of judging them. She will be torn down by his lawyer, painted to sound like a **** and a liar, and the **** will be painted into something consensual and enjoyed by both parties, instead of just one. If she was coerced they will try to make her lack of no a valid yes, or worse. They will make her sound like she is asking for it. If her ****** succeeds, he will make her feel violated all over again in court. He may not go to prison. He may be found not guilty, because there wasn't enough evidence to prove he did it or because the jury decided a lack of a no was a yes or that she was at fault for not standing her ground under hours of pressure and intimidation and being held a captive against her will. The **** will cease to happen in the eyes of the law and she will be left raw and aching, a girl deemed crazy because a man committed a crime against her body, her mind, her soul. She is afraid to testify for a reason, but if she does, hold her up. Because the world will feel as though it is collapsing around her as she does it.

1. Don't get angry when you dream about him smiling in slow motion. Do not awaken and sob, because you love his smile more than anything and it will not do for you to bawl when he was just trying to make you happy.

#2. Forgive him when he slips into your bed at night and holds your hand while you're trying to sleep. Don't resent him for leaving his smell all over your sheets, all over your room. You love the way he smells, and it gets cold in the grave. He just misses your warmth.

#3. Breath him in like smoke and let him rest in your lungs. Let him feel the way they expand and contract, because his never will again and he wants to feel it again.

#4. Everytime you close your eyes and see his, smile. Because he's looking at you, watching you. He had beautiful eyes and they were only for you and death, and now he has death but he only needs you.

#5. Do not commit suicide to follow him to the grave. He loves you and he would like to be with you, but he doesn't really want you to die like that, even if he says he does sometimes. He's just thinking out loud. People aren't good at seeing consequences once they have died.

#6. Do not regret not eating a piece of his flesh. It would have made you hate yourself. People would have called you sick. It's okay to have thought about it, they don't understand your grief, the need you have to own a piece of him. But he taps your special knock on the window nightly using the wind. You do not need to consume him to keep him.

#7. Do not resent him for dying. Even if he killed himself. Even if you loved him and he knew it and he did it anyways. Look at the sky and know he's in your rib cage, feeling your breathing and the listening to the beat of your heart. Do not resent him. He doesn't resent you for living.

Sometimes I think about the last time I saw you alive and almost told you I loved you. But when I almost said it and you looked at me and said "what is it, babe?" I lost my nerve and squeezed your hand tighter and said "you have beautiful eyes." Instead, and I just stared at you and hoped to convey what I couldn't say. But real life is not a romance novel, "you have beautiful eyes" was not heard as the "I love you" that it was, and even if you had heard it, I guess it wasn't enough, because you killed yourself anyways.

Your toothbrush still has the paste on it
The plate shattered in fragments of you
The glass still has your lip stain on
This bed I'm sleeping in still smells of you
Lying to myself that you'll comeback
Leaving him and crying and knocking on the door begging to come in
But hey, who am I kidding..

Put the car in reverse as you slipped into neutral
A gear must've rusted; I trust the machine busted
because things became mechanical, to be truthful
Major malfunction--our junction ceased to be lusted
by my soul's circuits and tired wires proved to be liars
I thought I knew what I wanted, but I was wrong
My cogs, guts and screws became loose in the mire 
of our muddled love, where I did no belong

What worth is living when everything ran rampant silhouettes of you
Running through these polaroids on the wall
I did get out, but it's you everywhere I go
You have etched this fire in my heart 
When it burns when we're in love
And when it burns my soul 
To ashes remnants of you
Trying my best to get out
I knew you were trouble from the start
But my heart's like a glass thirsts for that lust
Now broken brittled into pieces
Fragments no longer could be fitted 

Puzzle pieces and Polaroids for the incinerator
A conflagration consuming our condition
where you fail to see what I fail to do
I may be coldly pieced together, but I'm no traitor
*My love was just another raggedy rendition,
But your eyes are the demons haunting you

Lock and key
I have such rotten luck
I try the wrong key
And the lock gets jammed

Lock and key
Was the first ever
Sarah Dessen
Book that I read

Lock and key
One acts as a protector
The other one
Plays the part of saviour

Lock and key
I'm not quite sure
Which is you
And which is me